A nonprofit group that advocates for government oversight is calling on Congress to investigate California social media companies for their alleged suppression of digital ads about a new documentary on whistleblower testimony about Hunter Biden’s laptop.
Virginia-based Empower Oversight reported on April 2 that none of its ads on Facebook, Google and X promoting the documentary “Shielded by Power: The Whistleblowers vs. The Big Guys” has run despite the group’s “meeting every condition required.” The documentary focuses on testimony by two IRS investigators about the tax probe into former President Joe Biden’s son and argues that records uncovered on Biden’s laptop was not Russian disinformation but documentary evidence verified by FBI reports.
In a 2024 letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged that the social media company “demoted” a New York Post story on corruption allegations relating to the Biden family and that this was a mistake. But in a letter to Congress members, Empower Oversight said social media companies are again putting unwarranted restrictions on content despite promises of having enacted viewpoint-neutral policies.
“… Meta Platforms, X Corporation and Google LLC strongly appear to be suppressing advertisements promoting this documentary,” the letter authored by Empower Oversight President Tristan Leavitt states. “In recent weeks, our team has jumped through a Kafkaesque series of hoops attempting to run ads on all three. We have met every condition required. But Meta simply suspended the ad account. … Google also suspended our ads account.”
Meta did not respond to a request for comment, but a Google spokesperson disputed Empower Oversight’s allegations.
“We have found no evidence to support these claims,” the spokesperson told the Southern California Record in an email. “The advertiser account linked to this organization is active and able to run ads.”
Google ads and advertisers have to abide by the company’s advertisement policies, but the company maintains that those rules are applied consistently and are viewpoint-neutral. Violations of the policies can result in ad removals and account suspensions.
A statement by Leavitt emailed to the Record did not indicate that the group was contemplating legal action against the tech companies to resolve the issue.
“Our disclosures to Congress stem from a bigger concern than simply our project to tell the story of two whistleblowers who went up against a president and won,” he said. “It’s about Big Tech companies silencing voices that may differ from their own, and their own words before Congress. We remain hopeful that these companies will allow this story to be told.”
Empower Oversight is calling on the Senate and House judiciary committees, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and House Ways and Means Committee to investigate why the social media companies allegedly failed to run the group’s digital ads, whether company policy restrictions are affecting other advocacy groups and whether federal action is needed to ensure transparency and accountability in online public discourse.
The group also quotes a Meta customer service specialist as saying that the social media platform does not “support the scope of (Empower Oversight’s) content.” This seems to be a repeat of past instances of viewpoint discrimination by Facebook, according to Empower Oversight.
In addition, the group complained that a promotional campaign about the documentary on the crowdfunding website Indiegogo was significantly delayed because the website called for content changes to the campaign.
In 2023, the House Oversight and Accountability Committee concluded that President Biden’s family engaged in questionable financial dealings.
“A lot of this money poured in while Joe Biden was vice president,” the committee reported. “Despite creating many companies after (the) vice president took office, the Biden family used associates’ companies to receive millions of dollars from foreign companies in China, Ukraine and Romania.”
