13 states accepted Sessions invitation to meeting on social media bias: report

Representatives from 13 states and Washington, D.C., are converging in Washington for a meeting about a possible antitrust lawsuit against top tech companies over alleged bias against conservatives, according to BuzzFeed News.  

BuzzFeed reported that the meeting is set to take place Tuesday at 10 a.m. between top Department of Justice officials and the attorneys general from Alabama, California, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Nebraska, Tennessee, Utah and D.C.

Representatives from Arkansas, Arizona, Missouri, Texas, and Washington state are also expected to attend, according to BuzzFeed.

{mosads}Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who will attend with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, originally invited 24 states to the meeting.

President Trump and conservatives have claimed that tech companies such as Google, Facebook and Twitter are biased against conservatives.

Earlier this month, Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee grilled Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey over alleged bias on the platform.

“Prominent Republicans, including multiple members of Congress and the chairwoman of the Republican Party, have seen their Twitter presences temporarily minimized in recent months, due to what you have claimed was a mistake in the algorithm,” Committee Chairman Greg Walden (R-Ore.) said during the hearing.

Sessions announced shortly after that hearing that he would be convening a meeting with state attorneys general to look into whether tech companies are “hurting competition and intentionally stifling the free exchange of ideas on their platforms.”

Trump, meanwhile, has claimed that Twitter suppresses content from conservatives and that Google has rigged its search engine to promote liberal media outlets.

A number of other conservatives, including House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), have made similar claims. McCarthy earlier this month accused Google of “controlling the internet” in ways favorable to liberals. 

Google has denied that its results are biased.