Nadler Demands Inquiry into X for Throttling Harris’ Account

Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) has called for an investigation by the House Judiciary Committee into Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter), following reports that users were unable to follow Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign account. Nadler described the situation as a “serious and time-sensitive censorship issue” in light of Harris’s recent entry into the presidential race after President Joe Biden withdrew from the race on Sunday.

Nadler’s call for scrutiny comes after multiple users reported difficulties following Harris’ campaign account on X. He has urged the Republican-controlled committee to demand information from X about these alleged issues, citing the need to ensure that Americans and Harris have the right to interact freely on social media as she begins her presidential campaign. In a letter to the committee’s chair, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), Nadler requested clarification on several points: why certain users could not follow the campaign account, how many users faced this issue, what actions X has taken to address the situation, and whether Musk was involved in any attempts to limit access to the account.

Reports surfaced on Monday that users encountered a “follow limit reached” message when trying to follow Harris’ campaign page. Some users claimed they had not hit the follow limit and could follow other accounts without issue. X restricts the number of accounts users can follow daily to 400, but this limit varies based on each account’s follower-to-following ratio. The “Kamala HQ” account saw a significant increase in followers, gaining over 500,000 new followers from Sunday to Monday following Harris’ presidential announcement and Biden’s endorsement.

X has not yet responded to requests for comment, and Musk has not addressed the user complaints directly. Meanwhile, X has implemented policies and anti-bot measures to prevent artificial inflation of followers and engagement. Musk admitted earlier this year that these measures are not foolproof, noting an incident in January where a spam bot mistakenly flagged legitimate accounts. During a subsequent bot purge, Musk and X requested users report any genuine accounts that were wrongly affected.

As of Tuesday, Musk’s net worth is estimated at $248.7 billion, making him the wealthiest person globally.

Harris launched her presidential campaign on Sunday after Biden’s withdrawal, a decision influenced by growing pressure from Democratic colleagues and a challenging debate performance in June. Prior to her announcement, Harris’ campaign account had about 400,000 followers, which surged to 1 million by Tuesday evening. X states that the “limit reached” message can appear for several reasons, including reaching daily follow limits, following too many accounts in a short period, exceeding follower-following ratio limits, or account restrictions for other reasons. However, some users have reported successfully following other accounts after receiving the “limit reached” message while trying to follow Harris’ page.