Lesley Stahl Grills Jim Jordan on 60 Minutes Over Conservative Misinformation and the ‘Truth’

60 Minutes took aim at the threat of online misinformation — particularly from conservative voices on social media — and correspondent Lesley Stahl left Rep. Jim Jordan virtually speechless when pressing him on whether the 2020 election was stolen or not.

The segment served as something of a warning for misinformation ahead of the 2024 general election, and relied on the myriad of debates over truth and facts surrounding the 2020 election, which featured lots of commentary about Covid and the efficacy of vaccines. There is no denying the segment largely blamed conservative voices for misinformation, as it featured an academic researcher who said as much.

“As big tech firms wrestle with how to keep false and harmful information off their social networks, the Supreme Court is wrestling with whether platforms like Facebook and Twitter, now called X, have the right to decide what users can say on their sites,” Stahl opened the segment. “The dispute centers on a pair of laws passed in the red states of Florida and Texas over the question of First Amendment rights on the internet.”

“The Supreme Court is considering whether the platforms are like newspapers, which have free speech rights to make their own editorial decisions, or if they’re more like telephone companies that merely transmit everyone’s speech. If the laws are upheld, the platforms could be forced to carry hate speech and false medical information,” she continued. “The very content most big tech companies have spent years trying to remove through teams of content moderators. But in the process, conservatives claim that the companies have engaged in a conspiracy to suppress their speech.”

What followed was a clip of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene denying she put out misinformation, seconds after an old Tweet of her “falsely claiming that there were extremely high amounts of Covid vaccine deaths,” per Stahl’s fair description.

While the segement accurately portrayed the threat of unmoderated political misinformation in the digital and social media age, it made clear that they saw the threat largley coming from the right.

Enter Kate Starbird, a professor at the University of Washington and leader of a misinformation research group created ahead of the 2020 election. Stahl asked her if she thought her research found “that there was more misinformation spread by conservatives.”

“Absolutely,” Starbird replied. “I think not just our research. Research across the board, looking at the 2020 election, found that there was more misinformation spread by people that were supporters of Donald Trump or conservatives. And the events of January 6th kind of underscore this. You see, the folks climbing up the Capitol building were supporters of Donald Trump. And they were they were misinformed by these false claims and that motivated those actions.”

Stahl then introduced Jim Jordan to first debate a controversial tweet from Robert Kennedy, Jr, which suggested the death of baseball legend Henry Aaron was connected to the Covid vaccine. The Biden administration reportedly asked Twitter to take down the tweet because it was misleading, but it is still up today.

Stahl confronted Jordan on the “chilling” effect felt by researchers looking into misinformation by Congress, which turned into a Socratic discussion about the ephemeral nature of meaning itself:

Jordan: I find it interesting you use the word chill because and in effect, what they’re doing is chilling First Amendment free speech rights when when they they’re working in an effort to censor Americans. That’s a chilling impact on speech.

Stahl: They say what you’re doing, they do is a violation of their First Amendment rights.

Jordan: Pointing out us doing our constitutional duty of oversight of the executive branch. And somehow we’re censoring. That makes no sense.

Stahl: We’re Americans. We’re looking at the same thing and seeing a different truth.

Jordan: We might see different things. I don’t think you can see the different truth because truth is truths.

Stahl: Okay. The researchers say they’re being chilled. That’s their truth. Yeah. You’re saying they’re not. So what’s the truth?

Jordan: They can do their research. God bless them. Do all the research you want. Don’t use. Don’t don’t say. We think this particular tweet is not true. And.

Stahl: Well, that’s a First Amendment right to say that.

Things got more interesting in the back-and-forth between Stahl and Jordan over the 2020 election results and whether or not it was rigged or stolen, as former President Donald Trump has repeated ad nauseam.

Stahl: Congressman Jordan argues that the tech companies shouldn’t remove most of what they call misinformation.

Jordan: I think you let the American people respect the American people, their common sense, to figure out what’s accurate. What is it?

Stahl: Well, what about this idea that the 2020 election was stolen? You think that these companies should allow people to say that, and individuals can make up their own mind and that they should think the.

Jordan: American people are smart. Look, I’ve not said that. What I’ve said is there were concerns about the 2020 election. I think Americans agree with that.

Stahl: No they don’t.

Jordan: You don’t think they’d think there were concerns with the 2020 election?

Stahl: Most people don’t question the result. That’s all I’m saying. They don’t question whether Biden won or not. Right? Right? What people most people don’t question. OK. But the outcome.

Jordan: Right.

Watch above via CBS.