Hearing

US Congress has sent formal letters to the CEOs of Twitch, Steam, Reddit, and Discord, inviting them to testify at a committee hearing about the “radicalization of online forum users,” following the assassination of Charlie Kirk earlier this month.

The letters were sent by House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman James Comer on September 17, 2025, and were addressed to Discord Inc. CEO Humam Sakhnini, Valve Corporation president Gabe Newell, Twitch Interactive CEO Dan Clancy, and Reddit Inc. CEO Steve Huffman.

“The politically motivated assassination of Charlie Kirk claimed the life of a husband, father, and American patriot,” Comer said in the press release announcing the invitations.

“In the wake of this tragedy, and amid other acts of politically motivated violence, Congress has a duty to oversee the online platforms that radicals have used to advance political violence.

“To prevent future radicalization and violence, the CEOs of Discord, Steam, Twitch, and Reddit must appear before the Oversight Committee and explain what actions they will take to ensure their platforms are not exploited for nefarious purposes.”

The committee hearing takes place on October 8, 2025, and, according to the letters, which each have the same contents aside from the CEO’s name and business address, will “examine radicalization of online forum users, including incidents of open incitement to commit violent politically motivated acts.”

“The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is the principal oversight committee of the U.S. House of Representatives and has broad authority to investigate ‘any matter’ at ‘any time’ under House Rule X,” the letters read.

These invites are not subpoenas, and therefore, it’s not legally mandatory for any of these CEOs to attend. However, should they refuse, they risk being subpoenaed at a later date.

Those who agree to attend the hearing must provide their written testimony at least two days prior, with each given the opportunity to give a five-minute opening statement before being asked questions by House Oversight and Government Reform Committee members.

Reddit told Reuters it hadn’t yet found evidence that the suspect arrested in connection with Charlie Kirk’s murder, Tyler Robinson, had been active on its platform, and added that it “has strong policies against hateful content and content that incites, encourages, glorifies, or calls for violence.”

However, Discord told Reuters that it welcomes the opportunity to testify, saying: “We continuously engage with policymakers on these critical issues and look forward to continuing this important dialogue next month.”

As reported by BBC News, Discord confirmed that Robinson had sent a message in a Discord group chat in which he appeared to take responsibility for the shooting.

“It was me at UVU yesterday. im sorry for all of this,” the message read, a Discord spokesperson confirmed to the BBC.

Discord told the news outlet, however, that, following an internal investigation, the company found “no evidence that the suspect planned this incident or promoted violence on Discord”.

Neither Twitch nor Valve has publicly confirmed whether their CEOs will attend the hearing.

GamesIndustry.biz has reached out to Twitch, Discord, Reddit, and Valve for comment on this story.

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The popularity of these conspiracies may also be on the rise in right-wing spaces. Some MAHA figureheads, including Nicole Shanahan, have shared geoengineering content promoting conspiracy theories, while Marla Maples, Donald Trump’s ex-wife, told Fox News in July that she helped Florida’s anti-weather modification bill pass. (Bill Gates’ track record of funding solar geoengineering research has undoubtedly helped fan some of these flames.)

Doricko, the Rainmaker CEO, has spent much of the past year testifying in state legislatures that were considering vague anti-geoengineering bills that would have also banned cloud seeding. In May, he told WIRED that he and his team had spoken in front of 31 state legislatures. Education, he says, is key to getting people on board with the technology.

“I think there’s some cohort of people that believe that, you know, Joe Biden is actually a lizard person,” he says. “I think that a lot of people aren’t quite that far along, but are very concerned about chemtrails, probably. Showing them farms that are greener than they otherwise would have been with testimonies from those farmers—that’s probably the way that we’re gonna win hearts and minds.” (Doricko told WIRED last week that in recent months, his company has had “interest, curiosity, and excitement” from various state governments, both Democratic and Republican, in using cloud seeding to enhance water supply. “The education that we had the opportunity to do ultimately I think assuaged a lot of reasonable people’s concerns.”)

There is one additional type of human-caused shift in the world’s weather that played an outsize role in the hearing: climate change. Greene and other Republican lawmakers repeated many climate denial talking points and bad framing around climate science, including the idea that carbon dioxide is good for the planet because it is plant food. There were multiple mentions of beach houses owned by Barack Obama and Al Gore as a way of illustrating supposed hypocrisy about sea level rise. One of the witnesses called by the House majority works at an organization with a long history of questioning established climate science; he claimed in his testimony that there is “uncertainty as to exactly how much influence humans have exerted” over the global rise in temperature—a take that is out of line with mainstream science.

“My view is that this is mainly a way of saying there are secret forces at work that are making your life miserable, and everything bad is due to these secret forces,” says Dessler. “When in reality, it’s not secret forces, it’s climate change and it’s these other things that are hurting people.”

But even a whole hearing dedicated to a conspiracy theory grab bag may not be enough for some. On X, a popular anti-geoengineering community was alight with posts about the hearing—including many critical of the experts and their findings. “This was a scripted show to protect the government’s weather control agenda,” one moderator’s post reads. “Why no independent voices?”

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Discord, Twitch, Reddit, and Steam CEOs invited to testify at “radicalization of online forum users” hearing

The DOGE Subcommittee Hearing on Weather Modification Was a Nest of Conspiracy Theorizing