The White House on Monday reiterated its call for the US Congress to pass new regulations requiring social networks like Twitter to be held accountable for “the harm they cause.”

White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki made this statement shortly after Twitter announced that it had accepted an offer to buy South African businessman Elon Musk for approximately $44 billion.

Psaki declined to comment on the “specific transaction” between Musk and Twitter, but said US President Joe Biden, who owns the company, “has long been concerned about the power of major social media platforms.”

“(Biden) has long said that tech platforms should be held accountable for the damage they cause,” the spokesperson said at the daily press conference.

Psaki also noted that the US president “strongly supports the passage of fundamental reforms to achieve this goal”, including antitrust reforms that “demand more transparency” in such mergers or acquisitions.

The spokesperson reminded that Biden also believes that Section 230 of the Communications Ethics Act of 1996 should be reformed.

This section stipulates that large internet companies should be exempted from almost all legal consequences arising from the content published on their platforms and even their own content removal decisions simply because they are required to be intermediaries or channels.

Finally, Psaki added that there is a “bipartisan interest” in Congress in pushing for such reform, and something that gives Biden “confidence”.

Before buying Twitter, Musk was highly critical of the social network, questioning whether its rules “rigorously” adhered to the principle of freedom of expression.

His criticism raised many uncertainties, including Twitter employees who were concerned that Musk could use excessive force to change ethical sharing standards at the company.

These rules led to the suspension of accounts of far-right figures, including former US President Donald Trump (2017-2021), who has been banned from Twitter since January 2021 after the company concluded that their messages had incited the Capitol Hill attack.

In an interview with Fox News on Monday, Trump said he doesn’t want to return to Twitter and plans to join TRUTH Social, the alternative social network he promotes, soon.