Last Updated on October 16, 2020
After attempting to censor the New York Post’s article exposing Hunter Biden as having facilitated a meeting between his then-Vice President father and a Ukrainian oil executive, Twitter has kneejerked one-hundred-eighty degrees on its moderation policy.
After Twitter’s CEO, Jack Dorsey, commented that the platform’s response to the Hunter Biden article was “unacceptable,” now comes Vijaya Gadde, global lead for legal, policy, and trust and safety at Twitter, announcing significant changes in the social media behemoth’s moderation policy.
Gadde wrote in a statement that Twitter would cease removing hacked content unless the posts are direct posts by the hackers or those acting on behalf of the hackers. Instead, she continued, the company will begin labelling tweets to provide context, instead of blocking links from being shared on the platform.
“All the other Twitter Rules will still apply to the posting of or linking to hacked materials, such as our rules against posting private information, synthetic and manipulated media, and non-consensual nudity,” she wrote.
Twitter executed blatant censorship against the New York Post, the nation’s oldest daily newspaper – started by Alexander Hamilton, and one of the top five newspapers by circulation, over the Hunter Biden article. The social media platform added warning labels and denied users the ability to post links to the article, locking out most users who did.
Among those to be locked out of their accounts because of Twitter’s censorship were the New York Post itself and White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany.
I’M BACK and I will NOT be silenced‼️
Twitter’s goal was to silence me, but they won’t win!
Looking forward to Jack being subpoenaed by @senjudiciary!
— Kayleigh McEnany (@kayleighmcenany) October 15, 2020
The response from the elected class was swift with many House Republicans calling for an emergency hearing to address election interference by social media platforms and Big Tech censorship.
“Big Tech’s silencing of conservative viewpoints and censorship of news undermines the integrity of the 2020 election and harms Americans’ First Amendment right to freedom of speech,” a group of GOP House members wrote in a letter to House Committee on Oversight & Reform Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney (D-NY).
In a statement during a break from the Senate Judiciary Committee’s nomination hearings for Judge Amy Coney Barrett, Thursday, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), in calling for the CEOs of Twitter and Facebook to be subpoenaed to testify before the committee, declared, “This is election interference and we’re 19 days out from an election. It has no precedent in the history of democracy. The Senate Judiciary Committee wants to know what the hell is going on.”
Sen. @tedcruz: "Twitter is actively blocking, right now this instant, stories from the New York Post…on Tuesday, the Judiciary Committee, the full committee, will be voting on subpoenas to subpoena @Jack Dorsey to come before our committee." pic.twitter.com/lfpEcH8xeQ
— CSPAN (@cspan) October 15, 2020
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg are scheduled to appear before a congressional committee on November 2, 2020, one day before the General Election.
