By: Fern Sidman
As matters continue to heat up between “Big Tech” chieftains and congressional leaders who are seeking to find out whether social media platforms have directly engaged in intentional bias against President Trump in their coverage, it was reported on Wednesday that Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey was not completely honest with senators who were questioning him.
By now, most people who are attuned to the news cycle are well aware of the bombshell New York Post story that revealed shocking details about Hunter Biden – his bizarre personal life, his laptop, his connections with China and his dubious alliance with an energy company in Ukraine.
As soon as the NY Post emerged, Twitter immediately banned coverage of it, and suspended accounts of users that were publicizing the story.
This now leads us back to the sketchy testimony that Twitter’s Dorsey gave before congress. According to a Post report, Dorsey offered erroneous information to senators during his questioning. He told them that Twitter had removed the ban on users who were tweeting articles from the explosive expose on Hunter Biden that the paper did, even though the ban remained in place. The controversial ban was only lifted subsequent to Dorsey making the assertion that it had already been removed.
Anyone can tweet these articles,” Dorsey told Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) about The Post’s articles on emails implicating Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden in his son’s work in China and Ukraine, as was reported by the Post.
Cruz insisted: “You’re still blocking. You’re still blocking their posts, right now today you’re blocking their posts.”
“We’re not blocking The Post, anyone can tweet these articles,” Dorsey said.
Cruz: “You’re testifying to this committee right now that Twitter, when it silences people, when it censors people, when it blocks political speech, that has no impact on elections?”
“People have choice of other communication channels,” Dorsey claimed.
According to the report in the Post, Twitter users discovered that the social network still banned distribution of The Post’s article describing a business proposal in China involving Hunter Biden and a document indicating a 10 percent set-aside for “the big guy.”
As was reported by Fox News, Senator Cruz took Dorsey to task, accusing him and Twitter of improperly censoring reporting that reflected poorly on Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, asking at point, “Who the hell elected you?”
Fox News also reported that Republicans over the last several weeks have decried Twitter’s actions to lock the New York Post’s Twitter account, and censor links to the outlet’s stories, on Biden’s son, Hunter, and his overseas business dealings.
Dorsey said this was due to a policy regarding hacked materials, because the stories were based on emails from Hunter Biden’s purported laptop. Cruz noted that a New York Times article about President Trump’s tax returns did not face the same treatment, even though the materials appeared to be leaked illegally.
Breitbart reported on Thursday that during Wednesday’s hearing, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) grilled Dorsey over Twitter’s double standards, regularly scrutinizing President Trump but failing to “add context” or restrict tweets from the Iranian Ayatollah Khamenei for spreading misinformation.
Blackburn stated: “You said Holocaust denial and threats of Jewish genocide by Iran’s terrorist Ayatollah do not violate Twitter rules and it’s important for Iran’s leaders, like their terrorist leader, to have a platform on Twitter.”
She added: “You have testified you are worried about election interference. That is something we are all worried about. For about 100 years, foreign sources have been trying to influence U.S. Policy and U.S. Elections. Now they are on your platforms. They see this as a way to get access to the American people.”
According to a report on the World Israel News web site, what emerged from the meeting is that the internet giants are largely policing themselves. Their rules appear arbitrary as when Twitter’s Dorsey, in an exchange with Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO), said that the social media giant doesn’t classify Holocaust denial as misinformation.
“We have a policy against misinformation in three categories. That is all we have policy on for misleading information,” Dorsey said.
“It’s strange to me that you’ve flagged tweets from the president [of the United States] but haven’t hidden the ayatollah’s tweets on Holocaust denial or calls to wipe Israel off the map,” Gardner said. “Millions of people died and that’s not a violation of Twitter?”
“It’s misleading information, but we don’t have a policy against that type of misleading information,” Dorsey replied.
