Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Congressman Ken Buck (R-CO) “want answers” from Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey over how they handled President Donald Trump’s tweets. They also accused Twitter of “silencing and censoring political speech of conservative Americans”.
The Republican lawmakers sent Dorsey a letter, requesting that the social media platform turn over documents over their content moderation decisions and gave Twitter a two week deadline to respond.
In their letter to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, Reps. Jordan and Buck wrote, “Big Tech, especially Twitter, Inc., is engaged in systematic viewpoint-based discrimination. In the unfortunate phenomenon of ‘cancel culture’, Twitter plays a leading role in silencing and censoring political speech of conservative Americans.”
“In recent months, Twitter throttled the dissemination of a mainstream newspaper article critical of then-candidate Joe Biden’s son and later took the unprecedented step of de-platforming the sitting President of the United States. If Twitter can do this to the President of the United States, it can do it to any American for any reason,” the Congressmen said.
“On July 8, 2020, Ranking Member Jordan and then-Ranking Member Sensenbrenner wrote to you requesting documents from Twitter as part of the Committee’s examination of the size, competitiveness, and role of social media companies,” they wrote, noting the previous request.
“Although Twitter’s lawyers offered a telephone briefing, Twitter ultimately failed to provide any requested documents to aid our efforts in overseeing the digital marketplace. Since then, Twitter’s conduct has only become more brazen,” the lawmakers stated. Continued Below
“Accordingly, we write to reiterate our request that Twitter provide the following documents and information”:
- An accounting of all content moderation decisions made by Twitter over the past year for users located within the United States, including which Twitter rule or policy the user allegedly violated and the content of the moderated tweet;
- All documents and communications referring or relating to Twitter’s decision to apply a “fact check” notation to President Trump’s May 26, 2020, tweets concerning mail-in ballots, including how Twitter decided what additional information to make available to users concerning mail-in voting; and
- All documents and communications referring or relating to Twitter’s decision to apply a notation asserting that President Trump’s June 23, 2020, tweet concerning an autonomous zone in Washington, D.C. violated Twitter’s policy against abusive behavior and threats of harm against an identifiable group.
“We expect to receive the documents as soon as possible but no later than 5:00 p.m. on March 18, 2021,” Reps. Jordan and Buck concluded. Continued Below
Correspondent for Fox News and Fox Business, Hillary Vaughn, reports:
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) March 4, 2021
Official letter to CEO Jack Dorsey from Congressmen Jim Joran and Ken Buck:
