Republican Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas) laid into Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey for censoring The New York Post over its bombshell news story about Hunter Biden.
During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday, Cruz denounced Facebook, Twitter, and Google’s widespread censorship of news and individuals they don’t politically agree with.
“The three witnesses we have before this committee collectively pose I believe the single greatest threat to free speech in America and the greatest threat we have to free and fair elections.”
Cruz then singled out Twitter, who “by far” imposed the most “egregious” censorship of The Post’s Hunter Biden story by preventing the link from being accessed on its platform.
“Mr. Dorsey, who the hell elected you and put you in charge of what the media are allowed to report and what the American people are allowed to hear, and why do you persist in behaving as a Democratic super PAC, silencing views to the contrary of your political beliefs?” Cruz said during the hearing via webcam.
Despite the fact The Post is still locked out from its Twitter account since the Hunter Biden story broke weeks ago, Dorsey claimed Twitter “recognized errors” and reversed its move.
“We recognized errors in that policy. We changed it within twenty-four hours,” Dorsey said.
Dorsey explained Twitter censored the The Post in accordance with its “hacked materials” policy, despite the fact nothing about Hunter Biden’s laptop was hacked, as it was turned over by a computer shop owner to President Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani who gave it to The Post.
“We didn’t want Twitter to be a distributor of hacked materials,” he said, but then added Twitter wasn’t even sure how The Post’s lewd photos of Hunter Biden were even obtained.
Cruz tore into Dorsey over that, saying, “So in your view if it’s unclear the source of a document – in this instance, The New York Post documented what the source was, which it said it was a laptop owned by Hunter Biden that had been turned into a repair store. So they weren’t hiding what they claimed to be the source. Is it your position that Twitter when you can’t tell the source, blocks press stories?”
“The enforcement action of blocking URLs, both in tweets and in direct messages we believe was incorrect,” Dorsey said.
Cruz then pointed out that The Post is still locked out of Twitter.
“Today, right now, The New York Post is still blocked from tweeting two weeks later,” he said.
Dorsey said that The Post could access their account again after deleting their original Hunter Biden story.
“So Mr. Dorsey, your ability is you have the power to force a media outlet – let’s be clear, The New York Post isn’t just some random guy tweeting,” Cruz said. “The New York Post has the fourth highest circulation of any newspaper in America. The New York Post is over 200 years old, founded by Alexander Hamilton. And your position is that you can sit in Silicon Valley and demand the media that you can tell them what stories they can publish and you can tell the American people what reporting they can hear.”
The Senate hearings are aimed at determining whether the Section 230 protections of the Communications Decency Act given to Big Tech that exempt it as being a publisher should be removed, given the ubiquitousness and reach of these platforms.
Alex Jones plays audio clips of Hunter Biden admitting he worked under a top Chinese spy chief.
