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Twitter and Facebook CEOs to testify in front of Senate after Biden story suppressed

The suppression of the New York Post story is another example of what some say are heavy-handed tactics by social media platforms to censor right-wing content.

By Lauren Marcus, World Israel News

After Twitter and Facebook blocked users from posting links to a bombshell New York Post report about vice presidential candidate Joe Biden’s son Hunter, the Senate Judiciary Committee is preparing to summon the platforms’ executives for questioning.

Fox News reported on Tuesday that Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is currently working with Facebook and Twitter to bring the companies’ CEOs, Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey, in front of the committee on October 22.

“If an agreement for voluntary testimony is not reached, the committee will vote on authorizing the subpoenas at a date to be determined,” the Senate Judiciary Committee said in a press release.

A spokesperson for committee member Ted Cruz (R-T.X.) confirmed the senator’s support for the move. “Senator Cruz has been working with Chairman Graham and expects both Twitter and Facebook to testify before the Judiciary Committee before Election Day,” the spokesperson said.

Twitter actively worked to suppress distribution of the New York Post story, locking the newspaper’s account, temporarily freezing the Trump campaign’s account for posting a link to the report, and blocking users from sharing links to the story.

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The tech giant claimed that the story violated their “hacked materials” policy, but has never before blocked a news story from a mainstream media outlet in this way. After public outcry, Twitter attempted to backtrack.

“Straight blocking of URLs was wrong, and we updated our policy and enforcement to fix,” tweeted Dorsey. “Our goal is to attempt to add context, and now we have capabilities to do that.”

The suppression of the New York Post story is another example of what some say are heavy-handed tactics by social media platforms to censor right-wing content.

Watchdog group Media Research Center said in a statement on Monday that since May 2018, Facebook and Twitter had censored President Trump’s posts 65 times.

According to the group, Biden’s accounts were “untouched.”