Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey Accused of Lying Under Oath
Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz accused Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey of lying under oath while testifying before the Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday.
Dorsey claimed that the New York Post articles regarding Hunter Biden’s alleged laptop are no longer being censored on the platform.
“Anyone can tweet these articles,” Dorsey said.
“What [Dorsey] told the Senate, under oath, is false. I just tried to tweet the [New York Post] story alleging Biden’s CCP corruption,” Cruz tweeted. “Still blocked.”
What @jack told the Senate, under oath, is false. I just tried to tweet the @nypost story alleging Biden’s CCP corruption.
Still blocked.
18 USC 1621 makes it a felony to lie under oath to the Senate. https://t.co/BDHRB8CEzy
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) October 28, 2020
Several other Republican lawmakers joined Cruz in criticizing Dorsey.
Nothing like lying under oath https://t.co/Jp7monfPNs
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) October 28, 2020
You’re right, @Jack. We don’t trust you.
Here’s a first step that Twitter can take to change that: STOP TARGETING CONSERVATIVES. https://t.co/uO382dkL2S
— Kevin McCarthy (@GOPLeader) October 28, 2020
I don’t trust anyone to censor political speech. These are de facto public forums. https://t.co/j7SaNGAwLY
— Senator John Cornyn (@JohnCornyn) October 28, 2020
The Senate Commerce Committee held a hearing regarding Big Tech corporations Wednesday following the incident with the New York Post, leaving the media outlet’s Twitter account, and many others, locked for days.
Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Google CEO Sundar Pichai also testified. The goal of the hearing was to discuss the role of social media and technology in election interference.
“Democrats including Sens. Ed Markey and Tammy Duckworth argued Republicans are making empty claims meant to support a threat to take away Section 230 or otherwise punish the platforms — all to influence them against cracking down on misinformation from Trump and other conservatives,” Axios reported.
Section 230 is a part of the Communication Decency Act of 1996. Many are calling for reform or an all-out repeal of Section 230, because it does not hold Big Tech corporations accountable for censorship.
“No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider” the section reads.
President Donald Trump, who is an active user on Twitter, has been a vocal advocate for repealing the section.
The USA doesn’t have Freedom of the Press, we have Suppression of the Story, or just plain Fake News. So much has been learned in the last two weeks about how corrupt our Media is, and now Big Tech, maybe even worse. Repeal Section 230!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 28, 2020
Although foreign interference through social media is a common way to spread political disinformation, tech companies themselves have internal biases that are likely impacting political discourse.
A Facebook advisor on election integrity used to work with Democratic nominee Joe Biden, and YouTube recently issued an independent fact check on its search results for “Joe Biden fracking.”
Election interference and political bias from social media platforms has been a subject of intense debate since the 2016 election, and will likely continue to be for years to come.
Truth and Accuracy
We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.
