Republicans Seek Information From Twitter About The Platform’s Participation In Election Interference In 2020
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Following his takeover of the social media giant Twitter, Republicans have asked billionaire Elon Musk to turn over information related to Twitter’s handling of the Hunter Biden laptop story.
Saying Twitter decided “to limit information that may have affected the 2020 election” when it pushed back or suppressed news about the laptop, Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., wrote in a letter that he hoped Twitter’s new leadership would “correct” the “error” and “provide Americans with transparency.”
Committee on Oversight and Reform Republicans are investigating the Biden family’s pattern of influence peddling to enrich themselves and President Biden’s involvement in these schemes,” Comer wrote to Musk in the letter dated Oct. 28. “As part of this investigation, Committee Republicans are reviewing the role Big Tech — including Twitter — played in supporting the Biden campaign in 2020 by suppressing certain stories implicating the Bidens.”
Comer writes in the letter that he and fellow GOP lawmakers on the committee already wrote Twitter’s then-CEO Parag Agrawal back in April, asking the social media company to “preserve all documents and communications in Twitter’s custody referring or relating to the October 2020 New York Post article about Hunter Biden’s laptop.”
Agrawal and Twitter, according to Comer, did not respond to that request. Musk fired Agrawal shortly after his takeover.
Since Musk has, according to Comer, pledged to make Twitter a place “where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner,” GOP members hope Twitter’s new leader will be more cooperative with their efforts.
We believe open communication and access to information is a fundamental principle for any free people, and the American people deserve to know the reason Twitter suppressed or censored the Biden laptop story shortly before the 2020 election,” Comer’s letter reads
President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, has been under investigation since 2018 for his involvement in business deals with countries like China and Ukraine. He soon may face federal charges.
The Hunter Biden laptop story focused on obtained emails that detailed how President Biden’s son was allegedly leveraging his access to top policymakers in potential overseas business deals. The emails were pulled from a laptop supposedly belonging to Hunter.
Initially, intelligence experts and others called the initial reports of Hunter Biden’s laptop “Russian disinformation,” leading to a media campaign against the report first published by the New York Post.
Both Twitter and Facebook banned the dissemination of the story, with Twitter calling the content problematic because it was “obtained through hacking” and “contains private information.”
Quickly following the New York Post’s publication of the story, Twitter prohibited users from sharing it and locked the Post’s Twitter account,” Comer’s letter to Musk states. “Twitter censors met any attempts to share the story’s link with a notice that said, ‘[w]e can’t complete this request because this link has been identified by Twitter or our partners as being potentially harmful.'”
Twitter unilaterally decided—without any evidence—that the story was untrue. Only after the election did the New York Times and the Washington Post admit the laptop was authentic,” Comer’s letter continued. “Committee Republicans are concerned Twitter inappropriately censored the Hunter Biden laptop story to influence the 2020 Presidential Election.”
Comer and GOP lawmakers are asking Musk to turn over “all documents and communications” regarding Twitter’s response to the Hunter Biden laptop story as soon as possible, but “no later” than Nov. 11.
Back in April, Musk said that he thought “suspending the Twitter account of a major news organization for publishing a truthful story was obviously incredibly inappropriate,” in a tweet.
Billionaire Elon Musk, who is in the final stages of acquiring social media giantTwitter, is weighing in on the platform’s previous censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop storyleading up to the 2020 presidential election.
Musk has previously stated his desire to own the social media giant stems from his criticism of Twitter’s free speech practices. The billionaire has been a vocal critic of Twitter’s perceived flaws when it comes to free speech. Now that he has taken over, it seems the GOP is hoping he can aid them in their investigation.
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