Communications of the ACM
Five Takeaways From the House G.O.P. Hearing With Former Twitter Executives
From left, former Twitter executives James Baker, Vijaya Gadde, Yoel Roth, and Anika Collier Navaroli being sworn in at a hearing on social media bias.
Credit: Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times
House Republicans on Wednesday summoned former Twitter executives to answer to accusations that the social media platform has tried to silence voices on the right, but the hourslong hearing yielded new revelations about how the company failed to limit hateful speech or material that could incite violence, sometimes altering its own rules to avoid doing so.
The Oversight and Accountability Committee called the hearing to investigate a decision that the company has for years admitted was a mistake: blocking an unsubstantiated New York Post article about the activities of Hunter Biden, President Biden's son, in Ukraine before the 2020 election, in which his father was running against President Donald J. Trump.
"Twitter aggressively suppressed conservative elected officials, journalists and activists," said Representative James R. Comer, Republican of Kentucky and the chairman of the oversight panel.
But the session also served as a forum for Democrats to press their concerns about the behavior of the company. They have accused Twitter of playing a critical role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, including by changing internal rules to allow Mr. Trump to keep posting up until the riot.
From The New York Times
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