Former Twitter execs tell Republicans they erred on Hunter Biden laptop
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[February 09, 2023]
By David Morgan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Former Twitter executives told a Republican-led
U.S. House committee on Wednesday that they made a mistake by blocking
tweets about a laptop said to belong to President Joe Biden's son Hunter
but said government officials were not involved.
At a combative day-long hearing before the House of Representatives
Oversight Committee, Republicans claimed that Twitter cooperated with
government officials and the news media to suppress a New York Post
article on the laptop's contents, two weeks ahead of Biden's 2020
election victory over former President Donald Trump, a Republican.
The committee's witnesses, three former Twitter executives, said in
subpoenaed testimony that they mistakenly believed the Post article
contained hacked material and reversed their decision to limit its
circulation on the social media platform within 24 hours.
Democrats accused Republicans of pursuing a politically motivated
fishing expedition against Biden and raised concerns about witness
intimidation after a Republican lawmaker warned the former executives
that they would be held accountable for activities she deemed "highly
illegal."
The proceedings, which came a day after Biden offered to work with
Republicans on some of the nation's toughest problems in his State of
the Union address, represented the first public hearing of an
investigation into the Biden family's business dealings that Republicans
promised their most hardline supporters during last year's midterm
election campaign.
The White House issued a statement denouncing the hearing as "a bizarre
political stunt" motivated by denial of Biden's election victory over
Trump, who continues to claim falsely that his defeat was the result of
fraud.
"America witnessed a coordinated campaign by social media companies,
mainstream news and the intelligence community to suppress and
de-legitimize the existence of Hunter Biden's laptop and its contents,"
committee Chairman James Comer said at the outset of the proceedings.
Hunter Biden's attorney Abbe Lowell has denied in a statement any
connection between his client and what he called the "so-called laptop,"
including contents that Republicans "allege to be Mr. Biden's personal
data."
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Former Twitter employee Anika Collier
Navaroli testifies during a House Oversight and Accountability
Committee hearing about Twitter's handling of a 2020 New York Post
story about Hunter Biden and his laptop, in Washington, U.S.
February 8, 2023. Reuters/Evelyn Hockstein
Yoel Roth, Twitter's former head of trust and safety, testified that
the team responsible for enforcing rules on content was separate
from Twitter personnel involved in government relations.
He said Twitter was trying to avoid the kind of interference that
occurred in 2016, when Russian officials allegedly hacked Democratic
National Committee computers and disseminated material through
social media.
The Twitter executives also said company policy sought to mitigate
content that could lead to political violence, such as what later
occurred in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump's
supporters.
"I am here to tell you that doing nothing is not an option. If we
continue to do nothing, violence is going to happen again," said
Anika Collier Navaroli, a former member of Twitter's U.S. safety
policy team.
Democrats raised concerns about witness intimidation after
Republican Representative Anna Paulina Luna presented what she
called proof that Twitter and the federal government had acted
jointly to censor Americans.
"It's highly illegal. You were all engaged in this action. And I
want you to know that you will all be held accountable," Luna told
the witnesses.
Representative Jamie Raskin, the panel's top Democrat, urged members
to keep in mind that Twitter is a private company with the power to
choose its own content.
"It's even more important now that we have members who are actually
threatening witnesses with arrest and prosecution for clearly
imaginary offenses," Raskin said.
(Reporting by David Morgan; Editing by Scott Malone, Daniel Wallis
and Lisa Shumaker)
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