House Oversight and Government Accountability Committee chairman James Comer of Kentucky called out ex-Twitter Head of Trust and Safety Yoel Roth’s Tweets criticizing Republicans during a Wednesday hearing.
Roth, who was responsible for removing Tweets he believed violated the social media giant’s rules, regularly met with federal officials to discuss “disinformation” and “foreign interference” on the site. New Twitter owner Elon Musk fired Roth shortly after taking control of the company. Roth and former Twitter attorneys Vijaya Gadde and James Baker were responsible for censoring the New York Post’s initial Hunter Biden laptop story, although Roth has since acknowledged the company made the wrong decision. (RELATED: Even Twitter’s Censorship Chief Was ‘Perplexed’ By FBI Demands)
“Twitter executives were hostile towards conservatives and biased towards anyone who opposed their points of view. For example, Mr. Roth, did you write this Tweet?” Comer asked, showing a Tweet in which Roth suggested former President Donald Trump was a Nazi.
Yes, that person in the pink hat is clearly a bigger threat to your brand of feminism than ACTUAL NAZIS IN THE WHITE HOUSE.
— Yoel Roth (@yoyoel) January 22, 2017
“I regret the language that I used in some of my former Tweets, but, yes, I did post that,” Roth responded.
“Mr. Roth, do you think all conservatives are Nazis?” Comer asked.
“Certainly not, sir,” Roth answered.
WATCH:
The Twitter Files revealed the company suspended conservative-leaning accounts even when those accounts did not expressly violate Twitter’s rules. Roth, Gadde and former CEOs Jack Dorsey and Parag Agrawal made up a special working group that monitored high-profile accounts, including Libs of TikTok. The Libs of TikTok account was suspended seven times under Twitter’s “Hateful Conduct policy,” despite not actually violating the policy, according to journalist Bari Weiss.
Former President Donald Trump was permanently suspended from the platform in the wake of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot following an extended discussion between Twitter executives. Rather than cite a specific rule violation for Trump’s ban, executives noted the “context surrounding” of Trump’s tweets “over the course of the election and frankly last 4+ years.”