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Former Execs Behind Twitter’s Censorship Regime To Testify Before Congress

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Alexa Schwerha Contributor
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Several former Twitter executives will testify before Congress during a hearing about suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story on Feb. 8, the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability announced Thursday.

The hearing, titled “Protecting Speech from Government Interference and Social Media Bias, Part 1: Twitter’s Role in Suppressing the Biden Laptop Story,” will question three Twitter executives who reportedly had a hand in censoring a New York Post story about Hunter Biden’s laptop ahead of the 2020 presidential election, according to the press release. Vijaya Gadde, Twitter’s former chief legal officer, James Baker, Twitter’s former deputy general counsel and Yoel Roth, Twitter’s former global head of trust & safety were called as witnesses. (RELATED: New York Times Confirms Another Key Detail Of Censored Hunter Biden Bombshell)

“In the runup to the 2020 presidential election, Big Tech and the Swamp colluded to censor reporting about the Biden family’s shady business schemes,” Republican Kentucky Rep. James Comer, committee chair, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “The U.S. intelligence community and the FBI frequently communicated with Big Tech and advised Twitter executives to question the validity of any Hunter Biden story—before the New York Post ever reported on it. We also know members of Twitter’s top censorship team debated how they could justify limiting the spread of the story. They landed on a policy that even some among them doubted.”

Since Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, American journalists have incrementally released internal communication from the platform’s employees which detailed how it colluded with government agencies and enforced policies to censor specific accounts and information. Roth, who reportedly met weekly with various government agents including the FBI, asked officials for information about the laptop story, but they declined.

“We blocked the NYP story, then we unblocked it (but said the opposite), then we said we unblocked it… and now we’re in a messy situation where our policy is in shambles, comms is angry, reporters think we’re idiots, and we’re refactoring an exceedingly complex policy 18 days out from the election. In short [fuck my life],” Roth reportedly wrote in an internal message. “Weekly sync with FBI/DHS/DNI re: election security. The meeting happened about 15 minutes after the aforementioned Hacked Materials implosion; the government declined to share anything useful when asked.”

Gadde reportedly defended suppression of the laptop story and explained to Democratic California Rep. Ro Khanna Twitter policy  about posting “hacked information” and clarified that former Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany’s account would be reinstated after she deleted a tweet about the story. Twitter CEO Elon Musk reportedly fired Baker for slowing the release of documents about the company’s handling of the laptop story.

“Americans deserve answers about this attack on the First Amendment and why Big Tech and the Swamp colluded to censor this information about the Biden family selling access for profit. Accountability is coming,” Comer told the DCNF.

The hearing will be open to the public.

Roth and Baker did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment. Gadde declined to comment.

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