McMorris Rodgers Calls Out Twitter Over Reckless Content Management Practices
Sep 24, 2020
Press
Technology & Innovation
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Eastern Washington Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers (WA-05), Republican Leader on the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and Commerce, called out @Jack and Twitter at a hearing over their reckless political content management practices that allow for disinformation, threats, and incitement of violence, “as long as it influences the election in favor of the political whims of the woke mob.” Watch her full remarks here:
As Cathy said at today’s hearing, “Twitter’s rules say they are intended to ensure ALL people can participate in public conversation freely and safely. But that’s not what we are seeing. To further its leadership’s political agenda, Twitter has instead embraced an inconsistent application of its standards.Unlike President Trump, they haven’t been fact-checked or tagged for violation of standards by @Jack. The World Health Organization shared this propaganda from the CCP, quote: ‘Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus.’ That’s False.”
She continued, “Another example is a well-known online activist on the Left who has repeatedly doxxed and falsely accused innocent people of heinous crimes. Like falsely accusing a Texas state trooper of rape. He also accused an innocent man of murdering a 7-year old girl. Death threats were sent to the man’s family and he ultimately took his own life. This online activist also used Twitter to threaten the lives of innocent police officers in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Twitter said this didn’t violate their standards. This tweet is word-for-word from a candidate challenging Republican Congressman Brian Mast. She tweeted; I quote: ‘is that really the new rule they want? Killing is okay if it’s a bad guy? Is it now open season on… Trump… Barr… Kavanaugh… Pompeo’ end quote. Can you imagine if the President or any Republican said that about Democrats? My only hope is the Secret Service took this threat more seriously than Jack.”
Cathy went on to say, “Bottom line: Twitter continues to tag the President’s tweets with increased frequency as we approach the election, but they’ve ignored violent threats against Republicans, allowed for propaganda pushed by the Chinese Communist Party, tolerated doxxing and the incitement of violence against police officers, and also left clear threats by the Supreme Leader of Iran go unchallenged.It begs the question, what is the point of their terms of services and content policies if Jack intentionally applies them differently depending on who the user is?”
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