House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jim Jordan (R-OH) demanded on Wednesday that Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey disclose documents and information relating to the social media giants’ censorship practices, the decision to fact-check President Donald Trump, and flagging the president’s tweets as abusive behavior, according to a document obtained by Breitbart News.
Jordan sent a letter to Dorsey on Wednesday, which Breitbart News obtained, regarding the “increasingly exerted editorial control over the accounts of prominent conservative users, including President Donald Trump.”
Jordan’s letter to Dorsey follows as the House Judiciary Committee will hold an antitrust hearing with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on July 27.
“Recent actions suggest that Twitter is increasingly discriminating against conservative voices on its platform,” Jordan wrote in the letter to Dorsey.
The Ohio conservative noted that Twitter decided to “fact check” Trump’s tweet regarding absentee voting, as Twitter alleged that the tweet contained “potentially misleading information.”
Jordan noted that contrary to Twitter’s claim:
… a bipartisan Commission on Federal Election Reform stated as far back as 2005 that “[a]bsentee ballots remain the largest source of potential voter fraud” in American elections. More recently, the Presidential Commission on Election Administration—convened by President Barack Obama—likewise found that “when [voter fraud] does occur, absentee ballots are often the method of choice.”
The leading House Judiciary Committee Republican wrote that Twitter has also censored other conservatives, noting:
While Twitter’s censorship of prominent conservative voices is troubling, similar treatment for less prominent individuals is more alarming.This reality makes Twitter’s longrunning trend of “accidentally” censoring pro-life groups and other conservative advocates especially worrisome.
Jordan cited that Twitter’s anti-conservative bias is even more apparent when reports revealed that Yoel Roth, the Twitter official responsible for fact-checking, wrote that members of the Trump administration are “actual nazis.”
Roth also wrote, “I’m just saying, we fly over those states that voted for a racist tangerine for a reason.”
Jordan wrote that Twitter’s discrimination against conservatives “is extremely alarming” and that the company has continued to engage in “disparate treatment of political speech.”
Jordan asked Dorsey to supply the committee with:
- “An accounting of all content moderation decisions made by Twitter over the past year for
users located within the United States, including which Twitter rule or policy the user
allegedly violated and the content of the moderated tweet;” - “All documents and communications referring or relating to Twitter’s decision to apply a
“fact check” notation to President Trump’s May 26, 2020, tweets concerning mail-in ballots, including how Twitter decided what additional information to make available to
users concerning mail-in voting; and” - “All documents and communications referring or relating to Twitter’s decision to apply a
notation asserting that President Trump’s June 23, 2020, tweet concerning an
autonomous zone in Washington, D.C. violated Twitter’s policy against abusive behavior
and threats of harm against an identifiable group.”
“We ask that Twitter provide a briefing to the Committee on these matters as well as its recently adopted disinformation policies and tools and how Twitter makes content moderation decisions upon production of the documents and information requested above,” Jordan added.
Sean Moran is a congressional reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SeanMoran3.