New reporting reveals that Twitter employees were not allowed to see Trump’s tweets for content moderation and that Twitter did not follow its own rules concerning Trump.
The Washington Post reported:
Some of what investigators uncovered in their interviews with employees of the platforms contradicts Republican claims that tech companies displayed a liberal bias in their moderation decisions…The transcripts indicate the reverse, with former Twitter employees describing how the company gave Trump special treatment.
Twitter employees, they testified, could not even view the former president’s tweets in one of their key content moderation tools, and they ultimately had to create a Google document to keep track of his tweets as calls grew to suspend his account.
“… Twitter was terrified of the backlash they would get if they followed their own rules and applied them to Donald Trump,” said one former employee, who testified to the committee under the pseudonym J. Johnson.
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Twitter did not enforce its own policies when it came to Donald Trump. It took Trump using the platform to support a violent insurrection where people died before the company would ban his account.
It is difficult to buy the Republican claims of liberal social media company bias when the engine that spread right-wing lies and disinformation was allowed to break the rules.
Social media users don’t seek bias one way or the other. They want an even playing field and fairness. However, Twitter and Facebook have titled their platforms in favor of conservatives. They are not public utilities. They can run their platforms as they see fit, but the idea that there was liberal bias on Twitter does not appear to be true.
House Republicans will be launching investigations into social media bias against conservatives, but the reality is that the most powerful Republican in the country was exempt from Twitter’s own rules until people started dying.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
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