Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) lambasted Republican investigation into Twitter's handling of the Hunter Biden laptop scandal as the House Oversight Committee hauled former Twitter executives before it Tuesday.
The hearing focused on a decision in October 2020 to restrict a link to a New York Post article on the laptop, which appeared to have violated platform prohibitions against sharing hacked materials. The social media company's ex-CEO Jack Dorsey has already expressed regret for the decision, and Raskin questioned the need for a congressional probe.
The New York Post had reported contents it said were found on the president's son's laptop by a computer repairman.
"This morning we return not to focus on advancing this robust agenda of progress but instead to take up an authentically trivial pursuit all based on the obsessive victimology of right-wing politics in America," said Raskin, the panel's ranking Democrat.
"The majority has called him to revisit a two-year-old story about a private editorial decision by Twitter not to allow links to a single New York Post article made for a two-day period that had no discernible influence on anyone or anything. The New York Post published an article in its own pages and it was carried by lots of other media outlets."
"It was widely discussed, including on Twitter itself, and even during the brief moment in time when links were not provided, and it was a fixture in right-wing media for the next three weeks before the election," Raskin continued. "I think even the chairman and other members of this committee were out on TV and social media talking about it. But instead of letting this trivial pursuit to go, my colleagues have tried to whip up a faux scandal about this two-day lapse in their ability to spread Hunter Biden propaganda on a private media platform. Silly does not begin to capture this obsession."
"What's more, Twitter's decision is has been analyzed and debated ad nauseam," he added. "Some people think was the right decision, some people think of the wrong decision, but the key is it was Twitter's decision. Twitter is a private media company. In America, private media companies can decide what to publish or how to curate content however they want. If Twitter wants to have nothing but tweets commenting on New York Post articles run all day, it can do that. If that makes such tweets mentioning New York Post never see the light of day, they can do that. That's what the First Amendment means."
02 08 2023 10 09 22 youtu.be
