Two Republican senators announced that they would summon the heads of Facebook and Twitter to testify in a Senate hearing, following their censorship of two New York Post stories regarding Hunter Biden’s “smoking gun” emails. South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz -- both from the Senate Judiciary Committee -- said they are planning to subpoena Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to find out “what the hell is going on.”
The subpoenas for the two CEOs came after social media platforms Facebook and Twitter blocked two articles by the Post about emails by Hunter Biden.
The paper’s first story centered on a 2015 email between Biden and Vadym Pozharskyi, an executive in Ukrainian gas company Burisma. Pozharskyi thanked Hunter for the chance to meet his father, former Vice President and current Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden – contradicting an earlier statement by the elder Biden that he “has never spoken” to his son about his “overseas business dealings.” Its second article tackled emails by the younger Biden attempting to strike deals with Chinese energy conglomerate CEFC China Energy Co.
Both emails by the younger Biden were part of files recovered from a water-damaged laptop sent to a computer store in Biden’s home state of Delaware before Federal Bureau of Investigation agents seized the device. The store owner who received the laptop copied the contents of its hard drive and turned over the copy to attorney Robert Costello. The attorney then gave it to his client, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who subsequently showed the files to the Post.
The Texas senator admitted he did not know whether the stories about the younger Biden’s dealings were true or not, saying that those questions are for the elder Biden to answer. However, he blasted Twitter for “using its corporate power to silence the press.” Cruz added: “Twitter and Facebook and Big Tech billionaires don’t get to censor political speech and actively interfere in the election.”
Meanwhile, Graham warned of Big Tech’s censorship powers in light of the suppression of both New York Post articles. “The point is, the power behind these platforms has been taken to a level that truly is dangerous," he told reporters.
Sen. Cruz has repeatedly blasted Big Tech companies for their attempts to control public discourse
A longtime critic of Big Tech censorship, Cruz has blasted technology companies several times for their biased suppression of contrary viewpoints.
During an Oct. 7 interview with Alex Marlow of Breitbart News Daily, Cruz warned that Big Tech’s political censorship was the “single greatest threat to free speech and democracy.” “Brazen” Big Tech billionaires have “amassed more power … over the public square [and] over discourse,” the senator added.
Cruz brought up an analysis by psychologist Dr. Robert Epstein about Google’s capability to manipulate elections. Epstein, a liberal Democrat who openly supported Hillary Clinton, testified during a 2019 Senate committee hearing that Google’s use of different tools shifted votes toward Clinton. Depending on how Google used their tools to influence elections, votes that shifted toward Clinton ranged from a “rock bottom minimum” of 2.6 million to a high 10.4 million votes.
Incidentally, this was not the first time Cruz and Twitter crossed swords. Earlier in June, Cruz called out Twitter for continuing to provide a platform for the Ayatollah Khomeini – which Congress criminalized as facilitating the oppression of the Iranian regime – yet censoring tweets by President Donald Trump.
He said: “Twitter has no business deciding which politicians they like and which ones they don’t. They should be a neutral public forum.”
Indeed, Cruz is correct: Twitter and other Big Tech companies have no business censoring content – especially those outlining irregularities by government officials and their families.
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