{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://comer.house.gov/2020/10/comer-presses-twitter-its-censorship-certain-news", "Comer Presses Twitter on Its Censorship of Certain News", "2020-10-23", "2020", "2020-10", "Republican", "House", "KY", "James Comer", "C001108", "comer.house.gov", "comer", "https://comer.house.gov/media", "scraper", "WASHINGTON\u2014House Committee on Oversight and Reform Ranking Member James Comer (R-Ky.) today condemned Twitter\u2019s censorship of a negative New York Post article about Joe Biden and called on CEO Jack Dorsey to provide information on Twitter\u2019s censorship policy that discriminates against certain news and not others. Earlier today, Oversight Republicans requested an emergency hearing on Big Tech\u2019s election interference.\n\n\u201cTwitter tamped down circulation of the article and limited its ability to be shared with the American people. In doing so, Twitter benefited one candidate for President at the expense of the other,\u201d wrote Ranking Member Comer. \u201cSuch Orwellian tactics are the opposite of how Twitter has responded during other major news cycles over the past several years.\u201d\n\nTwitter claims it censored the New York Post article under its \u201chacked materials policy\u201d without providing any evidence the materials were hacked. In the letter, Ranking Member Comer notes that Twitter did nothing to limit the spread of the New York Times article regarding President Trump\u2019s taxes despite the questionable legality of the Times obtaining the records. He also notes that false rumors about Brett Kavanaugh swirled on the platform during his Supreme Court confirmation hearing with Twitter taking no action then. Ranking Member Comer calls on Twitter to provide links that Twitter has blocked under its \u201chacked materials policy\u201d and what steps, if any, Twitter took to verify the accuracy of the New York Post article, the New York Times article, and rumors about Brett Kavanaugh.\n\nBelow is the full text of the letter.\n\nDear Mr. Dorsey:\n\nYesterday the New York Post published an article discussing alleged emails showing Hunter Biden may have introduced his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden, to an executive from Burisma, a Ukrainian energy firm which was paying Hunter Biden tens of thousands of dollars per month. If true, this narrative raises questions about whether Joe Biden lied to the American public about using his position as Vice President to help his son\u2019s Ukrainian business dealings.\n\nShortly after its publication the article began to circulate and be retweeted on Twitter. Such activities are not uncommon when breaking news occurs. Yesterday, however, Twitter responded very differently than it had in past instances where important stories had been published by major media outlets. Despite yesterday\u2019s article being placed in the fourth-largest newspaper in the United States, Twitter unilaterally decided to mark the story as \u201cpotentially unsafe\u201d and blocked it. Twitter also \u201ctemporarily locked White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany\u2019s account, as well as the New York Post\u2019s, adding notices to their tweets saying they violated Twitter\u2019s rules on prohibiting publishing hacked materials.\u201d After the New York Post article was blocked, Twitter then suppressed an official press release from the Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee that reposted the article and blocked users from tweeting the link.\n\nThough you later acknowledged blocking the article without context was \u201cunacceptable\u201d and the company\u2019s communications surrounding its actions was \u201cnot great,\u201d Twitter tamped down circulation of the article and limited its ability to be shared with the American people. In doing so, Twitter benefited one candidate for President at the expense of the other.\n\nSuch Orwellian tactics are the opposite of how Twitter has responded during other major news cycles over the past several years. Recently, the New York Times published a series of articles regarding President Trump\u2019s taxes. Despite the suspect legality of the Times obtaining the tax records and writing about them, Twitter took no steps to limit dissemination of the article on its platform. During the hearings to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court in 2018 rumors swirled about on Twitter with suspect veracity\u2014all later to be proven false. Yet Twitter took no steps then, either, to limit dissemination of such rumors on its platform.\n\nPerhaps even more troubling, Brandon Borrman, Twitter\u2019s vice president of global communications, claimed Twitter took these steps under its \u201chacked materials policy,\u201d without providing any evidence the materials were the result of a hacking. Borrman even claimed Twitter had \u201cblocked links before under the policy, but did not specify when.\u201d\n\nTherefore, please provide a list of all links Twitter has blocked on its platform from January 1, 2019 to the present. In addition, please provide answers to the following questions:\n\nWhat, if any, steps did Twitter take to verify the accuracy of yesterday\u2019s New York Post article before blocking its URL and locking certain accounts?\n\nWhat evidence, if any, does Twitter have that the emails mentioned in yesterday\u2019s New York Post article were hacked?\n\nWhat, if any, steps did Twitter take to verify the accuracy of the September-October 2020 New York Times articles regarding President Trump\u2019s taxes?\n\nWas there any discussion within Twitter leadership about the New York Times article falling under Twitter\u2019s rules on prohibiting publishing hacked materials?\n\nWhat, if any, steps did Twitter take to verify the accuracy of the myriad rumors surrounding Brett Kavanaugh shared on Twitter in early September 2018?\n\nI look forward to receiving your responses in this matter no later than 5:00 p.m. on Friday, October 16, 2020.\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-06-28T00:34:36Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://comer.house.gov/2020/10/comer-presses-twitter-its-censorship-certain-news"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.8664079941809177, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}