Today’s House Oversight Committee hearing on Twitter and the FBI/DOJ coordinating to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop story featured testimony from Twitter’s former head of trust and safety Yoel Roth.
It’s worth noting that Roth, who finds it regrettable that @LibsofTikTok is still allowed to exist on Twitter, attempted during his testimony to use the Russia collusion hoax to justify suppressing the story:
Yoel Roth says Twitter saw Hunter's laptop having similarities to the 2016 Russian hacking of the DNC.
They are similar in the fact that the DNC fell for a phishing link, Hunter forgot his laptop at a repair shop, and there's no evidence Russia was responsible for either of them pic.twitter.com/NWcPloiJGq
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) February 8, 2023
Roth says that Twitter's mistake was due to his memory of Russia's hack & leak of DNC emails in 2016.
He fails to mention that he himself said FBI repeatedly primed him in 2020 to dismiss reports of the laptop as another Russian disinfo operation. https://t.co/VbUPuhLkDS
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) February 8, 2023
Let's note that Twitter insiders even disputed this. They questioned any evidence time it to Russia.
And they censored it anyway.
That is Roth's and Gadde's Incompetence.
— Pradheep J. Shanker (@Neoavatara) February 8, 2023
And speaking of Vijaya Gadde, who served as general counsel and the head of legal, policy, and trust at Twitter, was at the hearing as well. And she did just about as good a job as Roth in acquitting herself of any willful wrongdoing. Which is to say she didn’t do it well at all:
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Vijaya Gadde: "It became clear that Twitter had not fully appreciated the impact of that policy on free press…In hindsight, Twitter should have reinstated the Post account immediately." pic.twitter.com/VeeFuXwtR4
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) February 8, 2023
“In hindsight.” As if it took them several years to realize that what they’d done was wrong.
well that's *closer* to what you should've done in that situation, but believe it or not there's a better answer https://t.co/XjfMR7SBOp
— Seth Mandel (@SethAMandel) February 8, 2023
Yeah, like how about never having deplatformed the New York Post in the first place? Or even taking immediate steps to rectify the situation? Either of those would’ve been far better than what Twitter actually did.
She's lying. She knew exactly what they were doing, in real time. https://t.co/KQHOi08WLO
— Pradheep J. Shanker (@Neoavatara) February 8, 2023
Oh, she’s lying. She’s lying through her teeth:
Vijaye Gadde, the former general counsel of Twitter, claims that its censorship of the NY Post article was done in line with its policy against hacked materials, but she does not mention that Roth & his team found they were *not* from hacking. https://t.co/Gn19rmFLEl
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) February 8, 2023
There was extremely strong evidence the Hunter Biden emails were authentic and *not* the result of hacking. The @nypost included a picture of the receipt signed by Hunter Biden and an FBI subpoena proving it had taken possession of the laptop.https://t.co/yB0qQ1fEbm
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) February 8, 2023
It would have taken a few minutes for Jim Baker, Yoel Roth, Vijaye Gadde to confirm whether the FBI subpoena was real or fake. None of them did so.
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) February 8, 2023
None of them had any interest in doing so. Because none of them had any interest in being honest with the public.
Roth, Gadde, etc are now claiming a level of ignorance that means, if you believe them, they were grossly Incompetent.
Which is what I've been saying all along.
— Pradheep J. Shanker (@Neoavatara) February 8, 2023
They’re certainly incompetent in the sense that they thought no one would ever find out about what they’ve done. But they most certainly weren’t ignorant; they were extremely deliberate in stifling facts and speech in order to help the FBI and DOJ shield Joe Biden.
What stood out the most from this episode is the hubris and foolishness of thinking they could suppress the story. If anything it shined a huge spotlight on it. https://t.co/HQbOWJFDDN
— Holden (@Holden114) February 8, 2023
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Related:
Michael Shellenberger digs into the #TwitterFiles to fact-check testimony of ex Twitter officials
AOC furious that House GOP is abusing time and resources on ‘Hunter Biden’s half-fake laptop story’
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