Former Twitter global head of trust and safety Yoel Roth confessed before the House Oversight Committee that he had used an app to delete messages after reading them.
Roth testified when the committee was investigating why Twitter blocked a connection to a New York Post article found on Hunter Biden’s laptop. The 2020 presidential election season saw the release of that book. Former Twitter CLO Vijaya Gadde, Sr., Deputy General Counsel James Baker, Jr., and whistleblower Anika Collier Navaroli were also questioned by the committee.
Baker answered, “I don’t recall,” and Gadde replied, “Not to my memory,” when asked if they had ever used a hidden messaging app like Signal, Snapchat, or Wicker to get in touch with federal agents.
When asked to confirm his earlier agreement, Roth said, “Yes.”
For his part, House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer (R-KY) released a statement on Thursday in which he alleged that “Big Tech and the Swamp collaborated to prevent reporting about the Biden family’s questionable business activities in the lead-up to the 2020 presidential election.” Long before the story was published in the New York Post, the CIA, and the FBI had been in contact with Big Tech, specifically Twitter, telling them to verify the authenticity of any stories about Hunter Biden.
We also know that several of Twitter’s senior filtering team members considered, in Comer’s words, “how we can justify restricting the propagation of the news.” Some members of the group were hesitant to believe the results. The American public is curious as to who is responsible for this attack on free speech and why Big Tech and the Swamp worked together to bury the news that the Bidens were selling access to their private lives for financial gain. Someone needs to take responsibility now.
On Wednesday, the three former Twitter workers repeated their assertion that the government had no role in their decision to bury the New York Post report.
Ohio Republican Congressman Jim Jordan tweeted his doubts about Roth’s choice to hide the Post piece. His next question to Roth was, “Did the news break your policy?” in addition to the caveat, “So the FBI didn’t tell you it was phony, didn’t tell you it was hacked.”
I disagreed with it at the time “In fact, Roth was the one who made that claim.
Since you confessed that it does not violate any laws or our policy on hacked materials, I find your reasoning to be completely illogical. Many people are likely wondering, “Why did you take it down if it didn’t break your regulations and they didn’t warn you that it was fake or that it had been hacked?” Jordan did attempt.
The company “made the determination that concluded that it did violate the rules,” Roth said. “At the time, I did not agree that it did, but my immediate supervisor presented me with that conclusion, and I did not disagree with it strongly enough to lodge a formal complaint.”
I guess you already know what occurred, Mr. Roth. At one point in the discussion, Jordan said, “I think you were duped, you know. I suppose you guys wanted to get down to the nitty-gritty of the situation because the chairman publicly displayed your opinion that every member of the White House is a Nazi. If I had to guess, I’d say you all wanted it to be taken down. You and these gentlemen appear to get together every week, based on a cursory examination of your Tweets. Perhaps you intended to have it taken down, but the FBI took advantage of you.