Twitter’s former head of Trust and Safety Yoel Roth testified Wednesday the New York Post’s bombshell story about Hunter Biden’s laptop did not violate any of Twitter’s policies despite the newspaper being censored for it.
During the House Oversight and Accountability Committee hearing, Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) grilled Roth over Twitter’s decision to suspend the New York Post’s account in the days leading up to the 2020 election.
“Mr. Roth, within just mere minutes or hours after the New York Post published its story on the Hunter Biden laptop, at 8:51 am you sent a message to a team, part of your team, I assume, and you said ‘it isn’t clearly violative of our hack materials policy,’ referring to the story, ‘nor is it clearly in violation of anything else.’ Do you remember sending that message?” Biggs asked.
Roth replied, “I don’t recall that message specifically, but that does sound like my judgment on that day, yes.”
Citing internal emails revealed in the Twitter Files, Biggs when on to point out how Twitter’s former legal counsel Jim Baker assured Roth that he’s “seen some reliable cyber security folks questioned the authenticity of the emails in another way.”
Biggs then referred to Roth’s reply to Baker that “the key factor in forming our approach is consensus from experts monitoring election security and disinformation, that this looks a lot like a hack and leak that learned from the 2016 Wiki Leaks approach.”
