Savannah Hulsey Pointer, FISM News
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Twitter could be facing legal troubles very soon if one Republican gets his way. A new policy put into place under the recently installed Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal has caused Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) to push for breaking the social media giant up, citing censorship toward differing views.
According to Townhall Media, the new privacy policy will take action against the sharing of “unauthorized private media,” which many believe would allow the outlet, which already bends to the left, to further remove content supported by conservatives adding to the platforms history of censorship.
“We ought to break them up. At the end of the day, here’s the deal: The last thing America needs is another Big Tech robber baron who doesn’t care anything for free speech, and that’s exactly what Twitter is giving us,” Hawley said during an appearance on “Fox News Primetime.”
The move was suspiciously timed, as former Twitter CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey stepped down from the chief executive position on Monday. A statement was released notifying users of the new policy which they branded the “misuse of private media” shortly after the change in power. Twitter also said the activity they’re targeting has a “disproportionate effect on women, activists, dissidents, and members of minority communities.”
Adding to suspicions regarding the motive behind the policy is Argwal’s recently resurfaced comment from an old interview that Twitter is “not to be bound by the First Amendment.” The new CEO further said that his goal is to “focus less on thinking about free speech, but thinking about how the times have changed.”
In statement regarding the new policy Twitter said, “When we receive a report that a Tweet contains unauthorized private media, we will now take action in line with our range of enforcement options.”
Federalist writer Kylee Zempel took a tongue-in-cheek look at the policy, pointing out the blatant double standard that Twitter and other social media outlets have had when it comes to censorship:
To be perfectly clear, here are a few tweets that would no longer fly: a photo of Gov. Gavin Newsom hobnobbing maskless at a boujee restaurant, a video of Rep. Rashida Tlaib breaking it down bare-faced on a wedding dance floor, and a clip of a blown-out Nancy Pelosi at a shut-down hair salon.
Many like Zempel, see this new policy as a not too veiled attempt to protect liberal voices, while silencing those of conservatives.
“These are not only gross privacy violations of public servants,” the writer said sarcastically. “…but they absolutely lead to emotional harm — mostly for their press secretaries, Joy Reid, and Democrats writ large.”
According to Hawley, it’s altogether unlikely, given Twitter’s history, that they will do much beyond target conservatives still using the platform:
I promise you what it won’t mean, the people whose privacy won’t be protected are normal Americans who want to express their views, particularly if they have conservative views. I promise you that their privacy won’t be respected, they’ll still get censored.
Hawley further added:
It’s the classic what’s become the rule of the left, which is rules for thee, but not for me … They don’t follow their own standards – they never do. Here’s the other thing about Twitter: It doesn’t really matter what they write down. They don’t follow any of the rules anywhere. They just make it up as they go along.