Kevin McCarthy Says Big Tech Should Be Ashamed For Restricting Users From Sharing Hunter Biden Report
Kevin McCarthy criticized Big Tech for restricting users who tried to reshare a report about Hunter Biden. The House GOP Leader accused Facebook and Twitter of helping Joe Biden campaign by strategically stopping users from resharing an unflattering report about the former vice president's son.
McCarthy was referencing to a New York Post article about Hunter during an interview with “Sunday Morning Futures.” McCarthy went on to compare Twitter and Facebook's attempt to restrict users from resharing the article to China trying to influence the election in the United States, noting that the Big Tech should be ashamed and that Americans outraged about this.
New York Post business reporter Noah Manskar first reported that the outlet's official Twitter account had been locked, citing the Biden story being sourced from hacked information. Aside from that, Twitter has also locked the account of White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany, as well as NewsBusters managing editor Curtis Houck after they shared the article.
Facebook followed suit and locked and restricted distribution of the article, and said it would rely on its fact-checking partners to decide whether or not the content is legit. The Post report includes an alleged email between Hunter and an adviser to Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings, who expressed gratitude to the younger Biden for giving him a chance to meet the then Vice President.
The Biden campaign debunked the reports, claiming the Democratic presidential nominee isn't involved in any sort of wrongdoing, and the purported meeting didn't even take place. Addressing the controversy, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey called his company's action "unacceptable," according to Fox News.
Taking to his Twitter account, Dorsey admitted that the company's actions on the New York Post article weren't great, adding that their action to block URL sharing through tweets and DMs without any sort of context as to why they were blocking was unacceptable. Republican Senators Josh Hawley, Lindsey Graham, and Ted Cruz called on the heads of Facebook and Twitter to testify before Congress, as critics accuse them of censoring reporting that criticizes Democrats.
On Sunday, McCarthy pointed out to Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, noting that it is time now for them to get rid of Section 230 and start over. The aforesaid section states that no provider or user of an interactive computer service should be treated as the publisher/speaker of pieces of information offered by another information content provider.