New York Daily News

AOC: Twitter tweaked rules to protect Don

- BY MICHAEL MCAULIFF AND DAVE GOLDINER

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Wednesday revealed that Twitter changed its abusive content rules to avoid punishing former President Donald Trump when he tweeted that she should “go back” to where she came from.

The fiery American-born progressiv­e lawmaker got an ex-Twitter employee to concede that bosses overruled her decision that Trump’s tweet violated rules barring hate speech against immigrants.

Days later, the social media giant scrapped a clause that mentioned the phrase Trump used as an example of xenophobic abuse that should not be tolerated.

“So much for bias against the right wing on Twitter,” Ocasio-Cortez (D-Queens, Bronx) said.

The salvo from Ocasio-Cortez came during a Republican-led hearing that mostly focused on Twitter’s actions to limit the spread of a dubious story about presidenti­al son Hunter Biden’s laptop in 2020.

Twitter executives admitted overreacti­ng to the laptop story because they believed the platform needed to guard against allowing suspected disinforma­tion to swing the presidenti­al election.

Republican­s have long believed that the incident points to liberal bias at Twitter before its purchase by right-wing tech mogul Elon Musk.

Democrats like Ocasio-Cortez, on the other hand, have sought to hold social media’s feet to the fire for not doing enough to prevent the spread of hate speech and misinforma­tion on their platforms.

Trump tweeted the ugly attack on Ocasio-Cortez and three other members of her progressiv­e “Squad” of women of color in July 2019.

Although he didn’t name them, Trump accused the four of hating America and suggested they should return to their homelands.

“Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came?” he asked.

Ocasio-Cortez and two other “Squad” lawmakers were born in the U.S. A fourth, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), was born in Somalia and is a naturalize­d American citizen.

 ?? ??

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from United States