Ex-Twitter execs face GOP probe on Hunter Biden

(8 Feb 2023) RESTRICTION SUMMARY: POOL   Washington, DC - 8  February 2023 1. Wide of House Oversight and Accountability Committee hearing 2. SOUNDBITE (English) Rep. James Comer, House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman: "Today's hearing is the House Oversight and Accountability Committee's first step in examining the coordination between the federal government and big tech to restrict protected speech and interfere in the democratic process." 3. Cutaway of witnesses 4. SOUNDBITE (English) Rep. James Comer, House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman: "Twitter under the leadership of our witnesses today was a private company. The federal government used to accomplish what it constitutionally cannot limit the free exercise of speech. We now know all this thanks to Elon Musk and the independent journalists who have contributed to what are known as the "Twitter Files." That brings us to the specific topic of today's hearing. Twitter censorship of a news article that shed light on Joe Biden's involvement in his family's suspicious business deals." 5. Wide cutaway of committee hearing 6. SOUNDBITE (English) James Baker, Twitter's Former Deputy General Counsel ; "I was not aware of and certainly did not engage in any conspiracy or other effort to do anything unethical, improper or unlawful while I was at Twitter. Period. I did not act unlawfully or otherwise inappropriately in any manner with respect to Hunter Biden's laptop." 7. Cutaway of audience 8. SOUNDBITE (English) James Baker, Twitter's Former Deputy General Counsel ; "I'm aware of no unlawful collusion with or direction from any government agency or political campaign on how Twitter should have handled the Hunter Biden laptop situation." 9. Cutaway 10. SOUNDBITE (English) Vijaya Gadde, Twitter's Former Chief Legal Officer: "This policy revision immediately allowed people to tweet the original articles with the embedded source materials, relying on its longstanding practice not to retroactively apply new policies. Twitter informed the New York Post that it could immediately begin tweeting when it deleted the original tweets, which would have freed them to retweet the same content again. The New York Post chose not to delete its original tweets, so Twitter made an exception after two weeks to retroactively apply the new policy to the Post's tweets. In hindsight, Twitter should have reinstated the post account immediately." 11. Cutaway 12. SOUNDBITE (English) Yoel Roth, Former Twitter Head of Safety and Integrity: "I've been clear that in my judgment at the time, Twitter should not have taken action to block the New York Post's reporting. And just 24 hours after doing so, the company acknowledged its error. But the decisions here aren't straightforward, and hindsight is 2020. It isn't obvious what the right response is to a suspected but not confirmed cyber attack by another government on a presidential election. I believe Twitter erred in this case because we wanted to avoid repeating the mistakes of 2016." 13. Cutaway 14.  SOUNDBITE (English) Rep. Jamie Raskin, House Oversight and Accountability Committee Ranking Member: "Did I hear you correctly say that there were thousands or even hundreds of thousands of counterfeit Twitter accounts set up by Russian propaganda and disinformation for Vladimir Putin to pump his poison into the bloodstream of American social media? Is that right?" 15. SOUNDBITE (English) Yoel Roth, Former Twitter Head of Safety and Integrity: "That's right, sir. And that's not just past tense. Those accounts are active on social media today. This is an ongoing campaign." Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter:   / ap_archive   Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​ Instagram:   / apnews   You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...