WASHINGTON — House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy Thursday said a law protecting internet companies from liability for the content posted to their social media platforms should be repealed and condemned Twitter for deleting a tweet from the account of Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee concerning a news story that alleges Hunter Biden tried to set up a meeting between then Vice President Joe Biden and Ukrainian businessman.
“It is clear that Section 230 (of the Communications Decency Act) in its current form is no longer working” McCarthy said at a news conference.
McCarthy also accused tech companies of being selective in what is censored on their platforms saying “if you are a citizen and posted information on the story, your account was locked.”
Twitter also froze the New York Post’s Twitter account after it published and tweeted a story that alleged that the former vice president’s son, who served on the board of Ukranian energy company Burisma, arranged a meeting between a Burisma executive and the elder Biden, who later pushed Ukranian officials to fire a prosecutor investigating the company. The newspaper based its story on emails by Hunter Biden that it obtained.
Twitter Safety, Twitter’s official account for safety on the site, tweeted Wednesday that the articles contained individuals’ personal information and caused safety concerns.
“The policy, established in 2018, prohibits the use of our service to distribute content obtained without authorization. We don’t want to incentivize hacking by allowing Twitter to be used as distribution for possibly illegally obtained materials,” the company explained.
Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act reads, “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider,” which means Facebook, Twitter and other platforms are not liable for content posted by users.
McCarthy said that the New York Post story is important because it shows the son of a presidential candidate taking funds from a foreign company.
He also noted that the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Jim Jordan, and others on the committee have drafted legislation to restore free expression.
During a break in the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing on the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett as a Supreme Court justice, Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz and Joshua Hawley also condemned censorship of the New York Post story.
“Never before have we seen active censorship of a major press publication with serious allegations of corruption of one of the two major candidates for president,” said Sen. Cruz.