Sen. Ted Cruz blasted Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey over the platform’s recent practice of attaching disclaimers and links to all tweets regarding voter fraud. Cruz said that by doing so, Twitter is undermining its claims not to be a “publisher” when it comes to content.
Dorsey appeared Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee along with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to answer questions about favoritism, censorship, and the handling of misinformation online.
Dorsey attempted to dodge Cruz’s accusation, saying that while he was no expert, his company was merely “linking to a broader conversation” about the topic of voter fraud.
“No, no you’re not,” Cruz admonished. “You put up a page that says, quote, ‘voter fraud of any kind is exceedingly rare in the United States.’ That’s not linking to a broader conversation, that’s taking a disputed policy position and you’re a publisher when you’re doing that.”
The conservative Texas senator made clear that he was not suggesting Twitter had no right to take a policy position, but rather saying that once it did so, it could not claim it was not a publisher.
“You’re entitled to take a policy position,” Cruz said, “but you don’t get to pretend you’re not a publisher and get a special benefit under Section 230 as a result.”
