Ted Cruz rips Jack Dorsey over censorship of Post’s Hunter Biden bombshell

Sen. Ted Cruz teed off on Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey over the social-media giant’s censorship of The Post’s reporting on Hunter Biden, in a stunning rebuke during Wednesday’s Big Tech hearings on Capitol Hill.

“Mr. Dorsey, who the hell elected you and put you in charge of what the media are allꦕowed to report and what the American people are allowed to hear?” Cruz thundered at the social-media mogul. “Why do you persist♉ in behaving as a Democratic super PAC, silencing views to the contrary of your political beliefs?”

Dorsey, Facebook co-founder Mark ꦇZuckerberg and Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google parent company Alphabet, testified via live feed before the Senate Commerce Committee on topics including election security and preventing the spread of misinformation regarding the coronavirus.

But some Republican members took the opportunity to grill Dorsey and Zuckerberg on their companies’ recent suppression of Post reporting on Biden’s overseas business dealings and what role his father, D🏅emocratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, may have had in that.

Cruz (R-Texas) has led the charge against Dorsey since Twitter unilaterally barred tweets linking to The Post’s initial reporting on the bombshell Biden allegations earlier this month, a♒nd locked The Post’s account, which remains locked more than two wee🌠ks later.

Dorsey, who on Wednesday reiterated previous concessions that the initial Post purge was wrong, told Cruz the paper is welcome back on Twitter anytime — on the proviso that it deletes♌ its first Hunter Biden tweets.

“We’re not ᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚblocking The Post . . .” he tried to claim, before being cut off by Cruz.

“Can t𝓡he New York Post post on their Twitter account?” the la🐈wmaker pressed.

“If they go into their account . . .,” Dorsey began aga🤡in.

“ ‘No,’ is your answer to that,” cut in Cruz, arguing that a🌜 conditional restoration was no restoration at all. “Unless they genuflect and agree with your dic💮tates.”

Cruz drew a sharp distinction between Twitter striking down a fringe social-media voice and a major news outlet like The Pos🌼t.

“Let’s be clear: The New York Post isn’t just some random guy tweetওing. The New York Post has the fourth-highest circulation of any newspaper in America. The New York Post is 200 years old. The New York Post was founded by Alexander Hamilton,” he scolde༺d Dorsey.

“And your position is that you can sit in Siꦫlicon Valley and that you can tell them what stories they can publish, and you can tell the American people what reporting they can hear, is that right?”

Dorsey again cited Twitter’s since-amended “hacked materials” policy as the impetus for the original takedown, despite The Post clear♈ly spelling out in its stories that the documents were sourced from a laptop that formerly belonged to Hunter Biden, but was abandoned at a Delaware repair shop, becoming the owner’s rightful propert꧑y under store policy.

“We didn’t want Twitter to be a distributor for hacked materials,” he claimed. “We found that the🅘 New York Post — because it showed the direct materials, screenshots of the direct mater✨ials, and it was unclear how those were obtained — that it fell under this policy.”

Cruz blaste♓d Dorsey for erring on the side of censorship.

“They [The Post] weren’t hiding what they claimed to be the source,” the lawm💜aker said. “Is it your position that Twitter,꧂ when you can’t tell the source, blocks press stories?”

“No, not at all,” Dorsey responded. “Our team made a fast decision. The enforcement action, however, of blocking URLs, both in tweets and in🥀 DMs — in direct messages — we believe was incorrect, and we changed it.”

Even though Twitter has backed off the “hacked materials” rationale and tweaked the policy to guard against a repeat performance, Cruz pointed out that The Post’sꦗ account remains sidelined.

He also noted an apparent double standard in how Twitter let flourish a New York Times article on President Trump’s tax returns, published without the command🍃er in chief’s co🌜nsent to release those sensitive documents.

“Twitter gleefully allowe🦩d people to circulate that,” Cruz said. “But when the article was critical of Joe Biden, Twitter engaged in rampant censorship and silencing.”

Although Cruz reserved his ire almost exclusively for Dorseyꦓ, he also had strong w🧸ords for Zuckerberg and Pichai.

“The three witnesses we have before this committee today collectively pose, I believe, the♚ single greatest threat to ✃free speech in America, and the greatest threat we have to free and fair elections,” he said.

Cruz’s pounding playedꦍ out as part of a larger h♔earing on the responsibility of tech companies to referee content on their platforms and ensure a level playing field regardless of users’ political affiliations.

While Republicans, like Cruz, fꦅocused on perceived disproportionate censorship of conservative voices, Democratic members of the ౠcommittee stressed the need for election security and ensuring that potentially fatal falsehoods on the coronavirus still be policed.

“I believe that t𒊎he tech companies here today need to take more action, not less, to combat misinformation, including misin🍰formation on the election, misinformation on the COVID-19 pandemic and misinformation and posts meant to incite violence,” said Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.). “That should include misinformation spread by President Trump on their platforms.”

Twitter, in particular, has repeatedly flagged — but not deleted — posts by the president on the grounds that they contained misinformation about the election or the coronavirus, or could foment violence, drawing Trump’s anger and cal♑ls by him to repeal legal protections for tech giants under Section 230 of the 1996 federal Communications Decency Act.