For Twitter, this week has brought the attack of the right wing.
First, it was sued by a banned far-right news blogger who claims the company violated his free-speech rights. Now Project Veritas has released a couple of videos clearly meant to portray Twitter as extremely liberal and biased — the latest in the barrage of conservatives’ criticism of tech companies’ purported bias against them.
The first video, released Wednesday by the right-wing James O’Keefe outfit known for controversial (and sometimes doctored) videos, shows a Twitter network security engineer saying the company would be willing to help the Department of Justice’s investigation by turning over President Trump’s direct messages and deleted tweets.
In the eight-minute video, Clay Haynes tells a Project Veritas “undercover journalist” who asks him what the company is doing to rein in Trump because she says “he’s going to get us into so much trouble” that unfortunately, what the president tweets is newsworthy. That is in line with Twitter’s official line on the issue of banning the president. Last week, Twitter basically said it’s not going to happen because he’s a world leader and people need to be able to see and discuss the “important information” he conveys on the platform.
Haynes and the woman from Project Veritas appear to be at a restaurant, and he does not seem to know he is being recorded — recording people without their consent is illegal in California. It’s unclear where the video was recorded, but Twitter is based in San Francisco.
Later, O’Keefe himself, in disguise, talks to Haynes and asks if Twitter is “working with the DOJ” on its investigation into Trump and other figures in his administration. Haynes said he “can’t comment, and even if I knew I wouldn’t comment.”
Read the full story at SiliiconBeat.
