During the Monday press briefing, Fox News Channel White House Correspondent Peter Doocy ripped into White House Press Secretary Karine Jean Pierre with a brutal line of questioning, asking her about the White House’s Twitter plans and if it will delete its account now that it claims to be “monitoring” the situation with Elon’s pro-free speech Twitter.
Doocy began by asking KJP when the White House plans on deleting its Twitter account, saying, “When are you guys going to delete the White House Twitter account?”
KJP, responding in a bit of a huff, replied to his question in the most annoying of ways–with another question–asking, “Why would we do that?”
And that’s when Doocy hit her with the haymaker, exposing the administration’s pearl-clutching and hypocrisy by saying, “Well, you’re saying that you’re keeping an eye on Twitter because it might not be a suitable platform, so why use it?”
KJP then had to retreat a bit and square the circle of the administration not leaving Twitter while also wringing its hands over “hate speech” and “misinformation” on the platform, saying:
“Look, I want to be very clear here, the president has always said and he has been very clear in his belief that it is important for social media platforms to continue to take steps to reduce hate speech and misinformation and he will continue to say that. But media platforms make independent choices about their information that they present so look, I don’t have anything to share on any policy or any changes that we will be making. We have multiple platforms, as you know, that we utilize to communicate with the American people.”
Adding to that pearl-clutching after a bit more of a back and forth with Doocy over whether the administration will pressure Twitter to censor people, KJP insisted that everyone wants “hate speech and misinformation” to be called out, saying “We are reading what you all are writing and looking at what you are all reporting about misinformation that is out there, but, you know, I would hope that all Americans, including social media companies, civil rights organizations that I just laid out, including Fox as well, would agree that we need to call out hate speech and misinformation.”
Watch their back and forth here:
On her November 29th press conference, KJP hinted that Biden might start looking into taking action against social media companies that don’t comply with his preferred “hate speech and misinformation” policies, saying:
“[W]hat I can say as well to one of your questions is that the President has long stated his belief about the importance of social media uplifting accurate information — as it relates to a once-in-a-generation virus, for example — as for another example, Facebook has done, since the Trump administration, while those continuing to take — take steps to reduce hate speech and misinformation.
“He’s also concerned about the power large social media platforms have over our everyday lives and has long argued that tech platforms must be held accountable for the harms that they cause.
“And that’s why he has long called for greater accountability for tech platforms, including the fundamental reforms to Section 230, more competition, stronger privacy protection, and greater — and greater transparency.”
So though she wouldn’t say so to Peter, perhaps the Biden Administration is coming after Twitter after all.
