Former Twitter VP rejects claim platform targets Trump

Former Twitter Vice President Bruce Daisley on Friday rejected conservative claims that the social media platform unfairly targets President Trump for violations of its policies.

His comments on "Varney & Co" came as Trump feuds with Twitter over its decisions to add discretionary labels to two of his tweets — one regarding mail-in ballot fraud and the other regarding protests in Minneapolis, Minnesota — since Tuesday.

The company hadn't previously labeled any of Trump's tweets. The president, who has more than 80 million followers on the platform, has long argued he would have even more if Twitter weren't shadow-banning them.

"Routinely, other people are censored," Daisley said of Twitter's policies. "In fact, I used to have a job [at Twitter] where I was contacted all the time about people who were very upset that we'd taken some action against them."

Some politicians and pundits have condemned Twitter for not adding the same labels to tweets that could be interpreted as harmful from political leaders in other countries, such as Iranian militant leaders.

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Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, called on Attorney General William Barr to initiate a criminal investigation into Twitter's policies in a Friday letter, saying, "Twitter and its principals face criminal liability and sanctions exposure for providing social media accounts to Iranian persons designated as Specially Designated Nationals" by the U.S. government.

U.S. companies are generally barred from doing business with people to whom the designation

has been applied.

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Daisley also said social media platforms have tried to "stay out of the story" for a long time, but criticism has been building among both Democrats and Republicans of how social media companies handle controversial content.

In the wake of the 2016 elections, for example, the companies were upbraided for failing to prevent Russian intelligence agents exploiting their platforms to sway voters.

"They reached a point where they felt like they had to make an intervention," he said.

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The former Twitter executive said presidential speech has deteriorated over time because of social media, and "we're living in an era where" we should "pause and should think about how we can get back to some of the values people like Ronald Regan embodied when they were in power."

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