In the Eye of Twitter Storm: Former Legal Officer Vijaya Gadde Admits to Lapses in Handling Hunter Biden Story

Vijaya Gadde, Twitter’s former chief legal officer has admitted that the social media platform should have immediately reinstated the New York Post’s account after the company reversed its decision to block the Hunter Biden story. The Indian American was among three former Twitter executives who testified on Feb. 8 in front of a GOP-led House Oversight Committee about the company’s role in limiting the distribution of a story about President Biden’s son’s laptop in 2020. Gadde was joined by James Baker, former deputy general counsel; and Yoel Roth, former global head of trust and safety.

In her opening statement before the panel led by Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.), Gadde said Twitter blocked tweets containing the Post’s 2020 article based on a 2018 policy the company implemented aimed at preventing the platform from “becoming a dumping ground for hacked materials.” She also noted that during her time at Twitter, it “never lost sight of its deep commitment to promoting and defending free expression around the world.”

While the three denied any government involvement in the decision blocking the story, Elon Musk has previously said that the internal communications released as part of “Twitter files” show government censorship. 

Gadde and Baker were fired and Roth resigned following Musk’s purchase of Twitter late last year. Immediately after he took over as CEO, he criticized Gadde over the blocking incident, calling it “obviously incredibly inappropriate.” He also posted a meme critical of her and the company’s moderation policies.

Gadde, who worked at Twitter since 2011, was the key executive charged with overseeing Twitter’s trust and safety, legal and public policy functions. She made headlines for major decisions such as prohibiting political ads on the platform in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election. During the Capitol riots in January 2021, she was reportedly the driving force behind the permanent suspension of Trump’s account, “a position that has earned her devoted fans within Twitter, as well as a large contingent of right-wing critics,” the New York Post noted. 

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said, “I really struggle to see what the other aim here is, because the Republican Party is providing no other aim,” she accused Republicans of convening the hearing to “bully and harass” the witnesses.

During the Feb. 8 hearing, Comer who has “launched a broad investigation into the Biden family’s business dealings,” believes that “the government may have been involved in the suppression of the story,” as reported by CNN. “America witnessed a coordinated campaign by social media companies, mainstream news and the intelligence communities to suppress and de-legitimized the existence of Hunter Biden’s laptop and its contents,” Comer said at the hearing. Twitter “worked hand-in-hand with the FBI to monitor the protected speech of Americans, receiving millions of dollars to do so,” he added. 

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) claimed that the former Twitter employees were “played by the FBI” and argued that “they looked for reasons to take down posts about the New York Post story about Hunter Biden.”

Representative Nancy Mace (R., S.C.) blasted Gadde for presiding over the company’s censorship of alternative medical perspectives. During the tense exchange, Mace accused Gadde and Twitter executives of shutting down Jay Bhattacharya, a Stanford medical professor, who was critical of Covid-19 lockdowns

Other Republicans like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) criticized the executives for their treatment of conservatives. Rep. Marjorie Taylor. Greene blasted the Twitter executives for banning her account. CNN notes that her account was suspended last January “for repeated violations of Twitter’s Covid-19 misinformation policy,” but was restored in November after Musk purchased Twitter. Boebert blasted the former Twitter staffers testifying for having “silenced members of Congress from communicating with their constituents,” including her.

Meanwhile, Democrats on the committee wondered what their Republican counterparts would gain dredging up a two-year-old content moderation decision made by a group of executives who have already acknowledged it was a mistake.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) told The Washington Post during a break that “I really struggle to see what the other aim here is, because the Republican Party is providing no other aim,” she accused Republicans of convening the hearing to “bully and harass” the witnesses

Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) argued there were legitimate reasons for Twitter and ex-intelligence officials to suspect the laptop story was Russian disinformation. 

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the top Democrat on the committee, said in his opening statement that Republicans were trying to “whip up” a scandal involving a private company rather than focusing on issues that matter to voters. He accused the GOP of trying “to whip up a faux scandal about this two-day lapse in their ability to spread Hunter Biden propaganda on a private media platform. Silly does not even begin to capture this obsession.”