Democratic lawmaker says Twitter censorship went too far: 'Simply not what we do in this country'

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Rep. Ro Khanna rips Twitter censorship after Musk reveals ‘secret blacklists’

Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., on Twitter censorship, Republicans planning to launch various investigations in new Congress, and Sen. Sinema switching to Independent

Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., continued his defense of the First Amendment on "America's Newsroom" Friday after Elon Musk's second installment of the "Twitter Files" revealed the platform secretly "blacklisted" certain tweets and users. In the first release by reporter Matt Taibbi, an email from Khanna showed the congressman expressing his concerns to Twitter about their actions to suppress the New York Post's Hunter Biden stories.

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RO KHANNA: It's problematic… they're effectively a modern public square and they should not be engaged in censorship. Now, it's one thing for them to say, 'Don't put up sensational pictures of Hunter Biden.' I understand that. But to censor The New York Post? Look, The New York Post hasn't written a positive article about me, I think, in my six years in Congress. But I would never dream of saying shut them down or don't allow them to publish articles. I mean, that's the whole essence of democracy. And we need to stand up for the First Amendment.

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I don't think you want these sites to have anti-Semitism or racism. But my understanding is it's going beyond that. It's not just that they're taking down speech that is hate. And Elon Musk has said he wants to take that down. It's that they're censoring based on viewpoint. And that's simply not what we do in this country.  

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We shouldn't be censoring people and shouldn't be censoring them based on viewpoint. What concerns me with the second release of the "Twitter Files" is it seems some people are being censored or de-amplified because of their beliefs. Another thing is to have respect, and I don't think you want these sites to have anti-Semitism or racism. But my understanding is it's going beyond that. It's not just that they're taking down speech that is hate. And Elon Musk has said he wants to take that down. It's that they're censoring based on viewpoint. And that's simply not what we do in this country.