The Senate Judiciary Committee is planning to issue a subpoena to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey after the company blocked users from sharing unverified New York Post articles about former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter. On Oct. 20, the committee will hold a vote over sending a subpoena that would require Dorsey to appear by Oct. 23.
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- On Wednesday, the New York Post published a story claiming Joe Biden's son Hunter was paid to set up a meeting between the then-VP and a Ukrainian oil executive. Users who tried to tweet the link were shown the message: "We can't complete this request because the link has been identified by Twitter or our partners as being potentially harmful."
- Facebook did not prohibit the sharing of the article but limited its distribution until it could be verified by an independent third party.
- Republican Sen. Josh Hawley wanted the committee to issue a subpoena to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg as well, though it is unknown if he will be included in Tuesday's vote.
- Dorsey and Zuckerberg are already scheduled to appear in front of the Senate Commerce Committee alongside Google CEO Sundar Pichai on Oct. 28. The three men will testify about liability protections, media consolidation, and data privacy.
- On Wednesday evening, Dorsey tweeted that Twitter's handling of the situation was "unacceptable." Twitter clarified that it banned the NY Post story from tweets as it violated its rules on sharing private information and hacked materials.