Whistleblower Tells AOC That Twitter Changed Rules to Allow Racist Trump Tweets

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez helped reveal Wednesday that Twitter changed its rules to allow Donald Trump to tweet essentially whatever he wanted.

Anika Collier Navaroli worked on Twitter’s content moderation policy. She was also the whistleblower who told the House January 6 investigative committee that the social network let Trump bend rules and tweet disinformation for years because executives enjoyed how powerful it made them.

Navaroli testified Wednesday in front of the House alongside three other former Twitter executives. Republicans had called the hearing to ask about Hunter Biden’s laptop, but Ocasio-Cortez decided it was time to “talk about something real.”

Ocasio-Cortez highlighted a Trump tweet from 2019 demanding why she and several of her colleagues (members of the Squad and, at the time, all women of color) don’t “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.”

In response to a series of questions, Navaroli explained that she and her team had recommended finding Trump in violation of Twitter policy for that tweet, particularly because phrases such as “go back to where you come from” were specifically forbidden in Twitter’s content moderation guidelines.

When she made the recommendation to one of her superiors, Navaroli’s decision was overridden. A few days later, Twitter changed its content moderation policy to remove that phrase as an example of abusive language.

“So Twitter changed their own policy after the president violated it in order to potentially accommodate his tweet?” Ocasio-Cortez asked.

When Navaroli said yes, the congresswoman replied, “So much for bias against [the] right-wing on Twitter.”

Republicans and Trump in particular have long claimed that social media is biased against them. But Navaroli’s testimony reveals that Twitter, at least, was willing to bend the rules to give world leaders much more wiggle room.

In 2019, Twitter created its public interest exemptions, which stated that even if a politician’s tweets violated content policy, the posts could be left up if they were found to be in the public interest.

Trump was only penalized when he tweeted something really egregious, such as election misinformation or comments that helped spark the January 6 riot. But by then, it was too late.

Thanks to Representative Maxwell Frost, “pussy ass bitch” is now in the congressional record.

As he questioned former Twitter safety employee Anika Collier Navaroli in a House hearing on Wednesday, Frost asked Navaroli to read out loud the expletive quote from a Chrissy Teigen tweet about Donald Trump. Navaroli then testified that the Trump administration reached out directly to Twitter, jockeying for the company to remove the post.

“Free speech,” Frost remarked about Teigen’s tweet.

The exchange was part of a House hearing, inspired by the so-called “Twitter Files,” on whether Democrats worked with Twitter to suppress the story of Hunter Biden’s laptop. Frost’s line of questioning complicated Republicans’ narrative that Twitter colluded with the government to baselessly silence right-wing views.

Frost, the 25-year-old congressional freshman from Florida, further challenged the hearing’s supposed concern for free speech, asking whether his colleagues would host hearings on government officials suppressing free speech, rather than only private businesses making editorial decisions. Frost cited how his state’s own Governor Ron DeSantis is attacking free speech by targeting businesses that support drag shows and teachers who are teaching curriculum that DeSantis has sought to ban.

Much of the right-wing outrage driving the hearing revolved around trumped-up claims of cancel culture and of social media companies suppressing “free speech” (whether that be slurs, calls for violence, or even incitements of riots). Frost addressed this quite acutely, noting that “there’s a difference between a culture war, and how culture naturally changes,” as he suggested some of his colleagues are resistant to natural culture change. “Just yesterday, we heard a member equate immigration negatively to ‘changing our culture.’”

“The reality is that culture changes and adopts and welcomes more people. It becomes more understanding, and it also decides to reassess what’s acceptable behavior and rhetoric,” Frost said. “In this supposed culture war, they often conflate the right to free speech with the nonexistent right to not be criticized or held accountable for what you say on the internet or even real life.”

Questions surrounding free speech, online and offline, are indeed important, as are inquiries into policies on platforms where millions of people communicate. Frost’s lines of questioning, however, helped provide a reality check on how many of the concerns from the hearings’ most vocal proponents were about free speech versus about the right to say a slur, spread election or Covid conspiracies, or incite more riots on the Capitol.

It is said that the State of the Union response slot is cursed, that whoever gets the “lucky” draw to deliver the response may thereafter come into some bad political luck. Sarah Huckabee Sanders’s speech may push the idea further; her unfocused and culture war–inspired remarks on Tuesday, ringing impressively discordant compared to President Biden’s largely positive speech, may not only leave a mark on her own career but actually further hamper her already-flailing party.

Biden spent over an hour sticking to a message about policy accomplishments (highlighting bipartisan efforts, perhaps too generously, wherever he could) and the “possibility” of what more Congress can do: everything from taking on junk fees and revitalizing ever-popular child tax credits to paying teachers better and capping insulin prices for all.

Afterward, Sanders filled much of her nearly 15-minute slot talking about “critical race theory,” left-wing “rituals” and “woke fantasies,” and herself.

After the former Trump press secretary opened by calling Biden a liar, she discussed her and her mother’s past cancer diagnosis and how thankful she was to doctors and the grace of God that neither disease stopped her family from charging “boldly ahead.”

She spent precious minutes on this story, all to not even mention how important it might be for everyone to have access to health care that could cure their ailments too. Instead, she transitioned into contrasting herself with Biden. “I’m the first woman to lead my state. He’s the first man to surrender his presidency to a woke mob that can’t even tell you what a woman is,” Sanders said, opening up her remarks toward the Republicans’ latest crutch: hating transgender people.

“His administration has been completely hijacked by the radical left,” Sanders opined, after Biden had spent an hour talking about policies most Americans agree with and another hour shaking the hands of practically every member of Congress and guest at the State of the Union address.

“The dividing line in America is no longer between right or left. The choice is between normal or crazy,” Sanders continued. She then boasted about signing executive orders to ban critical race theory and “indoctrination” in schools and repealing Covid safety standards.

“The Biden administration seems more interested in woke fantasies than the hard reality Americans face every day,” Sanders warned. “Most Americans simply want to live their lives in freedom and peace, but we are under attack in a left-wing culture war we didn’t start and never wanted to fight,” she continued, as if conservatives are not the ones ratcheting up the culture war with their ever-oscillating sights on gas stoves, or M&Ms, or weirdly encouraging people to smoke tobacco. Sanders was right to suggest that “most Americans simply want to live their lives in freedom.” Unfortunately, book bans and the criminalization of abortions, notable infringements on people’s “freedom,” are hallmarks of the Republican agenda.

“Make no mistake: Republicans will not surrender this fight,” Sanders assured. “We will lead with courage and do what’s right, not what’s politically correct or convenient.” Sanders’s speech resembled the same sort of hollow and out-of-touch messaging that helped Republicans lose in 2020 and fall drastically short of expectations in 2022. It was visionless, with seldom any actual talk of policies that would uplift people in this country.

So, in a sense, Sanders is correct in saying that if Republicans do indeed continue this fight, they will absolutely find the strategy to be politically inconvenient and strategically incorrect.

Democrats secured the majority in Pennsylvania’s House of Representatives for the first time in more than a decade, giving them the power to block Republican legislation on abortion rights.

The Democrats won three special elections Tuesday, giving them a one-seat majority in the chamber. This is the first time they have held the majority since 2010, although Republicans still control the state Senate.

The slim but powerful majority now gives Democrats the power to block major Republican legislation, including a constitutional amendment stripping away protections for abortion rights.

Republicans passed a bill in July, just two weeks after Roe v. Wade was overturned, that would have amended the state constitution to declare there is no right to abortion in Pennsylvania. It would also have said there is no guarantee that taxpayer funds can be used for abortions.

The GOP controlled both the House and Senate at the time, and the bill passed easily. Then-Governor Tom Wolf had vowed to veto any abortion restriction laws, and current Governor Josh Shapiro similarly supports reproductive rights. But the bill was passed as part of a larger omnibus package that bypassed the governor and would create a new constitutional amendment that would be voted on by Pennsylvania residents.

Currently, anyone seeking an abortion in Pennsylvania must undergo state-mandated counseling designed to discourage them from getting the procedure and then wait 24 hours before proceeding. Abortion is not covered by insurance plans offered under the Affordable Care Act except in cases of rape, incest, or if the pregnant person’s life is in danger. The procedure is banned after 24 weeks except to save the pregnant person’s life.

The new bill needs to pass two legislative sessions, but the governor would be unable to stop the measure from going to a public vote if it does.

But with Democrats now in control of one of the chambers, the anti-abortion legislation is unlikely to pass.

There’s no guarantee it would have succeeded if it were put to a vote, though: Abortion rights helped deliver historic wins to Democrats during the midterm elections, including for Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman.

Five states had abortion rights–related measures on the ballot, and all five voted to protect access to the procedure.

Unfortunately, Republicans have proved they have no chill when things don’t go their way. In Kansas, after residents overwhelmingly voted in August to keep abortion rights in the state constitution, the state legislature is still trying to pass laws that would restrict abortion access.

The fiery train derailment that led to thousands being forced to evacuate their homes in East Palestine, Ohio, didn’t have to happen. This is what the workers of Railroad Workers United, or RWU, inter-union caucus argue. And, they warn, if action is not taken against corrosive industry trends, the Ohio disaster will be one of more to come.

On February 3, a 150-car Norfolk Southern train derailed near the Ohio town. About 20 of the cars were considered to contain hazardous materials; 10 of those cars were involved in a pileup of 50 cars, five of which contained vinyl chloride—a carcinogenic and flammable chemical.

Environmental engineer Kurt Rhoads told a Cleveland news affiliate that the impact could be felt for years as the hazardous chemicals seep into the groundwater. Fish in a nearby waterway had already been found dead on Monday.

The RWU argues that antiquated regulation and corporate malpractice led to the potentially generationally damaging incident, a primary culprit being Precision Scheduled Railroading, or PSR. The practice, dubbed by some workers as “positive shareholder reaction,” manages freight movement by the individual car level, as opposed to the whole train—ensuring train cars are constantly on the move. In practice, this has cut jobs, consolidated dispatch centers, and made trains less safe, as fewer workers have less time to conduct checks on more train cars.

Based on its analysis, the RWU says “the immediate cause of the wreck appears to have been a nineteenth-century style mechanical failure of the axle on one of the cars—an overheated bearing—leading to derailment and then jackknifing tumbling cars.”

Moreover, the train appeared to have had its collective weight unbalanced; prior to PSR, the caucus said, trains would be built with the heavier cars on the head, and the lighter ones bringing up the rear. Such a practice would prevent what happened in Ohio: heavier cars slamming into lighter ones in front of them, causing the exact jackknifing that had occurred last week. The train allegedly had 40 percent of its weight on the rear one-third of the train.

Fortunately, despite these failures, the train’s three-person crew was able to quickly mobilize together and minimize damage. As railroads have brazenly proposed cutting crews to just one member, thank goodness that was not the case here.

“The short-term profit imperative, the so-called “cult of the Operating Ratio”—of NS and the other Class 1 railroads—has made cutting costs, employees, procedures, and resources the top priority,” the RWU said. Norfolk Southern recently reported record fourth quarter and annual revenues; just last year, the company announced $10 billion in stock buybacks. Meanwhile, its workers still don’t even have guaranteed paid sick leave.

The workers’ warnings here follow a continual campaign for better working conditions and safer rail outcomes. After the government in December imposed a contract on workers that did not include much-needed paid sick leave, workers continued rallying for such benefits as well as the guarantee of at least two-person crews and the elimination of PSR.

Nevertheless, during his State of the Union address, President Biden did not mention the plight of rail workers, nor did he even discuss the disastrous rail derailment. Workers’ efforts are not falling on completely closed ears, however; Senators Bernie Sanders and Mike Braun are holding a Thursday press conference to demand paid sick leave for rail workers.

“The wreck of Train 32N has been years in the making. What other such train wrecks await us remains to be seen,” the RWU said. “But given the modus operandi of the Class One rail carriers, we can no doubt expect future disasters of this nature.”