Staff Reports
In the midterm elections of 2022, Twitter employees gave heavily to Democrats. This shows that the company's new CEO, Elon Musk, may have a hard time making the platform politically neutral.
According to data from OpenSecrets, Twitter employees gave over $185,000 during the midterm election cycle, with most of the donations going to the Democratic Party. The Republicans, on the other hand, received around $454.
The donations made by Twitter employees to political groups were significantly different from those made by Democrats during the 2020 presidential election cycle. In total, Democrats received over $909,000 in donations, while Republicans received over $14,000.
In 2018, employees gave almost $300,000 to Democrats, while the Republicans received around $11,400.
Since becoming the new CEO of Twitter, Elon Musk has vowed to change the company's landscape. He has also provided reporters with various internal documents, which reveal how the platform worked with the Biden administration. These documents, which are referred to as the Twitter Files, show that the platform coordinated with the former Vice President.
In April, Musk stated that Twitter needed to be politically neutral in order to deserve the trust of the public. He said that this would require upsetting the far left and right equally.
The Twitter Files revealed that conservative accounts were being "shadow-banned," which is a process that involves partially or completely blocking a user's content in order to prevent them from sharing it with a wider audience. They also showed how executives had removed Donald Trump from the platform even though he had not broken any rules.
Despite the company's efforts to be politically neutral, Musk has been criticized for his decision to suspend multiple accounts, including those of journalists. Some of these include CNN, The New York Times, and the Washington Post.
Prominent individuals, such as Congressman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, criticized Musk's actions. In response to his suspension of journalists, she said that she was feeling unsafe due to how it increased the intensity of the situation. She also suggested that Musk put down his phone.
In 2016, Twitter employees gave significantly more to Democrats than to Republicans. During that year, the Democrats received almost 59 percent of donations, while the Republicans received almost 31%.
During the upcoming Congress, Republicans will be looking into how Twitter has handled the issue of censorship. One of the members of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, which will be chaired by Cathy McMorris Rodgers, said that she was planning on holding hearings regarding the issue.
She stated that the new Twitter Files had revealed that the tech industry had lied about not banning people from their platforms. Big tech had also appeared before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce several times, and they claimed that they were not doing this.
She stated that the committee would continue to monitor these companies to make sure that they were being transparent about how they were silencing Americans. Twitter did not respond when contacted.
The preceding is a summary of an article that originally appeared on Washington Examiner.
