by Andrew Powell
Florida U.S. Sen. Rick Scott is giving kudos to new Twitter CEO Elon Musk after Musk and journalist Matt Taibbi released a flurry of “Twitter files” from the company’s archives.
The files documented a pattern of how the social media giant increasingly suppressed free speech over the past few years. This includes nixing the New York Post’s story in October 2020 that exposed Hunter Biden’s business dealings, along with compromising photographs of President Joe Biden’s son.
During an interview with Fox Business’ Maria Bartiromo, Scott said: “It sure sounds like social media works for the Biden administration. Whatever the Biden administration says, I mean, this is basically stopping freedom of speech.”
Scott then praised the world’s richest man for releasing the information.
“So these social media companies have got to come clean with exactly what they’re doing. I’m glad Elon Musk is doing that. I’m glad that he’s putting it out there,” Scott said.
“The public should have a right to know what these companies are doing. How they’re censoring free speech. How they’re reducing their ability to get information. They should be telling us exactly what they’re doing. But they don’t. And they work for the Democrats. We’ve got to stop this,” Scott concluded.
Scott also commended Musk for his “approach to content moderation” after the Twitter CEO removed recording artist Ye from the platform. The action came after the rapper formerly known as Kanye West shared a series of antisemitic tweets, including a picture of a swastika onto his Twitter feed.
In August, Scott wrote a letter to U.S. Sen. Gary Peters, chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, regarding Hunter Biden’s business deals abroad.
Scott requested that the committee launch an investigation into the international business dealings of Hunter Biden and the conflict of interest surrounding his father’s influence on those business deals while Joe Biden was former President Barack Obama’s vice president.
“In September 2020, emails allegedly recovered from a laptop that once belonged to Hunter Biden were obtained by the New York Post,” Scott wrote.
“Former business partners of Hunter Biden and other media outlets, including The Washington Post and The New York Times, have now also authenticated thousands of emails from Hunter Biden’s laptop linking him to business deals in Ukraine, Russia and China that indicate a potential pattern of corruption,” Scott continued.
“More recently, Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Chuck Grassley and Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations Ranking Member Ron Johnson wrote to the Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the United States Attorney in the District of Delaware, calling on federal law enforcement authorities to thoroughly investigate potential criminal behavior by Hunter Biden.”
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Andrew Powell is a contributor to The Center Square.
