WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawmakers are sparring over whether a now-reversed change to auto-suggestions on Twitter unfairly hurt Democrats or Republicans more.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey isn’t saying which, but says he’ll follow up.
The storm over “shadow banning ” of Republicans on Twitter broke out in July after Vice News reported that some politicians didn’t show up in a drop-down menu of automatically suggested searches, even when typing in the politicians’ names.
Pennsylvania Democratic Rep. Mike Doyle says at a House hearing that those claims have no merit.
Dorsey had explained the hidden drop-down searches affected 600,000 accounts based on the activity of those accounts followers. Twitter fixed the issue in late July.
Under further questioning by Texas Republican Rep. Joe Barton, Dorsey said he agreed the impact along partisan lines “was not impartial.”