Democracy Dies in Darkness

Twitter went easy on Trump because it ‘relished’ the power, ex-employee says

In testimony before the Jan. 6 committee, the unidentified former employee said they’d tried for months ‘to raise the reality that ... if we made no intervention into what I saw occurring, people were going to die.’

By
and 
Updated July 12, 2022 at 6:30 p.m. EDT|Published July 12, 2022 at 4:00 p.m. EDT
On July 12, an unidentified, ex-Twitter employee testified that the company allowed President Trump to use rhetoric it wouldn't usually have tolerated. (Video: The Washington Post)
6 min

A former Twitter employee told the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection that the company gave former president Donald Trump more lenient treatment because it enjoyed the “power” his stature lent to the social network.

The testimony Tuesday marked the first time a former Twitter insider has testified under oath about the company’s role in giving Trump the megaphone he used to marshal an angry mob to attack the Capitol.