Josh Hawley, a reliable ally to Trump, said in his letter to Dorsey that "Twitter's unprecedented decision to single out the President for disfavor, based on his political speech, is alarming."
The senator noted that Twitter's "Head of Site Integrity," who co-wrote a May 11 blog post on the company's change in approach to misleading information, had reportedly posted critical messages about Trump and his supporters in the past. Twitter told Buzzfeed News that that employee, Yoel Roth, was not responsible for fact-checking Trump's tweets.
Hawley questioned if Twitter will "only go after people its employees dislike?"
He accused Twitter of editorializing by "appending its own comments and assessment to the President's speech."
"Twitter's decision to affix its own editorial content to users' posts brings into question the basis" for its immunity from liability under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, Hawley wrote.
Section 230 states: "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider."
Hawley tweeted that he will be introducing legislation "to end these special government giveaways."
"If @Twitter wants to editorialize & comment on users' posts, it should be divested of its special status," Hawley tweeted, "& forced to play by same rules as all other publishers. Fair is fair."
