WASHINGTON — Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, on Thursday said the Senate Judiciary Committee will next week vote on whether to subpoena Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey after the social media powerhouse limited the spread of New York Post stories about Hunter Biden.

What You Need To Know

  • Sen. Ted Cruz calls on Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to be subpoenaed

  • Twitter limited spread of stories that made allegations about Hunter Biden

  • Cruz says Twitter "abusing corporate power to silence press"

  • Republicans have long maintained Twitter has suppressed conservative voices 

In fact, the articles were limited by Twitter and Facebook. Cruz and other Republicans referred to it as a case of censorship and “election interference” in the weeks leading up to the election.

“The Senate Judiciary Committee wants to know what the hell is going one,” Cruz told reporters. “Chairman Lindsey Graham and I have discussed this at length, and the committee today will be noticing a markup on Tuesday to issue a subpoena to Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter, to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee next Friday.”

The reports, parts of which Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s campaign has denied, include allegations about Hunter Biden and Ukraine stemming from an email purportedly retrieved from the hard drive of a laptop dropped off at a computer repair shop in Delaware in April 2019.

Cruz went on to say that Twitter is “abusing their corporate power to silence the press and cover up allegations of corruption."

Cruz continued, "And let me be clear, I don’t know if these New York Post stories are true or not. Those are questions Vice President Biden should answer.”

Cruz and other Republicans have long maintained that Twitter and other social media platforms actively work to silence conservative voices. 

Twitter on Thursday reported it is changing its policy on “hacked content” following outcry from the right.

The social media company will no longer remove hacked material unless it’s directly shared by hackers or those working with them, the company’s head of legal, policy, trust and safety, Vijaya Gadde, said in a Twitter thread.

And instead of blocking links from being shared, tweets will be labeled to provide context, Gadde said.

“We want to address the concerns that there could be many unintended consequences to journalists, whistleblowers and others in ways that are contrary to Twitter’s purpose of serving the public conversation,” she said.

Dorsey and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg are already scheduled to testify before the Senate during a Commerce Committee meeting on October 28.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.