Following Congressman Cleaver's Call for Action, Twitter Implements New Policy Aimed At Reducing Hateful and Racist Content

Statement

Today, Congressman Cleaver, II (D-MO) released the following statement in response to Twitter's enforcement of its new policy seeking to curtail the amount of racist, violent, and hateful content on its wide-ranging social media platform:

"I am encouraged that our calls for action have expedited Twitter's efforts to finally reduce the hateful and violent racist rhetoric that has been plaguing the platform over the past few years. It is obvious, that Twitter is a powerful social networking platform with great potential for positivity and increasing social awareness, however, recently it has become a playground where racism and hatred have been allowed to flourish. It's good to know Twitter's senior leadership heard our concerns, seem to understand the gravity of these flaws in the platform, and have taken a small first step in ensuring that it will not be a part of such degradation. Make no mistake about it, we cannot sit back and allow extremists to promote hatred and violence while hiding behind a username," said Congressman Cleaver.

In October, Congressman Cleaver, along with Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ), sent a letter to Twitter CEO, Jack Dorsey, expressing concerns regarding the social media platform's role in "propagating hate and undermining democracy" and the company's stagnation in acknowledging and addressing the severity of this problem. The Members requested a clear framework of how the company planned to fix the increasing hostility of foreign and domestic actors, recognizing that if the company failed to do so, increased Congressional oversight and regulation would be necessary.

Cleaver and Watson Coleman were also among members of the Congressional Black Caucus who met with, Facebook COO, Sheryl Sandberg to discuss allegations that Russian-backed agencies exploited the companies system to influence the outcome of the 2016 election through the spread of racial and discriminatory messaging. After the meeting, Facebook also announced major changes to its platform.

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