White House slams social media giant for labeling Trump’s tweets with content warnings after Twitter says Iranian calls for genocide against Israel do not violate company policy.
By Yakir Benzion, United With Israel
White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany slammed Twitter Friday, saying the social media giant was showing blatant bias by targeting conservatives, especially President Trump.
The comments came after Twitter company official Ylwa Pettersson told the Knesset last week that Iranian calls to wipe out Israel were just “foreign policy saber-rattling on military-economic issues [that] are generally not in violation of our rules.”
“I thought it was very eye opening and it tells you where these social media companies stand, where they’re not willing to assess the Ayatollah Khomeini’s tweets but they are willing to assess President Trump’s tweets,” McEnany told a White House press conference.
In May, Twitter started adding tags to some of the President’s tweets, labeling some of them as “unsubstantiated” and warning users to fact-check.
However, for years Iranian leaders have been tweeting their desire for the destruction of Israel, with one Iranian commander saying the goal of Iran’s military is “the total annihilation of Israel.”
“Israel is a malignant cancerous tumor in the West Asian region that has to be removed and eradicated,” Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has said, among other statements about his aim for the elimination of the Jewish state.
Despite repeated requests from Israeli officials, Twitter has ignored calls to remove the tweets, calling them “comments on current affairs.”
“It’s really appalling, and it just speaks to their overwhelming, blinding bias against conservatives and against this president,” McEnany said.
Ellie Cohanim, U.S. Deputy Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating Anti-Semitism, also called out Twitter for censoring Trump but not Khamenei.
“The hypocrisy is so thick it becomes clear to me … that this is about one thing and one thing only and that’s the elections coming up in the United States on November 3rd,” said Cohanim, herself an Iranian Jewish refugee who fled to freedom in America.
“The social media companies are behaving as the thought police & it must end,” Cohanim tweeted.