O’Keefe: “Does Twitter consider reporting information the public has a right to know private information? This is quite the Rubicon we’re crossing if Twitter wants to ban this particular piece of information.”
Twitter kicked off Project Veritas from the platform for breaking its “private information policy.”
It also locked founder James O’Keefe out from his personal account.
It comes after Project Veritas posted a video of Facebook executives discussing censorship tools:
“We have a system that is able to freeze commenting on threads in cases where our systems are detecting that there may be a thread that has hate speech or violence, sort of in the comments,” Vice President of Integrity Guy Rosen can be seen explaining in the footage.
In a second video posted by Project Veritas, one of its staffers is seen confronting Rosen about his remarks outside his home as he returned from a jog.
“When you talk about freezing comments containing hate speech, what do you mean by that?” the Veritas staffer standing on the sidewalk asks Rosen as he enters his home. “How do you define ‘hate speech?’ Is it just speech that you hate?” he continues in the seconds-long interaction.
The numbers on the exec’s home address were visible in the clip, but the street name was not. License plates on surrounding cars are blurred.
O’Keefe spoke to TheWrap:
O’Keefe also said he’s confused by Twitter’s actions, considering the home address for Rosen isn’t visible in the video. “What I’m trying to understand is, what about what we did is quote ‘posting private information’?” O’Keefe said.
He added: “Reporters with microphones [and] cameras engage in reporting activities on the streets all the time in residential communities, so I’m trying to understand what Twitter considers violating their rules against posting private information. Does Twitter consider reporting information the public has a right to know private information? This is quite the Rubicon we’re crossing if Twitter wants to ban this particular piece of information.”
O’Keefe eventually removed the tweet, which allowed him to take over his Twitter account.