Reps Pallone, Rush Push Twitter for Civil Rights Audit

House Commerce Committee Ranking Member Frank Pallone (D-NJ) Rep Bobby Rush (D-IL) pressed Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to firm up his commitment to conduct a civil rights audit of his social media platform. Their goal is for Twitter to follow a kind of web Hippocratic oath: "First, do no harm to our country, our democracy, or the public." In the letter to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, Reps Pallone and Rush said the civil rights audit was needed because of the use of Twitter to sew that division. "'[S]ome Twitter users, including foreign agents, continue to misuse the platform to promote racially divisive content and misinformation," they told him, adding: "[Widespread abuse, harassment, harmful misinformation and manipulation continue on Twitter." They said an audit would be a positive step forward, pointing out that Facebook and others have agreed to similar review.  They also put in a plug for greater transparency around Twitter's rules and policies, then "swift and fair" enforcement. Both, they said would go a long way to Twitter regaining the trust of the public in its service, another way of saying Twitter currently does not have that trust.