A Twitter executive who has a history of anti-Trump tweets has received death threats since the president and other members of his administration called him out.
Yoel Roth, the platform’s head of site integrity, has faced widespread condemnation for previous tweets deriding the current administration and those who support the president. The backlash from Trump, press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, and adviser Kellyanne Conway came in response to the platform’s decision to fact-check a presidential tweet about mail-in ballots.
Roth has received death threats as a result of the heightened attention he’s received, a Twitter spokeswoman told the Washington Examiner on Thursday.
“So ridiculous to see Twitter trying to make the case that Mail-In Ballots are not subject to FRAUD,” Trump tweeted. “How stupid, there are examples, & cases, all over the place. Our election process will become badly tainted & a laughingstock all over the World. Tell that to your hater @yoyoel.”
So ridiculous to see Twitter trying to make the case that Mail-In Ballots are not subject to FRAUD. How stupid, there are examples, & cases, all over the place. Our election process will become badly tainted & a laughingstock all over the World. Tell that to your hater @yoyoel
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 28, 2020
The president’s comments come as he has teased an executive order about social media and censorship. The executive order will reportedly direct the Federal Communications Commission to review social media companies and the protections they are granted under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which allows them to be considered a platform, rather than a publisher, to protect them from liability.
Roth’s LinkedIn profile describes his role as leading the teams “responsible for developing and enforcing Twitter’s rules on platform manipulation, spam, and API access, as well as Twitter’s investigation and attribution efforts related to state-backed information operations.”
McEnany called on the platform to explain why Roth is in his position during an interview on Fox News’s America’s Newsroom, earlier on Thursday.
“You’ve got to ask when they are hiring people like this man right here as the head of the site integrity, Yoel Roth, who’s tweeted that members of this administration are Nazis, he’s the one making the determinations on fact-checks, he’s part of that team, that’s pretty egregious, and Twitter needs to answer for this and for their behavior.”
Her comments were similar to those made by Conway during an interview on Fox & Friends from a day prior. Conway went as far as to spell out Roth’s Twitter handle.
“He’s the head of integrity, and his name is Yoel Roth, he’s @yoyoel,” she said. “Somebody in San Francisco, go wake him up, and tell him he’s about to get a lot more followers. This guy is constantly attacking Trump voters, Trump, Mitch McConnell, you name it, and he’s the head of integrity at Twitter.”
In response to the backlash from Conway, a Twitter representative told CNN, “No one person at Twitter is responsible for our policies or enforcement actions, and it’s unfortunate to see individual employees targeted for company decisions.”
Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s CEO, defended Roth Wednesday night saying: “Fact check: there is someone ultimately accountable for our actions as a company, and that’s me. Please leave our employees out of this. We’ll continue to point out incorrect or disputed information about elections globally. And we will admit to and own any mistakes we make.”
Additionally, a spokesperson for the platform previously did not deny that Roth played a part in the decision to add a label to Trump’s tweets and told the Washington Examiner, “It’s unfortunate to see individual employees targeted for company decisions.”
