Fact Check

Does Kamala Harris' Press Secretary Decide What Trump Can Say on Twitter?

Conservative personalities and websites attacked a Twitter employee over his employment background.

Published Aug. 13, 2020

 (MatthewKeys / Wikimedia Commons)
Image Via MatthewKeys / Wikimedia Commons
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Claim:
Kamala Harris' press secretary was hired by Twitter to moderate U.S. President Donald Trump's tweets.

In early August 2020, Snopes readers inquired about social media posts and articles that stated Twitter had hired the press secretary for U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris, D-California, to moderate tweets posted by U.S. President Donald Trump. Joe Biden, the presumptive 2020 Democratic presidential nominee, tapped Harris as his vice-presidential running mate in August 2020.

The media pile-on was initiated on Aug. 5, 2020, after Twitter's Nick Pacilio stated in a tweet that a post from Trump's reelection campaign account, retweeted by Trump, had been removed for violating the platform's rules against spreading misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic:

But the tweet above, posted by the co-founder of The Federalist website, is misleading.

First, Pacilio isn't currently Harris' press secretary — he served in that role from 2011 to 2014, while Harris was the attorney general of California. Second, he doesn't enforce Twitter rules in his role at the company.

Although the tweet above, and other content like it, insinuated that Pacilio was hired recently (late summer of 2020) by Twitter, Pacilio's employment there actually started in 2014. Furthermore, in Pacilio's position with Twitter's communications department, he has no role in platform rules.

That latter point was made pointedly in a tweet by Brandon Borrman, Twitter's head of communications:

Article 3 of 17 in Collection

Sources

Thalen, Mikael. "Why Conservatives Think Kamala Harris’ Old Employee Runs Twitter."   Daily Dot. 12 August 2020.

Bethania Palma is a journalist from the Los Angeles area who started her career as a daily newspaper reporter and has covered everything from crime to government to national politics. She has written for ... read more