Homeland security boss declares war on Twitter after border official locked out account over pro-wall tweet

Trump administration officials complain Twitter was working against ‘national security’ with alleged ‘censorship’

US Homeland Security acting secretary Chad Wolf has condemned alleged censorship on Twitter that he claims poses “a threat to national security”, in a letter to CEO Jack Dorsey.

Mr Wolf wrote to the Twitter boss on Friday following the site’s decision to suspend the account of the acting Customs and Border Protection (CBP) commissioner, Mark Morgan, on Wednesday.

Twitter deemed that Mr Morgan’s account had posted “hateful content”, after a post that the US southern border wall with Mexico allowed “us [to] stop gang members, murderers, sexual predators, and drugs from entering our country.”

According to a tweet by Mr Morgan, Twitter then locked his account temporarily for the reported violation of site rules on “hateful content”.

Mr Wolf, who has led the Department of Homeland Security since 2019, tweeted that the “censorship was intentional, not accidental”.

"Twitter notified CBP that it had censored Mr Morgan’s message and locked his account. In response, CBP communicated with Twitter’s office of government affairs and also appealed Twitter’s censorship decision,” Mr Wolf wrote.

Claiming that Twitter denied an appeal to restore access, Mr Wolf continued that “only after CBP reached out to Twitter’s office of government affairs a second time and went public with this censorship, then finally Twitter admitted its bad judgement and unlocked the account".

Mr Wolf added in a Twitter post that “Twitter’s censoring of factual information poses a threat to national security. It should not be up to corporate bureaucrats to determine what security information the American public receives.”

Mr Morgan also attacked Twitter in a statement, and said that the site had shown “clear bias against this administration."

The controversy follows an appearance by Mr Dorsey alongside the CEOs of Facebook and Google before the Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday.

Republican senators used the hearing to criticise the social media sites’ content moderation policies, alleging censorship of conservative opinions online.  

Twitter was contacted for comment on Mr Wolf’s letter by The Independent.