A spokesperson for Twitter defended the company’s decision to censor a bombshell story from the New York Post about Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and his son Hunter. The company is citing its policy on “hacked materials” as the reason why it decided to limit its users’ ability to share the story, but it is not clear that any hacking was involved in procuring the trove of emails at all.
Twitter came under intense fire on Wednesday when it censored a story from the New York Post about Joe Biden and his son, Hunter. Twitter is claiming that the decision to blacklist the story of their platform was justified by a company policy against sharing information obtained by hacking.
Breitbart News reported on Wednesday that both Facebook and Twitter censored a story from the New York Post that allegedly revealed that Hunter Biden arranged a meeting between Joe Biden and an adviser to the board of Burisma.
Twitter users that tried to share the article were blocked by the platform. “We can’t complete this request because this link has been identified by Twitter or our partners as being potentially harmful,” a message shown to Twitter users read.
see you soon, @jack. pic.twitter.com/USyi7LAC7u
— Senate Republicans (@SenateGOP) October 14, 2020
In a statement made to the Daily Caller, a Twitter spokesperson said that the decision to restrict sharing of the story was motivated by the company’s “Hacked Materials Policy.”
“In line with our Hacked Materials Policy, as well as our approach to blocking URLs, we are taking action to block any links to or images of the material in question on Twitter,” the spokesperson said.
However, reporters at the New York Post claim that the information was not sourced through hacking. The information contained in the report was allegedly uncovered when a man failed to retrieve his laptop from a computer repair shop in Delaware. Twitter’s heavy-handed action against the Post bombshell seems inappropriate when considering the source of the story, which is not a clear cut case of hacking by any normal definition, and the gravity of the information just weeks before the election, which has led many to label the actions of Twitter and Facebook as election meddling.
Facebook spokesman Andy Stone also confirmed that Facebook has refused to let some users share the story on their platform. “While I will intentionally not link to the New York Post, I want be clear that this story is eligible to be fact checked by Facebook’s third-party fact checking partners. In the meantime, we are reducing its distribution on our platform,” Stone said.
While I will intentionally not link to the New York Post, I want be clear that this story is eligible to be fact checked by Facebook's third-party fact checking partners. In the meantime, we are reducing its distribution on our platform.
— Andy Stone (@andymstone) October 14, 2020
Stay tuned to Breitbart News for more updates on this story.
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