Twitter and Facebook Under Fire For Censoring New York Post Report on Hunter Biden
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Twitter and Facebook are under fire from pundits and journalists on both sides for censoring a New York Post report on Hunter Biden, which has drawn skepticism over its sourcing.
The story, published Wednesday morning, claimed that Biden connected a Ukrainian businessman and fellow board member at gas company Burisma with his father and former Vice President Joe Biden. The article also includes an email from Vadym Pozharskyi, an adviser to Burisma, which thanks Hunter for “giving an opportunity to meet your father and spent some time together.”
The Post also reported that the email was found on the hard drive of a computer that was left at a Delaware repair shop in 2019. The store owner gave a copy of the hard drive to Rudy Giuliani, President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, and to the FBI.
While supporters of President Donald Trump were quick to spread the scoop, many pundits and other journalists pointed out that the email’s origins are unclear, and frankly, sketchy.
Biden’s campaign responded to the article by noting that investigations have concluded that there was “no wrongdoing” on the part of the Democratic presidential nominee, and casting the story as based on Russian disinformation.
“Investigations by the press, during impeachment, and even by two Republican-led Senate committees whose work was decried as ‘not legitimate’ and political by a GOP colleague have all reached the same conclusion: that Joe Biden carried out official U.S. policy toward Ukraine and engaged in no wrongdoing,” Biden campaign spokesman Andrew Bates said in a statement. “Trump Administration officials have attested to these facts under oath.”
In a statement to Politico, the campaign also said it has no record of a meeting between Joe Biden and the representative of Burisma, despite what was insinuated by the New York Post.
Twitter and Facebook acted fast to censor the report from the New York tabloid — for different reasons. While Twitter said the report violated its policy on hacked materials, Facebook took issue with the facts of the story.
“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,” Andy Stone, a spokesman for Facebook, wrote in a statement. “In the meantime, we are reducing its distribution on our platform.”
Twitter is currently blocking users from sharing the report.
Statement from Twitter:
“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.”https://t.co/Y1wsv2Kfgr
— Scott Gustin (@ScottGustin) October 14, 2020
Despite issues with the story, many pundits are also faulting the decision to censor it, particularly considering neither platform gave a clear reason for why this story met the threshold to be blocked:
This is my biggest question about Facebook and Twitter’s decision to limit distribution of the story. Besides the Biden campaign denying that a meeting took place, are they disputing the legitimacy of any of the actual source material in the NYPost story? https://t.co/TuI14Vov4n
— Ruby Cramer (@rubycramer) October 14, 2020
Twitter is now blocking any tweets that reference the New York Post story about Hunter Biden, and apparently you can’t even send the link via direct message.
While I think the story was incredibly sketchy, if Twitter wants to take these steps it needs to do so with ALL stories.
— Josh Jordan (@NumbersMuncher) October 14, 2020
You’re seeing the immense, unchallengeable, unaccountable power of Silicon Valley giants over the flow of information. Imagine if Google joins in.
What’s so amazing is that they never wanted this role. It was foisted on them by people, led by journalists, demanding they censor: https://t.co/cFBfV97Ylt
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) October 14, 2020
Right, for instance, Facebook, Twitter & Google could, tomorrow, unite to announce that any criticisms of President Trump will be banned, & only criticisms of Biden allowed. Craven liberals like you wouldn’t be saying: “so what? They’re a private company. They do what they want.”
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) October 14, 2020
twitter blocking a nothing story for no specified reason is an idiotic move
— Jason Koebler (@jason_koebler) October 14, 2020
1) I’ve had two calls from journalists I respect asking for quotes on today’s story. They are passengers on a freight train seeing the accident in slow mo and can’t do anything to stop it.
2) Twitter is usually better than FB about labeling/limiting links instead of blocking.
— Alex Stamos (@alexstamos) October 14, 2020
Twitter and Facebook are actively engaging in election interference.
— John Gage (@johnrobertgage) October 14, 2020
Interesting that Facebook and Twitter appear to cite totally different reasons for blocking this Post story link. Facebook talks about fact-checking, Twitter is deploying the “no hacked materials” policy it used to shut down Blueleaks in June. https://t.co/D37urmK5pa
— Adi Robertson (@thedextriarchy) October 14, 2020
The New York Post story is obviously kind of wild and deserves scrutiny, but Facebook limiting distribution is a bit like if a company that owned newspaper delivery trucks decided not to drive because it didn’t like a story.
— Matt Pearce ? (@mattdpearce) October 14, 2020
This is correct. https://t.co/W8UpYAHAQT
— Bari Weiss (@bariweiss) October 14, 2020
i dont think i like twitter blocking the ny post story. but that doesnt absolve the journalists who pushed it out from being stupid.
— Oliver Willis (@owillis) October 14, 2020
The NY Post is pure sensationalist tabloid, but Twitter making a fact-checking decision on the reporting of the source of leaks, as being insufficient, sets a precedent that can impact even companies like NYT, WashPo, Intercept, etc & distribution on here.
— Sana Saeed (@SanaSaeed) October 14, 2020
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