Twitter, Facebook Limit New York Post Article About Biden Family

Three weeks before the US presidential election on November 3, Jack Dorsey, the boss of Twitter, had to clarify the situation after a day of controversy over a controversial press article implicating the Democratic candidate, Joe Biden, whose online sharing has been restricted by Facebook and Twitter.

“Our communication on our actions concerning the article of New York Post was not great. And block the sharing of the article’s internet address with zero context explaining why: unacceptable “, posted the founder of the social network, Wednesday evening October 14.

Wednesday October 14, the conservative newspaper New York Post published what he claims to be emails that were allegedly illegally retrieved from a computer containing messages, photos and personal videos of Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden – the latter served from 2014 to 2019 at supervisory board of the Ukrainian gas group Burisma. The daily says it obtained these documents through a close friend of Donald Trump, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Facebook expects “verifications”

The New York Post asserts that these messages re-launch the accusations of the Democratic candidate for the White House by the Donald Trump camp, according to which he would have helped the Burisma company to escape corruption investigations when he was the vice-president of Barack Obama. For his part, Joe Biden has always denied having discussed with his son his activities abroad when he was in power.

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The manner in which the documents were transmitted to the New York Post raises many questions. The daily explains that the files were found by a Delaware computer repairer on a MacBook that its owner never came to collect. After opening the computer, the repairman allegedly contacted the FBI, finding that it was a computer that allegedly belonged to Hunter Biden. But he would also have kept a copy of the files that he would then have sent to the lawyer for Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York and close to Donald Trump.

It was then Mr. Giuliani himself who gave the files to the New York Post, after the newspaper learned of their existence from Steve Bannon, Donald Trump’s former campaign manager. This in a context where Rudy Giuliani is accused of having carried out in Ukraine a “Parallel diplomacy” aiming to “Force” the opening of an investigation in the country against Hunter Biden. This procedure was at the heart of Donald Trump’s attempt at “impeachment”, for which the President of the United States was acquitted in the Senate, controlled by the Republicans.

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Faced with all this, the Twitter teams responsible for the security of the social network explained that they prevented the article from being shared on the platform because it contains documents that violate two of its rules: do not post personal data (emails, phone numbers) and do not post items hacked. “We do not want to encourage piracy by allowing the dissemination of documents obtained illegally”, explained the company on this account, recalling that discussing the article was not prohibited, only sharing.

One of Facebook’s communications officers in Washington, Andy Stone, told him publicly questioned the veracity of these electronic messages and the article in the New York Post. He announced that the daily’s information would be verified by Facebook partners dedicated to “fact checking” (including The world is part of France). While waiting for these verifications, carried out by media or partner associations of Facebook in the fight against infox, the visibility of the article in the New York Post in question will be reduced on the platform, he said.

Accusations of “censorship”

These clarifications came after a day of fiery criticism of the networks. Many Republicans accused Twitter and Facebook of censorship during the day on Wednesday, including the most active of them, Donald Trump. [C’est] so awful that Twitter and Facebook removed the post on emails overwhelming related to the sleeping Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, in the New York Post, the president was indignant on his favorite network.

Donald Trump later accused the blue bird social network of blocking the account of his spokesperson, Kayleigh McEnany, for sharing the article. “Because she shared the truth! They closed his account “, “They’re trying to protect Biden”, he claimed at a rally in Iowa. Republican Senator Josh Hawley denounced the “Bias” Facebook and a block “It seems selective” of an article on “A potentially unethical act of a presidential candidate”.

In an editorial, the New York Post, one of the most widely read dailies in the country, lambasted the “Facebook censorship to help Joe Biden’s campaign”. “Censor first, ask questions after: this is a scandalous attitude for one of the most powerful platforms in the United States”, the editorial continues, accusing Facebook of having become “A propaganda machine”.

The article from New York Post recalls the case concerning Hillary Clinton, the Democratic candidate in 2016, whose emails hacked by Russian hackers had been disseminated on the Internet by anonymous sites and by WikiLeaks. In their efforts to protect the elections from manipulation, the big platforms have promised to be adamant about such tactics. “Hack-and-leak”, where entities, often linked to states, give pirated information to the media and use networks to spread it.

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The World with AFP

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