Musk Releases Details On How Twitter Censored The Hunter Biden Laptop Story

This is a breaking news story and will be updated.


Matt Taibbi, contributing editor at Rolling Stone, released what Elon Musk has referred to as “The Twitter Files,” Friday afternoon detailing how the social media platform suppressed a New York Post story regarding a laptop belonging to Hunter Biden.

The NYP story revealed an email — which was verified soon after by the Daily Caller News Foundation — that connected President Joe Biden with an executive at the Ukrainian gas company Burisma, with the executive thanking the president’s son for “giving me an opportunity to meet your father.” Taibbi alleged that former head of legal, policy and trust Viyaja Gadde played a “key role,” in the decision to suppress the story, which was made without the knowledge of then-CEO Jack Dorsey, but without any government involvement.

Taibbi tweeted an email indicating that Twitter’s trust and safety team initially explained to other employees that it made the decision to suppress the story — the company even went so far as to prevent it from being sent in private messages — because it violated Twitter’s policy for sharing “hacked materials.” Taibbi tweeted two additional emails that show Twitter employees discussing posts flagged by the Democratic National Committee and Biden staff, and communication on how to moderate the posts.

Democratic Rep. Khanna of California reached out to Gadde personally after the story was suppressed, concerned that Twitter’s actions were a “violation of the 1st Amendment [sic] principles,” according to Taibbi. Carl Szacbo, general counsel at trade association NetChoice that advocates for limited government intervention online, sent a letter to Twitter’s head of Public Policy, Lauren Culberston, noting that while members from both parties were frustrated with Twitter’s response to the situation, the three Democratic lawmakers they had polled were in agreement that social media companies needed to moderate more, arguing that “the First Amendment isn’t absolute.”

Sharing the NYP story was banned on Twitter from Oct. 14-16, 2020, a move that Twitter’s former head of trust and safety, Yoel Roth, described as a mistake in an interview on Nov. 30, 2022. Dozens of former intelligence officials criticized the NYP story in October 2020 as likely linked to Russian disinformation in an open letter, according to Politico; however, the veracity of the laptop’s contents has been confirmed by several major news organizations since the DCNF.

Facebook also prevented users from sharing the story, which alleged that the laptop’s hard drive contained video of Hunter Biden using drugs while engaging in sexual activities.

Months before the NYP story, tapes leaked by Andriy Derkach, a member of Ukraine’s Parliament with connections to Russia’s intelligence, alleged that Joe Biden had pressured the former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to fire a prosecutor that was investigating Burisma, where his son was a member of the board, when he was the Vice President.

Twitter did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

AUTHOR

JOHN HUGH DEMASTRI

Contributor.

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