Twitter suppressed Hunter Biden laptop story in 2020, internal emails reveal

One of the most significant internal debates at Twitter during pre-Elon Musk times have surfaced on Twitter. The revelation details the platform's controversial decision in 2020 to restrict the access to a New York Post article about contents of a laptop purportedly owned by Hunter Biden, son of the US President Joe Biden.

Author Matt Taibbi posted a series of tweets and images of what he said were leaked internal Twitter messages and emails, without revealing how they were obtained.

What is Hunter Biden-Twitter row all about?

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In late 2020, during the final weeks of the US presidential campaign, Twitter restricted a New York Post article containing unverified claims about Hunter Biden’s activities in Ukraine. Twitter said at the time that the New York Post story included screenshots and images that violated the company’s “Hacked Materials Policy,” which forbids users from sharing images of hacked materials on the site. The company blocked users from sharing the article on Twitter.

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Then-Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey later tweeted that blocking the links without providing more context was “unacceptable.” The company also changed its policies soon after restricting the Biden story, saying it would “label tweets to provide context instead of blocking links” to stories.

Jack later responded to the incident before the US Congress in November 2020.

What unfolded at Twitter as per Matt Taibbi?

In one message from that time, shared by Matt Taibbi, Trenton Kennedy, a member of Twitter’s communications team, wrote to a group including legal and policy head Vijaya Gadde and site integrity leader Yoel Roth to voice questions about why the story was being restricted.

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“I’m struggling to understand the policy basis for marking this as unsafe, and I think the best explainability argument for this externally would be that we’re waiting to understand if this story is the result of hacked materials,” Taibbi’s tweets show Kennedy as writing. “We’ll face hard questions on this if we don’t have some kind of solid reasoning for marking the link unsafe.”

Taibbi's revelations, Musk's tweets of approval

When Taibbi began tweeting about the matter, Musk posted, "Here we go!!" Musk has teased "part two" of the story in future.

Some Republican Party members claim that Twitter’s move to block the story helped President Biden in his victory over Trump, but a Federal Election Commission ruled last year that Twitter didn’t break election laws by doing so.

President Joe Biden is gearing up to face Republican-led investigations next year that will examine Hunter Biden and his business dealings.

Republican lawmakers allege the president’s son traded on his family name and created conflicts of interest for his father, allegations both of them deny.

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