Last night, a bombshell article by the New York Post revealing details of leaked emails between Hunter Biden and a top executive from the Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma has sparked several controversies, not only because of its content that has triggered speculations for years, or because of the timing two weeks prior to the US elections, but also because of how tech giants and social media platforms have responded.
Hunter Biden probed over hard drive, smoking-gun emails exposed by Post https://t.co/OyqvBKOc2h pic.twitter.com/J6A7XIfwYw
— New York Post (@nypost) October 14, 2020
The NYP report that highlights an email sent from a Burisma official to Hunter Biden in 2015, thanking him for arranging a meeting between the company and his father, then VP to President Obama, has faced a lot of difficulties making its way to the audience, as Twitter and Facebook tried to hide it and block access to it several times, citing "harmful content" and "disinformation."
Twitter is now banning users from even linking to the New York Post story detailing Hunter Biden's use of his dad's office to get rich off of corrupt foreign oligarchs.
— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) October 14, 2020
This is brazen, blatant election interference from illegal tech monopolies trying to steal the election. pic.twitter.com/MlZgGLliae
Both Silicon Valley-based companies have been accused by social media users of "taking a political stance" for their attempts to hide the content of the report that could potentially have a negative impact on Biden's campaign for the US presidential elections.
BREAKING: Twitter has blocked the NY Post article about Hunter Biden. If you attempt to share the story, you will see this message:
— Scott Gustin (@ScottGustin) October 14, 2020
"We can't complete this request because this link has been identified by Twitter or our partners as being potentially harmful." pic.twitter.com/TWaTKzvtQP
Twitter is now warning that the NY Post story on Hunter Biden is “unsafe.” You don’t even have to defend the veracity of the story to recognize how creepy and authoritarian this is pic.twitter.com/HxscxTqGpX
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) October 14, 2020
So terrible that Facebook and Twitter took down the story of “Smoking Gun” emails related to Sleepy Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, in the @NYPost. It is only the beginning for them. There is nothing worse than a corrupt politician. REPEAL SECTION 230!!! https://t.co/g1RJFpIVUZ
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 14, 2020
As soon as the report was out, many Twitter users noted that they were not able to share it with their followers, while many reported having their tweets hidden by Twitter moderators.
Angry at Twitter's meddling into the matter, which according to them amounts to unprecedented surveillance, many commentators questioned the reason Twitter decided to hide an article uncovering the story on Hunter Biden but not the New York Times report exposing Trump's tax forms a few weeks ago, which didn't face any similar measures.
So @Jack, I guess it's okay for Democrats to post hacked or otherwise illegally obtained personal information about Trump, but Republicans can't talk about Hunter Biden's abandoned laptop? pic.twitter.com/euRPaTJRb0
— Mark Dice (@MarkDice) October 15, 2020
Twitter locked White House Press Secretary Kayleigh Mcenany out of her account and forced her to delete a tweet about the Hunter Biden email story in order to regain access. pic.twitter.com/VPyIFmSvTL
— Mark Dice (@MarkDice) October 14, 2020
Additionally, Twitter has reportedly locked White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany out of her account after she shared the report, urging online people to protest this move as it points at a dangerous approach followed by social media giants to monitor content shared across the platforms and deliberately interfere in the US elections, in what could be considered an "unconstitutional move."
