Politicized Censorship

"Both parties had access to these tools. For instance, in 2020, requests from both the Trump White House and the Biden campaign were received and honoured."

"This system wasn't balanced. It was based on contacts."

"Because Twitter was and is overwhelmingly staffed by people of one political orientation, there were more channels, more ways to complain, open to the left."

Journalist Matt Taibbi

"We need more facts to assess whether the materials were hacked."

"At this stage, however, it is reasonable for us to assume that they may have been and that caution is warranted."

Jim Baker, deputy general counsel, Twitter

"The policy basis is hacked materials. Though, as discussed, this is an emerging situation where the facts remain unclear."

"Given the severe risks here and lessons of 2016, we're erring [on the side of caution]."

Yoel Roth, head of site integrity, Twitter

On October 14, 2020, the New York Post exposed underhanded business operations of Hunter Biden, the son of Joe Biden, then a presidential candidate. This, less than a month prior to the U.S. presidential election, could have been a disaster for the Democrats. Recently released correspondence from employees of social media giant Twitter, referred to as "Twitter Files" are under examination. Under scrutiny and further verification the consensus now is that the rumours surrounding Hunter Biden's shady dealings, if given wide exposure, would have derailed his father's run for the presidency, were all true.

 

The New York Post article with all its revelatory details of underhanded get-rich-on-political-connections tale of sordid arrangements stopped with the publication of the story in October of 2020. The usual furor that would have emerged without any tampering simply failed to materialize. There were rumours here and there, but no storm of controversial accusations and no harm done to Joe Biden's campaign. Twitter employee political biases saved the day for the Bidens, as the story was suppressed.

 

No other mainstream newspaper would touch the story that a mainstream heritage newspaper in operation for two centuries had broken. The New York Post article made use of emails taken from a laptop owned by Hunter Biden he had left at a repair shop and never bothered to reclaim. When its appearance became known after the owner of the repair shop offered it to a lawyer who was a Trump supporter, a U.S. district court issued a subpoena for it to be handed over.

 

The shop owner had, however, made a copy of the hard drive containing incriminating evidence in the form of critical emails that blackened the character of a would-be president's son, offering his influential access in exchange for lucrative contracts. The story published in 2020 even left the indelible impression that Joe Biden himself had been involved in underhanded meetings. But the legitimacy of the files left doubts.

 

It was not possible for other media groups to verify the claims. Twitter and Facebook took steps to technologically place blocks preventing people from posting anything about the finds. The story was flagged as "unsafe", a label generally reserved for child pornography. The accounts of then-White House Press Secretary McEnany and the New York Post were disabled to prevent any further elaboration of the unsavoury revelations. Over 50 former high-ranked intelligence officers claimed the report had "all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation".

Unsurprisingly, in the general aura of suspicion that Russian agents were hard at work surreptitiously interfering in American politics and most particularly elections.  And through these manipulative techniques the story that had the potential to seriously damage Democratic prospects of retaking the White House from the Republicans was fairly successfully suppressed. Since that time, through the two years that have passed, it has become increasingly clear that the story appearing in the New York Post was accurate.

 

A year after the story was published it was revealed that the FBI was investigating Hunter Biden over the possibility that he engaged in violations of tax and foreign lobbying rules -- since 2018. That, accounting for the subpoena issued for retention of the laptop. The New York Times early in 2022 verified some of the emails and the Washington Post verified some of those emails as well. A bit late in the day for them to have any effect on the presidency occupied by Joe Biden. 

Interestingly, the-then deputy general counsel at Twitter was recently fired by Elon Musk, the current owner of Twitter, resulting from his "possible role in suppression of information important too the public dialogue".  “If Twitter is doing one team’s bidding before an election, shutting down dissenting voices on a pivotal election, that is the very definition of election interference. … Frankly Twitter was acting like an arm of the Democratic National Committee. It was absurd.” (Elon Musk)

October 14, 2020  New York Post