Twitter and Facebook Block New York Post Report on Biden Family
Major social media platforms restrict the distribution of a New York Post article concerning Joe Biden's son, citing concerns over hacked materials and misinformation.
Twitter and Facebook take unprecedented steps to suppress a New York Post story about Hunter Biden just weeks before the 2020 US presidential election. Twitter completely blocks users from posting links to the article or sharing photos from the report, displaying messages that claim the link is potentially harmful. The platform also locks the accounts of the New York Post and White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany for allegedly violating rules against sharing hacked materials.
Facebook handles the situation slightly differently by reducing the distribution of the article across its network. A Facebook communications director announces that the story requires review by third-party fact checkers before it can circulate normally on the platform. This temporary suppression aligns with the company's stated efforts to limit the spread of misinformation during the election period.
The controversial report relies on a trove of emails allegedly obtained from a laptop left at a Delaware repair shop and never retrieved. The computer store owner reportedly copies the hard drive data and provides it to a lawyer connected with Rudy Giuliani. The central claims of the article focus on these alleged email communications, though the publication of the story triggers immediate and severe backlash from major tech platforms.