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Business News/ Companies / News/  How Twitter suppressed Hunter Biden laptop story in 2020? Elon Musk reveals
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How Twitter suppressed Hunter Biden laptop story in 2020? Elon Musk reveals

Elon Musk tweeted a link to the account of independent journalist and author Matt Taibbi, who posted a series of tweets revealing the story about the decision behind the censorship of Hunter Biden's laptop story.

Twit Chief Elon Musk on Friday released the internal Twitter Files. (AP)Premium
Twit Chief Elon Musk on Friday released the internal Twitter Files. (AP)

Twit Chief Elon Musk on Friday released the internal 'Twitter Files' that showed the company responded to a request from the 'Biden team' during the 2020 election. Musk tweeted a link to the account of independent journalist and author Matt Taibbi, who posted a series of tweets revealing the story about the decision behind the censorship of Hunter Biden's laptop story.

“Here, we go!!" Musk wrote on Twitter while also linking Taibbi's tweets.

Beginning the ‘Twitter Files’, Taibbi said that the first installment in a series is based upon thousands of internal documents obtained by sources at the micro blogging site.

“The “Twitter Files" tell an incredible story from inside one of the world’s largest and most influential social media platforms. It is a Frankensteinian tale of a human-built mechanism grown out the control of its designer," he tweeted.

“Twitter in its conception was a brilliant tool for enabling instant mass communication, making a true real-time global conversation possible for the first time," the independent journalist said.

The author added, “As time progressed, however, the company was slowly forced to add those barriers. Some of the first tools for controlling speech were designed to combat the likes of spam and financial fraudsters."

Further, Taibbi said that requests from connected actors to delete tweets were routine by 2020. He also cited an example of such situations.

“One executive would write to another: “More to review from the Biden team." The reply would come back: “Handled", he tweeted.

"Celebrities and unknowns alike could be removed or reviewed at the behest of a political party," he wrote while posting the screengrab of such requests.

He then shifted to "How and Why Twitter Blocked the Hunter Biden Laptop Story".

According to Taibbi, the social media company "took extraordinary steps to suppress" The New York Post's Hunter Biden laptop story, removing links and posting warnings that it may be "unsafe."

“On October 14, 2020, the New York Post published BIDEN SECRET EMAILS, an expose based on the contents of Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop," he said.

“White House spokeswoman Kaleigh McEnany was locked out of her account for tweeting about the story, prompting a furious letter from Trump campaign staffer Mike Hahn, who seethed: “At least pretend to care for the next 20 days," he added. The author also shared the picture of that email. 

“You can see the confusion in the following lengthy exchange, which ends up including Gadde and former Trust and safety chief Yoel Roth. Comms official Trenton Kennedy writes, “I'm struggling to understand the policy basis for marking this as unsafe," he stated. 

Earlier, in 2020, The New York Post revealed that Hunter Biden introduced his father, then Vice President, to a top executive at a Ukrainian energy firm less than a year before the elder Biden had put pressure on government officials in Ukraine into firing a prosecutor who was investigating the company.

 

(With ANI inputs)

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Published: 03 Dec 2022, 07:59 AM IST
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