Twitter reverses policy over blocked Biden report
October 16, 2020
Twitter says it has revised its policy on hacked content after being criticized for blocking a controversial news report about US Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.
The social media platform said late Thursday it would, in future, only block stolen information which was posted directly by hackers, and label any other information of questionable provenance.
However, Twitter said the Biden story would remain blocked for "violating the rules on private personal information."
On Wednesday, the New York Post published a story purporting to expose corrupt dealings by Biden and his son Hunter in Ukraine.
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The popular conservative-leaning tabloid claimed that the former vice-president, who was in charge of US policy toward Ukraine, took actions to help his son, who in 2014-2017 sat on the board of controversial Ukraine energy company Burisma.
Questionable source
But the source for the information raised questions as it cited records on a drive allegedly copied from a computer said to have been abandoned by Hunter Biden, that Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani gave to the newspaper.
Facebook and Twitter blocked the story, provoking fury from the Republican Party.
Republican senators vowed to subpoena Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey to testify before two different committees on why the firm blocked links to the article.
Republican senator Ted Cruz called the decision "election interference," while President Donald Trump — who trails Biden in polls 19 days before the presidential vote — decried the move as trying to shield his rival.
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Responding to the criticism, Twitter's legal and policy executive Vijaya Gadde on Thursday tweeted that the platform would "no longer remove hacked content unless it is directly shared by hackers or those acting in concert with them."
She said the firm had received "significant feedback" including "concerns that there could be many unintended consequences to journalists, whistleblowers and others."
Future stories will be labeled
Instead, Gadde said the company would label tweets to provide context, instead of blocking links from being shared.
Both social media platforms insisted they took action out of caution over the accusations made in the article.
Giuliani has previously spread false information about a discredited theory that accuses Biden of pressuring Ukraine to fire its top prosecutor to benefit a Ukrainian natural gas company that employed his son.
Biden has denied all wrongdoing, saying that he did not speak to his son about his business.
The block also illustrated the hold the largest tech companies have on the flow of information, particularly in the midst of a raucous US election campaign, and that their attempts to clamp down on a potentially false story can amplify it further.
mm/rc (AFP, dpa)