Elon Musk, owner of Twitter, on Friday sparked a social media uproar after the revelations of internal Twitter emails and its controversial decision to restrict access to a New York Post article dealing with the story of his laptop. Hunter, son of US President Joe Biden, ahead of the 2020 presidential election.
Bloomberg reported that, instead of releasing a set of documents to the public, Musk referred to a series of tweets and screenshots of conversations by journalist Matt Taibbi. already about the incident.
And Musk started earlier this week; By agitating the public by publishing information dubbed Twitter files, as part of a recent series of tweets aimed at defending freedom of expression and accusing the previous company's management, and advertisers such as Apple, of curbing freedoms.
The origin of the story
According to the Emirati newspaper, Al-Khaleej, the story dates back to late 2020, in the final weeks of the presidential campaign, when Twitter decided to restrict an article in the New York Post that contained unverified allegations about Hunter Biden's activities in Ukraine, and his involvement with an oil giant. Chinese, as well as the involvement of his father, then-presidential candidate Joe Biden, in a multimillion-dollar deal with a foreign company. And Twitter stated; The article included images that violated the company's privacy policy, which prohibits users from sharing images of prohibited material. The company has already banned users from sharing the article on its platform.
One of the messages at the time, according to Taipei, showed former Twitter employees, including Trenton Kennedy, a member of the communications team, Vijaya Ghadi, head of legal affairs and policy, and safety officer Yoel Roth, debating and, at times, disagreeing about whether The article would have been restricted under the company's pirated material policy, weeks before the 2020 election, when Hunter's father, Joe Biden, was competing with then-US President Donald Trump for the presidency.
Of these messages, Kennedy said: “I'm trying very hard to understand the political basis for flagging this content as unsafe, and I think the best argument for explaining it externally is for us to wait and see whether or not this story is the result of hacked material. But on the other hand, we will face difficult questions if we do not have strong evidence to classify the link as unsafe.
Among the most shocking emails was an exchange between two employees, which showed that the Biden campaign was requesting that the tweets be deleted, and that Twitter was duly complying.
Musk was aware that the tweet storm would come on Friday, and hinted in a post on the network that he had helped coordinate it, saying: “We see the facts well, so I may start tweeting live in 40 minutes.” Then he wrote: “What really happened in the suppression of Hunter Biden’s story via Twitter, it will be published at 5 pm ET!” As Taipei began tweeting, Musk wrote, Here we go!!
Back in the 2020 presidential campaign, then-conservative media published information claiming that its source was a laptop left by Hunter Biden in a repair shop in Wilmington, Delaware. Then-President Donald Trump's campaign was quick to claim that the material, the origin of which was not verified by Bloomberg News, undermined Joe Biden's claims that he and his son had not discussed foreign business dealings.
Biden is preparing to face the Republican-led investigations
Some Republicans have said that Twitter's move to block the story helped the sitting president secure his victory over Trump, but the Federal Election Commission ruled last year that Twitter did not violate election laws by doing so.
Musk tried to please both parties in discussing online discourse during his first few weeks in charge of Twitter, though like previous Twitter leaders he was largely unsuccessful. Now, Joe Biden is preparing to face a Republican-led investigation next year that will hold Hunter Biden and his business dealings accountable for conflicts of interest.
