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Facebook and Twitter are often criticized for acting too slowly to reduce the spread of harmful misinformation. But on Wednesday, both companies acted surprisingly quickly to limit the distribution of an unverified New York Post report that claimed to contain a “steamy” email related to Democratic candidate and former vice president Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.
Decision timing could hardly be more difficult for companies. Both CEOs previously agreed to testify before the Senate Commerce Committee in just two weeks in a hearing that was already expected to be filled with questions about the platforms’ alleged bias against conservatives. The CEOs only agreed to appear voluntarily after the committee unanimously decided to authorize the subpoenas if they did not. That hearing will take place on October 28, less than a week before Election Day.
But what runs the risk of getting squashed in the discussion are Facebook and Twitter’s very different reasons and methods for reducing the distribution of the Post’s story, which Biden’s campaign has refuted.
Twitter’s stated reason was more technical in nature and its method more disruptive to individual users. Facebook’s rationale was more explicitly related to its electoral policies, but its method was more subtle for the casual user.
Twitter cited his pirated material Y private information policies as reasons to prevent users from posting or sharing (including in private direct messages) links to the original post article. The Post claimed that the source of information for the unverified story was a laptop that the owner of a repair shop in Delaware believed belonged to Hunter Biden. When no one came to pick up the disk, the owner allegedly made a copy of the hard drive and gave it to the attorney for former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani before allegedly turning the original over to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The Post said it later obtained a copy of Giuliani.
Twitter claimed that the link violated its policies because the material in the report, which included photos of the allegedly copied hard drive, allegedly contained pirated materials. The article also included an unedited copy of a message with alleged email addresses for Hunter Biden and two others. Sharing a non-public personal email address also violates Twitter policies.
Users could still share articles commenting on the piece that did not contain the allegedly hacked or personal information. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, even posted a copy of part of the article on his own website, which was posted on the House Judiciary Party Twitter account. That version of the article did not contain the images allegedly taken from the hard drive or the unredacted email addresses. Twitter has left that link intact as of Thursday morning.
But Chief Executive Jack Dorsey said in a tweet late Wednesday that Twitter’s communication of his actions was “unacceptable.”
Twitter shared a thread explaining its reasoning for the decision Wednesday night, saying, in part, “We don’t want to incentivize piracy by allowing Twitter to be used as a distribution of possibly illegally obtained materials.”
Facebook did not prevent users from sharing the link to the article, but said it reduced its distribution pending a fact-checking review. Facebook spokesperson Andy Stone first announced the fact-checking review a few hours after the article was originally published on Wednesday, but as of Thursday morning, more than 24 hours after its first post on Facebook, the Facebook posts that contained the link had none yet. labels showing it was under review.
Stone wrote on Twitter that the review is “part of our standard process to reduce the spread of misinformation,” including a link to Facebook’s election integrity policies. On that page, Facebook says it is committed to fighting foreign interference, increasing transparency and reducing misinformation. As part of its commitment to reducing misinformation, Facebook says in the blog post that it will include “clearer fact-verification tags.”
In many content moderation cases, Facebook and Twitter are condemned if they do and condemned if they don’t. Democrats have criticized the platforms in the past for decisions not to remove or tag manipulated or misleading information on their sites. For example, both platforms declined to remove an edited video posted by President Donald Trump showing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tearing up Trump’s State of the Union address. The edited video made it look like it ripped through the pages after positive moments in the speech, when it only did so at the end.
But at least as often, the platforms receive criticism from Republicans like Jordan and Republican Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Missouri, who suspect they are manipulating their algorithms and policies against conservatives. Facebook and Twitter have repeatedly denied it, and reports show conservative views. often achieve a wide scope on the platforms.
When the Commerce Committee voted to authorize subpoenas for CEOs earlier this month, Rank Member Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., Said that by agreeing to do so, she didn’t want to see “a chilling effect on people who are in a process of trying to crack down on hate speech or misinformation about Covid during a pandemic. ” Now it seems almost inevitable that Republicans on the committee will criticize both CEOs for their moderation processes.
Andrew Bates, a spokesman for Biden’s campaign, responded to the New York Post story in a statement:
“Investigations of the press, during impeachment, and even of two Republican-led Senate committees whose work was denounced as ‘not legitimate’ and political by a fellow Republican, have come to the same conclusion: that Joe Biden led to carried out official US policy towards Ukraine and did not commit any crime. Trump Administration officials have attested to these facts under oath, “Bates said.
“The New York Post never asked the Biden campaign about the critical elements of this story,” he added. “They certainly never mentioned that Rudy Giuliani, whose discredited conspiracy theories and alliance with figures related to Russian intelligence have been widely publicized, claimed to have such materials.
“Also, we have reviewed Joe Biden’s official hours from the moment and no meeting took place, as the New York Post alleges.”
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