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Between Wednesday and Thursday, Facebook and Twitter limited the circulation of publications that referred to an unconfirmed and critical story of the Democratic candidate for president of the United States, Joe Biden, published by the tabloid. New York Post on the cover page. The decision of the two social networks has been strongly criticized by President Donald Trump and by much of the establishment of the Republican Party, according to whom the measure would be a way to censor news that could put Biden’s electoral campaign in difficulties.
the New York Post On Wednesday, he published a lengthy article in which he accused Biden’s son, Hunter, of arranging a meeting between his father and the adviser to a Ukrainian energy company, Burisma. At the time, in 2015, Joe Biden was Vice President of the United States and Hunter served on Burisma’s board of directors. The meeting, argued the New York Post, it would be proof that Joe Biden was intervening in Ukrainian politics to favor his son’s business, at a time when, in addition, the country was going through a period of transition after the revolution, and in which the influence of America was very big. .
– Read also: The history of the accusations against Joe Biden over Ukraine
In fact, the revelation of the New York Post it is virtually impossible to independently confirm and is based on very peculiar sources, which most observers find unsafe. According to the account in the tabloid, which belongs to the Murdoch family, the email describing the meeting between Biden and the Ukrainian adviser was found on a laptop taken for repair at a workshop in Delaware, state of the Biden family. It is unknown who brought the computer to repair and writes the New York Post, no one has ever returned to retrieve it. On the laptop, however, the merchant would have found compromising emails and videos. The tabloid writes that the merchant would have contacted the FBI, but that before handing over the computer he would have made a copy of the hard drive and gave it to Robert Costello, Rudy Giuliani’s lawyer.
Giuliani is the former mayor of New York and, in turn, is Donald Trump’s personal attorney. According to the tabloid, Steve Bannon, a former adviser to Donald Trump arrested in August for fraud and money laundering, would have spoken with New York Post the existence of the hard drive, which would later be handed over to journalists by Giuliani.
Joe Biden’s staff denied the content of the article and disclosed that no news of the alleged meeting is on the vice president’s agenda.
The story of New York Post follows some very popular theories on the American right about Joe and Hunter Biden’s alleged interference in Ukrainian politics. These theories were also taken up by Russian propaganda. Giuliani was charged in September with using a Ukrainian who, according to the US Treasury Department, is an “active agent” of Russian intelligence as a source against Biden. Last year, Donald Trump was subjected to impeachment proceedings because, according to the indictment, he pressured Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky to open an unfounded investigation against Joe Biden. Then Trump was acquitted, with a Republican majority in the Senate.
– Read also: Six notable moments in the Trump-Biden debate
Since the article of New York Post it is based on opaque sources and is very difficult to confirm, therefore, Facebook and Twitter have decided to limit its dissemination. Andy Stone, member of the Facebook communications team, he wrote on Twitter that the story of New York Post is subject to fact-checking by external partners of the social network, and that while the article review process is underway, Facebook has decided to “limit its distribution on our platform.” In practice, this means that the Facebook algorithm will propose posts that report the article less frequently on user boards. According to Stone, this is a common practice.
Instead, Twitter has adopted a stricter policy. Since the article of the New York Post transcribing the names, phone numbers and email addresses of numerous people involved, the social network considered it a violation of its privacy rules. Also, since the emails and other information would have been extracted from someone else’s computer, the article also violates hacking rules, such as he wrote the security team of the social network. To do this, Twitter has decided to block the tweets of anyone who tries to share the article link. Also blocked Twitter account of the New York Post and other known accounts that shared the link, such as Kayleigh McEnany, the White House spokesman. McEnany’s account was unlocked after a short time; The of the New York Postinstead, it remained inactive until the next day.
Wow. Twitter goes even further than FB and no longer allows people to tweet the NYPost story. This is what appears if you try it. https://t.co/YVlOTeF1iX pic.twitter.com/66kzYdwq21
– Alex Thompson (@AlxThomp) October 14, 2020
Donald Trump and many Republican Party officials have accused Facebook and Twitter of censoring the New York Post so as not to harm Joe Biden. The tabloid, on its cover Thursday, wrote in large print that his article was “censored.” In his profile, Trump called the article a “smoking gun,” called Biden “a corrupt politician,” and called for the removal of “section 230,” which is part of a 1996 law that gives websites a certain standard. of impunity for what is published by third parties.
– Read also: Trump contro i social network
Trump also retweeted numerous supporters and representatives of the Republican Party who have condemned social media and relaunched the history of the New York Post. Despite the precautions of Facebook and Twitter, the story has still changed a lot. The official website of the Republican Party in the House Justice Committee republished the full content of the article on its website and distributed it. Other accounts have split the story text into tons of tweets and posted them in threads.
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