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By Katie Paul
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Facebook and Twitter question a New York Post story that made claims about the son of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, taking proactive steps to restrict the story’s spread in the hours after it was posted Wednesday. .
The story contained alleged details of Hunter Biden’s business dealings with a Ukrainian energy company and said the former vice president had met with an advisor to the company. The story, which Reuters did not independently confirm, obtained details of emails it said were delivered to the attorney for Rudy Giuliani, President Donald Trump’s personal attorney.
Robert Costello, Giuliani’s attorney cited in the Post’s story, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Twitter banned its users from posting links to the post’s story, while Facebook reduced the frequency with which the story appears in users’ news feeds and elsewhere on the Facebook platform.
Biden’s campaign spokesman, Andrew Bates, said in a statement that Republican-led Senate committees had previously concluded that Biden did not commit any crime related to Ukraine.
“The New York Post never asked the Biden campaign about the critical elements of this story,” Bates said. “We have reviewed Joe Biden’s official hours from the moment and no meeting, as the New York Post alleges, never took place,” he added.
Trump, who has been behind Biden in national polls before the Nov. 3 election, said it was “terrible” that Twitter and Facebook “removed the story from the ‘Smoking Gun’ emails related to Sleepy Joe Biden and his son, Hunter. ” and vaguely alluded to a threat of regulatory action.
The New York Post, in an editorial in response to the actions of the companies, said: “Censure first, ask questions later: this is an outrageous attitude for two of the most powerful platforms in America.” The newspaper did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Facebook, the world’s largest social network, limited the Post’s story just hours after it was posted on Wednesday, according to a tweet from spokesman Andy Stone.
Stone cited a policy that says Facebook can temporarily take action against content pending review by news organizations and others in its third-party fact-checking program “if we have signs that content is fake.”
Facebook took the same action at least once previously, in response to false claims, also involving the New York Post, that Biden wore a headset in last month’s debate. A Reuters review found https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-fact-check-false-evidence-of-biden-ea/fact-check-false-evidence-of-biden-being-wired-or -using-earpiece-idUSKBN26L3D0 that the marking on Biden’s shirt was probably a fold of the shirt.
Twitter said the story violated its “pirated materials” policy, which prohibits the distribution of pirated content that contains private information or trade secrets, or puts people at risk of physical harm. He did not provide details on what materials he considered pirated in the Post articles.
“It was not hacked at all,” Giuliani told Reuters. Twitter said in a series of tweets that the images in two Post articles included personal information such as email addresses and phone numbers, putting them in violation of the company’s “private information policy.” . “
The swift actions of social media companies earned praise from some disinformation researchers, who raised red flags about the provenance and credibility of the Post’s story, but some said it raised questions about their processes for deciding to contain the spread of false information.
Cristina Tardaguila, associate director of the International Fact-Checking Network, said she found Facebook’s decision to act without disclosing its methodology “disturbing”.
Although Facebook may ask fact-checkers for ratings on particular pieces of content, several fact-check partners, including a Reuters unit, said the company had not done so in this case, nor had they chosen to initiate a verification for its account.
Despite moves to restrict broadcasting, the story’s information circulated widely on both platforms. Versions of the story made the list of the top 10 most shared English links on Facebook pages and groups, while the topic was still trending on Twitter as of Wednesday afternoon.
(Reporting by Katie Paul; Additional reporting by Elizabeth Culliford; Editing by Greg Mitchell and Leslie Adler)
