Elon Musk reveals Twitter censored Hunter Biden laptop story

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Elon Musk reveals Twitter censored Hunter Biden laptop story

Elon Musk, CEO of Twitter, said last month that he would release internal communications showing how Twitter censored a story about Hunter Biden's laptop ahead of the 2020 presidential election.

In a Twitter post on Friday, Musk announced that he would reveal all the details about the suppression of the Hunter Biden story. He followed up by posting a series of Twitter threads from journalist Matt Taibbi.

In a lengthy tweet thread, Taibbi said he received thousands of internal documents from sources on Twitter and detailed what transpired behind the scenes at the company during the incident.

In his tweets, Taibbi included screenshots of emails of requests from unidentified people in President Joe Biden's administration, asking contacts on Twitter to take action against specific tweets.

Some of the tools for controlling speech were designed to combat the likes of spam and financial fraudsters. Over time, Twitter staff and executives began to find more and more uses for these tools. The outsiders began asking the company to manipulate speech, first a little, then more often, then constantly, according to Taibbi.

In one of his Twitter threads, Taibbi shared a screenshot of an October 2020 exchange with links to tweets Biden's team wanted to be taken down.

In another tweet, Taibbi said there was no evidence that the federal government was involved in disseminating the Hunter Biden laptop story, but it was not known if Twitter removed material related to the story, but it was made without the knowledge of CEO Jack Dorsey, with the former head of legal, policy and trust Vijaya Gadde playing a key role. In response to one of the leaked emails, Musk asked if this isn't a violation of the First Amendment of the Constitution, what is it? After Taibbi's post on Friday, House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy said in 32 days, the new House Republican majority will get answers for the American people and the accountability they deserve. In October 2020, both Twitter and Meta Platforms Inc.'s META Facebook faced challenges over restricting stories connected to Hunter Biden.

The story involving Hunter's laptop was originally published by the New York Post on October 14, 2020, based on materials from a laptop left in a Delaware repair shop. The report claimed that Hunter introduced then-Vice President Biden to a Ukrainian businessman.

In the next article, Musk says Twitter Ban On Trump Was' Grave Mistake, Reveals Preferred 2024 Presidential Candidate.

Photo: Courtesy of shutterstock.com and Dunk on flickr.