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Twitter suppressed a story about Hunter Biden’s laptop months before the 2020 election even though it didn’t explicitly violate company policy, according to messages leaked by new boss Elon Musk.
The New York Post story in question claimed that Joe Biden met with a Ukrainian gas executive who worked with his son, Hunter. Biden denied it.
The report relied on a laptop allegedly left behind by Hunter at a computer repair shop. Experts said it had “multiple red flags” and the origins were “unclear.” One nonpartisan observer said the story should be treated “as a Trump campaign product.”
Twitter suppressed the article heavily, removing tweets and direct messages that contained links to the story. At the time, Twitter said it violated the company’s policy on “hacked content” and even banned the Post for 16 days in October 2020.
On Friday night, Musk promised to publish “What really happened with the Hunter Biden story suppression by Twitter.” He then directed readers to a thread from reporter Matt Taibbi.
Taibbi began by claiming that Twitter’s content moderation system “was and is overwhelmingly staffed by people of one political orientation” and therefore Democrats had more access.
He then delved into how Twitter employees were debating behind the scenes whether the “hacked content” reasoning really applied to the Post story.
“Can we truthfully claim this is part of the policy?” asked Twitter’s then-vice president of global communications Brandon Borrman, according to Taibbi’s screenshots.
“I support the conclusion that we need more facts to assess whether the materials were hacked,” responded Twitter attorney Jim Baker. “At this stage, however, it is reasonable for us to assume that they may have been and that caution is warranted.”
Taibbi claimed that Twitter’s then-CEO Jack Dorsey was not involved in the discussions about limiting the story. At the time, then-President Donald Trump and other Republicans blasted Dorsey for suppressing the story.
Musk promised to release more internal Twitter documents on Saturday.