Twitter Walks Back ‘Hacked Materials Policy’ After Blocking Controversial New York Post Story on Hunter Biden
HACK BACKTRACK
After receiving “significant feedback,” the social network announced it would allow the posting of hacked content if the poster was not working in collaboration with the hackers.
After blocking the spread of a controversial New York Post story on Wednesday that used unsubstantiated claims made by President Trump's allies to accuse former vice president Joe Biden and his son of corruption, Twitter on Thursday appeared to walk back its handling of the matter. Citing “significant feedback” following the company's decision to block the article, which cited emails supposedly copied from a computer belonging to Hunter Biden, Trust and Safety Lead Vijaya Gadde said in a statement: “We will no longer remove hacked content unless it is directly shared by hackers or those acting in concert with them. We will label Tweets to provide context instead of blocking links from being shared on Twitter.” Gadde added, “We want to address the concerns that there could be many unintended consequences to journalists, whistleblowers and others in ways that are contrary to Twitter’s purpose of serving the public conversation.” No other outlets apart from the Post have confirmed the emails as authentic, and the provenance of the emails remains unclear. The contents of the emails were provided to the Post by Rudy Giuliani, who has been involved in a relentless dirt-digging mission against Biden that U.S. intelligence officials have warned relied on Russian disinformation.
