WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 03rd December, 2022) Social media company Twitter took extraordinary steps to suppress reporting regarding Hunter Biden's laptop ahead of the 2020 US Presidential Election, journalist Matt Taibbi disclosed in coordination with Twitter chief Elon Musk, citing internal documents.
"Twitter took extraordinary steps to suppress the story, removing links and posting warnings that it may be 'unsafe.' They even blocked its transmission via direct message, a tool hitherto reserved for extreme cases, e.g. child pornography," Taibbi said in one of several tweets on Friday.
Twitter received and honored requests from both Joe Biden's campaign team and then-US President Donald Trump's White House to review content on the platform, Taibbi said. However, Twitter maintained more channels with Democrats than Republicans, Taibbi said.
In October 2020, shortly before the 2020 US presidential election, US media began reporting on the contents of a laptop abandoned by Hunter Biden, which contained information about his foreign business dealings and images seeming to depict substance abuse and sexual activity.
Former White House spokeswoman Kaleigh McEnany was locked out of her Twitter account for sharing the story as the company suppressed it on the basis it may have been hacked materials, in violation of their policies.
Internal documents shared by Taibbi show Twitter employees discussing the story and the application of their hacked materials policy.
Taibbi, citing several sources, said the problem with the "hacked materials" ruling was that this normally required an official law enforcement finding, but such a finding never appears throughout what one executive describes as a "whirlwind" 24-hour mess.
