Twitter boss Jack Dorsey APOLOGIZES after Trump threatened to remove Facebook and Twitter protections after they blocked story about Biden meeting son Hunter's Ukraine partners – but White House spokeswoman's account is locked for sharing it
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey apologized on Wednesday night after the social media giant faced backlash over its decision to block links to a story which claims Joe Biden met with a Ukrainian businessman while he was Vice President.
It came just an hour after President Donald Trump threatened to remove the US legal protections that exempts the likes of Twitter and Facebook from liability for the material users post on their networks.
Trump called for the law, known as Section 230, to be repealed as he blasted the social media giants as 'terrible' for 'reducing circulation' of a New York Post article which published the claims about his rival Biden earlier in the day.
Dorsey's tweet that his company's actions had been 'unacceptable' also came after it locked the personal account of White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany for sharing information on the article earlier in the day.
McEnany used her government account to respond to the locking of her personal Twitter account and accused the social media platform of censorship.
'Censorship should be condemned!' she wrote. 'cc: @Twitter & Facebook NOT the American way.'
In his apology, Dorsey linked to a statement from the company that said it was restricting the link because 'personal and private information' was shared in the story, pulling back from its earlier suggestions of inaccuracy.
The Post story says that the former Vice President met with Ukrainian businessman Vadym Pozharskyi, as associate of his son Hunter, months before Biden would pressure Ukrainian officials to fire a prosecutor who was investigating Pozharskyi's firm.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey appeared to step back from the social media giant's restrictions on an article about VP Joe Biden on Wednesday night
Donald Trump called Facebook and Twitter 'terrible' on Wednesday evening for 'reducing circulation' of the New York Post article that claimed Joe Biden met his son Hunter's Ukrainian partners while he was Vice President, saying the story needed to be fact-checked
It came just before White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany's personal Twitter account was locked for sharing the New York Post article earlier on Wednesday
Trump returns to the White House after attending a political event in Des Moines Wednesday
The president wore a red MAGA hat for the campaign rally as he raged against Biden to his supporters
Facebook and Twitter were accused of 'election interference' for throttling the article, after they claimed it needed to be independently verified by fact-checkers before it could be shared on their platforms.
'So terrible that Facebook and Twitter took down the story of “Smoking Gun” emails related to Sleepy Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, in the @NYPost,' Trump tweeted Wednesday evening.
'It is only the beginning for them. There is nothing worse than a corrupt politician. REPEAL SECTION 230!' he added, threatening the protections law.
Twitter now look to have stepped back from its actions, however, with Dorsey on Wednesday night accepting the company may have been wrong.
'Our communication around our actions on the @nypost article was not great,' he tweeted.
'And blocking URL sharing via tweet or DM with zero context as to why we’re blocking: unacceptable.'
He quoted a further tweet from the Twitter Safety account which said it wanted to 'provide much needed clarity around the actions we’ve taken with respect to two NY Post articles that were first Tweeted this morning'.
Twitter now claims that they placed the restrictions on the articles as they contained personal information such as phone numbers, as well as information that had been hacked.
'The images contained in the articles include personal and private information — like email addresses and phone numbers — which violate our rules,' the company stated.
'As noted this morning, we also currently view materials included in the articles as violations of our Hacked Materials Policy.
'Commentary on or discussion about hacked materials, such as articles that cover them but do not include or link to the materials themselves, aren’t a violation of this policy.
'Our policy only covers links to or images of hacked material themselves,' it concluded.
Twitter released a statement on Wednesday night about the decision
An example of the emails with personal details shared in the New York Post article
Some have accused the company of hypocrisy, however, as other linked material from other sources, such as Wikileaks, still appear on the platform.
In an editorial, the New York Post also refuted the hacking claims, stating that the original story explains where the material came from.
'Our story explains where the info came from, and a Senate committee now confirms it also received the files from the same source', it hit back.
The publication also complained that neither Twitter or Facebook restricted the New York Times’ series of exposés on Donald Trump’s tax returns.
That series did not publish personal information but has not revealed its exact source. The Times says it was 'was legally obtained by reporters'.
The announcement from Twitter came after one of the White House's most prominent figures, Kayleigh McEnany, was hit by the restrictions.
On Wednesday evening, her personal account still featured a retweet of a separate Post article referencing the original story yet there was also a note at on the page stating that a previous tweet was no longer available.
According to screenshots shared to Twitter, McEnany received a message to say a tweet violated Twitter's rules.
Both McEnany's personal account and her account as WH Press Secretary could still be viewed as of Wednesday night.
The New York also said its own Twitter account was locked.
This is not the first time that Trump has come for Section 230.
Under the U.S. law, internet companies are generally exempt from liability for the material users post on their networks.
Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act - itself part of a broader telecom law - provides a legal 'safe harbor' for internet companies.
Trump has previously threatened to repeal the law, angered at social media platforms actions in censoring some of his content.
The New York Post story suggests that Biden met with Ukrainian businessman Vadym Pozharskyi in 2015, when Hunter was working for Pozharskyi's gas firm. Months later, Biden pressured Ukrainian officials into firing a prosecutor who was looking in to the firm.
If true, it raises serious questions of whether or not Biden abused his power as Vice President.
Facebook, however, has decided to 'reduce distribution' of the article until it has been verified by its own, third-party 'fact checkers'.
It didn't say why it was taking the unusual step.
Later, Twitter users reported being unable to share links to the story online.
Conservatives accused big tech of interfering in the election and trying to protect Biden by 'censoring' the story while allowing unflattering stories about Trump to spread like wildfire.
One New York Post editor called it a 'digital civil war' and others asked why the sites hadn't taken the same tough line on anti-Trump stories.
The Post's online editorial on the issue read in part: 'Censor first, ask questions later: It’s an outrageous attitude for one of the most powerful platforms in the United States to take.'
Hunter and Joe Biden. The Post story suggests that Joe, while VP, had a meeting with a Ukrainian businessman after being introduced to him by Hunter, eight months before pressuring Ukrainian officials to fire a prosecutor who was investigating the businessman
Trump spent more than seven minutes attacking Biden and his son Hunter's business dealings in Ukraine during his rally last night
The president labelled Biden a 'corrupt politician' who had engaged in 'pay-for-play' politics when he was vice president
'No one is disputing the veracity of The Post’s story — not even Hunter Biden,' it added.
'His lawyer George R. Mesires wouldn’t deign to comment on the reporting, simply attacking the messenger.
'The Biden campaign did the same, dismissing it all as “discredited,” while saying that no meeting showed up on Joe Biden’s official schedule on those dates (well if it wasn’t “official,” guess it didn’t happen).
'Yet Facebook is deliberately trying to keep its users from reading and deciding for themselves what it means.
'This, when it did nothing to restrict access to the recent New York Times story on President Trump’s tax returns. And the Times didn’t say a word about how it obtained that confidential personal data,' the Post's piece continued.
Twitter has now also stopped users from sharing the story about Biden in a move that conservatives and the media are calling censorship and election interference
Andy Stone, who is a policy communications director at Facebook announced the decision on Twitter on Wednesday
Andy Stone, who is a policy communications director at Facebook announced the decision on Twitter.
'While I will intentionally not link to the New York Post, I want be clear that this story is eligible to be fact checked by Facebook's third-party fact checking partners. In the meantime, we are reducing its distribution on our platform,' he said.
Donald Jr. was among the first to criticize it but others, including Republican Senator Josh Hawley, are now demanding answers from Facebook.
'Are you kidding me? After all the lies that they pushed about us and Russia collusion for years... now there’s credible evidence against the Bidens and they eliminated on their platform?
'Give me a break big tech has way too much power and it needs to be stopped?
'Joe said he never met these people and here’s an email refuting then why don’t they actually fat check in rather than just taking it off their platform.
'They know it will hurt Biden so they will do what they can to cover it up, that’s what they do,' he fumed.
In an open letter to Facebook, Sen. Hawley said: 'It has come to my attention that this news report—one clearly relevant to the public interest—has been censored on Facebook.
'The seemingly selective nature of this public intervention suggests partiality on the part of Facebook.
'And your efforts to suppress the distribution of content revealing potentially unethical activity by a candidate for president raises a number of additional questions, to which I expect responses immediately.'
In its editorial, the Post said: 'So much for Facebook’s claims to be a neutral platform: One of its top execs just put the social-media giant firmly in the pro-Biden camp.
'Andy Stone, the social-media company’s policy communications manager, boasted about burying The Post’s story on proof that Hunter Biden merchandized access to his dad.
'Especially when Stone wears his own bias on his sleeve: The quick biography he posts on Twitter shows his long history of working for Democrats, including lefty then-Sen. Barbara Boxer and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.'
Facebook has been accused of election interference for making the decision
Others accused Facebook of protecting Biden, the Democratic Presidential Candidate, while allowing unflattering stories about President Trump to spread.
Conservative media outlet The Federalist said the company was now 'officially censoring' the Post.
Facebook has not responded to inquiries about why it has reason to doubt the story or squash it.
It is also unclear what the extent of the circulation reduction is.
The New York Post is historically Conservative and the source for the story was Rudy Giuliani, one of President Trump's closest aides.
He gave the Post a trove of emails in which Ukrainian businessman Vadym Pozharskyi thanked Hunter for introducing him to his father, then the Vice President.
Within months of the 2015 meeting that Pozharskyi refers to in the emails, Biden had successfully pressured Ukrainian officials to fire a prosecutor who was looking into Pozharskyi's business.
At the time, Hunter was being paid $50,000-a-month by Pozharskyi's gas firm to act as a consultant, despite the fact he'd had no experience working in the gas industry.
After the Post story emerged on Wednesday, the Biden campaign said he had never met Vadym Pozharskyi.
Biden has repeatedly insisted he was never influenced by Hunter's dealings with Ukraine when he was Vice President.
The emails were taken from a damaged laptop which was left, mysteriously, in a Delaware tech repair shop.
It had a Beau Biden Foundation sticker on it and the person who dropped it off - who has not been identified - never collected it again.
The store owner looked through the computer's hard drive and not only found the emails but also found a video of Hunter Biden, a self-confessed drug addict, smoking crack while engaging in a sex act.
After Facebook's announcement on Wednesday, many asked if the company - which is notoriously left-leaning - would have applied the same type of scrutiny to the New York Times or any other Democrat-friendly media outlets.
Earlier this year, when the Times published an expose about Trump only paying $750 in federal income tax for two years, the story spread like wildfire on social media.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg routinely resists sharing his political leanings.
In recent years, he has been attacked on both sides of the aisle for occupying too much of the tech industry and market while resisting oversight boards.
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