Jack Dorsey slammed for ‘censoring’ Hunter Biden story link tweets

Twitter boss Jack Dorsey was berated for ‘politically motivated censorship’ when social media giant deliberately prevented users from sharing a link to New York Post story on Hunter Biden

  • Story claimed he arranged meeting between father and Ukrainian energy firm
  • Both men denied any impropriety but it would still usually be top of news agenda
  • But with Facebook also imposing its restrictions, the article quickly fizzled out

Twitter boss Jack Dorsey (pictured) Twitter was criticised after the site prevented users from sharing a link to a front-page newspaper article about Hunter Biden’s private life and his controversial business ties to Ukraine

In an act of ‘politically motivated censorship’, Twitter deliberately prevented users from sharing a link to a front-page newspaper article about Hunter Biden‘s private life and his controversial business ties to Ukraine.

It included the claim that he arranged a meeting between his father Joe and a Ukrainian energy company on whose board Hunter served.

Both men have denied any impropriety but normally an accusation alone of this nature involving a US presidential nominee would set the news agenda alight.

But with Facebook also imposing restrictions pending ‘independent verification’ by ‘fact checkers’, the article published by the New York Post fizzled out.

In what became a curious case of a disappearing story, Republicans claimed it had been suppressed to avoid helping President Trump’s re-election campaign.

Quizzing Twitter’s chief executive Jack Dorsey during a virtual Senate hearing last week, Texas senator Ted Cruz asked: ‘Who the hell elected you and put you in charge of what the media are allowed to report and what the American people are allowed to hear?’

Mr Dorsey has apologised for Twitter’s action and said its treatment of the New York Post story was ‘unacceptable’.

Quizzing Twitter's chief executive Jack Dorsey during a virtual Senate hearing last week, Texas senator Ted Cruz (pictured) asked: 'Who the hell elected you and put you in charge of what the media are allowed to report and what the American people are allowed to hear?'

Quizzing Twitter’s chief executive Jack Dorsey during a virtual Senate hearing last week, Texas senator Ted Cruz (pictured) asked: ‘Who the hell elected you and put you in charge of what the media are allowed to report and what the American people are allowed to hear?’

Republicans have long accused the bosses of technology companies of double standards for editing, deleting or fact-checking Mr Trump’s posts while allowing harmful hate speech to remain on their services.

But anger over the Hunter Biden story has not been confined to the Right.

Last week investigative Left-wing journalist Glenn Greenwald resigned from The Intercept, the news website he co-founded, after claiming he was silenced over an article critical of Joe Biden.

‘The Intercept’s editors, in violation of my contractual right of editorial freedom, censored an article I wrote this week, refusing to publish it unless I remove all sections critical of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, the candidate vehemently supported by all New-York-based Intercept editors involved in this effort at suppression,’ he wrote.

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