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The Twitter Files
Confirmed

Twitter blocks NY Post laptop story, then calls it a mistake

In October 2020, three weeks before the presidential election, Twitter blocked links to the New York Post's story on Hunter Biden's laptop under its hacked-materials policy. Within about 24 hours it reversed course and changed the policy. Jack Dorsey later told the Senate the decision was wrong.

Oct 14, 2020
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Whose side it served: Democrats

Suppressing a damaging story about the Democratic nominee's son weeks before the election served the Biden campaign, whatever the motive.

What the record shows

On October 14, 2020, Twitter removed links to the Post story and showed warnings that the link may be 'unsafe.' Twitter cited its 'hacked materials' policy; Taibbi later noted that policy normally required an official finding of a hack, which never came. White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany was locked out of her account for tweeting about the story. At a Senate Judiciary hearing on November 17, 2020, Dorsey said Twitter made 'a quick interpretation using no other evidence' that the materials were hacked. He said the company admitted the action was wrong and corrected it within 24 hours. Former Twitter executives Gadde and Roth repeated in February 2023 that the decision was a mistake.

In their words

“We made a quick interpretation using no other evidence”— Jack Dorsey, Twitter CEO (Senate Judiciary, Nov 17, 2020) · source
“we admitted this action was wrong and corrected it within 24 hours.”— Jack Dorsey, Twitter CEO · source
“Can we truthfully claim that this is part of the policy?”— Brandon Borrman, Twitter VP of global communications (internal) · source
The other side

Twitter executives said they acted out of concern about a possible foreign hack-and-leak operation like 2016, after FBI warnings, and reversed the decision quickly. Former deputy general counsel James Baker testified he was aware of no unlawful collusion with, or direction from, any government agency on the story.

Sources

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