Twitter Locks Accounts Of Media, Celebrities, Gov. Officials For Sharing Biden Scandal Story
(Steve Watson) Twitter has locked the accounts of anyone who shared the New York Post story regarding Joe Biden’s foreign lobbying scandal, including media organizations, reporters, celebrities, and even government officials.
The story, which has been met with denials from the Biden campaign, claims that Hunter Biden had introduced his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden, to a top executive in a Ukrainian energy firm a year before Biden pressured the government of Ukraine to fire a prosecutor who was investigating the company.
After following Facebook’s crackdown, Twitter prevented anyone from sharing the “potentially harmful” story:
Twitter is prohibiting users from sharing the @nypost’s Hunter Biden story because the link is “potentially harmful.” pic.twitter.com/YiZZBJvLam
— Anders Hagstrom (@Hagstrom_Anders) October 14, 2020
Twitter even prevented editors at the NY Post from tweeting out the story:
This is a Big Tech information coup. This is digital civil war.
— Sohrab Ahmari (@SohrabAhmari) October 14, 2020
I, an editor at The New York Post, one of the nation’s largest papers by circulation, can’t post one of our own stories that details corruption by a major-party presidential candidate, Biden. pic.twitter.com/BKNQmAG19H
Now the company has gone one step further by LOCKING the accounts of anyone attempting to spread the information.
The NY Post’s primary account was locked:
Twitter says this was done because of the lack of authoritative reporting on where the materials in our Biden story originated. Per the story, the emails came off a copy of a hard drive obtained by Rudy Giuliani; original hard drive was left at a Delaware computer repair shop https://t.co/2SoCUJ7gkr
— Noah Manskar (@noahmanskar) October 14, 2020
A reporter with The Daily Caller attempted to share the story, and found his account was also locked:
Twitter has locked the account of our reporter @AndrewKerrNC for tweeting a screenshot from the NY Post story disputing the possibility of the Hunter Biden emails being a hack pic.twitter.com/HwFoFoZnIp
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) October 15, 2020
Several other conservative reporters found their accounts locked:
BREAKING: @jack has locked down @RealJamesWoods!
— James O'Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) October 14, 2020
The censorship is out of control. #FreeJames pic.twitter.com/Q0ELuv3hp5
Even White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany’s account was locked by Twitter.
BREAKING: Twitter has locked the personal account of White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany for sharing news Democrats don’t like. pic.twitter.com/eR8HhkgqVY
— Trump War Room - Text TRUMP to 88022 (@TrumpWarRoom) October 14, 2020
Twitter’s actions have been labelled as election meddling and an ‘act of digital civil war’, as the company is not only locking accounts and preventing the spread of the information on its own platform, but discouraging anyone from reading the story in general:
Twitter is not only preventing people from tweeting the NY Post story, they’re discouraging people from reading it at all. pic.twitter.com/mRmmRzwxi6
— Arthur Schwartz (@ArthurSchwartz) October 14, 2020
You're seeing the immense, unchallengeable, unaccountable power of Silicon Valley giants over the flow of information. Imagine if Google joins in.
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) October 14, 2020
What's so amazing is that they never wanted this role. It was foisted on them by people, led by journalists, demanding they censor: https://t.co/cFBfV97Ylt
Even Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey attempted to distance himself, describing his company’s response to the story as “not great” and “unacceptable”:
Our communication around our actions on the @nypost article was not great. And blocking URL sharing via tweet or DM with zero context as to why we’re blocking: unacceptable. https://t.co/v55vDVVlgt
— jack (@jack) October 14, 2020
Was he really referring to the censorship though, or that fact that the reason for the censorship wasn’t well “communicated”?:
Your “communication” is not the problem. The problem is your totalitarian censorship, your election interference, and the fact that you allow genocidal terrorists to threaten Jews while banning elected U.S. officials from sharing American journalism. https://t.co/F0CrgP6GP7
— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) October 15, 2020
Perhaps Dorsey would like to explain this under oath?
.@Twitter @jack this is not nearly good enough. In fact, it’s a joke. It’s downright insulting. I will ask you - and @Facebook - to give an explanation UNDER OATH to the Senate subcommittee I chair. These are potential violations of election law, and that’s a crime https://t.co/Rylva8UJv9
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) October 15, 2020
