Storm after Twitter blocks ‘crack pipe’ article on Biden son
TWITTER has come under fire for blocking users from posting a link to an article claiming Joe Biden’s son smoked a crack pipe and had controversial ties to Ukraine.
Chief executive Jack Dorsey yesterday apologised and said its treatment of the New York Post story was ‘unacceptable’.
It is thought to be the first time the site has ‘censored’ a news report in this way. Facebook, meanwhile, placed restrictions on users posting links to the article, claiming there were ‘questions about its validity’.
The story claimed Hunter Biden, 50, set up a meeting between his father and a Ukrainian energy company, on whose board Hunter served.
It also mentioned a video of Hunter allegedly smoking a crack pipe while engaging in a sex act with a woman.
The source of the story was unclear and it appeared to have come from former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani – a personal lawyer to Donald Trump – to smear presidential candidate Mr Biden before the November 3 election.
But Mr Trump claimed social media sites’ handling of the article showed they were biased against him.
He wrote on Twitter: ‘Congratulations to the @ nypost for having exposed the massive corruption surrounding Sleepy Joe Biden and our Country. He’s always been a corrupt politician. Disgraceful!’
Mr Trump’s latest Twitter outburst came as polls showed he was 11 points behind Mr Biden – with 42 per cent of voters saying they would back him compared to 53 per cent for his Democrat rival.
In his apology, Mr Dorsey said: ‘Our communication around our actions on the NYPost article was not great.
‘And blocking URL sharing with zero context as to why we’re blocking: unacceptable.’
Twitter initially claimed it was stopping users from sharing a link to the article because of rules about distributing hacked material. The site then said the story contained ‘personal and private information – such as phone numbers and email addresses – which violate our rules’.
But even after Mr Dorsey’s apology, Mr Trump’s re-election campaign account was briefly suspended for re-posting the story.
Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee said it would hold a hearing on Tuesday to ask Mr Dorsey to testify about Twitter’s handling of the article.
Republican senator Ted Cruz said: ‘This is election interference and we’re 19 days out from an election. It has no precedent in the history of democracy. The Senate Judiciary Committee wants to know what the hell is going on’.
Joe Biden’s son, his crack pipe — and a new low in the dirtiest ever U.S. election From yesterday’s Mail