New York Post Disputes Twitter CEO’s Claims Company Lifted Ban on Biden Exposé

New York Post Disputes Twitter CEO’s Claims Company Lifted Ban on Biden Exposé
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey testifies remotely during a hearing to discuss reforming Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act with big tech companies in Washington on Oct. 28, 2020. Greg Nash/Pool/AFP via Getty Images
Isabel van Brugen
Updated:
The New York Post on Wednesday disputed claims from Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey that his company had lifted a ban on it reporting on Hunter Biden’s alleged overseas business dealings.

Responding to questions from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) during a virtual Senate Commerce Committee hearing to reform an Internet law and hold tech companies accountable for how they moderate content, Dorsey said that Twitter users were able to share the Post’s explosive report on the social media platform.

The report cited emails allegedly from former Vice President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, that said he had arranged a meeting between him, his father, and a Ukrainian gas executive in Washington.

Biden’s campaign has denied the meeting ever took place, although a whistleblower who had a business partnership with the Bidens has gone on record to say the former vice president was deeply involved in his son’s overseas affairs.

Biden and his campaign have denied any knowledge of Hunter Biden’s business ties.

“Anyone can tweet these articles,” Dorsey told Cruz.

Shortly after Dorsey’s remarks, Abigail Marone, a rapid response official on President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign, accused the CEO of lying, saying that the company was still blocking the report.

“Jack Dorsey of Twitter just told Senator Cruz that anyone could now share the NY Post’s bombshell stories on Twitter. Dorsey is lying,” Marone posted on Twitter, sharing a screen recording of Twitter blocking the article.

“Twitter is STILL blocking the URL for the NY Post story about the Bidens’ foreign corruption and China dealings,” Marone said.

The New York Post reported that Twitter users were not able to share the damning report on the social media platform until about two hours after Dorsey’s hearing comments.

Before then, users who attempted to share the link received an error message reading, “Something went wrong, but don’t fret—let’s give it another shot,” and: “We can’t complete this request because this link has been identified by Twitter or our partners as being potentially harmful. Visit our Help Center to learn more,” according to the news outlet.

Twitter’s administrators said via its communications account that the issue was down to a technical glitch.

“People may have had trouble tweeting in this specific instance because the article shared included an Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) link,” the company said.

The Post said that its Twitter account and the Trump campaign’s account had been blocked from sharing non-AMP article links however.

Twitter didn’t immediately respond to a request by The Epoch Times for comment.

The Post’s account on the social media platform continues to be locked over an Oct. 14 tweet that linked to its explosive reporting, due to a “hacked materials policy” that was created in 2018. There’s no evidence that the Post’s report was based on hacked materials.

Dorsey said Wednesday that the outlet “can log into their account” and “delete their original tweet that fell under our original enforcement actions” before posting again.

“They can tweet the exact same … article and it would go through,” he added.

Jack Phillips contributed to this report.
Isabel van Brugen
Isabel van Brugen
Reporter
Isabel van Brugen is an award-winning journalist. She holds a master's in newspaper journalism from City, University of London.
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