New York Post Still Locked Out of Twitter Account

A Twitter app icon on a cell phone in a file photo. Matt Rourke/AP Photo

The New York Post, the newspaper that broke the explosive story of compromising emails found on a laptop that allegedly belonged to Hunter Biden, son of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, remains locked out of its Twitter account.

“The social media giant is refusing to unlock The Post’s main account unless the news organization deletes six tweets about its own reporting on Joe Biden’s son,” the NY Post’s Tamar Lapin wrote in an Oct. 21 article, headlined, “Twitter looks to keep The Post’s account hostage through Trump-Biden debate.”

As of the afternoon of Oct. 23, the Twitter account showed the NY Post’s last tweet was on Oct. 14.

According to Lapin, a Twitter representative told The Post on Oct. 16 that, “While we’ve updated the policy, we don’t change enforcement retroactively. You will still need to delete the Tweets to regain access to your account.”

Twitter updated its policy on Oct. 15 after backlash following its censorship of users who shared the NY Post’s expose on Hunter Biden alleging that emails sourced from the laptop showed communication between Hunter Biden and a Ukrainian energy company adviser that suggested the arrangement of a meeting between the businessman and former vice president Joe Biden.

“Dear Hunter, thank you for inviting me to DC and giving an opportunity to meet your father and spent [sic] some time together. It’s realty [sic] an honor and pleasure,” reads the alleged email from Vadym Pozharskyi, an adviser to the board of Burisma, on April 17, 2015.

Biden has denied any wrongdoing and last week called the NY Post report part of a “smear campaign” meant to damage his campaign ahead of the election. In Thursday’s debate against President Donald Trump, Biden characterized the recent flurry of seemingly compromising revelations, which now include fresh claims by Hunter Biden’s former business partner that Joe Biden was in the loop on a deal with a Chinese energy conglomerate, as “malarkey.”

Trump, during the debate, leveled several accusations against Biden for his alleged improprieties in foreign business dealings involving family members, and referred to the the NY Post’s reports about the contents of a hard drive allegedly belonging to Hunter Biden as “the laptop from hell.”

“If this stuff is true about Russia, Ukraine, China, other countries, Iraq—if this is true, then he’s a corrupt politician. So don’t give me the stuff about how you’re this innocent baby,” Trump said.

Prior to its Oct. 15 policy change, Twitter said the NY Post’s articles violated the social media website’s “Hacked Materials Policy.” The Post disputed the company’s claim that the material was hacked: “Information in the reports came from data extracted from a MacBook Pro laptop that a Delaware repair shop owner has said was dropped off in April 2019 but never picked up.”

The move by Twitter to block content related to the NY Post report prompted the Senate Judiciary Committee to announce that it will vote to subpoena Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey about alleged election interference to support Biden’s candidacy.

“Meanwhile, a slew of questionable characters have still been able to send out missives on Twitter, including Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who once called for the destruction of Israel on the social media site,” Lapin complained in the article, referring to the apparent double standard being applied.