Twitter Changes ‘Hacked Materials Policy’ After Backlash From Blocking New York Post’s Hunter Biden Stories
You can finally tweet out the New York Post’s stories on Hunter Biden.
Vijaya Gadde, Twitter’s global, policy, and trust & safety lead, announced on Thursday the social platform changed its Hacked Materials Policy after severe backlash from blocking stories on Hunter Biden.
People pointed out the hypocrisy like The New York Times publishing information on President Donald Trump’s tax returns. How about the information from Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning?
Now Twitter changed course:
Over the last 24 hours, we’ve received significant feedback (from critical to supportive) about how we enforced our Hacked Materials Policy yesterday. After reflecting on this feedback, we have decided to make changes to the policy and how we enforce it.
— Vijaya Gadde (@vijaya) October 16, 2020
Why the changes? We want to address the concerns that there could be many unintended consequences to journalists, whistleblowers and others in ways that are contrary to Twitter’s purpose of serving the public conversation.
— Vijaya Gadde (@vijaya) October 16, 2020
We put the Hacked Materials Policy in place back in 2018 to discourage and mitigate harms associated with hacks and unauthorized exposure of private information. We tried to find the right balance between people’s privacy and the right of free expression, but we can do better.
— Vijaya Gadde (@vijaya) October 16, 2020
We’ve recently added new product capabilities, such as labels to provide people with additional context. We are no longer limited to Tweet removal as an enforcement action.
— Vijaya Gadde (@vijaya) October 16, 2020
We believe that labeling Tweets and empowering people to assess content for themselves better serves the public interest and public conversation. The Hacked Material Policy is being updated to reflect these new enforcement capabilities.
— Vijaya Gadde (@vijaya) October 16, 2020
So, what’s changing?
1. We will no longer remove hacked content unless it is directly shared by hackers or those acting in concert with them
2. We will label Tweets to provide context instead of blocking links from being shared on Twitter
— Vijaya Gadde (@vijaya) October 16, 2020
All the other Twitter Rules will still apply to the posting of or linking to hacked materials, such as our rules against posting private information, synthetic and manipulated media, and non-consensual nudity.
— Vijaya Gadde (@vijaya) October 16, 2020
I’m grateful for everyone who has provided feedback and insights over the past day. Content moderation is incredibly difficult, especially in the critical context of an election. We are trying to act responsibly & quickly to prevent harms, but we’re still learning along the way.
— Vijaya Gadde (@vijaya) October 16, 2020
We will continue to keep you all updated on our progress and more details as we update our policy pages to reflect these changes in the coming days.
— Vijaya Gadde (@vijaya) October 16, 2020
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey confirmed the changes on Friday morning.
Straight blocking of URLs was wrong, and we updated our policy and enforcement to fix. Our goal is to attempt to add context, and now we have capabilities to do that. https://t.co/ZLUw3YD887
— jack (@jack) October 16, 2020
The New York Post ran two stories on emails taken from a laptop allegedly owned by Hunter Biden, the son of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.
- Emails: Top Ukrainian Exec Asked Hunter How to ‘Use Your Influence’ on Burisma’s Behalf.
- Hunter Biden Pursued ‘Lasting and Lucrative’ Deals With Chinese Private Energy
Facebook and Twitter blocked the stories on their platforms. People called them out and now the FCC is involved.
- Facebook, Twitter ‘Reducing’ the Distribution of New York Post Story on Hunter Biden Emails
- Facebook and Twitter declared digital war today by throttling NY Post blockbuster Biden story
- After Censorship Outrage, FCC Will Move Forward with Rulemaking to Clarify Free Speech Rights of Social Media Companies
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) told reporters on Thursday the Senate Judiciary Committee will vote to subpoena CEO Jack Dorsey. Cruz and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) are some of the most outspoken members in Congress on this situation.
Sen. @tedcruz: "Twitter is actively blocking, right now this instant, stories from the New York Post…on Tuesday, the Judiciary Committee, the full committee, will be voting on subpoenas to subpoena @Jack Dorsey to come before our committee." pic.twitter.com/lfpEcH8xeQ
— CSPAN (@cspan) October 15, 2020
Facebook claimed it “reduced” the story’s “distribution” since the platform determined it was “eligible to be fact checked by Facebook’s third-party fact checking partners.”
Twitter blocked the story because it was “identified by Twitter or our partners as being potentially harmful.” The platform claimed it did not want to send around “fake news” that people retrieved illegally or by hacking.
Twitter also locked accounts, including Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany. It also locked Dana Loesch’s account and Trump’s campaign account.
Twitter users can finally tweet out the stories.
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Comments
Caught with their hands in the cookie jar they did
“In response to the gathering storm clouds, we have rethought our firmly-held principles.”
Twitter Refuses To Unlock NY Post Account Unless They Agree To Delete Hunter Biden Story…
Weasel Zippers
More like pulled the pin early on the big nationwide news censorship they have planned if Biden wins. The 1984 news service.
Facebook and Twitter may be caught up in this also????
I’m asking you.
Hunter and Joe Biden Scandal Takes a Dark Turn — FBI’s Top Lawyer on Child Porn Involved in Case
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/10/hunter-joe-biden-scandal-takes-dark-turn-fbis-top-lawyer-child-porn-involved-case/
Huh?????
Joe Biden: I Totally Support and Encourage 8 Year Old Children’s Decisions to Gender Transition
—Ace of Spades
Twitter is now and has always been a cesspool.
Twitter is the sewer running through America right now.
as if anyone believes that BS about “adding context”…
And “adding context” underscores that you are a PUBLISHER, dude.
F Twitter and their “context” labeling. I honestly don’t believe that is any better. Removing material sends a clear message, while this BS “context” labeling attempts to hide their bias behind a vaneer of professionalism. And they are trying to have their cake and eat it, too. With “context” labeling they can continue to curate material while pretending they are not.
Twitter and Facebook have crossed a line that should never have been crossed. Only Joe Biden and a Democrat victory can save them now.
Meh. This is just a bit of rope-a-dope from Dorsey. And despite some big noises, the GOPe is too cowardly and feckless to go after him in a meaningful way.
Of course, the Hunter Biden emails were not hacked.
So, Twitter is pretending the problem was something that has nothing to do with Hunter’s emails. They were not obtained by hacking.
And, Twitter was fine with illegally obtained materials and crazy Russia collusion conspiracy theories.
Sorry, meant to UPvote you, and the system won’t even let me take it back.
They changed their ‘Hacked Materials Policy’. Well, isn’t that special? As @LukeHandCool points out, the material upon which the Post reported wasn’t hacked and that Twitter policy obviously was not applicable. Whoever at Twitter tried to excuse their actions by citing it engaged in obvious censorship that was politically motivated.
Hey @Jack, how about you just change the policy to let people post what they want and as long as it isn’t actually illegal (i.e., child porn from someone’s laptop) leave it alone and let people judge for themselves.
Hunter Biden – The Gift that Keeps on Giving.
<3 Hunter.
Dorsey should know yellow doesn’t look good on Red.
So they think they’ve covered their asses adequately. I hope they’re very very wrong.
Many tech giants have been promoting their political agenda with censorship, and outright lies. It is time that they are held accountable for their conduct, even more important is regulation and breakup of their monopoly market power.
This should not mean the FCC will back off. Nip this in the bud.
.
During upcoming testimony under oath…
‘Mr Dorsey, is this committee to interpret from your admission via Twitter on Friday that you yourself considered the actions of your company in censoring content from a main stream newspaper so egregious that you stepped in to halt it’?
‘Mr Dorsey while I’m sure we all applaud that why do continue to use arbitrary labels which are affixed to some content and not others’?
‘Sir exactly who are the members of your company who decide what is and isn’t worthy of a label’?
‘Is this a bipartisan group’?
‘Do they review each case and hold vote’?
‘Are these determinations recorded’?
‘Why do the decisions of this group always seem to cut in favor of one political party’?
‘Is this committee to believe that you will be personally intervening in the future’?
‘If not why not’?
‘Mr Dorsey wouldn’t it be much simpler and less controversial to allow people to post freely, with out threat of censorship or banning’?
‘If Twitter is now going to work to police the content of third parties, content for which Congress has carved out special immunity, why shouldn’t Congress remove the immunity protection you possess? After all, the grant of immunity for third party content was made specifically because companies like yours said they didn’t have the resources to devote to policing that content.’
And so on
Unfortunately it will likely be another dog and pony show. Maybe, just maybe Congress is beginning to get serious but pending a return to r HoR control not likely. Even then too much tech money sloshing around DC to be very hopeful.
So are they now allowing the NY Post stories?
They have always allowed “hacked” material against conservatives without reservation.
The Biden materials were not hacked. They were off the Biden computer. How do we know? Because Hunter Biden’s attorney demanded the return of the computer, after it had been turned over to the FBI.
Regarding the latter, there are conflicting reports that the 1. the FBI destroyed the computer under Wray’s demand. 2.The FBI is conducting a child porn investigation.
It goes without saying here that if Biden was taking 50% of Hunter’s graft, that he has committed a Class A Federal felony and the evidence goes beyond probable cause re this. If Wray destroyed the computer, he has committed a Class B Federal offense. The child porn charges, and images are now being released, can be multiple Federal offenses, but not necessarily. However they are without question very serious State offenses.
This policy change is about “hacked content”, not about e-mails found on a computer brought in for legit servicing. In other words, Twitter doesn’t plan to change anything.
Anyone else see more on this?
Hunter Biden’s former Business Partner Bevan Cooney Has Flipped – Is Working with Reporters Peter Schweizer and Matthew Tyrmand
The Gateway Pundit
What’s the difference between totally blocking links to the Hunter Biden story and shadow banning (which is what “fact checking” does) them? Either way distribution is practically non-existent.
I interpreted what @Jack said to mean he was okay with the actual censorship of the Post’s reporting but the way Twitter tried to excuse it and cover their a$$es was ‘unacceptable’. Did I misinterpret?