Ex-Twitter Safety Chief Admits it was a Mistake to Censor Hunter Biden Laptop Story
Too little and way too late.
Yoel Roth, Twitter’s former safety chair, admitted it was a mistake to censor The New York Post’s story on Hunter Biden’s laptop a month before the 2020 presidential election:
During a sit down with journalist Kara Swisher, ex-Twitter safety chief Yoel Roth said that despite concerns about the authenticity of the laptop story, it still did not reach a point where he wanted to remove the content — which was later censored anyway. Initial reporting suggested that Roth blocked user access from the October 2020 story, but the former Twitter division lead said the decision was not up to him.
“We didn’t know what to believe, we didn’t know what was true, there was smoke — and ultimately for me, it didn’t reach a place where I was comfortable removing this content from Twitter,” Roth said. “But it set off every single one of my finely tuned APT28 hack and leak campaign alarm bells.”
Roth repeatedly reiterated that despite Big Tech companies’ high-alert status and his personal feeling of responsibility to protect the “integrity of conversations” from foreign governments attempting to interfere in elections, it never rose to the level where he believed the story should be censored.
“But — so it was a mistake?” Swisher asked.
“In my opinion, yes,” he responded.
But Twitter even locked The New York Post out of its Twitter account.
Twitter CEO Elon Musk said he plans to release information regarding the censorship of the story.
Mark Zuckerberg admitted Facebook throttled the laptop story after the FBI warned of potential “Russian propaganda.”
Whistleblowers have given Congress details about the efforts of the FBI and DOJ to discredit negative information on Hunter Biden. The efforts began before the 2020 election.
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Comments
‘Mistake’?
HELL NO.
You jackasses made a CONSCIOUS decision to censor a true news story to help a political candidate.
That wasn’t a ‘mistake’.
YOU DID EXACTLY WHAT YOU MEANT TO DO.
Do NOT allow them to weasel out of their culpability with this ‘mistake’ crap.
almost like he is asking for… Amnesty
“Well, it worked, didn’t it?” The Reid method of character distruction.
ACTUAL voter suppression. Democrat suppression.
It’s always easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission. They knew exactly what they were doing, and did it anyway. Got the result they wanted and only now admit it was wrong to do it.
Wish these jackasses could be punished. It will never happen.
Elon is actually doing a pretty good job of punishing them by firing them from their cushy exorbitant salaries and removal from ability to engage further censorship.
If you’re waiting for the GOPe cowards to punish them, yeah, never going to happen.
I bet they’re going to have one hell of a time getting employment recommendations from Twitter HR for future positions.
They wouldn’t want an Elon tainted recommendation anyway. Besides they won’t need it. Being fired from Twitter will be a badge of honor to many prospective employers.
Actually as a policy most corporations will only tell you position the person held, length of time, and I’d feeling generous, a description of that job when another company asks.
Some will only say you worked there. I know a guy arrested for theft at work and taken out where I used to work.
He stole a bunch of chemicals and stashed them in a storage place. Not sold, reasons unknown.
The DA dropped the charges, in their eyes the stuff was returned. It was expensive chemicals, kept in unclimate controlled space. So it was useless, and had to be disposed of as expensive “hazardous waste”.
Someone called and said he says you can recommend the guy.
They told him he was arrested for theft, and the DA dropped the charges.
He had a lawyer contact our company with a threat to sue. Rumor was a check was sent, allegedly $20K.
After that all supervisors were forbidden to do recommendations, period.
So they aren’t in any danger from Twitter saying anything. If it was really public dismissal, then details might be online somewhere.
That’s the result of “lawsuits gone wild!” in America now.
Oh gosh, we lead the pack in disinformation, our faces are red. Too bad we can’t do anything now. What detritus?
His “excuses” notwithstanding, he’s still not grokking the notion that the solution to suspected “erroneous” speech is more speech, not censorship.
My bad. Les emmerdes, ça arrive.
As long as there’s no accountability, these idealogues will continue to do evil It’s as simple as that.
It must be remembered that the censorship debate concerns what is spoon fed stupid, lowbrow people. Any curious, educated person was aware of the story and could obtain full facts with minimal effort. The real problem is that voting eligibility should be the same as it was 200 years ago. Millions are spent in elections to manipulate the emotions of addlepated women and social parasites.
To paraphrase former U.S. Senate Democrat Party Leader Harry (deceased yet not of blessed memory) Reid, who lied about then-presidential-candidate Romney’s tax situation, “Trump didn’t win, did he?”
Yeah, that was one of the more disgusting displays I’ve ever seen from a Senator. But karma actually caught up with that scumbag when somebody crushed his eye socket and sent that vile rat scurrying for his hole, never to be seen again. Perhaps there is a lesson there.
Shameless liar.
Six months before the election archive.org moved news articles questioning Biden’s competence to its [noindex] servers.
– no indexing means the archive.org “archivists” remove items from the public search function. Essentially renditioning unapproved speech to unsearchable server clusters. One must know the precise web address to view the content.
Day late. Dollar short.
Darn- exactly what I was going to write.
“Yoel” Roth, What is his Christian name?
What a stupid question. Why would you assume that any person has been christened, and thus has a christian name? Remember whose site this is. Prof J has also never been christened; would you have the gall to ask for his christian name?!
Are you goint to kick Chet out of the shtetl?
What a turd, and a liar.
Kinda convenient timing. This guy want a medal or what?
The provenance of the laptop indicated it was authentic. The only people who said it “could possibly be” Russian disinformation were a bunch of deep-staters who hadn’t examined the laptop and who who weren’t able challenge its provenance. The default surmise should have been “true” as there was no evidence to indicate that the story of the laptop was false. However, at the time Russian election interference was falling out of trees, and there were people (like those at Twitter) who were being hit with it and believed the sky was falling.
“But it set off every single one of my finely tuned APT28 hack and leak campaign alarm bells.”
So they were as “finely tuned” as Karen Bass’s guns were “safely stored.”
Ya big PROFESSIONAL FAILURE.
Ah well…. just one more great big AMNESTY for Yoel!
This was the most damning part to me and overlooked.
It basically reads as…..I have zero instincts (nor should they be the basis for action in my job capacity) but act on partisan feels to abuse the power of my job. This is of course immediately followed by a disingenuous aw shucks.
These people have lost their effing minds. The very notion that a social media app would have a SAFETY OFFICER is absurd. It’s based on the premise that ‘words are violence’ and is therefore completely incompatible with the very notion of free speech.
Not really. There are actual safety concerns on social media, such as incitement to violence, which have to be dealt with. But his department was going way beyond that.
There are law enforcement and other civic vehicles for that kind of policing.
It is still absurd that a social media company can go “hands off” to the violation of Constitutional rights in what should easily be considered a public domain (considering the internet infrastructure is heavily furnished by govt support) but can go “hands on” in the name of safety when wanting to censor something they dont’ like under the guise of a private company.
Think of it this way….a private business restaurant can easily break civil rights laws by denying customers certain services and goods provided to other citizens. They can own the building, they can own the business, but they can’t violate certain rights regardless of that ownership. However, a social media company is somehow insulated from these public domain civil liberties?
Theres no “somehow” about it.
The first half of your example required a federal court ruling to get there.
The second required a federal law to carve out their exception.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men … are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights”
High-sounding bullshit. Your rights are only what they say they are.
Any safety concerns, such as the incitement to violence that you mention, can and should be handled by the Legal Officer of the company as it is a violation of law.
Merely creating a position called ‘Safety Officer’ is kowtowing to the woke strategy of redefining our language which is a key part of their fascist takeover of society.
If someone’s language actually threatens physical harm then call the cops, the law has been broken. Otherwise, nobody has the ‘right’ to not have their feelings hurt.
To be fair, I should think the position of Safety Officer is the guy whose job it is to examine postings and complaints and decide whether they need to be forwarded to Legal or to the cops.
No, the ‘Safety Officer’ is the person who makes sure your company conforms to OSHA regulations. We have to stop letting them redefine our language.
The only safety Mr. Roth was concerned with was the safety of his political view. All others should be eliminated. Sad man.
Agreed. The “safety” here is for the left’s feelz. They need to have a legal department to ensure criminal materials (child porn, human trafficking, incitement to violence/terrorism, etc.) are removed/reported to the appropriate authorities.
“Safety Officer” is ludicrous and exactly why they were so comfortable locking, banning, and shadowbanning conservatives . . . our ideas are ‘unsafe’ for the radical loons who can’t argue against them using reason, logic, facts, or common sense.
Deliberate political meddling is not a mere “mistake”.
Sorry, but that is a misleading headline.
This wokeist did not “admit” any “mistake”, he trie to fool the audience by calling his intentional malfeasance “a mistake” – as in an accident for which he cannot be held accountable because he did not act with mens rwa.
let us not fall for these transparent lies.
It clearly is too early to post here without editing powers.
Errata:
“trie” should read “tried”
“mens rwa” is the pre-coffee version of “mens rea”
and there should be quotation marks: “an accident … held accountable”
Perhaps what he meant is that getting caught was a mistake. Or that his malfeasance being exposed was a mistake. Maybe he meant that he should have done a better job covering up.
I’m pretty sure he isn’t entirely happy with the outcome.
When “the experts” make a mistake, well, they had limited information, they’re only human, it’s to be expected, etc.
When ordinary people make a mistake, it’s proof that they’re not competent to make their own decisions. Funny how that works.
Lets be blunt don’t believe this liar not for a second.
Second we desperately need pro-free speech regulations passed as soon as we could.
The EU is threatening to shut down twitter if it permits Republicans to speak.
Let me repeat there is no choice of regulation no regulations; the choice is regulations by the left for the left against the right or we could follow in the footsteps of the 20th century Republican Party and throw Bush’ selective libertarianism in the garbage where it belongs.