- Twitter blocked users sharing a New York Post article about Hunter Biden’s laptop in October 2020.
- According to material published Friday, Rep. Ro Khanna tweeted concerns about the decision.
- Khanna wrote that he said this because he was a complete Biden partisan.
Ro Khanna, Democratic Representative in October 2020, emailed Twitter with concerns as Twitter tried to figure out how to deal with a New York Post article about Hunter Biden’s laptop.
The Congressman sent emails that were published by Twitter account of journalist Matt TaibbiFriday will be shared with details on how the social media platform handled the story.
The Post published a brief editorial a month prior to the 2020 election. StoryThe email claimed to have emails taken from President Joe Biden’s laptop. Twitter began as a social media platform. The story was not distributed.Initially, users were blocked from sharing the article, due to concerns that it might be the result hacking or foreign disinformation.
Twitter BacktrackedIt received a response within days. However, Taibbi posted additional details to the Twitter thread that provided more information on the decision-making process. The tweet was published October 14, 2014. Khanna, a California Democrat emailed Vijaya Gadde during this time, who was at that time Twitter’s head for legal, policy and trust.
Khanna: “Generating enormous backlash on hill speech,” Submitted, referring to Congress and offering a talk.
Gadde AnsweredTwitter explained that their response was due their policy which prohibits the sharing of hacker materials.
Khanna was then RespondedAccording to Khanna, he was concerned about Twitter blocking the story as it seemed to violate the 1st Amendment principles. Khanna gave an example: Khanna stated that if material revealing war crimes was hacked and made available to The New York Times, The Times should be able publish it.
“Unless they were actively involved in the hacking, journalists should not be held responsible for illegal actions of the source. Khanna stated that it was not possible to limit the distribution of such material, particularly regarding a Presidential candidate. She was referring to NYT v Sullivan. landmark 1964 Supreme Court decisionConcerning press freedom.
New York Times Co. v. SullivanPublic figures that sue for defamation must show “actual malice”, it was established. Another important Supreme Court case is New York Times Co. v. USor the “Pentagon Papers Case,” 1971, protected the right for the press to publish illegally-leaked classified materials.
Khanna added: “I said this as a complete Biden supporter and convinced that he didn’t do anything wrong.” The story is now more about censorship and relatively innocuous email, and it’s become a much bigger deal than it was before.
A congressman said that backlash could also jeopardize Section 230This is a law that allows social media companies to control content, but they are not liable for any content posted by users.
Khanna said that in the heat of a Presidential election, restricting publication of newspaper articles (even though NY Post is far right), seems like it would invite more backlash then it will do good.
Khanna released a statement to Insider following Friday’s release of the email exchange. He stated that he believed the Constitution and First Amendment were sacred. As the Silicon Valley congressman, I felt that Twitter’s actions were in violation of First Amendment principles. So I raised these concerns. Our democracy can only flourish if there is a free marketplace for ideas and if we engage with people with whom our views are not compatible.
Taibbi published internal communications about Hunter Biden’s laptop story and made decisions. The Twitter Files is a thread that shows employees from Twitter considering how to deal with the Post’s story, and whether sharing it would violate their policies.
Interview with Kara Swisher, journalist on Tuesday The former head of trust & safety at TwitterThe author said that it was a mistake for them to censor the story.
“We didn’t know what we believed.” We didn’t know what truth was. “There was smoke.” Yoel Rot said. “It didn’t reach a level where I was comfortable removing the content from Twitter.
Other news outlets later confirmed the validity of some emails that were sent from the laptop. The New York Times and The Washington Post.Â
