Tech giants Facebook and Twitter have censored a New York Post story alleging that Hunter Biden introduced his father to Bursima executives, which is something Joe Biden has denied. AFP. The Post reported that they had received a copy of a hard drive dropped off by Hunter Biden and never retrieved. The computer repair shop owner who received the computer was never paid and when the impeachment effort began he turned it over to the FBI but also sent a copy to Rudy Giuliani's Lawyer, Robert Costello. Biden's campaign denied the allegations, but Facebook and Twitter have banned people from sharing the article. This has caused criticism from across the spectrum with many GOP officials saying that the two tech giants should have their Section 230 protections pulled.
The New York Post story can be found here.
My Comment:
This is, without a doubt, the dumbest thing the tech companies have ever done. Not only are they making this story blow up to an incredible degree, they are putting themselves in the crosshairs for what is now likely regulation of tech companies. This action is so partisan that it's essentially election interference.
I can personally confirm that if you try to post the New York Post story on Twitter, you are not able to do so. It pops up an error message and then says that it's "potentially harmful". I mean, I guess that's true as it's harmful to the Joe Biden campaign, but thats an obvious miss use of the term. Twitter went even further and locked the White House Press Secretary out of her account for sharing the article.
I posted the link on my facebook account and whatever censorship is happening there didn't affect me at least. I posted it fine and people were able to comment on it. I don't know if it's because I posted it on my personal account or if because my account is small but it appears to be easier to post there.
I think that this essentially confirms that the story is correct. If the story is so obviously false then why censor it? There isn't any evidence that it is false, the pictures appear genuine and so does the e-mail. And they allow mainstream media to post things that are a lot more thinly sourced then the New York Post story. I'd list examples but then this post would be 40 paragraphs long...
And, of course, the Streisand effect is real, when you censor things on the internet people will find new ways to share that information and it will spread further than it would have initially. I'm not sure I would have wrote a post up about the Hunter Biden story but I sure as hell am now! Facebook and Twitter have turned what would have been a minor scandal into a huge one and it's pretty much all on them.
As for the story itself, it does prove that Joe Biden lied about his sons connections to Bursima and his own knowledge of the corruption therein. I'd say that was disqualifying but we all know that the Democratic Party doesn't care. The story also shows that President Trump was impeached for trying to investigate Joe Biden and Hunter Biden and that doing so was pure politics.
I personally think though that the photos of Hunter Biden, which weren't even the focus of the story, are more damaging to the Biden campaign then the story itself. Nobody wants to vote for a president that has a crack or meth addicted son. Hunter Biden's problems were well known but we didn't get to see them face to face until now.
I also don't doubt the veracity of the e-mail or the story of how it occured. Leaving a damaged computer at a computer repair place and never picking it up seems like something a drug user would do. And I also think this destroys the argument that these are illegal leaks. The computer was abandoned property and as such the computer repair shop could do whatever they wanted with it.
The story raises serious questions about the FBI. This email was exculpatory evidence for President Trump's impeachment trial and it was not released by the FBI when it could have affected the outcome of the trial. They had the computer since December of last year and did nothing. There is no word for that other then corruption.
As for the President himself, I guess I understand why he didn't have Giuliani release this immediately. He knew that the impeachment effort would fail and would rather have it be an "October Surprise". Doing so was risky but it looks like it paid off as the story was big enough to knock the Amy Coney Barrett confirmation hearings off the top page of the news.
Will this story affect the election? As things stand right now, probably not too much. There will be a few people that won't vote for Biden over it, but I don't think it's a game changer... yet. It is possible that there will be follow up stories. If there are more revelations of corruption between Hunter Biden, Joe Biden and Ukraine (or even possibly China) it could move the needle considerably. And at some point Facebook and Twitter will have to allow the discussion to take place.
Speaking of Facebook and Twitter, I do agree that their section 230 protections should be revoked. By censoring users they are acting as a publisher and as so they should be held responsible for what their users post. As far as I am concerned they can either shape up and stop the censorship or be sued into oblivion. Not doing this when the GOP controlled the House, Senate and White House has to be one of the biggest mistakes the Trump administration and the Republican party ever made and if they manage to restore control in 2020 it has to be one of the first things on their agenda.
No comments:
Post a Comment