Washington (AFP)
Republicans cry for partiality, daily protests against censorship and Twitter boss finds communication from his own platform "unacceptable": controversy over controversial article on Joe Biden highlights difficult three-way Facebook and Twitter position US presidential weeks.
“Our communication on our actions regarding the New York Post article was not great. And block sharing of the article's internet address with zero context as to why: unacceptable,” said Jack Dorsey, founder from Twitter, Wednesday night.
The Conservative newspaper published emails that were allegedly illegally retrieved from a computer containing messages, photos and personal videos of Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden.
These messages revive accusations leveled against the Democratic candidate for the White House by the camp of Donald Trump, according to whom he would have helped the Ukrainian gas group Burisma to escape investigations for corruption.
Hunter Biden served from 2014 to 2019 on the company's supervisory board.
Twitter has blocked sharing of the article because it contains material that violates two of its rules: not posting personal data (emails, phone numbers) and not posting pirated material.
"We do not want to encourage hacking by authorizing the dissemination of documents obtained illegally", explained the company via its dedicated security account, recalling that discussing the article was not prohibited, only sharing.
- Censorship -
But the clarifications came after a day of fiery criticism of the networks.
"Horrible that Twitter and Facebook have removed the article on emails (...) linked to the sleeping Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, in the New York Post," said Donald Trump on his favorite network.
The Republican billionaire later accused the tweet platform of blocking the account of his spokesperson, Kayleigh McEnany, for sharing the article.
"Because she shared the truth! They closed her account," "They're trying to protect Biden," the US president proclaimed at a rally in Iowa.
One of Facebook executives, Andy Stone, questioned the veracity of the emails and announced that the daily's information was going to be verified.
Pending the results, the Californian group decided to reduce the visibility of the article.
Republican Senator Josh Hawley denounced Facebook's "bias" and a "reportedly selective" blocking of an article on "a potentially unethical act of a presidential candidate."
The New York Post, one of the most widely read dailies in the country, for its part denounced the "censorship of Facebook to help the campaign of Joe Biden".
- Arbitrations -
"Censor first, ask the questions after: it is a scandalous attitude for one of the most powerful platforms in the United States", continues an editorial of the newspaper, accusing Facebook of having become "a machine of propaganda" .
Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg has repeatedly said that networks should not be "arbiters of the truth", in particular to justify his choice of very little framing the remarks of political figures, supposed to allow users to make their own opinion.
But the platforms are accused of censorship by the conservatives, and are criticized, on the left, for not sufficiently tackling false information, incitement to hatred and attempts to discourage voters from voting, among others.
After months of growing tensions, and a pandemic conducive to disinformation, they have largely tightened their rules on moderation of content, to protect the elections from interference and manipulation.
However, the New York Post article recalls the case concerning Hillary Clinton, the Democratic candidate in 2016, whose emails hacked by Russian hackers had been disseminated on the Internet by anonymous sites and by WikiLeaks.
Facebook and Twitter have promised to be tough on these hack-and-leak tactics, where entities give hacked information to the media and use networks to spread it.
- Ukraine -
The New York Post claims to have obtained a copy of the hard drive of a laptop computer left for repair by Hunter Biden at a Delaware store in April 2019. The copy is believed to have arrived in the hands of Donald Trump's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, who would then have provided it to the newspaper.
The article and documents point in the direction of the accusations of Donald Trump and his supporters.
According to them, Joe Biden, then vice-president of Barack Obama, had Ukrainian attorney general Viktor Chokine sacked in 2016 to help Burisma escape anti-corruption investigations that would have splashed his son.
Without denying the existence of the computer or the messages, a spokesperson for Joe Biden, Andrew Bates, accused Mr. Giuliani of having already propagated "discredited conspiracy theories".
Burisma has been at the center of the landmark impeachment trial against Donald Trump, accused of pressuring Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden and Hunter's business activities.
The US president was acquitted in February.
© 2020 AFP