Donald Trump criticized social networks Facebook and Twitter, which restricted access to an article by The New York Post about the activities of former US Vice President Joe Biden in Ukraine.
The publication claimed that in 2015, Biden, with the participation of his son Hunter, held a meeting with the top manager of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma Vadim Pozharsky, although he later claimed that he had never had such contacts.
“It's appalling that Facebook and Twitter have restricted the distribution of the New York Post's hard-core e-mails related to Sleepy Joe and his son Hunter.
This is just the beginning for them.
There is nothing worse than a corrupt politician, "- wrote Trump on his Twitter.
So terrible that Facebook and Twitter took down the story of “Smoking Gun” emails related to Sleepy Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, in the @NYPost.
It is only the beginning for them.
There is nothing worse than a corrupt politician.
REPEAL SECTION 230 !!!
https://t.co/g1RJFpIVUZ
- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 14, 2020
The American leader also added that Biden must immediately publicize and publish all of his emails, meeting records, phone calls and other data on the business affairs of his family members.
Trump also congratulated The New York Post on a successful investigation.
“Congratulations to the New York Post for exposing large scale corruption activities involving Sleepy Joe Biden and our Country.
He has always been a corrupt politician.
Shame! ”- wrote the US President.
Ukrainian compromising evidence
The New York Post obtained e-mails from Hunter Biden, including a letter sent to him from Vadim Pozharsky, a senior Burisma employee, in which he thanked Hunter for arranging a meeting with his father.
“Dear Hunter, thank you for the invitation to visit Washington DC and for the opportunity to meet your father and spend time together.
It is a real honor and pleasure, ”reads the email.
The New York Post claims that the correspondence was found in a laptop that was left in a service workshop in Delaware (where Joe Biden and his family live) in April 2019.
It was not possible to establish the owner of the device, but a lot of incriminating materials on Hunter Biden were found in it.
Social networks Facebook and Twitter, shortly after the publication of the article, limited its distribution, citing the fact that the facts indicated in it require verification.
For example, Facebook spokesman Andy Stone said that the publication should be "fact-checked by third-party Facebook partners", and until then, access to it on the platform will be limited.
He added that such actions are the usual procedure for combating "disinformation".
Twitter took the same action, deactivating the official account of The New York Post and blocking the publication of a link to the article.
In addition, the account of White House press secretary Kaylee McEnani, who published an excerpt from the article, was blocked.
Vice presidential influence
Recall that the son of former US Vice President Hunter Biden, after his father's visit to Ukraine in 2014, joined the board of directors of Burisma, one of the largest private gas companies in Ukraine.
The American edition of The Hill reported in April that the Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine suspected Hunter Biden of accepting bribes from Burisma's management.
According to the publication, in the period from spring 2014 to autumn 2015, Biden Jr.'s firm was allegedly transferred about $ 166 thousand every month. This happened at a time when his father Joe Biden, in addition to the post of vice president, also held the position of US special representative for Ukraine.
US President Donald Trump
Reuters
© Carlos Barria
Prosecutor General of Ukraine Viktor Shokin planned to summon Hunter Biden for interrogation on the fact of abuses in Burisma and the country's gas industry.
However, in March 2016, he was removed from office.
In January 2018, Biden, speaking at a meeting of the Council on Foreign Relations, recalled this episode.
He said that then he delivered an ultimatum to President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko and Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, threatening them with the cancellation of loan guarantees for $ 1 billion if Prosecutor General Shokin is not removed from office.
“I looked at them and said, 'I'm leaving in six hours.
If the prosecutor is not dismissed, you will not receive money, ”Biden said at the time.
He explained the demand to deprive Shokin of his post by the fact that the Prosecutor General was allegedly involved in corruption schemes and without his resignation it was impossible to guarantee the targeted use of the American loan.
Commenting on the publication of new evidence in The New York Post, President Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani criticized Joe Biden, saying that "a more damaging exposure is difficult to imagine."
“Remember, Biden denied knowing anything about Burisma.
Biden has repeatedly denied that he is aware of his son's activities abroad.
But the letter clearly states that Biden met with someone who is now the second or third person in the most corrupt company in Ukraine, ”Giuliani said on Fox News.
New revelations about Biden's corruption activities in Ukraine are unlikely to greatly affect his pre-election chances, said Konstantin Blokhin, a researcher at the Center for Security Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
“The electorate of both Biden and Trump has already been determined, therefore, there is a struggle between the candidates for critical states, where there is no clear dominance of one of the parties.
Today it is quite difficult to surprise anyone with the factor of corruption in the United States, since an oligarchic system has developed in the country, which has rotted, as a result of which social inequality has increased, and corruption has struck not only the Democratic, but also the Republican parties, ”the political scientist stressed.
Political blockages
It is not the first time that American social networks have restricted the distribution of materials or media activities that are objectionable to the political establishment.
For example, over the past few years, Facebook and Twitter have repeatedly blocked RT accounts and projects.
In 2017, Twitter blocked ads from the accounts of the RT channel and the Sputnik news agency.
As explained in the social network, this decision was made on the basis of an investigation into the "Russian interference" in the US presidential elections in 2016.
Twitter
Reuters
© Kacper Pempel
At the same time, it turned out that the social network itself offered RT to place a large amount of advertising on its platform during the 2016 election campaign, but the TV channel refused this offer.
In February 2019, the social network Facebook blocked the page of the English-language video project Russia Today (RT) "In the Now".
The project had 4 million subscribers.
RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan said that the block was related to the release of CNN's material that In the Now is funded from Russia.
She noted that the project page did not violate Facebook rules and did not receive any warnings.
Then Twitter stopped showing the RT channel account in search if the user was not a subscriber of this page.
Also, the social network began to label the channel as a "state publication".
However, the US Congress-sponsored Radio Liberty * does not have such a mark.
The American establishment justifies corporate censorship, such as the actions of Twitter and Facebook, by the fact that any negative information about its politicians and presidential candidates is an instrument of external influence, Yuri Rogulev, director of the Franklin Roosevelt US Research Foundation at Moscow State University, explained in an interview with RT.
“The United States has always considered its system to be the most advanced and successful.
But when a crisis of political institutions, the electoral system arose, and problems worsened, the authorities looked for the cause of this process on the side.
For example, the position of the Democratic Party over the past four years is that it cannot lose the elections, and if it were not for Russia's "interference" in the 2016 vote, then its candidate would certainly have won them.
This is an absurd position, but many believe in it, ”the expert noted.
In turn, Konstantin Blokhin noted that the mainstream media and popular American social networks, as the elections approach, will openly block any information that could harm Joe Biden and help Donald Trump become President of the United States again.
“The American media and Internet companies are tools of oligarchic groups that are trying to discredit Trump with their help.
This digital sector of the economy, against which Trump has openly declared war, is quite influential, ”the political scientist concluded.
* Media recognized as a foreign agent by the decision of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation dated 05.12.2017.