Twitter’s former chief of trust and safety said that he opposed blocking the New York Post’s story about Hunter Biden’s laptop during the 2020 presidential campaign, a measure that gained widespread criticism as an act of censorship to help Joe Biden’s presidential candidacy.
Yoel Roth said that he believed the story “didn’t reach a place where I was comfortable removing this content from Twitter,” in remarks at the #Informed22 conference on Wednesday. He added that “Everything about it looked like a hack, smelled like a hack, but it didn’t get there [to suppress] for me.”
His comments come more than two years after Twitter and Facebook blocked the New York Post’s social media postings regarding the story, with Twitter restricting access to its account, a measure that was later rescinded.
The story, titled “Smoking-gun email reveals how Hunter Biden introduced Ukrainian businessman to VP dad,” detailed how Hunter Biden had introduced an executive at Ukrainian energy company Burisma to then-Vice President Joe Biden at a time when Biden was pressuring Ukraine to dismiss its prosecutor general who was investigating Burisma for corruption. Hunter Biden, at the time, was a member of Burisma’s board of directors, receiving a salary of $50,000 per month despite having no experience working in the energy sector.
The emails in the story had been obtained from a laptop belonging to Hunter Biden that was dropped off at a Delaware computer repair shop in 2019. It contained lurid details about his personal life, including videos of his sexual activity and narcotic drug use, which were also described in the Post’s story.
Twitter had also restricted the ability of users to share information about the story. Twitter’s conduct was widely lambasted by then-President Donald Trump, congressional Republicans, free speech activists and several celebrities.
“Mr. Dorsey, who the hell elected you and put you in charge of what the media are allowed to report and what the American people are allowed to hear?” said Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas to then-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Oct. 28, 2020.
Roth recently left Twitter after disagreeing with Elon Musk’s leadership of the company. “Even as he criticizes the capriciousness of platform policies, he perpetuates this same lack of legitimacy through his impulsive changes and tweet-length pronouncements about Twitter’s rules,” Roth wrote in a New York Times op-ed on Nov. 18.
Twitter and Hunter Biden did not respond to requests for comment.
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact [email protected].
DONATE TO BIZPAC REVIEW
Please help us! If you are fed up with letting radical big tech execs, phony fact-checkers, tyrannical liberals and a lying mainstream media have unprecedented power over your news please consider making a donation to BPR to help us fight them. Now is the time. Truth has never been more critical!
- Exclusive: Congressional Republicans to introduce bill repealing Biden’s massive expansion of gun background checks - April 11, 2024
- DOJ publishes new rule that massively expands background checks for gun purchases - April 11, 2024
- Black men’s support for Trump doubles in swing states: Poll - April 11, 2024
Comment
We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spam, instead of replying to it please click the ∨ icon below and to the right of that comment. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.
BPR INSIDER COMMENTS
Scroll down for non-member comments or join our insider conversations by becoming a member. We'd love to have you!
