Twitter refuses to unlock New York Post account unless Hunter Biden posts deleted
GOP has criticized social media platforms for blocking outlet's reporting on Hunter Biden
Twitter has refused to unlock the New York Post's account since Wednesday unless the outlet deletes six tweets about its reporting on 2020 Democratic nominee Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden, the Post reported.
Both the San Francisco-based social media platform and Facebook came under fire this week after the two blocked users from sharing a Post article showing purported communication between 2020 Democratic nominee Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden, and an adviser to a Ukrainian energy company.
The younger Biden's work in the country while his father was vice president was at the heart of President Trump's impeachment trial earlier this year. House Democrats accused Trump of improperly attempting to condition U.S. aid on an investigation into Biden, then a contender in the party's presidential primaries, by the Ukrainian government.
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"Anyone who looks at The Post’s Twitter feed can’t even see the tweets about the Biden stories, which have been replaced by messages saying, 'This Tweet is no longer available,'" the Post wrote on Friday.
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Twitter confirmed to FOX Business that the Post "has been informed what is necessary to unlock their account."
New York Post Twitter account (Credit: FBN screenshot)
The company previously said the Post's Hunter Biden stories violate the website's Hacked Media Policy against displaying "hacked" information -- an allegation that the Post called "baseless."
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Twitter updated that policy on Friday, saying it will start labeling content that violates its rules rather than remove it altogether, "unless it is directly shared by hackers or those acting in concert with them."
"While we’ve updated the policy, we don’t change enforcement retroactively. You will still need to delete the Tweets to regain access to your account," Twitter wrote in a statement to the Post.
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Facebook said it was reducing distribution of the Post's article while the platform's independent, third-party fact-checkers determine its credibility.
Republican lawmakers this week urged Facebook and Twitter to explain the decision to block the Post's reporting. Republican Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley invited the CEOs of both companies, Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey, to testify before Congress about their respective decisions.