Twitter blocked a story about Hunter Biden’s laptop after U.S. intelligence officials shared “rumors” that Biden would be the target of a hack, an executive with the social media company told the Federal Election Commission.
Yoel Roth, the head of Twitter’s Site Integrity Team, cited the information from U.S. intelligence officials to justify Twitter’s decision to block access to a series of New York Post articles published in October detailing emails found on Biden’s laptop. A conservative group filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission accusing Twitter of giving an illegal campaign contribution to Joe Biden’s presidential campaign by blocking access to the articles.
Twitter, Facebook, and other social media sites have long faced allegations of bias against conservatives. Roth, who helped develop Twitter’s policy of labeling misleading posts, came under fire last year over tweets in which he called Donald Trump and his team “ACTUAL NAZIS.” He also called Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) a “bag of farts,” Fox News reported. Brandon Borrman, a former Twitter executive who was named in the FEC complaint, recently joined an anti-Republican super PAC aligned with the Lincoln Project.
The six-member Federal Election Commission voted unanimously to dismiss the Republican complaint, according to documents released Wednesday. The bipartisan commission accepted Twitter’s claim that it blocked the articles for commercial purposes rather than for political reasons.
The commission pointed to Roth’s testimony that U.S. officials warned him individuals close to political campaigns would likely be targeted in “hack-and-leak” operations close to the election. Roth said he met frequently throughout 2020 with government officials to discuss election security. He said he learned in one of the meetings that “there were rumors that a hack-and-leak operation would involve Hunter Biden.”
While the commissioners did not weigh in on whether Hunter Biden was hacked, no evidence has emerged that he was. A computer repair shop owner in Delaware claimed that Biden dropped his computer off for repairs in April 2019 and never retrieved it. The shop owner, John Paul Mac Isaac, has released documents showing that he provided Biden’s laptop to the FBI in late 2019.
The U.S. attorney’s office in Delaware is investigating Biden over his taxes and foreign business dealings. Biden has said he is not certain what happened to his laptop. He has admitted to being in the midst of a drug and alcohol binge around the time he allegedly lost his computer.
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