After Twitter CEO Elon Musk teased a massive reveal Friday afternoon, journalist Matt Taibbi released a Twitter thread revealing the confusion at the social media company after it censored the New York Postâs Hunter Biden laptop story in the lead-up to the 2020 presidential election.
Taibbiâs Twitter thread, which Musk retweeted, revealed that Twitterâs top executives didnât have a good explanation for censoring the story, but stuck with the decision, anyway. It also showed that Republican and Democratic congressional staff weighed in against the move.
Taibbi recounted that Twitter took âextraordinary stepsâ to suppress the Postâs Oct. 14, 2020, story reporting on emails from Hunter Bidenâs laptop implicating Joe Biden in his sonâs foreign business dealings. The social media company even went so far as âremoving links and posting warnings that it may be âunsafe.â They even blocked its transmission via direct message, a tool hitherto reserved for extreme cases, e.g. child pornography.â
Twitter locked then-White House press secretary Kaleigh McEnany out of her account for tweeting about the story. Taibbi shared an email from then-President Donald Trumpâs reelection campaign staffer Mike Hahn, who noted that all McEnany did was âcite the story and firsthand reporting that has been reported by other outlets and not disputed by the Biden campaign.â
