Hunter Biden laptop bombshell: Twitter invented reason to censor Post’s reporting

By 

Victor Nava,

Kenneth Garger and

Bruce Golding

December 2, 2022 7:18pm 

 Updated

In May 2022 Mayorkas denied knowing his ‘disinformation czar’ called Hunter Biden laptop ‘Russian disinformation’

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That is “f—ed.” 

Twitter “just freelanced” its baseless decision to censor The Post’s bombshell Hunter Biden laptop scoop in the run up to the 2020 election — with top-level workers at the social media giant agreeing that controversial decision was “f–ked,” damning insider communications released by CEO Elon Musk Friday reveal. 

The chaos and confusion behind closed doors at Twitter in the immediate aftermath of the October 2020 Hunter Biden expose show that a small group of top-level execs decided to label the Post’s story as “hacked material” without any evidence — behind the back of then-CEO and founder Jack Dorsey. 

Musk tweeted a link to the account of independent journalist Matt Taibbi shortly after 6 p.m., who shed light on Twitter’s shady censorship decision by posting what appeared to be redacted emails between Twitter employees. 

The decision to censor The Post’s story was made “at the highest levels of the company,” according to Taibbi, but without Dorsey’s involvement. 

Catch up on Twitter’s censorship of the Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story

• Happening now: Hunter Biden laptop bombshell: Elon Musk’s Twitter drops Post censorship details
• Our original report: Smoking-gun email reveals how Hunter Biden introduced Ukrainian businessman to VP dad
• Editorial: Twitter is running a blackmail operation — cooperate or no traffic for you
• Dorsey backs down: Twitter CEO admits handling of blocked Post article was ‘unacceptable’
• How tweet it is: Twitter unlocks The Post’s account after two weeks

As Taibbi put it: The internal communications reveal “just how much was done without the knowledge of CEO Jack Dorsey, and how long it took for the situation to get ‘unf–ked’ (as one ex-employee put it) even after Dorsey jumped in.” 

According to Taibbi, Twitter’s former head of legal, policy, and trust Vijaya Gadde played a “key role” in the censorship decision. 

Damning emails and comments from former Twitter employees showed that “everyone knew”  the social media giant’s suppression of The Post’s scoops about Hunter Biden’s infamous laptop. “was f—ed.”

The company’s shaky rationale for taking the extraordinary censorship step was that the story violated the company’s “hacked materials” policy, according to Taibbi — which was questioned by many insiders. 

Several Twitter sources reportedly told Taibbi that they remember hearing about a “general” warning from federal law enforcement in the summer of 2022 about foreign hacking, but no evidence has been found about government involvement specifically centered on The Post’s story on Hunter Biden’s laptop. 

SEE ALSO

Smoking-gun email reveals how Hunter Biden introduced Ukrainian businessman to VP dad

“They just freelanced it,” a former employee told Taibbi about how the decision came about. 

“Hacking was the excuse, but within a few hours, pretty much everyone realized that wasn’t going to hold. But no one had the guts to reverse it,” the ex-employee added. 

The decision left high-level executives puzzled. 

“I’m struggling to understand the policy basis for marking this as unsafe,” Trenton Kennedy, a communications official wrote in an apparent internal email to colleagues. 

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“Can we truthfully claim that this is part of the policy?” former Twitter Vice President of Global Communications Brandon Borrman asks in another missive. 

To which former Twitter Deputy General Counsel Jim Baker responded that it is “reasonable” to assume materials were hacked and that “caution is warranted.” PREVIOUS

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