Posted on 10/16/2020 4:15:53 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
In a spectacular, and humiliating, reversal for Twitter which two days ago sparked an unprecedented scandal with its blatant pro-Democrat censorship and dissemination ban of the "bombshell" NY Post article confirming Joe Biden's connections to both Ukraine and China, Twitter said it would no longer block the NY Post story about Hunter Biden.
After the NYT first reported late on Friday that Twitter "began letting users share links to an unsubstantiated New York Post article about Hunter Biden that it had previously blocked from its service", a spokesperson for the online publisher which wishes to retain its Section 230 protections to avoid being sued into oblivion overnight, confirmed to The Hill that users can now share links to the article in tweets and direct messages because "the once private information included is now widely available in the press and on other digital platforms."
The decision caps a three-day whirlwind for the company, which definitively exposed to the entire world the political bias of both Twitter and Youtbe.
After initially blocking users - and in countless cases suspending and banning accounts, even those belonging to administration officials - a smattering of GOP lawmakers sent letters to Twitter and Facebook demanding and explanation; Sen. Ted Cruz said earlier that he would be happy to subpoena Mark Zuckerberg over what Cruz described as "transparent election interference" by America's largest social media titans. Late on Friday, the Senate Commerce Committee issued subpoenas for Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai of Google, and Jack Dorsey to appear virtually on Oct. 28 to discuss the reformation of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which protects them from liability.
Earlier in the week, Jack Dorsey offered a non-apology apology by saying he regretted the breakdown in communication as Twitter moved to suppress the story and punish those sharing it without offering any kind of explanation. This was followed on Thursday night by a statement from the company's top legal and policy executive, Vijaya Gadde, who said that Twitter will no longer remove hacked content unless the content has been "directly shared by hackers or those acting in concert with them." And said the company will "label Tweets to provide context instead of blocking links from being shared on Twitter."
Then on Friday morning, the CEO returned with another more thorough apology, where he acknowledged that the company was "wrong" to 'straight up block the url' or urls associated with the sensitive NY Post stories.
Straight blocking of URLs was wrong, and we updated our policy and enforcement to fix. Our goal is to attempt to add context, and now we have capabilities to do that. https://t.co/ZLUw3YD887 — jack (@jack) October 16, 2020
And now, after unleashing an unprecedented censorship scandal by the social networks, Twitter has made a 180 and effectively admits that everything it did was wrong.
Even the Joe Biden-endorsing NY Times wrote that "the rapid-fire changes have made Twitter and Facebook the butt of jokes and invigorated efforts to regulate them."
“Policies are a guide for action, but the platforms are not standing behind their policies,” said Joan Donovan, research director of the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School. “They are merely reacting to public pressure and therefore will be susceptible to politician influence for some time to come.”
The irony, of course, is that thanks to Twitter's catastrophic bumbling of "Huntergate", everyone in the US now knows about Hunter Biden's notebook and by implication, Joe Biden's heretofore covert involvement. And while one would think that someone as sophisticated in manipulating and shaping public opinion as Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg would know all about the Streisand Effect, one would be wrong.
230 repeal must have scared them. Trump knows to hit where it hurts.
But still blocking the NY Post’s twitter account.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect
[The term alluded to Barbra Streisand, who in 2003 had sued photographer Kenneth Adelman and Pictopia.com for violation of privacy.[7] The US$50 million lawsuit endeavored to remove an aerial photograph of Streisand’s mansion from the publicly available collection of 12,000 California coastline photographs.[2][8][9] Adelman photographed the beachfront property to document coastal erosion as part of the California Coastal Records Project, which was intended to influence government policymakers.[10][11] Before Streisand filed her lawsuit, “Image 3850” had been downloaded from Adelman’s website only six times; two of those downloads were by Streisand’s attorneys.[12] As a result of the case, public knowledge of the picture increased greatly; more than 420,000 people visited the site over the following month.[13] The lawsuit was dismissed and Streisand was ordered to pay Adelman’s legal fees, which amounted to $155,567.[14][15][16]]
Unless they delete the NY Post Biden Article Tweets.
230 all the seditious Silicon Valley Billionaires?
Hasn’t everyone already read the story though?
“And while one would think that someone as sophisticated in manipulating and shaping public opinion as Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg would know all about the Streisand Effect, one would be wrong.”
They’re not sophisticated. They just have gobs of money and power.
HEEEEEEEEEE”S BAAAAACCCCCCCKKKKKKKK!!!!!
I am also quite sure that their lies to deflect this as Russian disinformation has been decided on and they will pretend that it was those pesky Russkies again trying to hurt poor ole crooked Joe’s pathetic campaign.
No he’s not, apparently. How does someone so humble manage to do that ,,,,post and disappear.
What the hell are you on about?
Textbook example of the Streisand Effect.
How’s that butt hurt working for ya Jack?
Of course all of this means nothing if anti trust regulations are not forth coming to deter this crap in the future. Oh well, we all know what isn’t going to happen.
Yep, enforcing the article 230 provision as a violation could be lethal to their continued existence.
Yep, enforcing the article 230 provision as a violation could be lethal to their continued existence.
+++++
That’s very true.
But Freepers should recognize that one day some wacko Dem President might decide to declare that Free Republic is not covered by the 230 provision.
Like it or not in the case of Twitter and Facebook that article still needs to stay in place. If FR were to lose its 230 coverage George Soros could take the world’s best website down with a few million well placed dollars.
I commend Jack Dorsey for being man enough to reverse policy and allow coverage of all of the news. If only Mark Zuckerberg would do the same thing, I would be pleased. It seems Facebook is a little more rigid though. That is why I deleted my account with them.
Are you thus endorsing the obvious political bias shown by FB and Twitter in banning any political story that does not support their favored politicians?
Lets just assume they have substantiated the story and, have reversed their decision.
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