Breaking News – Twitter refuses removal of hacked content

TWITTER has refused the removal of hacked content, and will no longer block and remove tweets instead a system of labeling tweets will be put in place after Republicans said they threatened to subpoena CEO Jack Dorsey for shutting down President Trump’s campaign account and blocking links to Biden Ukraine stories.

The company announced the policy changes on Thursday, October 15, saying the new rules applied unless it is directly shared by hackers or those acting in concert with them.

‘Over the last 24 hours, we’ve received significant feedback (from critical to supportive) about how we enforced our Hacked Materials Policy yesterday,’ Vijaya Gadde posted.

‘After reflecting on this feedback, we have decided to make changes to the policy and how we enforce it.’

The move comes after Twitter blocked the accounts of Donald Trump’s campaign and White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, after they shared stories about Biden Ukraine emails.

Tweets containing a link to the story posted by users and media outlets were also blocked.

Gadde said the company wanted to ‘address the concerns that there could be many unintended consequences to journalists, whistleblowers, and others in ways that are contrary to Twitter’s purpose of serving the public conversation.’

The links blocked by Twitter contained stories about emails between Hunter Biden and a Ukraine official who claimed he’d been introduced to Joe Biden. It also contained images of Hunter Biden.

The information was provided by Rudy Giuliani to the New York Post after a computer repair store owner said he’d found it on a hard drive.

The store owner said a man who he was unable to identify brought three computers into his store for repair last fall. He said he then made a copy of the emails and images on the hard drive and provided it to the FBI and to Giuliani, Trump’s lawyer

The original stories, which also contained business email addresses, purported to expose corrupt dealings by Joe Biden and his son in Ukraine.

Twitter initially said the story violated policies on ‘hacked materials’ and on ‘personal and private information.’

‘We put the Hacked Materials Policy in place back in 2018 to discourage and mitigate harms associated with hacks and unauthorized exposure of private information,’ Gadde continued in a series of tweets Thursday.

‘We tried to find the right balance between people’s privacy and the right to free expression, but we can do better.

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Written by

Charlie Loran

Manchester born mummy with a two year old diva (2020), living on the Costa del Sol for just short of a decade.
Former chef and restaurateur, holistic health fanatic and lover of long words.

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Comments


    • vincent backhouse

      19 October 2020 • 17:47

      Twitter got caught censoring.

    Comments are closed.