Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey has blamed “bad communication” and a “lack of context” in response to public outcry over his platform’s censorship of a New York Post story on alleged backroom dealings of the Biden family.
“Our communication around our actions on the [New York Post] article was not great. And blocking URL sharing via tweet or DM with zero context as to why we’re blocking: unacceptable,” Dorsey tweeted on Wednesday, hours after Twitter began blacklisting the story.
Our communication around our actions on the @nypost article was not great. And blocking URL sharing via tweet or DM with zero context as to why we’re blocking: unacceptable. https://t.co/v55vDVVlgt
In a thread explaining its actions posted around the same time, the company cited both its policies on “private information” and the “distribution of hacked material,” alleging the Post article contained personal details obtained without permission, thereby violating its rules.
A number of conservative-leaning pundits have weighed in to challenge the rationale for suppressing the story, disputing that the information was obtained in a hack and insisting that “communication” was not the problem, but rather the company’s censorious actions.
Communication is the issue? Or is censorship….
What if your actions were garbage, not just your communications? https://t.co/7rQPSLpOC6
Maybe it wasn’t just the lack of context but the action itself
In addition to barring users from sharing the article in tweets and direct messages, Twitter also locked the Post’s primary account, as well as that of White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany, who shared a screenshot of the story.
The Post’s primary Twitter account (@nypost) has also been locked because the Hunter Biden stories violate its rules against “distribution of hacked material,” per email we received from Twitter https://t.co/wbeYd6c3CA
He doesn’t address this though. pic.twitter.com/tA93zMIRnV
Despite the fevered efforts to bury the Post article by both Twitter and Facebook, some netizens argued the moves would only bring more attention to the story, a phenomenon known as the “Streisand effect.”
I can’t think of a more epic business fail than the Fakebook/Twitter fail today. They simultaneously implicated themselves in an election interference scheme, while pissing off potential allies – all while bringing DEFCON 1 levels of attention to a story they tried to hide. #FAIL
The NY Post story is going to be a 1,000x bigger deal now that Big Tech has tried to memory-hole it out of blatant loyalty to Biden’s presidential campaign.Google “Streisand effect” and don’t make this mistake again, tech bros.
Ill take how to make a story bigger than it needed to be for $100 Alex. pic.twitter.com/LAxDACZeHc
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