Twitter Unlocks New York Post Account, Claims It Revised Policy And Allows Hunter Biden Links

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UPDATE, OCT. 30: Twitter caved Friday in its two-week battle with the New York Post over its Hunter Biden reporting, unlocking its main account on the service.

The Post has been the embroiled in a battle with the social media giant, which banned its links to its reporting on Hunter Biden’s business dealings and its ramifications on his father, Joe Biden, and his presidential campaign. Twitter claimed the reports were based on hacked information.

In a series of tweets, Twitter said it was revising its “Hacked Materials Policy” and “updating our practice of not retroactively overturning prior enforcement.”

“Our policies are living documents,” said one of the tweets from @TwitterSafety. “We’re willing to update and adjust them when we encounter new scenarios or receive important feedback from the public.”

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey was called into the Congressional woodshed earlier over what some Republicans claimed was partisan censorship. Twitter locked the Post account on Oct. 14 but never explained how it determined the materials used in the reporting were hacked.

Eventually, Twitter allowed other users to retweet the story links. But it kept the Post official account locked and asked that six tweets of its reporting be deleted. The media outlet refused.

“While we’ve updated the policy, we don’t change enforcement retroactively. You will still need to delete the Tweets to regain access to your account,” a Twitter representative told The Post on Oct. 16. Twitter also made the six tweets at issue invisible to users.

On Friday, the company said that under its latest policy revision, “Decisions made under policies that are subsequently changed & published can now be appealed if the account at issue is a driver of that change. We believe this is fair and appropriate,” Twitter said. “This means that because a specific @nypost enforcement led us to update the Hacked Materials Policy, we will no longer restrict their account under the terms of the previous policy and they can now Tweet again.”

News Corp Chief Communications Officer Jim Kennedy issued a statement on behalf of the media outlet.

“This is an important moment for journalism and for the freedom of the press. There is no evidence whatsoever that the documents are not authentic and the arbitrary blocking of the Post was a significant moment during a critical time in this election season. It also had a negative commercial impact, but the Post team was determined that principle should prevail and it has. Alexander Hamilton, the paper’s founder, looks down tonight with a broad smile and a sense of pride.”

UPDATED with Twitter response: Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said the social media giant’s handling of an oddly sourced New York Post story about Hunter Biden was “wrong.”

Twitter disabled links to the story, eliciting an outcry by President Trump and the GOP and prompting the FCC to announce a review of longstanding rules on Internet company freedoms and the content that appears on their platforms.

Previously: The chairman of the FCC issued a statement on Thursday saying that he plans to move forward with efforts to clarify Section 230, the provision of a 1996 law that gives immunity to internet companies like Facebook and Twitter over the way that they moderate content.

Chairman Ajit Pai issued a statement as President Donald Trump and his allies have blasted Twitter and Facebook for steps they have taken to restrict the sharing of a New York Post story on Hunter Biden. Twitter has disabled links to the story, and the Trump campaign said that its account was briefly locked after it tried to share it.

“As elected officials consider whether to change the law, the question remains: What does Section 230 currently mean?” Pai said in a statement. “Many advance an overly broad interpretation that in some cases shields social media companies from consumer protection laws in a way that has no basis in the text of Section 230. The Commission’s General Counsel has informed me that the FCC has the legal authority to interpret Section 230. Consistent with this advice, I intend to move forward with a rulemaking to clarify its meaning.”

He added, “Throughout my tenure at the Federal Communications Commission, I have favored regulatory parity, transparency, and free expression. Social media companies have a First Amendment right to free speech. But they do not have a First Amendment right to a special immunity denied to other media outlets, such as newspapers and broadcasters.”

In May, after Twitter slapped a label on two of Trump’s tweets out of concern that they were election disinformation, the president issued an executive order to instruct federal agencies to move to modify Section 230, which was passed in 1996 as part of the Communications Decency Act. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration then petitioned the FCC to review it.

“Members of all three branches of the federal government have expressed serious concerns about the prevailing interpretation of the immunity set forth in Section 230 of the Communications Act,” Pai said. “There is bipartisan support in Congress to reform the law. The U.S. Department of Commerce has petitioned the Commission to ‘clarify ambiguities in section 230.’ And earlier this week, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas pointed out that courts have relied upon ‘policy and purpose arguments to grant sweeping protections to Internet platforms’ that appear to go far beyond the actual text of the provision.”

Twitter said that the Post story included materials that violated its hacked materials policy. The story included images of emails that allegedly came from Hunter Biden’s laptop, dropped off to a technician in Delaware. But the emails have not been verified as authentic.

The Senate Judiciary Committee, led by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), will vote on Tuesday on whether to issue a subpoena to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey over the restrictions placed on the Post article.

Some Democrats also have called for modifying Section 230 — but for opposite reasons. As Trump and his allies claim that Section 230 have given platforms license to stifle content from the right, something social media giants deny, Democrats believe that Silicon Valley should be taking greater steps to curb misinformation.

But Jessica Rosenworcel, a Democratic appointee to the commission, criticized Pai for the statement.

“The timing of this effort is absurd. The FCC has no business being the president’s speech police,” she said in a statement.

The commission is made up of three Republicans and two Democrats. Two GOP appointees, Pai and Commissioner Brendan Carr, favor moving forward. The third, Michael O’Rielly, expressed some skepticism over such an effort, only to have his renomination to the FCC pulled. Trump then nominated telecom attorney Nathan Simington, a senior adviser at NTIA, to fill the slot. A hearing has not yet been scheduled on his nomination, even though Trump tweeted last week, “Republicans need to get smart and confirm Nate Simington to the FCC ASAP!”

On Thursday, Trump wrote on Twitter, “If Big Tech persists, in coordination with the mainstream media, we must immediately strip them of their Section 230 protections. When government granted these protections, they created a monster!”

Elizabeth Banker, the deputy general counsel of the Internet Association, which represents major tech companies, said in a statement that “the constitution guarantees freedom of speech, not freedom of reach.

“The First Amendment protects every private enterprise’s ability to set and enforce rules for acceptable content on their services,” she said, while arguing that the agency lacks the authority to make the changes to Section 230.

Jill Goldsmith contributed to this story.

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