US President Donald Trump criticised Facebook and Twitter on Wednesday for blocking links to a New York Post article purporting to expose corrupt dealings by political rival Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden in Ukraine. Dissemination of the story was limited by Facebook hours after it was published.
"So terrible that Facebook and Twitter took down the story of 'Smoking Gun' emails related to Sleepy Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, in the @NYPost," Trump tweeted.
The New York Post said they found a computer abandoned by Hunter Biden that implicated his father in his Ukraine business affairs. The computer was left by Hunter Biden at a Delaware computer repair shop in April 2019. The shop owner copied the hard drive and handed it over to federal authorities. The shop owner then passed the copy of the hard drive to Rudy Guiliani, President Trump’s personal lawyer, who handed it to the New York Post.
‘Smoking-gun email reveals how Hunter Biden introduced Ukrainian businessman to VP dad,’ the newspaper's headline read.
Biden and Biden’s campaign has denied having met the Ukrainian businessman. Facebook and Twitter placed restrictions on linking to the article, saying there were questions over its veracity. “This is part of our standard process to reduce the spread of misinformation,” Facebook spokesman Andy Stone told AFP.
“Twitter's censorship of this story is quite hypocritical, given its willingness to allow users to share less-well-sourced reporting critical of other candidates,” Republican Senator Ted Cruz said in a letter to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.
The story states that Biden, while vice president to Barack Obama, helped his son and the Ukrainian energy company whose board Hunter Biden sat on, Burisma. Trump's campaign, quickly issued a statement saying the emails were proof Biden "lied to the American people" about his son's business dealings.
