OF THE
TIMES
"Though this adds some extra friction for those who simply want to Retweet, we hope it will encourage everyone to not only consider why they are amplifying a Tweet, but also increase the likelihood that people add their own thoughts, reactions and perspectives to the conversation."
Big Tech was determined to keep the [Hunter Biden laptop] news from going viral. Facebook spokesman and former Democratic Party staffer Andy Stone said his platform would artificially reduce the story's distribution, until it could be pored over by its "fact-checkers." The suppression campaign worked. According to data compiled by research firm Newswhip, and published in Newsweek on Monday, the story reached around half as many readers as similar anti-Trump bombshells.See also:
Roughly 1.94 million people engaged with the Post's first Biden story within 24 hours of its publication.
Twitter simply banned all linking to the Post's story, claiming that the emails could have been obtained by hacking - a violation of the site's policies. The company later backed down and opted to label links with a warning that the contents within were "disputed." Like Facebook, Twitter did not subject the New York Times nor the Atlantic to this same suppression.
According to a study by software firm Zignal Labs, Twitter's heavy-handed suppression of the story triggered a huge spike in interest, and doubled its reach. The story was shared 5,500 times every 15 minutes before the ban, and 10,000 times afterwards, an MIT report on the study revealed on Friday. The phenomenon of censorship leading to an upsurge in interest is a well-documented one.
Comment: The FBI has also confirmed (as if it was necessary) that, despite claims from Schiff, that the laptop and emails are "not part of some Russian disinformation campaign." There is no actionable intelligence linking anything to Russia on this issue.
Multiple federal law enforcement officials have confirmed that the laptop is linked to an FBI money laundering probe. Trump's lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, claims that the laptop contains 'numerous pictures of underage girls,' including a 14yo related to Hunter: As the Bidens work on damage control, Joe Biden falsely claims that the "vast majority" of the intelligence community agrees there is "no basis at all" for the allegations of corruption against him and his son Hunter Biden and says that it's a last-ditch "smear campaign." Someone should tell Joe that the laptop is real, corruption is real, and if there is evidence of pedophilia and corruption in the laptop, perhaps jail will be very real for Hunter Biden.
Trump responded to the claims that this is a "Russian plot" by comparing it to Hillary Clinton's completely baseless lie that Jill Stein and Tulsi Gabbard were "Russian agents," with no evidence to back up her claims: