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Best of the Web: Facebook and Twitter censor NY Post's new story about Hunter Biden on their platforms

Julio Rosas
Townhall
Wed, 14 Oct 2020 13:10 UTC

Facebook announced on Wednesday they will be "reducing" the spread of the new New York Post story about Hunter Biden, which claims new emails and photos shed light on his foreign business dealings, as it undergoes a review by "third-party fact checking partners."

Comment: See the article on Sott: Smoking-gun email in forgotten laptop reveals Hunter Biden introduced Ukrainian businessman to VP dad

The announcement was made by Andy Stone, who currently works as Policy Communications Manager for Facebook. In his tweet, he made it a point to not link to the Post's story, adding, "I want be clear that this story is eligible to be fact checked by Facebook's third-party fact checking partners. In the meantime, we are reducing its distribution on our platform."

Comment: Apparently this is the first time Twitter has invoked this hacked materials policy. From RT:

Twitter BLOCKS sharing links to NYPost's Hunter Biden emails story, invoking 'HACKED MATERIALS' policy for first time ever

Twitter has one-upped Facebook's censorship regarding a story based on alleged emails from Democratic candidate Joe Biden's son Hunter about his Ukraine dealings, blocking all users from sharing it via tweet or direct message.

Twitter users were blocked on Wednesday from sharing the New York Post story critical of the Bidens published just that morning. The decision was based on a never-before-invoked "hacked materials policy" that Twitter announced hours after Facebook had stomped on the same story.

The Post cited emails that appeared to show Joe Biden - then vice president to Barack Obama - had met with Ukrainian Burisma exec Vadim Pozharskyi at the behest of his son and Burisma adviser Hunter Biden, less than a year before the current Democratic presidential candidate allegedly demanded Kiev fire its top prosecutor.

...

Twitter "errors" started pouring in just a few hours after Andy Stone, a Facebook executive with a long history of working for the Democratic Party, warned Facebook was "reducing [the Hunter Biden story's] distribution" on its platform and seemingly invited Facebook's fact-checkers to tear the story apart.

While Twitter users were able to share the offending Post link for hours after Stone tagged it for destruction, what Twitter lacked in temporal primacy it made up in intensity.

Users who attempted to share the story on Wednesday afternoon were informed they could not retweet the "potentially harmful" link. Unlike typical Twitter warning screens that can be clicked through, the link to the Post story was not even allowed to be posted.

As speculation swirled regarding the Biden emails, Forbes reporter Jack Brewster posted a statement, allegedly from Twitter, reading that "in line with our Hacked Materials Policy, as well as our approach to blocking URLs, we are taking action to block any links to or images of the material in question on Twitter."

...

While Twitter has outlawed entire domains in the past - most notably Bitchute.com, a YouTube competitor whose exile it partially walked back after widespread protest from users - nothing like the blanket ban on the Post URL has ever been seen before.

Many readers opined that by blocking the URL and deleting the Post's tweet Twitter had inadvertently confirmed the authenticity of the Biden emails.

...

Others merely interpreted the secondhand missive as Twitter throwing its hat in the ring for Biden, deeming the act "brazen election interference."

...

Meanwhile, Senator Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) said he wrote to Facebook to complain about executive Andy Stone's actions, asking if the preemptive shadowbanning pending fact-checking was "normal" and whether the Biden campaign had played some role in reducing the article's reach.

Meanwhile, NYT journalist Maggie Haberman. From RT:

Even mentioning the October surprise story about Hunter Biden in order to criticize it has landed journalist Maggie Haberman in hot water with online Democrat activists, who furiously accused her of helping President Donald Trump.

It appears that Haberman broke the unwritten code of silence in the mainstream media by sharing a New York Post story on Wednesday that claimed to show that the son of the Democratic presidential nominee engaged in corrupt dealings with a Ukrainian gas company.

Haberman was apparently trying to criticize the story, but merely mentioning it earned the New York Times reporter an avalanche of opprobrium - and a new nickname, based on the Trump campaign slogan "Make America Great Again."

...

The avalanche of attacks on Haberman is particularly ironic, given that it was four years ago this week that she was exposed as a "friendly journalist" trusted by Hillary Clinton's campaign to "tee up stories" for them.

On October 10, 2016, WikiLeaks published an email obtained from the personal account of Clinton campaign chair John Podesta, showing a January 2015 exchange between her campaign staff.

"We have [had] a very good relationship with Maggie Haberman of Politico over the last year," wrote Clinton's communications director Nick Merrill to campaign manager Robby Mook. "We have had her tee up stories for us before and have never been disappointed."

The campaign thinks it "can achieve our objective and do the most shaping by going to Maggie," Merrill added.

Apparently the tweets of former Democratic Party staffer now working as Facebook's communications exec, Andy Stone, caught the eye of Federal Communications Commissioner Brendan Carr:

More from RT on the reaction of the Biden campaign and others:

...

After the story had already made the rounds on social media, the Biden campaign weighed in to deny any meeting between Biden and Pozharskyi had taken place - though it notably did not comment on any of the more salacious aspects of the Post's stories, including photos and videos appearing to show the candidate's son smoking crack and having sex.

Apparently bracing for fact-checker impact, the Post reported the repairman-whistleblower who'd leaked the emails was working with the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee to verify the information. He claimed to have reached out to the committee in September after it released a report on Biden's apparent conflicts of interest, which included a reported $3.5 million payment from the wife of the ex-mayor of Moscow to a company co-founded by Hunter Biden.

Blue-checks and #Resistance stalwarts rallied to Stone's (and Biden's) defense on Twitter, warning that the Post story was based on a "huge falsehood" - namely that Biden had forced the Ukrainian government to fire the prosecutor who was investigating Burisma. This was untrue, they argued, because others had wanted the prosecutor fired as well.

...

Stone's Twitter feed bristles with boasts about suppressing content on Facebook, including claims that the platform "displayed warnings on more than 150 million pieces of content" that had been "debunked by one of our third-party fact-checkers," deleted "more than 120,000 pieces of Facebook and Instagram content" for violating its US policy on voter interference, and "rejected ad submissions before they could run about 2.2 million times."

Facebook is far from the only social media platform to attract Democrat apparatchiks, however. Twitter communications exec Nick Pacilio previously worked as press secretary for Democrat vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris, while the platform's head of editorial for Europe, Middle East and Africa, Gordon MacMillan, is a member of the UK military's infamous 77th Brigade information-warfare unit.

Twitter applied a warning screen to the Post's story late Wednesday afternoon, presenting users who clicked on the link with an alert that the "link may be unsafe."

Even Trump has weighed in on the controversy:

From RT:

...

"REPEAL SECTION 230!!!" the president added, referring to the provision in the Communications Decency Act shielding social media platforms from legal liability if they act "in good faith" to remove objectionable content posted by users.

Since then, Facebook, Twitter, Alphabet and others have invoked it as grounds to police any content they deem inappropriate - including the ever-shifting definitions of "potential harm" and "election interference."

...

"It is only the beginning for them. There is nothing worse than a corrupt politician," Trump said cryptically in his tweet, suggesting more information is forthcoming.

Shortly thereafter, his son Donald Trump Jr said it was "time to break up Big Tech. Their total bias and flagrant suppression of information can't stand in America."

Meanwhile, Senate Republicans tweeted: "See you [Jack]," along with a video of someone unsuccessfully trying to share the New York Post story. It was aimed at the company's CEO Jack Dorsey, ahead of the October 28 Commerce Committee hearing about censorship, at which he is scheduled to testify.

And it seems that Twitter is also using this as an opportunity to eject some 'undesirables' from their platform. From The Daily Wire:

Twitter Locks Out WH Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany For Sharing NY Post Hunter Biden Story
By Jon Brown - Oct 15, 2020

Twitter locked the personal account of White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany on Wednesday after she shared a New York Post story alleging that Hunter Biden introduced his father to a Burisma executive a year before the former vice president pushed Ukraine to fire its top prosecutor, who was investigating the company.

In a screenshot disseminated by the Trump War Room, Twitter appeared to have sent McEnany a notification that her "account has been locked" for "violating our rules against distribution of hacked materials." McEnany's tweet was subsequently deleted. It remains unclear if McEnany was forced to delete it, or if Twitter deleted it for her.

...

[Sen. Josh] Hawley called on the FEC to investigate whether Twitter and Facebook violated campaign finance law by interfering in the dissemination of the story. As The Daily Wire reported:
After citing the relevant section of the U.S. Code, Hawley said, "Twitter and Facebook are both corporations. A 'contribution' includes 'anything of value ... for the purpose of influencing any election for Federal office.'"

Hawley alleged that Facebook and Twitter's "active suppression" of the New York Post story "appears to constitute contributions under federal law," and that the Biden campaign "derives extraordinary value" from quashing a story that would link the former vice president to Ukrainian oligarchs.

Hawley also sent letters demanding answers to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. In his letter to Dorsey, Hawley said in part, "There are various reports circulating on Twitter of users unable to post a link to the New York Post story, with some users posting responses from Twitter that the content was deemed to be 'potentially spammy or unsafe.'"

"I find this behavior stunning but not surprising from a platform that has censored the President of the United States," Hawley added. Later, he demanded to know the specifics of how the company decided to suppress the story, as well as if anyone involved with the Biden-Harris campaign was involved.

Best of the Web: COVID-19 lockdowns are in lockstep with the 'Great Reset'

Dr. Mathew Maavak
RT
Wed, 14 Oct 2020 19:07 UTC

© Getty Images / Kena BetancurEmployees reacts as Jay Heller, head of capital markets & initial public offering (IPO) execution of Nasdaq Inc, center, opens trading on Zoom Video Communications Inc. during the company's IPO at the Nasdaq MarketSite on April 18, 2019 in New York City

Who benefits from lockdowns that are destabilizing all facets of our society? Look no further than the emerging global oligarchy.

In October 2019, a pandemic simulation exercise called Event 201 - a collaborative effort between Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, the World Economic Forum and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation - concluded that a hypothetical new coronavirus may end up killing at least 65 million people worldwide within 18 months of an outbreak.

When Covid-19 coincidentally emerged from Wuhan two months later, scientists were rushing to generate similar alarmist forecasts using a variety of questionable scientific models. Researchers from the Imperial College London, for instance, approximated death tolls of 500,000 in the UK and two million in the US by October this year.

While scientific models are admittedly fallible, one would nonetheless be hard-pressed to justify the endless string of contradictions, discrepancies and willful amnesia in the global pandemic narrative. Was it the science of mass-mediated hysteria? There are many troubling questions yet unanswered.

Comment: See also:

Best of the Web: Macron diktat to French nation: 9pm curfew in all major cities for next 6 weeks - Lockdown conditions to continue until 'at least the summer of 2021'

The Local, France
Wed, 14 Oct 2020 20:26 UTC

'So it's a deal then, yes'?

French president Emmanuel Macron announced on Wednesday a nighttime curfew would be imposed in the greater Paris region as well as in eight other cities around France hard-hit by the second wave of Covid-19 infections.

As virus numbers continue to rise in France, the president announced that nine cities and surrounding areas will be subject for a curfew from 9pm to 6am for at least four weeks.

Macron said the government would try to extend the curfew until December 1st.

Comment: i.e., 6 weeks. To their 'credit', this time around, they're not pretending that "it's only for two weeks!"

The curfew order begins at midnight on Friday night into Saturday morning and affects the greater Paris region of Île-de-France as well as the metropolitan areas of Grenoble, Lille, Lyon, Aix-Marseille, Rouen, Saint-Etienne, Montpellier and Toulouse.

Comment: No, only Big Pharma-linked and Big Govt-linked scientists are in agreement on that point.

Most scientists are saying the lockdowns - from the point of view of limiting transmission of a flu-like virus - are completely insane.

Note that in the first lockdown last spring, freedom of movement was restricted. This time around, the psychopaths in power have shifted their focus to restricting people's time.

Nothing at all to do with the science of epidemiology of course; and everything to do with the science of power and control.

It looks like govts really are serious about keeping this sh*tshow going for YEARS to come...

Best of the Web: Smoking-gun email in forgotten laptop reveals Hunter Biden introduced Ukrainian businessman to VP dad

Emma-Jo Morris & Gabrielle Fonrouge
The New York Post
Wed, 14 Oct 2020 16:55 UTC

Comment: Twitter and Facebook are censoring this report... from one of the largest US media outlets.

In any other year, such revelations as these would force a candidate out of the race.

But this is 2020, so the rest of the media is just ignoring the Post's reports...

Hunter Biden introduced his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden, to a top executive at a Ukrainian energy firm less than a year before the elder Biden pressured government officials in Ukraine into firing a prosecutor who was investigating the company, according to emails obtained by The Post.

The never-before-revealed meeting is mentioned in a message of appreciation that Vadym Pozharskyi, an adviser to the board of Burisma, allegedly sent Hunter Biden on April 17, 2015, about a year after Hunter joined the Burisma board at a reported salary of up to $50,000 a month.

"Dear Hunter, thank you for inviting me to DC and giving an opportunity to meet your father and spent [sic] some time together. It's realty [sic] an honor and pleasure," the email reads.

Comment: The NY Post has more on this here.

Not surprisingly, there has been radio silence on this story from the Biden-supporting libtard media:

The Senate Homeland Security Committee has commented on the case. Fox News reports:

Committee Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wis., told Fox News on Wednesday that the committee has been in touch with the person who provided the emails and was in the process of validating the information.

"We regularly speak with individuals who email the committee's whistleblower account to determine whether we can validate their claims," Johnson told Fox News. "Although we consider those communications to be confidential, because the individual in this instance spoke with the media about his contact with the committee, we can confirm receipt of his email complaint, have been in contact with the whistleblower, and are in the process of validating the information he provided."

The Post report revealed that Biden, at Hunter's request, met with Vadym Pozharskyi in April 2015 in Washington D.C.

Johnson's committee has been investigating Hunter Biden's foreign business dealings since 2019, and released, last month, an interim report on their monthslong probe into Hunter Biden's role on the board of Burisma and his alleged "extensive and complex financial transactions."

Johnson and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said their investigation has "faced many obstacles" from Democrats on their committees and that executive agencies "failed to comply with document requests."

The chairmen added that "there remains much work to be done" in their probe. Hunter Biden is the son of the Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden. His work background played a starring role in the Trump impeachment efforts earlier this year. He and his father have denied any wrongdoing related to his work.

The 87-page report stated that Obama administration officials "knew" that Hunter Biden's position on the board of Burisma was "problematic" and that it interfered "in the efficient execution of policy with respect to Ukraine."

"This investigation has illustrated the extent to which officials within the Obama administration ignored the glaring warning signs when the vice president's son joined the board of a company owned by a corrupt Ukrainian oligarch," the report's executive summary stated.

Meanwhile, the Post reported Wednesday the emails were part of a trove of data recovered from a laptop which was dropped off at a repair shop in Delaware in April 2019.

The Post reported that other material turned up on the laptop, including a video, which they described as showing Hunter smoking crack while engaged in a sexual act with an unidentified woman, as well as other sexually explicit images.

The FBI reportedly seized the computer and hard drive in December 2019. The shop owner, though, said he made a copy of the hard drive and later gave it to former Mayor Rudy Giuliani's lawyer, Robert Costello.

The Post reported that the FBI referred questions about the hard drive and laptop to the Delaware US Attorney's Office, where a spokesperson told the outlet that the office "can neither confirm nor deny the existence of an investigation."

A lawyer for Hunter Biden did not comment on specifics, but instead told the Post that Giuliani "has been pushing widely discredited conspiracy theories about the Biden family, openly relying on actors tied to Russian intelligence."

What a cesspool of corruption all centered on one family:

Best of the Web: Project Veritas: "Guillotines, motherf***er": Colorado Democratic Committee member caught on hidden camera talking violent revolution

Zerohedge
Wed, 14 Oct 2020 07:03 UTC

Prominent Colorado Democrat Khristopher Jacks, who sits on the executive committee for the state's Democratic party and chairman of leftist organization "Our Revolution" was caught on undercover footage by Project Veritas promoting a violent agenda for far-left Democrats if President Trump wins in November..

"I am going to do everything morally acceptable to win. I will lie. I will cheat. I will steal. Because that's morally acceptable in this political environment. Absolutely. We are pirates on a pirate ship," said Jacks, who functions as trainer, mentor and on-the-ground quarterback at Our Revolution protests.

"I want to make this point very loudly and very clearly. I said it nicely before, but I'll say it more curtly now. 2020 is a political revolution," he added.

Comment: The above gives some good indication of the sickness and behavior that the far left has devolved to in the US. It also gives some good indication of what people can likely expect to happen if and when Trump wins the election - and as a result, the steps he will be forced to take in order to maintain some semblance of 'law and order'. Then corporate media blabber heads and the those who are already predisposed to hating on Trump can say "See! Told you he was a dictator!!".

So prepare for more chaos and destruction in the US. Coming soon.

Best of the Web: Cars swept away, 9 dead as heavy rain hits Hyderabad, India - 7.5 inches in 24 hours, highest in Oct since 1903

Scroll.in
Wed, 14 Oct 2020 11:10 UTC

Vehicles lie partially submerged in floodwater following heavy rains, at Falaknuma, in Hyderabad.

In the city's Barkas area, a man was washed away by the turbulent floodwater.

Heavy rain disrupted life in Hyderabad on Wednesday, causing severe waterlogging in several areas and submerging low-lying places. Traffic was also disrupted in several parts of the city.

At least nine people, including children, were killed in Hyderabad late on Tuesday after a wall collapsed due to the rain. The city has been receiving incessant downpour over the last three days. Hyderabad recorded 191.8 millimetres of rain in 24 hours till 8:30 am on Wednesday, according to The Indian Express. This is the highest rainfall that the city has received in month of October since 1903.

Best of the Web: CDC study finds overwhelming majority of people getting Coronavirus wore masks

Jordan Davidson
The Federalist
Mon, 12 Oct 2020 00:00 UTC

A Centers for Disease Control report released in September shows that masks and face coverings are not effective in preventing the spread of COVID-19, even for those people who consistently wear them.

A study conducted in the United States in July found that when they compared 154 "case-patients," who tested positive for COVID-19, to a control group of 160 participants from the same health care facility who were symptomatic but tested negative, over 70 percent of the case-patients were contaminated with the virus and fell ill despite "always" wearing a mask.

"In the 14 days before illness onset, 71% of case-patients and 74% of control participants reported always using cloth face coverings or other mask types when in public," the report stated.

Comment: Nice to know that in the 'protection' lineup, vaccine comes in 3rd place behind 1) no mask and 2) mask. Anything short of the truth is an agenda - the obfuscation of facts to effect directed outcomes.

See also:

Best of the Web: The plot against America and its Constitution

Frank Furedi
Gatestone Institute
Mon, 12 Oct 2020 04:00 UTC

© Michael DeMocker/Getty Images)In the Western world, the past has become the target of an ideological crusade. Many of its historic monuments and symbols are being vandalised, defaced or destroyed altogether. Pictured: The vandalised statue of educator Sophie Bell Wright, whose father served in the Confederate Army, on July 10, 2020 in New Orleans, Louisiana.

It seems that this election is not just about which candidate gets elected -- it is ultimately about America's commitment to empirical facts, its extraordinary Constitution and its determination to maintain its leadership role in the world by refusing to allow cheating and corruption, in either its elections or its governmental institutions. One can only hope that the ideals of the Founding Founders will prevail.

From Europe, the culture war raging in the United States is disturbing. In the presidential election, it seems that radical anti-American forces are questioning the very foundation on which Western civilisation was built. The New York Times seems too similar to the propaganda we were fed by the Hungarian Stalinist Pravda during the days of communist tyranny.

Contaminating the Past

In the Western world, the past has become the target of an ideological crusade. Many of its historic monuments and symbols are being vandalised, defaced or destroyed altogether. In the United States, the national flag has been treated with derision and denounced by leading members of its cultural institutions as a symbol of racism, oppression and discrimination. Commentators have been regularly condemning their nation's past and portraying it as a source of irredeemable shame.

Comment: See also:

Best of the Web: Joe Biden's disturbing connection to the socialist 'Great Reset' movement

Justin Haskins
Fox Business
Thu, 23 Jul 2020 00:00 UTC

A pledge by Biden to support the Great Reset would pose a grave threat to liberty and free markets in the United States

A radical movement called the Great Reset embraced by some Democrats poses a grave threat to liberty and free markets in the United States and around the world. While former Vice President Joe Biden hasn't endorsed the movement, his ties to it are growing as he changes his long-held policy views to appease the far-left.

While it hasn't gained widespread attention, the Great Reset is perhaps the biggest danger to capitalism and individual rights since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

What is the Great Reset? Simply put, it's a growing movement backed by many of the world's most powerful business leaders, government officials and left-wing activists that aims to "push the reset button" on the global economy. It would destroy the current capitalist system and replace it with progressive and modern socialist systems, with a special emphasis placed on eco-socialist policies like those contained in the Green New Deal.

Comment: Yet another strong indication that Biden is largely a puppet for economic, political and social Globalist policies and interests that seek accrue more power to centralized organizations and forces. And the truth is he probably doesn't give a hoot what policies hurt or help people - as long as it helps him to reach his own political aims.

Best of the Web: Coronavirus: WHO backflips on virus stance by condemning lockdowns

Alex Turner-Cohen
news.com.au
Mon, 12 Oct 2020 08:16 UTC

The World Health Organisation has backflipped on its original COVID-19 stance after calling for world leaders to stop locking down their countries and economies.

Dr. David Nabarro from the WHO appealed to world leaders yesterday, telling them to stop "using lockdowns as your primary control method" of the coronavirus.

He also claimed that the only thing lockdowns achieved was poverty - with no mention of the potential lives saved.

"Lockdowns just have one consequence that you must never ever belittle, and that is making poor people an awful lot poorer," he said.

"We in the World Health Organisation do not advocate lockdowns as the primary means of control of this virus," Dr Nabarro told The Spectator.

"The only time we believe a lockdown is justified is to buy you time to reorganise, regroup, rebalance your resources, protect your health workers who are exhausted, but by and large, we'd rather not do it."

Comment: So, if the lockdowns aren't coming from the WHO, where are they coming from?? See also:

On Monday, Israel also reignited a brutal campaign of collective punishment on Gaza by closing all entry points for humanitarian aid in response...

Psstoffgoy

"Highly sophisticated" does not mean effective. As the 12-day-war last year showed, when Israel, the US and other Nato vassals shot at incoming...

codis

Same old shit. Go ahead, have a bullshit inquiry. Nothing will change. As far as those people (who survived) giving evidence, how about admitting...

Spur2

I fear Kushner, Trump and Co. might be messing with the wrong people here. Albanians kept up their blood feud tradition until quite recently, and...

codis

OTOH Mussolini and Ceaușescu seemed untouchable and above the law, as long as they were in control.

codis

Best of the Web:

Best of the Web: Facebook and Twitter censor NY Post's new story about Hunter Biden on their platforms

Best of the Web: COVID-19 lockdowns are in lockstep with the 'Great Reset'

Best of the Web: Macron diktat to French nation: 9pm curfew in all major cities for next 6 weeks - Lockdown conditions to continue until 'at least the summer of 2021'

Best of the Web: Smoking-gun email in forgotten laptop reveals Hunter Biden introduced Ukrainian businessman to VP dad

Best of the Web: Project Veritas: "Guillotines, motherf***er": Colorado Democratic Committee member caught on hidden camera talking violent revolution

Best of the Web: Cars swept away, 9 dead as heavy rain hits Hyderabad, India - 7.5 inches in 24 hours, highest in Oct since 1903

Best of the Web: CDC study finds overwhelming majority of people getting Coronavirus wore masks

Best of the Web: The plot against America and its Constitution

Best of the Web: Joe Biden's disturbing connection to the socialist 'Great Reset' movement

Best of the Web: Coronavirus: WHO backflips on virus stance by condemning lockdowns

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