Social-Media
Twitter is now encouraging people to share the infamous New York Post story
Twitter took another step back from its original decision to ban users from posting links or photos of the New York Post news article with emails and other details reportedly coming from a laptop belonging to the Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden 's uncle, Hunter.
The story, which reported that Hunter Biden had set up a meeting between the Ukrainian energy corporation and his father back when Biden was vice-president, looked questionable from the beginning, and more holes appeared over time. Both Facebook and Twitter have taken steps to slow down the spread — though Twitter appeared to take a more defensive approach, not only restricting distance, though actually blocking connections.
These moves have contributed to a host of critiques. There have been predictable calls of censorship from Republican lawmakers and pundits, but there have also been reports that Facebook and Twitter have unwittingly attracted further attention to the story. And even Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey indicated that it was "unacceptable" to block connections in DMs without clarification.
Casey Newton, on the other hand , argued that the platforms had effectively delayed the dissemination of the news: The fact had time to put its shoes on before Rudy Giuliani's shaggy-dog story about a laptop of questionable origin made it around the world.
Twitter first defended its stance by invoking its stolen content policies, but subsequently argued that it was banning the Post article because it contained personal and private information — such as email addresses and phone numbers — which breaches our laws.
The uproar has forced Twitter to amend its compromised information strategy, so that information and connections accessed by suspicious means will now come with a label, rather than be totally deleted, unless it is explicitly posted by hackers or others acting in concert with them.
And now, as the New York Times reported for the first time, Twitter also encourages people to share links to the Post story itself (which I've checked from my own Twitter account).
Why the turnaround, huh? Again, the official reason for blocking the connection was to discourage the spread of private information, but the organization said that the news has now spread but broadly, both online and in the newspapers, that the information can no longer be considered private.
