Elon Musk hails release of internal Twitter emails linked to Hunter Biden laptop story

In 2020, Twitter decided to restrict a New York Post article containing unverified claims about Hunter Biden’s activities in Ukraine

Musk said he helped coordinate writer Matt Taibbi’s tweet storm that included the company’s internal discussions regarding the story

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Published: 3:40pm, 3 Dec 2022

Elon Musk heralded the release of Twitter executive emails that explore some of the internal debate at the social network over a controversial decision in 2020 to restrict access to a New York Post article about a laptop purportedly owned by Hunter Biden.

Writer Matt Taibbi posted a series of tweets and images of what he said were leaked internal Twitter messages and emails, without saying how he obtained them.

Billionaire Musk, who took over Twitter in late October, earlier this week began teasing the publication of information he called “the Twitter Files,” as part of a series of recent tweets claiming to defend free speech and accusing the company’s former management – and advertisers such as Apple Inc. – of opposing it.

In late 2020, in the final weeks of the presidential campaign, Twitter decided to restrict a New York Post article containing unverified claims about Hunter Biden’s activities in Ukraine. Twitter said at the time that the Post story included screenshots and images that violated the company’s “Hacked Materials Policy,” which forbids users from sharing images of hacked materials on the site. The company blocked users from sharing the article on Twitter.

Then-Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey later tweeted that blocking the links without providing more context was “unacceptable.” The company also changed its policies soon after restricting the Biden story, saying it would “label tweets to provide context instead of blocking links” to stories. Dorsey also answered questions about the incident before Congress in November 2020 alongside Meta Platforms Inc. CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

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