Kamala spokesman, Democrat PAC staffer now hold top comms posts at Twitter, Facebook
October 15, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – Twitter’s efforts to suppress a New York Postarticle about Democrat presidential nominee Joe Biden and his son Hunter come with renewed interest over the political biases of its top officials, including a communications officer who previously worked for Biden’s running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris.
The ongoing debate over free speech on social media took on new urgencyWednesday when Twitter flagged as “potentially harmful” a report in the Postabout emails indicating that Hunter Biden introduced his father, then the Vice President of the United States, to Vadym Pozharskyi, a top adviser to the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma, less than a year before the elder Biden openly pressured the Ukrainian government to fire a prosecutor tasked with investigating the company.
The Post’s Twitter account has been locked, and numerous accounts have found themselves unable to tweet the link to the report. Those who could were treated to a generic “this link may be unsafe” disclaimer before being able to click through to the report. Facebook communications representative Andy Stone said it was also “reducing its distribution on our platform.”
Stone’s bio reveals that he previously worked for the Democrat Congressional Campaign Committee, the pro-Democrat House Majority PAC, and the offices of California Democrats Sen. Barbara Boxer and Rep. Jerry McNerney.
Also noteworthy is Twitter senior communications manager Nick Pacilio, who previously served as press secretary for Harris. Fox News reported that Twitter insists Pacilio has no role in enforcement decisions, but the connection is noteworthy in light of his former boss’ past demands that the company suspend President Donald Trump from its platform.
Stone and Pacilio’s records are consistent with a bevy of information about the prevalent left-wing leanings within Facebook and Twitter.
Two Facebook whistleblowers came forward this summer to attest that the platform aggressively discriminates against conservatives on a global scale for the purpose of influencing election outcomes.
One provided footage of content moderators openly discussing how they would like to delete “every Donald Trump post I see on the timeline” and “delete all Republicans ... for terrorism” if they so much as post a photo “wearing a MAGA hat.” The other described witnessing moderators “deleting on average 300 posts or actioning 300 posts a day” in a way “that just targeted conservatives or favored liberals,” with personnel equating Trump supporters with violent hate groups, while expressly making an exception for overtly-hateful posts by the moderators’ LGBT allies in the name of supporting so-called “pride” month.
Twitter, meanwhile, has restricted multiple Trump tweets since May on a variety of grounds, most recently one in which the president accurately conveyed the latest update on his health from White House doctors after his bout with COVID-19. Twitter also defines referring to people by their actual sex as “hateful conduct.”
In response to the ensuing uproar, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey admitted that the company’s “communication around our actions” was “not great,” and Twitter claimed the report was censored because it contained images that “include personal and private information — like email addresses and phone numbers,” and violated the company’s prohibition on “hacked materials” (the Post deniesthat the emails were obtained via hacking, and Twitter does not generally suppress stories about illicitly-obtained personal information, such as President Donald Trump’s tax returns).
Various Republican lawmakers have demanded Twitter and Facebook explain themselves under oath, and Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri has called on the Federal Elections Commission to investigate whether their suppression of the story, less than a month before the presidential election, qualifies as an illegal in-kind contribution to the Biden campaign.
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