Elon Musk, who is set to become the sole owner of Twitter, is prohibited from posting tweets that “disparage” the social network.
But that didn’t stop Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX and the world’s richest person, from criticizing Twitter’s 2020 decision to freeze the New York Post’s account, after the newspaper published unverified stories about Hunter Biden.
“Suspending a major news organization’s Twitter account for publishing a true story was clearly incredibly inappropriate,” Musk chirp Tuesday evening.
It was in response to a post by Saagar Enjeti, political commentator and co-host of “Breaking Points”, which has been linked to POLITICO STORY That Vijaya Gadde, Twitter’s head of legal, policy, trust and safety — the CEO who oversaw the company’s suspension to the New York Post — shouted during a staff meeting to discuss Musk’s acquisition.
In October 2020, Twitter blocked the New York Post account for 16 days over the newspaper’s disputed series of stories about Hunter Biden, in what has become a hot spot for Republicans who have accused Twitter of censoring conservatives. The Post stories alleged that Joe Biden and his son Hunter engaged in corrupt business dealings in Ukraine and China.
Twitter initially said Post’s stories went against its “compromised material” policy, with the Rupert Murdoch-owned newspaper claiming that the source of Biden’s offerings was information provided by Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who allegedly obtained them from an anonymous MacBook Pro. Abandoned at a computer repair shop in Delaware. Twitter later retracted its decision, saying that it had updated its “hacked material” policy and would not apply this retroactively to the post.
At the time, News Corp., the publisher of the New York Post, insisted that “there is no evidence whatsoever that the documents [that formed the basis of the Biden articles] Not original and the arbitrary ban on mail was an important moment during a critical period in this election season.”
under the conditions Of Musk’s $44 billion deal to Twitter, “he is permitted to issue tweets about the merger or the transactions contemplated herein so long as such tweets do not detract from the company or any of its representatives.”
To be sure, in October 2020, then-CEO Jack Dorsey admitted that the way Twitter blocked the URL for a New York Post article without context was “wrong” – although Dorsey did not consider temporarily suspending the @nypost account.
Musk’s purchase of Twitter has been approved by the social network’s board of directors. Closing the deal awaits shareholder and regulator approval, which analysts expect will pose no hurdles.
Musk has defended the idea that he would protect “freedom of speech” on Twitter – which has led critics to raise red flags about the possibility that the social network, under his ownership, would allow disinformation that is currently restricted on the platform.
Musk tried to clarify his position in a tweet Tuesday. The billionaire wrote: “By ‘freedom of speech’ I mean what is in line with the law. I am against censorship that goes beyond the law. If people want less freedom of speech, they will ask the government to pass laws for this. Therefore, bypassing the law goes against the will of the people.” .
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