Two Indian Americans – Congressman Ro Khanna and Vijaya Gadde – prominently figure in US President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden’s lapt💧op story whose full d෴isclosure Twitter CEO Elon Musk has announced would be released on the microblogging site.
Musk, the world’s richest man who purchased Twitter last month, said on Friday that he would release details about what he characterised as Twitter's "suppression" of a controversial story done by the ඣNew York Post newspaper about Hunter Biꦕden's laptop that was published before the 2020 US election
He also tweeted🎀 that it would be "awesome" and there would 𓄧be a "live Q&A" on the topic.
What is the controversy all about?
The story claimed to contain emails retrieved from a laptop belonging to Hunter. The New York Post said it learned of the emails' existen🌺ce from Trump's ex-White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, and obtained the emails from Trump's personal lawyer at the time Rudy Giuliani.
Twitter initially limited the distribution of the story, citing concerns that it could be the result of a🌳 foreign disinformation campaign. But the social media company quickly backtracked on its response, with then-CEO Jack Dorsey calling the decision to block the link "unacceptable."
How the two Inidan-Americans are associated with it?
Khanna is the Democratic Congressman representing Silicon Valley in the US House of Representatives, while Gadde, an attorney, served as general counse♌l and the head of legal, policy, and trust at Twitter, before she was fired by new boss and CEO Musk.
A series of tweets along with internal communications of Twitter 𒅌was released by writer Matt Taibbi regarding the allegations that the social media platform during the 2020 election cycle had suppressed news and infor🌟mation related to the laptop of Hunter.
Accordꩵing to the information released by Taibbi, Khanna appears to have questioned th📖e decision of Twitter to restrict access to an investigative report of the New York Post newspaper on the laptop of Hunter.
As the information started comi𒈔ng in, Musk in a tweet said: “Ro Khanna is great”. Khanna in a confi🔯dential email to Gadde opposed the so-called censorship by Twitter.
“I say this as a total Biden partisan and convinced ꧂he did not do anything wrong. But the story now has become more about censorship than relatively innocuous emails and it’s become a bigger deal than it would have been,” Khanna wrote to Gadde
“In the heat of a presidential campaign, restricting dissemination of newspaper articles (even if New York Post is far right) seems like it will invite more backlash than it will do good,” Khanna wrote to Gadde and requested her not to share the text of thei💟r emails.
Khanna said that such a move by Twitter seems to be a viol💝ation of the 1st Amendment principles.
“If there is a hack of classified information or other information that could expose a serious war crime and the NYT was to publish it, I think NYT should have that right. Aꦜ jou🌳rnalist should not be held accountable for the illegal actions of the source unless they actively aided the hack,” Khanna said.
In response to Khanna’s email, Gadde defended Twitter's policy🅷 and its decision on the Post story.
“We put out a clarifying threat of Tweets earlier this evening to explain our policy around the posting of private inform♏ation and linking directly to hacked materials,” she wrote.
“The press secretary’s account was not permanently suspended – we requested that she delete the tweet containing material that is in violation of our rules and her account is re𓃲stricted until she complies,” Gadde wrote to Khanna💟.
Taibbi wrote that some of💝 the firs🌄t tools for controlling speech were designed to combat the likes of spam and financial fraudsters.
“Slowly, over time, Twitter staff and executives began to find more and more uses for these tools. Outsiders began petitioning the company to manipulate speech as well: first a little, then more often, then constantly," Taibbi wrot♏e.
"By 2020, requests from connected actors to dele🔯te tweets were routine. One executive would write to another: ‘More to review from the Biden team.’ The reply would come back: 'Handled,'&quoꦑt; he noted.
According 🥂to Taibbi, both parties had access to these tools.
For instance, in 2020, request🌳s from both the Trump White House and the Biden campaign were received and honoured. However, this system wasn't balanced, he wrote.
"It was based on contacts. Because Twitter was and is overwhelmingly staffed by people of one political orientation, there were more channels, more ways to complain, open to 🌜the left (well, Democrats) thanꦫ the right," he said in one of the tweets.
"The resulting slant in content moderation decisions is visible in the documents you’re about to read. However, it’s also the assessment of multiple current and former high-level executives,&qu꧟ot; Taibbi said.
(With PTI Inputs)
