October surprise stifled on social media

Twitter and Facebook on Wednesday suppressed the distribution of a “smoking gun” New York Post report alleging corrupt dealings between former Vice President Joe Biden, his son Hunter, and a Ukrainian gas company. Twitter said the report violated its “hacked materials policy,” and Facebook cast doubt on the veracity of the article, which was based on information from a copy of an abandoned hard drive obtained by President Donald Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani and given to the Post.

What was the article about? It said the hard drive contained emails between Hunter Biden and an executive at Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company whose board of directors the younger Biden served on. If authentic, the emails would show the executive, Vadym Pozharskyi, asking Biden to use his political influence to help the company and later thanking him for an introduction to his father. The Biden campaign said an alleged meeting between the then–vice president and the Burisma contact never happened and the Post did not give Joe Biden a chance to tell his side of the story before publication. Congressional Republicans accused Twitter and Facebook of anti-conservative censorship and demanded an explanation. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey tweeted Wednesday evening that his company’s communication about the matter was “not great.”

Dig deeper: Read Harvest Prude’s report in The Stew about the Biden family’s dealings in Ukraine, a central concern in Trump’s impeachment trial.

Editor’s note: WORLD has updated this report since its initial posting.