By Joshua Weigert
October 14th, 2020
Throughout the Presidential election season, both Facebook and Twitter have issued strong statements condemning the spread of “fake news” on their platforms. Because of this concern, both social media companies undertook steps they thought would prevent the spread of fake news, as well as weed out the spreaders themselves. They issued “fact-checkers” that would verify political information, news, and events. We have had personal experiences with these fact-checkers, as our Facebook page has been subject to fact-checking and flagged for spreading “misinformation.” The two most notable incidents were posts regarding the positive effects of hydroxychloroquine in COVID-19 treatment, as well as a post detailing the timeline of events of the night Kyle Rittenhouse shot three people in self-defense. None of what was posted was opinion based, as both Facebook posts sourced scientific data and video evidence. However, this did not stop these posts from being deleted by Facebook, and our Facebook page placed in a sort of “timeout.”
This was always the fear conservatives had of Facebook and Twitter implementing these fact checks. We saw it as a way social media companies could remove content they didn’t like or that didn’t push a particular narrative they were going for. We saw this as a potential threat to the spread of vital information regarding the election. After all, we knew there is a heavy left-lean in both companies. It doesn’t take much imagination to think social media companies may favor the Biden campaign. Would Facebook and Twitter censor news that would be detrimental to the Biden campaign?
We got our answer today.
This morning, the New York Post dropped a bombshell story that claimed Hunter Biden, the son of former Vice-President and current Democrat Presidential nominee Joe Biden, leveraged his relationship with his father for personal profit. Furthermore, the story alleges that Hunter Biden introduced a Ukrainian businessman to his father, who was then the Vice-President of the United States.
This bombshell story sourced emails from Hunter Biden, obtained by a computer technician who received the device to fix over a year ago.
Joe Biden has claimed over and over again that he never had any dealings with his son’s business partners and associates during his time as VP.
Joe Biden has also claimed that his son never did anything unethical and illegal, even though Hunter somehow managed to become an advisor on the Board of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company, without having any related experience.
It’s difficult to emphasize enough how this is a bombshell story.
We have a Presidential nominee who may have been involved in his shady son’s dealings.
Within a few hours, Andy Stone from Facebook communications tweeted out that Facebook reduced the story’s distribution on its platform until their fact-checking team could fact-check it.
As of Wednesday evening, Twitter hasn’t released a statement regarding the news story but has still implemented warnings about the article and outright refusing users to tweet the article.
Both Facebook and Twitter have actively protected the Biden campaign by reducing the spread of this important story. Facebook claimed that it is because of the standard fact-checking procedure, but where were these procedures when President Trump’s tax returns leaked a few weeks ago? Where were these procedures when the Steele dossier was released? Where were these procedures when news outlets claimed a videotape of Russian prostitutes peeing on the President? Where were these procedures when virtually every Democrat politician and mainstream media outlet pushed a narrative that President Trump never condemned white supremacy? Where. Were. These. Procedures.
Social media companies like Facebook and Twitter are actively trying to help the Democrats win this election. This isn’t even remotely in dispute now.
What Facebook and Twitter did today is significantly more akin to election interference than anything done by Russia or any other foreign actors.
If this story was about President Donald Trump and his son, Donald Trump Jr., what would have been the reaction from Facebook and Twitter?
If history is any indicator, they would have allowed the story’s mass publication and spread without a second thought.
This is REAL election tampering and it’s happening in front of our very own eyes.
PR(OOF) 