The president of the United States, Donald Trump, today threatened to eliminate the immunity that covers Facebook and Twitter for the content uploaded by third parties, after social networks blocked the link to an article in the New York Post that allegedly exposed corrupt deals of his electoral rival, former Vice President Joe Biden , and his son in Ukraine .
“Abolish Section 230,” the president tweeted today, referring to the part of the 1996 Communications Decency Law that protects technology companies from being sued for user content on their platforms.
This is the publication of the link of a New York Post article whose title was “A smoking gun, an email reveals how Hunter Biden introduced his father vice president to the Ukrainian businessman.”
Facebook and Twitter against deceptions
After its publication, Facebook and Twitter placed restrictions on the link to the article, arguing that there are questions about its veracity.
“So terrible that Facebook and Twitter deleted the story of the ‘Smoking Gun’ Emails related to Sleepy Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, on @NYPost,” Trump wrote on Twitter while addressing a rally in Iowa.
In the article, the New York Post claimed to have obtained an abandoned Hunter Biden computer that implicated his father in his business in Ukraine.
Biden, former vice president of Barack Obama (2009-2017) and Democratic candidate for the November 3 elections, repeatedly rejected any implication.
Facebook against un-authenticated posts
Facebook said it would reduce the distribution of the article, seeking to slow the pace of its dissemination before the social network’s verifiers have a chance to assess its authenticity.
Twitter inserted a warning to people who clicked on the article. Later, the company said it took steps to block links to the story because some of the images in the article contained material that violated Twitter’s rules on sharing personal information and pirated materials.
“This is part of our standard process to reduce the spread of disinformation,” said Facebook spokesman Andy Stone .
Ted Cruz accuses FB and Twitter of CENSORSHIP
Senator Ted Cruz, a Republican from Texas, accused the companies of “censorship ” and his office said in a statement that he had written letters to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey , accusing them of pretending to influence presidential elections.
Dorsey somehow admitted the allegation by responding last night that “our communication about our actions in the @nypost article was not great. And blocking URL sharing via a contextless tweet or DM on why we’re blocking: unacceptable. ”
YouTube against conspiracy theories
In another episode related to social media and the reality of the United States, YouTube announced today the tightening of its rules against the propagation of conspiracy theories with violent ends, in particular QAnon , a pro-Trump conspiracy movement that has advanced amid the protests against racism and the electoral climate.
Google’s video platform regulations regarding hate and harassment messages now prohibit “content directed at individuals or groups of people with conspiracy theories that have been used to justify violence in real life,” said a statement, quoted by the AFP news agency.
Twitter and Facebook had previously made the same decision.
The social network, which has 2 billion monthly users, also noted that it has removed tens of thousands of videos linked to QAnon and banned hundreds of channels, in particular for having “threatened to use violence” or “denied the existence of significantly violent events.”, like the Holocaust.
QAnon is a far-right movement defending the idea that Trump is waging a secret war against a global liberal sect made up of Satanist pedophiles.
