Twitter, Facebook restrict New York Post story on Biden
SAN FRANCISCO: Facebook and Twitter cast doubt on a New York Post story that made claims about Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden's son, taking proactive steps to restrict dissemination of the story in the hours after it was published on Wednesday.
The story contained alleged details of Mr Hunter Biden's business dealings with a Ukrainian energy company and said that the former vice-president had met with an adviser of the company. The story sourced details to e-mails that it said were given to the lawyer of Mr Rudy Giuliani, President Donald Trump's personal attorney.
Mr Robert Costello, the lawyer for Mr Giuliani, has not commented as of press time.
Twitter prohibited its users from posting links to the Post story, while Facebook reduced how often the story shows up in users' news feeds and elsewhere on the Facebook platform.
Biden campaign spokesman Andrew Bates said Republican-led Senate committees have previously concluded that Mr Biden engaged in no wrongdoing.
"We have reviewed Joe Biden's official schedules from the time and no meeting, as alleged by the New York Post, ever took place," Mr Bates said.
TRAILING
Mr Trump, who has been trailing Mr Biden in polls ahead of the Nov 3 election, said it was "terrible" that Twitter and Facebook "took down the story of 'Smoking Gun' e-mails related to Sleepy Joe Biden and his son, Hunter" and vaguely alluded to a threat of regulatory action.
Despite the moves to restrict dissemination, the information in the story circulated widely on both platforms. - REUTERS
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