The Federal Election Commission (FEC) has given a pass to Twitter for suppressing the New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story shortly before the 2020 election, effectively granting an official stamp of approval to Silicon Valley tech giants protecting a candidate from negative news stories by suppressing their reach.
It has not yet been revealed how the members of the commission, which is made up of three Republican and three Democrat appointees, voted.
WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 20: U.S. President Joe Biden hugs his son Hunter Biden, wife Dr. Jill Biden and daughter Ashley Biden after being sworn in as U.S. president during his inauguration on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol on January 20, 2021 in Washington, DC. During today’s inauguration ceremony Joe Biden becomes the 46th president of the United States. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
The FEC rejected the Republican National Committee’s claims that Twitter’s suppression of the Post’s story constituted an undeclared in-kind contribution to the Biden campaign, instead accepting Twitter’s argument that it had commercial reasons for suppressing the story.
Via the New York Times:
In addition to rejecting the R.N.C. complaint, the F.E.C. dismissed other allegations that Twitter had violated election laws by “shadow banning” Republican users, or appearing to limit the visibility of their posts without providing an explanation; suppressing other anti-Biden content; and labeling former President Donald J. Trump’s tweets with warnings about their accuracy. The F.E.C. rejected those accusations, writing that they were “vague, speculative and unsupported by the available information.”
Led by Mr. Trump, Republicans have increasingly been at odds with the nation’s biggest technology and social media companies, accusing the Silicon Valley giants of giving Democrats an advantage on their platforms.
Twitter initially said that it had prevented linking to the Hunter Biden article because of its existing policy against distributing hacked materials. The article was based on material provided by Trump allies who had sought for months to tarnish the elder Mr. Biden over his son, and focused on the Bidens’ involvement in Ukraine.
Under the direction of President Trump’s appointees, the federal government came close to regulating the ability of social media companies to interfere in elections. However, Mr. Trump lost reelection before those efforts came to fruition
Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News. He is the author of #DELETED: Big Tech’s Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal The Election.