In the recently given confusing statement by Twitter, they reinstated the tabloid on The New York Post by Rupert Murdoch on Twitter. Twitter made some promising changes in the policy and came up with the decision. However, the recent developments are pretty confusing and many may find it quite difficult to comprehend.
The New York Post published an article regarding Hunter Biden, on the 14th of October. Hunter Biden is the son of Joe Biden, who is contesting in the presidential elections for the Democrats. Twitter recently claimed that their policy on private information was violated after they felt that their material policy was hacked. Due to these speculations, The New York Post account was suspended by Twitter for the six tweets that led to the link to the discussed story. Many links to the story were also blocked by Twitter.
Twitter vs The New York Post
Vijaya Gadde, the person-in-charge of the safety and trust issues of Twitter, tweeted on the 15th of October on this matter. She said that the materials policy of the platform was compromised, and it would be altered. She also added that with the policy change, Twitter would no longer remove the hacked content of any posting unless it was shared directly by the ones acting with the hacker or him.
The very next day, on the 16th of October, Jack Dorsey tweeted a statement saying the URL blocking was not a great thing to do, as reported to The New York Times by a spokesperson of Twitter. It was said that the privacy of the information was largely compromised due to the wide sharing of the post. Hence, the article from Post was no longer transgressing any policy on private information. However, even after this The New York Post remained suspended from Twitter, this happened because of the violation of another said policy. The new policy did not supersede the suspension because of the new policy being made. This rule is applied due to the policy of Twitter on the act of policy changing itself. Therefore, even if the whole situation created by The New York Post inspired the whole alteration in a policy of Twitter, the suspension could not be lifted.
Social Media And Politics
The pilfering of documents is a very old tradition of journalism. The presidential elections of 2016 have seen this tradition being practised largely. Therefore, social media platforms decided to take strict precautions this year to prevent such occurrences.
Even this time Republicans complained of some kind of foul play in the entire matter and held a detailed Senate hearing on the 28th October. It’s highly doubtful how much impact will be cast on the whole situation due to the moderation done by Twitter. The New York Post too does not seem to be affected by this incident.
