Twitter relented on Friday and unlocked the New York Post’s main Twitter account after refusing to do so for two weeks over tweets linking to the news outlet’s exclusive reports on leaked emails revealing high-dollar negotiations between Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden and foreign companies.
“Our policies are living documents,” Twitter said in a series of tweets Friday. “We’re willing to update and adjust them when we encounter new scenarios or receive important feedback from the public.”
“One such example is the recent change to our Hacked Materials Policy and its impact on accounts like the New York Post,” the social media platform continued, adding that it is “updating our practice of not retroactively overturning prior enforcement.”
On October 14, Twitter locked the Post’s account and blocked users from tweeting out the link to the first of several Post stories detailing the Hunter Biden emails, saying the news outlet violated its policy on sharing “hacked materials.”
The mammoth social media company did not provide details on its decision and demanded that the Post delete six tweets linking to the Hunter Biden stories. The Post refused to delete the tweets.
Emails from 2017 show Biden discussing a deal with the former chairman of Chinese energy company CEFC China Energy, Ye Jianming, saying Ye agreed to improve the terms of Biden’s three-year consulting contract with CEFC, which initially promised Biden $10 million per-year “for introductions alone.”
In leaked emails from 2014, Biden appears to try to leverage his influence with his father, then-vice president Joe Biden, in negotiations regarding his lucrative position on the board of the Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma. He refers to his father, who was heavily involved in U.S. policy on Ukraine at the time, as “my guy.”
Twitter also suspended the Trump campaign’s account earlier this month for attempting to tweet out a video calling Biden a “liar” and citing the Post’s reports.
Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee attempted to help circumvent the Twitter block on the Biden report by reprinting the Post’s story on the committee’s government website. However, Twitter allowed users to tweet the committee’s link but inserted a warning that pops up when users try to click on the link, warning that the content may be “unsafe” or contain “violent or misleading content that could lead to real-world harm.”
Shortly after the Post’s account was locked, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey acknowledged that, “our communication around our actions on the @nypost article was not great. And blocking URL sharing via tweet or DM with zero context as to why we’re blocking: unacceptable.”
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