The Republican National Committee on Friday filed a federal elections complaint over Twitter‘s decision to ban sharing on its platform recent news articles about Hunter Biden, the son of former Vice President Joe Biden.
The RNC claims that Twitter’s blocking of The New York Post articles amounts to an “illegal corporate in-kind political contribution” to the Democrat Joe Biden’s presidential campaign, which is seeking to unseat President Donald Trump, the Republican incumbent.
A computer hard drive said to be owned by Hunter Biden was used as source material by the New York Post for the articles subject to Twitter’s ban. A copy of the hard drive was provided to the newspaper by Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, the Post said.
Twitter has said it banned the Hunter Biden articles in question because they were found to be in violation of Twitter’s Hacked Material Policy, which does not “permit the use of our services to directly distribute content obtained through hacking that contains private information, may put people in physical harm or danger, or contains trade secrets.”
The social media giant also said it was banning links to the articles because they contained images of hacked material with personal and private information.
But the RNC said in its Federal Elections Commission Complaint that Twitter is “engaged in arguably the most brazen and unprecedented act of media suppression in this country’s history, and it is doing so for the clear purpose of supporting the Biden campaign.”
The complaint notes that Twitter has “also suspended, or locked, the accounts of users who shared the articles or details about the articles, including the Trump campaign (@TeamTrump), White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany (@kayleighmcenany), Republicans on the U.S. House Judiciary Committee (@JudiciaryGOP).”
The RNC wants the FEC to investigate the claim, and to impose the maximum penalty allowed if Twitter is found to have violated the law.
The complaint notes that federal campaign finance law “strictly prohibits corporations from making contributions to federal candidates.”
“The term ‘contribution’ is defined in relevant part to mean ‘anything of value made by any person for the purpose of influencing an election,’ and includes in-kind contributions such as services,” the complaint says.
Twitter’s “suppression of the New York Post articles provides a thing of value to the Biden campaign,” the RNC argued in its complaint.
“Respondent is acting as Biden’s media operative, taking proactive steps to shield Biden from negative news coverage by blocking its distribution and muzzling those who try. If Respondent charged for this service, Biden no doubt would gladly pay a significant price.”
RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said in a statement, “Twitter’s decision to censor news articles that harm Joe Biden’s candidacy is so transparently biased it would make even the governments of China or North Korea blush.”
Spokesman for Twitter and for Biden’s campaign did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Source Article from https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/16/republicans-file-election-complaint-against-twitter-over-hunter-biden-articles.html
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