In response to a New York Post article this week about Hunter Biden that used emails of dubious sourcing, Twitter blocked links to it, eventually citing the company’s existing policies around hacked materials. These policies have come under scrutiny before, most notably earlier this year around links to a cache of leaked law enforcement files that Twitter also blocked, but now Republican politicians have taken issue, claiming the company overstepped legal boundaries and is censoring the materials.
Yesterday Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said that blocking the link without providing context was “unacceptable,” and today Twitter Legal, Policy and Trust & Safety Lead Vijaya Gadde followed up with a thread of her own.
Now Twitter has changed its hacked materials policy, and according to Gadde:
“1. We will no longer remove hacked content unless it is directly shared by hackers or those acting in concert with them
2. We will label Tweets to provide context instead of blocking links from being shared on Twitter.”
Why the changes? We want to address the concerns that there could be many unintended consequences to journalists, whistleblowers and others in ways that are contrary to Twitter’s purpose of serving the public conversation.
— Vijaya Gadde (@vijaya) October 16, 2020
All the other Twitter Rules will still apply to the posting of or linking to hacked materials, such as our rules against posting private information, synthetic and manipulated media, and non-consensual nudity.
— Vijaya Gadde (@vijaya) October 16, 2020
These changes should provide a framework where Twitter’s policies still target hackers who seek to share stolen materials, but open the door for reporting about leaks. Whether or not this mollifies critics who claim the company has shown bias one way or another, remains to be seen.
via https://AiUpNow.com October 15, 2020 at 11:03PM by , Khareem Sudlow,
