Both Twitter and Facebook are taking steps to limit the spread of an article from the New York Post containing unconfirmed allegations pertaining to former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden.
Twitter users who attempted to tweet a new Post story regarding an alleged email exchange between Biden's son and a Ukrainian energy executive on Wednesday were presented with a message saying it could not be sent because the link is "potentially harmful." Twitter is blocking both links and images of the Post story, BuzzFeed News reports. Previously, Facebook said it would reduce the distribution of the same story before it could be reviewed by fact-checkers.
The Post's story described an alleged correspondence between Biden's son Hunter and a Ukrainian energy executive supposedly thanking him for "an opportunity to meet your father." The outlet claimed the data was recovered from a laptop dropped off at a repair shop and said a copy of the hard drive was shared by President Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani.
"Given the lack of authoritative reporting on the origins of the materials included in the article, we're taking action to limit the spread of this information," Twitter said, per journalist Yashar Ali. Twitter also pointed to its hacked material policy, which states that "we don't 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 Biden campaign had said that the Post "never asked" it about "critical elements" of the story, adding that it has reviewed Biden's official schedules "and no meeting, as alleged by the New York Post, ever took place."