Independent journalist Ken Klippenstein saw his account on the social network X suspended on Thursday, September 26. His article dedicated to Republican JD Vance, Donald Trump’s running mate in the race for the White House, suffered the same fate: the platform prevents the publication of any message that contains a link that points to this content, such as the world I could see this, showing this alert: “X or our partners have identified this link as potentially harmful. »
Ken Klippenstein’s newsletter contains a document possibly resulting from a hack by Donald Trump’s campaign team, which he accuses Iranian hackers of being at the origin. It contains personal information related to the vice presidential candidate, which contravenes the rules of the social network, as X points out in a brief explanatory message. Some media, such as politicalHE New York Times or the Washington Post, He also received these documents but considered that there was no material for publication, according to vanity fair.
double standard
However, the social network’s decision raises some doubts, since its owner, billionaire Elon Musk, is one of Donald Trump’s financial supporters and can, in the event of the Republican candidate’s re-election, claim a position in his administration. As remembered The edgeIn October 2020, X (then called Twitter) publicly announced that it would no longer block the circulation of hacked documents on the platform, so who did it until now. If the company had wanted to review this rule, it would have been as a result of another political issue that affected the opposite political side.
Three weeks before the 2020 presidential election, Twitter had decided to prevent an article from the conservative tabloid from being shared. New York Post : based on documents presented as coming from a laptop that belonged to Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, fueled suspicions of influence peddling in which the latter would have been involved. At the time, the platform justified its decision by fear of manipulation, possibly orchestrated by Russian intelligence services.
When he came to head X, two years later, Elon Musk was outraged by this censorship that, in his opinion, favored Democrats. He then invited journalist Matt Taibbi to delve into the conversations of the Twitter employees who made this decision. The resulting investigation, called “Twitter Files” and serialized on the social network, had not given rise to spectacular revelations.
