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Social Media Censorship and the Insufficiency of Liberal Freedom
Twitter’s censorship of The New York Post poses a problem classical liberalism can’t solve
Recently, Twitter, the social media platform of choice for journalists and the media world, got itself into trouble over its actions toward a major publication. I want to describe what happened in detail and evaluate it from the perspective of two different philosophical visions.
Twitter’s Troubling Act of Censorship
On October 14, Twitter users who wanted to tweet the link to a breaking story from The New York Post about Hunter Biden were prevented from doing so. They received a message saying, “Your Tweet couldn’t be sent because this link has been identified by Twitter or our partners as being potentially harmful.” Some individuals were able to successfully tweet the article before the block went into effect. But when users clicked on the thumbnail in those pre-block tweets, they were directed to a page warning that “this link may be unsafe” accompanied by a big blue button returning them to the previous page.
The Post article in question describes materials found on a laptop left at a repair shop in Delaware. The materials include what the Post calls a “blockbuster correspondence” between Hunter Biden and a top executive at Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company on whose board Biden sat for a reported $50,000 a month. The significance of this correspondence, according to the Post, is that it contradicts presidential candidate Joe Biden’s repeated assertion that he has “never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings.” According to the report, an adviser to the board of Burisma, Vadym Pozharskyi, sent an email to Hunter Biden thanking him for an invitation to DC and the “opportunity to meet your father and spent [sic] some time together. It’s realty [sic] an honor and pleasure.” The email clearly suggests that Hunter’s position on the board helped facilitate political connections advantageous to Burisma.
Another email exchange with Pozharskyi also suggests possible corruption. Fearing actions against Burisma by “representatives of the new authorities in power” in Ukraine, Pozharskyi wrote to Hunter: “We urgently need your advice…
