Twitter execs acknowledge mistakes with Hunter Biden laptop story but say no government involvement

Former Twitter executives acknowledged to lawmakers Wednesday that the social media company erred when it temporarily suppressed a New York Post story regarding Hunter Biden’s laptop in October 2020, but the officials emphasized there was no government involvement in the decision.

Republicans grilled the social media executives – including former Twitter deputy counsel James Baker – over Twiter’s handling of the laptop story and broader complaints about censorship at the first high-profile hearing in front of the House Oversight Committee for the new Republican majority investigating President Joe Biden’s administration and family.

While Twitter’s new owner and CEO Elon Musk has suggested that the internal communications released as part of his so-called “Twitter files” show government censorship – suggesting Twitter acted “under orders from the government” when it suppressed the laptop story – the executives told Congress they did not receive any requests from the government to temporarily suppress the story.

Twitter’s former Head of Trust and Safety Yoel Roth testified there was a lot of confusion over how to handle the story amid an increased emphasis on tackling misinformation – specifically from malign foreign actors – on their platform.

“It isn’t obvious what the right response is to a suspected but not confirmed cyberattack by another government on a presidential election,” Roth said. “I believe Twitter erred in this case because we wanted to avoid repeating the mistakes of 2016.”