Republicans File Complaint vs. Twitter Over Ban on Hunter Biden Articles

By Madelaine D. First Posted: Oct 17, 2020 11:54 AM EDT

The Republican National Committee (RNC) has filed a federal elections complaint against Twitter for allegedly banning the sharing of recent articles on Hunter Biden, the son of former Vice President Joe Biden.

In a complaint filed before the Federal Election Commission (FEC) on Friday and obtained by Fox News, the RNC claimed by limiting the circulation of the New York Post articles on Hunter's alleged illegal overseas business dealings and his father's knowledge of these dealings, Twitter seemed to have violated federal campaign finance laws.

According to GOP, the committee believed that Twitter is using its corporate resources to provide active support for Biden's election.

(Photo : MORAN/ Unsplash)
RNC Files Complaint over Twitter Ban on Hunter Biden Articles

The RNC is requesting the FEC to conduct an immediate investigation into Twitter's "illegal in-kind contributions" to Biden's campaign.

According to RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, Twitter's "flagrant bias and direct support" for one presidential candidacy should "result in the proper financial ramifications under our campaign finance laws."

Twitter earlier decided to limit the distribution of the New York Post stories that claim to show emails related to Hunter and his father. The social media giant reportedly blocked the articles' circulation because it lacks authoritative reporting around the origins of the information in it.

As per CNBC, a computer hard drive said to be owned by Hunter was allegedly used as source material by the New York Post for the articles. Twitter said it found it to violate it's Hacked Material Policy.

The said policy does not allow the use of the social media giant's services to directly distribute content obtained through hacking that contains private information that may put people in physical harm or danger, or "contains trade secrets."

Twitter added that it banned links to the articles as they contained images of hacked material with private and personal information. The New York Post reportedly said it obtained the emails from President Donald Trump's attorney, Rudy Giuliani.

Meanwhile, shortly after the RNC's complaint to the FEC came out to the public on Friday, Twitter said it reversed its ban and would allow users to share the articles.

The company's decision reflected the reality that the articles' alleged personal information had already become widely available on the internet, a Twitter spokesman said.

Twitter's feud with Trump is known as it frequently censors the President's tweets and the "shadow banning" of famous Republicans, including McDaniel and other Republican Congress members, as stated in the complaint.

As per Fox News, the RNC alleged that Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and other executives are prolific donors to the Democrat party and other left-wing causes. The committee noted that 98.7 percent of the firm's total political contributions go to Democrats.

The RNC added that there is a "revolving door" between Twitter and the Biden campaign. It said the company's public policy director recently left Twitter to join the Biden transition team, and the former press secretary of Sen. Kamala Harris is now working as a senior communications manager at the firm.