MSNBCâs Ari Melber is warning that Twitter could move to censor stories ahead of an election â prompting conservatives to recall its handling of a sensitive 2020 story.
During a segment of his show Monday, Melber reacted to Telsa CEO Elon Muskâs purchase of Twitter and discussed the ability social media platforms have to potentially influence an election.
âIf you own all of Twitter, or Facebook, or what have you, you donât have to explain yourself. You donât even have to be transparent,â he said. âYou could secretly ban one partyâs candidate, or all of its candidates, all of its nominees.â
He continued, âOr you could just secretly turn down the reach of their stuff and turn up the reach of something else. And the rest of us might not even find out about it until after the election.â
âElon Musk says this is all to help people because he is just a free speech, philosophically clear, open-minded helper,â he added.
Watch the video below:
It did not take long for conservatives to note that Twitter, which was a public company in 2020, blocked a story from the New York Post about a laptop belonging to President Joe Bidenâs son Hunter Biden just weeks before the presidential election.
Check out some of the reactions below:
https://Twitter.com/thejcoop/status/1518922862723223554
In October 2020, Twitterlocked the New York Postâs Twitter account after it shared a story about Hunter Bidenâs business dealings based on emails retrieved from a laptop that reportedly belonged to him.
Twitter also prevented users from sharing the story, which it said violated the companyâs âhacked materialsâ policy.
However, then-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey called the decision to block sharing of the story âwrong,â and the company later let users share it.
A spokesperson for the company said it would allow users to share the story because âthe information had spread across the internet and could no longer be considered private.â
Melberâs comments come after Twitter accepted Muskâs offer to buy the company, as IJR reported.