The White House on Monday summed up the egregious cover-up of Hunter Biden files by Twitter a 'distraction', seeking to shield President Joe Biden from the potential political damage. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre also attempted to turn the fire on Elon Musk himself, saying there is a rise in hate speech on the platform.
Jean-Pierre blamed the timing of the Twitter Files expose saying the row was a 'distraction' at a time when the platform is 'facing a rise in hate speech.'
"We see this as an interesting coincidence, if I may, that [Musk] would so haphazardly ... push this distraction that is full of old news if you think about it ... And at the same time, Twitter is facing very real and very serious questions about the rising volume of anger, hate, and antisemitism on their platform and how they're letting it happen," she said.
Twitter Files Expose
The press secretary was responding to a question by Fox News' Jacqui Heinrich on whether the administration thought the Twitter cover-up was appropriate.
Late last week, Twitter boss Elon Musk released explosive information on how top Twitter executives hurriedly decided that the Hunter Biden laptop story by the New York Post was probably a Russian misinformation officer.
The expose by Musk also showed that an influential group of former intelligence officials including CIA Director John Brennan and ex-National Security Council Director James Clapper also colluded in the efforts to suppress the damning Post story Hunter and Joe Biden.
The zealots in Twitter and the intelligence community apparently concluded without evidence that the article may have included "hacked materials," wrote Substack journalist Matt Taibbi, who released the 'Twitter Files' data on behalf of Musk.
"Although several sources recalled hearing about a 'general' warning from federal law enforcement that summer about possible foreign hacks, there's no evidence that I've seen any government involvement in the laptop story," Taibbi wrote.
Political opposition to Musk's Twitter acquisition mainly revolved around the argument that under Musk, the platform would see an explosion of hate speech. Musk has categorically denied this would happen under his watch.
On Monday, the tech billionaire cited data to claim that hate speech on Twitter is actually coming down despite claims by critics otherwise.
"Hate speech impressions (# of times tweet was viewed) continue to decline, despite significant user growth!@TwitterSafety will publish data weekly. Freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom of reach. Negativity should & will get less reach than positivity," Musk tweeted.
Twitter has also said it has been tightening control over content in matters where urgent attention was required, such as in child safety on the platform. Twitter has been accused of the right wing that it had wishy-washy policies in place when it comes to preventing child porn on the platform.
Andrea Stroppa, who analyses Twitter data and works with Twitter's Trust and Safety team said last week the daily suspension rate for abusive accounts spreading child sexual abuse/exploitation material has almost doubled.
