Did Facebook remove certain profiles at Hunter Biden's request? Far-right website claims big tech election meddling
Conservative voices have erupted ever since major social media companies like Twitter and Facebook have banned the accounts of President Donald Trump on their respective platforms. The president’s allies have called it an assault of freedom of expression and there are even allegations from conservative circles that Hunter Biden, the son of President-elect Joe Biden, spoke with Facebook executives to remove certain profiles.
Loomered, a publication affiliated with Laura Loomer, a far-right and anti-Muslim political activist, made an exclusive report last month saying Adam Conner, Vice President of Technology Policy at the Center for American Progress, who founded Facebook’s Washington office in 2007, banned Facebook accounts at the request of Hunter. The report said Conner worked for former President Barack Obama and his former counselor John Podesta, who also happens to be the founder of the Center for American Progress.
Conservative website alleges ‘big tech election interference’
Mentioning the leaked emails of Hunter which also brought Joe under the scanner over alleged ties to influence in Ukraine’s affairs during his vice-presidential term. Taking a dig at “big tech election interference”, Loomered said: “While the mainstream media chose to ignore the emails which directly compromised Joe Biden, the Democrat nominee for President, the emails still need to be thoroughly examined as they provide evidence to another growing threat in our nation: Big Tech election interference through political censorship.”
It further said that throughout the 2020 election cycle, it became more and more conclusive that “Big Tech was purging accounts on Facebook and Twitter that were critical of Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, and accounts that expressed support for President Trump. “The censorship became too big to ignore when both Twitter and Facebook locked the account of the New York Post and limited their ability to share and post news stories after the New York Post published a bombshell report detailing some of Hunter Biden’s emails that were provided to them by Rudy Guiliani, President Trump’s attorney. The emails proved that Hunter Biden introduced his father to a top Ukrainian energy firm executive while he was Vice President, which means Joe Biden used his influence as Obama’s Vice President to enrich his family through lucrative business deals with foreign nations like Ukraine and China, compromising the integrity of the Vice Presidency, as well as US national security,” the Loomered article said.
Twitter found itself locked in a dispute with the New York Post over its bombshell report on Hunter. The social media giant first banned its links to reports on Hunter’s business deals and the ramifications they had on Joe’s presidential campaign. Twitter later unlocked the Post account saying it was revising its “hacked materials policy”.
The Loomered article then took on Facebook saying the social media platform fact checked Hunter’s emails and banned accounts that posted the emails or the Post story, automatically tagging all stories and emails related to Hunter as “Russian disinformation”.
The report also cited Facebook’s Policy Communications Director Andy Stone as saying: “While I will intentionally not link to the New York Post, I want to be clear that this story is eligible to be fact-checked by Facebook’s third-party fact-checking partners. This is part our standard process to reduce the spread of misinformation. We temporarily reduce distribution pending fact-checker review.”
According to Loomered: “What Andy Stone didn’t reveal in his statement is that his decision-making policies are directly influenced by his political agenda. Before working for Facebook, Andy Stone worked for the Democrat’s House Majority PAC as well at the Democrat Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), which is a clear conflict of interest during an election year.”
Zuckerberg accused of being biased towards Bidens
The report said Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg didn’t see anything wrong with suppressing and carrying out erroneous “fact checks” related to the Bidens -- father and son -- because, according to it: “colluding with the Biden family for the sake of political goals has been a documented business practice at Facebook for over a decade!”
It said the relationship between Facebook and Hunter is so deep that the latter succeeded in getting accounts banned by making personal requests to Facebook executives like Conner and Chris Kelly who has also served in top positions at Facebook.
The Loomered report spoke about an email between Hunter and Conner dating back to October 22, 2010, when the Obama-Biden presidency was less than two years old. Conner wrote in that mail: “Hi Mr. Biden, Chris Kelly forwarded me your message about a Facebook profile that you’re trying to get shut down. would you be able to provide me with a link to the fake Teddy Myers profile? Once we have that, we can look into having it removed, but we obviously do no want to remove the authentic profile.”
To that, Hunter responded the next day: “Thanks Adam- I will get info to you asap.”
He provided the link and to that, Conner said soon after: “Mr. Biden, We have removed the fake profile. Thank you for bringing this to our attention. Best, Adam Connor Facebook DC. ”
Loomered produced in its report screenshots of the mails exchanged between Conner and Hunter.
It then said if Hunter could get an ordinary person with a different name banned from Facebook with “one polite email chain to the founder of Facebook’s Washington office with an accusation of the account being fake,” it shows now easy it will be for the Democrats to get their opponents banned.
The Congress has secured the trifecta -- presidency, House and Senate -- in the 2020 election cycle.
