The social media platform froze the newspaper’s ability to tweet after it published articles about Joe Biden’s son that Twitter said violated its Hacked Material policy.
The US-based social media company said on Friday that Twitter had lifted the New York Post account freeze, after a backlash from lawmakers.
The company said it had changed its policy on the compromised material and the newspaper could send Tweets from its account again.
The social media platform blocked the newspaper’s account on October 14 after it published articles about the son of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, which Twitter said violated its Hacked Material policy.
“We are aaaak,” the newspaper wrote on Twitter after its account was restored.
We are baaaaaaack https://t.co/D39qdLGMdV pic.twitter.com/SkVtp4o9ew
– New York Post (nypost) October 30, 2020
Earlier this week, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey drew criticism from Republican lawmakers, who accused the company of imposing selective censorship on conservatives.
Dorsey was among a group of social media executives that lawmakers questioned about their handling of content in the run-up to the US presidential election on November 3, which pitted President Donald Trump against Democratic candidate Joe Biden.
The heads of Twitter, Facebook Inc and Apple Inc made hypothetical testimonies during a hearing on Wednesday on whether to repeal a section of communications etiquette that protects companies from liability for content posted on their platforms.
Republican leaders, including Trump himself, accused the platforms of anti-conservative bias after Twitter and Facebook blocked a link to the New York Post story based on unverified emails about Biden and his son Hunter.
Dorsey said on October 16 that Twitter was wrong to block web links to an unverified political story, in response to criticism of the decision to block links to Biden’s story on his platform.
Dorsey tweeted: “Direct blocking of the URLs was wrong, and we updated our policy and our app to fix it.” “Our goal is to try to add context, and now we have the capabilities to do so.”
Republican lawmakers have criticized Twitter for its handling of the Biden story, with Senator Ted Cruz saying during Wednesday’s hearing that “the company’s behavior was by far the most egregious” of all platforms.
Who the hell elected you and held you accountable for what the media is allowed to report and what the American people are allowed to hear? Asked Cruz.
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