Scoop’ on Biden prompts pushback from FB, Twitter

The Biden campaign Wednesday rejected a New York Post report about Joe Biden and his son Hunter that the nation’s leading social media companies deemed so dubious that they limited access to the article on their platforms.

The report, appearing just three weeks before the election, was based on material provided by Republican allies of President Donald Trump who have tried for months to tarnish Biden over his son. It claimed that the elder Biden had met with an adviser to a Ukrainian energy company on whose board Hunter Biden served.

A spokesman for the Biden campaign, Andrew Bates, said that Biden’s official schedules showed no meeting between Biden and the adviser, Vadym Pozharskyi.

“We have reviewed Joe Biden’s official schedules from the time and no meeting, as alleged by the New York Post, ever took place,” Bates said.

The Post story cited an email Pozharskyi allegedly sent to Hunter Biden thanking him for “giving an opportunity to meet your father” and to spend “some time together.” The authenticity of the email correspondence cited by the Post could not be independently verified.

Hours after the Post published its article, Facebook said on Wednesday that it had decided to limit the distribution of the story on its platform so it could fact-check the claims. Twitter said it was blocking the article because it included people’s personal phone numbers and email addresses, which violated its privacy rules, and because the article violated its policy on hacked materials.