Social media giants Twitter and Facebook are facing lots of heat for censoring a report by NY Post investigative report alleging Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden’s links with Ukraine. As lots of articles have been written on how the social media sites are trying to influence the US elections by restricting the spread of anti-Biden reports, US President Donald Trump shared a satirical report by popular right-wing satire website The Babylon Bee on the attempts by Twitter to censor the explosive report by the New York Post exposing the rampant corruption Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden indulged in during his vice-presidential tenure.
The satirical report claimed that Twitter had decided to shut down its entire network to prevent the spread of negative coverage of Joe Biden. In a tweet that appeared to convey the impression that Donald Trump had fallen for a satirical news report believing it to be true, the US President said, “Wow, this has never been done in history. This includes his really bad interview last night. Why is Twitter doing this. Bringing more attention to Sleepy Joe & Big T”.
Twitter Shuts Down Entire Network To Slow Spread Of Negative Biden News https://t.co/JPmjOrKPcr via @TheBabylonBee Wow, this has never been done in history. This includes his really bad interview last night. Why is Twitter doing this. Bringing more attention to Sleepy Joe & Big T
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 16, 2020
A lot of people came to the conclusion that Donald Trump had fallen for fake news but that appears rather unlikely as The Babylon Bee is one of the most popular right-wing outlets and gains a lot of traction on social media. Therefore, the assumption that someone such as Trump who engineered his 2016 electoral victory relying greatly on social media traction is not aware of one of the most popular satirical websites does not ring true.
The tweet appears to be another occasion where Donald Trump is just basically being Donald Trump and resorting to thinly veiled trolling to ensure that the news about Joe Biden’s corruption continues to attract attention.
Twitter has been suppressing all attempts to share authentic news about the corruption and going out of their way and even suspending major accounts to prevent the news from spreading.
Twitter had gone so far as to suspend the account of White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany for tweeting about Joe Biden’s corruption. The official Twitter account of the Trump Campaign was also suspended. Thus, Donald Trump’s tweet sharing The Babylon Bee report appears to be driven by two factors. First, to avoid having his Twitter account getting suspended and second, to ensure that the attention continues to remain on Joe Biden’s corruption without sharing the actual report.
While it is natural to assume that Donald Trump actually fell for the satirical report, it has to be conceded that over the years he has mastered the art of trolling. And his ability to manipulate the media has also ensured in the past that he receives billions of dollars of free media coverage. Therefore, it is far more likely that the tweet was an attempt to attract media attention than it is that he is just too stupid.
New York Post ‘expose’ on Joe Biden
In the investigative report, the New York Post had asserted that they had accessed material from a damaged Macbook Pro, which revealed that Hunter Biden, Joe Biden’s son, had introduced a businessman from Ukraine to his father while the latter was Vice President of the United States. It is pertinent to note here that Hunter Biden at the time was appointed to the Burisma Board and received a salary of $50,000 per month.
The report had published several documents and mentioned a video that proved that Joe Biden met Vadym Pozharskyi, an adviser to the board of Burisma, where the extent of the Biden family’s involvement, and the sacking of a prosecutor, allegedly after pressure from the then VP Biden, is now under scrutiny.
A few days back, reports had suggested that there are chances that Biden had helped his son Hunter using his influence as the VP of the United States in his business in Ukraine. The Biden Camp has categorically denied all the allegations.
