8 ms·

Is the story demonstrably false? I don't know if that is the case. It's certainly a smear story. In the past they've fact-checked Tweets from the President and

Is the story demonstrably false? I don't know if that is the case. It's certainly a smear story. In the past they've fact-checked Tweets from the President and his party but, I've not yet seen them straight up delete them and lock their accounts until now.

tt433 6y ago
I mean knowing what we know about Rudy and his technology abilities, it's not that difficult for me to dismiss anything he or related cronies suggest out of hand.
- uncoder0 6y ago
  I agree, Rudy Giuliani has spread quite a bit of disinfo over the past 4 years. The claim here that is supposedly supported by a receipt is that Hunter left the computer at a repair shop and never paid the bill. In adherence with the store contract they took ownership of the laptop after some time. When they looked at the hard drive they thought they saw illegal activity and turned it into the FBI after making a clone of the drives which is what Rudy claims he has.
  - isleyaardvark 6y ago
    If Rudy was not behind the last October surprise he was at least in the loop — he openly boasted about having advance knowledge of the Comey letter.
- jungletime 6y ago
  Did Rudy fake the Hunter Biden with a crack pipe photos too? Its ridiculous since they impeached Trump over asking Ukraine to investigate this corruption. When it was probably true all along.
  - conception 6y ago
    No, they impeached Trump for withholding aid illegally if they didn’t help him by investigating if there might be something there to aid Trumps campaign.
bananabreakfast 6y ago
Yes. Yes it is. This is blatant disinformation meant to destabilize the election and disenfranchise voters with blatant lies. This action is exactly the kind of thing everyone blamed social media for not taking last time and they're finally doing the right thing. This is exactly what they tried to do in the 2016 election by getting Comey to announce a new investigation that, surprise, turned up absolutely nothing. There is no substance to these allegations. At all. Before you get up in arms about a slippery slope about arbiters of truth keep in mind that these sources have burned any credibility they have. Their ideas do not have a right to a fair trail in the public discourse because they are all acting in bad faith.
- almost_usual 6y ago
  Well Twitter just poured jet fuel on the fire now that they locked the account deleted the tweet and now it’s back on Twitter.
  - refurb 6y ago
    That’s the amazing thing. The NYPost article was making the rounds Wednesday night and it was mostly crickets. Twitter bans any posts about it and now it’s taking off like a firestorm.
- zalkota 6y ago
  No, it’s not fake. You can’t provide proof that it’s fake. You’re going off a political agenda. There’s a picture of hunter smoking a crack pipe!
  - uncoder0 6y ago
    To preface my comment, I think using Hunter's drug problem for political gain is tasteless. Despite that I find it abhorrent that Twitter is not allowing users to post the photo instead it is instantly causing accounts to get locked. https://twitter.com/search?q=hunter%20locked%20pipe&src=typed_query&f=live https://twitter.com/search?q=hunter%20locked%20pipe&src=type...
  - 6y ago
bduerst 6y ago
It's not demonstrably proven, despite being easy to do so. NY Post doxxed their own source when put under scrutiny, who went on to do an interview yesterday. What John Paul Mac Isaac is saying isn't adding up. https://www.thedailybeast.com/man-who-reportedly-gave-hunters-laptop-to-rudy-speaks-out-in-bizarre-interview https://www.thedailybeast.com/man-who-reportedly-gave-hunter...
- luckylion 6y ago
  > It's not demonstrably proven, despite being easy to do so. In that case, all articles that include "sources say" etc should be banned from Twitter, shouldn't they?
  - bduerst 6y ago
    News orgs do that to protect the anonymity of sources. In this case, NY Post threw their source to the wolves when they couldn't verify any of the information, so this story is not congruent with "sources say".
- save_ferris 6y ago
  > Throughout the interview, Mac Isaac switched back and forth from saying he reached out to law enforcement after viewing the files in the laptop to saying that it was actually the Federal Bureau of Investigation that contacted him. At one point, Mac Isaac claimed that he was emailing someone from the FBI about the laptop. At another point he claimed a special agent from the Baltimore office had contacted him after he alerted the FBI to the device’s existence. At another point, he said the FBI reached out to him for “help accessing his drive.” He can’t get something as simple as who initiated contact over the device straight? If I was a small fish about to source a story of this size, I’d have every single detail rehearsed and committed to memory. This guy doesn’t come across as legit at all.
ses1984 6y ago
Is it possible to demonstrably prove false a made up falsehood? What if I accuse someone of something, and then post that I accused them. The accusation maybe bogus but the post is technically not false.
- Fellshard 6y ago
  That is the type of laundering language Twitter itself uses regularly in its 'Trending' tab editorializing: 'People angry at X', 'X accused', etc. Pre-framing a topic is malpractice.
- stvswn 6y ago
  This is often the nature of stories in the public interest. No one ever proved a single portion of Christine DeBlasey Ford's accusations against Brett Kavanaugh but the fact that she was making the accusations were newsworthy enough. In this case, the following are true: (1) Hunter Biden was a highly paid board member of Burisma while his father handled Ukraine policy for the U.S. (2) A computer repair store owner claims to have his data and to have given it to Rudy Giuliani (3) There was a Grand Jury summons to seize the computer as evidence in an unknown investigation. This is far more than is usually needed to cover a story.
  - CyberDildonics 6y ago
    I think it was more about the fact that she was making credible accusations.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
_a40s 6y ago
It seems that the Biden campaign isn't denying that the emails are authentic. That would be strong evidence that they are, assuming this hasn't changed in the last 24 hours: https://twitter.com/lhfang/status/1316461339842289664 https://twitter.com/lhfang/status/1316461339842289664 For what it's worth, NY Post (sorry for the link) is reporting that the Biden campaign isn't denying most of their claims: https://nypost.com/2020/10/14/notice-biden-campaign-not-denying-posts-scoop-facts-on-hunter-bidens-sleaze/ https://nypost.com/2020/10/14/notice-biden-campaign-not-deny.... To be clear, this is a separate question from how the emails were obtained. That story is beyond weird and surely bogus. To be fair, it also seems to me an indication that Biden is more honest than Trump. Trump would just say the emails were fake whether they were or not.
- edaemon 6y ago
  The absence of a denial does not at all constitute "strong evidence" of anything.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - cscurmudgeon 6y ago
    So by default assume anything that goes against your worldview as false and censor it.
    - albedoa 6y ago
      How did you get here from the comment you are replying to.
      - cscurmudgeon 6y ago
        How did you get that I got it from that?
  - _a40s 6y ago
    Of course you're right in a logical or philosophical sense, but in a political sense it certainly does. If the emails were fake, it would be politically insane not to say so. The Biden campaign can easily find this out from Hunter, so the fact that they haven't said it means either that (1) the emails are authentic (though they may still have been altered), or (2) something else is going on that we don't know about and is unusual.
DevKoala 6y ago
How is the story demonstrably false? We have yet to see any counter evidence.
- TwoBit 6y ago
  Have you read the story about this laptop? While I agree it's not possible from here to prove it's false, it's borderline lunacy and is clearly a fraudulently created attempt to firebomb Biden's campaign at the last minute just like what worked with Hillary last time. The Republicans wouldn't care nearly as much about this story that the FBI itself dropped if they weren't so panicked about losing the election and reaching for yet another vote manipulation tactic.
  - DevKoala 6y ago
    The FBI has the hard drive and they have not denied any of the allegations. Biden’s lawyers haven’t denied the allegations. Biden’s campaign has not denied the authenticity of the emails. Your argument is “I don’t believe it, so it must be false”

tt433 6y ago

I mean knowing what we know about Rudy and his technology abilities, it's not that difficult for me to dismiss anything he or related cronies suggest out of hand.

uncoder0 6y ago
I agree, Rudy Giuliani has spread quite a bit of disinfo over the past 4 years. The claim here that is supposedly supported by a receipt is that Hunter left the computer at a repair shop and never paid the bill. In adherence with the store contract they took ownership of the laptop after some time. When they looked at the hard drive they thought they saw illegal activity and turned it into the FBI after making a clone of the drives which is what Rudy claims he has.
- isleyaardvark 6y ago
  If Rudy was not behind the last October surprise he was at least in the loop — he openly boasted about having advance knowledge of the Comey letter.
jungletime 6y ago
Did Rudy fake the Hunter Biden with a crack pipe photos too? Its ridiculous since they impeached Trump over asking Ukraine to investigate this corruption. When it was probably true all along.
- conception 6y ago
  No, they impeached Trump for withholding aid illegally if they didn’t help him by investigating if there might be something there to aid Trumps campaign.

bananabreakfast 6y ago

Yes. Yes it is. This is blatant disinformation meant to destabilize the election and disenfranchise voters with blatant lies. This action is exactly the kind of thing everyone blamed social media for not taking last time and they're finally doing the right thing. This is exactly what they tried to do in the 2016 election by getting Comey to announce a new investigation that, surprise, turned up absolutely nothing. There is no substance to these allegations. At all. Before you get up in arms about a slippery slope about arbiters of truth keep in mind that these sources have burned any credibility they have. Their ideas do not have a right to a fair trail in the public discourse because they are all acting in bad faith.

almost_usual 6y ago
Well Twitter just poured jet fuel on the fire now that they locked the account deleted the tweet and now it’s back on Twitter.
- refurb 6y ago
  That’s the amazing thing. The NYPost article was making the rounds Wednesday night and it was mostly crickets. Twitter bans any posts about it and now it’s taking off like a firestorm.
zalkota 6y ago
No, it’s not fake. You can’t provide proof that it’s fake. You’re going off a political agenda. There’s a picture of hunter smoking a crack pipe!
- uncoder0 6y ago
  To preface my comment, I think using Hunter's drug problem for political gain is tasteless. Despite that I find it abhorrent that Twitter is not allowing users to post the photo instead it is instantly causing accounts to get locked. https://twitter.com/search?q=hunter%20locked%20pipe&src=typed_query&f=live https://twitter.com/search?q=hunter%20locked%20pipe&src=type...
- 6y ago

bduerst 6y ago

It's not demonstrably proven, despite being easy to do so. NY Post doxxed their own source when put under scrutiny, who went on to do an interview yesterday. What John Paul Mac Isaac is saying isn't adding up. https://www.thedailybeast.com/man-who-reportedly-gave-hunters-laptop-to-rudy-speaks-out-in-bizarre-interview https://www.thedailybeast.com/man-who-reportedly-gave-hunter...

luckylion 6y ago
> It's not demonstrably proven, despite being easy to do so. In that case, all articles that include "sources say" etc should be banned from Twitter, shouldn't they?
- bduerst 6y ago
  News orgs do that to protect the anonymity of sources. In this case, NY Post threw their source to the wolves when they couldn't verify any of the information, so this story is not congruent with "sources say".
save_ferris 6y ago
> Throughout the interview, Mac Isaac switched back and forth from saying he reached out to law enforcement after viewing the files in the laptop to saying that it was actually the Federal Bureau of Investigation that contacted him. At one point, Mac Isaac claimed that he was emailing someone from the FBI about the laptop. At another point he claimed a special agent from the Baltimore office had contacted him after he alerted the FBI to the device’s existence. At another point, he said the FBI reached out to him for “help accessing his drive.” He can’t get something as simple as who initiated contact over the device straight? If I was a small fish about to source a story of this size, I’d have every single detail rehearsed and committed to memory. This guy doesn’t come across as legit at all.

ses1984 6y ago

Is it possible to demonstrably prove false a made up falsehood? What if I accuse someone of something, and then post that I accused them. The accusation maybe bogus but the post is technically not false.

Fellshard 6y ago
That is the type of laundering language Twitter itself uses regularly in its 'Trending' tab editorializing: 'People angry at X', 'X accused', etc. Pre-framing a topic is malpractice.
stvswn 6y ago
This is often the nature of stories in the public interest. No one ever proved a single portion of Christine DeBlasey Ford's accusations against Brett Kavanaugh but the fact that she was making the accusations were newsworthy enough. In this case, the following are true: (1) Hunter Biden was a highly paid board member of Burisma while his father handled Ukraine policy for the U.S. (2) A computer repair store owner claims to have his data and to have given it to Rudy Giuliani (3) There was a Grand Jury summons to seize the computer as evidence in an unknown investigation. This is far more than is usually needed to cover a story.
- CyberDildonics 6y ago
  I think it was more about the fact that she was making credible accusations.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]

_a40s 6y ago

It seems that the Biden campaign isn't denying that the emails are authentic. That would be strong evidence that they are, assuming this hasn't changed in the last 24 hours: https://twitter.com/lhfang/status/1316461339842289664 https://twitter.com/lhfang/status/1316461339842289664 For what it's worth, NY Post (sorry for the link) is reporting that the Biden campaign isn't denying most of their claims: https://nypost.com/2020/10/14/notice-biden-campaign-not-denying-posts-scoop-facts-on-hunter-bidens-sleaze/ https://nypost.com/2020/10/14/notice-biden-campaign-not-deny.... To be clear, this is a separate question from how the emails were obtained. That story is beyond weird and surely bogus. To be fair, it also seems to me an indication that Biden is more honest than Trump. Trump would just say the emails were fake whether they were or not.

edaemon 6y ago
The absence of a denial does not at all constitute "strong evidence" of anything.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- cscurmudgeon 6y ago
  So by default assume anything that goes against your worldview as false and censor it.
  - albedoa 6y ago
    How did you get here from the comment you are replying to.
    - cscurmudgeon 6y ago
      How did you get that I got it from that?
- _a40s 6y ago
  Of course you're right in a logical or philosophical sense, but in a political sense it certainly does. If the emails were fake, it would be politically insane not to say so. The Biden campaign can easily find this out from Hunter, so the fact that they haven't said it means either that (1) the emails are authentic (though they may still have been altered), or (2) something else is going on that we don't know about and is unusual.

DevKoala 6y ago

How is the story demonstrably false? We have yet to see any counter evidence.

TwoBit 6y ago
Have you read the story about this laptop? While I agree it's not possible from here to prove it's false, it's borderline lunacy and is clearly a fraudulently created attempt to firebomb Biden's campaign at the last minute just like what worked with Hillary last time. The Republicans wouldn't care nearly as much about this story that the FBI itself dropped if they weren't so panicked about losing the election and reaching for yet another vote manipulation tactic.
- DevKoala 6y ago
  The FBI has the hard drive and they have not denied any of the allegations. Biden’s lawyers haven’t denied the allegations. Biden’s campaign has not denied the authenticity of the emails. Your argument is “I don’t believe it, so it must be false”