> It was not covered at the time because the way it was "released" meant that the claims were unsubstantiated and unsubstaniable.
No, I don’t think so. There are billions of unsubstantiated and unsustainable messages on Twitter. I think this one was censored because of the political impact. It seems weird to argue otherwise.
1. ban any and all messages that contain unsubstantiated and unverifiable contents
2. ban such messages that may have an outsize impact on society if they are false
3. allow all messages and just deal with the consequences post-facto
The first one is operationally impossible. The last one might seem OK if you're a free speech absolutist, but the cost/benefit analysis doesn't come out well in most people's opinions (that is, the downsides of allowing every invented story designed to distort an election are larger than the benefits of completely uncontrolled use of a private messaging platform). Which leaves #2, ie. precisely what Twitter did.
It’s hard for Twitter to know what is false so #2 is pretty hard. In this case it ended up being true but was many months afterwards until it was verified.
No, I don’t think so. There are billions of unsubstantiated and unsustainable messages on Twitter. I think this one was censored because of the political impact. It seems weird to argue otherwise.