Twitter buckles and unlocks New York Post’s main account after two-week stalemate

Twitter has backed down and unlocked the main account of the New York Post following a two-week stalemate over the newspaper’s articles about Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings.

The social media company on Friday said it would reverse its prior demand that the Post delete tweets linking to the Biden articles, after CEO Jack Dorsey faced excoriation in a Senate hearing this week.

Twitter had already reversed its initial ban on tweeting links to the Post articles, but said it would not retroactively change its decision to lock the newspaper’s account, insisting the original tweets be deleted.

The company had justified its ban of the politically charged reporting on the Biden family by citing a prohibition on distributing hacked materials. The Post articles were based on documents from a laptop supposedly left at a repair shop by Hunter, who never retrieved it. 

‘Our policies are living documents. We’re willing to update and adjust them when we encounter new scenarios or receive important feedback from the public,’ the company said in a statement. 

‘One such example is the recent change to our Hacked Materials Policy and its impact on accounts like the New York Post,’ Twitter added.

‘In response, we’re updating our practice of not retroactively overturning prior enforcement. Decisions made under policies that are subsequently changed & published can now be appealed if the account at issue is a driver of that change. We believe this is fair and appropriate,’ the statement continued.

‘This means that because a specific @nypost enforcement led us to update the Hacked Materials Policy, we will no longer restrict their account under the terms of the previous policy and they can now Tweet again,’ the company said.

Prior to the decision, the Post had been banned from tweeting since October 14.

The Post is the fourth-largest daily newspaper in the U.S. by circulation, and was founded in 1801 by Alexander Hamilton.