Twitter’s Ex-Safety Chief Regrets Censoring Hunter Biden Laptop Story, Interfering in Election

A character named Yoel Roth led Twitter in its suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story in 2020, when he served as the company's head of safety. Finally, Roth has admitted his "mistake."

He reflected on the decision in an interview at the Knight Foundation conference this week. "In my opinion, yes," he said when asked if it was a mistake for Twitter to block the credibly-reported New York Post exposé on Hunter Biden.

"We didn’t know what to believe, we didn’t know what was true, there was smoke — and ultimately for me, it didn’t reach a place where I was comfortable removing this content from Twitter," Roth added.

Critics of Musk's takeover decried Roth's resignation from the company in November. They warned of the dangers of his loss. Yet quite the opposite appears true.

Under Roth's leadership, Twitter took a more aggressive approach to scrub the Hunter Biden report from social media than even Facebook did.

Meta used a process called “decreased distribution," the practice of placing a story lowering in newsfeeds so that only accounts continuing to scroll could find the link. Technically, Facebook just buried The Post article.

By contrast, Twitter suspended the New York Post's account for sharing the story and deleted tweets that posted the hyperlink to the article. Twitter didn't bury but removed the article from its site.

And that's only the extent of which the public is aware. Chief Twit Elon Musk last week vowed to release more information on how the social media company censored the Biden laptop report.

So, Roth's acknowledgment of his mishap is over two years too late. Like a political stooge, he pretended the story was Russian disinformation. It wasn't. Rather, it was one of the more soundly reported scandals of the last decade.

The consequences of Roth's errors are substantial. Twitter and Roth changed the course of the 2020 presidential election.

A recent Technometrica Institute of Policy and Politics poll found that 79% of voters say "truthful" coverage of Hunter Biden’s laptop would have changed the 2020 election. Specifically, 16% of Biden voters say they would have voted differently had Twitter not suppressed the Hunter Biden report.

Yoel Roth helped interfere in a presidential election on behalf of Joe Biden. Thereby his little half-hearted regret hardly suffices.

And still, Roth warned Twitter users on Tuesday that the platform is "less safe" under Musk's control than it was under his.

Twitter is a better place without Yoel Roth.

Written by
Bobby Burack is a writer for OutKick where he reports and analyzes the latest topics in media, culture, sports, and politics.. Burack has become a prominent voice in media and has been featured on several shows across OutKick and industry related podcasts and radio stations.