#‘Nothing to see’ of Biden and other commentary

After The Post’s story about a Burisma adviser’s e-mail thanking Hunter Biden for setting up a meeting with his then-veep dad, Joe Biden called “an early lid on his day’s activities,” reports Dominic Green at The Spectator. “For months he has refused to answer questions about Hunter, Burisma and Ukraine. There is nothing to see or hear of Biden.” Meanwhile, Facebook and Twitter won’t even let you share the Post story. Yet “anyone with a brain can see” the only reason Burisma would employ Hunter is “to buy influence with his father.” There are “reasonable questions” for Joe Biden, but he’s “doing his utmost to avoid them” — and “succeeding” with the help of the “Democratic media.” The Internet was supposed to “democratize information, but we now see that it has privatized it. . . . Soon, there will be nothing to see at all.”

Tech beat: ‘Declare War Right Back’

Facebook and Twitter’s attempts to “throttle” a “blockbuster” Post story about Joe Biden’s son Hunter was “nothing less than a brazen ­attempt by corrupt Big Tech partisans” to “steal the election from the American people,” fume The Federalist’s Ben Domenech and Sean ­Davis. It’s a “declaration of war on America’s electoral process by the unelected tech oligarch class” — even as they make use “of the monopoly power and federal legal immunity” provided by Congress and federal antitrust authorities. It’s time for lawmakers to say “enough is enough.” At the very least, Republicans, who represent “the only major political party left” willing to defend the First Amendment, need “to ­declare war right back.”

Media watch: Baseless Hits on Post Story

On Twitter, Kyle Smith points out that “Hunter Biden hasn’t denied he dropped off his laptop” at the store that The Post’s exposé — which cited material found on the computer — suggested he did. “No wonder” critics are griping only that the story appeared “in a right-wing billionaire’s paper.” And though it may seem strange that info from the laptop came via Rudy Giuliani, “true information winds up in reporters’ hands in all sorts of weird ways. What matters is the truth (and that it was ­legally obtained).” If “somebody at Kinko’s gave [Democratic operative] David Axelrod a cache of genuine Trump documents someone left on a copier by mistake and Axe gave them to the Times, there would be zero hesitancy to publish.”

From the right: Censorship Will Backfire

“There is no credible reason” for Facebook and Twitter’s “suppression” of The Post’s Hunter Biden story, rail the editors at National Review. “Scores of dramatic scoops” based on “faulty information” from “unknown sources” have “turned out to be incorrect,” yet “not once” did the social-media ­giants “censor any of those pieces.” Twitter users can still share stories based on the Christopher Steele dossier, though it was likely based on disinformation from a foreign power. Nor has Twitter offered evidence that The Post’s information was obtained illegally — while no “similar standard was applied when The New York Times published [President] Trump’s tax returns,” a case where it’s likely someone did break the law. Big Tech’s squelching of stories like this are doomed to “backfire” in any case, the editors note, damaging their reputation and inviting regulation. “Mostly, however, it just makes the story they’re trying to suppress a far bigger deal.”

Libertarian: The Folly of Policing Content

The Post’s “attention-catching” report of a “smoking-gun e-mail” suggesting Hunter Biden introduced a Ukrainian businessman to his “VP dad” merits attention, argues Reason’s Robby Soave — not least because of questions about its “accuracy, reliability and sourcing.” Yet “many in the media are choosing not just to ignore the story, but to actively ­encourage others to suppress” discussion of it. When The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman and Politico’s Jake Sherman criticized it, they “faced thunderous denunciation on Twitter from Democratic partisans simply for discussing” it. As for Facebook, it may be “within its rights” to act against “content it believes” misleading, but that’s “a tough standard to enforce evenly,” particularly when the firm appears “more concerned about bad reporting” from right-leaning than left-leaning outlets.

— Compiled by Adam Brodsky