How a Burisma email story tested social platforms in October 2020
A look back at the days when a New York Post article on Hunter Biden and Ukraine's Burisma led Twitter and Facebook to limit its spread.
What happened on 15 October 2020, and why did a story touching Ukraine land in the middle of a US election campaign? The day was the second in a row dominated by a dispute over a newspaper article, a Ukrainian gas company and the platforms that carried the debate.
On 14 October 2020, the New York Post reported that newly uncovered emails suggested Hunter Biden had introduced his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden, to a top executive at Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian natural gas firm. The Post said it had obtained the alleged emails from Rudy Giuliani, described as a top adviser to Donald Trump.
The same day, Twitter and Facebook announced they were limiting the distribution of the article until it could be fact-checked. That decision turned a story about Ukrainian business ties into a argument about how much control platforms should exercise over political reporting.
On 15 October 2020, Twitter locked the Twitter account of President Donald Trump's campaign. The reason given was that the account had shared private information without the person's permission, in connection with a controversial Hunter Biden video. The account was later unlocked.
Ukraine as a backdrop
Ukraine appeared in these events mainly as a setting: Burisma was the company at the centre of the claims. The episode belonged to a wider set of conspiracy theories linked to the 2019 Trump–Ukraine scandal, which Trump and his allies had promoted since 2016. Those included accusations against Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden.
What the day showed
The sequence was brisk: publication on 14 October, limits on distribution the same day, and an account lock on 15 October. Each step involved a private platform making its own call about content, rather than any government body. For observers of Ukraine, the episode showed how readily the country's name and its companies could be drawn into foreign electoral argument, even when events in Kyiv played no part in the day's developments.
