Tens of thousands of emails recovered from the laptop turned out to be authentic, including the emails that formed the basis of the NYPost story.

My original comment in this thread never contested that. There's worthy conjecture of the provenance of same, but that's a different discussion.

What was found to be true was that Hunter Biden was open to profiting from his association with his father (among other distasteful things).

What has not been found to be true (read the report and tell me otherwise), and that is that Joe Biden himself was corrupt and sold favors. If you cite the "10% for the big guy" quote, you also have to acknowledge that it was ready to be offered, but never shown to be accepted.

Don't you find it odd that will all the investigation that happened by his political enemies that Joe Biden was never charged with anything? Do you think that they would pounce on any opportunity to do so?

But it's been shown by people such as yourself that actual guilt doesn't matter -- just the accusation is good enough.

Also note that I offer no defense to Hunter because what he did was sleazy. I also note that those obsessed with the affaire d'laptop don't care about the corruption of his predecessor and family (specifically his son in law), which was far more vast in scope and in venality.

I am against corruption regardless of which party engages in it. Would you say the same is true for you, and if so, demonstrate that in some way?

Yes I am against corruption regardless of which party engages in it. Trump is as corrupt as they come, the only way he knows how to run anything is like a mob boss who expects loyalty above all.

But we're commenting on a story about moderation of online forums, not corruption of politicians. I don't find the emails especially incriminating, and I honestly find Joe Biden to be a pretty admirable person, not especially corrupt as politicians go. But I will never forget the way that the media and platforms like Twitter used their power to bury a story that turned out to be true. I believe they did so because it was inconvenient to their own personal biases and their investment in seeing Biden elected. I was invested in seeing Biden elected too! But our highest commitment must be to the truth. I have a deep distrust of people who would suppress true facts, especially when so many false or misleading narratives are circulated all the time.

As a great example of this, my comment that you replied to is currently rated at -1. It directly answers your question, it is not rude or impolite, and it is unquestionably true. And yet at least two people disliked it enough that they wanted to bury it. I don't know why those two people had that reaction, but that is exactly the behavior that I feel so distrustful of.

Contrast the Biden Laptop story with the Steele Dossier. That story was repeated endlessly in the media, with far more numerous and salacious accusations, which turned out to be almost totally discredited. Now I find Trump to be a repugnant figure, but the double standard here is infuriating to me. The truth should matter above all.

I didn't downvote you earlier (and upvoted you now), I save downvotes for special occasions (and I think HN rations them, which is an interesting angle).

I share your opinion of Biden (not my first choice but a breath of fresh air after his predecessor).

I'd really like to come to a true understanding with you, because I want the truth to be promoted and lies and misinformation to be unamplified.

But I still don't understand what "true story" you are concerned about. The facts about Hunter himself seem to be true (corrupt and sleazy). But the whole point of the story wasn't about Hunter, it was an implied corruption of Joe.

So squelching the laptop story was about silencing effectively baseless conjecture that impugned the integrity of Joe Biden. That was the only point of the story -- to smear Joe.

Just like with Hillary's emails -- all that mattered was "she did bad" (which she did do, but in context it was quite insignificant. The amazing thing is these stories only seem to work one way: agains the Dems. There doesn't seem to be a single accusation against Trump that would dissuade his followers (his shooting someone on 5th Ave quote was frighteningly prescient).

The Steele Dossier was lurid but there's so much shady shit about Trump that it did raise credible concerns: is there kompromat on Trump? His behavior suggests so (absolute deference to Putin, money laundering accusations, etc.)

The essence of my concern is that we're flooded by misinformation and it's horribly effective, and more horribly so in the direction it seems to be effective (against the Left).

The laptop story is a lose/lose scenario. We lose if the story continues to echo and destabilize trust, and we lose when we try to prevent that act of erosion.

I'm not a fan of censorship but I also see the results of unfettered hate speech and lies that have literally demonized the Left and divided this country with no sign of letting up.

I think the leak of thousands of authentic emails from a direct family member of a presidential candidate is newsworthy, regardless of what is in the emails. People should get to decide for themselves whether "10% for the big guy" is incriminating or not.

If the story had gotten to run its normal course, my overall opinion would be that it actually makes Biden look pretty good (20k emails and this is the most incriminating line that they could find?)

But the moment that Twitter took unprecedented measures to prevent the story from even being discussed, it became something that bothered me a lot.

The way to gain credibility in an age of misinformation is to make the truth your north star. To have credibility, you have to be willing to call out misinformation on your own side, like the Steele Dossier. To say that it "raises credible concerns" is to excuse misinformation. You asked me to demonstrate that I am against corruption regardless of which side does it. Can you demonstrate that you are against misinformation regardless of which side does it?

> People should get to decide for themselves whether "10% for the big guy" is incriminating or not.

I applaud your faith in humanity but the same population isn't likely going to read the exonerating report that I cited elsewhere and will note here. Read the conclusion at the end and then tell me again why the laptop story still needs to be promoted:

https://www.finance.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/HSGAC%20-%20Fin...

> If the story had gotten to run its normal course

Nobody pushing that story cares about anything other than the story sticking around to be a campaign talking point.

The Steele Dossier is far more complicated because of its origins and handling (yes Clinton helped fund some of it but McCain and Comey were alarmed by it). It was also always framed as raw, unverified intel that, once public, compelled verification of it. At that time it was also paired with the Buttery Mails investigation which likely tipped the scales away from Clinton.

Read the wiki and you can see that it's not cut and dried. Meanwhile that whole thing has been turned into RussiaGate and categorically denied. MSM has dropped that line.

Nobody on the left is defending Hunter Biden. But again, he's not the candidate, so why is there such concern? Because it's ButteryMails v2. The laptop story is the story.

I'm not sure what I'm supposed to condemn about the Dossier affair -- it had its moment in the sun and then was squashed, with the bonus that it's now projected that Trump is 100% innocent in regards to dealing with Russia and that just ain't the case.