X suspended journalist Ken Klippenstein’s account before noon today. X’s Security account They issued the temporary suspension “for violating our rules on the posting of unredacted personal information, specifically the Senator.” [J.D.] Vance’s physical address and most of his social security number.”
Several news outlets that received the Republican vice presidential candidate’s vetting dossier leaked by hackers chose not to publish the sensitive document because it contained personal information. Klippenstein felt the dossier was newsworthy and decided to post it on Substack and social media channels, and one of them deleted his account.
Engadget has seen the dossier and can confirm that the details recorded by X’s Security team were in Klippenstein’s copy and were not redacted, except for the last four digits of Vance’s social security number.
Klippenstein explained his decision to buck the media trend and release Senator Vance’s documents on Substack. President Trump’s campaign has repeatedly accused the Iranian government of hacking its files and releasing the dossier in June. Other news outlets chose not to release the document, but Klippenstein says he “[ABŞ]felt that his government had refused for fear of conflicting with its “campaign against ‘foreign malign influence'”.[US}government’scampaignagainst’foreignmaligninfluence’”referringtothe[US}government’scampaignagainst‘foreignmaligninfluence’”referringtotheOrganization of the National Counter-Terrorism Center of the same name, trying to prevent interference in the elections.
“I disagree,” Klippenstein added. “The dossier was offered to me and I decided to publish it because it is of public interest during the election season.”
The ban goes beyond Klippenstein’s account. X has flagged the link to the file and will automatically block anyone who tries to post it. Those who receive a warning from X “We cannot complete this request because this link has been identified as potentially harmful by X or our partners.”
X (later Twitter) updated its policy on “hacked materials”. after it blocked stories about Hunter Biden’s laptop in 2020, it said it would allow stories about hacked material but not links to the material if it was posted by a hacker or someone working “in concert” with them.
