Twitter Files

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File:Matt Taibbi Occupy Wall Street 01.jpg
Journalist Matt Taibbi, who published the first installment of the documents
File:Conectividade e Proteção da Amazônia com Elon Musk - 52089896343.png
Elon Musk, Twitter's CEO

The Twitter Files are a set of internal Twitter, Inc. documents shared at the behest of the company's new owner Elon Musk with select journalists, including Matt Taibbi and Bari Weiss, in December 2022. The journalists coordinated the release of the documents with Twitter management, and Taibbi published his analysis of the documents on the Twitter platform itself.[1][2] Taibbi stated that the Twitter files showed "no evidence... of any government involvement in the [Hunter Biden] laptop story," thus failing to support prominent conservative conspiracy theories that the FBI pressured social media companies to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop stories.[3]

On November 28, Musk promised that "The Twitter Files on free speech suppression soon to be published on Twitter itself."[4] Taibbi then discussed the so-called "Twitter Files" on December 2, analyzing excerpts from internal emails by Twitter employees who were debating moderation of content related to the Hunter Biden laptop controversy in the run-up to the 2020 United States presidential election, primarily the front-page New York Post article dated October 14, 2020, which discussed the laptop's contents and argued they provided evidence to support the Biden–Ukraine conspiracy theory.[5][6]

Taibbi's presentation was considered a "dud" by some conservatives,[who?][5] while other conservatives argued it confirmed Twitter's liberal bias and opposition to "free speech." [7] According to a Forbes article, Taibbi's posts contained "no bombshells", and showed "no government involvement in the laptop story," contradicting several conspiracy theories.[8] Taibbi received broad criticism from other journalists for the appearance of performing public relations for Musk.[1]

Public background

Twitter decided to restrict the sharing of the New York Post story in October 2020 as "hacked materials" and locked accounts that shared it, including those of the newspaper and then White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany. The moves drew widespread criticism from supporters of Donald Trump, who used the controversy to further their claims that tech companies censor their viewpoints.[9]

Publication

The internal Twitter documents were provided at Musk's behest to independent journalists Matt Taibbi and Bari Weiss.[10][11][12][13] Taibbi noted that "in exchange for the opportunity to cover a unique and explosive story, I had to agree to certain conditions" that he did not disclose.[14][15]

On November 28, Musk promised that "The Twitter Files on free speech suppression soon to be published on Twitter itself."[4] Four days later, on December 2, Taibbi discussed excerpts from internal emails among Twitter employees discussing moderation of the New York Post article in 2020 that fomented the Hunter Biden laptop controversy.[5] Taibbi's presentation largely confirmed what was already known and did not contain any significant new revelations.[16][8]

Taibbi reported Twitter had "received and honored" deletion requests from both the Biden campaign and the Trump White House; he presented examples of the former but not of the latter. The Biden campaign deletion requests were for salacious imagery of Hunter Biden. Taibbi said Twitter had blocked tweets by former Trump administration officials promoting the New York Post story. Taibbi did not disclose the content of the Biden campaign requests, presenting only their URLs, the content of which others were able to view from internet archives.[17] Taibbi did not assert any Democrats had asked Twitter to suppress the New York Post story. He asserted Democrats had more contacts with Twitter than did Republicans, but provided no internal documents to establish that.[18]

Musk tweeted during the Taibbi presentation that Twitter had acted "under orders from the government" in violation of the First Amendment, though his interpretation of the First Amendment was disputed.[19] Taibbi's reporting undermined a key narrative promoted by Musk and Republicans that the FBI pressured social media companies to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop stories.[16] Taibbi tweeted, "there is no evidence - that I've seen - of any government involvement in the laptop story."[16][6] Donald Trump was president at the time in question and had appointed the sitting FBI director.

On December 3, Elon Musk, who had provided the emails, retweeted the thread by Taibbi.[20]

On December 6, James A. Baker, deputy general counsel at Twitter, was fired by Elon Musk for allegedly vetting information before it was passed on to Taibbi and Weiss, and providing an explanation that Musk found "unconvincing". Baker had previously been general counsel for the FBI, but also held other jobs after working for the FBI, including director of national security and cybersecurity at the R Street Institute, a conservative think-tank in Washington, D.C..[21][22][23][7]

Content

The Twitter Files are composed of internal documents from Twitter, including emails from senior Twitter staff. Taibbi's presentation largely confirmed what was already known and did not contain any significant new revelations.[8][16] Some of these documents reported on described Twitter's internal deliberations regarding the decision to censor the reporting of the New York Post regarding the contents of Hunter Biden's laptop,[1][2] while others contained information on how Twitter treated tweets that were flagged for removal at the request of the 2020 Biden campaign team and the Trump White House.[6] Some tweets submitted for review by the Biden campaign contained nude photos of Hunter Biden.[22][16][24] Business Insider, Salon and CNN have speculated that those tweets were removed in compliance with Twitter's own non-consensual nudity policy[16][22][24] and California state law, which Business Insider says makes sharing such imagery illegal.[22] Taibbi also shared communications between Rep. Ro Khanna and then-Twitter head of legal Vijaya Gadde, in which Khanna criticized Twitter's decision to censor the Post story.[3]

According to Taibbi, the Twitter Files number in the thousands.[1][10]

Reactions

Conservative commentators said that Taibbi's reporting demonstrated the existence of liberal bias at Twitter prior to the company's acquisition by Musk, while many technology journalists wrote that the reported evidence did not demonstrate much more than Twitter's policy team having a difficult time making a tough call, but resolving the matter swiftly.[10] Other journalists[who?] question Taibbi's journalistic integrity for his collaboration with Musk, and for his failure to censor private email addresses.[1]

Twitter's former CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey urged Musk to release all the internal documents "without filter" at once, including all of Twitter's discussions around current and future actions on content moderation.[25]

References

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