Journalist Matt Taibbi revealed Twitter colluded with the Biden team during the 2020 Presidential Election by censoring unfavorable content along with other ties to the Democratic party regarding the platform's speech suppression tactics.
Musk revealed his intention to release records regarding Twitter's previous censorship tactics earlier this week, announcing details would be divulged Friday evening. After a short delay to ensure information accuracy, Musk revealed Taibbi had been tasked with detailing the "Twitter Files."
Taibbi described the "Twitter Files" as a "Frankensteinian tale of a human-built mechanism grown out the control of its designer."
"Slowly, over time, Twitter staff and executives began to find more and more uses for these tools," Taibbi said, detailing how the platform became a tool to weaponize information. "By 2020, requests from connected actors to delete tweets were routine. One executive would write to another: 'More to review from the Biden team.' The reply would come back: 'Handled.'"
Taibbi included a screenshot of what appeared to be an email with links to users' tweets allegedly under scrutiny by Biden's team.
Taibbi provided a screenshot of an email showing links from users including actor James Woods.
"I grabbed the first one under SI... defer to Safety on the high profile second one," said the Twitter employee in response to the Biden team.
"This system wasn't balanced. It was based on contacts. Because Twitter was and is overwhelmingly staffed by people of one political orientation, there were more channels, more ways to complain, open to the left (well, Democrats) than the right," Taibbi said, linking to Open Secrets detailing a list of Twitter donors including total amounts received in 2022 along with amounts received by specific individuals who overwhelmingly supported Democratic political candidates.
"Twitter took extraordinary steps to suppress the story, removing links and posting warnings that it may be 'unsafe,'" Taibbi said of the New York Post's article discussing the contents of Hunter Biden's laptop, appearing to implicate then Vice President Biden of corrupt use of Presidential powers.
"They even blocked its transmission via direct message, a tool hitherto reserved for extreme cases, e.g. child pornography."
"Although several sources recalled hearing about a 'general' warning from federal law enforcement that summer about possible foreign hacks, there’s no evidence - that I've seen - of any government involvement in the laptop story. In fact, that might have been the problem..."
Former head of legal, policy and trust Vijaya Gadde reportedly played a larger role in the platform's decision to censor the Post's article.
''They just freelanced it,' is how one former employee characterized the decision. 'Hacking was the excuse, but within a few hours, pretty much everyone realized that wasn’t going to hold. But no one had the guts to reverse it,'" Taibbi wrote.
"I'm struggling to understand the policy basis for marking this as unsafe, and I think the best explainability argument for this externally would be that we're waiting to understand if this story is the result of hacked materials," said one Twitter executive, questioning the company's decision to censor the New York Post. "We'll face hard questions on this if we don't have some kind of solid reasoning for marking the link unsafe."
"Former VP of Global Comms Brandon Borrman asks, 'Can we truthfully claim that this is part of the policy?'"
"I support the conclusion that we need more facts to assess whether the materials were hacked," said Deputy General Counsel Jim Baker. "At this stage, however, it is reasonable for us to assume that they may have been and that caution is warranted. ... We simply need more information."
"A fundamental problem with tech companies and content moderation: many people in charge of speech know/care little about speech, and have to be told the basics by outsiders," Taibbi continued.
"Generating huge backlash on hill re speech," said Democratic congressman Ro Khanna. "Happy to chat if you're up for it."
"Thank you for reaching out and we appreciate the heads up," Gadde responded shortly after. "We put out a clarifying thread of tweets earlier this evening to explain our policy around the posting of private information and linking directly to hacked materials." Gadde insisted former Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany's account was not permanently banned and access would be restored after deleting her tweet regarding the New York Post's story.
"This seems to be a violation of the 1st Amendment principles. If there is a hack of classified information or other information that could expose a serious war crime and the NYT was to publish it, I think the NYT should have that right," Khanna continued in a follow up email. "A journalist should not be held accountable for the illegal actions of the source unless they actively aided the hack. So to restrict the distribution of that material, especially regarding a Presidential candidate, seems not i the keeping of the principles of NYT v. Sullivan."
Khanna continued:I say this as a total Biden partisan and convinced he didn't do anything wrong. But the story now has become more about the censorshp than relatively innocuous emails and it's become a bigger deal than it would have been. It also is now leading to serious efforts to curtail section 230 -- many of which would have been a mistake. ... But in the heat of a Presidential campaign, restricting dissemination of newspaper articles (even if NY Post is far right) seems like it will invite more backlash than it will do good.
"Within a day, head of Public Policy Lauren Culbertson receives a ghastly letter/report from Carl Szabo of the research firm NetChoice, which had already polled 12 members of congress – 9 Rs and 3 Democrats, from 'the House Judiciary Committee to Rep. Judy Chu’s office,'" Taibbi reported.
"The Democrats, meanwhile, complained that the companies are inept: They let conservatives muddy the water and make the Biden campaign look corrupt even though Biden is innocent," read a letter from NetChoice's Carl Szabo. "In their mind, social media is doing the same thing: it doesn't moderate enough harmful content so when it does, like it did yesterday, it becomes a story. If the companies moderated more, conservatives wouldn't even think to use social media for disinformation, misinformation, or otherwise."
"The Democrats were in agreement: social media needs to moderate more because they're corrupting democracy and making all 'truth' relative. When pushed on how the government might insist on that, consistent with the First Amendment, they demurred: 'the First Amendment isn't absolute.'"
Taibbi suggested former CEO Jack Dorsey may have been unaware of the company's behind-the-scenes actions surrounding censorship of the Post's article. Dorsey sent Gadde an email with a copy of Taibbi's previous Substack article discussing suppression of the story.
The former CEO reportedly intervened in suspensions and other moderation actions, according to Taibbi.
"It's been a whirlwind 96 hours for me, too. There is much more to come, including answers to questions about issues like shadow-banning, boosting, follower counts, the fate of various individual accounts, and more," Taibbi announced, ending his report for the night. "These issues are not limited to the political right. ... Good night, everyone. Thanks to all those who picked up the phone in the last few days."
