Twitter revelations open thread
Just in case you have thoughts about the revelations to date, here’s the thread as of tonight, along with Elon Musk’s take and a few comments from me.
2. What you’re about to read is the first installment in a series, based upon thousands of internal documents obtained by sources at Twitter.
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 2, 2022
4. Twitter in its conception was a brilliant tool for enabling instant mass communication, making a true real-time global conversation possible for the first time.
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 2, 2022
6. As time progressed, however, the company was slowly forced to add those barriers. Some of the first tools for controlling speech were designed to combat the likes of spam and financial fraudsters.
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 2, 2022
8. 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.” pic.twitter.com/mnv0YZI4af
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 2, 2022
10.Both parties had access to these tools. For instance, in 2020, requests from both the Trump White House and the Biden campaign were received and honored. However:
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 2, 2022
12. The resulting slant in content moderation decisions is visible in the documents you’re about to read. However, it’s also the assessment of multiple current and former high-level executives.
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 3, 2022
Okay, there was more throat-clearing about the process, but screw it, let’s jump forward
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 3, 2022
[I can’t locate tweets 13, 14, and 15.]
17. On October 14, 2020, the New York Post published BIDEN SECRET EMAILS, an expose based on the contents of Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop: https://t.co/q4zaMw6aVV
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 3, 2022
19. White House spokeswoman Kaleigh McEnany was locked out of her account for tweeting about the story, prompting a furious letter from Trump campaign staffer Mike Hahn, who seethed: “At least pretend to care for the next 20 days.” pic.twitter.com/CcXTfsdzCT
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 3, 2022
21. Strom’s note returned the answer that the laptop story had been removed for violation of the company’s “hacked materials” policy: https://t.co/EdTa2xbXn1 pic.twitter.com/KQFRiKYKkb
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 3, 2022
23. The decision was made at the highest levels of the company, but without the knowledge of CEO Jack Dorsey, with former head of legal, policy and trust Vijaya Gadde playing a key role.
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 3, 2022
https://t.co/j4EeXEAw6F can see the confusion in the following lengthy exchange, which ends up including Gadde and former Trust and safety chief Yoel Roth. Comms official Trenton Kennedy writes, “I’m struggling to understand the policy basis for marking this as unsafe”: pic.twitter.com/w1wBMlG33U
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 3, 2022
27. Former VP of Global Comms Brandon Borrman asks, “Can we truthfully claim that this is part of the policy?” pic.twitter.com/Rh5HL8prOZ
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 3, 2022
29. 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. To wit:
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 3, 2022
Gadde replies quickly, immediately diving into the weeds of Twitter policy, unaware Khanna is more worried about the Bill of Rights: pic.twitter.com/U4FRLYYPaY
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 3, 2022
33.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.” pic.twitter.com/UpBoq97QkB
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 3, 2022
35.Szabo reports to Twitter that some Hill figures are characterizing the laptop story as “tech’s Access Hollywood moment”: pic.twitter.com/JTvXoQh6ZK
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 3, 2022
An amazing subplot of the Twitter/Hunter Biden laptop affair was how much was done without the knowledge of CEO Jack Dorsey, and how long it took for the situation to get “unfucked” (as one ex-employee put it) even after Dorsey jumped in.
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 3, 2022
The problem with the “hacked materials” ruling, several sources said, was that this normally required an official/law enforcement finding of a hack. But such a finding never appears throughout what one executive describes as a “whirlwind” 24-hour, company-wide mess. pic.twitter.com/aONKCROEOd
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 3, 2022
Good night, everyone. Thanks to all those who picked up the phone in the last few days.
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 3, 2022
Elon Musk, showing that he understands what’s going on, had an interesting Twitter exchange:
A few other comments from me:
1. Musk came through. I still don’t trust the man, but what he’s doing regarding Twitter is genuinely important to political discourse and honest elections in 2022.
2. Twitter was every bit as bad as we expected.
3. If you look at the leftist comments on Taibbi’s tweet, either they are genuinely clueless or disingenously naive:
I’m an outsider, so I don’t really understand the significance of this? It just sounds like a company made a questionable call during an intense dynamic time. No conspiracy or anything. But possibly a case for better regulation of Big Tech. I don’t see how Elon can fix this.
— Concerned Citizen (@LurkyMcLurkanon) December 3, 2022
Well thank you for letting us know that you’re done. I can only hope your later posts have something a bit more substantial than “Twitter decided to ban a story with no FBI input and then had a discussion about whether that was the right decision and wasn’t totally sure”
— Tom Coates (@tomcoates) December 3, 2022
4. My sense of the time line is that Twitter came up with the “hacked material” excuse and that the FBI, desperate for a reason to keep the whole matter under cover, confirmed that, yes, they truly, really, really, very seriously believed that the hard drive, which was obviously real, loaded as it was with every aspect of Hunter’s business and personal life, was a fake.
5. At the end of 2019, I was listening to a Scott Adams podcast. What he said was that he was convinced that, based on Trump’s record, Trump would win in 2020. However, he had realized that the tech tyrants had decided that there would be no repeat of 2016, when Trump spoke directly to the voters via social media, and would use all their power to deny him the White House. Based on that prediction, Adams further predicted that Trump didn’t have a snowball’s chance in Hell of reelection. Adams was prescient.
Your comments?
Image: Twitter screen grab.
