Elon Musk authorized release of the third installment of “The Twitter Files,” which will be the first in a series detailing the decision to ban President Donald Trump after the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol. See below.
The new releases confirm Trump was “visibility filtered” about a week before the election despite not appearing “to have a particular violation.” They revealed employees worked with urgency to prevent any of Trump’s tweets being “replied to, shared, or liked.”
In other words, Donald Trump was "shadow-banned" in the last week before the 2020 presidential election.
Journalist Matt Taibbi, who also released the first part of the series, noted that “the internal communications at Twitter between January 6th-January 8th have clear historical import” and that employees “understood in the moment that it was a landmark moment in the annals of speech.”
Taibbi added that senior executives were “clearly liasing” with federal agencies regarding the moderation of content related to the 2020 election that weekly meetings involved officials from the FBI and DHS, and also the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI).
Following are selected tweets from the latest release:
1. THREAD: The Twitter Files THE REMOVAL OF DONALD TRUMP Part One: October 2020-January 6th
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 9, 2022
2. The world knows much of the story of what happened between riots at the Capitol on January 6th, and the removal of President Donald Trump from Twitter on January 8th...
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 9, 2022
3. We’ll show you what hasn’t been revealed: the erosion of standards within the company in months before J6, decisions by high-ranking executives to violate their own policies, and more, against the backdrop of ongoing, documented interaction with federal agencies.
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 9, 2022
4. This first installment covers the period before the election through January 6th. Tomorrow, @Shellenbergermd will detail the chaos inside Twitter on January 7th. On Sunday, @BariWeiss will reveal the secret internal communications from the key date of January 8th.
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 9, 2022
5. Whatever your opinion on the decision to remove Trump that day, the internal communications at Twitter between January 6th-January 8th have clear historical import. Even Twitter’s employees understood in the moment it was a landmark moment in the annals of speech. pic.twitter.com/tQ01n58XFc
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 9, 2022
11. After J6, internal Slacks show Twitter executives getting a kick out of intensified relationships with federal agencies. Here’s Trust and Safety head Yoel Roth, lamenting a lack of “generic enough” calendar descriptions to concealing his “very interesting” meeting partners. pic.twitter.com/kgC4eGykcO
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 9, 2022
14. On October 8th, 2020, executives opened a channel called “us2020_xfn_enforcement.” Through J6, this would be home for discussions about election-related removals, especially ones that involved “high-profile” accounts (often called “VITs” or “Very Important Tweeters”). pic.twitter.com/xH29h4cYt9
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 9, 2022
17. During this time, executives were also clearly liaising with federal enforcement and intelligence agencies about moderation of election-related content. While we’re still at the start of reviewing the #TwitterFiles, we’re finding out more about these interactions every day.
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 9, 2022
20. This post about the Hunter Biden laptop situation shows that Roth not only met weekly with the FBI and DHS, but with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI): pic.twitter.com/s5IiUjQqIY
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 9, 2022
