Elon Musk announced the third installment of the “Twitter Files,” which focused on the debate between the social network's executives when Donald Trump's account was deleted.
Journalist Matt Taibbi once again revealed the information showing how the media company decided to violate its own policies when interacting with federal agencies.
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
Taibbi explained that this installment would focus on the period leading up to the events that took place on Jan. 6 on Capitol Hill, and stressed that regardless of one's opinion on the removal of the former president's account, Twitter’s internal communications on the matter have "historical significance."
According to the journalist's thread, as soon as Twitter executives decided to censor Donald Trump, they began planning to block the accounts of future presidents, ruling out the suspension of Joe Biden's account unless it was "absolutely necessary".
Taibbi recounted that while most of the internal debate about the former president took place on Jan. 6, 7 and 8, there was actually more about him in the months leading up to the Capitol riots.
The journalist shared that Twitter monitored Trump’s "visibility" even before the 2020 election, while favoring tweets in favor of the current president.
9. Before J6, Twitter was a unique mix of automated, rules-based enforcement, and more subjective moderation by senior executives. As @BariWeiss reported, the firm had a vast array of tools for manipulating visibility, most all of which were thrown at Trump (and others) pre-J6.
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 9, 2022
As time went on, Twitter executives began to create justification for breaking their own rules, "perhaps under pressure from federal agencies."
In fact, they decided to create more and more tools to go slowing down Trump well before Jan. 6, 2021.
In the the “Twitter Files,” Taibbi also referred to the continued meetings between Twitter executives and federal agencies. He even shared internal messages in which jokes were made about creating descriptions that were "generic enough" to hide in the calendar.
Taibbi promised that this third installment will still have many more details to come over the weekend.
