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    Elon Musk releases 'Twitter Files' detailing censorship of information at social media platform

    Synopsis

    The revelation talks about how a particular story on Hunter Biden in the New York Post was deliberately censored by Twitter at the behest of the Democratic Party without the knowledge of then CEO Jack Dorsey.

    Elon Musk floats 'general amnesty' of suspended Twitter accountsAgencies
    Elon Musk has long spoken about the suppression of speech on Twitter - one of his main reasons for acquiring the world’s largest microblogging site, along with several others.

    The Twitter chief executive brought to light ‘Twitter Files’, an expose of sorts, that reveals how executives at the microblogging site deliberately censored a Hunter Biden's laptop story - an article published in the New York Post in 2020.

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    Matt Taibbi, an independent journalist and author, posted a thread of tweets detailing how Twitter responded to a request “from the Biden team” during the 2020 election - shortly after they cracked down on the story on Hunter Biden, son of US President Joe Biden.


    “The ‘Twitter Files’ tell an incredible story from inside one of the world’s largest and most influential social media platforms. It is a Frankensteinian tale of a human-built mechanism grown out of the control of its designer,” Taibbi tweeted.

    Taibbi said while Twitter initially lived up to its mission statement of giving people “the power to create and share ideas and information instantly, without barriers”, things took a major turn in 2020 when tweets and content started being taken down frequently on the request of “connected actors”.

    He added, “ 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.”


    This is when, according to Taibbi, people - whether celebrities or unknown - could be removed or reviewed at “the behest of a political party”.

    To be clear, Taibbi is referring here to the US Democratic Party of the current president Joe Biden.

    He further pointed out that while requests were made from both sides - Republicans and Democrats - “the 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,” he said.

    To validate this lopsided nature of taking down content at Twitter, Taibbi also shared a link to Open Secrets - a database tracking the money changing hands between individuals at disparate corporations and political parties.

    According to the database, various individuals associated with Twitter contributed $126,652 to Democratic candidates - representing 95% of the overall contributions made by such individuals. Interestingly, only $250 was contributed to Republican candidates.

    The Biden secret emails story

    On October 14, 2020, the New York Post published an article stating that Hunter Biden introduced his father Joe Biden - who was then the vice president of the USA - to a top executive at a Ukrainian energy firm less than a year before the Joe Biden pressured government officials in Ukraine into firing a prosecutor who was investigating the company.

    However, Taibbi said in his thread of tweets that Twitter took extraordinary steps to suppress the story, removing links and posting warnings that it may be “unsafe.”

    “They even blocked its transmission via direct message, a tool hitherto reserved for extreme cases, e.g. child pornography,” he added. “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’.”


    Following this, the Files reveal several employees noted there was tension between the communication and policy and the safety and trust teams.

    When Twitter’s public policy executive Caroline Strom posed a query about this development, she was told the laptop story had been removed for violation of the company’s “hacked materials” policy.


    This is where the story might get even murkier - all this was going on without the knowledge of then CEO and Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey and that the now-sacked head of legal and trust Vijaya Gadde was instrumental in censoring the story.


    The Indian origin- Gadde was also responsible for leading the charge in getting Donald Trump’s account permanently banned after the Capitol Hill riots.

    Vijaya GaddeETtech
    Former Twitter executive Vijaya Gadde

    Even the then-top brass at Twitter across multiple teams was befuddled as to why such a story was marked ‘unsafe’ making it unavailable to users.


    “You 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,” Taibbi said, along with a screenshot of the email exchanges between the executives.
    The Economic Times

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