“Twitter files about suppression of free speech will soon be posted on Twitter. The public deserves to know what really happened. At the end of November, Elon Musk announced with a bang the forthcoming publication of internal documents of the company which were in particular to prove that the network had indeed been directed by leftists. woke having censored conservative voices, shielded Hunter and Joe Biden, and wrongly suspended Donald Trump after the Capitol stormed. But instead of a transparent internal audit, the “Twitter files” produced five threads published by journalists chosen by Musk. Who seem more interested in validating grievances that are often exaggerated and devoid of context than establishing a nuanced inventory of the moderation of the platform.
Who are the journalists who publish the “Twitter files”?
Matt Taibbi and Bari Weiss are two now independent journalists who have worked for several major American media. Taibbi conducted Wall Street surveys for the magazine RollingStoneand Weiss went through the New York Times as a columnist. Both describe themselves as centrists disillusioned with the “mainstream media” which, in their view, leans too far to the left. In their newsletter on Substack, they regularly play the contrarian, especially on the Covid for Taibbi and on gender issues for Weiss.
Did they have access to users’ private messages?
The question emerged after Bari Weiss posted a screenshot of the LibsofTikTok account on which the “Direct messages” folder was visible. Former Facebook security chief Alex Stamos and constitutional law professor Orin Kerr noted that Elon Musk faced legal action if he gave access to some users’ private messages to journalists. But in the process, a Twitter executive, Ella Irwin, assured that it was she who had taken this screenshot, clarifying that the journalists “did not have access” to the internal tools of the company nor to the user posts.
What do the Twitter files reveal about Hunter Biden?
Not much new. Three weeks before the 2020 presidential election, the New York Post published emails and photos of Joe Biden’s son, claiming they were from Hunter Biden’s personal laptop left at a repair shop 18 months earlier. Faced with doubts about the origin of this October surprise, Twitter, which had been warned by the FBI that a “hack & leak” disinformation campaign risked disrupting the election, decided in a first time to block any sharing of the article link.
In sworn testimony two years ago, former Twitter security chief Yoel Roth said in hindsight that the decision was a “mistake”. In his first thread, Matt Taibbi reveals that the decision had not been unanimous internally, and especially that it had been taken without the knowledge of the boss Jack Dorsey. We also learn that Biden’s team had flagged five tweets that were deleted by Twitter moderators. The journalist fails to specify that it was pornographic content, including photos of Hunter Biden’s penis. Taibbi also acknowledges that Donald Trump’s team also had the same access at Twitter for urgent moderation questions. And important detail: if the Hunter Biden saga shows that he tried to monetize his family name internationally, in particular by sitting on the Board of Directors of the Ukrainian energy group Burisma, there is nothing to suggest inappropriate conduct by Joe. Biden.
Did Twitter censor conservatives and practice “shadow banning”?
Bari Weiss then turned to Twitter moderation. Who is accused of having put a doctor who had campaigned against confinement and for mass natural immunity, Jay Bhattacharya, on a “Trends blacklist”, which prevented his tweets from being in the trends of the day. And two conservative figures, Dan Bongino and Charlie Kirk, on a “search blacklist” and a “do not amplify” list.
Did the three examples given commit repeated violations? How many users have undergone this kind of treatment? Were the Conservatives more affected than the Liberals? Weiss provides no context and doesn’t seem interested in the answer.
Conservatives see it as proof that Twitter is guilty of shadow banning. But the definition of this practice of quietly reducing the visibility of certain accounts without suspending them completely remains vague. In 2018, Twitter strongly denied shadow banning, ensuring that all tweets remain visible by going directly to a profile. The network has never hidden, however, that it weights tweets in its ranking algorithms. What all platforms do. Elon Musk has also himself declared that he would do the same with his philosophy “freedom of speech, but not freedom of reach”: “Negative or hateful tweets will be deboosted and demonetized. You won’t find these tweets unless you look for them explicitly. »
Did Twitter break its rules by suspending Donald Trump?
The last three episodes “Twitter files” look at Donald Trump’s suspension from the platform after the assault on the Capitol. Twitter had first suspended the account of the American president for 12 hours after the publication of the video in which he repeated “The election was stolen from us”. Two days later, Donald Trump writes that he will not be running for Biden’s inauguration and that “no one will disrespect the 75 million American patriots who voted for me”. Twitter then invokes its rule against the “glorification of violence” and the risks of future excesses to justify a permanent suspension.
This decision caused debate around the world, including internally. According to the documents consulted by Bari Weiss, several Twitter executives considered that the messages of the American president did not reach the bar of “incitement to violence”. But while the network’s decision can be criticized, the company was within its rights. The First Amendment protects free speech from government limitation. Private companies can moderate their platform as they see fit.