Twitter chief Elon Musk made good on his pledge to drop new information about the company’s behind-the-scenes machinations about the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story in October 2020.
Musk retweeted a thread from journalist Matt Taibbi, who slowly rolled out information from the so-called Twitter files. The thread revealed that Twitter mulled requests from political groups to suppress material.
ELON MUSK TEASES ANSWERS TO THE HUNTER BIDEN TWITTER SUPPRESSION WILL BE LIVE AT 5 FRIDAY
The outspoken CEO had teased Friday that he would release the new information at 5 pm Eastern time but subsequently announced there would be a significant delay because the company was “double-checking some facts.”
Taibbi shared screenshots of internal conversations in which Twitter employees noted tweets that had been flagged by the Biden team or the Democratic National Committee. He explained that both parties highlighted content to Twitter but emphasized that the company wasn’t even-handed because it was staffed with people who leaned Democratic.
11. This system was not 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. https://t.co/sa1uVRNhuH pic.twitter.com/K1xmqQ0TrD
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 3, 2022
At one point, a schism appeared to emerge between the communication and policy teams after then-White House press secretary Kaleigh McEnany was locked out of her Twitter account. McEnany had tweeted material about the laptop story. Someone at the company noted her tweet was “bounced” for breaching the hacked materials policy.
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 said: “At least pretend to care for the next 20 days.” pic.twitter.com/CcXTfsdzCT
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 3, 2022
Taibbi emphasized that while “several sources recalled hearing about a ‘general’ warning from federal law enforcement,” he found no evidence that the government was involved in the laptop story.
He further claimed that the decision was made at “the highest levels of the company, but without the knowledge of CEO Jack Dorsey.” Vijaya Gadde, the former head of legal, policy, and trust who departed the company after Musk’s takeover, was involved, according to Taibbi.
“They just freelanced it,” one former employee said told him “Hacking was the excuse, but within a few hours, pretty much everyone realized that wasn’t going to hold. But no one had the guts to reverse it.”
During the internal machinations, Dorsey sent Gadde a copy of a Substack article Taibbi wrote ripping the suppression of the laptop story, accordingly to internal emails.
Internally, many employees began to fret over the handling of the matter, with some asking if they could “truthfully claim that this is part of the policy” or raising questions about “the policy basis for marking this as unsafe.” Others pointed to the 2016 election and were keen on avoiding a repeat, concerned about potential foreign interference.
Amid the internal fervor, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) had an exchange with Gadde in which he raised concerns about the First Amendment, a “mention of which is generally hard to find in the files,” according to Taibbi, who suggested Democratic concerns over the suppression was not common.
Carl Szabo, from the research firm NetChoice, sent Lauren Culbertson, the head of public policy, a letter explaining that he polled 12 members of Congress about the matter and found a consensus among Democrats.
“The Democrats were in agreement: social media needs to moderate more because they’re corrupting democracy and making all ‘truth’ relative. When pushed on how the government might insist on that, consistent with the First Amendment, they demurred: ‘the First Amendment isn’t absolute,'” he wrote.
26. By this point “everyone knew this was fucked,” said one former employee, but the response was essentially to err on the side of… continuing to err. pic.twitter.com/2wJMFAUBoe
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 3, 2022
Musk has long ripped the blocking of the laptop story as “obviously incredibly inappropriate” and pledged to expand transparency and steer Twitter in a more pro-free speech direction since his $44 billion takeover of the company, which took effect in October.
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During the tumultuous 2020 election homestretch, Twitter blocked sharing of an October 2020 New York Post story about Hunter Biden’s laptop and also temporarily froze the news outlet’s Twitter account before later backpedaling.
The story explored his overseas business dealings and raised questions about the involvement of his father, President Joe Biden. Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey later conceded the company made a “total mistake” by squelching the story.
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