Elon Musk announced that he will establish a new moderation system in the past weeks, and terminated some employees. Famous journalist Matt Taibbi published a chain of tweets he called “Twitter Files”. The documents, which are stated to have been obtained by hacking Hunter Biden’s computer, contain scandals in the 2020 US elections.
Taibbi: “The Twitter Files show the deplorable state of the platform.”
It is known that the Twitter moderation team intervened and deleted the information published with some tools developed for the company. According to Taibbi’s claim, Twitter first serves politicians with software developed to combat spam and fraud.
On October 14, 2020, the New York Post published confidential email correspondence, a disclosure based on the contents of Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop. Twitter has taken extraordinary steps for this situation. The moderation team, which removed the shared links, issued warnings that the content is “not safe”. This has come to the point of blocking sending via private message, which has only been used a few times so far.
White House spokesperson Kaleigh McEnany has been locked out of her account for tweeting about the issue. Trump’s campaign officer, Mike Hahn, reacted to this situation.
Several sources said they heard a “general” warning about possible foreign hacking from federal law enforcement in 2020. But since there was no evidence of any government involvement in the Hunter Biden hack, Trump and his team could not be blamed.
According to the information shared by Taibbi, the moderation team made all the decisions without informing Jack Dorsey. Dorsey’s files include numerous instances of intervening to question suspensions and other acts of moderation for accounts across the political spectrum.
Taibbi posted all the leaked emails about the scandal on his Twitter account. However, Taibbi has announced that the Twitter Files series will continue.
The following statements are included in the tweet chain published by Taibbi;
Twitter, in his understanding, was an excellent tool for instant mass communication, making a real-time global conversation possible for the first time. In an early understanding, Twitter more than fulfilled its mission by giving people “the power to create and share ideas and information instantly, without barriers.” But as time went on, the company had to gradually add these barriers. Some of the first tools to control speech were designed to combat things like spam and financial fraud. Gradually, over time, Twitter staff and administrators began to find more and more uses for these tools. Outsiders began petitioning the company to manipulate the conversation as well: first a little, then more often, then constantly. By 2020, requests from linked actors to delete tweets have become routine. One executive would write to another: “There’s more to review from the Biden team.” The answer would come back: “Processed.” Celebrities and unknowns can be removed or reviewed at the behest of a political party. Both parties had access to these tools. For example, in 2020, requests from both the Trump White House and the Biden campaign were received and fulfilled. This system was not balanced. It was based on contacts. Because Twitter was overwhelmingly made up of people of one political orientation, there were more channels open to the left (i.e. Democrats) than the right, more ways to complain.
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