In what has yet again triggered debates about partisan content moderation by social media platforms, journalists Matt Taibbi and Bari Weiss published their discoveries in the formof the ‘Twitter Files’.
Mr. Taibbi referred to it as a “Frankensteinian tale of a human-built mechanism grown out the control of its designer”. Twitter chief Elon Musk introduced Mr. Taibbi’s work through a countdown, saying that “This will be awesome” and later retweeting Mr Taibbi’s thread. The revelations have triggered a slew of accusations, defence and a divided opinion in the North American media about its reliability.
What was revealed in the first part?
The first part of the series dealt with how Twitter allegedly suppressed the distribution of New York Post’s expose about President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden. The report contained leaked computer files, mostly Hunter Biden’s email communications about his business dealings in Ukraine when his father was serving as the Vice-President to the then President Obama (in 2015). As per the Post, Hunter Biden introduced his father to a top executive at a Ukrainian energy firm less than a year before the then-VP “pressured government officials in Ukraine into firing a prosecutor who was investigating the company”.
As per journalist Taibbi, Twitter took “extraordinary steps” to suppress the story. The social media platform initially blocked the New York Post’s story, also preventing users from sharing it through private messages, saying it violated Twitter’s policies on hacked and stolen materials. However, this decision was overturned a few days later.
Twitter also suspended the Post’s account for over two weeks after it refused to delete a tweet about the story, before the suspension was reversed, long after other restrictions were removed. Twitter also locked out White House spokeswoman Kaleigh McEnany out of her account for tweeting about the story.
Co-founder and the then-CEO of the microblogging platform Jack Dorsey has said he regretted the platform’s decision to censor the story.
In a presidential debate following the report, Joe Bidenreferred to it as a “Russian plant”. This was corroborated by 51 former U.S. intelligence officials’ statement saying the email story had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation”.
However, a Wall Street Journal editorial suggests that the claims by the spies gave an excuse for the media to ignore the Hunter Biden story and even dismiss his business partner Tony Bobulinski’s remarks confirming much of the content on the laptop, providing text messages as evidence.
Politico said that two years since the Post reportage, journalists have deployed varied reporting techniques and technical analyses to verify large parts of the cache, though it remains possible that forged or doctored material has been inserted into it. The Washington Post had two security experts authenticating thousands of emails from the laptop, although they couldn’t verify a majority of the 217 GB of data provided by activist Jack Maxey. There was no clear evidence of tampering, they said, but there were also missing data or elements that would help with authentication for some of the data. The report says the experts “struggled to reach definitive conclusions about the contents as a whole.”
Is there more to it?
On December 7, Mr Musk ousted deputy general counsel James Baker from the company. Mr Baker served as FBI’s General Counsel and Senior Strategic Advisor before joining the microblogging platform in 2020. The reason given for the ouster was Mr Baker’s “possible role in suppression of information important to the public dialogue”. As per the WSJ, Mr Baker’s ties to the former intelligence officials who signed the statement “may have influenced his Twitter memo and the censorship decision”.
What did the second part reveal?
The second part of the revelations was shared by former New York Times journalist Bari Weiss on Thursday. According to it Twitter allegedly built ‘blacklists’ to limit users’ visibility.
Ms. Weiss said that Twitter put Jay Bhattacharya, Professor of health policy at the Stanford School of Medicine, on the ‘Trend Blacklist’. Mr. Bhattacharyaopposed COVID lockdowns citing their impact on children. The deamplification list allegedly also includes right-wing talk show host Dan Bongino, the founder of Turning Point USA, described as conservative by Ms. Weiss.
Twitter also repeatedly suspendeda professed anti-LGBT account, ‘Libs of TikTok’ — operated by Chaya Raichik. This was done citing “hateful conduct”.
Following the account’s seventh suspension, Twitter’s Site Integrity Policy, Policy Escalation Support reportedly found that the account “had not directly engaged in behaviour violative of the Hateful Conduct policy”. The committee, however, Ms Weiss says, justified their actions internally stating that her posts encouraged online harassment of “hospitals and medical providers” by insinuating “that gender-affirming healthcare is equivalent to child abuse or grooming”.
Responding to Ms Weiss’ Twitter thread, Kayvon Beykpour, former Head of Product at Twitter, said the platform had never denied de-amplifying things, adding that the platform did rank posts. “You are characterising any de-amplification as equating to shadow banning which is either a lazy interpretation or deliberately misleading. De-amplification is obviously necessary and even Elon himself believes so,” his response read.
How has the media and public reacted?
North American news outlets are divided about the merit and trustworthiness of the revelations. In the WSJ Opinion podcast Potomac Watch, Paul Gigotsaid after the first part of the revelations, “Now, most of the press is ignoring the Twitter censorship files but not us, and we want to talk about them.”
Kim Strassel said she wished they would release everything at once. “It might be messy, there might be some confusion, but you’d probably end up with a lot more transparency and people would be more trusting of the argument that Musk is trying to make here,” she said.
Co-founder Jack Dorsey, responding to Mr Musk’s teaser about the second part of the revelations suggested, “If the goal is transparency to build trust, why not just release everything without filter and let people judge for themselves? Including all discussions around current and future actions? Make everything public now.”
In an editorial, WSJ said Mr Musk had made it easier for the media to not report about it by claiming they cannot report on documents since they cannot independently confirm them.
Responding to Ms Weiss’ Twitter thread, Kayvon Beykpour, former Head of Product at Twitter, said the platform had never denied de-amplifying things, adding that the platform did rank posts. “You are characterising any de-amplification as equating to shadow banning which is either a lazy interpretation or deliberately misleading. De-amplification is obviously necessary and even Elon himself believes so,” his response read.
He called the revelations “manufactured drama,” asking why else they would “cherry pick my quote out of context without linking to the full text”
Politico wrote that Mr Musk’s latest move “will likely ingratiate him further with the conservatives- and plunge the social media platform deeper into political controversy.”
“Since taking the reins of Twitter in October, Musk has endeared himself to the right and incensed the left with his laissez-faire approach to moderation,” Politico’s column read.
Fox News host Tucker Carlson characterised the documents as showing a “systemic violation of the First Amendment, the largest example of that in modern history,” while some House Republicans, too, believe that the report showed systemic collusion between Twitter and Joe Biden’s team.
Mr. Musk, in a tweet, has indicated that he does not believe Mr. Dorsey was involved in these decisions, saying he has a “pure heart.”
Who are the journalists involved?
Mr Musk’s first revelation was reported by Mr Taibbi, who left Rolling Stone, later launching a Substack newsletter, and Ms Weiss, who left New York Times to start ‘ The Free Press’, a media company that focuses on “stories that are ignored or misconstrued in the service of an ideological narrative,” per its website. T
Both of these journalists have been viewed as polarizing by the journalism world.
Mr. Musk has often expressed his admiration for citizen journalism, even tweeting that once Twitter is able to “improve its signal to noise ratio, the less relevant conventional news becomes”.
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