The Twitter Files: The Removal Of Donald Trump
The third installment of Elon Musk's release of internal Twitter communications has been released, once again via veteran journalist Matt Taibbi.
In this episode, which is a 3-parter, we learn what happened behind the scenes which led to the banishment of former President Donald Trump from the platform.
1. THREAD: The Twitter Files
THE REMOVAL OF DONALD TRUMP
Part One: October 2020-January 6th
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 9, 2022
2. The world knows much of the story of what happened between riots at the Capitol on January 6th, and the removal of President Donald Trump from Twitter on January 8th...
3. We'll show you what hasn’t been revealed: the erosion of standards within the company in months before J6, decisions by high-ranking executives to violate their own policies, and more, against the backdrop of ongoing, documented interaction with federal agencies.
4. This first installment covers the period before the election through January 6th. Tomorrow, @ShellenbergerMD will detail the chaos inside Twitter on January 7th. On Sunday, @bariweiss will reveal the secret internal communications from the key date of January 8th.
5. Whatever your opinion on the decision to remove Trump that day, the internal communications at Twitter between January 6th-January 8th have clear historical import. Even Twitter’s employees understood in the moment it was a landmark moment in the annals of speech....
THE TWITTER FILES: The Removal Of Donald Trump, Part 2, ZeroHedge, 11 December 2022:
... Michael Shellenberger reveals the chaos that ran wild inside Twitter on January 7th, as the same executives took decisions into their own hands to reassure 'a few engineers' that "someone is doing something about this."
The Removal of Donald Trump: January 7
As the pressure builds, Twitter executives build the case for a permanent ban.
On Jan 7, senior Twitter execs:
- create justifications to ban Trump
- seek a change of policy for Trump alone, distinct from other political leaders
- express no concern for the free speech or democracy implications of a ban
Related
The Twitter Files: Just the Beginning, by Jeffrey A. Tucker, Brownstone Institute, 9 December 2022:
... There is a lawsuit pending as brought by the Attorneys General of Missouri and Louisiana that accuses the Biden administration (and really the whole administrative state as it pertains to communication and information) of violating the First Amendment by colluding with Big Tech companies. There are already hundreds of pages here to document this but Elon’s releases only further entrench the point. It is now so incredibly obvious that this is exactly what was going on.
Now we know how Elon could fire 3 out of 4 workers there and the platform would work better than ever. These people were not working for the platform. They were working against it. And to what end? To keep the schools closed. To force people to get the jabs. To keep the travel restrictions in place. To keep people in masks and living in terror of a virus. This all really happened.
What pertains to Twitter is surely true at Google (therefore YouTube), Facebook (therefore Instagram), Microsoft (therefore LinkedIn), and even Amazon (many great books were blocked from publication and distribution)....
Just how close did we come to losing every bit of free speech? Very. And the battle is very much alive....