Twitter Files

The Twitter Files
DescriptionInternal Twitter documents released by Elon Musk
DateDecember 2022 – March 2023
PublishersMatt Taibbi, Bari Weiss, Lee Fang, Michael Shellenberger, David Zweig
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The Twitter Files are a series of releases of select internal Twitter, Inc. documents published from December 2022 through March 2023 on Twitter. CEO Elon Musk gave the documents to journalists Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss, Lee Fang, and authors Michael Shellenberger, David Zweig and Alex Berenson shortly after he acquired Twitter on October 27, 2022. Taibbi and Weiss coordinated the publication of the documents with Musk, releasing details of the files as a series of Twitter threads.[1][2][3][4]

After the first set of files was published, various technology and media journalists said that the reported evidence demonstrated little more than Twitter's policy team struggling with difficult decisions, but resolving such matters swiftly. Some conservatives said that the documents demonstrated what they called Twitter's liberal bias.[5][6]

A major aspect of the examination surrounded false assertions by Musk and others that Twitter had been ordered by the government to help presidential candidate Joe Biden in the coming election by suppressing an October 2020 New York Post story about Hunter Biden's laptop. Researcher Matt Taibbi found no evidence of government involvement in Twitter's decision to initially withhold the story.[7]

In a June 2023 court filing, Twitter attorneys strongly denied that the Files showed the government had coerced the company to censor content, as Musk and many Republicans claimed.[8] Former Twitter employees asserted that Republican officials also made takedown requests so often that Twitter had to keep a database tracking them.[9]

Internal Twitter emails showed the company allowed accounts operated by the U.S. military to run a Middle East influence campaign; some accounts were kept on the platform for years before being taken down.[10][11]

The releases prompted debate over the nature of blacklisting,[12] vows for congressional investigation, calls for the full release of all documents for the sake of transparency, and calls to improve content moderation processes at Twitter.

  1. ^ Grynbaum, Michael M. (December 4, 2022). "Elon Musk, Matt Taibbi, and a Very Modern Media Maelstrom". The New York Times. Archived from the original on January 13, 2023. Retrieved December 6, 2022.
  2. ^ ""End of story": Elon Musk responds to Trump's "Twitter Files" reaction". Axios. December 4, 2022. Archived from the original on January 13, 2023. Retrieved December 6, 2022.
  3. ^ Frankel, Alison (December 5, 2022). "Musk is entitled to order disclosures like 'The Twitter Files.' Are states?". Reuters. Archived from the original on December 6, 2022. Retrieved December 10, 2022.
  4. ^ "Musk releases "Twitter Files" about platform's inner workings | CNN Business". December 3, 2022. Retrieved December 16, 2022.
  5. ^ Fischer, Sara (December 6, 2022). "The alternative-media industrial complex". Axios. Archived from the original on December 6, 2022. Retrieved December 6, 2022.
  6. ^ "Musk says Twitter lawyer fired amid Hunter Biden laptop dispute". Al Jazeera. December 7, 2022. Archived from the original on January 22, 2023. Retrieved December 7, 2022.
  7. ^ Evan Perez; Donie O'Sullivan; Brian Fung (December 23, 2022). "No directive: FBI agents, tech executives deny government ordered Twitter to suppress Hunter Biden story". CNN. Archived from the original on March 21, 2024. Retrieved April 15, 2024. Matt Taibbi, one of the journalists Musk tapped this month to comb through Twitter internal messages for evidence of free speech violations, said himself on December 2 that "there is no evidence - that I've seen - of any government involvement in the laptop story."
  8. ^ Fung, Brian (June 6, 2023). "Twitter's own lawyers refute Elon Musk's claim that the 'Twitter Files' exposed US government censorship". CNN. Archived from the original on June 7, 2023. Retrieved June 7, 2023.
  9. ^ Binder, Matt (February 9, 2023). "Republicans grilled ex-Twitter executives about censorship. They found out Trump requested takedowns". Mashable. Archived from the original on December 21, 2023. Retrieved December 21, 2023.
  10. ^ Conger, Kate; Frenkel, Sheera (December 22, 2022). "Twitter is Said to Have Struggled over Revealing U.S. Influence Campaign". The New York Times. Archived from the original on February 5, 2024. Retrieved February 5, 2024.
  11. ^ Washington, Alistair Dawber. "'Twitter files' suggest that company aided the Pentagon". Archived from the original on February 5, 2024. Retrieved February 5, 2024.
  12. ^ "Twitter Files spark debate about 'blacklisting'". BBC News. December 14, 2022. Archived from the original on January 13, 2023. Retrieved December 17, 2022.