By The FirstThe third installment of the “Twitter Files” investigations has been released by journalist Matt Taibbi, this time detailing the removal of then-President Donald Trump from the platform. The Twitter files are a deep dive into the documents and internal communications that detail the social network’s efforts to censor content on the platform.
“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,” Taibbi explains.
Taibbi’s investigation also sheds new light on just how deeply involved the FBI, DHS, and DNI were involved with Twitter during the 2020 election.
Check out Taibbi’s thread below:
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…
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 9, 2022
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.
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 9, 2022
6. As soon as they finished banning Trump, Twitter execs started processing new power. They prepared to ban future presidents and White Houses – perhaps even Joe Biden. The “new administration,” says one exec, “will not be suspended by Twitter unless absolutely necessary.” pic.twitter.com/lr66YgDlGy
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 9, 2022
8. The bulk of the internal debate leading to Trump’s ban took place in those three January days. However, the intellectual framework was laid in the months preceding the Capitol riots.
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 9, 2022
10. As the election approached, senior executives – perhaps under pressure from federal agencies, with whom they met more as time progressed – increasingly struggled with rules, and began to speak of “vios” as pretexts to do what they’d likely have done anyway.
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 9, 2022
12. These initial reports are based on searches for docs linked to prominent executives, whose names are already public. They include Roth, former trust and policy chief Vijaya Gadde, and recently plank-walked Deputy General Counsel (and former top FBI lawyer) Jim Baker.
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 9, 2022
14. On October 8th, 2020, executives opened a channel called “us2020_xfn_enforcement.” Through J6, this would be home for discussions about election-related removals, especially ones that involved “high-profile” accounts (often called “VITs” or “Very Important Tweeters”). pic.twitter.com/xH29h4cYt9
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 9, 2022
16. The latter group were a high-speed Supreme Court of moderation, issuing content rulings on the fly, often in minutes and based on guesses, gut calls, even Google searches, even in cases involving the President. pic.twitter.com/5ihsPCVo62
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 9, 2022
18. Policy Director Nick Pickles is asked if they should say Twitter detects “misinfo” through “ML, human review, and **partnerships with outside experts?*” The employee asks, “I know that’s been a slippery process… not sure if you want our public explanation to hang on that.” pic.twitter.com/JEICGRTyz7
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 9, 2022
20. This post about the Hunter Biden laptop situation shows that Roth not only met weekly with the FBI and DHS, but with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI): pic.twitter.com/s5IiUjQqIY
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 9, 2022
Note: Taibbi apparently skipped #22.
23. Some of Roth’s later Slacks indicate his weekly confabs with federal law enforcement involved separate meetings. Here, he ghosts the FBI and DHS, respectively, to go first to an “Aspen Institute thing,” then take a call with Apple. pic.twitter.com/i771hD8aCD
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 9, 2022
The FBI's second report concerned this tweet by @JohnBasham: pic.twitter.com/8J8j5GlUVx
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 10, 2022
26. The group then decides to apply a “Learn how voting is safe and secure” label because one commenter says, “it’s totally normal to have a 2% error rate.” Roth then gives the final go-ahead to the process initiated by the FBI: pic.twitter.com/lyZm4gmT19
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 10, 2022
Note: Taibbi skipped numbers 28, 29, & 30.
The group declares Huck’s an “edge case,” and though one notes, “we don’t make exceptions for jokes or satire,” they ultimately decide to leave him be, because “we’ve poked enough bears.”
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 10, 2022
33. Roth suggests moderation even in this absurd case could depend on whether or not the joke results in “confusion.” This seemingly silly case actually foreshadows serious later issues: pic.twitter.com/nOi50BdeaC
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 10, 2022
35. In another example, Twitter employees prepare to slap a “mail-in voting is safe” warning label on a Trump tweet about a postal screwup in Ohio, before realizing “the events took place,” which meant the tweet was “factually accurate”: pic.twitter.com/4r6nJ3JDmY
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 10, 2022
"VERY WELL DONE ON SPEED": the group is pleased the Trump tweet is dealt with quickly pic.twitter.com/WMyQjbWqNW
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 10, 2022
38. After Woods angrily quote-tweeted about Trump’s warning label, Twitter staff – in a preview of what ended up happening after J6 – despaired of a reason for action, but resolved to “hit him hard on future vio.” pic.twitter.com/dusFylxAXS
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 10, 2022
40. Twitter teams went easy on Hice, only applying “soft intervention,” with Roth worrying about a “wah wah censorship” optics backlash: pic.twitter.com/PGuihwNSu6
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 10, 2022
42. “THAT’S UNDERSTANDABLE”: Even the hashtag #StealOurVotes – referencing a theory that a combo of Amy Coney Barrett and Trump will steal the election – is approved by Twitter brass, because it’s “understandable” and a “reference to… a US Supreme Court decision.” pic.twitter.com/6BjJhjypD2
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 10, 2022
44. Later in November 2020, Roth asked if staff had a “debunk moment” on the “SCYTL/Smartmantic vote-counting” stories, which his DHS contacts told him were a combination of “about 47” conspiracy theories: pic.twitter.com/QiYGlZE202
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 10, 2022
46. Some executives wanted to use the new deamplification tool to silently limit Trump’s reach more right away, beginning with the following tweet: pic.twitter.com/U7AJLF2wIt
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 10, 2022
48. The significance is that it shows that Twitter, in 2020 at least, was deploying a vast range of visible and invisible tools to rein in Trump’s engagement, long before J6. The ban will come after other avenues are exhausted
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 10, 2022
50. In this instance, it appears moderators added a bot for a Trump claim made on Breitbart. The bot ends up becoming an automated tool invisibly watching both Trump and, apparently, Breitbart (“will add media ID to bot”). Trump by J6 was quickly covered in bots. pic.twitter.com/UhYQ31qIgn
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 10, 2022
52. To “bounce” an account is to put it in timeout, usually for a 12-hour review/cool-off: pic.twitter.com/rGUIhGF6w8
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 10, 2022
54. PII has multiple meanings, one being “Public Interest Interstitial,” i.e. a covering label applied for “public interest” reasons. The post below also references “proactive V,” i.e. proactive visibility filtering. pic.twitter.com/GSCjAPaBjG
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 10, 2022
This project was preposterous yet its leaders were unable to see this, having become infected with groupthing, coming to believe – sincerely – that it was Twitter's responsibility to control, as much as possible, what people could talk about, how often, and with whom.
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 10, 2022
57. This “Freedom or Death” tweet from #StopTheSteal gadfly Mike Coudrey elicits heated reactions: pic.twitter.com/NeBnL4e5YB
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 10, 2022
59. At 2:39 p.m. PST, a comms official asked Roth to confirm or deny a story that they’d restricted Trump’s ability to tweet. Roth says, “We have not.” pic.twitter.com/MeaHgN0FUQ
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 10, 2022
This theme of Policy perhaps being stressed by queries from Communications executives – who themselves have to answer the public’s questions – occasionally appears. Two days later, you see chatter about pulling Comms out of the loop: pic.twitter.com/sPxGcXtOpy
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 10, 2022
62. “WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?” Safe to say Trump’s “Go home with love & in peace” tweet mid-riot didn’t go over well at Twitter HQ: pic.twitter.com/yhi5uv4QXI
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 10, 2022
64. By the end of the first day, the top execs are still trying to apply rules. By the next day, they will contemplate a major change in approach. Watch @shellenbergerMD this weekend for the play-by-play of how all that went down.
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 10, 2022
66. Lastly, people on the left, right, and in between want to know what else is in the #TwitterFiles, from suppression/shadow-banning of leftists to lab-leak theorists, or amplification of military propaganda or conservative accounts. We know everyone has questions.
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 10, 2022
67. And while we’ve stumbled on tidbits here and there about topics ranging from COVID to foreign policy, the reality is the data sets are enormous and we’re still working through them.
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 10, 2022
More is coming. Good night, all.
Fin.
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