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Free speech, political leanings and Elon Musk. Twitter has been making much news since its new boss took over.The latest? Musk endorsing the ‘The Twitter Files’; an account of independent author and journalist Matt Taibbi, who published a series of tweets outlining the thinking behind the decision to censor the news concerning Hunter Biden’s laptop.
These records, which appear to be emails from Twitter staff members that have been censored, explain why the technology giant decided to bury the Hunter Biden story in the final days of the 2020 presidential campaign.The thread perhaps seeks to confirm the political bias Musk has accused the platform of having, before he took over. One of the main reasons he had cited for acquiring Twitter was to further his goal of ‘free speech.’
But this particular endorsement comes amid another controversy – the anti-Semitic content posted by Ye (Kanye West). After Ye said he ‘liked Hitler’ in a show, he followed it up with objectionable tweets. Twitter suspended his account.
The whole narrative reignites the ‘free speech’ debate. And while Musk is all for talking about it, it remains to be seen how the tech giant, now in control of Twitter, will ‘reform’ the site according to his apparent vision, especially when it comes to content moderation – the thing Musk is criticising through the Twitter Files.
A potentially explosive and exclusive story was published by The New York Post in October 2020, three weeks before the presidential election in the United States in 2020. The story was titled “Biden’s Secret Emails: An executive from Ukraine thanked Hunter Biden for the “opportunity to meet” the vice president of the United States. The proprietor of a computer repair shop in Delaware allegedly claimed that the laptop had belonged to President Biden’s second son, Hunter Biden, but that he had abandoned it, explained a report by Gizmodo.
The owner of the tabloid claimed that the contents of the laptop had been brought to him by the shop owner. According to the allegations made by the Post, emails and files that were discovered on the laptop revealed how Hunter had peddled influence with Ukranian businessmen. The laptop also allegedly contained “a raunchy 12-minute video” showing Hunter smoking crack and having sex.
Following the publication of the article in the Post, Twitter instituted a policy that prevented users from tweeting a link to the article or sending it via direct message, citing it as “hacked material.” Additionally, the company suspended the Post’s account for several days, preventing it from making any further tweets during that time.
But why did this happen?
In an interview earlier this week, Yoel Roth, who had previously served as the head of trust and safety at Twitter, stated that the company was unable to verify the story, which suggested that he and others at the company did not trust the Post.Now, the tweet thread, which Taibbi dubbed the “Twitter Files,” depicts executives from the company making a moderation call.
Screenshots and emails posted by Taibbi reveal what one executive referred to as a “whirlwind” of activity within Twitter’s policy and trust and safety departments as employees questioned an initial decision to block sharing of the story for violating Twitter’s policy on the distribution of hacked materials, said a report by the Wired. (It is currently unknown where the laptop came from or whether or not all of the files on it legitimately belong to Hunter Biden.)
