Discussion

• @mtaibbi Matt Taibbi on x

  1. Thread: THE TWITTER FILES

• @elonmusk Elon Musk on x

  Here we go!! 🍿🍿 https://twitter.com/...

• @mmasnick Mike Masnick on x

  Not for nothing, but so far, everything revealed is... basically exactly what has been known for nearly two years, and is basically... how these kinds of decisions always work? I mean... why the buildup to reveal... this?

• @mtaibbi Matt Taibbi on x

  While reviewing Gadde's emails, I saw a familiar name - my own. Dorsey sent her a copy of my Substack article blasting the incident https://twitter.com/...

• @elonmusk Elon Musk on x

  Tune in for Episode 2 of The Twitter Files tomorrow!

• @harrengwarding @harrengwarding on x

  @Klonick ... All of Twitter to Elon Musk and Matt Taibbi tonight: https://twitter.com/...

• @mattbinder Matt Binder on x

  the Twitter Files even have Sebastian Gorka going “what? this is it?” https://twitter.com/...

• @joshtpm Josh Marshall on x

  basically from start to finish the only person coming through any of this looking even half way decent in yoel roth

• @bborrman Brandon on x

  Congratulations @mtaibbi! You shared the name of a junior employee who had no role in any decisions and now her photos are being shared and people are calling for her death. Way to stand up for the little guy.

• @mmasnick Mike Masnick on x

  Hey Elon, the Biden campaign wasn't the government in 2020. So, no, it's not a 1st Amendment violation. And highlighting people posting dick pics for Twitter's trust & safety team to see if they violate policy is... how trust & safety works? https://twitter.com/...

• @biz Biz Stone on x

  I don't get why naming names is necessary. Seems dangerous.

• @joshtpm Josh Marshall on x

  The one thing you can never do as a journalist is deceive your readers. Among all the other nonsense that went on tonight we have a great example of it here. Taibbi portentously announced that the Biden Team had sent an order to Twitter to delete Tweets and it had been “handled.”…

• @goldman Jason Goldman on x

  This is so dim. First it wasn't an act of transparency; it was a partisan hack job that revealed nothing new. Second if Elon believed in transparency he should leak his own correspondence about the content moderation decisions he's taken. Which electeds have written him? https://…

• @brianbeutler Brian Beutler on x

  Also: Musk has now seemingly leaked private third-party communications he inherited when he took control of Twitter, in order to settle a political score. I believe it's the first instance of him doing the nightmare-scenario thing his critics warned he might. https://twitter.com/…

• @b_fung Brian Fung on x

  Ohhh, this is Elon trying to juice engagement numbers to advertisers, isn't it https://taibbi.substack.com/ ... https://twitter.com/...

• @mtaibbi Matt Taibbi on x

  An amazing subplot of the Twitter/Hunter Biden laptop affair was how much was done without the knowledge of CEO Jack Dorsey, and how long it took for the situation to get “unfucked” (as one ex-employee put it) even after Dorsey jumped in.

• @fmanjoo Farhad Manjoo on x

  The story in the twitter files is that multiple people wrestled with difficult policy decisions and took input from multiple stakeholders during a high-stakes news cycle .... Now all these decisions are being made by one meme-besotted billionaire.

• @ashleyfeinberg Ashley Feinberg on x

  so musk is just making him do this on twitter over multiple days to get numbers to try to convince advertisers with right https://twitter.com/...

• @mehdirhasan Mehdi Hasan on x

  I wonder what the “conditions” were and whether they were Musk-imposed. (The whole way it is being leaked out from Musk's Twitter onto Twitter itself, via Matt Taibbi's interminable thread, is just weird btw.) https://taibbi.substack.com/ ... https://twitter.com/...

• @maxberger Max Berger on x

  I'm old enough to remember when this guy considered himself the scourge of billionaires. He met with us at Occupy Wall Street to discuss digging up dirt on elite bankers. Now, he's helping the richest man in the world spread right-wing talking points. Sad! https://twitter.com/...

• @mattbinder Matt Binder on x

  congrats to Jack Dorsey who went from texting his friend Elon Musk to buy his company Twitter to being doxed by his friend Elon Musk, the new owner of Twitter, and being harassed for the rest of his life by QAnon because he has the word “pizza” in his email address

• @alexstamos Alex Stamos on x

  And... that's it. It's clearly not Twitter's responsibility to prevent the US media from publishing hacked, faked or stolen information. Had a great conversation on how platform's shouldn't overreach beyond their borders with the @TWiT team this week: https://www.youtube.com/...

• @benjamingoggin Benjamin Goggin on x

  This is what former Twitter Head of Site Integrity Yoel Roth testified: In regular meetings with intelligence agencies and other social media companies, he learned of a general threat of “hack and leak” operations around the election, and that it was rumored to involve Hunter htt…

• @katieharbath Katie Harbath on x

  That's it? That's the big expose? After being utterly blasted for missing Russian interference in 2016, after the hacked materials in the French 2017 election OF COURSE a company would be a little on edge about making a wrong call.

• @robsmithonline @robsmithonline on x

  If you think what has been exposed of Twitter is bad, what's going on with Google and Facebook is likely to make your skin crawl. BREAK UP BIG TECH. NOW.

• @mmasnick Mike Masnick on x

  What really happened with the JFK assassination will be published on Twitter in 5 minutes!

• @stevehiltonx Steve Hilton on x

  Don't lose sight of the central point: Facebook, not Twitter, initiated the censorship of the Joe Biden/China corruption scandal. Facebook did this at the request of the FBI. FBI Director Christopher Wray must be the focus for accountability.

• @oneunderscore__ Ben Collins on x

  Imagine throwing it all away to do PR work for the richest person in the world. Humiliating shit.

• @molly0xfff Molly White on x

  something tells me the right wing will probably skim right past “there's no evidence - that I've seen - of any government involvement in the laptop story”

• @claire Claire Díaz-Ortiz on x

  How to Dox Your Own Employees: Chapter 666 in “Lead like Elon” a new management book, shipped straight from hell. https://twitter.com/...

• @mehdirhasan Mehdi Hasan on x

  Imagine volunteering to do online PR work for the world's richest man on a Friday night, in service of nakedly and cynically right-wing narratives, and then pretending you're speaking truth to power.

• @oneunderscore__ Ben Collins on x

  Elon Musk paid $44 billion to discover what we already knew: content moderation is messy and involves whole teams of people with a range of viewpoints trying to appease different political factions. He then gave “leaks” to a Substack Man to present it as a blockbuster. https://tw…

• @alexeheath Alex Heath on x

  @mtaibbi What “conditions” did you agree to for doing this story? Honestly curious! https://taibbi.substack.com/ ...

• @alexstamos Alex Stamos on x

  This thread confirms what I knew! Excellent! Twitter's reaction to 2016 included policies for both on-platform trolling and hack-and-leak. The latter lead to a big overreach that had nothing to do with the deep state or @EI_Partnership. A bunch of execs, of course, argued. https:…

• @jeffbercovici Jeff Bercovici on x

  Less than 24 hours after Elon pretended a swastika is an incitement to violence to make Kanye go away, Matt Taibbi is dropping the bombshell that Twitter execs make ad hoc content rulings to solve awkward political problems. Groundbreaking stuff.

• @fmanjoo Farhad Manjoo on x

  sir I was told this would be based on TWITTER FILES not a characterization by an unnamed former employee https://twitter.com/...

• @mattbinder Matt Binder on x

  the whole big reveal in the Twitter Files is based on these guys not remembering who the president was in 2020 lol https://twitter.com/...

• @sebgorka Sebastian Gorka DrG on x

  So far I'm deeply underwhelmed. We know the Dems in DC collude with the Dems in Palo Alto. Big Whop. Need a paper trail of felonies. Elon better have that.

• @karaswisher Kara Swisher on x

  What @mmasnick said. Dick pics are not a smoking gun, no matter how many times you say First Amendment. https://twitter.com/...

• @tbonier Tom Bonier on x

  The only thing I've learned from this thread is that Matt Taibbi isn't great at redacting email addresses. https://twitter.com/...

• @pmarca Marc Andreessen on x

  One of the most remarkable moments in Internet history playing out right now, in real time: https://twitter.com/...

• @jenntakahashi Jenn Takahashi on x

  damn @elonmusk - was that just a long ad for “the boring company” bc it worked 🥱

• @reckless Nilay Patel on x

  the social media laws in texas and florida are clearer violations of the first amendment lol https://twitter.com/...

• @joshtpm Josh Marshall on x

  So now off the grid/off the number train appreciate the congratsing that Dorsey didn't know what was happening. Even though here he clearly did know what was happening since he's talking about it. Maybe Dorsey didn't care or took too many micros of Psilocybin? https://twitter.com…

• @themrc @themrc on x

  Don't forget, Twitter and Facebook sabotaged the 2020 election. https://twitter.com/...

• @mgsiegler M.G. Siegler on x

  It might — and stick with me here — be interesting if Twitter actually surfaced the Hunter Biden laptop thread, rather than a million people screaming about the Hunter Biden laptop thread.

• @dellcam Dell Cameron on x

  It's almost like whoever owns twitter has some sort of right to decide what kind of content people can post here https://twitter.com/...

• @tweetsbyparker @tweetsbyparker on x

  good thing there hasn't been any influx of extreme people on this platform that would do something with the names and emails of people, right?

• @kenklippenstein Ken Klippenstein on x

  Many people think you should fact check before announcing news. Common misconception https://twitter.com/...

• @shem_infinite Shem Horne on x

  Elon leaking this publicly to Matt Taibbi is genius. Matt Taibbi hates Trump but still calls the corrupt media out on their lies about him. Basically one of the few people that would willingly report this that can't be accused of being a Trump stooge. I love it. https://twitter.c…

• @esqueer_ Alejandra Caraballo on x

  Matt Taibbi just doxed Jack Dorsey's private email address. Good going.

• @mmasnick Mike Masnick on x

  So far, we've... confirmed a bunch of things that Twitter said publicly, debunked the idea that the gov't demanded the story be removed, highlighted the challenges of content moderation... and revealed the personal email addresses of Jack and Ro Khanna (violating Twitter policy).

• @capitolhunters @capitolhunters on x

  People now marveling over Matt Taibbi's fall from his noble days covering Occupy Wall Street - remember that Tim Pool, who just hosted Kanye West and Nick Fuentes on his show, also got his start at Occupy. The alt-right is full of those slides from journalism to propaganda. 1/ ht…

• @mmasnick Mike Masnick on x

  So, uh, the big reveal of the gov't's involvement in the Hunter Biden laptop story... was that the gov't planned to punish tech companies for their 1st Amendment protected editorial discretion? Why isn't Matt Taibbi calling that out? https://twitter.com/...

• @mmasnick Mike Masnick on x

  Speaking of transparency... what kind of deal to @mtaibbi cut to get this nothingburger of a story, beyond having to tweet it out as if it was something “explosive”: https://twitter.com/...

• @johnbiggs John Biggs on x

  All I came for in this story was the reaction of former vp of global comms for Twitter, Brandon borrman. Thank god we got this enthralling thread to go with it. I'd be even more interested if they got a junior designer's take on hunters laptop. https://twitter.com/...

• @jamesclayton5 James Clayton on x

  Big hot GDPR mess here https://twitter.com/...

• @mmasnick Mike Masnick on x

  What happened to the Q&A?

• @jessekellydc Jesse Kelly on x

  As you await the Hunter Biden story to come out, remember that the FBI approached Facebook (and probably Twitter) BEFORE it was published. They knew about it because they were spying on everyone. We have a Cheka in this country that doesn't frighten you near as much as it should.

• @nicoleperlroth Nicole Perlroth on x

  Probably an unpopular hot take: There's nothing here we didn't already know: Platforms developed post- 2016 rules around the spread of hacked materials. Everyone involved knows this is messy business, especially when the source is not immediately clear. Twitter made a call... htt…

• @fmanjoo Farhad Manjoo on x

  THE TWITTER FILES: A half dozen screenshots of content moderation policy executives earnestly debating content moderation policy

• @mmasnick Mike Masnick on x

  How are the “no doxxing” folks feeling about Matt Taibbi doxxing both Jack Dorsey's and a sitting member of Congress' personal emails?

• @prchovanec Patrick Chovanec on x

  1. Some thoughts on the Twitter thread put out by @elonmusk and @mtaibbi. My purpose here isn't to promote or rebut, but evaluate and consider. I will try my best to be fair-minded.

• @alexstamos Alex Stamos on x

  Let's steelman @elonmusk's concern about political influence on the content decisions of major platforms. and come up with practical steps Musk could take to set a new standard: 1) Commit to releasing all communications by global political actors related to content moderation.

• @rmac18 @rmac18 on x

  Elon Musk is speaking on a Twitter Space right now about the opening up of the so-called “Twitter Files.” He claims he gave unfettered access to emails and documents to Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss and at least one other person.

• @ronfilipkowski @ronfilipkowski on x

  Trump this morning calls to be reinstated as president and declared the winner of 2020, or to have a new election immediately. https://twitter.com/...

• @travisallen02 Travis Allen on x

  Here's one of the “Twitter Files” posts revealing that Trump was contacting Twitter to delete tweets that he didn't like. This is a serious constitutional violation https://twitter.com/...

• @rmac18 @rmac18 on x

  Musk keeps cutting in and out of the Space because he's using the internet on his plane. That internet connection is being supplied by SpaceX's Starlink.

• @schwarz @schwarz on x

  I'd like to know whether Elon Musk gave reporters all the files documenting internal Twitter decisions including his, or just the files up until he took over https://twitter.com/...

• @rmac18 Ryan Mac on x

  Re: Taibbi's thread yesterday, Musk says that he was learning stuff as it was being tweeted and made it seem like he was independent of the process. Not sure how that squares with the fact that he noted that its launch was delayed because of “double-checking” of some facts. https…

• @carnage4life @carnage4life on x

  @MikeIsaac The idea that high in engagement is good for social media apps regardless of toxicity of the discourse is a meme among pundits which is quite wrong. Ironically, Twitter 2.0 is proving that now with huge revenue drops despite record engagement highs.

• @karaswisher Kara Swisher on x

  Now this from @alexstamos would be substantive. But substance is not the point here, is it? It's all performative nonsense from rage boys (see Apple kerfuffle) https://twitter.com/...

• @hutchinson Hutch on x

  A thoughtful, sober, dispassionate analysis of the Twitter files 👇 Whole thread is worth a read. https://twitter.com/...

• @rmac18 @rmac18 on x

  Musk once again claims that there is evidence of Twitter “meddling in elections”. He tweeted this morning suggesting that this happened in Brazil. Again, this is what he is *saying*.

• @mikeisaac @mikeisaac on x

  all of musks moves so far have been coinciding with him tweeting about “record highs” in engagement i am honestly not sure he has a coherent ideology but i do think he's trying to gin up activity to get people to stay engaged after actually looking under the hood

• @davidcorndc David Corn on x

  A good, sober analysis that shows @elonmusk is overselling this episode as a free-speech scandal—> https://twitter.com/...

• @tomcoates Tom Coates on x

  The people who will defend this are the same people who seem to think a private company can violate the first amendment. https://twitter.com/...

• @malwarejake Jake Williams on x

  Can confirm. It's especially time consuming when there's an expectation of tampering and nothing can be taken at face value. Doubly so when the evidence is surfaced from a campaign that was confirmed to have received assistance from a foreign government (whether desired or not). …

• @matthew_d_green Matthew Green on x

  So I think this whole Hunter Biden story is deeply stupid ("Twitter Files" 🙄) But as one researcher who was involved in authenticating part of the email corpus, let me just say that validating this stuff is time consuming. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...

• @anthony Anthony DeRosa on x

  This tweet, which Elon has proudly pinned refers to a supposed conspiracy where “government” officials (they were not) requested pornographic images be removed from Twitter https://www.thebulwark.com/... https://twitter.com/...

• @tedlieu Ted Lieu on x

  I read the tweets by @mtaibbi and @elonmusk on Hunter Biden so you don't have to. Here is the BIG REVEAL: Twitter got complaints from lots of folks, including the Biden campaign, the Trump White House and your cousin's friend. Sometimes Twitter listened and sometimes it didn't. h…

• @ma_franks Dr. Mary Anne Franks on x

  The fact that some people believe that a private company's decision to remove nonconsensual pornography from its platform violates the First Amendment is a truly depressing indictment of both constitutional literacy and basic ethics.

• @jaredlholt Jared Holt on x

  A good walk through of a the dud dropped yesterday. If Musk/Taibbi show up with an atomic bomb type of scoop in the coming days I'll gladly accept egg on my face. But for now, it's just a big bunch of nothing. https://twitter.com/...

• @brianklaas Brian Klaas on x

  A good, thoughtful thread. But the gist is that...a lot of energy has been spent on a story (pushed by Taibbi and Musk) that provides evidence for mostly unobjectionable behavior combined with assertions of more serious stuff, without any evidence. Lots of hype, little substance.…

• @alexstamos Alex Stamos on x

  A cynical person would assume that Musk is providing extremely limited transparency only to domestic media figures who share his views, but since Musk really does care about government interference I'm sure he will announce a plan to prevent it from all parties, globally.

• @palafo Patrick LaForge on x

  ("Moderation" is complicated. In some sense, it IS the product in social media) https://twitter.com/...

• @palafo Patrick LaForge on x

  “The communications mostly show a team debating how to finalize and communicate a difficult moderation decision.” https://www.theverge.com/...

• @therickwilson Rick Wilson on x

  Always read ⁦@Timodc⁩. Always. No, You Do Not Have a Constitutional Right to Post Hunter Biden's Dick Pic on Twitter - The Bulwark https://www.thebulwark.com/...

• @rmac18 @rmac18 on x

  1. Thread: THE USMNT FILES

• @biz Biz Stone on x

  Gross https://twitter.com/...

• @billkristol Bill Kristol on x

  “While normal humans who denied Republicans their red wave were enjoying an epic sports weekend, MAGA activists...were getting riled up about leaked emails revealing that troll accounts were not allowed to post ill-gotten photos on a company's platform...” https://www.thebulwark.…

• @alexeheath Alex Heath on x

  A former Twitter exec named in the thread https://twitter.com/...

• @timodc Tim Miller on x

  My Friday Night Dispatch: “No, You Do Not Have a Constitutional Right to Post Hunter Biden's Dick Pic on Twitter” https://www.thebulwark.com/...

• @JoeUchill@mastodon.social Joe Uchill on mastodon

  As someone who has been intimately involved with hack and leak campaigns in the past (sorry …

• @elonmusk Elon Musk on x

  What really happened with the Hunter Biden story suppression by Twitter will be published on Twitter at 5pm ET!

• @tbonier Tom Bonier on x

  Here's a summary of the Taibbi thread for those who don't want to wade through it: - Both Dems and GOPs asked twitter to delete certain tweets, and twitter sometimes obliged.

• @palafo Patrick LaForge on x

  It's possible to believe Twitter made the wrong call on limiting a news article and the right call on deleting stolen pictures of genitalia while also noting the right of an owner to decide what it allows to be published on its site. First Amendment only limits the government. ht…

• @halsparks Hal Sparks on x

  Tune in tomorrow for another exciting Episode of.... Over Promise Under Deliver With your host.... Ellllllon Muuuuusssskk. Next week, Monkeys not really typing with their brains! https://twitter.com/...

• @swankmotron Bryan Young on x

  E*on seems like he doesn't know what's going on and definitely has no idea what he's talking about. Kind of a dope in an unlovable sort of way. https://twitter.com/...

• @prchovanec Patrick Chovanec on x

  8. What I did see in Taibbi's thread was a debate within Twitter whether this was a justified decision or not. That strikes me as healthy and normal, regardless of the decision made. The absence of such debate would be more worrying.

• @mmasnick Mike Masnick on x

  To be even clearer: both campaigns *flagged* tweets that *might violate Twitter's terms of service* (just like your or I or anyone could do), and Twitter looked to see if they violated policy, and then did delete them *if* they did. https://twitter.com/...

• @mmasnick Mike Masnick on x

  Meanwhile, would love to see the editorial discussion at the NY Post on whether to run the laptop story in the first place. I do wonder how that would look compared to what was revealed regarding Twitter internal discussion.

• @carnage4life @carnage4life on x

  The big difference between Twitter 1.0 and Twitter 2.0 is that nothing gets blamed on Jack for how Twitter used to run and everything gets blamed on Elon for how Twitter runs now. It's also a meaningful insight into their management styles.

• @prchovanec Patrick Chovanec on x

  7. I think he implies that the overall political environment may have swayed Twitter in its decision, but that's a very different argument - and one which is true of many private and corporate decisions, I suspect, on many topics.

• @ggreenwald Glenn Greenwald on x

  This seems at least in part designed to get people to stop talking about Kanye's banning - and other accounts this week - in a way that seems at least arguably inconsistent with his stated principles. But I guess it worked on me, too, since I'm *very interested in seeing these: h…

• @swedetrap R.W. on x

  I think what they really show is that Musk will stop at nothing to “prove” he's saved twitter and if he can stir up some additional buzz worthy controversy along the way, all the better. https://twitter.com/...

• @ggreenwald Glenn Greenwald on x

  I'll bet anything that both the US Security State and various employees and representatives of the corporate media — to say nothing of the scam “disinformation industry” — were involved in pressuring Twitter to censor the Biden laptop story right before the 2020 election. https:/…

• @donaldjtrumpjr Donald Trump Jr on x

  This will get interesting. I'll have a lot to say about it given that I did 50 hours of congressional testimony on the Russia Russia Russia hoax, that they all knew was a lie but all pushed anyway. https://twitter.com/...

• @joshtpm Josh Marshall on x

  peak Glenn. Musk using hunter Biden story to deflect from the scandal of suspending Kanye for going full Nazi. But also Glenn's here for the fake Biden story. https://twitter.com/...

• @silvermanjacob Jacob Silverman on x

  This seems like a stunt to distract from the fact that Musk is a sociopathic billionaire with no core principles. But it is working on me. https://twitter.com/...