Full Thread: The Twitter Files Exposed, Part 1

I’ll have MUCH more on this story tomorrow, but for right now I want to get a few things up quickly.

Let’s start with the raw data.

Here is the full thread, although some Tweets have already been edited or deleted.

We’ll cover more of that next…including one that has to do with pizza!

But now for anyone who missed it, here was Elon Musk posting all the receipts from Twitters treasonous Election interference!

First, a clarification….

Elon apparently gave the story to journalist Matt Taibbi, which is why he’s the one posting everything.

Here we go (and yes, I know some are missing and some are duplicates):

1. Thread: THE TWITTER FILES

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 2, 2022

3. The “Twitter Files” tell an incredible story from inside one of the world’s largest and most influential social media platforms. It is a Frankensteinian tale of a human-built mechanism grown out the control of its designer.

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 2, 2022

5. In an early conception, Twitter more than lived up to its mission statement, giving people “the power to create and share ideas and information instantly, without barriers.”

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 2, 2022

7. Slowly, over time, Twitter staff and executives began to find more and more uses for these tools. Outsiders began petitioning the company to manipulate speech as well: first a little, then more often, then constantly.

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 2, 2022

9. Celebrities and unknowns alike could be removed or reviewed at the behest of a political party: pic.twitter.com/4uzkHnQ65E

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 2, 2022

11. This system wasn't balanced. It was based on contacts. Because Twitter was and is overwhelmingly staffed by people of one political orientation, there were more channels, more ways to complain, open to the left (well, Democrats) than the right. https://t.co/sa1uVRNhuH pic.twitter.com/K1xmqQ0TrD

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 3, 2022

12. The resulting slant in content moderation decisions is visible in the documents you’re about to read. However, it’s also the assessment of multiple current and former high-level executives.

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 3, 2022

Okay, there was more throat-clearing about the process, but screw it, let's jump forward

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 3, 2022

16. The Twitter Files, Part One: How and Why Twitter Blocked the Hunter Biden Laptop Story

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 3, 2022

18. Twitter took extraordinary steps to suppress the story, removing links and posting warnings that it may be “unsafe.” They even blocked its transmission via direct message, a tool hitherto reserved for extreme cases, e.g. child pornography.

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 3, 2022

20.This led public policy executive Caroline Strom to send out a polite WTF query. Several employees noted that there was tension between the comms/policy teams, who had little/less control over moderation, and the safety/trust teams: pic.twitter.com/0IFnVPCOgY

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 3, 2022

22. Although several sources recalled hearing about a “general” warning from federal law enforcement that summer about possible foreign hacks, there’s no evidence – that I've seen – of any government involvement in the laptop story. In fact, that might have been the problem…

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 3, 2022

24. “They just freelanced it,” is how one former employee characterized the decision. “Hacking was the excuse, but within a few hours, pretty much everyone realized that wasn’t going to hold. But no one had the guts to reverse it.”

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 3, 2022

26. By this point “everyone knew this was fucked,” said one former employee, but the response was essentially to err on the side of… continuing to err. pic.twitter.com/2wJMFAUBoe

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 3, 2022

28. To which former Deputy General Counsel Jim Baker again seems to advise staying the non-course, because “caution is warranted”: pic.twitter.com/tg4D0gLWI6

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 3, 2022

30. In one humorous exchange on day 1, Democratic congressman Ro Khanna reaches out to Gadde to gently suggest she hop on the phone to talk about the “backlash re speech.” Khanna was the only Democratic official I could find in the files who expressed concern. pic.twitter.com/TSSYOs5vfy

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 3, 2022

32.Khanna tries to reroute the conversation to the First Amendment, mention of which is generally hard to find in the files: pic.twitter.com/Tq6l7VMuQL

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 3, 2022

34.NetChoice lets Twitter know a “blood bath” awaits in upcoming Hill hearings, with members saying it's a "tipping point," complaining tech has “grown so big that they can’t even regulate themselves, so government may need to intervene.” pic.twitter.com/2EE1NlWQ5k

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 3, 2022

36.Twitter files continued:
"THE FIRST AMENDMENT ISN’T ABSOLUTE”
Szabo’s letter contains chilling passages relaying Democratic lawmakers’ attitudes. They want “more” moderation, and as for the Bill of Rights, it's "not absolute" pic.twitter.com/cWdNYIprp8

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 3, 2022

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.

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 3, 2022

There are multiple instances in the files of Dorsey intervening to question suspensions and other moderation actions, for accounts across the political spectrum

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 3, 2022

The problem with the "hacked materials" ruling, several sources said, was that this normally required an official/law enforcement finding of a hack. But such a finding never appears throughout what one executive describes as a "whirlwind" 24-hour, company-wide mess. pic.twitter.com/aONKCROEOd

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 3, 2022

It's been a whirlwind 96 hours for me, too. There is much more to come, including answers to questions about issues like shadow-banning, boosting, follower counts, the fate of various individual accounts, and more. These issues are not limited to the political right.

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 3, 2022

Good night, everyone. Thanks to all those who picked up the phone in the last few days.

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 3, 2022

So there you have it!

Promised and delivered!

There is enough in here, in my opinion, to send many people away (or executed? Is that still the penalty for treason and election interference?) for life for interfering in an election.

And it’s all on paper in black and white!

They sure weren’t very smart, were they?

Next I’ll bring you two major things that jumped out at me.