1. Thread: THE TWITTER FILES
Matt Taibbi
34.9K posts
Matt Taibbi
@mtaibbi
Author of INSANE CLOWN PRESIDENT, I CAN’T BREATHE, SPANKING THE DONKEY, and SMELLS LIKE DEAD ELEPHANTS
- 1. THREAD: The Twitter Files THE REMOVAL OF DONALD TRUMP Part One: October 2020-January 6th
- Instead of chasing child sex predators or terrorists, the FBI has agents — lots of them — analyzing and mass-flagging social media posts. Not as part of any criminal investigation, but as a permanent, end-in-itself surveillance operation. People should not be okay with this.
- Replying to @mtaibbi8. By 2020, requests from connected actors to delete tweets were routine. One executive would write to another: “More to review from the Biden team.” The reply would come back: “Handled.”
- 1. THREAD: The Twitter Files, Part Six TWITTER, THE FBI SUBSIDIARY
- Replying to @mtaibbi19. White House spokeswoman Kaleigh McEnany was locked out of her account for tweeting about the story, prompting a furious letter from Trump campaign staffer Mike Hahn, who seethed: “At least pretend to care for the next 20 days.”
- Replying to @mtaibbi11. 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. opensecrets.org/orgs/twitter/s…
- Looking forward to going through all the tweets complaining about “PR for the richest man on earth,” and seeing how many of them have run stories for anonymous sources at the FBI, CIA, the Pentagon, White House, etc.
- Replying to @mtaibbi18. 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.
- Replying to @mtaibbi9. Celebrities and unknowns alike could be removed or reviewed at the behest of a political party:
- Replying to @mtaibbi2. What you’re about to read is the first installment in a series, based upon thousands of internal documents obtained by sources at Twitter.
- Replying to @mtaibbi3. 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.
- Replying to @mtaibbi17. On October 14, 2020, the New York Post published BIDEN SECRET EMAILS, an expose based on the contents of Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop:
- Replying to @mtaibbi7. 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.
