Media not covering Twitter files because it vindicates conservatives: Jason Chaffetz
Fox News contributor Jason Chaffetz calls out liberal media for not covering the Twitter files and discusses the impact of Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema leaving the Democratic Party.
Liberals on Twitter panned the latest "Twitter Files" revelations from Elon Musk and journalist Matt Taibbi Friday which showed the internal communications of Twitter leading up to the decision to ban former President Donald Trump from the social media platform in early 2021.
The third "Twitter Files" installment – this time dubbed, "THE REMOVAL OF DONALD TRUMP," presented documents showing that Twitter staff banned Trump not solely based on tweets he made during January 6th, but on the "context surrounding" Trump and his supporters’ actions "over the course of the election and frankly last 4+ years."
In emails, staff members acknowledged this was a novel method of punishment considering they had previously suspended accounts on a "tweet-by-tweet basis."
This April 26, 2017, file photo shows the Twitter app icon on a mobile phone in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
Documents Taibbi provided, at the behest of Musk, also revealed that high level Twitter staffers, including former Global Head of Trust and Safety Yoel Roth, were "also clearly liaising with federal enforcement and intelligence agencies about moderation of election-related content."
In post 20 of the extensive Twitter thread, Taibbi provided documents showing "that Roth not only met weekly with the FBI and DHS, but with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI)."
As Taibbi described in his series of posts, these high-level staffers like Roth, and Twitter Head of Legal, Policy, and Trust Vijaya Gadde "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."
A notable exchange from the documents revealed Twitter staffers mentioning their "partnerships" with "FBI/DHS" and expressing unease over whether it was safe for the public to know about these partnerships when explaining how they’ve gone about fighting "misinfo."
This third installment came one week after Taibbi composed the first Twitter Files thread, and just a couple of days after former New York Times journalist Bari Weiss’ Twitter Files thread revealed that Twitter "shadowbanned" prominent conservatives on the platform.
Though liberals sneered at these revelations that Twitter worked with U.S. law enforcement agencies, perhaps even to silence conservations, with several relegating the thread to the world of whacky conspiracy theory.
The Atlantic staff writer Tom Nichols panned the big revelations, tweeting, "I guess it was inevitable that this was going to come down to Musk siding with the conspiracy kooks."
Liberal author Michael Harriot tweeted, "Matt Taibbi and Elon Musk rummaged through millions of emails & Slack messages from pre-Musk Twitter & all they found was employees deliberating & consulting w/each other about how to fairly apply & enforce rules. But I get it.. To a rich white man, that seems very oppressive."
BERLIN, GERMANY - JANUARY 09: A person tabs on the suspended account of Donald Trump, President of the United States of America, on Twitter on January 09, 2021 in Berlin, Germany. The American microblogging and social networking service Twitter suspended Trump after his fans stormed the United States Capitol in Washington and to prevent further incitements for violence. (Photo by Florian Gaertner/Photothek via Getty Images)
Left-wing journalist Keith Olbermann urged the U.S. Senate to investigate Musk over him revealing the inner workings of his own company, writing, "It's time for Senate hearings into what scheme @elonmusk is up to, what terrorist or foreign influence is involved, and what can be done to remove this public medium from his malign control."
Tech journalist Paris Marx blasted Musk and the "fake journalists" who helped him release the files. He wrote, "Probably a good time to remind everyone that regardless of what Elon Musk, his reactionary advisors, and fake journalists want you to believe, Twitter admitted its algorithms were biased in favor of right-wing accounts just last year."
Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., dismissed the revelations, saying they amounted to "gaslighting" on the part of Musk. He tweeted, "@elonmusk is not stupid, but this faux ‘Twitter files’ stuff is stupid. In 2020, the whole world knew what Trump was tweeting. Media outlets breathlessly covered his tweets. Millions and millions of people followed him. Claiming Trump was silenced in 2020 is pure gaslighting."
Lincoln Project member Rick Wilson mocked the release and Trump supporters, tweeting, "Perhaps when we get to The Twitter Files Part 57371 something here will match the breathless MAGA fauxrage."
The Atlantic staff writer got cute with his interpretation of Taibbi’s thread, writing, "Staggered by the revelation that an attempted violent coup d’etat by a serving president of the United States could potentially result in some reduction of his social media access."
ADL research fellow Mark Pitcavage lampooned the revelations as well, tweeting, "THREAD: THE TWITTER FILES PART THREE. TWITTER’S SECRET LENGTH LIMITS. In this thread, I use my special access to internal Twitter records to expose the methods put in place--at the behest of Hillary's emails--to limit the length of *all* conservative tweets to 280 characters."
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Mother Jones DC bureau chief David Corn responded to the thread, saying, "@elonmusk seems to be on the side of election deniers and appears to believe their conspiracy theories are more important than Trump’s actual efforts to overturn an election & his incitement of insurrectionist violence. Bad news he’s in charge of an important civic platform."
Elon Musk's ownership of Twitter has garnered waves of criticism from mainstream media. (Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue)