New York: The fifth installment of Elon Musk’s Twitter Files revealed that staffers believed that tweets written by former US President Donald Trump around the events of 6 January 2021, had were not really in violation of policies despite the company saying it was at that time.
Twitter Files Part Five
Bari Weiss of The Free Press shared a thread titled, “The Removal of Trump from Twitter,” writing, “For years, Twitter had resisted calls both internal and external to ban Trump on the grounds that blocking a world leader from the platform or removing their controversial tweets would hide important information that people should be able to see and debate.”
“But after January 6, as @mtaibbi and @shellenbergermd have documented, pressure grew, both inside and outside of Twitter, to ban Trump,” she further wrote.
Stating that there were dissenters inside Twitter, she went on to cite how one employee of the platform wrote that maybe because the person was from China, he/she deeply understood how censorship can destroy the public conversation.
“But voices like that one appear to have been a distinct minority within the company. Across Slack channels, many Twitter employees were upset that Trump hadn’t been banned earlier,” shared Weiss, adding, “After January 6, Twitter employees organized to demand their employer ban Trump. “There is a lot of employee advocacy happening,” said one Twitter employee.”
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Following a public outcry of over 300 Twitter employees who signed an open letter published in the Washington Post pressuring then-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to ban Trump, Weiss revealed, “Twitter staff assigned to evaluate tweets quickly concluded that Trump had not violated Twitter’s policies.”
“It’s pretty clear he’s saying the ‘American Patriots’ are the ones who voted for him and not the terrorists (we can call them that, right?) from Wednesday,” shared another staffer.
Weiss in the tweet shared, “Twitter’s safety team decides that Trump’s 7:44 am ET tweet is also not in violation. They are unequivocal: “it’s a clear no vio (violations). It’s just to say he’s not attending the inauguration.”
“Less than 90 minutes after Twitter employees had determined that Trump’s tweets were not in violation of Twitter policy, Vijaya Gadde–Twitter’s Head of Legal, Policy, and Trust–asked whether it could, in fact, be ‘coded incitement to further violence,'” Weiss reported.
“A few minutes later, Twitter employees on the ‘scaled enforcement team’ suggest that Trump’s tweet may have violated Twitter’s Glorification of Violence policy–if you interpreted the phrase ‘American Patriots’ to refer to the rioters.”
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According to Weiss, things escalated from there and after Dorsey had requested simpler language to explain why Trump would be banned, Roth reacted to staffers, “[G]od help us [this] makes me think he wants to share it publicly.”
“One hour later, Twitter announces Trump’s permanent suspension ‘due to the risk of further incitement of violence.’ Many at Twitter were ecstatic,” Weiss wrote.
Weiss ended her tweet by writing ultimately the concerns about Twitter’s efforts to censor news about Hunter Biden’s laptop, blacklist disfavored views, and ban a president “aren’t about the past choices of executives in a social media company. They’re about the power of a handful of people at a private company to influence the public discourse and democracy.”
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