Emma-Jo Morris2
Dec 2022
Internal Twitter deliberations surrounding the censorship of the New York Post‘s
reporting on Hunter Biden’s “laptop from hell” reveal the company’s
management engaging in willful ignorance of the facts of the story in
order to justify censoring it on the platform.
Matt Taibbi, the journalist tasked by Elon Musk to
reveal the internal communications, explains that Twitter management at
the time used the company’s hacked materials policy “as an excuse” to
squelch the Post’s reporting, but knew it “wasn’t going to hold.” The
reason it “wasn’t going to hold” was because the Post explained
that the reporting was based on a hard drive abandoned at a computer
repair shop, not “hacked material,” and produced a federal subpoena
given to the repair-shop owner to bolster the claim.
Former Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth messaged colleague Vijaya
Gadde, “The policy basis is hacked materials — though, as discussed,
this is an emerging situation where the facts remain unclear. Given the
SEVERE risks here and lessons of 2016, we’re erring on the side of
including a warning and preventing this content from being amplified.”
Another member of management, Brandon Borrman,
then asks, “Can we truthfully claim that this is part of the policy?”
Jim Baker, Twitter’s then-Deputy Legal Counsel and former senior member
of the FBI, adds, “[We] need more facts to assess whether the materials
were hacked. At this stage, however, it is reasonable for us to assume
that they may have been and that conclusion is warranted.”Baker then
admits, per the Post‘s reporting in the story in
question, that there is evidence “indicating that the computer was
either abandoned and/or the owner consented to allow the repair shop to
access it for at least some purposes.”But during the time this communication was underway, Twitter did not contact the New York Post to inquire about whether the reporting was based on hacked material, and the story in question explained exactly how the Post obtained the material it was reporting on...............To Read More.....
By Art Moore December 2, 2022 