The Twitter Files Part 4-6

Elon Musk became the owner and CEO of Twitter on October 27, 2022, after acquiring the social media company for $44 billion. Since December, Elon Musk has recruited investigative journalists to uncover corruption from previous Twitter employees and executives. Elon gave each journalist full access to Twitter servers and Slack messaging channels from previous Twitter management. Elon believes in order to move forward with Twitter; Twitter must be fully transparent. The Twitter Files are evidence of corruption and censorship from previous Twitter management. This series will summarize each release of the Twitter Files.
Disclaimer: TIME IS MONEY does not share an opinion on The Twitter Files.
- All images are links to the tweets.
- Images of text (in the tweets) are slack messages between employees, politicians, and executives.
- To view the messages, click the image to be redirected to the tweet.
Part 4:
1. TWITTER FILES, PART 4
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) December 10, 2022
The Removal of Donald Trump: January 7
As the pressure builds, Twitter executives build the case for a permanent ban
- After the events of January 6th, Twitter became pressured to ban Trump.
- Before the ban on Twitter, Meta (Facebook) bans Trump on all platforms.
“Facebook’s suspension of Trump now puts Twitter in an awkward position. If Trump does indeed return to Twitter, the pressure on Twitter will ramp up to find a pretext on which to ban him as well.”
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) December 11, 2022
Indeed. And as @bariweiss will show tomorrow, that’s exactly what happened.
/END
But after the events of Jan 6, the internal and external pressure on Twitter CEO @jack grows.
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) December 10, 2022
Former First Lady @michelleobama , tech journalist @karaswisher , @ADL , high-tech VC @ChrisSacca , and many others, publicly call on Twitter to permanently ban Trump. pic.twitter.com/RzNj7WJReg
- Twitter receives many messages and tweets from influencers requesting a permanent ban on Trump.
Part 5:
Under pressure from hundreds of activist employees, Twitter deplatforms Trump, a sitting US President, even though they themselves acknowledge that he didn’t violate the rules: https://t.co/60PplztV4k
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 12, 2022
5. “Our mission is to provide a forum that enables people to be informed and to engage their leaders directly,” the company wrote in 2019. Twitter’s aim was to “protect the public’s right to hear from their leaders and to hold them to account.”https://t.co/rtQjkQQxSs
— Bari Weiss (@bariweiss) December 12, 2022
- Twitter struggled with the decision to ban Trump because of the ideals they were built on.
- Slack messages show Twitter employees acknowledged Trump did not violate the terms of service.
- Quotes from employees ⬇️:
- “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.”
- “I also am not seeing clear or coded incitement in the DJT tweet,” wrote Anika Navaroli, a Twitter policy official. “I’ll respond in the elections channel and say that our team has assessed and found no vios” or violations “for the DJT one.”
- Another employee agreed: “Don’t see the incitement angle here.”
- Next, 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. It’s just to say he’s not attending the inauguration”
17. (Later, Navaroli would testify to the House Jan. 6 committee:“For months I had been begging and anticipating and attempting to raise the reality that if nothing—if we made no intervention into what I saw occuring, people were going to die.”)
— Bari Weiss (@bariweiss) December 12, 2022
- After Navaroli acknowledged Trump didn't promote violence, she testified to the January 6th committee, saying: “For months I had been begging and anticipating and attempting to raise the reality that if nothing if we did not intervene what I saw occurring, people were going to die.”
- "To understand Twitter’s decision to ban Trump, we must consider how Twitter deals with other heads of state and political leaders, including in Iran, Nigeria, and Ethiopia."-Bari Weiss
21. In October 2020, the former Malaysian Prime Minister said it was “a right” for Muslims to “kill millions of French people.”
— Bari Weiss (@bariweiss) December 12, 2022
Twitter deleted his tweet for “glorifying violence,” but he remains on the platform. The tweet below was taken from the Wayback Machine: pic.twitter.com/7tgxgCw9I9

40. Merkel’s spokesperson called Twitter’s decision to ban Trump from its platform “problematic” and added that the freedom of opinion is of “elementary significance.”
— Bari Weiss (@bariweiss) December 12, 2022
Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny criticized the ban as “an unacceptable act of censorship.”
- Part 5 concludes the end of the Twitter Files relating to the ban of DJT.
- After Elon Musk bought Twitter, Trump's account was reinstated.
Part 6:
- Part 6 of the Twitter Files revolves around the FBI requesting specific tweets, accounts, and hashtags to be deleted or banned.
KABOOM 💥💥💥💥💥 https://t.co/TS3jFZ51VR
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 16, 2022
4. Between January 2020 and November 2022, there were over 150 emails between the FBI and former Twitter Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth.
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 16, 2022
6. But a surprisingly high number are requests by the FBI for Twitter to take action on election misinformation, even involving joke tweets from low-follower accounts.
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 16, 2022
14.Twitter personnel in that case went on to look for reasons to suspend all four accounts, including @fromma, whose tweets are almost all jokes (see sample below), including his “civic misinformation” of Nov. 8: pic.twitter.com/gwiDtPcWZv
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 16, 2022

31. In this March, 2021 email, an FBI liaison thanks a senior Twitter exec for the chance to speak to “you and the team,” then delivers a packet of “products”: pic.twitter.com/POOpYrd9q8
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 16, 2022
- Slack messages and emails confirmed members of the FBI censored free speech on Twitter.
- This set of Twitter Files showed the people how the US government suppressed free speech.


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