Topline
Twitter’s co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey urged Elon Musk to release “without filter” Twitter’s internal communications about moderation decisions relating to a report about President Joe Biden’s son Hunter—dubbed the “Twitter files”—days after the first set of files published by journalist Matt Taibbi failed to deliver any surprising new details.
Jack Dorsey creator, co-founder, and Chairman of Twitter and co-founder & CEO of Square speaks on … [+]
Key Facts
Over the past week, Musk has been hyping the release of internal Twitter communications—which he has named “Twitter Files”—claiming that they will disclose the platform’s previous efforts to suppress free speech, especially from conservative voices.
In his first public reaction to the release, Dorsey tweeted Musk Wednesday, saying if his goal was to establish transparency and trust, “why not just release everything without filter and let people judge for themselves?”
Dorsey then urged Musk to make “everything public now,” including all of Twitter’s discussions around current and future actions on content moderation.
Prior to the remark, the Twitter co-founder had remained silent about Musk’s claims that the social media platform had unfairly suppressed free speech by censoring an October 2020 New York Post story about then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s alleged ties with a Ukrainian energy firm which made payments to his son Hunter.
While the first set of files published Friday by journalist Matt Taibbi failed to provide any shocking details, it failed to retract Dorsey and Rep. Ro Khanna’s (D-Calif.) personal email IDs.
Key Background
The first set of Twitter Files was released after Musk shared Twitter’s internal communications with Taibbi. The documents demonstrated that Twitter officials debated whether or not to suppress the New York Post story, the reporting of which was based on data recovered from Hunter Biden’s personal laptop. A decision was eventually made to ban the story from the platform over concerns that it may have been in violation of Twitter’s policy on the publishing of hacked materials. This ban was reversed within days and Dorsey admitted it was a mistake.
News Peg
Taibbi said he found “no evidence, that I’ve seen, of any government involvement in the laptop story”—dismissing a popular Republican conspiracy that the FBI was involved in the decision. The report also mentioned that both the Trump White House and Biden’s campaigns requested Twitter to take down certain content. In one of his tweets, Taibbi mentioned that Twitter had deleted five tweets following a request from the “Biden team” but failed to note that the tweets in question were nude photos of Hunter Biden which were shared without his consent. Conservatives appeared to latch on to this tweet by claiming it was an example of government censorship—even though the Trump administration was in power at this time. Musk himself tweeted without evidence that Twitter had acted “under orders from the government to suppress free speech, with no judicial review.”
Further Reading
Musk’s ‘Twitter Files’: Internal Hunter Biden Debate Revealed With Much Hype But No Bombshells (Forbes)
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2022/12/07/twitter-files-founder-jack-dorsey-urges-musk-to-release-everything-without-filter/