The third installment of Elon Musk’s release of internal Twitter communications is devoted to the days surrounding the social media company’s decision to permanently ban President Trump.
Yesterday, we detailed part 1 – via veteran journalist Matt Taibbi, which focused on the period leading up to January 6th, including details about Twitter executives regular meetings with the FBI and DHS.
Today, in part 2, Michael Shellenberger reveals the chaos that ran wild inside Twitter on January 7th, as the same executives took decisions into their own hands to reassure ‘a few engineers’ that “someone is doing something about this.”
The Removal of Donald Trump: January 7
As the pressure builds, Twitter executives build the case for a permanent ban.
On Jan 7, senior Twitter execs:
- create justifications to ban Trump
- seek a change of policy for Trump alone, distinct from other political leaders
- express no concern for the free speech or democracy implications of a ban
This #TwitterFiles is reported with @lwoodhouse
For years, Twitter had resisted calls to ban Trump.
“Blocking a world leader from Twitter,” it wrote in 2018, “would hide important info… [and] hamper necessary discussion around their words and actions.”https://t.co/qaqklHOHjc
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) December 10, 2022
But after the events of Jan 6, the internal and external pressure on Twitter CEO @jack grows.
Continue reading “THE TWITTER FILES: The Removal Of Donald Trump, Part 2”
