The information appeared on the form on the evening of December 2. tweet thread by journalist Matt Taibbi. It doesn’t directly state that the source of the information is Musk himself, he just specifies “internal sources,” but Musk’s comments clearly point to that.

what started it all

• As you may remember, three weeks before the presidential elections in the USA in October 2020, The New York Post published an article about the laptop of Hunter Biden, son of the then US presidential candidate Joe Biden.
• The owner of a repair shop in Delaware brought the computer to reporters. At the same time, other publications could not confirm the conclusion about the actual owner of the device, as it was exclusively provided by the Post.
• Found on laptop Emails and files showing Hunter trading influence on Ukrainian businessmenas well as a 12-minute video of him using drugs and having sex.
• After the story was published, Twitter banned anyone from posting a link to the story or posting it via direct message. The social network marked this material as hacked. Additionally, his Post account was suspended for several days and banned from posting anything.

The social network, which is not yet owned by Elon Musk, said it could not confirm the story, implying that it did not trust the Post. It’s worth noting, however, that verifying news stories is hardly a part of Twitter’s stated purpose. Thus, to the community, this seemed more like a deliberate interference with the political process than an attempt to find the truth and protect users from misinformation. Twitter’s decision to embed this story became a major scandal in American politics, and later the company’s new CEO, Elon Musk, promised to present a report on the controversial decision.

What has become known

Matt Taibbi’s thread includes screenshots of correspondence between Twitter management, members of the Biden campaign, and foreign political leaders. There’s even a “secret” message from Twitter’s deputy attorney general at one point.

Emails show The Twitter team is trying to explain its reaction to the New York Post article that broke the news about the files leaked from Hunter Biden’s laptop.and whether the correct moderation decision was made.

It was unclear at the time whether the material was genuine, so Twitter decided to block the link or display of the Post article, citing its policy of sharing hacked material. According to Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of trust and security at the time, the company decided to be careful “taking into account the lessons” from the past. The move was already controversial at the time among free speech advocates, primarily Republicans, who were concerned about Twitter’s decision to block information.

The Verge writes that Musk likely hopes the leaked information will show that Twitter staffers (many of whom are ex) decided to act in this way to help the “sneaky” Joe Biden win the election, but these messages are essentially the team discussing how it will be concluded and how it will turn out. is showing. report a difficult moderation decision.

I’m trying to understand the political basis for labeling this story as dangerous. Shall we mark stories like this as dangerous too?
– wrote one of the former employees of the public relations department.

Musk claims this is evidence of government interference, but it certainly isn’t. The emails don’t show how the initial decision was made – only subsequent emails where Twitter admins discussed whether it was the right choice. Taibbi also reported that Jack Dorsey, who was still CEO of Twitter at the time, was unaware of the decision. Additionally, “there is no evidence of government involvement in the laptop story.”

Someone will need to change their email address

Journalist Taibbi’s carelessness appears to have exposed the personal email addresses of two top Twitter executives. One of them is Jack Dorsey, whose address can be seen in one of the screenshots. This tweet has now been deleted. However, the latter, which revealed the Gmail address of social media rep Ro Khanna, is still available. The latter confirmed to The Verge that the address was genuine. In the published screenshots, both Dorsey and Hannah criticize the moderation decision.

No one is commenting on this at the moment – neither Jack Dorsey, nor Ro Hanna, nor Twitter, which has recently been left without a PR department.