5 things to know about the first 2 installments of the 'Twitter Files'
The release of Elon Musk's "Twitter Files" has seemingly bolstered long-standing suspicions about the efforts of the social media company to suppress information that does not align with its employees' preferred opinions and narratives.
Since purchasing Twitter in October, Musk has committed to free speech as a top priority, vowing transparency.
He has shared information with independent journalists, including Matt Taibbi and Bari Weiss, documenting efforts by Twitter officials to suppress information that does not align with their political stances. Taibbi released the first part of the "Twitter Files" on Dec. 2. Weiss published the second installment last Thursday. The third and fourth installments were unveiled over the weekend.
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The information released in the first batch of files outlines efforts to censor and discredit a New York Post article about content found on Hunter Biden's laptop less than three weeks before the 2020 presidential election where his father, Joe Biden, was the Democratic nominee. The emails in question show how the son of then-Vice President Biden introduced his father to a top official at a Ukrainian energy firm less than a year before he asked the Ukrainian government to fire a prosecutor investigating the company.
The contents of subsequent releases of the "Twitter Files" showed a coordinated campaign to "blacklist" accounts that shared information that deviated from the preferred narratives of the company itself, which often aligned with the views favored by the Democratic Party and the mainstream media. The third set of facts to emerge outlined collaboration between company leaders and "federal agencies," culminating in former President Donald Trump's removal from the site on Jan. 8, 2021.
Trump weighed in on the "Twitter Files" nearly a week before the third installment focusing on the suspension of his account became public. The former president drew criticism after calling for "the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution" because of "Massive Fraud" stemming from a collaboration between "Big Tech Companies, the DNC, & the Democrat Party" that he believes contributed to his loss to Biden in the 2020 presidential election.
Trump's remarks on Truth Social received condemnation from both Republicans and Democrats.
Twitter is facing a lawsuit filed by the Republican Attorneys General of Louisiana and Missouri, maintaining that "top Biden administration officials allegedly colluded with social media companies to censor freedom of speech on a number of topics, including COVID-19."
The following pages highlight five things to know about the first two installments of the "Twitter Files."
Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: ryan.foley@christianpost.com
