The budding social media CEO and billionaire Elon Musk released “Twitter Files” 2.0 Thursday. Musk worked with former New York Times columnist Bari Weiss for the new release of documents that revealed shadow bans and conservative blacklisting. The internal system at Twitter was inundated with various “blacklists” and detailed how the accounts were flagged.
Several notable people were on a “Trends Blacklist.” Jay Bhattacharya, a health policy professor from Stanford University, was on the blacklist after they voiced opposition to the COVID-19 lockdowns. The radical Libs of the TikTok account, which voiced opinions on harmful gender ideology spread throughout the American education system, was also banned. Conservative commentator Dan Bongino was on a “Search Blacklist.” The documents also revealed Turning Point President USA President Charlie Kirk with an account marked “Do Not Amplify.”
THREAD: THE TWITTER FILES PART TWO.
TWITTER’S SECRET BLACKLISTS.
— Bari Weiss (@bariweiss) December 9, 2022
Documents revealed that several accounts had been flagged with “Recent Abuse Strike” on the internal database. Basic information that belonged to the accounts was detailed as well. Dates and times of an account becoming “Twitter Blue Verified” or “High Profile” were noted.
Weiss shared screenshots of internal messages for Twitter’s former head of safety and integrity, Yoel Roth. The former executive appeared to ask for research on “non-removal policy interventions like disabling engagements and deamplification/visibility filtering.” Roth’s internal messages suggest the social media platform would ramp up a defense algorithm of conservatives even further.
The first installment of the “Twitter Files” was released by independent journalist Matt Taibbi. The public was shown internal debates in the company over handling the Hunter Biden laptop story. Leftists dismissed the revelations, calling the report “old news.” The story of Hunter Biden’s laptop may be old news, but the level of suppression is not — unless the left made a vague admission of the knowledge of speech suppression in the dismissal.
Musk’s release of the “Twitter Files” comes about one month after the company takeover. The billionaire bought the social media company to remodel it back to a “free speech” platform. Through document sharing and partnering with investigative journalists, Musk bravely dismantled the previous management system, which showed bias against the political right.
