This was to be a major change in communication for Elon Musk, since he took over Twitter. A way to show that the social network would be more transparent, less compromising and less biased in its choices, according to the billionaire. On Saturday, journalist Matt Taibbi posted a lengthy thread of social media posts, largely prompted by Elon Musk, to the “Twitter Archives.”
• What are these famous Twitter files?
The “Twitter Archives” “tell an incredible story from the inside of one of the world’s largest and most influential social media platforms,” Matt Taibbi writes at the outset. “It is the Frankenstein story of a man-made mechanism, developed under the control of his designer.”
Beyond lyricism, the journalist’s publications return to a controversial Twitter episode dating from 2020, which directly concerns Hunter Biden, the son of current US President Joe Biden. The Twitter files are supposed to say, with supporting internal documents, that Twitter erred in censoring a post implicating Hunter Biden three weeks before the US presidential election.
For critics of Twitter’s previous management, starting with Elon Musk, the episode is proof that the social network influenced the US electoral ballot by favoring Democrats despite information.
• What was Hunter Biden charged with?
In 2016. While Russia seized Crimea, the US administration calls for the departure of the Ukrainian Attorney General Viktor Shokin, too little involved in the fight against corruption. President Obama and his vice president Joe Biden win the case, but Shokin later accuses Biden of wanting to prevent him from investigating his son Hunter.
Hunter, a sulphurous businessman, would then be the subject of an investigation into his remuneration as director of Ukrainian energy giant Burisma, according to Shokin. However, the latter’s successor will consider that an investigation was not necessary.
This issue will become, in the following years, a recurring conflict between Democrats and Republicans. Obsessed with this case, Donald Trump asked President Volodymyr Zelensky in July 2019 to find out about this famous Hunter Biden investigation. This call, considered blackmail, will also be worth impeachment proceedings against the US president, unleashed by the Democrats.
In October 2020, the very conservative New York Post, which has called for Trump’s re-election, revives Biden’s son’s corruption allegations by publishing compromising emails about Hunter. But the article also caused a scandal because the documents presented – now authenticated – cast doubt on their veracity and, above all, they were allegedly obtained illegally. Twitter, but also Facebook, had then decided to remove the actions of the article in question, the social network that prohibited the publication of personal data (emails, phone numbers) but also pirated items.
The Twitter Files, therefore, tells how the leaders of the network made this highly controversial decision.
• So what do the Twitter files reveal?
The long thread of publications does not finally reveal the expected scoop. Support, internal documents in support, how Twitter ended up making its decision. The publications show above all the intense debates and procrastination on the substance of this censorship. Some members of the communication at the time thus doubted the maneuver, others supported it. At issue is, in particular, whether or not the emails presented by the New York Post were obtained illegally.
Actually, Matt Taibbi does not provide additional evidence of Joe Biden’s involvement in saving his son, nor does he show that the previous Twitter address was openly trying to benefit the Democratic candidate.
• What role did Elon Musk play?
As a great promoter of free speech, Elon Musk praised these revelations in which his team necessarily participated by moving the famous internal documents. If the billionaire sees it as a transparency operation, he was reprimanded by his detractors because the names and certain personal emails of the protagonists were revealed. He later he admitted it. “The idea here is to tell the truth about everything that happened in the past to build public confidence for the future,” he insisted. Further revelations are expected on Saturday. Always on Twitter.
Source: BFM TV
