Paul D. Thacker Profile picture
Journalist; Former Investigator U.S. Senate; Former Safra Ethics Center, Harvard. https://t.co/aD6NkYzjqM

May 18, 2023, 20 tweets

1. Twitter Provided Privileged Access to Banning Queen, Taylor Lorenz #TwitterFiles

Twitter engineer walking me through their reporting system, "Wow! She's a heavy user."

2. Shortly after @elonmusk bought Twitter, @TaylorLorenz got apoplectic, writing that Twitter was "opening the gates of hell" by letting banned accounts back.

(Take a wild guess what Taylor did the month prior....)

3. The month prior, Taylor Lorenz got this tiny account banned. Surprise!

The account detailed Lorenz as a Manhattan rich girl, who attended Swiss boarding school, and whose uncle owns Internet Archive, thus erasing her past.

4. But did @FearTheFloof violate Twitter's rules?

Nope. No ban evasion, abuse, harassment toward Taylor Lorenz, platform manipulation, or the sharing of personal information.

“The account was generally healthy and mostly conversational or commentary in nature.”

5. Nonetheless, Twitter suspended the account because it "violates the Twitter Media Policy."

The account then deactivated.

6. A month prior to that, Lorenz went after @DrJBhattacharya for tweeting an email by her friend and itinerant blogger @WalkerBragman. Bhattacharya tweeted a harassing email Bragman sent him and it had Bragman's contact info.

7. Bragman played this all up on Twitter of course to call attention to himself, retweeting Bhattcharya's tweet, before people made fun of him for "doxing himself."

Manhattan rich kids playing at journalist are easily bruised, it seems.

8. Bragman's game is to constantly accuse people of being "Koch funded."

FYI: Soros funded me to give the plenary talk at a 2019 BMJ conference on investigative journalism, but that does not make me a "Soros funded" journalist.

9. Several of Lorenz's past reporting targets tell me she seems to work in concert with her sources. After Lorenz doxed @libsoftiktok in the Post, Alejandra Caraballo sent Twitter a "private letter" to remove Libs of TikTok.

Lorenz quoted Caraballo in the Post that next month.

10. The letter was sent by Caraballo and several groups including the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a favored source in Lorenz essays on banning.

11. I asked Caraballo what came of the meeting w/ Twitter and to see the letter they sent. But got no response. I also don't know if Libs of TikTok was successful in getting Caraballo suspended for harassment.

12. It's hard to understand Lorenz's concerns about doxxing when she has done this so many times herself. Here's one allegation in a defamation lawsuit by @littlemissjacob against Lorenz that is still working it's way through the courts.

13. Lorenz had more than special reporting access to get accounts banned. When Tucker Carlson did a piece ridiculing her, Twitter put out an alert-"We need to be careful with her."

I couldn't evidence that Twitter provided this support to other reporters. I never got it.

14. Taylor also provided special support to a source in stories she wrote for the Atlantic, NY Times, and recently for the Post. When Jackson Weimer's account was suspended, Lorenz put this in front of Twitter.

15. Lorenz has incredibly unorthodox (is that the right word?) reporting tactics. Here's an affidavit signed by someone she quoted in the article about @littlemissjacob

FYI: this person was a minor.

16. Here's an affidavit signed by a Lorenz source for a NY Times story about Arya Toufanian

17. Toufanian told me he sued Lorenz over the article, and she then began sending messages to gin up a DOJ investigation against him.

This email Lorenz is sending around is for an Assistant US Attorney in NY.

18. Toufanian later received a subpoena from the Southern District that reads like a rip and read of Lorenz's article.

The investigation dragged on for 3 years. He recently received this email to pick up his laptop that was confiscated. "I was never charged."

19. Neither Lorenz nor Cameron Barr with the Post responded to questions.

Thanks so much to @TexasLindsay_ for helping to collect/organize these #TwitterFiles.

20. Read more at @DisInfoChron including source documents beyond #TwitterFiles. disinformationchronicle.substack.com/p/twitter-file…

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