Mario Nawfal Profile picture
Feb 8 25 tweets 4 min read
SUMMARY: U.S. Congressional hearing on the #TwitterFiles and The Hunter Biden Laptop story.

All you need to know (a thread)
Just over two hours ago, three former Twitter executives started their testimony at the House Oversight Committee over Twitter’s decision to temporarily suppress a New York Post story regarding Hunter Biden’s laptop.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer has launched a broad investigation into the Biden family’s business dealings.
The hearing marks the second-straight election where social media companies and the FBI have faced scrutiny for decisions made in the final weeks of a presidential election.
This time House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer is probing the social media giant in the wake of CEO Elon Musk releasing internal communications from Twitter staff about the decision to temporarily block users from sharing the New York Post story….
….. in the closing weeks of the 2020 presidential election campaign season.
Congress Representative Jamie Raskin: “This [the Hunter Biden laptop story] is not a bi-partisan issue and it represents a grave danger to democracy.”
The hearing is the first time that Twitter’s former Deputy Counsel James Baker, also a former top official at the FBI, will speak publicly since Musk fired him in December.
Three former Twitter employees will testify in front of the Congress: Twitter’s former Chief Legal Officer, Vijaya Gadde head of legal, policy, and trust at Twitter and former Head of Trust and Safety Yoel Roth.
Democrats featured Anika Collier Navaroli, a former Twitter employee turned whistleblower.
Jim Baker, Former Twitter Deputy General Counsel: “I’ve acted in a way consistent with the First Amendment. As a private entity, The First Amendment protects Twitter and its content moderation decision.”
Baker: “The law allows governments to have complex, multi-faceted relationships with the private sector. When done properly, these interactions can be of interest to the company and the general interest of the public.”
Baker: “Possible way to legislate in this area may be to focus on the actions of federal government agencies with respect to their engagement with the private sector, such as limiting those interactions, and higher-level approvals prior to such engagements.”
Vijaya Gadde, Twitter's former Chief Legal Officer: “While at Twitter, the company never lost sight of its mission to promote free speech across the world. The health of the platform required making difficult decisions.”
“We developed policies to prevent Twitter from becoming a dumping ground for hacked materials.”
Yoel Roth Former Twitter Head Trust & Safety: “Unrestricted free speech paradoxically means less speech, not more.”
“My team and I exposed hundreds of thousands of accounts from Russia, Iran, China and beyond, intending to stoke culture war issues and further divide American society.”
Annika Collier Navaroli, Former Twitter U.S. Safety Policy Team: “I was not involved in the decision around the Hunter Biden laptop. I was involved in decisions before, during and after the January 06 attacks on the capitol.”
“If we do nothing, violence is going to happen again.”
“Coded incitements to violence such as stand back and stand-by, became common and we didn’t have policies addressing this.” This was not hyperbolic, someone was going to get shot.”
Congress Representative Jamie Raskin: Gaddie and Baker failed at their jobs. Instead of letting people judge for themselves, you rushed to find a reason why the American people should not see it [the laptop story].
Gadde: “We received legal demands for content moderation from the US government as well as governments all across the world to remove content.”

Yoel Roth: “Our judgment was clouded by the very real experiences of 2016 and the activities we saw playing out at that time.”
Yoel Roth: “We did not have contacts with the Biden team. We’ve explicitly separated the team that would interact with campaign managers.”
Yoel Roth implied that the two teams – content moderation, and campaign managers interactions were separated, yet he shows a surprising awareness about the content behind some of the tweets marked for review.
Democrats also featured Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez to push back on the Republican criticisms of Twitter.

She criticized Twitter for allowing misinformation against the LGBTQ community and people of color.

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More from @MarioNawfal

Feb 10
Is Elon Musk losing his grip on Twitter?

Analyzing the flaws and bias in this latest hit piece

(a thread)
A Platformer article by Zoë Schiffer and Casey Newton makes a scathing attack on Twitter under its current leadership by @elonmusk
The authors state few factual pieces of data and a lot more biased opinions which I will attempt to address below.
Read 47 tweets
Feb 9
🚨NEW DETAILS on the Andrew Tate case revealed by BBC documentary

(a thread)
In a recent BBC podcast, one of Andrew Tate’s alleged former girlfriends talks about her experience with Andrew Tate. She claimed this was her first interview on the subject, ever.

The woman was given the nickname Sophie. She claims was controlled and abused by Andrew Tate.
“I didn’t feel like a victim – all choices were made under free will. Everybody has been in love before, which is why you do things you don’t normally do” – said Sophie.
Read 28 tweets
Feb 6
🚨Earthquake felt in Buffalo, New York

WTF is going on??
🚨NY earthquake at magnitude 4.2. Will update below as I get more info!
NY earthquake now at magnitude 4.4. Image
Read 5 tweets
Feb 6
🚨More new buildings are currently collapsing from the new 7.5 earthquake. This was just sent to us!

(LIVE THREAD)
🚨Another building has just collapsed live on Turkish news outlet
Another building collapsing live on TV 😢
Read 7 tweets
Feb 6
🚨🚨A NEW earthquake of magnitude 7.8 has struck southern Turkey

Will update below live
This is getting confirmed by other sources, more details below.

This is a HUGE aftershock, same magnitude as the first earthquake. ImageImage
Confirmed shaking in the Middle East. Earthquake also confirmed by @BNONews Image
Read 12 tweets
Feb 6
🚨A destructive Magnitude 7.8 earthquake has just struck southern Turkey causing extreme damage with estimates of thousands of people dead.

ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW (live thread)
The earthquake lasted around 90 seconds with a Magnitude 6.5 aftershock hitting minutes later.

So far officials are reporting that 181 are dead with numbers expected to rise significantly, and many more injured.
The earthquake has caused a massive gas line to burst into flames and led to a massive explosion in adıyaman gölbaşı with huge flames lighting up the night sky that can be seen miles and miles away
Read 24 tweets

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