Convenient they left out Republican-run gov demands to remove twitter content in the so-called “twitter files“ eh? Irony is truly 💀 & hypocrisy reigns w #Rethuglicans
apple.news/A3GNarU8eR7So1…
apple.news/A3GNarU8eR7So1…
2/Elon Musk’s “Twitter Files” focus on Democrats, but former administration officials and Twitter employees say Trump’s team and other Republicans routinely demanded posts be taken down.
3/When the WH called up Twitter in the early am hours of Sept 9, 2019, officials had what they believed was a serious issue to report: Famous model Chrissy Teigen had just called TFG “a pussy ass bitch” on Twitter — & the WH wanted the tweet to come down. #HypocrisyHasNoLimits
4/That exchange — revealed during Wed’s House Oversight Committee hearing on Twitter by Rep. Gerry Connolly — & others like it are nowhere 2b found in Elon Musk’s “Twitter Files” releases, which have focused almost exclusively on requests from Dems & the feds to the SM company.
5/The newly empowered Republican majority in the House is now devoting significant resources & time to investigating this supposed “collusion” betw liberal politicians & Twitter. Some Rs even believe the release of the “Twitter Files” is the “tip of the spear” of their crusade …
6/[as always w @GOP their "smoking gun" doesn’t smoke]
…against the alleged liberal bias of Big Tech.But former Trump admin officials & Twitter employees tell Rolling Stone that the WH’s Teigen tweet demand was hardly an isolated incident: Trump admin & its allied Rs in Congress
…against the alleged liberal bias of Big Tech.But former Trump admin officials & Twitter employees tell Rolling Stone that the WH’s Teigen tweet demand was hardly an isolated incident: Trump admin & its allied Rs in Congress
7/routinely asked Twitter to take down posts they objected to — the exact behavior that they’re claiming makes Pres Biden, the Dems, & Twitter complicit in an anti-free speech conspiracy to muzzle conservatives online.
8/“It was strange to me when all of these investigations were announced bec it was all abt the exact same stuff that we had done [when Trump was in office],” 1 former top aide to a senior Trump admin official tells Rolling Stone. “It was normal.”
#OversightCommittee hypocrites
#OversightCommittee hypocrites
9/In interviews w former Twitter personnel, 1-time Trump admin officials & other ppl familiar w the matter, ea source recalled what cld be described as a “hotline,” “tipline,” or large Twitter “db” of moderation & removal requests that was frequently pinged by the offices of …
10/powerful Dems & Rs alike.
The voluminous requests often came from high-ranking political appointees working in different depts, offices, & agencies in the Trump admin.
[note Republican requests were NOT included in the “twitter files”].
The voluminous requests often came from high-ranking political appointees working in different depts, offices, & agencies in the Trump admin.
[note Republican requests were NOT included in the “twitter files”].
11/But during both the Trump & Biden presidencies, these types of moderation requests or demands were routinely sent to Twitter by the staff of influential GOP lawmakers — ones with names like Kevin McCarthy & Elise Stefanik.
[ISTG irony thy name is #rethuglicans ]
[ISTG irony thy name is #rethuglicans ]
12/Oftentimes, requests would demand Twitter stop “shadowbanning” certain conservative accounts, or that the company reinstate banned or suspended rt-wing personas. Other times, offices of senior Trump admin officials would send 📧 seeking to remove tweets that they believed 2b..
13/“hate speech” or 💀 threats aimed at their principals. And over the yrs, the knowledgeable sources say, staffers for Republican officials wld regularly flag to Twitter content that they believed violated the app’s terms of serv or other policies, incl on spreading “misinfo”…
14/or “disinformation.”
That sentiment was shared by those who’ve worked for Twitter. “Every1worked the refs,” 1 source familiar w congressional requests to the SM company said. “Usually w the Republicans, most of the time rather than saying, ‘Why are you taking things down?’
That sentiment was shared by those who’ve worked for Twitter. “Every1worked the refs,” 1 source familiar w congressional requests to the SM company said. “Usually w the Republicans, most of the time rather than saying, ‘Why are you taking things down?’
15/it was, ‘You need to put things back up.’ It was, ‘Put me back, put me back.’ ”
In Teigen’s case, the WH’s attempt to get Twitter to remove criticism of TFG was sparked by a late night exchange initiated by Trump. The then-president blasted musician “John Legend, & his …
In Teigen’s case, the WH’s attempt to get Twitter to remove criticism of TFG was sparked by a late night exchange initiated by Trump. The then-president blasted musician “John Legend, & his …
16/filthy mouthed wife” 4 being insufficiently grateful to him for 🖊️ the criminal justice reform 1st Step Act. The WH’s removal request landed on the desk of Anika Collier Navaroli, who testified that her supervisors had informed her the WH wanted Twitter to evaluate the post
17/”They wanted it to come down bec it was a derogatory statement,” told the House #OversightCommittee on Wed. Despite their own past behavior, Rs are using their newfound control of the House to probe Dems’ & fed law enforcement agencies’ interaction w Twitter.
#pussyassbitch
#pussyassbitch
18/During the House Oversight Committee’s hearing on Twitter’s handling of the NY Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story, Rs thundered abt what they claimed “collusion” betw Twitter & supposedly hostile fed agencies like the FBI to suppress the distribution of the Post’s trove …
19/of private files from then-candidate Biden’s son.
The obvious irony here is, the sources note, that Republican leaders & elected officials have long been committing precisely the kind of “gov interference” that they’re now investigating, fundraising off of, & accusing Dems &
The obvious irony here is, the sources note, that Republican leaders & elected officials have long been committing precisely the kind of “gov interference” that they’re now investigating, fundraising off of, & accusing Dems &
20/the so-called anti-Trump “Deep State” of perpetrating. Some of the loudest conservative & MAGA voices on Capitol Hill — who’ve been endlessly demanding taxpayer-funded, high-profile investigations into Big Tech “bias” & “collusion” — were themselves engaged in the behavior …
22/“This is one of the original concerns abt content moderation & platform power, that they cld be used by the gov to take down speech that the gov wants censored & that it couldn’t get taken down thru legal mechanisms,” says Evelyn Douek, a professor of law who studies …
23/content moderation at Stanford Law. “One of the things in the scholarship around this for a long time is a desire to make gov & platform relationships more transparent & more formalized so that u can’t just have random ppl calling random employees trying to get stuff removed…
24/or put back up.”
FB, at the urging of its independent oversight board, has already committed to publishing more data abt requests from state actors to review content & establish a more formal channel for gov officials to file them.
FB, at the urging of its independent oversight board, has already committed to publishing more data abt requests from state actors to review content & establish a more formal channel for gov officials to file them.
25/But despite Twitter’a apparent new concern abt gov pressure, the company’s leadership has blown off similar proposals. When Alex Stamos, FB’s former chief of security who now heads the Stanford U’s Internet Observatory proposed a similar mechanism to Elon Musk late last yr,…
26/the new Twitter CEO blew up at him, writing: “You operate a propaganda platform.”
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