[Skybird]

This is a good summay for those of us who did not care to follow "Twittergate" en detail, it sounds balanced to me. The Neue Zürcher Zeitung writes:
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Donald Trump is blocked, Ayatollah Khamenei is allowed to continue tweeting - political arbitrariness reigns on the short message service

With the help of selected journalists, Elon Musk wants to prove the influence that politicians and ideologues have exerted on Twitter. The content of the "Twitter files" should give not only liberals and conservatives food for thought.

Matt Taibbi is one of the best-known journalists in the U.S., but his popularity just dropped precipitously. At least in left-wing Democratic media and political circles. Taibbi, they say, is a fraud, a fallen star who sold his soul to the "richest white nationalist on earth. At least that's how "New York Times" writer Wajahat Ali puts it, to lament the "sad, undignified descent" of a man who once did good work.

Indeed, Taibbi has won awards in his 30-year journalism career, exposing Wall Street's entanglements with American politics. If anything, he was considered a leftist. That this has changed is related to Taibbi's views on freedom of expression. He also sees it threatened by leftists - and now Elon Musk, currently the world's second richest man, who sells electric cars, wants to colonize space and recently bought the short message service Twitter, has also hired him.

Against the "Nazis" in the White House

Together with journalist Bari Weiss and author Michael Shellenberger, Taibbi has been tasked with evaluating the so-called "Twitter files." Because Elon Musk is convinced that Twitter has manipulated and censored public discourse in recent years - in favor of the Democrats. The former darling of the left-wing middle class has become alienated from them, in part because of the Covid policy and "wokeism" that Democrats have perverted. The dislike is mutual, especially since Musk took over at Twitter.

What Taibbi, Bari Weiss and Michael Shellenberger have presented to the public after sifting through thousands of documents - on Twitter, of course, as requested by Elon Musk - is not all new. But it is more than a "nothingburger," a hamburger without meat, as left-wing commentators sneer. It's well known that Twitter executives indirectly helped Democrats in the 2020 election campaign by suppressing a New York Post article about problematic foreign dealings by Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden. This was done with the specious argument that the article was possibly based on hacked data.

According to Matt Taibbi, both Democrats and Republicans intervened on Twitter during the election campaign to delete unpopular statements. That the Democrats were generally more successful in doing so is not yet clear from the "Twitter files". Taibbi points only to the fact that 96 to 99 percent of campaign donations from Twitter employees in recent years have gone to the Democratic Party. In addition, a high-ranking Twitter employee declared in 2017 that "Nazis" ruled the White House.

The person in question was Donald Trump - and Twitter fought him even after Joe Biden won the election. Trump famously claimed the election was rigged and stolen. After his supporters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, Democrats like Michelle Obama called for Trump's permanent suspension on Twitter, even though the ex-president had at least not explicitly called for violence. "Be there, will be wild!" he wrote on Jan. 6, but urged protesters to remain peaceful.

"Kill millions of French"

As the "Twitter Files" show, Trump's ban was controversial even on Twitter. Inciting violence would be difficult to prove, employees wrote in internal messages. At the same time, 300 Twitter employees signed an open letter to then-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey calling for Trump's ban. On January 8, Twitter leadership relented - and suspended Trump's account. The decision seems all the more arbitrary because statements glorifying violence on Twitter often go without consequence, as Bari Weiss demonstrates with numerous examples.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was allowed to keep his Twitter account, despite threatening to have hundreds of Twitter employees arrested in India. The former Malaysian prime minister was allowed to stay on Twitter despite declaring that Muslims had the right to "kill millions of French people" after the murder of Samuel Paty. Iranian dictator Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is allowed to tweet to this day, even though he executes his citizens and even though in 2018 he called Israel a cancer that should be destroyed.

With around 400 million users, Twitter is a rather small social network, but since media, scientists, politicians and heads of state use it, its influence should not be underestimated. Bari Weiss, who was bullied out of the "New York Times" for her political views, speaks of the "power of a handful of people" on Twitter. These would "influence public discourse and democracy."

That may sound conspiracy theorist. But the influence of Twitter's management is considerable. The latter has officially always denied restricting the reach and visibility of unpopular accounts without informing users. "Fact checkers" in Europe adopted this corporate wording by placing such accusations in the vicinity of conspiracy theories. This was presumably because they came primarily from right-wing and conservative sources.

Lively exchange with state authorities

Now, however, it turns out that "shadow banning" was a tool that was by no means only used against trolls and agitators. According to the "Twitter files," one of those affected was Stanford professor Jay Bhattacharya. He presumably aroused the displeasure of the Twitter watchdogs because he criticized Corona lockdowns and school closures. Also affected by "shadow banning" was conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

Here again is the question of arbitrariness, no matter what one thinks of those affected politically. Matt Taibbi said in a podcast that the extent of the control over each individual account shocked him and his colleagues: Twitter shares vast amounts of data with government agencies like the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), he said. The latter would annotate the data and send it back. Internal Twitter reports then say that the FBI has flagged this and that, and they are discussing whether an account should be blocked or shadow-banned. Every social network has such an arrangement with the state, "but we don't know exactly how it works yet.

This realization should actually cause concern across ideological (party) lines. Elon Musk has announced that he wants to make Twitter a haven for freedom of expression again. At the same time, he has left-wing and extreme left-wing accounts reported to him so that they can be blocked. He is politically elusive and prone to erratic decisions. The Tesla owner initially tolerated an account that published the location data of Musk's private jet, then had it blocked because its security was at risk. On Thursday, Twitter blocked several accounts of several American journalists who reported on the private jet account. So leftists are right to be concerned.

But the fact that they are only now says a lot, too.
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