() — A series of internal Twitter documents shared on the social media platform Monday offer a glimpse into internal debates among some of the company’s employees ahead of its decision to veto then-President Donald Trump following the January 6 attack. 2021 at the US Capitol
The documents, shared by journalist Bari Weiss as the latest installment of the so-called “Twitter Files”, seem to show that there was at least some debate among various employees about whether Trump’s latest tweets violated the social network’s policies that prohibit inciting violence. But they fall short of proving that Twitter ignored its own rules in implementing the ban.
Twitter’s new owner, Elon Musk, applauded and promoted the release of the company’s internal documents on Monday and tried to paint the former Twitter chief’s decision as politically motivated. In a Tweet He suggested that the former president “did not break the rules” and that the decision was made at the behest of “activist employees.”
The comments come after Musk made the controversial decision last month to reverse Trump’s ban on the platform following a poll of his Twitter followers, after initially saying he would consult a panel of experts on the decision. Musk also dissolved his Trust and Safety Council, a group of outside experts who consulted with the company on sensitive issues, on Monday.
The Trump veto debate
Trump’s account was permanently suspended by Twitter two days after an attack on the Capitol by some of his supporters, many of them fueled by false claims that the 2020 election had been stolen. At the time, Twitter said the ban was due to the “risk of further incitement to violence.” The decision came after Twitter had long resisted calls to suspend or remove Trump’s account, instead applying information labels to provide context around his tweets, on the grounds that it was important. that users could hear directly from a world leader.
Weiss’s tweets suggest that, in the aftermath of January 6, there were Twitter employees both for and against the idea of banning Trump. A screenshot of an internal Twitter conversation, where employee names have been redacted, shows one employee expressing concern about “censorship” while another notes that “we impose much stricter rules on everyone else at the platform”. It is unknown from Weiss’s tweets whether the employees in this discussion were in any way involved in the decision-making process that led to Trump’s ban.
The tweet thread also indicates that some members of Twitter’s security team raised questions about whether Trump’s tweets that ultimately led to his ban violated company policies.
“I also don’t see clear or coded incitement” to violence, Twitter security staffer Anika Navaroli said in a Slack message about Trump’s Jan. 8 tweet that read: “75 million grand American patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE in the future. They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!”
(Navaroli then testified before the House committee investigating on January 6 that she and other staff members had been alarmed by content posted on Twitter by the Proud Boys and other far-right groups that expanded on Trump’s statements, and worried about the risk of violence before the attack).
Another staffer, whose name has been redacted from the screenshot, said on Slack that a tweet later that day from Trump saying he would not attend President Joe Biden’s inauguration was also “a clear non-violation.” But another staffer questioned whether that tweet could be “proof that [Trump] does not support a peaceful transition,” according to messages from Weiss.
Twitter’s then-head of legal, policy and trust, Vijaya Gadde, who, along with Twitter founder and then-CEO Jack Dorsey, was the responsible final content decisions, asked later on Jan. 8 whether Trump’s “American Patriots” tweet “was used as a coded incitement to further violence,” followed by requests for “any context or perspective” and any relevant prior research , Weiss’s tweets show. Twitter’s “enforcement escalation” team also got involved in the assessment, questioning whether Trump’s tweets could be seen as glorifying violence, the screenshots show, which would violate policies of the company
“Thoughtful and careful”
The process of involving various staff members and teams and relying on research for high-profile decisions doesn’t seem out of line with how Twitter and other social platforms make content moderation decisions, especially in crisis situations.
“This is how the whole process went… this is not really out of the ordinary,” a former Twitter executive told , noting that the various teams involved in content decisions would push each other to consider context and information. that they may not have thought of as they worked on how to handle difficult problems. “I think in these conversations it seems like people were trying to be really thoughtful and careful,” the former executive said.
Twitter finally said at the time of the Trump ban that his tweet about patriotic Americans suggested that he “plans to continue supporting, empowering and protecting those who believe he won the election,” and that the tweet about the inauguration ceremony could be seen as a statement. additional that the election was not legitimate or that the inauguration would be a “safe” target for violence because he would not attend.
On January 6, Twitter also warned Trump that further violations of its rules could result in a permanent ban, something Weiss did not mention in Monday’s tweet thread. The thread also fails to mention that other major social platforms, including Facebook, YouTube, and Snapchat, also decided to suspend Trump from their platforms in the days after the attack on the Capitol, and have yet to restore his account.
Weiss’s tweets follow several other “Twitter Files” reports based on internal documents that appear to have been provided by Musk’s team, including internal emails on Twitter about the company’s decision to temporarily suppress a 2020 New York Post story about Hunter Biden and his laptop, which went a long way to corroborate what was already known about the incident.
