Elon Musk’s ‘Twitter Files’ stir controversy on social media

Drama surrounding billionaire Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter continues to escalate as a series of tweets deemed “The Twitter Files” showcases the social media giant’s internal struggle over the 2020 story about the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop.

Hunter Biden is the son of President Joe Biden, who was a presidential candidate when the New York Post ran a story in October 2020 about the contents of his son’s laptop. It showed evidence of the younger Biden’s chaotic personal life, including nude images of himself and information related to some of his controversial business dealings.

At the time, Twitter blocked users from publicizing the article, saying it violated the company’s policy on hacked and stolen materials. However, Twitter reversed course days later.

The New York Post refused to delete a tweet about the story at the request of Twitter, who suspended the Post’s account for more than two weeks even though it had lifted restrictions on the story just days after it was initially posted.

For the past few weeks, Musk has been promoting the release of documents he calls “The Twitter Files,” claiming they will expose the control the political left has over tech companies.

Here we go!! ???????? https://t.co/eILK9f3bAm

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 2, 2022

Some business analysts have said the move appears to be a way for Musk to drum up engagement on the platform after the Tesla founder spent $44 billion acquiring the social media platform.

Politico reported that House Republicans are planning to investigate Hunter Biden’s business dealings when they take over the chamber at the start of 2023. Democrats, on the other hand, have described the “Twitter Files” as a non-story.

The emails between Twitter executives have not been independently verified by news organizations, as access to those emails was only given to former Rolling Stone contributing editor Matt Taibbi and former New York Times columnist and Pittsburgh native Bari Weiss.

Musk, who tweeted his support for Republicans and encouraged people to vote for Republicans in the midterm elections, hired Taibbi and Weiss to research the internal Twitter documents. Musk apparently fed the documents to Taibbi, who tweeted out information about the documents in a Twitter thread.

Taibbi said the Trump administration contacted Twitter and criticized it for blocking tweets from Trump officials who wanted to share the Post article. Taibbi also said members of Biden’s campaign and Trump’s White House contacted Twitter and asked that some tweets be blocked.

Some of those requests were honored, but Taibbi didn’t detail which ones. Taibbi claimed that the process wasn’t balanced, noting campaign finance reports show more Twitter employees donated to Democrats than Republicans. Taibbi’s reporting didn’t show the Biden campaign requesting that the Post article be removed.

Taibbi’s thread showed email communications between current and former Twitter employees expressing confusion over policies that led to the Post story being blocked.

“Can we truthfully claim that this is part of the policy?” one former vice president of communication asked.

A deputy general counsel for Twitter replied that “caution is warranted” and claimed it was “reasonable to assume” materials reported in the Post story were hacked.

Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna, who represents California’s Silicon Valley, contacted top Twitter executives during the process with concerns over possible First Amendment violations.

In response to fallout over blocking the Post story, Twitter’s then-CEO Jack Dorsey said he regretted the decision to censor the story.

Wedbush Securities analyst Daniel Ives told USA Today that the thread was a “Twitter circus show” meant to drum up views and engagement on the platform.

“At the end of the day, there are 44 billion reasons that Musk needs to increase engagement on Twitter,” Ives said Saturday. “This will go down as the most overpaid M&A transaction in the history of tech, and I think Musk realizes the challenges ahead.”

A Rolling Stone headline called the reveal a “snoozefest.”

U.S. Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., tweeted Oct. 3 that it is normal for Twitter to receive complaints and determine whether or not to address them. He downplayed controversy generated by Taibbi’s thread.

I read the tweets by @mtaibbi and @elonmusk on Hunter Biden so you don’t have to.

Here is the BIG REVEAL: Twitter got complaints from lots of folks, including the Biden campaign, the Trump White House and your cousin’s friend. Sometimes Twitter listened and sometimes it didn’t. https://t.co/J9F5f3bZBl

— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) December 3, 2022

“Twitter got complaints from lots of folks, including the Biden campaign, the Trump White House and your cousin’s friend. Sometimes Twitter listened and sometimes it didn’t,” Lieu tweeted.

Taibbi tweeted that more files are coming and to “stay tuned.”