33. "Could still mislead people... could still mislead people," the humor-averse group declares, before moving on from Huckabee
Join: The Twitter Files
Join: The Twitter Files
👍22🤬10🤡3❤1
34. Roth suggests moderation even in this absurd case could depend on whether or not the joke results in “confusion.” This seemingly silly case actually foreshadows serious later issues:
Join: The Twitter Files
Join: The Twitter Files
👍18🤬8
35. In the docs, execs often expand criteria to subjective issues like intent (yes, a video is authentic, but why was it shown?), orientation (was a banned tweet shown to condemn, or support?), or reception (did a joke cause “confusion”?). This reflex will become key in J6.
Join: The Twitter Files
Join: The Twitter Files
👍21🤔4
36. In another example, Twitter employees prepare to slap a “mail-in voting is safe” warning label on a Trump tweet about a postal screwup in Ohio, before realizing “the events took place,” which meant the tweet was “factually accurate”:
Join: The Twitter Files
Join: The Twitter Files
👍24🤣4
36. “VERY WELL DONE ON SPEED” Trump was being “visibility filtered” as late as a week before the election. Here, senior execs didn’t appear to have a particular violation, but still worked fast to make sure a fairly anodyne Trump tweet couldn’t be “replied to, shared, or liked”:
Join: The Twitter Files
Join: The Twitter Files
🤬17🔥14👍4
"VERY WELL DONE ON SPEED": the group is pleased the Trump tweet is dealt with quickly
Join: The Twitter Files
Join: The Twitter Files
🤬26👍7
37. A seemingly innocuous follow-up involved a tweet from actor James Woods, whose ubiquitous presence in argued-over Twitter data sets is already a #TwitterFiles in-joke.
Join: The Twitter Files
Join: The Twitter Files
👍26
38. After Woods angrily quote-tweeted about Trump’s warning label, Twitter staff – in a preview of what ended up happening after J6 – despaired of a reason for action, but resolved to “hit him hard on future
Join: The Twitter Files
Join: The Twitter Files
🤬21👍12
39. Here a label is applied to Georgia Republican congresswoman Jody Hice for saying, “Say NO to big tech censorship!” and, “Mailed ballots are more prone to fraud than in-person balloting… It’s just common sense.”
Join: The Twitter Files
Join: The Twitter Files
👍22🍓3
40. Twitter teams went easy on Hice, only applying “soft intervention,” with Roth worrying about a “wah wah censorship” optics backlash:
Join: The Twitter Files
Join: The Twitter Files
👍20🤬8
41. Meanwhile, there are multiple instances of involving pro-Biden tweets warning Trump “may try to steal the election” that got surfaced, only to be approved by senior executives. This one, they decide, just “expresses concern that mailed ballots might not make it on time.”
Join: The Twitter Files
Join: The Twitter Files
👍15🤬12⚡1
42. “THAT’S UNDERSTANDABLE”: Even the hashtag #StealOurVotes – referencing a theory that a combo of Amy Coney Barrett and Trump will steal the election – is approved by Twitter brass, because it’s “understandable” and a “reference to… a US Supreme Court decision.”
Join: The Twitter Files
Join: The Twitter Files
👍14🤬13
43. In this exchange, again unintentionally humorous, former Attorney General Eric Holder claimed the U.S. Postal Service was “deliberately crippled,”ostensibly by the Trump administration. He was initially hit with a generic warning label, but it was quickly taken off by Roth:
Join: The Twitter Files
Join: The Twitter Files
👍16🤯8🤬5
44. Later in November 2020, Roth asked if staff had a “debunk moment” on the “SCYTL/Smartmantic vote-counting” stories, which his DHS contacts told him were a combination of “about 47” conspiracy theories:
Join: The Twitter Files
Join: The Twitter Files
👍19🤬13
45. On December 10th, as Trump was in the middle of firing off 25 tweets saying things like, “A coup is taking place in front of our eyes,” Twitter executives announced a new “L3 deamplification” tool. This step meant a warning label now could also come with deamplification:
Join: The Twitter Files
Join: The Twitter Files
👍19🤬11