The revelation lacks the explosiveness hoped for by Elon Musk

The Twitter Files are intended to prove that freedom of expression on Twitter is significantly better after Elon Musk’s takeover. However, the long-awaited release doesn’t really show what Musk wanted to prove.

Elon Musk likes to present himself as the great savior of freedom of expression on Twitter. The new owner of the platform also justified the activation of accounts, some of which had been blocked for years, with the right to freedom of expression.

To regain public trust in Twitter, Musk made a big announcement a few weeks ago. This is about a moderation decision that was made shortly before the 2020 US presidential election.

What are the Twitter Files about?

At the heart of the Twitter Files is a story from the US tabloid New York Post from 2020. The newspaper ran a story about Joe Biden’s son Hunter during the presidential campaign.

The cover story relied on a laptop that, after being repaired, was found in mysterious ways to the New York Post should have come. In its story at the time, the newspaper published possible Hunter Biden business connections in Ukraine.

However, the story was doubted by many media. It is still controversial to this day whether the story about the laptop that was forgotten during repairs was not a disinformation campaign.

The Role of Twitter

This is exactly why there were also discussions on Twitter about spreading the story. At that time, the social network decided to stop the spread of the story and possible influence on the election.

Elon Musk sees a violation of freedom of expression here and now wants to use the Twitter files to show “what really happened to the Hunter Biden story suppressed by Twitter”.

What really happened with the Hunter Biden story suppression by Twitter will be published on Twitter at 5pm ET!

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 2, 2022

What is actually behind the Twitter Files?

The publication already announced by Elon Musk then took place at the end of last week in a thread on Twitter. The journalist Matt Taibbi has published the documents apparently leaked by Musk.

1. Thread: THE TWITTER FILES

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 2, 2022

In his thread, Taibbi publishes, among other things, screenshots of e-mails. These come from Twitter bosses, members of the Biden campaign and other political decision-makers.

The e-mails show that Twitter was then concerned with the question of how the story of the New York Post should handle. It was also discussed whether the right moderation decision had been made.

The release lacks explosiveness

However, the impact of this publication, which Elon Musk announced and probably also hoped for, does not materialize. Especially since the published messages contain no conversation about the actual moderation decision. It can only be read how the correctness was discussed afterwards and that ex-CEO Jack Dorsey knew nothing about the decision.

Yoel Roth, Twitter’s then Head of Trust and Safety, wrote of caution with this story “given the SERIOUS risks and lessons learned from 2016.”

Jim Baker, Twitter’s deputy attorney general, agreed. He thought it reasonable, since one does not know whether it is a hack.

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