Twitter files 3.0 show how the ‘Supreme Court of Moderation’ de-platformed Trump based on gut calls, vague google searches, and guesses.
All about Twitter Files 3.0
In the third installment of Twitter files, Elon Musk reveals everything that went behind the scenes before de-platforming Doland Trump between January 6 and January 8, 2022. Twitter files 3.0 reveal a ‘Supreme Court of moderation’ within the company’s Safety Operations department. The department has small but “powerful executes”. They allegedly issued “content rulings on the fly, often in minutes and based on guesses and gut calls. Additionally, they used Google searches, in cases involving the president (Donald Trump).”
Matt Taibbi, a Substack writer demonstrated the imprecise “gut calls” taken by Twitter’s s ‘Supreme Court of moderation’. Taibbi points out the internal flagging of factually correct tweets by the former President. “Whatever your opinion on the decision to remove Trump that day. The internal communications at Twitter between January 6th-January 8th have clear historical import. Even Twitter’s employees understood the moment it was a landmark moment in the annals of speech,” tweeted Taibbi. He also shared a screenshot of an employee asking, “Is this the first sitting head of state to ever be suspended?”
More on the recent revelation and old Tweets
Taibbi also highlighted multiple instances where pro-Biden tweets stated Trump “may try to steal the election”. Twitter executives recognized them but did not flag them. However, pro-Trump tweets claiming similar stealing of polls were usually flagged. “In the end, they looked at a broad picture. But that approach can cut both ways. The bulk of the internal debate leading to Trump’s ban took place in those three January days. However, the intellectual framework was laid in the months preceding the Capitol riots,” wrote Taibbi. As per Twitter FIles 3.0, following Trump’s defeat in 2020, the platform rolled out a “deamplification” tool.
“Some executives wanted to use the new deamplification tool to silently limit Trump’s reach more right away. However, in the end, the team had to use older, less aggressive labeling tools at least for that day. Until the ‘L3 entities’ went live the following morning,” noted Taibbi. “The significance is that it shows that Twitter, in 2020 at least, was deploying a vast range of visible and invisible tools to rein in Trump’s engagement. Long before J6. The ban came after when other avenues were exhausted,” he explained.