Twitter Files 5.0 reveals that staff at the platform believe former President Trump did not violate the company policies. Here’s more on the new report.
What does Twitter 5.0 reveal?
As per the fifth increment of Musk’s Twitter Files 5.0, staff at the company believe that tweets by Donald Trump in the days running towards January 6 Capitol riots were not violating the policies of the company. During Jack Dorsey’s company leadership, he famously stated Trump violated the company’s policies by using the space for inciting violence.
“For years, Twitter had resisted calls both internal and external to ban Trump. Because blocking a world leader from the platform or removing their controversial tweets would hide important information that people should be able to see and debate,” stated Bari Weiss in Twitter Files 5.0.
“But after January 6, as @mtaibbi and @shellenbergermd have documented, pressure grew. Both inside and outside of Twitter, to ban Trump,” added Weiss. Weiss shared screenshots of internal Slack conversations between employees revealing Twitter employees organized to demand banning Trump from the forum. “There is a lot of employee advocacy happening,” said one employee.
More on the happenings leading to Trump’s Twitter ban
However, some staffers were disagreeing with the broader opinion. “Maybe because I am from China, I deeply understand how censorship can destroy the public conversation,” said one Twitter employee. After the signing of an open letter to ban Trump by “over 300 Twitter employees,” staff were assigned to evaluate the tweets. “Twitter staff assigned to evaluate tweets quickly concluded that Trump had not violated Twitter’s policies,” stated Weiss.
Trump’s last Tweet before his ban from the platform mentioned he will not be attending Jo Biden’s inauguration. “It’s a clear no violation. It’s just to say he’s not attending the inauguration. Less than 90 minutes after Twitter employees had determined that Trump’s tweets were not in violation of Twitter policy. Vijaya Gadde—Twitter’s Head of Legal, Policy, and Trust asked whether it could be ‘coded incitement to further violence,” mentions Twitter 5.0.
“Ultimately, the concerns about Twitter’s efforts to censor news about Hunter Biden’s laptop, blacklist disfavored views. And ban a president isn’t about the past choices of executives in a social media company. They’re about the power of a handful of people at a private company. To influence the public discourse and democracy,” concluded Weiss.