The fifth installment of Elon Musk's "Twitter Files" Monday revealed that staffers believed that tweets written by former President Donald Trump around the events of Jan. 6, 2021, had not actually violated its policies despite the company saying so at the time.
"For years, Twitter had resisted calls both internal and external to ban Trump on the grounds that 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," Bari Weiss of The Free Press wrote toward the beginning of her thread on Monday. "But after January 6, as @mtaibbi and @shellenbergermd have documented, pressure grew, both inside and outside of Twitter, to ban Trump."
Weiss cited "dissenters" within Twitter that did not want to ban Trump, including one who wrote, "Maybe because I am from China. I deeply understand how censorship can destroy the public conversation."
"But voices like that one appear to have been a distinct minority within the company. Across Slack channels, many Twitter employees were upset that Trump hadn’t been banned earlier," Weiss wrote. "After January 6, Twitter employees organized to demand their employer ban Trump. ‘There is a lot of employee advocacy happening,’ said one Twitter employee."
After citing the public outcry of "over 300 Twitter employees" who signed an open letter published in the Washington Post pressuring then-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to ban Trump, Weiss revealed, "Twitter staff assigned to evaluate tweets quickly concluded that Trump had *not* violated Twitter’s policies."
"I think we’d have a hard time saying this is incitement," a staffer said, according to Weiss. "It's pretty clear he's saying the ‘American Patriots’ are the ones who voted for him and not the terrorists (we can call them that, right?) from Wednesday."
"Don’t see the incitement angle here," another staffer agreed, per Weiss. --->READ MORE HERE
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Twitter decided to indefinitely ban Donald Trump two days after the January 6 Capitol attack when rank-and-file employees compared him to Adolf Hitler and a terrorist leader - even though senior staff said said he didn't violate policy.
The latest revelations of the platform's actions taken against the former president and conservative voices were detailed in the fifth installment of the Twitter files published on Monday afternoon.
Journalist Bari Weiss shared internal messaging showing some staffers for the social media platform were concerned of the negative repercussions of banning Trump, including allegations of censorship.
Employees assigned to evaluate Trump's tweets also concluded that he did not violate policy and it would be hard to argue that he incited violence.
But staffers calling for Trump's account to be banned were victorious when Twitter's Head of Policy said his reference to 'American Patriots' in a January 8 tweet could be 'coded' as an 'incitement of violence'.
His account was removed - until Elon Musk took over - even though dictators such as Iran's Ayatollah who directly called for violence and murder were allowed to stay active.
'Under pressure from hundreds of activist employees, Twitter deplatforms Trump, a sitting US President, even though they themselves acknowledge that he didn't violate the rules,' Musk wrote in a tweet about the company he now runs.
Trump, who was president at the time, was on his final warning from Twitter when he tweeted twice the morning of January 8, 2021.
The first tweet praised the 'great American patriots who voted for me' in a further push that he was the legitimate winner of the 2020 presidential election.
An hour later, Trump tweeted: 'To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th.'
Twitter Files co-author Bari Weiss wrote that 'Twitter's safety team decides that Trump's 7:44 am ET tweet is also not in violation.' --->READ MORE HEREFollow link below to a relevant Post:
+++++‘Twitter Files’ show world leaders who incited violence stayed while Trump got boot+++++
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