'Top Twitter execs interfered with US election before banning Trump'

"Election interference by social media companies obviously undermines the public's faith in democracy and is wrong," said Elon Musk

Elon Musk on Saturday revealed the third season of 'Twitter Files,' which claimed that top Twitter executives suppressed and censored former US President Donald Trump in the days before the 2020 election, finally deplatforming him on January 8, 2021 -- two days after the storming of the Capitol Hill that left five dead.

Independent journalist and author Matt Taibbi shared the 'Twitter Files Part 3', saying there were erosion of standards within the company in months before January 6, "decisions by high-ranking executives to violate their own policies, and more, against the backdrop of ongoing, documented interaction with federal agencies".

Musk replied to him, saying "election interference by social media companies obviously undermines the public's faith in democracy and is wrong".

"Unequivocally true. The evidence is clear and voluminous," he added.

According to Taibbi, Twitter executives removed Trump in part over what one executive called the "context surrounding": actions by Trump and supporters "over the course of the election and frankly last 4+ years".

"The bulk of the internal debate leading to Trump's ban took place in those three January days (January 6-8). However, the intellectual framework was laid in the months preceding the Capitol riots," he mentioned in his Twitter thread.

Taibbi said that as the election approached, "senior executives -- perhaps under pressure from federal agencies, with whom they met more as time progressed -- increasingly struggled with rules, and began to speak of 'vios' as pretexts to do what they'd likely have done anyway".

The reports, said the Twitter Files, are based on searches for docs linked to prominent executives, whose names are already public.

"They include Roth, former trust and policy chief Vijaya Gadde, and recently plank-walked Deputy General Counsel (and former top FBI lawyer) Jim Baker," claimed Taibbi.

The latest Twitter Files claimed that Twitter executives "were also clearly liaising with federal enforcement and intelligence agencies about moderation of election-related content".

As soon as "they finished banning Trump", Twitter executives started processing new power.

"They prepared to ban future presidents and White Houses -- perhaps even Joe Biden. The anew administration, says one exec, ill not be suspended by Twitter unless absolutely necessary," he said in a Twitter thread.

Musk has reinstated Trump on Twitter. However, he has not posted any tweets yet.

--IANS

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