updated:

Thread https://t.co/ogHufuSGnl

— Mollie (@MZHemingway) December 4, 2022

2. What you’re about to read is the first installment in a series, based upon thousands of internal documents obtained by sources at Twitter.

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 2, 2022

4. Twitter in its conception was a brilliant tool for enabling instant mass communication, making a true real-time global conversation possible for the first time.

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 2, 2022

6. As time progressed, however, the company was slowly forced to add those barriers. Some of the first tools for controlling speech were designed to combat the likes of spam and financial fraudsters.

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 2, 2022

8. By 2020, requests from connected actors to delete tweets were routine. One executive would write to another: “More to review from the Biden team.” The reply would come back: “Handled.” pic.twitter.com/mnv0YZI4af

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 2, 2022

10.Both parties had access to these tools. For instance, in 2020, requests from both the Trump White House and the Biden campaign were received and honored. However:

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 2, 2022

12. The resulting slant in content moderation decisions is visible in the documents you’re about to read. However, it’s also the assessment of multiple current and former high-level executives.

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 3, 2022

16. The Twitter Files, Part One: How and Why Twitter Blocked the Hunter Biden Laptop Story

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 3, 2022

18. Twitter took extraordinary steps to suppress the story, removing links and posting warnings that it may be “unsafe.” They even blocked its transmission via direct message, a tool hitherto reserved for extreme cases, e.g. child pornography.

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 3, 2022

20.This led public policy executive Caroline Strom to send out a polite WTF query. Several employees noted that there was tension between the comms/policy teams, who had little/less control over moderation, and the safety/trust teams: pic.twitter.com/0IFnVPCOgY

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 3, 2022

22. Although several sources recalled hearing about a “general” warning from federal law enforcement that summer about possible foreign hacks, there’s no evidence - that I've seen - of any government involvement in the laptop story. In fact, that might have been the problem...

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 3, 2022

24. “They just freelanced it,” is how one former employee characterized the decision. “Hacking was the excuse, but within a few hours, pretty much everyone realized that wasn’t going to hold. But no one had the guts to reverse it.”

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 3, 2022

26. By this point “everyone knew this was fucked,” said one former employee, but the response was essentially to err on the side of… continuing to err. pic.twitter.com/2wJMFAUBoe

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 3, 2022

28. To which former Deputy General Counsel Jim Baker again seems to advise staying the non-course, because “caution is warranted”: pic.twitter.com/tg4D0gLWI6

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 3, 2022

late add---:

Reminder: this James Baker who is meddling in 2020 election by suppressing damaging Biden story is SAME JAMES BAKER implicated in FBI/DOJ’s Russia Collusion Hoax. https://t.co/JW7jUTrRvD

— Mollie (@MZHemingway) December 3, 2022

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30. In one humorous exchange on day 1, Democratic congressman Ro Khanna reaches out to Gadde to gently suggest she hop on the phone to talk about the “backlash re speech.” Khanna was the only Democratic official I could find in the files who expressed concern. pic.twitter.com/TSSYOs5vfy

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 3, 2022

32.Khanna tries to reroute the conversation to the First Amendment, mention of which is generally hard to find in the files: pic.twitter.com/Tq6l7VMuQL

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 3, 2022

34.NetChoice lets Twitter know a “blood bath” awaits in upcoming Hill hearings, with members saying it's a "tipping point," complaining tech has “grown so big that they can’t even regulate themselves, so government may need to intervene.” pic.twitter.com/2EE1NlWQ5k

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 3, 2022

36.Twitter files continued:
"THE FIRST AMENDMENT ISN’T ABSOLUTE”
Szabo’s letter contains chilling passages relaying Democratic lawmakers’ attitudes. They want “more” moderation, and as for the Bill of Rights, it's "not absolute" pic.twitter.com/cWdNYIprp8

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 3, 2022

An amazing subplot of the Twitter/Hunter Biden laptop affair was how much was done without the knowledge of CEO Jack Dorsey, and how long it took for the situation to get "unfucked" (as one ex-employee put it) even after Dorsey jumped in.

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 3, 2022