A fourth set of “Twitter Files” released this weekend from Elon Musk and journalist Michael Shellenberger revealed that Twitter was successfully pressured into banning former President Donald Trump by former First Lady Michelle Obama and other high-profile celebrities.
“Now is the time for Silicon Valley companies to stop enabling this monstrous behavior and go even further than they have already by permanently banning this man from their platforms and putting in policies to prevent their technologies from being used by the nation’s leaders to fuel insurrections,” Michelle Obama wrote on January 7th, a day after the incident at the Capitol Building in Washington D.C.
Obama added: “And if we have any hope of improving this nation, now is the time for swift and serious consequences for the failure of leadership that led to yesterday’s shame.”
Along with the former First Lady, the Anti-Defamation League was amongst other prominent organizations that called for the complete ban on President Trump following January 6.
“[Jack] Dorsey was on vacation in French Polynesia the week of January 4 to 8 2021,” journalist Michael Shellenberger explained.
The chief executive designated much of the responsibility to senior executives including former Twitter Head of Trust and Public Safety Yoel Roth and former Head of Legal Policy and Trust Vijaya Gadde, both “overwhelmingly progressive” according to Shellenberger.
“In 2018, 2020 and 2022, 96%, 98%, and 99% of Twitter staff’s political donations went to Democrats,” Shellenberger continued.
Former President Trump was already serving a suspension from Twitter at the beginning of January 2021 and was ultimately permanently suspended until new Twitter CEO Elon Musk recently reversed his suspension.
“Twitter employees recognize the difference between their own policies and Twitter’s Terms of Service (TOS), but they also engage in complex interpretations of content in order to stamp out prohibited tweets,” Shellenberger also pointed out.
Since Musk has taken ownership of Twitter, he’s promised to make the platform a more fair town square for dialogue, also promising less bias regarding suspensions and censorship. Droves of liberals have threatened to leave the platform under Musk’s watch, although very few have.
