All you ever wanted to know about the 'Twitter Files' (2024)

The richest man in the world and libertarian entrepreneur made a promise to his 120 million followers on Friday, December 2, that he would reveal "what really happened" with the deletion of an article on American president Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden, that scandalized the Republican camp during the 2020 campaign. The supposed revelations were widely aired on the social media service over the weekend.

What are the 'Twitter files?'

The name "Twitter Files" was created by Mr. Musk himself in reference to a set of excerpts from internal correspondence by the company's previous management, now published by journalist Matt Taibbi on the social media service itself. Mr. Taibbi has not specified how he obtained the documents, but there is little doubt that they were sent to him by Mr. Musk, who promised to divulge the internal discussions of the company's previous management on a number of affairs.

The first part of the documents released on December 3 regarded the way Twitter blocked the dissemination of an article from the conservative tabloid The New York Post in October during the 2020 presidential campaign concerning documents on a laptop allegedly belonging to Mr. Hunter Biden. The tabloid had published excerpts of emails suggesting that the latter used his father's political connections to conduct business in Ukraine. Furthermore, photos of a sexual nature and showing Mr. Hunter Biden using drugs had also been posted online and presented as coming from the same computer.

The rest of the American press treated the documents with great caution as the computer was said to have been taken by Mr. Hunter Biden to a computer store for repair and then ended up in the hands of a lawyer working for Mr. Trump's own lawyer, Rudy Giuliani. The latter then passed the computer on to Steve Bannon, the former president's adviser at the time. The multiple handovers led to concerns that the files may have been at least partially manipulated.

With this in mind, both Twitter and Facebook blocked or limited the dissemination of The New York Post's article, fearing a manipulation orchestrated by Russian intelligence services. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently confirmed that his teams had been alerted by the FBI of possible imminent Russian manipulation attempts at the time, although the agency did not mention the allegations in question specifically.

At the time, US social media networks feared a repeat of the 2016 scenario, when they had allowed various conspiracy theories to proliferate on their platforms, some of them based on emails stolen by Russian intelligence services from the Democratic National Committee.

What did we learn?

The main interest of the excerpts of documents published by Mr. Taibbbi was to illustrate internal debates at Twitter on the issue and question the decision of the management team members opposed to censuring the article. The published documents do not contain any information on the substance of the Hunter Biden affair.

Many sites and Trumpist influencers have exaggerated the significance of the email exchanges as if the platform's embarrassment in the case was new. In light of Republican grumblings, however, the Twitter board had backtracked 48 hours after its original decision and unblocked the account of The New York Post a fortnight later. Jack Dorsey, Twitter's CEO at the time, had acknowledged in March 2021 that the automated deletion of articles from The New York Post had been "a total mistake."

Mr. Musk has said that the "Twitter Files" demonstrates that the company knowingly violated the first amendment of the US constitution which protects free speech and prohibits government censorship in most situations. But the executive's belief that the request for the removal of tweets by Mr. Joe Biden's campaign constitutes evidence of these violations is erroneous.

At the time of the exchanges Mr. Biden was not yet president, so the request was that of an individual, and the fact that his team asked for the removal of certain messages – tweets containing pictures of Hunter Biden's penis – is neither illegal nor new information. In all countries where Twitter is present, campaign teams and the social media service maintain established contact channels. Regardless of the political aspects of the Hunter Biden case, the non-consensual posting of sexual images is prohibited by Twitter's rules.

Without providing evidence, Mr. Taibbi has claimed that both Republicans and Democrats had access to a direct channel to request the deletion of messages, but that the system heavily favored the Democrats. If Twitter had deleted messages at the request of Mr. Trump's White House, the question of a possible First Amendment violation could arise, but Mr. Taibbi does not provide any such example.

Impact of the new revelations

Convinced that the 42nd American president was the victim of a scheme that prevented his re-election in 2020, Mr. Trump's ardent supporters have welcomed the revelations, which they see as proof of collusion between tech giants, institutional media, and the Democratic party.

Mr. Trump himself has denounced "massive and widespread fraud and deception" involving the Democratic Party and "Big Tech Companies" on Truth Social, the social media service he founded after being kicked off Twitter in early 2021. The loser of the last elections has also suggested the "termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution" in order for his re-election to be recognized, or a new election held.

For opponents of the previous American president, the revelations will have little impact since they do not provide any information on the substance of the Hunter Biden affair, even though the president's son is the subject of a federal investigation. Nor does it reveal any new information about Twitter's moderation practices, routinely criticized for their often opaque, arbitrary, and inconsistent nature, except in that they illustrate disagreements and embarrassment at the heart of the company.

Straying from its habitual line, the magazine Wired said that the "Twitter Files" revealed only the current state of moderation since the takeover of the social network by Mr. Musk, who has made a point of personally and actively promoting near absolute freedom of expression. The new CEO recently chose to unblock the accounts of Mr. Trump and Andrew Anglin, the main contributor of the neo-Nazi site Daily Stormer, as well as that of conspiracy theorist and anti-Semitic rapper Kanye West, aka Ye, before blocking Kanye's account again after he glorified Hitler.