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Matt Taibbi unleashed an epic third installment of the Twitter Files on Friday night, exposing the decisions and actions behind banning President Donald Trump on the platform. In a series of tweets, Taibbi showed that Twitter's Elections & Crisis Response Patrick Conlon was pushing for the removal of jokes and content by conservatives on the platform. Prior to his term at Twitter, Conlon worked in intelligence for the US Department of Defense.
Conlon acitvely worked to silence these accounts by saying the jokes were a violation of the terms of service.
On January 6, 2021, the day of the Capitol riot and Trump's last rally as president, held at the Ellipse, Trump tweeted out to supporters to tell them to disperse from the Capitol.
"These are the things and events that hapepn when a sacred landslide election victor is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long. Go home wiht love & peace," Trump wrote. "Remember this day forever!"
In internal conversations, Conlon said "What the actual f*ck? Can this go to Staff too? I'm labelling this now."
"Yes," Yoel Roth, head of Twitter Trust and Safety said.
"Sorry," Conlon wrote. "I actually got emotionally angry seeing that. Turns out I'm not a full robot. Who knew?"
They flagged for moderation a tweet in which the sitting president told rioters to disperse from the Capitol.
In the lead up to the 2020 presidential election, a Twitter exec shared a joke from Governor Mike Huckabee with collegues, saying "putting this tweet on everyone's radar. This appears to be a joke but other people might believe it. Can I get your weigh in this?"
It read: "Stood in rain for hour to early vote today. When I got home I filled in my stack of mail-in ballots and then voted the ballots of my deceased parents and grandparents. They vote just like me!"
It was a joke.
Yet, Roth, who notably believes that satire can cause real world violence and should therefore be suppressed, replied, saying "Ugh. Yeah, I saw this one last night. Agree it's a joke... but he's also literally admitting in a tweet to a crime."
It was a joke.
"Could still mislead people," another exec chimed in. "But although misleading, in my opinion, I don't think it can unduly influence the election. Could still mislead people."
"Yeah. I could see us taking action under 'misleading claims that cause confusion about the established laws, regulations, procedures, and methods of a civic process,'" Roth replied, "but it's not one that we could really label in a useful way, so it's [sic] removal (of a stupid and ill-advised joke) or nothing. I'm maybe inclined not to remove without a report from voting authorities given it's been a while since he tweeted it and virtually all of the replies I'm seeing are critical/counterspeech."
Conlon weighed in, saying "Ooof. I just saw this. Looking at the replies now to get a feel for it much confusion is being generated. A quick glance indicates that people aren't confused, but I have concerns. Under the policy we don't make exceptions for jokes or satire. So while I doubt that Huck was really this stpid and is joking, I'm inclined to say that it should come down."
Conlon and Roth felt they were smart enough to discern a joke from a factual statement, but that the American people were not.
Conlon acitvely worked to silence these accounts by saying the jokes were a violation of the terms of service.
On January 6, 2021, the day of the Capitol riot and Trump's last rally as president, held at the Ellipse, Trump tweeted out to supporters to tell them to disperse from the Capitol.
"These are the things and events that hapepn when a sacred landslide election victor is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long. Go home wiht love & peace," Trump wrote. "Remember this day forever!"
In internal conversations, Conlon said "What the actual f*ck? Can this go to Staff too? I'm labelling this now."
"Yes," Yoel Roth, head of Twitter Trust and Safety said.
"Sorry," Conlon wrote. "I actually got emotionally angry seeing that. Turns out I'm not a full robot. Who knew?"
They flagged for moderation a tweet in which the sitting president told rioters to disperse from the Capitol.
In the lead up to the 2020 presidential election, a Twitter exec shared a joke from Governor Mike Huckabee with collegues, saying "putting this tweet on everyone's radar. This appears to be a joke but other people might believe it. Can I get your weigh in this?"
It read: "Stood in rain for hour to early vote today. When I got home I filled in my stack of mail-in ballots and then voted the ballots of my deceased parents and grandparents. They vote just like me!"
It was a joke.
Yet, Roth, who notably believes that satire can cause real world violence and should therefore be suppressed, replied, saying "Ugh. Yeah, I saw this one last night. Agree it's a joke... but he's also literally admitting in a tweet to a crime."
It was a joke.
"Could still mislead people," another exec chimed in. "But although misleading, in my opinion, I don't think it can unduly influence the election. Could still mislead people."
"Yeah. I could see us taking action under 'misleading claims that cause confusion about the established laws, regulations, procedures, and methods of a civic process,'" Roth replied, "but it's not one that we could really label in a useful way, so it's [sic] removal (of a stupid and ill-advised joke) or nothing. I'm maybe inclined not to remove without a report from voting authorities given it's been a while since he tweeted it and virtually all of the replies I'm seeing are critical/counterspeech."
Conlon weighed in, saying "Ooof. I just saw this. Looking at the replies now to get a feel for it much confusion is being generated. A quick glance indicates that people aren't confused, but I have concerns. Under the policy we don't make exceptions for jokes or satire. So while I doubt that Huck was really this stpid and is joking, I'm inclined to say that it should come down."
Conlon and Roth felt they were smart enough to discern a joke from a factual statement, but that the American people were not.
Shortly after these revelations, Conlon deleted his LinkedIn account.
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