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The revelations from the Twitter Files continue to raise eyebrows. For a long time it was claimed that there were accounts that were Russian bots and that supported conservative people. However, with journalist Matt Taibbi’s investigations on Twitter showed that the information was false and those accounts were from conservative people who were censored.
Twitter’s content moderators knew the list was inaccurate, but declined to criticize it to avoid a bad image in the media.
In a Twitter thread, Taibbi posted screenshots of several emails showing Twitter’s trust and safety officer Yoel Roth admitting that the list was wrong. “Falsely accuses a bunch of legitimate right-leaning accounts of being Russian bots,” Taibbi wrote.
The information, according to media reports, came from the Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD). This is a non-profit organization that draws on the purported expertise of former national intelligence officials to identify Russian influence on social networks. “Its advisory council includes the neoconservative writer Bill Kristol, Hillary Clinton campaign official John Podesta, and various former employees of national security agencies,” Reason reported.
ASD maintains Hamilton 68, a dashboard that monitors 600 Twitter accounts that are alleged to be Russian bots. The listing was noted by major media outlets. For example, “favorable coverage of ASD’s work appeared in Politico (“The Russian Bots Are Coming. This Bipartisan Duo Is On It.”), The Washington Post (“Russia-linked accounts are tweeting their support of embattled Fox News host Laura Ingraham”), and elsewhere.”
Twitter Files
Several journalists work hand in hand with Elon Musk, the new owner of Twitter, to publicize the company’s irregularities regarding freedom of expression and the influence that this digital platform has had on politics and society.
Back in December, former New York Times op-ed columnist Bari Weiss claimed that Twitter ran a blacklist that defined which people to limit on the social network.
Weiss focused on several specific accounts, including conservative activist Charlie Kirk, Stanford physician Jay Bhattacharya and Chaya Raichik, who operates the Libsoftiktok account.
Weiss showed several examples of how Twitter censored accounts it wanted and benefited others. In addition, she added that in internal Slack messages, Twitter employees talked about using technicalities to restrict the visibility of tweets and topics.
Williams Perdomo es periodista y escritor, especializado en las fuentes Política y Cultura.