On the surface, it was a typical example of news reporting: a journalist obtains internal documents from a major corporation, shedding light on a political dispute that flared in the waning days of the 2020 presidential race.
But when it comes to Elon Musk and Twitter, nothing is typical.
The so-called Twitter Files, released Friday night by independent journalist Matt Taibbi, caused a storm among pundits, media ethicists and lawmakers in both parties. It also offered a glimpse into the fractured modern landscape of news, where a story’s reception is often determined by readers’ assumptions about the motivations of both reporters and subjects.
The storm started when Mr. Musk teased the release of internal documents he said would reveal the story behind Twitter’s 2020 decision to restrict posts linking to a report in the New York Post about the son of Joseph R. Biden Jr., Hunter.
Mr Musk, who has accused technology companies of censorship, then pointed readers to the report by Mr Taibbi, an iconoclastic journalist who shares some of Mr Musk’s contempt for the mainstream news media. Mr Taibbi’s report, published in the form of a lengthy Twitter thread, included images of email exchanges between Twitter officials deliberating about the spread of the Post story on their platform.
Mr. Musk and Mr. Taibbi framed the exchanges as evidence of widespread censorship and pernicious influence by liberals. Many others — even some staunch Twitter critics — were less impressed, saying the exchanges merely showed a group of executives seriously debating how to deal with an unconfirmed news report based on information from a stolen laptop.
More on Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover
- An established pattern: Fire people. Talk about bankruptcy. Employees tell them to be ‘hard core’. Twitter isn’t the first company to see Elon Musk use that tactic.
- To resolve a “misunderstanding”: After Mr Musk accused Apple of threatening to pull Twitter from the App Store, it seems a possible feud between the tech titans has been avoided.
- A ‘war for talent’: Several companies see disinformation as a potentially costly liability and are trying to hire former Twitter employees with the expertise to keep it under control.
- Unpaid bills: Mr. Musk and his advisers have been scrutinizing all types of charges at Twitter, instructing staff to review, renegotiate, and in some cases not pay at all.
And as with many modern news stories, the Twitter files quickly became weaponized in the service of a dizzying array of pre-existing arguments.
Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who often accuses liberals of smothering speech, claimed the “documents demonstrate a systematic violation of the First Amendment, the greatest example of that in modern history.” House Republicans, who have called for an investigation into Hunter Biden’s business dealings, claimed without evidence that the report revealed a systematic collusion between Twitter and aides to Joe Biden, who was then the Democratic nominee. (Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s CEO at the time, later backtracked on the decision to block the Post story, telling Congress it had been a mistake.)
Former Twitter executives, who have lamented Mr Musk’s chaotic stewardship of the company, called the release of the documents yet another sign of recklessness. Yoel Roth, Twitter’s former head of trust and security, said publishing unredacted documents – some of which contained the names and email addresses of Twitter officials – was “a fundamentally unacceptable thing to do and people” endangered”. (Mr Musk later said that, in hindsight, “I think we should have excluded some email addresses.”)
The central role of Mr Taibbi, a polarizing figure in journalistic circles, caused a stir.
Once an important voice of the political left, Mr. Taibbi achieved fame for presenting himself as an unfettered truth-teller. He is perhaps best known for labeling Goldman Sachs a “vampire squid” in an article that sparked public outrage across Wall Street. But his comments on former President Donald J. Trump diverged from the views of many Democrats — he was skeptical of allegations of collusion between Russia and Mr. Trump’s campaign, for example — and his fan base changed.
On Friday, Mr. Taibbi said his thread on Twitter was “based on thousands of internal documents obtained by sources at Twitter”. Mr Musk had previously hinted at revealing information about Twitter’s handling of the Hunter Biden report. On Friday, shortly before Mr. Taibbi, wrote Mr. Musk: “This is going to be awesome” and added a popcorn emoji, the universal online symbol of fiery anticipation. Mr Taibbi also said he agreed to “certain conditions” in exchange for the documents, but did not provide details.
Mr Taibbi’s skeptics seized what appeared to be an orchestrated revelation. “Imagine doing volunteer online PR work for the world’s richest man on a Friday night, in the service of naked and cynical right-wing narratives, and then pretending to speak truth to power,” wrote MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan in a Twitter post. after.
Mr. Taibbi clapped back on Saturday, to write“I look forward to going through all the tweets complaining about ‘PR for the richest man on earth’, and seeing how many of them have written stories for anonymous sources at the FBI, CIA, Pentagon, White house, etc.”
Mr. Musk and Mr. Taibbi did not respond to requests for comment.
That mr. Musk is a fan of Mr. Taibbi, who left Rolling Stone to start a newsletter on Substack, is no big surprise; Mr. Musk often extols the virtues of citizen journalism. On Saturday, Mr. Musk said in a live audio session on Twitter that he was disappointed that more mainstream media outlets were following Mr. Taibbi had not picked up.
The New York Times asked Mr. Musk for copies of the documents, but received no response.
Musk said Saturday he also provided documents to Bari Weiss, a former editor and columnist at The Times whose Substack newsletter, Common Sense, bills itself as an alternative to traditional newscasts. Ms Weiss declined to comment on Sunday.
The commotion has also produced some strange bedfellows. Mr. Taibbi once compared former President George W. Bush to a “donkey.” On Sunday, his reporting was defended by House Republican leader Representative Kevin McCarthy during an interview on Fox News. “They’re trying to discredit someone for telling the truth,” said Mr. McCarthy on Mr. Musk.
Perhaps the only widely accepted distraction from the release of the Twitter files was a sentiment expressed by Mr. Taibbi himself, in a headline on his Substack page that offered a preview of his upcoming posts.
“Note to Readers,” wrote Mr. Taibbi. “It’s getting weird in here.”
