Why leaked Pentagon documents are still circulating on Twitter and Discord

Twitter and the social media platform Discord have different policies that may have prompted them to remove the leaked documents from the Pentagon that officials in the Biden administration say revealed important information about US intelligence-gathering operations.

But gray areas in those rules and uneven enforcement of them make it unclear how, or even if, executives at those companies would decide to remove them.

As of Saturday, Twitter continued to host tweets featuring the Pentagon documents, some of which were already online at least Wednesday. There is no indication that Elon Musk, who bought Twitter nearly six months ago, will take action against the tweets containing the classified documents.

Two days earlier, Mr. Musk appeared to be responding sarcastically to a tweet about the leaked material. “Yes, you can completely remove stuff from the internet – that works perfectly and doesn’t draw attention to what you were trying to hide at all,” He wrote.

On Discord, a messaging platform popular with gamers, the Pentagon documents may have been circulating as early as March. Since Discord chat groups — also known as servers — aren’t run directly by the company like a Facebook or Twitter feed, the distribution of the Pentagon documents would have been difficult to spot.

Mr Musk did not respond to a request for comment on Saturday and Discord declined to comment. It is not known whether the companies, both based in the United States, have been asked to remove the Pentagon material.

In the past, Twitter may have removed the material under rules which prohibit the publication and distribution of hacked materials, two former executives told The New York Times. Under this policy, Twitter would remove tweets containing “real or synthesized hacked material” or place warning labels on the material. Some of the Pentagon material circulating on social media may have been manipulated.

But there were caveats to Twitter’s rules, as they were outlined in a policy document, last updated in October 2020. The rules allowed exceptions for material that forms the basis of news agency coverage. And debates within social media companies about what is allowed online are often similar to discussions traditional media have about whether leaked or hacked material is of sufficient public interest to warrant publication.

It was not clear on Saturday whether the Pentagon materials had been hacked or deliberately leaked — the images circulating appeared to be photographs of documents. The documents could fall into a gray area that, at least in the past, would have led to debate among compliance officers within the company about whether they were eligible for deletion.

Twitter used its hacked material policy to block the distribution of an October 2020 article from the New York Post that said the FBI seized a computer allegedly belonging to Hunter Biden, the son of Joseph R. Biden Jr. . Twitter’s leaders, including then-CEO Jack Dorsey, later called the decision a mistake.

The former executives, who spoke to The Times on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation from Mr Musk, said Twitter often received reports from US government organizations about potential violations of its policies.

But since taking over the company in October, Mr. Musk has downsized the groups responsible for moderation, and more than 75 percent of Twitter’s 7,500 employees have been laid off or left. Ella Irwin, Twitter’s head of trust and security, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Twitter has removed or prevented the distribution of content at the behest of governments such as India and the whims of Mr Musk.

Last week, Twitter also began regulating the distribution and engagement of links to Substack, its newsletter platform, after the start-up unveiled a Twitter-like service. On Friday, many Substack writers found that tweets linking to their Substack pages could not be liked or retweeted.

Discord exploded in popularity during the pandemic and expanded beyond its video game roots. By the end of 2021, the platform had more than 150 million monthly active users.

Discord offers so-called servers that are essentially chat rooms where people can discuss their hobbies and messages with each other or participate in audio conversations. Some servers are public and hold thousands of people, while others – such as servers made just for a group of friends – are private.

This arrangement has allowed Discord to thrive, but it has also led to problems with malicious content. Ensuring that Discord users follow the platform’s policies and refrain from posting inappropriate or questionable material is largely left to the individuals who create the servers, some of whom replace members of the server communities to help enforce the rules.

The private nature of some of these groups means they can easily escape detection or moderation.

In 2017, white nationalists organized the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, on far-right Discord servers. Company executives knew that the white nationalists were using the platform, but did not remove them until after the rally.

Discord said it had since strengthened its content moderation team, and the company’s CEO Jason Citron said in a 2021 interview that 15 percent of its employees worked on trust and safety teams.

Still, the company did not discover any Discord messages on a private server posted by the gunman who killed 10 people at a Buffalo grocery store last spring. In the messages, the gunman posted racial slurs and appeared to detail how he intended to carry out the attack. After the shooting, Discord said it was investigating the messages and cooperating with law enforcement.

In its most recent transparency report, which covers the last three months of 2022, Discord said it had disabled more than 150,000 accounts for policy violations ranging from “harassment and bullying” to “exploitative and unsolicited content.” The number of accounts it disabled was down 17 percent from the previous three months, the company said.