A Twitter employee from China, where the Chinese Communist Party rules with an iron fist through surveillance and censorship, spoke out against banning former President Donald Trump’s account, according to the fifth installment of the Elon Musk-endorsed “Twitter Files.”
The latest installment, published by The Free Press founder and editor Bari Weiss on Dec. 12, exposed more internal details at Twitter that ultimately led to the suspension of Trump’s Twitter account on Jan. 8, 2021. Weiss revealed that was an internal discussion a day earlier, particularly how there were “dissenters inside Twitter” who preferred not banning Trump.
“Maybe because I am from China, I deeply understand how censorship can destroy the public conversation,” a Chinese Twitter employee said to co-workers on Jan. 7, 2021, according to the screengrab.
In response, another employee said, “I understand this fear, but I also think it’s important to understand that censorship by a government is very different than censorship of the government.”
“The first amendment in the U.S.—and similar legislation in other countries with similar concepts—exist specifically to prevent the government from silencing the people,” the employee added.
Weiss wrote that the Chinese employee was among the few that had opposed a ban on Trump.
“But voices like that one appear to have been a distinct minority within the company,” Weiss wrote. “Across Slack channels, many Twitter employees were upset that Trump hadn’t been banned earlier.”
SpaceX owner and Tesla CEO Elon Musk laughs as he arrives on the red carpet for the Axel Springer Awards ceremony, in Berlin, Germany, on Dec. 1, 2020. (Hannibal Hanschke/AFP via Getty Images)
Musk shared a synopsis of the latest batch of internal Twitter communications on Monday.
“Under pressure from hundreds of activist employees, Twitter deplatforms Trump, a sitting US President, even though they themselves acknowledge that he didn’t violate the rules,” Musk wrote on Twitter.
After retweeting Musk’s tweet, Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas) took to Twitter to voice support for Trump.
“Donald Trump didn’t break any rules on Twitter, and activist employees banned him anyways,” Nehls wrote. “The left hates free speech.”
Whistleblower
Peiter “Mudge” Zatko—a whistleblower who served as Twitter’s head of security before being fired in January—was mentioned in the latest installment of files.
“Twitter’s COO Parag Agrawal—who would later succeed Dorsey as CEO—told Head of Security Mudge Zatko: ‘I think a few of us should brainstorm the ripple effects’ of Trump’s ban. Agrawal added: ‘centralized content moderation IMO has reached a breaking point now,’” Weiss wrote.
In August, Zatko filed a complaint (pdf) to federal regulators, alleging that Twitter had “engaged in acts and practices operating as deceit upon its users and shareholders, regarding security, privacy, and integrity.”
The complaint claims that Chinese entities gave money to Twitter, raising concerns that these entities could learn sensitive information about Twitter users around the world.
“Twitter executives knew that accepting Chinese money risked endangering users in China,” the complaint says.
Peiter “Mudge” Zatko, former head of security at Twitter, testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on data security at Twitter, on Capitol Hill in Washington, on Sep. 13, 2022. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
In September, during a congressional hearing, Zatko revealed that at least one agent of China’s top intelligence agency, the Ministry of State Security, was on Twitter’s payroll.
Zatko also said that Twitter would be a “goldmine” for any foreign intelligence agency that could embed agents within the company.
“If you place somebody on Twitter … as we know has happened, it would be very difficult for Twitter to find them,” Zatko said. “They will probably be able to stay there for a long period of time and gain significant information to provide back on either targeting people or on information as to Twitter’s decisions and discussions and … the direction of the company.”
Previous Revelations
Independent journalist Matt Taibbi unveiled the first batch of the “Twitter Files” on Dec. 2, exposing how the social media giant’s efforts to suppress the New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story published just weeks before the 2020 presidential election.
Emails from the laptop’s hard drive and Treasury records revealed how Joe Biden, his brother James, and Hunter Biden were involved in various foreign business ventures, in countries such as Ukraine, Russia, and China. At the time, many media outlets discredited the revelations as “Russian disinformation” and the news was blocked by social media platforms.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) speaks during a congressional hearing in Washington on Feb. 24, 2021. (Greg Nash/AFP via Getty Images)
Speaking on the Senate floor on Dec. 7, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) criticized Twitter over revelations made by the first installment of files.
“The documents make clear that Twitter was effectively an arm of the Democratic Party and the Biden campaign. Twitter essentially gave the Biden campaign a massive in-kind campaign contribution,” Grassley said. “What Twitter and other Big Tech companies did in 2020 with respect to censorship was as much an outrage then as it is today.”
Grassley added, “Simply put, what they did is expected of communist China not the United States of America.”
On Dec. 8, Weiss reported on the second installment of files, exposing how Twitter created “secret blacklists” and deployed “visibility filtering” to shadow-ban certain users.
In the two ensuing days, the third and fourth installments, both dealing with Trump’s ban, were released. The third batch exposed Twitter activities from before the 2020 election up to the Capitol breach on Jan. 6, 2021. Meanwhile, the fourth batch exposed how Twitter executives built their case and deviated from a longstanding company policy to ban trump.
Frank Fang is a Taiwan-based journalist. He covers U.S., China, and Taiwan news. He holds a master's degree in materials science from Tsinghua University in Taiwan.
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