New video undercuts claim Twitter censored pro-Trump views before Jan. 6
Source: Washington Post
WP EXCLUSIVE
New video undercuts claim Twitter censored pro-Trump views before Jan. 6
In the internal video call from Jan. 5, 2021, workers were told not to take tougher action against a growing wave of tweets they feared were veiled incitements to violence.
By Drew Harwell
June 23, 2023 at 6:00 a.m. EDT
On Jan. 5, 2021, the lawyers and specialists on Twitter’s safety policy team, which set rules about violent content, were bracing for a day of brutality in Washington. In the weeks since President Donald Trump had tweeted a call for his supporters to gather in the nation’s capital for a protest he promised would be “wild,” the site had erupted with pledges of political vengeance and plans for a military-style assault.
“I am very concerned about what happens tomorrow, especially given what we have been seeing,” said one member of the team, Anika Collier Navaroli, in a video call, the details of which are reported here for the first time. “For months we have been allowing folks to maintain and say on the platform that they’re locked and loaded, that they’re ready to shoot people, that they’re ready to commit violence.”
Some participants in the call pushed the company to adopt a tougher position, arguing that moderators should be able to remove what they called “coded incitements to violence” — messages, such as “locked and loaded,” that could be read as threats. But a senior manager dismissed the idea, saying executives wanted them to take action against only the most flagrant rules violations, adding, “We didn’t want to go too far.” ...
“What if there’s violence on the ground?” responded another team member in Twitter’s Dublin office. “Would we take action … or do we have to wait for violence — someone getting shot?”
The next day, a mob of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol, leaving five people dead and more than 100 police officers injured. ... Two and a half years after those events, the role of social media companies in fomenting the violence remains a volatile topic. Twitter’s current owner, Elon Musk, commissioned a series of reports intended to reveal how the company had previously sought to squelch conservative speech, and a Republican-led committee in the House of Representatives is working to build the case that the tech giants have been digitally weaponized against conservative ideas. ... But the video and other newly obtained internal Twitter records show that, far from working to censor pro-Trump sentiment in the days before the Capitol riot, the company’s leaders were intent on leaving it up — despite internal warnings that trouble was brewing.
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By Drew Harwell
Drew Harwell is a reporter for The Washington Post covering artificial intelligence and the algorithms changing our lives. He was a member of an international reporting team that won a George Polk Award in 2021.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/06/23/new-twitter-video-jan6/
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K&R
I swore off Facebook years ago and I'm definitely better off for it. I try to keep as low of a social media profile as I possibly can because, fuck these morons. 
