TheQuartering [12/8/2022]
Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey called for current Twitter owner and CEO Elon Musk to “Make everything public now” in his release of the so-called “Twitter Files.”
“If the goal is transparency to build trust, why not just release everything without filter and let people judge for themselves? Including all discussions around current and future actions? Make everything public now. #TwitterFiles ” Dorsey tweeted in response to Musk saying he needed time before publishing “Episode 2” of the files.
“Most important data was hidden (from you too) and some may have been deleted, but everything we find will be released,” Musk later responded to Dorsey’s tweet.
Last week, Musk began promoting the release of internal Twitter communications, which he dubbed the “Twitter Files.” The billionaire claimed that release of the information would show Twitter’s efforts to censor free speech.
The files were released on Friday via journalist Matt Taibbi, who writes the substack newsletter TK News. Musk claimed the internal communications showed that Twitter suppressed free speech on the behest of Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign. The posts included nude photos of Hunter Biden, which had spread without his consent. The tweets were in violation of the company’s revenge porn policy.
The social platform also took down links to a story from the New York Post about Hunter Biden’s laptop. The files show that Twitter employees debated whether or not to censor the story, as Twitter has a policy against publishing information that was obtained through hacking. At the time, the ban was eventually reversed, and Dorsey later called the ban a “total mistake.”
The files that were released failed to redact personal information about Twitter employees, including various employees’ email addresses. Twitter cofounder Biz Stone appeared to criticize the release on Friday, calling it “gross” and saying Elon “does things for sport that have serious consequences for real people.”
Musk has promised to release more Twitter Files. On Tuesday, the billionaire confirmed that he had fired Twitter deputy general counsel James Baker for allegedly interfering in the publication of the information, accusing the lawyer of suppressing “information important to the public dialogue.”