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Published 12:36 03 Dec 2022 GMT
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Published 13:37 04 Dec 2022 GMT
Donald Trump has appeared to respond to the widely circulated "Twitter Files" leaks by calling for the "termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution".
This week, new Twitter owner Elon Musk had been hyping a massive bombshell regarding the New York Post's 2020 story on Hunter Biden and his laptop.
"The Twitter Files on free speech suppression soon to be published on Twitter itself. The public deserves to know what really happened," the 51-year-old billionaire tweeted on November 28.
And after promising to reveal "what really happened with the Hunter Biden story suppression by Twitter", Musk then shared a link to a Twitter thread penned by independent journalist Matt Taibbi.
Taibbi's thread, published on Friday, shared screenshots of emails and files from former Twitter employees that showed conversations relating to the "suppression" of the Post's exposé. "Twitter took extraordinary steps to suppress the story, removing links and posting warnings that it may be 'unsafe'", Taibbi wrote.
Despite claiming that decisions to suppress the story were made "at the highest levels of the company", Taibbi did stress that there is no evidence "of any government involvement in the laptop story" or from previous Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.
As of this writing, total interactions on Taibbi's thread have reached the millions.
Following the release of the so-called "Twitter Files", former President Donald Trump took to his own social media platform - Truth Social - to once again comment on how "Big Tech Companies" allegedly helped to "throw" the results of the 2020 Presidential Election.
In a post shared on Saturday, Trump writes: "So, with the revelation of MASSIVE + WIDESPREAD FRAUD + DECEPTION in working closely with Big Tech Companies, the DNC, + the Democrat Party, do you throw the Presidential Election Results of 2020 OUT and declare the RIGHTFUL WINNER, or do you have a NEW ELECTION?"
The former POTUS then claimed that "a massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution."
"Our great 'Founders' did not want, and would not condone, False & Fraudulent Elections," Trump's post concluded.
In response to the 76-year-old's comments, White House spokesman Andrew Bates has dubbed Trump's words as an "anathema to the soul of our nation, and should be universally condemned."
"You cannot only love America when you win," Bates said in a statement, per CNN. "The American Constitution is a sacrosanct document that for over 200 years has guaranteed that freedom and the rule of law prevail in our great country.
"The Constitution brings the American people together – regardless of party – and elected leaders swear to uphold it. It’s the ultimate monument to all of the Americans who have given their lives to defeat self-serving despots that abused their power and trampled on fundamental rights."
After days of teasing a huge announcement, Elon Musk has shared the first "Twitter files" to reveal "what really happened with the Hunter Biden story suppression".
Earlier this week, the 51-year-old business magnate - who acquired the social media platform in a historic $44 billion takeover in October - took to Twitter to hype a massive bombshell regarding the New York Post's 2020 story on Hunter Biden and his laptop.
In the publication's own words: "In October 2020, the New York Post exclusively revealed the existence of Hunter Biden’s emails after being given a copy of the hard drive from a damaged MacBook Pro laptop that the owner of a repair shop in the Biden family’s hometown of Wilmington, Del., said was dropped off in April 2019 and never retrieved."
The exposé was later acknowledged in major news outlets such as The Washington Post and The New York Times.
On November 28, Musk - who has made several major changes at Twitter since his takeover - tweeted the following message to his followers: "The Twitter Files on free speech suppression soon to be published on Twitter itself. The public deserves to know what really happened…"
And on Friday, he further teased the announcement, writing: "What really happened with the Hunter Biden story suppression by Twitter will be published on Twitter at 5pm ET!"
Sure enough, Musk would later share a Twitter thread penned by independent journalist Matt Taibbi.
In his tweets, Taibbi explained that the information he was sharing was "based upon thousands of internal documents obtained by sources at Twitter."
Despite praising Twitter's concept as "a brilliant tool for enabling instant mass communication", Taibbi revealed that its designers were soon forced to implement "barriers" to control speech - which were initially used to "combat the likes of spam and financial fraudsters."
"Slowly, over time, Twitter staff and executives began to find more and more uses for these tools," Taibbi writes. "Outsiders began petitioning the company to manipulate speech as well: first a little, then more often, then constantly."
Taibbi then claimed that "celebrities and unknowns alike could be removed [from the platform] or reviewed at the behest of a political party."
The journalist then discussed the breaking of the Hunter Biden Laptop Story, writing: "Twitter took extraordinary steps to suppress the story, removing links and posting warnings that it may be 'unsafe'."
Despite claiming that decisions to suppress the story were made "at the highest levels of the company", Taibbi did stress that there is no evidence "of any government involvement in the laptop story" or from previous Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.
Throughout his thread, Taibbi would include screenshots of alleged emails between Twitter employees discussing the suppression of links regarding the laptop story.
All in all, Taibbi's thread consisted of over two-dozen tweets - all of which can be seen below:
And if all that wasn't exciting enough, Musk has promised even more:
Published 16:42 07 Jul 2021 GMT
Donald Trump plans to file class-action lawsuits against Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter's Jack Dorsey.
News of the legal filing comes after both of the social media giants blocked his profile on their respective platforms in the wake of the US Capitol attack on January 6. Trump, at the time, was accused by many of inciting the deadly insurrection.
Twitter banned Trump indefinitely and Facebook said the ex-POTUS would remain suspended until at least January 2023.
Now, sources have informed Axios that the former president plans to announce the lawsuits at a press conference on July 7.
Per the outlet, the filings will center on the alleged bias the platforms have against the Republican's supporters.
Trump is reportedly seeking a restoration of his accounts on the platforms as well as punitive damages on the companies responsible for suspending his accounts.
Last month, Facebook's Vice President of Global Affairs and former Deputy Prime Minister of the UK Nick Clegg confirmed that Trump's ban will last until January 7, 2023.
Clegg said, per The Independent:
"Given the gravity of the circumstances that led to Mr Trump’s suspension, we believe his actions constituted a severe violation of our rules which merit the highest penalty available under the new enforcement protocols.
"We are suspending his accounts for two years, effective from the date of the initial suspension on 7 January this year."
At the time of Trump's suspension from Twitter, a spokesperson wrote in a statement:
"After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them — specifically how they are being received and interpreted on and off Twitter — we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence.
"In the context of horrific events this week, we made it clear on Wednesday that additional violations of the Twitter Rules would potentially result in this very course of action.
"Our public interest framework exists to enable the public to hear from elected officials and world leaders directly. It is built on a principle that the people have a right to hold power to account in the open."
Trump has repeatedly condemned the suspension of his accounts. Last week, he even alleged that Zuckerberg funded unsecured drop boxes in the 2020 election - as the 75-year-old claimed yet again that he was the rightful winner of the 2020 US presidential election.
Published 13:33 27 May 2020 GMT
President Donald Trump took to Twitter today to threaten that Republicans will attempt to close down social media platforms after Twitter, for the very first time, added fact checks to his tweets.
Many of the fact checks were applied to his unsubstantiated allegations regarding mail-in voting fraud.
Trump tweeted:
"Republicans feel that Social Media Platforms totally silence conservatives voices. We will strongly regulate, or close them down, before we can ever allow this to happen.
"We saw what they attempted to do, and failed, in 2016. We can’t let a more sophisticated version of that [...] happen again. Just like we can’t let large scale Mail-In Ballots take root in our Country.
"It would be a free for all on cheating, forgery and the theft of Ballots. Whoever cheated the most would win. Likewise, Social Media. Clean up your act, NOW!!!! [sic]"
[[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1265601611310739456]]
[[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1265601615261827072]]
Trump posted the tweets just hours after two of his tweets, which claimed that mail-in ballots could lead to electoral fraud, were flagged as "potentially misleading" by the social media platform.
In earlier tweets, Trump President accused Twitter of interfering with the 2020 election and for "stifling free speech". He wrote:
"@Twitter is now interfering in the 2020 Presidential Election. They are saying my statement on Mail-In Ballots, which will lead to massive corruption and fraud, is incorrect, based on fact-checking by Fake News CNN and the Amazon Washington Post....
"....Twitter is completely stifling FREE SPEECH, and I, as President, will not allow it to happen!"
[[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1265427538140188676]]
[[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1265427539008380928]]
Due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, there has been a push for the November presidential election to be held through mail-in votes - an idea that Trump has repeatedly denounced, stating that it could lead to widespread fraud.
Watch as Donald Trump tells a Chinese-American reporter to "Ask China" during a press conference:
[[jwplayerwidget||https://content.jwplatform.com/videos/KS9btB80-sKUnNGKf.mp4||KS9btB80]]
Responding to Trump's tweets yesterday evening, Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley, tweeted a similar assertion:
"And @Twitter is getting subsidized by the federal government for that interference in the form of special immunity worth billions. Time to end #BigTech sweetheart deal w/ government," he wrote.
[[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/HawleyMO/status/1265444047365312515]]
Per Forbes, last year, Twitter announced it would ban all political ads from its platform.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said then he believed that the spread of political messages "should be earned, not bought". However, the platform has struggled to pinpoint the terms on whether it should police misleading tweets from world leaders.
Published 16:35 11 May 2022 GMT
Elon Musk has stated that he would reverse Donald Trump's ban on Twitter if his bid to buy the platform is successful.
Last month, the 50-year-old billionaire agreed to a $44 billion deal to purchase the social media platform and has been sharing his plans for Twitter's future ever since.
In particular, Musk has stated that one of his many priorities is to make Twitter a platform that welcomes free speech. So intrinsically, many people questioned whether he would reinstate former US President Donald Trump's Twitter account.
Per BBC News, the SpaceX founder was at the Financial Times Future of the Car summit on Tuesday and shared his thoughts on the issue.
"I do think it was not correct to ban Donald Trump. I think that was a mistake," Musk said.
"It alienated a large part of the country and did not ultimately result in Donald Trump not having a voice," he added, before stating that the ban "was a morally bad decision, to be clear, and foolish in the extreme."
In early 2021, Trump's Twitter account was permanently suspended "due to the risk of further incitement of violence" following the January 6 Capitol riots. It was the first major platform to ban the then-president.
The POTUS has already stated publically that he would not return to Twitter even if his account is reinstated, and will instead use his platform - the TRUTH Social.
However, via Guardian, Trump's political opponents believe he would not pass up on the opportunity to broadcast to his audience on the popular site.
The richest man in the world also said: "I would reverse the permanent ban but I don't own Twitter yet so this is not a thing that will definitely happen."
Musk revealed that he had spoken to Twitter co-founder and CEO Jake Dorsey, 48, on the subject of removing social media accounts that write offensive tweets.
"He and I are of the same mind that permanent bans should be extremely rare and reserved for accounts that are bots or scam accounts," he said.
Musk expressed that if a user tweeted something "illegal or otherwise destructive to the world" then a temporary suspension would suffice rather than permanently removing users. He also added that the post should be made invisible.
In his announcement tweet, he stated that he hopes to make the algorithm "open source to increase trust" and said at the event that he welcomes suggestions from people on how to improve it.
The billionaire reiterated the criticism that Twitter has a strong left bias, adding that it's because of its origins of being headquartered in San Francisco. Twitter is "coming out of an environment that is very far left", he said.
"Victory would be the far-right 10% and the far left 10% are equally upset," he then added.
Published 11:45 20 Nov 2022 GMT
Donald Trump is officially back on Twitter... technically.
It has been nearly two years after the former President of the United States was booted from the platform - just two days after the infamous January 6 Capitol Riots.
At the time, officials from the social media company announced in a statement that the former POTUS had been "permanently suspended" from Twitter "due to the risk of further incitement of violence".
The statement added:
"After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them — specifically how they are being received and interpreted on and off Twitter — we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence.
"In the context of horrific events this week, we made it clear on Wednesday that additional violations of the Twitter Rules would potentially result in this very course of action."
However, there was hope for the now-76-year-old after the social media giant was acquired last month by Tesla CEO Elon Musk in a $44 billion deal.
Following Musk's repeated touts for "free speech", many of Trump's biggest supporters believed this could mean the ex-president's ban would be lifted.
Then, on Saturday (November 19), over 15 million people voted on a Twitter poll created by Musk, in which he asked the simple question: "Reinstate former President Trump" - with the two answer options being "Yes" or "No".
When the poll was closed, 15,085,458 votes votes have been registered - with 51.8% of people said "Yes" and 48.2% of voters said "No".
Clearly excited by the popularity of the poll, 51-year-old Musk would later describe it as "fascinating", and even tweeted: "Vox Populi, Vox Dei" - a Latin phrase meaning "the voice of the people is the voice of God".
"The people have spoken. Trump will be reinstated," Musk then tweeted.
And so, overnight, Donald Trump's @RealDonaldTrump account has been reinstated and is once again active - meaning Trump once again has access to his 25 million followers (he did have 88 million followers before the suspension).
However, according to a report by Reuters, Trump has effectively snubbed the suspension being lifted.
Speaking to a panel at the Republican Jewish Coalition's annual leadership meeting earlier on Saturday, Trump was asked about whether or not he planned to return to the platform, to which he said: "I don't see any reason for it."
Instead, Trump is pursuing with his own social media platform, Truth Social - which he claimed is receiving a higher user engagement than Twitter and was performing "phenomenally well".
This comes after Trump officially announced his intention to once again run for president in 2024.
Of course, this may not come as a surprise to many.
Back in April, Trump was taking part in an interview with Fox News following Musk's initial announcement to purchase Twitter.
During that interview, the former president said: "I am not going on Twitter, I am going to stay on TRUTH," he told Fox News, adding: "I hope Elon buys Twitter because he’ll make improvements to it and he is a good man, but I am going to be staying on TRUTH."
Although he was once extremely active on the platform, Trump was adamant, saying: "The bottom line is, no, I am not going back to Twitter."
Meanwhile, he maintained that TRUTH Social will not be in direct competition with Musk's Twitter, saying: "I don’t view that as a competition for what I am doing."
"This is a platform for my voice. TRUTH is a platform for my voice and for my supporters," he added.