Who is Matt Taibbi? Elon Musk gets author to release Twitter files on censoring of Hunter Biden laptop scandal
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA: Twitter has been a battleground lately and Elon Musk just dropped some bombshell Twitter files. The billionaire CEO exposed how the social media platform suppressed the Hunter Biden laptop scandal at the behest of the Joe Biden 2020 presidential campaign. These documents were given to author and journalist Matt Taibbi who began tweeting internal emails showing the blue bird's involvement in the scandal on Friday, December 2.
Not too long before the October 2020 elections, Twitter users began sharing Hunter and President Joe Biden's involvement with a Chinese oil giant and the latter's potential multi-million-dollar deal with the foreign firm. However, the leaked emails now reveal that the platform was approached to handle the spiraling situation. Twitter then began suppressing the story. Taibbi, who had access to Twitter files, revealed how the company stopped people from sharing the story, including the White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany. One such email shared by Taibbi shows former president Donald Trump reaching out to the staffers complaining that McEnany was locked out of her account for simply sharing the New York Post story. The app allegedly used blockers, which are usually implemented to prevent distribution of child porn.
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Musk and Taibbi revealed how senior Twitter staff argued over the suppression of the story which includes explosive information about Hunter's adventures with prostitutes, hard drugs, internal family disputes, and more. The contents of the laptop could very well be presented as evidence of likely corruption with the Ukrainian gas company Burisma and his potential links to Chinese firms. The entire exposing session started with Musk tweeting, "What happened with the Hunter Biden story suppression by Twitter will be published on Twitter at 5pm ET!"
Who is Matt Taibbi?
Matt Taibbi, 52, is an American author, journalist, and podcaster with finance, media, politics, and sports being his key areas of interest. He has been a former Rolling Stone politics correspondent, co-host of Useful Idiots, publisher of a newsletter on Substack, and author of several books. Before exposing the platform's role in suppressing the scandal before the 2020 elections, Musk inked Taibbi's profile to land the majority of Twitter's traffic on his account.
Taibbi, with extensive experience, wrote, "Twitter took extraordinary steps to suppress the story, removing links and posting warnings that it may be “unsafe.” They even blocked its transmission via direct message, a tool hitherto reserved for extreme cases, e.g. child pornography." He explained that the previous CEO Jack Dorsey was unaware of the "amazing subplot of the Twitter/Hunter Biden laptop affair," but even after he got involved, it took a long time for the items to undo the effects. Dorsey later admitted that blocking the story was a mistake during a congressional hearing on misinformation and social media in March last year.
18. Twitter took extraordinary steps to suppress the story, removing links and posting warnings that it may be “unsafe.” They even blocked its transmission via direct message, a tool hitherto reserved for extreme cases, e.g. child pornography.
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 3, 2022
An amazing subplot of the Twitter/Hunter Biden laptop affair was how much was done without the knowledge of CEO Jack Dorsey, and how long it took for the situation to get "unfucked" (as one ex-employee put it) even after Dorsey jumped in.
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 3, 2022