Who is Trenton Kennedy? Twitter comm dept repeatedly questioned Hunter Biden's laptop story censorship
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA: Twitter CEO Elon Musk teased on Friday, December 2, “What really happened with the Hunter Biden story suppression by Twitter will be published on Twitter at 5pm ET!” He then tweeted a link to the account of author Matt Taibbi, who posted a series of tweets revealing the story about the decision behind the censorship of Hunter Biden's laptop story, in which he mentioned Communications official Trenton Kennedy as saying, “We’ll face hard questions on this if we don’t have some kind of solid reasoning for marking the link unsafe [New York Post's report about Biden].”
Taibbi started with “Thread: THE TWITTER FILES” where he detailed how Twitter started to control the political narrative. “On October 14, 2020, the New York Post published BIDEN SECRET EMAILS, an expose based on the contents of Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop: Twitter Blocked the Hunter Biden Laptop Story," he wrote and went on to say, "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." After tweeting for the 24th time, he writes, "You can see the confusion in the following lengthy exchange, which ends up including [former head of legal, policy and trust Vijaya] Gadde and former Trust and safety chief Yoel Roth. Comms official Trenton Kennedy writes, 'I'm struggling to understand the policy basis for marking this as unsafe.'"
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What really happened with the Hunter Biden story suppression by Twitter will be published on Twitter at 5pm ET!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 2, 2022
17. On October 14, 2020, the New York Post published BIDEN SECRET EMAILS, an expose based on the contents of Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop: https://t.co/q4zaMw6aVV
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 3, 2022
https://t.co/j4EeXEAw6F can see the confusion in the following lengthy exchange, which ends up including Gadde and former Trust and safety chief Yoel Roth. Comms official Trenton Kennedy writes, “I'm struggling to understand the policy basis for marking this as unsafe”: pic.twitter.com/w1wBMlG33U
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 3, 2022
Kennedy further wrote, in a screenshot shared by Taibbi, "I think the best explainability argument for this externally would be that we’re waiting to understand of this story is the result of hacked materials." Taibbi then tweeted, "By this point “everyone knew this was f****d,” said one former employee, but the response was essentially to err on the side of… continuing to err." In the follow-up tweet, he mentioned, "Former VP of Global Comms Brandon Borrman asks, “Can we truthfully claim that this is part of the policy?” "To which former Deputy General Counsel Jim Baker again seems to advise staying the non-course, because “caution is warranted,” Taibbi tweets.
28. To which former Deputy General Counsel Jim Baker again seems to advise staying the non-course, because “caution is warranted”: pic.twitter.com/tg4D0gLWI6
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 3, 2022
Who is Trenton Kennedy?
According to his LinkedIn profile, Kennedy is now a senior communications manager at Chainalysis Inc since August 2022. Prior to this, he was the US policy communications manager at Twitter which he joined in November 2019. Kennedy, who did a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Kansas State University, was also the deputy press secretary of Senator Jerry Moran.