“Twitter Files” journalist Matt Taibbi announced Friday he’s begrudgingly leaving the social media platform after CEO Elon Musk’s latest changes have made it “unusable” for him.
Taibbi was one in every of a handful of reporters Musk granted access to Twitter’s internal communications last 12 months after he purchased the social media giant, revealing how the corporate collaborated with government agencies to censor and suppress information and news — including The Post’s bombshell Hunter Biden laptop scoop within the run-up to the 2020 election.
As a condition of his internal access, Taibbi agreed to release his reporting live via lengthy Twitter threads. Nonetheless, Taibbi and fellow reporter Bari Weiss each posted their reports on Substack, which allows writers to share their stories with paid subscribers, Mediaite reported.
After Substack announced Notes, a recent competitive feature that enables short-form posts just like a tweet, Twitter retaliated by barring the flexibility to share links and even embed tweets in Substack posts, in accordance with the outlet.
In a post titled “The Craziest Friday Ever,” Taibbi explained why he was leaving Twitter and wrote that Musk’s platform sees Substack Notes as “a hostile rival.”
He said that the move will likely “include a price so far as any future Twitter Files reports are concerned.”
“Earlier this afternoon, I learned Substack links were being blocked on Twitter. Since having the ability to share my articles is a primary reason I take advantage of Twitter, I used to be alarmed and asked what was happening,” Taibbi tweeted.
“It seems Twitter is upset in regards to the recent Substack Notes feature, which they see as a hostile rival. After I asked how I used to be speculated to market my work, I used to be given the choice of posting my articles on Twitter as an alternative of Substack,” the previous Rolling Stone journalist continued.
“Not much suspense there; I’m staying at Substack. You’ve all been great to me, as has the management of this company. Starting early next week I’ll be using the brand new Substack Notes feature (to which you’ll all have access) as an alternative of Twitter, a choice that apparently will include a price so far as any future Twitter Files reports are concerned,” Taibbi wrote.
“It was absolutely price it and I’ll at all times be grateful to those that gave me the prospect to work on that story, but man is that this a crazy planet,” he concluded.
Taibbi released the primary of several “Twitter Files” reports in December 2022, which revealed the chaos and confusion behind closed doors after a small group of top-level execs made the choice to label The Post’s Hunter Biden story as “hacked material,” despite any evidence.
The choice to censor The Post’s story was made “at the best levels of the corporate,” in accordance with Taibbi, but without then-CEO Jack Dorsey’s involvement. Email and comments from former Twitter employees reviewed by the journalist showed that “everyone knew” the social media giant’s suppression of the story “was f–ked.”
While still CEO, Dorsey admitted during a March 2021 congressional hearing on misinformation and social media that blocking The Post’s report was a “total mistake.”
The second round of Twitter Files, published in a thread days later by fellow reporter Bari Weiss, detailed how the social media company secretly ”shadow-banned” quite a few far-right users.
Taibbi then reported how Twitter decided to ban former President Donald Trump from the platform following the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, while high-ranking officials maintained contact with quite a few government agencies over the choice.
Later information revealed that staffers and top executives pushed for former Trump’s removal from the positioning despite company monitors finding no violations within the ex-president’s tweets.
In one other bombshell report, Taibbi also revealed that the CIA had been involved in Twitter’s content moderation for years.
Internal communications revealed that the FBI’s Elvis Chan, who was highlighted in other “Twitter Files” releases, asked company executives to “invite an OGA” — or Other Government Agency, typically meaning the CIA — to an upcoming conference.
Taibbi reported that “regular meeting[s] of the multi-agency Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF)” — attended by Twitter and “virtually every major tech firm [including] Facebook, Microsoft, Verizon, Reddit, even Pinterest, and plenty of others” — had “FBI personnel, and — nearly at all times — one or two attendees marked ‘OGA’” to debate foreign matters.
Through the FITF, US intelligence tasked Twitter analysts with laborious investigations into domestic Twitter accounts alleged to have nefarious foreign connections, the documents reveal — ramping up because the 2020 presidential election approached but continuing through 2022.
Twitter content monitors analyzed users’ IP data, phone numbers and even weighed whether user names were “Russian-sounding” to substantiate the federal government’s accusations — but often did not accomplish that.
Taibbi testified before the House Judiciary Committee last month and accused the mainstream media of being “an arm of a state-sponsored thought-policing system,” creating “a type of Digital McCarthyism.”
“We learned Twitter, Facebook, Google and other firms developed a proper system for taking moderately ‘requests’ from every corner of presidency: the FBI, DHS, HHS, DOD, the Global Engagement Center at State, even the CIA,” he said.
The identical day he testified, an IRS agent visited to Taibbi’s home in Latest Jersey.
Taibbi said the agent who visited left a note instructing him to call the tax bureau 4 days later. When he did, an IRS agent reportedly told him that his returns for 2018 and 2021 had been rejected resulting from identity theft concerns.
Taibbi reportedly gave the House Judiciary Committee documents showing his 2018 tax return was electronically accepted and said the March intervention was the primary time in greater than 4 years that he was told it was rejected.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) demanded Monday that the IRS hand over all documents regarding the visit by April 10, including “[a]ll documents and communications between or among the many IRS, Treasury Department, and some other Executive Branch entity referring or regarding Matthew Taibbi.”
It’s unclear if Taibbi will proceed to publish “Twitter Files” reports after his departure from the platform, where he has 1.8 million followers.
