Earlier this week independent journalist Bari Weiss revealed part 5 of what is being called the Twitter Files. This latest leak confirms that Twitter employees believed that Trump had not violated any rules, but insisted on the removal of Trump anyways.
On the afternoon of January 8, The Washington Post published a letter signed by over 300 Twitter employees to CEO Jack Dorsey demanding that Donald Trump be banned from the platform. “We must examine Twitter’s complicity in what President-Elect Biden has rightly termed insurrection.”
The Twitter staff assigned to evaluate tweets quickly concluded that Trump had *not* violated Twitter’s policies.“ I think we’d have a hard time saying this is incitement,” wrote one staffer.
The staffer wrote “It’s pretty clear he’s saying the ‘American Patriots’ are the ones who voted for him and not the terrorists (we can call them that, right?) from Wednesday.”
Another staffer agreed that they didn’t “see the incitement angle here.”
They couldn’t even find a “coded” incitement of violence.
“I also am not seeing clear or coded incitement in the DJT tweet,” wrote Anika Navaroli, a Twitter policy official. “I’ll respond in the elections channel and say that our team has assessed and found no vios”—or violations—“for the DJT one.”
15. “I also am not seeing clear or coded incitement in the DJT tweet,” wrote Anika Navaroli, a Twitter policy official. “I’ll respond in the elections channel and say that our team has assessed and found no vios”—or violations—“for the DJT one.” pic.twitter.com/DnJk2UUuf6— Bari Weiss (@bariweiss) December 12, 2022
Navaroli confirmed that “as an fyi, Safety has assessed the DJT Tweet above and determined that there is no violation of our policies at this time.”
16. She does just that: “as an fyi, Safety has assessed the DJT Tweet above and determined that there is no violation of our policies at this time.” pic.twitter.com/wMQ68Hu2xA— Bari Weiss (@bariweiss) December 12, 2022
Even though Twitter’s own staffers didn’t find any rules that Trump was in violation of, they permanently banned him anyways following the January 6th riot.
26. Less than 90 minutes after Twitter employees had determined that Trump’s tweets were not in violation of Twitter policy, Vijaya Gadde—Twitter’s Head of Legal, Policy, and Trust—asked whether it could, in fact, be “coded incitement to further violence.” pic.twitter.com/llJRMfpOPi— Bari Weiss (@bariweiss) December 12, 2022
Despite admitting that Trump had not violated any rules, Twitter employees with ecstatic that the platform was moving forward with the ban.
33. Many at Twitter were ecstatic. pic.twitter.com/wgxuwQBLkU— Bari Weiss (@bariweiss) December 12, 2022