Staff Reports
Following the release of the Twitter Files, the White House weighed in. These documents show the platform's internal discussions about how it handles certain information.
On Monday, Jean-Pierre was asked about the media's suppression of reports about the incident involving Hunter Biden's laptop. Also, on Friday, journalist Matt Taibbi released the Twitter Files.
Karine Jean-Pierre calls Twitter's censorship of the @nypost story on the Biden family's corrupt foreign business dealings "old news" and "a distraction" pic.twitter.com/YP8zQn1ubx
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) December 5, 2022
The release of the files was reportedly a coincidence, as Jean-Pierre noted that if Trump had pushed for it as a distraction, it would have been full of old news. Taibbi noted that Twitter had used various methods to suppress the news reports about the incident. Some of these included labeling the stories as un-safe and preventing people from sharing the link to them. The company claimed that these steps violated its policy.
To prevent unauthorized re-publishing of the story, the Twitter team would remove the accounts of White House officials, such as Sarah McEnany and Jean-Pierre. According to the press secretary, the release of the files was part of Elon Musk's attempt to draw attention away from the situation.
During his briefing, Jean-Pierre noted that there are various issues that Twitter is facing, such as the rise of antisemitism and hate. Some Republicans, such as Ted Cruz of Texas, noted that the files revealed that some of Twitter's executives were working with the Biden Administration. Senator Ted Cruz noted that the Biden campaign used the release of the files to try and use
Twitter as a tool for its operations. He said that employees are expected to handle such issues.
According to Cruz, the internal communications revealed that the tech and Democratic sectors were working together to suppress the news reports. This could explain the demands for Twitter to be held accountable for its actions, as other prominent figures have also criticized the company.
Whether or not Musk decides to release more Twitter files in the future remains to be seen.
The preceding is a summary of an article that originally appeared on OAN.
