(PJ Media) Independent journalist Bari Weiss dropped Part 5 of the Twitter Files on Monday and revealed internal Slack chat messages between Twitter employees regarding the banning of President Donald Trump’s account.
The revelations were expected, yet still upsetting, to anyone who values free speech. But one surprising internal discussion showed that not all employees were down with censorship, including at least one from communist China who pointed out that censorship is deadly to freedom.
“Maybe because I am from China I deeply understand how censorship can destroy the public conversation,” wrote one employee with concern. The flippant response to the employee’s concern should be noted. “I understand this fear, but I also understand that censorship by the government is very different than censorship of the government,” wrote another employee, basically shrugging off the concern.
What’s particularly grating about this response is that Yoel Roth was meeting with the FBI (the government), who encouraged the censorship of conservative voices on Twitter. This was the government censoring the citizenry.
7. There were dissenters inside Twitter.
“Maybe because I am from China,” said one employee on January 7, “I deeply understand how censorship can destroy the public conversation.” pic.twitter.com/LtonK0gfS3
— Bari Weiss (@bariweiss) December 12, 2022
But the dissenting voices were not heeded. Not only did they ban Trump, but they did it knowing full well he had not violated their terms of service (TOS) at all. “I think we’d have a hard time saying this is incitement,” said one Twitter employee, whose name was redacted.
14. Another staffer agreed: “Don’t see the incitement angle here.” pic.twitter.com/6mbUU2Tma0
— Bari Weiss (@bariweiss) December 12, 2022
Weiss went on to expose how Twitter handled other heads of state who tweeted hateful things, including incitements to actual violence, some during genocidal wars.
20. In June 2018, Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei tweeted, “#Israel is a malignant cancerous tumor in the West Asian region that has to be removed and eradicated: it is possible and it will happen.”
Twitter neither deleted the tweet nor banned the Ayatollah. pic.twitter.com/D6Cb1F05sY
— Bari Weiss (@bariweiss) December 12, 2022
The nerve of these people, banning Trump when they admitted he had not violated their TOS while leaving accounts like the one below intact.
22. Muhammadu Buhari, the President of Nigeria, incited violence against pro-Biafra groups.“Those of us in the fields for 30 months, who went through the war,” he wrote, “will treat them in the language they understand.”
Twitter deleted the tweet but didn’t ban Buhari.
— Bari Weiss (@bariweiss) December 12, 2022
