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The Daily Signal

INTERVIEW | Jake Denton on 'Twitter Files' and Why They Matter

The Daily Signal

The Daily Signal

Government, Daily News, News, Politics

4.81.4K Ratings

🗓️ 6 December 2022

⏱️ 15 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Elon Musk released bombshell news on Friday night over Twitter’s censorship of The New York Post’s October 2020 article about Hunter Biden. Musk linked to a thread of tweets, being called “The Twitter Files,” curated by independent journalist Matt Taibbi on his Twitter account, writing “Here we go!!” with two popcorn emojis. Taibbi’s thread revealed a series of communications within Twitter’s leadership at the time, and even involving government officials. “‘They just freelanced it,’ is how one former employee characterized the decision” to censor the Hunter Biden laptop story," Taibbi wrote. “Hacking was the excuse, but within a few hours, pretty much everyone realized that wasn’t going to hold. But no one had the guts to reverse it,” Taibbi wrote on Twitter. Since many of the Twitter employees involved in the censorship are no longer with the social media platform, the question remains whether there will be accountability for the former employees' actions. Jake Denton, a research associate at The Heritage Foundation’s Tech Policy Center, joins "The Daily Signal Podcast" to discuss the significance of the "Twitter Files" and what to expect from Musk as he continues to lead as Twitter’s CEO. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)  Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Tuesday, December 6th.

0:09.0

I'm Virginia Allen.

0:10.4

Thousands of Americans were glued to Twitter on Friday night watching the release of Breaking

0:15.6

News related to Twitter's role in the censorship of a New York Post story about Hunter Biden

0:21.7

in 2020.

0:22.7

And there was information in that story regarding a laptop that belonged to Hunter Biden

0:29.2

and Twitter censored that content, and many people asked the question, why?

0:33.7

Well, we started to find out some of that why on Friday.

0:37.9

And the release of the news is being called the Twitter Files.

0:41.8

And here with us, to talk about that is Heritage Foundation Research Associate in Tech Policy

0:47.7

Jake Denton.

0:48.7

Jake, welcome back.

0:49.7

Hi, thanks for having me.

0:50.7

So Elon Musk and Twitter, they continue to make headlines, very entertaining.

0:55.9

So the news that broke on Friday is truly some of the biggest news related to Twitter,

1:01.6

I think, in the history of the platform.

1:04.4

Jake, let's start at the very beginning.

1:06.2

Give us the big picture.

1:07.6

What are the Twitter files?

1:08.6

Yes.

1:09.6

So this is basically a collection of internal communications from Twitter, predating Elon

1:13.6

Musk's acquisition of the platform.

...

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