December 3, 2022

Donald Trump Just Weighed In on “#Twittergate”—and I Really Wish He Hadn’t

The ex-president called for “termination” of parts of the Constitution.

Rafael Henrique/SOPA/ZUMA

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On Friday afternoon, Substack writer Matt Taibbi tweeted what he called “The Twitter Files,” a series of internal documents he says he obtained from sources at the social media company. The documents appear to show internal conversations about Twitter’s decision to block a New York Post story about Hunter Biden from its platform in October 2020. New Twitter CEO Elon Musk teased the release of the documents before they published, and shared Taibbi’s posts shortly after, saying, “Here we go!! 🍿🍿”

Most notably, the documents shared by Taibbi include email exchanges between employees at Twitter, before Musk took over the company, discussing how to handle the Post story shortly before the 2020 election. Twitter initially blocked sharing of the story due to concerns that it violated the company’s Hacked Materials Policy, but later reversed those restrictions. Taibbi’s thread—or series of posts—quickly ignited a fierce debate on the platform about free speech, intimate photos of Hunter Biden, technology companies’ ability to moderate political news coverage, and Musk’s role in amplifying the documents.

On Saturday, Donald Trump weighed in on #TwitterGate, and called for parts of the Constitution to be thrown out to combat what he characterized as election fraud. The message, which Trump posted on Truth Social, appeared counterintuitive to some observers, as critics of Twitter’s actions largely cited concerns about protecting the First Amendment to the Constitution.

Meanwhile, Musk seemed to revel in the controversy he helped create. Not long after Taibbi published his thread, Musk tweeted:

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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