Independent journalist Bari Weiss dismissed critics from the legacy media who pushed the notion that she and those who have reported on Elon Musk's Twitter Files are "cherry-picking" their findings.
In a piece published in her recently-launched outlet The Free Press, Weiss offered insight as to how she and fellow journalist Matt Taibbi were tapped by Musk to access Twitter's trove of documents.
"Was I interested in looking at Twitter’s archives, he asked. And how soon could I get to Twitter HQ? Two hours later, I was on a flight from Los Angeles to San Francisco with my wife, Free Press writer Nellie Bowles, and our three-month-old baby," Weiss recalled her first interaction with Musk on Dec. 2.
Weiss compared the scale of diving through Twitter's vast archives to "trying to put together a 100,000-piece jigsaw puzzle," revealing her team "worked through lawyers" using e-discovery software to help search key terms like names and dates and use the results to "stitch together a chronology of events and communications." The only condition, Weiss said, was that their findings had to be published on Twitter first.
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"We did not selectively retrieve, or cherry-pick, files with an eye toward servicing a particular agenda," Weiss wrote. "Our goal was simply to figure out what had happened at crucial moments in the history of the country and the company."
Regarding what Musk's "aim" was with his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, he told Weiss it wasn't to "reinstate a satire blog," referring to the ban of the Babylon Bee which has long been said to have inspired the billionaire to buy the tech giant.
"I did it because I was worried about the future of civilization," Musk said. "Birth rates are plummeting, the thought police are gaining power, and even having an opinion is enough to be shunned. We are trending in a bad direction."
According to Weiss, Musk "wants to transform Twitter from a social media platform distrusted and despised by at least half the country into one widely trusted by most Americans. To have it fulfill its highest mission: that of a digital town square where all ideas can be heard, and the best will win out."
"To win back that trust, Musk figured it would require being honest about what had, until very recently, been going on at the company he had just bought: the suppression of disfavored users; the curtailing of certain political views; the censorship of stories like the Hunter Biden laptop; and the extent to which the government had tried to influence such decisions," Weiss wrote.
The "Honestly" podcast host went on about Musk's vow that Twitter will become a "level playing field" and be "consistent and transparent," but questions remained over what he intends to do with the "powerful tools" Twitter created to censor its users.
"What’s surprising is how thoroughly Twitter misled the public, insisting that they didn’t suppress disfavored users and topics when they absolutely did," Weiss told her readers. "If I took anything away from my week at Twitter, it’s about power. It’s about how a handful of unelected people at a handful of private companies can influence public discourse profoundly. They can do it because of how good the tools they made are—and how little the public understands them. They can influence the outcome of elections. And they do."
She continued, "Because all of those people tend to move and think as one, there is something refreshing about Musk barging into the Twitter Tower on Market Street and turning over the tables. But I’m not sure anyone should have that kind of power. At one point I asked Musk what he makes of this criticism—that just as the old guard at Twitter had too much power, so does he. ‘I’m open to ideas,’ he said."
Weiss went on to note how much coverage the Twitter Files have gotten in conservative media and online while "the legacy press—and those Americans who rely on it—barely seems to know it exists."
"We are living in a culture that’s been suffering from a lack of open, transparent, informed, public debate. For people to have the courage to speak their minds, they have to know, at least, what’s happening," Weiss wrote. "Twitter’s former leadership curtailed public debate; drew arbitrary lines about what’s fake and what’s real; and gaslit ordinary Americans. Musk says he won’t do that. Perhaps we’ll have to wait for the inevitable third owner to open up another set of archives. I’ll drag my teenage daughter back onto a plane for it."
Substack writer Matt Taibbi went viral with the first installment of the "Twitter Files" which focused on Twitter's internal discussions leading to it censoring the Hunter Biden laptop story during the 2020 presidential election, with some officials struggling to explain how it violated its "hacked materials" policies.
It was later revealed that the first batch of "Twitter Files" were vetted without Musk's knowledge by Twitter deputy general counsel Jim Baker, who previously served as the FBI's general counsel and was involved in the Russia probe. Musk fired Baker shortly thereafter.
Baker was swept up Taibbi's reporting about the suppression of the Hunter Biden story, telling his colleagues at the time, "I support the conclusion that we need more facts to assess whether the materials were hacked" but added, "it's reasonable for us to assume that they may have been and that caution is warranted."
Additionally, Taibbi initially reported, "Although several sources recalled hearing about a ‘general’ warning from federal law enforcement that summer about possible foreign hacks, there’s no evidence - that I've seen - of any government involvement in the laptop story." It is unclear whether Baker's involvement in vetting the "Twitter Files" led Taibbi to draw that conclusion and whether Baker omitted files that would have shown the federal government intervening in Twitter's suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story.
The second installment published by Bari Weiss revealed Twitter's "blacklisting" of prominent conservatives, including Fox News host Dan Bongino, Turning Point USA's Charlie Kirk, as well as Stanford University's Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a longstanding opponent of COVID groupthink during the pandemic who expressed opposition to lockdowns.
Internal communications also reveal Twitter staffers admitting that the popular account Libs of TikTok never violated its "hateful conduct" policy despite being punished several times for allegedly doing so.
The third, fourth and fifth installments of the "Twitter Files" focused on the permanent suspension of former President Trump around the Capitol riot events in January 2021.
Taibbi reported how Twitter circulated election-related tweets from various users leading up to the 2020 election that were "flagged" by the FBI as being problematic.
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Independent writer Michael Shellenberger revealed that Dorsey was phoning it in as he was on vacation while his deputies were pushing to deplatform Trump with Roth in particularly spearheading efforts to censor other users pertaining to tweets about the 2020 election.
On Monday, Weiss delved into the pressure Twitter management was facing from its employees who called for Trump's permanent suspension, though the Free Press editor also revealed several Twitter staffers who enforce policies did not believe Trump's tweets from Jan. 6 actually violated its rules.
However, it was Vijaya Gadde, then-Twitter's head legal chief, who asked if Trump's tweets could be "coded incitement to further violence." Moments later, the so-called "scaled enforcement team" suggested that based on how Twitter interprets Trump's tweets, it could violate the violence incitement policies.
Musk had been vocal about being transparent when it comes to Twitter's past and present actions curating content on the platform, including censored content.
