Talk:Twitter Files

New lede: less partisan

I propose substantially modifying the lede.

According to most mainstream sources I can find, the twitter files is notable because government intelligence organizations conducted operations on their own populace, not any right/left bias, and the constitutional questions it raised, and the constitutional questions it raised.

The current lede talks a lot about left- or right-wing bias. This is much more subjective than the simple fact that the intelligence community, whose job is to identify crimes or police overseas, targeted Americans. In the U.S., it would not be constitutional for a government agency to pressure a newspaper to remove a story. This is the point that most sources seem to come back to again and again. DenverCoder19 (talk) 05:01, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

I edited the lede to focus on this.

In particular, I think The Times summary is most correct:

Despite claiming to combat government propaganda accounts, Twitter knowingly aided the U.S. military in swaying public opinion. DenverCoder19 (talk) 05:24, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Whatever we do, this should stay in the lede, because it's the most significant, and because it's non-partisan.DenverCoder19 (talk) 05:25, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

The full new paragraph is below. I believe this captures the most notable points by mainstream outlets. I'm ignoring individual journalists on twitter, which was a lot of the source from the previous lede. This seems to be a core 'notable' takeaway after all the files were published.

The files revealed that U.S. government agencies had pressured Twitter to blacklist certain accounts and influence what users see. In particular, despite claiming to combat government propaganda accounts, Twitter knowingly aided the U.S. military in swaying public opinion, including allowing intelligence officials to publish false stories under fake names to advance U.S. policy objectives. DenverCoder19 (talk) 05:39, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

One thing that immediately leaps out at me is that that focuses on a single release - I'm concerned about putting too much focus on it in the lead, especially given that you tried to remove a paragraph on aspects that had far more coverage. WP:DUE weight means we have to cover aspects of the topic in accordance to the coverage they received - the Times doesn't support the idea that it was notable in the long term, and the Boston Globe bit was an opinion piece. Likewise, even if you personally feel that left- or right-wing bias is subjective and not worth covering, it was the main focus of coverage and makes up both most of the citations and most of the article. Also, the bit about Twitter lawyers' take was discussed above and reached a consensus to include it; I tend to agree with the arguments made there - it has a lot of WP:SUSTAINED coverage that I don't think you're demonstrating for the things you replaced it with. --Aquillion (talk) 09:54, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

• I don't think it makes sense to remove the media summary paragraph, and in particular I disagree with the way it was cut down - the main focus of the CNN source was omitted! If there's later updates on those aspects we can cover them, but the initial release was what got most of the coverage and there's no particular indication that coverage shifted later. --Aquillion (talk) 09:49, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

  Agree with all Aquillion changes. We must be careful when using Wikivoice and using suggestive wording and stick to the preponderance of coverage in reliable sources. O3000, Ret. (talk) 12:05, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

  Ok, but we should definitely include a key point included by many reliable, mainstream sources (New York Times, The UK's #1 newspaper, Boston Globe) DenverCoder19 (talk) 15:10, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

  1. I've preserved the wording "pressured Twitter to blacklist", because Twitter did comply with blacklist ("asked" leaves ambiguous whether they complied), and because reliable sources indicate that 'pressure' is a key word—government agencies had influence and potential authority behind them.

  2. I've also removed sourcing to "The Times" because I think they're reliable enough to source as fact and their sentiment is echoed in other sources.

  3. I've put it above the paragraph about "not much" because I'd rather not discuss whether to keep that, but my strong sense is that if the first batch of files were released, and some journalists on Twitter shrugged their shoulders, and then

  4. I'll voice my opinion that special care needs to be taken when interpreting sources of media about media controversies, just like academic sources covering an academic scandal. In particular, the Twitter files were in part about Hunter Biden, which CNN etc. where part of. DenverCoder19 (talk) 15:20, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

References

Denied government coercion AND kept database of requests?

Please make the following change to the article:

−

denied that the Files showed the government had coerced the company to censor content, as Musk and many Republicans claimed, and asserted that Republican officials also made takedown requests so often that Twitter had to keep a database tracking them

+

denied that the Files showed the government had coerced the company to censor content, as Musk and many Republicans claimed. Twitter also asserted that Republican officials made takedown requests so often that Twitter had to keep a database tracking them

As currently written, this sentence seems to be using the incorrect article. However, replacing "and" with "but" may run afoul of WP:SYNTH. Splitting the sentence is less jarring while avoiding any POV issues surrounding the debate between government "requests" and coercion.

While we are at it, the Mashable source should probably be replaced with their source, a Rolling Stone article. Rolling Stone is generally reliable according to WP:RSPSS while Mashable has no consensus. Squidroot2 (talk) 12:00, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

The source of the claim, the Rolling Stone article, says:

In interviews with former Twitter personnel, onetime Trump administration officials, and other people familiar with the matter, each source recalled what could be described as a “hotline,” “tipline,” or large Twitter “database” of moderation and removal requests that was frequently pinged by the offices of powerful Democrats and Republicans alike.

So it's actually not something that Twitter (or its attorneys) attested to, but various anonymous people contacted by Rolling Stone (Also Rolling Stone is not considered reliable for political matters, see WP:ROLLINGSTONEPOLITICS, so probably better to use the secondary sources here). I changed it to say "Former Twitter employees asserted..." instead. Cheers, Endwise (talk) 13:17, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. Sorry that I missed that Rolling Stone is only reliable for culture, not politics. Given that fact, and the fact that there is no indication that the cited Mashable opinion article did any independent verification, should the claims be attributed? "According to Rolling Stone, former Twitter employees asserted..." Squidroot2 (talk) 15:25, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

I followed the reference to the claim that "Republicans made so many request that Twitter had to setup a database 9" to the Mashable article which referenced the Rolling Stones article which made no mention of this claim. This seems like a bad reference? Like the game of telephone? 107.190.69.245 (talk) 15:18, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

Should there be any references to the Zuckerberg disclosure?

Recently Zuckerberg has admitted that Facebook was also complicit in suppressing factual information on behalf of the Biden-Harris administration, though only for marking COVID-19 observations as misinformation. 108.63.216.11 (talk) 12:18, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 31 October 2024

"It should be noted however that while requests were made from the Trump White House to remove posts, the rate and amount requested and honoured were overwhelmingly Democrat Party affiliated , which is due to the fact that Twitter's employmees at the time was much more connected to the Democratic party of the United States"(source: https://x.com/mtaibbi/status/1598822959866683394?lang=en) Digg396 (talk) 23:06, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. – Muboshgu (talk) 23:14, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

Aftermath edit

Ken Klippenstein was suspended for violating Twitter(X) rules on posting unredacted private personal information, specifically Sen. Vance's physical addresses and the majority of his Social Security number.

Besides, the file source was never confirmed, only alleged. 188.246.45.196 (talk) 19:03, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

And he was unsuspended. What does this have to do with the Twitter Files? – Muboshgu (talk) 19:05, 10 November 2024 (UTC)