More Twitter Files Revealed, New Drop Details Trump’s ‘Lifetime Ban'

Bari Weiss released part five of the “Twitter Files” on Monday afternoon, specifically detailing the social media company’s removal of former President Donald Trump, a lifetime ban that was reversed last month after Elon Musk took over.

1. On the morning of January 8, President Donald Trump, with one remaining strike before being at risk of permanent suspension from Twitter, tweets twice.

— Bari Weiss (@bariweiss) December 12, 2022

Weiss’ thread picked up the story on January 8, 2021, when Trump had “one remaining strike before being at risk of permanent suspension from Twitter” and he fired off two tweets in the early morning hours. One, a message to those who voted for Trump in the 2020 election, and the second announcing his decision not to attend the inauguration of Joe Biden.

As Weiss explained, “Twitter had resisted calls both internal and external to ban Trump on the grounds that blocking a world leader from the platform or removing their controversial tweets would hide important information that people should be able to see and debate.” That was a stated position of the company, Weiss pointed out. In 2019, Twitter wrote that its “mission is to provide a forum that enables people to be informed and to engage their leaders directly” in order to “protect the public’s right to hear from their leaders and to hold them to account.” . . .

One conversation Weiss tweeted is from an employee who is “from China” and said “I deeply understand how censorship can destroy the public conversation.” Still, Weiss noted, “voices like that one appear to have been a distinct minority within the company” and “many Twitter employees were upset that Trump hadn’t been banned earlier.”

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