Twitter Files: The Complete List
The Twitter Files are a set of Twitter threads based on internal Twitter Inc. documents that were made public starting in December 2022. Here’s a complete list as of this writing. I offer up my own subjective summary of each, but I urge you visit the thread and form your own opinion. I’ll attempt to keep this index up-to-date as new ones come in.
At the end of this index, you’ll see some “meta” reporting, including Congressional testimony, interviews with authors and more.
Nomenclature: I refer to the pre-Musk era at the company as Twitter 1.0. That runs from the founding of Twitter through late October, 2022.
| Subject | Author(s) |
|---|---|
| 1. Twitter and the Hunter Biden Laptop Story, Dec 2 2022 Summary: Twitter blocked the New York Post from sharing a bombshell October 2020 story about Hunter Biden’s laptop contents, just prior to the 2020 US presidential election. It also suppressed people re-sharing this story, including the Press Secretary of the United States. Twitter attempted to justify this under its “hacked materials” policy, even though there was considerable debate about whether it legitimately applied. 1a. Twitter Files Supplemental Summary: The Twitter Files 1 thread was delayed, based upon the surprising revelation that then-employee Jim Baker, former FBI General Counsel and current Twitter Deputy Counsel had been reviewing all materials before handing them to the journalists Musk invited to Twitter HQ. (Musk let Baker go.) Bari Weiss uncovers the Baker story. Discussion: (#TwitterFiles) | MT |
| 2. Twitter’s Secret Blacklists: Shadow Banning and “Visibility Filtering” of users, Dec 8, 2022 Summary: Was Twitter 1.0 “shadow-banning?” Twitter executives Jack Dorsey and Vijaya Gadde have frequently claimed that Twitter does not shadow-ban, but multiple tools exist within Twitter to limit the tweet distribution and visibility of a given account. “Do Not Amplify” settings exist, as do several settings around propagation of tweets to others. Discussion: (#TwitterFiles2) | BW |
| 3. The Removal of Donald Trump Part One: Oct 2020-Jan 6 2021, Dec 9, 2022 Summary: On January 7th 2021, Twitter summarily banned the 45th President of the United States from its platform. What led up to their decision, and what were some of the internal conversations surrounding it? Part 1 of 3. Discussion: (#TwitterFiles3) | MT |
| 4. United States Capitol Attack January 6th 2021, Dec 10 2022 Summary: The ban of Donald Trump from Twitter stemmed directly from the January 6th 2021 attack on the United States Capitol by supporters/protestors/rioters. The stunning event led Twitter executives to finally make the call they had long discussed. Part 2 of 3 Discussion: (#TwitterFiles4) | MS |
| 5. The Removal of Trump from Twitter, January 8th 2021: Dec 12, 2022 Summary: Trump was banned from Twitter on January 8th, 2021. Though Twitter 1.0 was always adjusting discussion rules on the platform, it’s notable that on January 7th, Twitter staff adjusted several key rules to allow for and justify the banning of the then-President. Part 3 of 3 Discussion: (#TwitterFiles5) | BW |
| 6. FBI & Hunter Biden Laptop, Dec 16, 2022 Summary: The FBI attempted to discredit factual information about Hunter Biden’s foreign business activities both after and even before the NY Post revealed the contents of his laptop. Why would the FBI be doing this? And what channels existed between the FBI and Twitter 1.0? Discussion: (#TwitterFiles6) | MS |
| 7. Twitter, The FBI Subsidiary, Dec 19, 2022 Summary: Twitter’s contact with the FBI was constant, both social and professional, and pervasive. A surprising number of communications from the FBI included requests to take action on election misinformation, even involving joke tweets from low-follower and satirical accounts. FBI asked Twitter to look at certain accounts, suggesting that they “may potentially constitute violations of Terms of Service.” Discussion: (#TwitterFiles7) | MT |
| 8. How Twitter Quietly Aided the Pentagon’s Covert Online PsyOp Campaign, Dec 20, 2022 Summary: While they made public assurances suggesting they would detect and thwart government-based manipulation, behind the scenes Twitter 1.0 gave approval and special protection to a branch of the US military related to psychological influence operations in certain instances. Discussion: (#TwitterFiles8) | LF |
| 9. Twitter and “Other Government Agencies”, Dec 24 2022 Summary: The FBI responds to Twitter Files 7, vigorously disputing some of the framing and reporting. Taibbi responds to FBI communication and press releases, and further shares internal documents related to FBI and “other government agency” correspondence. Discussion: (#TwitterFiles9) | MT |
| 10. How Twitter Rigged the COVID Debate, Dec 26, 2022 Summary: David Zweig illustrates how Twitter 1.0 reduced the visibility of true but perhaps inconvenient COVID information, and discredited doctors and other experts who disagreed. Discussion: (#TwitterFiles10) | DZ |
| 11 and 12. How Twitter Let the Intelligence Community In, Jan 3, 2023 Summary: Twitter 1.0 responds to governmental inquiry regarding some Russian-linked accounts, attempting to keep the governmental and press focus on rival Facebook. Twitter and the FBI “Belly Button”, Jan 3 2023 Summary: Twitter 1.0 works diligently to resist acting on State Department moderation requests. In the end, it allowed the State Department to reach them via the FBI, which FBI agent Chan calls “the belly button” of the United States government. Discussion: (#TwitterFiles11) | MT |
| 13. Twitter and Suppression of COVID Vaccine Debate, Jan 9 2023 Summary: Scott Gottleib, a Pfizer board member, used his influence to suppress debate on COVID vaccines, including from the head of the FDA. Twitter 1.0 frets about the damage the effectiveness of natural immunity might have on vaccine uptake, and Twitter slaps a label on a key tweet former FDA commissioner Brett Giroir’s tweet touting the strength of natural immunity. Discussion: (#TwitterFiles13) | AB |
| 14. The Russiagate Lies One: The Fake Tale of Russian Bots and the #ReleaseTheMemo Hashtag, Jan 12 2023 Summary: On January 18th 2018, Republican Congressman Devin Nunes submitted a classified memo to the House Intelligence Committee listing abuses at the FBI in getting surveillance approval of Trump-connected figures. His memo also called into question the veracity and reliability of the Steele “Dossier.” #ReleaseTheMemo started trending, but Democrats attempted to discredit this by saying it was all being amplified by Russian bots and trolls, referencing Hamilton 68, a dashboard powered by the Twitter API (See Twitter Files #15, next in the series.) Though Nunes’ assertions would eventually be basically fully verified in a report by the Justice Department, a significant PR campaign was launched to discredit the memo, labeling it a “joke.” This TwitterFiles thread discusses Democrats’ desire to discredit the #ReleaseTheMemo hashtag as being of Russian origin/amplification, and Twitter’s compliance with those requests. Note that there is heavy reliance on the “Hamilton 68 Dashboard” in many of these discussions, which is the subject of Twitter Files 15. The important bit: Twitter executives knew it was fraudulent from about 2017 onward, yet did nothing to discredit it in the media, allowing this DNC-message-benefitting sham to continue. Discussion: (#TwitterFiles14) | MT |
| 15. Move Over, Jason Blair: Twitter Files Expose Next Great Media Fraud (Hamilton 68 Dashboard), Jan 27 2023 Summary: This thread delves into the Hamilton 68 dashboard referenced in TwitterFiles 14 above. Twitter knew as early as October 2017 that it was simply pulling tweets from a curated list of about 650 accounts, and also knew that very few of those accounts were actually Russian. They knew that the media and Democrat officials were citing Hamilton 68 Dashboard as somehow credible. Though Twitter executive Yoel Roth tried several times to raise internal concern about the integrity of this tool, he was overruled within Twitter, and Twitter 1.0 never directly discredited this tool or explained how it worked. Discussion: (#TwitterFiles15) | MT |
| 16. Comic Interlude: A Media Experiment Summary: Matt Taibbi notes how little mainstream media coverage there is of TwitterFiles revelations when they are damaging to the Democrats, but published numerous stories on Trump’s request to get Chrissy Tiegen removed from the platform. New revelations are shown about Maine Senator Angus King (D) calling for suspension of a slew of accounts for spurious reasons, and Representative Adam Smith (D)’s staff request to stop “any and all search results” related to certain keywords. Taibbi notes how the mainstream media has utterly ignored the Schiff requests and what it says about the First Amendment risks presented by government-big-tech cooperation. Discussion: (#TwitterFiles16) | MT |
| 17. New Knowledge, the Global Engagement Center, and State-Sponsored Blacklists Summary: Taibbi reports on an effort by “DFRLab,” an entity funded by the “Global Engagement Center”, a shadowy part of the US federal government, to deplatform a bunch of people. The list of 40,000+ people the GEC/DFRLab attempted to get deplatformed under the guise that they were “paid employees or possibly volunteers” of India’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), but the list included lots of everyday Americans. Taibbi characterizes these requests as “State Sponsored Blacklists,” and from the data shared, it’s rather hard to challenge that provocative label. GEC denies it uses US tax dollars to try to get US citizens deplatformed, but the list clearly included Americans. Taibbi explores the requests in detail, some internal discussion which resulted, and lets the reader ponder what these requests suggest about government stances toward free speech, and the “weaponization” of the word “disinformation” for political aims. (For me, I continue to ask — would we know any of this had Elon Musk not purchased Twitter?) Discussion: (#TwitterFiles17) | MT |
| 18. Statement to Congress Summary: On March 9 2023, Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger testified before Congress about the network of third parties the federal government has been involved in paying, which in turn were serving up blacklist requests to Twitter. Michael Shellenberger details it in this 68-page testimony to Congress. Discussion: (#TwitterFiles18) | MT, MS |
| 19. The Great COVID-19 Lie Machine Summary: The Stanford Virality Project (VP) was involved in the flagging and push-to-censor several threads and accounts writing “true but inconvenient to the narrative” stories surrounding COVID-19, such as the strength of natural immunity, the fact that the vaccination does not stop the spread, or the existence actual, true adverse vaccination side-effects. It appeared to have the full support from within the US government. Taibbi documents how the narrative became more important than what the facts were saying at the time, how the Stanford Virality Project seemed more interested in narrative enforcement and speech suppression than in the principles of the first amendment. Discussion: (#TwitterFiles19) | MT |
| 20. The Information Cartel Summary: A veteran journalist and director of Engage Media, an NGO devoted to protecting digital rights and freedoms, walks through the web of information monitoring, censorship and suppression. He discusses how big tech companies, NGOs and the government collaborate with one another, and how those who label things “disinformation” are in some ways the biggest purveyors of it. Discussion: (#TwitterFiles20) | AL |
Authors
MT: Matt Taibbi, Racket News: @mtaibbi
MS: Michael Shellenberger, Michael Shellenberger on Substack: @shellenbergermd
BW: Bari Weiss, The Free Press, @bariweiss
LF: Lee Fang, The Intercept, @lhfang
AL: Andrew Lowenthal, Engage Magazine @NAffects
AB: Alex Berenson, Alex Berenson on Substack, @alexberenson
DZ: David Zweig, The New Yorker, New York Times, Wired, @davidzweig
Congressional Hearings
Meta-Story: Behind the Scenes, In the Authors’ Words
Our Reporting at Twitter, Bari Weiss, The Free Press, December 15 2022
Interview with Matt Taibbi, Russell Brand:
