Talk:Twitter Files

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 16 October 2023

After the paragraph

> though Taibbi reported that he found no evidence of government involvement in the laptop story, tweeting, "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's worth including that the team of journalists changed it's conclusion in the later installments:

(https://twitter.com/shellenberger/status/1604877235579912192) — tweet by Michael Shellenberger from Twitter Files part 7.

> "On Dec 2, @mtaibbi described the debate inside Twitter over its decision to censor a wholly accurate article. Since then, we have discovered new info that points to an organized effort by the intel community to influence Twitter & other platforms"

This change of opinions is also not emphasized in the chapter about the 7 installment, which I think misleads readers into thinking that the journalist team behind Twitter Files concluded that there had been no influence over the decision to ban Hunter Biden story, when in reality the journalists seem to conclude that there was "an organized effort by the intel community to influence Twitter & other platforms" Ignat12345123 (talk) 10:05, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

This self-appointed "team" has no official standing and their accusations should not exist anywhere in Wikipedia. O3000, Ret. (talk) 11:40, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

Then why other tweets made by this team are in this article? Mainly I refer to the one by Matt Taibbi that says he hasn't seen any evidence of the government involvement. I think it's important to decide whether the article needs to show this team's conclusions or not. If yes — then it's worth while to represent their actual conclusion that they arrived at in their investigation. If not — all of the conclusions from the team must be deleted.

Including their tweets that suggest no government involvement while omitting the ones that suggest otherwise does feel like a misrepresentation in my opinion. Ignat12345123 (talk) 12:15, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

None of the tweets belong in the article for reasons previously stated on this page. O3000, Ret. (talk) 12:20, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. Self-published sources can only be used to describe the authors themselves, per WP:SELFSOURCE. Since these statements involves claims about third parties, they are not allowed under this provision. Liu1126 (talk) 11:38, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

Murtha v. Missouri (aka Missouri v. Biden) omitted?

How can it be that our article both opens and closes with references to an article claiming that Twitter lawyers "contested many of the claims made in the Twitter Files in court"—as if a single CNN piece has put the nail in the coffin of the Twitter Files—yet completely leaves out that a US District Court judge and 5th Circuit issued injunctions against the Biden Administration, the FBI, the CDC, the Surgeon General, and CISA, finding that they had all likely illegally coerced social-media companies into suppressing information. SCOTUS will be hearing the appeal this term.

Our own article on Murthy v. Missouri mentions the Twitter Files—so why doesn't our article on the Twitter Files include the case, possibly the most significant litigation to date on this important topic. Currently, our readers have no idea that the courts have found the premise of the Twitter Files to be correct—in short, that the Federal government was engaged in illegal censorship of social media.

Thanks for any/all input! Ekpyros (talk) 19:38, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Well the 5th Circuit has been making decisions that The Atlantic refers to as "outlandish". They have been just as outlandish as that bolded sentence that you wrote there. The Twitter Files are cherry-picked and selective in what they considered and what they don't. As you noted, Twitter's lawyers refuted the claim. I imagine other outlets picked that up too. – Muboshgu (talk) 19:56, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

I understand your—and of course Steve Vladeck's—opinions on the 5th Circuit. But I'm not sure I get your point: are you suggesting that Wikipedia articles in general, and this one in particular shouldn't include a well-covered ruling from the Fifth Circuit decisions because an Atlantic opinion piece took issue with their recent decisions, broadly? The ruling does, after all, have the force of law—and has enjoined the Federal government from engaging in the exact kind of activity that the Twitter Files sought to expose. Ekpyros (talk) 22:13, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

@Ekpyros: Except the injuction seems to been stayed for most or all of its life, including at the time of your post, so it didn't really do anything much yet. Nil Einne (talk) 16:39, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

Washington Examiner

Washington Examiner is currently yellow at RSP. I submit we may want to bring it up for a new round of downgrades, but I won't get ahead of that. Let's discuss it in context now, and bring it to RSN if need be. For now, I submit, that this should not be included, all sources are extremely unreliable and therefore, this should be excluded wholesale under the "use with care" clauses of consensus unclear on RSP and per extensive precedent on the Washington Examiner. It's not RS. Andre🚐 09:58, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Agree. The examiner should not be used for anything remotely political. O3000, Ret. (talk) 12:21, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Summary Sentence Needed

Like many Wikipedia articles that go through edit wars, what is missing is a short statement at the head of the article which clearly explains what the matter is about, which isn't immediately clear. This should come between the sentence explaining what they ARE: "The Twitter Files are a series of releases.." to what they CAUSED:" The releases prompted debate over..." IMHO this statement should be: The files revealed that facts and opinion on Twitter which its liberal management and moderating department disagreed with were being suppressed in various ways; a fact which Twitter had been accused of, but until then had officially denied.

In the 'caused' paragraphs, it should be mentioned that the release of the files furthered distrust in media, and also raised questions regarding the nature of truth. It is also not clear, and it needs to be stated so upfront, that this became a right wing and left wing dispute. One shouldn't have to read 1,000 words to understand that, and it's never explicitly stated. The article needs to rewritten so that people 100 years hence will clearly understand what this was all about. Especially as it's swiftly fading into history. MisterWizzy (talk) 15:54, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) You mean the select-release files that fit into the view of the new owner and main opponent of the former owners? --Denniss (talk) 16:06, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

\But were its management liberal, according to who? Slatersteven (talk) 16:04, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

The final paragraph is in effect the "summary statement": After the first set of files was published, many technology journalists said that the reported evidence did not demonstrate much more than Twitter's policy team having a difficult time making a tough call, but resolving the matter swiftly, while right-wing voices said the documents confirmed Twitter's liberal bias. In a June 2023 court filing, Twitter attorneys strongly denied that the Files showed what Musk and many Republicans claimed. Republican officials also made censorship demands so often that Twitter had to keep a database tracking them. Your proposed statement is one point of view, while this paragraph contains multiple. – Muboshgu (talk) 16:13, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

What my proposed SHORT sentence states is the basic fact: Twitter was suppressing posts. That is the indisputable acknowledged truth, and the core provoking incident. The explanations for it, given from both sides, are provided later in the paragraph you quote. But the head of the article is missing the essential brief statement of WHAT happened. MisterWizzy (talk) 16:54, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

If they did, it was both sides posts, that is the point made. Slatersteven (talk) 17:05, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

I think it reads better with the second and third paragraphs swapped. We can discuss other improvements. Is there a way to make the first paragraph more clearly summarize the situation? – Muboshgu (talk) 17:27, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

"If they did it". There's no IF about it. Twitter was deleting and suppressing posts. WHY they were doing it is IRRELEVANT to the WHAT HAPPENED statement. And that is MISSING from the article head. Currently the head of the article is like that for a murder, which doesn't state a murder occurred. I need a drink. MisterWizzy (talk) 17:47, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

No it is more like saying "it was murder" when there has been no trial. Slatersteven (talk) 17:49, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

The "why" is quite relevant. – Muboshgu (talk) 17:53, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

The two latest replies are disingenous and obstructive. Rather than engaging in childish blocking, these two persons should either offer constructive suggestions, or STFU. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 1.152.17.98 (talk) 03:11, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

No we are offering explanations as to why this is not a valid request. Slatersteven (talk) 11:10, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

I'm not wasting my time further with you. Smartarse bullyboys who only wish to engage in snarky derailing tactics (and that's precisely what you've been doing), rather than thoughtful positive debate, are the bores of the Earth. MisterWizzy (talk) 11:31, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

Time for an wp:rfc, as there is (currently) no consensus for this, and I think fresh eyes are needed. Slatersteven (talk) 11:53, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

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