Republicans grilled ex-Twitter executives about censorship. They came upon Trump requested takedowns.

Did Elon Musk watch the identical listening to that everybody else did?

Late Wednesday evening, Twitter’s new proprietor Elon Musk tweeted(Opens in a brand new tab) “The Woke Stasi felt the warmth in the present day.” Musk’s followers knew what he was speaking about, replying with a picture(Opens in a brand new tab) of former Twitter executives, whom Musk fired when he took over the corporate final yr, standing earlier than Congress. 

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The picture consists of Twitter’s former Chief Authorized Officer Vijaya Gadde and former Head of Belief and Security Yoel Roth, each common targets of conservatives on Twitter, making ready to offer testimony earlier than the Home Oversight Committee throughout a listening to(Opens in a brand new tab) on “Twitter’s Function in Suppressing the Biden Laptop computer Story.” This was the primary main listening to of the committee since Republicans gained management of the Home this yr.

However, anybody who truly watched the listening to would miss out on such warmth being felt by these former Twitter executives. Quite the opposite, the listening to uncovered a selected occasion of then-President Donald Trump and his administration demanding Twitter take away a publish about Trump by mannequin Chrissy Tiegen.

Whereas being questioned by Democratic members of the Home, former Twitter worker Anika Collier Navaroli shared a selected occasion the place the corporate was contacted by the Trump administration in 2019 to demand the removing of a tweet despatched by TV character Chrissy Tiegen.

In September of that yr, Trump tweeted(Opens in a brand new tab) an assault on Chrissy Tiegen’s husband, musician John Legend, in addition to Teigen herself, calling her Legend’s “filthy mouthed spouse.”

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Later that evening, Teigen responded on Twitter, declaring that Trump had tagged different folks he criticized on Twitter, however didn’t add Teigen’s deal with in order that it might seem in her Twitter mentions.

“lol what a pussy ass bitch,” Teigen posted(Opens in a brand new tab). “tagged everybody however me. an honor, mister president.”

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This revelation additionally led to an attention-grabbing second(Opens in a brand new tab) the place Navaroli was requested by Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-FL) to learn Teigen’s tweet earlier than Congress.

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The whole function of this listening to for Republicans was to show that earlier than Musk got here alongside, Twitter was in cahoots with Democrats so as to stifle the unfold of the Hunter Biden laptop computer story (A difficulty which Twitter shortly reversed on the day they first blocked the story in 2020, and which subsequently drove the corporate to alter its insurance policies so such an occasion would by no means occur once more). But, the takeaway from the listening to is that Trump, who was the president on the time, truly requested a “derogatory” tweet about him be eliminated. 

This alternate additionally seems to be dangerous for Elon Musk, as effectively. Over the previous few months, Musk has supplied numerous right-wing writers entry to inner paperwork, dubbed the Twitter Recordsdata, so as to show Twitter was biased towards Republicans earlier than he got here alongside. These releases additionally tried to indicate that Twitter was working with the Democratic Occasion and the Joe Biden marketing campaign. But, no Twitter Recordsdata launch to date has lined any contacts between Twitter and Trump and his administration although Musk had supposedly supplied unfettered entry to Twitter’s inner paperwork to those writers.

Additional underscoring the right-wing bias in Musk’s personal Twitter Recordsdata releases was a report(Opens in a brand new tab) from Rolling Stone printed in the course of the listening to that confirmed with each former Twitter staff and Trump White Home officers that Republicans usually made takedown requests to Twitter. In response to the report, the requests have been so intensive that Twitter needed to preserve a database for Republican takedown calls for.

As for the requests made by the Joe Biden marketing campaign to take away tweets associated to Hunter Biden, Twitter’s personal paperwork present that the takedowns have been solely carried out on posts that included non-consensual nude pictures of Biden’s son.