Twitter Files: Emails show Schiff’s routine efforts to get posts taken down
Christopher Hutton
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Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) routinely pushed for Twitter to censor and deamplify content on the platform, according to recently released documents.
The latest version of the “Twitter Files,” a series of internal documents and communications provided to journalists by owner Elon Musk, details the communications between Schiff’s office and Twitter. While Schiff’s communications with Twitter had been alluded to in the past, the latest releases reveal the regularity of the emails, according to screenshots released by journalist Matt Taibbi.
While Schiff’s office regularly requested Twitter take down content, the social platform declined to do so on several occasions. For example, when Schiff’s office asked for the takedown of a tweet featuring a modified image of then-presidential candidate Joe Biden, former Twitter head of trust and safety Yoel Roth dismissed the request, stating that the post had obvious “humorous intent” and that “any reasonable observer” could see that the image was doctored.
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Twitter also refused requests from Schiff calling for the suppression of search results about staff on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, which he chaired. It did abide by some requests, including when it “deamplified” content featuring “QAnon-related activity.”
Schiff’s communications with Twitter had been revealed in a Jan. 3 version of the Twitter Files, which detailed the communications between the social media platform and various government agencies.
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Previous versions of the Twitter Files address efforts by both former President Donald Trump’s administration and Biden’s administration to quell COVID-19 misinformation, including communications with Twitter. They also detailed communications between the FBI and Twitter regarding foreign threats, the company’s handling of Hunter Biden’s laptop, and the decision to remove Trump from the platform.