Headline RoundupDecember 6th, 2022

What Did Part 1 of the 'Twitter Files' Reveal?

Summary from the AllSides News Team

What did new Twitter owner Elon Musk's "Twitter Files" unveil over the weekend?

For Context: Musk and journalist Matt Taibbi (Center bias) published screenshots of conversations between Twitter employees detailing the company's decision to censor the New York Post's (Lean Right bias) 2020 story about potential evidence of Biden family misconduct being found on a laptop belonging to Hunter Biden. The screenshots show uncertainty among employees and communications between Democratic lawmakers and top Twitter decision-makers regarding the platform's handling of the story.

Where People Agreed: Many on the left and some on the right framed the reveal as underwhelming. The left often framed it as a failed headline grab, and the right often framed it as an incomplete picture of the purported conspiracy at hand. A HuffPost (Left bias) article said the reveal "flopped big time...even with right-wingers who were supposed to swoon over the information." Miranda Devine (Right bias) said Musk "half-delivered on his promise to tell all about Twitter’s censorship."

Where People Disagreed: Some on the right took the Twitter Files as more evidence that Twitter's political bias could have played a role in the 2020 election. National Review writer Jim Geraghty (Lean Right bias) said it painted "an ugly portrait of the individuals who made decisions about standards of content on Twitter during the 2020 presidential campaign." Conversely, a Washington Post writer called that assertion "indefensible," and cited a lack of evidence that the censorship "actually kept interested people from learning about it."

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