Twitter owner and CEO Elon Musk said “pressure from hundreds of activist employees” led to the "de-platforming" of former President Donald Trump when he was in office.
What Happened: After yet another tranche of “Twitter Files” was released, Musk said that the employees “themselves acknowledge that he [Trump] didn’t violate the rules.”
Journalist Bari Weiss in a Twitter thread recollected events that took place two days after the Jan. 6. Capitol riots in 2021, which led to Trump's ouster from the social media platform.
Twitter, for years, had “resisted calls” internally and externally to ban Trump on the grounds that posts from a world leader were important for public debate, Weiss said.
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Why It Matters: Weiss brought up Trump's last two tweets before he got banned from the platform: one about the number of "American Patriots” who voted for him and the other about his decision to not attend President Joe Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20, 2021.
Although these posts had not violated any terms, Twitter faced pressure from within and outside after the Jan. 6 insurrection to ban Trump, Weiss said. He added that despite some internal dissent, voices that called for Trump's ban "were louder" than those that advocated keeping him on the platform.
“There is a lot of employee advocacy happening,” said Weiss, quoting a Twitter employee.
Former CEO Jack Dorsey and Twitter’s general counsel Vijaya Gadde held a meeting on Jan. 8 to answer questions on why Trump wasn’t banned, but that made some employees angrier, according to the Twitter Files.
Musk restored Trump’s account after he took over the company but the former president has chosen to not use the platform so far.
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