'Deplatforming the President': Twitter Files Part 3 reveals events that led to removal of Donald Trump

Twitter Files Part 3 has been released, providing detailed accounts about the events leading up to former US President Donald Trump's 'deplatforming' from Twitter. The third installment of documents highlights interactions between former Twitter executives and federal agencies that led to the removal of Donald Trump from the platform.  

In January 2021, Twitter permanently suspended former US President Donald Trump's account due to the risk of further incitement of violence. Matt Taibbi, the author of the first part of Twitter Files, has revealed details about the events leading up to the ban. Taibbi shared Slack screengrabs of internal communications of Twitter executives. Elon Musk has titled the new series of tweets "Deplatforming the President." The new thread claims that Twitter executives were prepared to ban future presidents, including perhaps even Joe Biden. Taibbi claims that Twitter violated its own policies in the process.

Taibbi claims that despite whatever opinion users might have had about Trump's actions, what happened within Twitter during the entire process, is of historical importance. He alleges that Twitter executives had close relationships with federal agencies and were actively moderating content at the request of their representatives. For example, he claims that on October 8th, 2020, executives opened a channel called "us2020_xfn_enforcement" to allow them to discuss the removal of election-related content and high-profile accounts.

Taibbi also said that Twitter's moderation process was based on "guesses, gut calls, even Google searches, even in cases involving the President," calling the group of Twitter executives a "high-speed Supreme Court of moderation." He also notes that no moderation requests were received from the Trump campaign, the Trump White House, or Republicans.

The documents show that Yoel Roth, the former head of Trust and Safety had weekly meetings with the central agencies such as the FBI. Taibbi's screengrabs show conversations where Roth was seen ghosting some of these FBI meetings. 

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