CEO Elon Musk gave the documents to journalists Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss, Lee Fang, and authors Michael Shellenberger, David Zweig and Alex Berenson shortly after he acquired Twitter on October 27, 2022.

[1][2][3][4] After the first set of files was published, various technology and media journalists said that the reported evidence demonstrated little more than Twitter's policy team struggling with difficult decisions, but resolving such matters swiftly.

[6][20][21][22][23] In his prelude, Taibbi stated that the files told a "Frankenstein tale of a human-built mechanism"—"one of the world's largest and most influential social media platforms"—"grown out [of] the control of its designer".

[1] Taibbi wrote that these documents, as well as the assessment of "multiple current and former high-level executives", demonstrate how, although external requests for moderation from both political parties were received and honored, an overwhelmingly left-wing employee base at Twitter facilitated a left-leaning bias.

[26] The eighth installment showed the Twitter Site Integrity Team whitelisted accounts from United States Central Command (CENTCOM) used to run online influence campaigns in other countries.

[31][32] The Washington Post reported that this was a result of the company's scenario-planning exercises to combat disinformation campaigns, which included potential "hack and leak" situations like what had transpired during the Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections.

"[24][29] His reporting seemed to undermine a key narrative promoted by Musk and Republicans that the FBI pressured social media companies to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop stories.

"[45][44] The documents Weiss discussed focused on individuals popular with the right-wing and suggested the moderation practices were politically motivated[42][44]—a long-standing claim among American conservatives,[45] which Twitter has denied.

[51] Two days after the January 6, 2021 United States Capitol attack, Trump made two tweets: one praised his voters, calling them "American Patriots" who will "not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!"

[53] Taibbi reported that on October 8, 2020, Twitter executives created a channel entitled "us2020_xfn_enforcement" as a hub to discuss content removal that pertained to the then-upcoming 2020 United States presidential election.

[54][55] As previously reported by The New York Times in 2020,[56] Taibbi said that then-head of Trust and Safety for Twitter, Yoel Roth, met regularly with agencies such as the FBI to discuss potential attempts by foreign and domestic actors to manipulate the 2020 election.

[52] The sixth installment, published by Taibbi on December 16, described how the FBI reported several accounts to Twitter's Trust and Safety Team for allegedly spreading election misinformation.

Shellenberger reported that the FBI's and the DHS' warnings about potential foreign interference in the 2020 presidential election influenced Twitter to moderate the Hunter Biden laptop story.

[62][63] The eighth installment by Lee Fang on December 20, 2022, reported documents that showed the Twitter Site Integrity Team whitelisted accounts from United States Central Command (CENTCOM) used to run online influence campaigns in other countries, including Yemen, Syria, and Kuwait.

[67] Taibbi wrote, "News outlets for years cited Watts and Hamilton 68 when claiming Russian bots were 'amplifying an endless parade of social media causes – against strikes in Syria, in support of Fox host Laura Ingraham, the campaigns of both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders.

[74][75][76] In a Fox News interview, Republican House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy defended Taibbi's reporting and said of Elon Musk that his critics are "trying to discredit a person for telling the truth.

[79] Donald Trump referred to the first release of Twitter Files as proof of "Big Tech companies, the DNC, & the Democrat Party" rigging the 2020 United States presidential election against him, declaring that "the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution" was necessary.

White House Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates condemned Trump's comments, writing that the U.S. Constitution is a "sacrosanct document" that unites the country "regardless of party" and that calling for its termination is an attack against "the soul of our nation".

It is unfortunate that conspiracy theorists and others are feeding the American public misinformation with the sole purpose of attempting to discredit the agency.An FBI agent at the center of the controversy stated in sworn testimony that the bureau did not give a directive to Twitter about the Hunter Biden laptop story.

[86] On December 10, 2022, Musk threatened to sue any Twitter employee who leaked information to the press, despite his claims to be a "free speech absolutist," and having released internal messages and emails to selected journalists.

[90] Dorsey later criticized Musk for only allowing the internal documents to be accessed by select people, suggesting that the files should have been made publicly available "Wikileaks-style" so that there were "many more eyes and interpretations to consider".

"[1] Miranda Devine, a columnist with the New York Post who was among the first to write about the laptop, told Fox News host Tucker Carlson that the presentation regarding the story wasn't the "smoking gun we'd hoped for".

[17] Jim Geraghty of National Review wrote that "the files paint an ugly portrait of a social-media company's management unilaterally deciding that its role was to keep breaking news away from the public instead of letting people see the reporting and drawing their own conclusions.

"[92] Intelligencer wrote that the first two installments contained "a couple [of] genuinely concerning findings" but were "saturated in hyperbole, marred by omissions of context, and discredited by instances of outright mendacity" and thus "best understood as an egregious example of the very phenomenon it purports to condemn — that of social-media managers leveraging their platforms for partisan ends.

He also suggested that Musk's core goal is to "anger liberals" and appeal to the political right, citing him allowing the documents to only be accessed by select people "who've expressed alignment with his pet issues" and telling his followers to vote Republican in the 2022 midterm elections.

[94][95] Katherine Cross of Wired portrayed Weiss' and Taibbi's threads as "transparency theater", writing that Musk's ulterior motive is to achieve "freedom from any accountability" and "a world where no one tells him 'no'".

[96] Gerard Baker of The Wall Street Journal wrote that the Twitter Files "exposed how a powerful class of like-minded people control and limit the flow of information to advantage their monolithically progressive agenda" and added that they "tell us nothing new", and that it does not contain any "shocking revelation" regarding government censorship or manipulation by political campaigns.

[99] CNN interviewed six technology executives and senior managers, as well as multiple federal officials familiar with the matter, all of whom said the FBI had not given Twitter any directive to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop story.

She wrote that the documents were not proof of Twitter trying to rig the 2020 presidential election in Joe Biden's favor by suppressing the Post story but rather an "understandable mistake" done in reaction to accusations of the site aiding Russian trolls in 2016 and "pressure from government forces" such as the FBI and DHS, who she said were the "real villains here".

The article assesses national awareness of government censorship of social media and attributes Elon Musk's "shocking transparency" as a key factor leading to the "Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruling that the White House likely "coerced the platforms to make their moderation decisions by way of intimidating messages and threats of adverse consequences.