Right-wing media are using Twitter CEO Elon Musk and journalist Matt Taibbi’s release of “The Twitter Files” to baselessly portray the company’s decision to suppress a story about Hunter Biden as having influenced the results of the 2020 presidential election. Going further, some right-wing pundits have even called for those Twitter employees responsible for the decision to be prosecuted and imprisoned.

On December 2, Taibbi posted a supposed first installment of “The Twitter Files” in a lengthy tweet thread. Musk claimed that the report would document “free speech suppression” regarding Twitter’s decision to block links to an October 2020 New York Post story about Hunter Biden’s laptop. However, the files revealed very little information that was not already public and largely showed what many analysts noted as healthy internal debate rather than sinister collusion to suppress free speech. 

Taibbi pointed to several discussions within the files as evidence of collusion between Democrat officials and Twitter employees to suppress potentially damaging information about the Biden family in the weeks before the 2020 presidential election. One of these exchanges included an email from Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) questioning the logic behind Twitter's actions. Another thread showed that Twitter executives, at the supposed request of a Democratic official, “handled” a number of tweets containing stolen pictures of Hunter Biden’s genitals. (Twitter removed those tweets under its non-consensual nudity policy.) 

“The Twitter Files” failed to reveal meaningful evidence of collusion and represent another stumble in Musk's Twitter takeover

Twitter founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey had previously acknowledged that Twitter made mistakes in its decision to suppress the story, a sentiment which other now-former executives have echoed. Dorsey had even testified before Congress to explain the same claims that Musk, Taibbi, and right-wing media have incorrectly framed as being hidden from the public,” and an analysis by Washington Post columnist Philip Bump determined that Twitter’s actions around the Hunter Biden story did not cost Donald Trump the 2020 election. As Bump explained, “there’s no evidence that the restriction imposed by Twitter (or Facebook) actually kept interested people from learning about the story.”

Continuing their insatiable appetite for the Hunter Biden laptop story, however, right-wing media figures cited Taibbi’s reporting as clear evidence that Big Tech meddled in the 2020 election, while others claimed Joe Biden was involved in blocking the unconfirmed New York Post story, baselessly asserting that the White House colluded with Twitter on this decision. (Biden had yet to be elected in October 2020 and was still on the campaign trail when Twitter decided to suppress the story.) Additionally, some right-wing media figures conceded that the Twitter Files were “not the smoking gun we’d hoped for,” yet still insisted that Taibbi’s report showed a clear “violation of the First Amendment.” 

Right-wing figures used Taibbi’s report to baselessly claim that Twitter “colluded” in the 2020 election by suppressing the New York Post story about Hunter Biden’s laptop

• On Twitter, Fox host Laura Ingraham called for Big Tech to be reined in, comparing Twitter blocking the unconfirmed story about Hunter Biden to Russian interference in U.S. elections. In a December 2 tweet, Ingraham said, “Russian interference & meddling? Tonight we expose Twitter interference & meddling in the 2020 campaign. Sleazier than we thought—it’s time to rein in Big Tech. GOP better do it.” [Twitter, 12/2/22]
• Students for Trump founder Ryan Fournier claimed that Joe Biden won the 2020 election because Twitter helped him, calling the report “damning.” Fournier tweeted on December 2, “The Twitter Files release is damning. Everything we believed is being confirmed true. Twitter colluded in the 2020 election and helped Biden win.” [Twitter, 12/2/22]
• Far-right conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec asserted that Twitter’s decision to suppress the New York Post story amounted to a “digital insurrection.” [Twitter, 12/2/22]

• Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton, who helped Trump devise a strategy to claim that the 2020 election was stolen, claimed the Twitter Files proved that Democrats and Big Tech worked together to get Biden elected. In a series of tweets, Fitton said that the “Democratic Party (DNC) colluded with @Twitter to censor opponents just before 2020 election. #ElectionInterference,” and claimed, “Assault on democratic gov't and more election interference CONFIRMED in @ElonMusk's @Twitter files.” [Twitter, 12/2/22; 12/2/22]
• Conservative comedian Terrence K. Williams insinuated that the suppression of the Hunter Biden story was the reason Trump lost the 2020 election. On December 2, Williams tweeted, “Twitter interfered with the 2020 Election and those involved should be held accountable. President Trump should be in the White House right now.” [Twitter, 12/2/22]
• On Fox & Friends, co-host Pete Hegseth chalked up Twitter’s actions to election interference while acting as “an arm of the Democratic National Committee.” Co-host Steve Doocy admitted that “there is no smoking gun per se,” but Hegseth erroneously claimed that voters didn’t “get to read about” the heavily covered Hunter Biden story, “which means they're not factored in when they vote, which is the definition of election interference.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 12/5/22]

Right-wing figures attacked Biden for Twitter’s actions, with some alleging collusion between the White House and Twitter even though Biden wasn’t president yet

• Jack Posobiec attempted to paint Taibbi’s report as evidence to impeach Biden. On Twitter, Posobiec called for an impeachment inquiry into Biden because “the Twitter Files show Twitter was Censoring [users based] on Direct Requests from the Biden Team in October 2020.” [Twitter, 12/2/22]
• Conservative commentator Buck Sexton claimed that the story constituted a “massive scandal, and Biden should rightly be IMPEACHED for it.” [Twitter, 12/2/22]

• Fox News host Jesse Watters wrongly characterized Biden as the sitting president in 2020 to assert collusion between Twitter and the White House. He incorrectly asserted, “The Biden White House had a direct line to challenge and take down content they didn't like.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 12/2/22]
• On Fox’s Hannity, guest Tammy Bruce claimed that Twitter and Facebook were acting as “agents of the state” in suppressing the story. Bruce ended her appearance by bizarrely asserting that Twitter had single handedly “abolished” the First Amendment. [Fox News, Hannity, 12/2/22]

Right-wing figures demanded that Twitter employees involved in blocking the New York Post story face prosecution or jail time

• Terrence K. Williams called for “every Twitter employee who interfered in the 2020 Election” to be arrested. [Twitter, 12/2/22]

• Fox host Jeanine Pirro said on Fox & Friends Weekend that the Twitter Files story “amounts to election interference, and when have you the suppression of the First Amendment – free speech – that results in election interference, there’s got to be a prosecution.” She also insisted that “we already know” Trump would have won the election if Twitter did not suppress the Hunter Biden story. [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 12/4/22]

Right-wing pundits expressed disappointment that Musk and Taibbi didn’t reveal a “smoking gun” but insisted that Twitter violated the First Amendment

• Conservative radio host Sebastian Gorka admitted to being “deeply underwhelmed” by Taibbi’s thread, saying: “We know the Dems in DC collude with the Dems in Palo Alto. Big Whop. Need a paper trail of felonies. Elon better have that.” Gorka went on to explain during a Twitter Spaces Q&A with Musk on December 3 that what Taibbi cites in his thread doesn’t show government suppression, isn’t a First Amendment violation, and therefore isn’t “a smoking gun.” [Twitter, 12/2/22; 12/5/22]
• Washington Free Beacon reporter Andrew Kerr tweeted that none of the photos referenced by Taibbi “appear to show Hunter engaged in illegal activities.” He went on to call it “newsworthy that team Biden was asking Twitter to remove any tweets period.” [Twitter, 12/2/22]
• Washington Free Beacon reporter Chuck Ross tweeted that “there has to be an interesting story on how Twitter decided to censor the Hunter Biden laptop story, but we didn’t see it tonight.” He added, “FBI was meeting with Twitter on a weekly basis in 2020. Let’s see the docs about that.” [Twitter, 12/2/22]
• Right-wing personalities the Hodgetwins tweeted, “It 💯% is, collusion between govt. and big tech to violate the First Amendment.” The tweet was in reply to one from Musk saying, “If this isn’t a violation of the Constitution’s First Amendment, what is?” [Twitter, 12/2/22]
• Tom Fitton said that the Twitter files “further confirm” the Democratic Party’s “opposition to the First Amendment.” [Twitter, 12/2/22]

• Miranda Devine, a New York Post columnist who writes frequently about Hunter Biden and Big Tech, confessed on Fox’s Tucker Carlson Tonight that the Twitter Files were “not really the smoking gun we'd hoped for.” She went on to accuse Musk of withholding documents that “law enforcement specifically warned off Twitter from our story.” [Fox News, Tucker Carlson Tonight, 12/2/22]
• Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett claimed that “Musk deserves a medal for revealing how the Biden campaign, FBI and media censored the Hunter Biden scandal.” In an opinion piece published at FoxNews.com, Jarrett alleged that “the Biden campaign team and Democratic operatives —with a key assist from partisans at the FBI— applied pressure on the social media giant Twitter to block the story.” He later wrote that “it is a violation of the First Amendment for the government to engage in censorship either overtly or covertly,” which “includes the FBI manipulating or coercing companies to behave as proxies to accomplish otherwise prohibited censorship.” [Fox News, 12/6/22]

The hollow revelations of the Twitter Files come amid Musk’s supposed free speech crusade since taking control of the social media platform, marked by the CEO giving special attention to extremists, conspiracy theories, and misinformation. Twitter’s internal algorithms have already demonstrated a bias in favor of right-leaning accounts, and Musk’s high-profile actions have only further mainstreamed fringe narratives on the platform.