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The latest drop of Twitter files showed how the social media company banned President Trump after the January 6 riots, while dictators were allowed to remain on the platform and promote mass violence and genocide.

While Twitter executives decided Trump’s use of the phrase ‘American patriots’ could be a ‘coded incitement to further violence’ and banned him for it, they did nothing when the Iranian Ayatollah and the prime minster of Malaysia explicitly advocated slaughtering millions of lives.

The disturbing revelations came to light on Monday as journalists Bari Weiss and Matt Taibbi continue to come through a trove of Twitter’s internal files and communications that Elon Musk released as a part of his mission to return the platform to a sanctuary of free speech.

Previously it was revealed that Twitter actively suppressed the accounts of far-right commentators like Charlie Kirk, Dan Bongino, and numerous others, and marked them as ‘do not amplify’ during the pandemic.

The latest Twitter files show that President Donald Trump was banned from the platform for tweets some thought could be interpreted as calls to violence

The latest Twitter files show that President Donald Trump was banned from the platform for tweets some thought could be interpreted as calls to violence

Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad

While Trump was banned, Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (left) and Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad (right) were allowed to remain on the platform despite explicit calls for genocide

Mere months before Trump was banned from Twitter, then-Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad took to Twitter to say Muslims had the right to murder millions of French people.

‘Muslims have a right to be angry and to kill millions of French people for the massacres of the past’ he wrote in an October 2021 post.

The post was deleted by Twitter for ‘glorifying violence,’ but the prime minister was allowed to keep his account.

And three short years prior, Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called Israel a ‘cancerous tumor’ and suggested it might be ‘eradicated.’ 

‘Our stance against Israel is the same stance we have always taken,’ he wrote in June 2018. ‘#Israel is a malignant cancerous tumor in the West Asian region that has to be removed and eradicated: it is possible it will happen.’

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Despite calling for the extinction of a country’s entire population, not only was the tweet not removed, but the Ayatollah’s account remained perfectly in place.  

 

 

 

Another Tweet Twitter allowed to remain posted was from Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who in October 2021 called his citizens to arm against people of the Tigray region in the north of the country. 

The Ethiopian government has been at war with Tigray since 2020, a conflict which the government has been accused of carrying out atrocities in.

And in February of 2021, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi threatened to arrest Twitter employees in the country and imprison them for seven years after accounts opposing him were restored.

His account, however, was untouched by the platform.

Approximately and hour-and-a-half after Twitter staff determined Trump's tweets were not in violation of Twitter policy, then-Head of Legal, Policy, and Trust Vijaya Gadde suggested his posts could be 'coded incitement to further violence'

Approximately and hour-and-a-half after Twitter staff determined Trump’s tweets were not in violation of Twitter policy, then-Head of Legal, Policy, and Trust Vijaya Gadde suggested his posts could be ‘coded incitement to further violence’

While those world leaders explicitly called for violence on Twitter but were allowed to remain on the platform almost unchecked, executives made the decision to ban Trump for a tweet some considered could possibly be interpreted by some as a call to violence.

‘The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICAN FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future,’ Trump tweeted on January 8, 2021. ‘They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!’

Weiss revealed that in the aftermath of that tweet, some at Twitter flagged it while others patently dismissed it as not violation any guidelines. 

However, then-Head of Legal, Policy, and Trust, Vijaya Gadde, asked whether his posts could be ‘coded incitement to further violence.’

Shortly after, Twitter employees decided to interpret Trump’s use of ‘American Patriots’ to refer to rioters, which they then suggested could violate Twitter’s Glorification of Violence policy.

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Then Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey then got involved when Twitter executives hosted a 30-minute all-staff meeting.

Finally, Trump was banned from the platform ‘due to the risk of further incitement of violence.’

Jack Dorsey

Yoel Roth

In the direct aftermath of the deadly January 6 Capitol Riot, Jack Dorsey (left) was on vacation in French Polynesia and delegated much of the decision making to Yoel Roth, then-head of safety and trust, who navigated the process to ban Trump

The documents released Friday primarily related to the months prior to the January 8, 2021 decision to ban Donald Trump from Twitter. Trump is seen on January 6 prior to the Capitol riot

The documents released Friday primarily related to the months prior to the January 8, 2021 decision to ban Donald Trump from Twitter. Trump is seen on January 6 prior to the Capitol riot 

The newest Twitter files build on the previous batch, where it was revealed that federal authorities nudged Twitter’s former safety chief Yoel Roth to suppress the First Amendment rights of conservative commentators who pushed the idea of fraud during the 2020 presidential election.

The leaks from journalist Matt Taibbi also show the tech giant’s staffers openly discussed banning former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee over a joke.

Taibbi tweeted a screengrab of a message between Twitter executives following a report from the FBI highlighting tweets from former Tippecanoe County, Indiana, official and Republican, John Basham.

Basham alleged between two and 25 percent of ballots by mail were being rejected due to ‘errors.’

He later tweeted: ‘An unexpected number of registered Republicans are returning ballots,’ while alleging the vote by mail had been a Democratic Party plan to gain an advantage in the election.

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee's joke about his dead grandparents voting in 2020 was also flagged by Twitter staff

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee’s joke about his dead grandparents voting in 2020 was also flagged by Twitter staff

One exchange shows Roth explaining he will miss 'the FBI and DHS meetings.'

Roth is seen joking about a mysterious meeting on his calendar, saying it is 'DEFINITELY not a meeting with the FBI I SWEAR¿

One exchange (left) shows Roth explaining he will miss ‘the FBI and DHS meetings.’ Roth is also seen joking (right) about a mysterious meeting on his calendar, saying it is ‘DEFINITELY not a meeting with the FBI I SWEAR’

Rather than remove the tweet, Roth opts to place a ‘Learn how voting is safe and secure’ label on the message.

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Roth, who quit his role at Twitter last month following Musk’s takeover, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from DailyMail.com on Saturday.

Basham responded to the leak on Twitter saying: ‘The Twitter files show that the FBI violated my First Amendment right by getting Twitter to take action against my tweets!

‘The federal government has no right to determine what I may print or what I may say.’

Musk defended the FBI in a tweet that read: ‘With rare exception, the FBI seems to want to do the right thing.’

He did concede that under Twitter’s former leaders the company ‘operated as s Democratic Party activist machine.’

Staffers at Twitter argued that 'historical context' and 'current climate' should factor into the decision to suspend Trump's account ahead of his January 8, 2021 ban

Staffers at Twitter argued that ‘historical context’ and ‘current climate’ should factor into the decision to suspend Trump’s account ahead of his January 8, 2021 ban

The previous Twitter thread also covered the months and weeks leading up to then-President Donald Trump’s ban from Twitter following the Capitol riot, shedding light on the increasingly frenzied internal efforts within the social media site to moderate his baseless claims of election fraud.

Some of the most intriguing documents relate to the apparent cozy relationship between top Twitter executives and the FBI, though Taibbi did not reveal any direct evidence of the agency’s intervention in the decision to ban Trump.

In an undated chat on the messaging app Slack that Taibbi says took place after the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot, Roth is seen joking about a mysterious meeting on his calendar, saying it is ‘DEFINITELY not a meeting with the FBI I SWEAR’.

A separate message mentions ‘a report from the FBI concerning 2 tweets,’ which appeared to relate to claims about ballot fraud in the November 2020 election.

The message notes that one of the tweets, claiming mail-in ballots were being ‘shredded’, was adjudicated false, but that the second one claiming up to 25 percent of mail-in ballots were being ‘rejected for errors’ was found to be within Twitter policy.

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