Twitter has sprung a leak.
In several exclusive interviews with Breitbart, former employees of the company reveal a company dependent on celebrities, hostile to free speech, and silently fuming at President Trump’s continued dominance on the platform. It corroborates the recent Project Veritas exposé of a platform that is hopelessly biased and committed to censoring non-progressive voices.
Our first source, who, like the others, wishes to remain anonymous, described how the company rapidly abandoned its commitment to free speech after former CEO Dick Costolo was replaced by Jack Dorsey, who the source described as “the definition of a social justice warrior.”
The majority of Twitter’s management, says the source, believes the leftist idea that “hate speech is violence.” They “absolutely” believe in the idea that “abuse scares people off the platform,” and that certain types of speech “silence” other speech.
According to the source, Twitter’s Trust & Safety and Legal departments (distinct from the Trust & Safety Council, which is made up of left-wing advocacy organizations), are “more tolerant of free speech than you might think,” but later adds that social justice warriors like Anita Sarkeesian still probably have direct access to Twitter’s upper management.
Twitter employees are divided into three distinct groups, says the source. Hardline leftists like Dorsey and others, and “ACLU-type” liberals who “still believe in free speech.” Lastly, there are workers who join the company on H1B visas, who the source says are “apolitical.”
The switch from Costolo to Dorsey was highly significant, says the source. Costolo focused on user growth, without taking a position on what non-illegal content was disallowed on the platform, whereas Dorsey has placed a higher emphasis on branded content, like a media company, where the style and tone of content should match the image the company wants to project, which the source describes as “welcoming, fun, and safe.”
In other words, Dorsey wants Twitter to be a feel-good safe space, and not the site of political acrimony and put-downs that it is currently known for.
According to a second source, the company openly celebrates when right-wing figures are banned from the platform.
“There was a great deal of celebration [at Twitter] when Milo was banned,” says the source.
When the source worked for Twitter, he says employees snarkily estimated the backlash over banning someone controversial in “units of Milo,” which referred to an individual’s number of followers, their media reach, and their ability to respond to a ban with negative headlines and backlash from members of the public.
“It’s like, ‘He’s two Milos, so we can’t ban him!’ or ‘He’s half a Milo, so we can!”
Very Important Tweeters
According to the source, Twitter is almost entirely dependent on the goodwill of celebrities and public figures, who are seen as the number-one factor drawing users onto their platform. Getting re-tweeted by a celebrity is seen by Twitter as “the modern autograph.” Thus, confirms the source, the real reason for the suspension of figures like Milo, Roger Stone, and the satirist Godfrey Elfwick is because they offended a celebrity or high-profile mainstream figure.
From a business standpoint, celebrities drive sign-ups, and the site therefore “bends over backwards to please them.”
“Of course there are double standards,” says the source, who agrees that in fights between two public figures, “Twitter will pick the bigger, more powerful celebrity.”
The source also recalled hearing a rumor inside Twitter that Leslie Jones’ agent had contacted the company to threaten a celebrity boycott if Milo was not dealt with.
The source’s account of Twitter’s relentless focus on satisfying the whims of celebrities fits in with the stories from other former employees, who have revealed how the company goes into crisis mode whenever a celebrity is upset. Those sources also recalled that then-CEO Dick Costolo was receiving texts and calls from high-powered Hollywood agencies like CAA, threatening to pull their stars off the platform if he didn’t play ball.
Appeasing celebrities was not how Twitter explained their actions to the public, or even to their own employees. Internally, says the source, Milo was accused of “dog-whistling” to his “alt-right followers” to mob Leslie Jones, and this constituted “inciting violence” against the actress.
“Notions like ‘dog whistles’ are basically Rorschach blots,” says the source. “People see what they want to see, and they can make even the most innocuous actions or words into something completely sinister through their own bias and projection.”
According to the source, a surefire path to a Twitter permaban is for a user to get on the wrong side of a celebrity who has more power to damage the company than they do, and who has the support of “Social Justice Warrior brigades” both inside and outside the company. In other words, left-wing celebrities.
Twitter’s dependence on celebrities has been thrown into stark focus in recent days, as Hollywood tears itself apart over the Weinstein sex scandal. After Rose McGowan, one of Weinstein’s most vocal accusers, had her Twitter account briefly suspended last year, she and several other celebrities promised to boycott the platform. Jack Dorsey’s response (notice how quickly he responded to the threat of a celebrity boycott) was to announce yet another clampdown on “abuse” and “hate symbols.”
Tampons in the men’s room
A third source has also come forward to shed light on Twitter’s culture of snowflake identity politics, which bears a strong resemblance to the culture of other big tech companies.
In August, we reported that Google keeps tampons in their men’s restrooms as a matter of policy, because “some men menstruate.” More recently, James Damore’s lawsuit against Google revealed that the company allowed someone who “identifies” as a “yellow-scaled wingless dragonkin” give a presentation on “living as a plural being.”
Once confined to the crazyhouses of Tumblr and college campuses, the bizarre culture of left-wing millennial identity politics can now be found at the most powerful tech companies in the world.
According to our third source, Twitter is no different. Like Google, they also put tampons in the men’s room, although in Twitter’s case it was just during gay pride week. During the same week, they temporarily replaced the men’s room sign with a “gender confusion” sign.
Also similarly to Google, where sources familiar with the matter say senior executives were reportedly “on the verge of tears” after the election of Donald Trump, the source describes scenes of shock and despair at Twitter after election night.
“People were huddling up in groups and crying. SJW ‘ally’ men were white knighting to comfort the women, and management sent out a memo saying that if anyone was too distraught to be productive at the office, they should take the day off.”
According to the source, there is also ceaseless agitation from employees to ban President Trump from the platform, but management has thus far ignored it. This corroborates the strong anti-Trump sentiment at the company acknowledged by Twitter employee Clay Haynes, who confessed to an undercover Project Veritas journalist that he and others at Twitter wanted to “get rid” of Trump.
You can follow Allum Bokhari on Twitter, Gab.ai and add him on Facebook. Contact him securely at allumbokhari@protonmail.com
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.