A year ago, one of my biggest fears came true. My name, work ID picture and old Slack messages were misconstrued, posted on Twitter (now known as X), and then plastered over the headlines of right-wing outlets around the country. They were included within a series of tweets highlighting emails, messages and internal documents from my time working as a senior policy official at Twitter, called the “Twitter Files.”
The Twitter Files were advertised by the platform’s new owner, Elon Musk, as blockbuster confirmation of allegations of government collusion at the social media company to censor Republican voices during COVID-19 and the 2020 election. Before Musk purchased Twitter, I had come forward as a whistleblower to the House select committee on the Jan. 6 attack. I had also revealed my identity as a Black queer woman.
I knew that my identity and being the first person to speak on record about Twitter during the Trump era put a target on my back. But I had never imagined the publication of something like the Twitter Files. I also knew I could not escape being included, so as each instalment was published, I sat attached to my phone, hitting the refresh button.
When my name and picture finally appeared, I was on my way home from a yoga class. I sat down on a park bench and opened Signal. With calm resolve yet shaky fingers, I messaged my lawyers a link to the tweet that purported to show I had lied to Congress.
Almost immediately, Twitter users began to call for me to be charged with perjury. With liberal usage of the N-word and homophobic slurs, they also said that I, along with my family, should be hanged for treason.
I got up from the bench and briskly finished my walk home. After I locked the door, I went and checked the go-bag that I had kept packed for exactly a moment like that. And then I followed the plan I had in place to leave my home.
At the time, I was advised it was best for me to not speak or attempt to defend myself. Rather, I waited for the Jan. 6 committee to release its findings. However, the nearly 900-page final report omitted most of the information drawn from my testimonies and the evidence I gave to Congress.
So when I was subpoenaed to participate during a hearing about the Twitter Files in February, I wanted the Real Twitter Files to be known. The evidence I presented to Congress showed that rather than the Biden administration attempting to exert undue influence on social media companies, it was the Trump administration that unsuccessfully attempted to tip the scale.
When asked by House representatives about times Twitter received requests from the White House to remove content, I relayed an incident from 2019. At that time, my team was informed Twitter received a request from the Trump administration to remove a derogatory tweet from Chrissy Teigen. Twitter’s policy then limited the number of insults allowed in a tweet to three, and my team was tasked with deciphering the syntax of the punctuation-less phrase “pussy ass bitch.” Despite the obvious pressure from the Trump White House to remove the content, Twitter decided to keep Teigen’s tweet up.
The clip of this congressional exchange went viral when Teigen herself posted it to her social accounts. In response, people sent images of nooses directed toward me and threatened my life. I used my go-bag once again. And I didn’t go home after the hearing.
But, thanks to my testimony, reporting uncovered that the Teigen incident was not isolated. It found that “the Trump administration and its allied Republicans in Congress routinely asked Twitter to take down posts they objected to.” It also highlighted a trove of additional requests received by Twitter from the Trump administration and Republican officials to remove content. In these cases, there is no evidence that these requests were headed by Twitter or that the content was taken down based on these government demands.
Unfortunately, despite my testimonies, reporting, and there being simply no evidence to prove the claim, the idea that most social media companies are biased against conservatives or that the Biden administration has exerted undue pressure on social media companies has seeped into our political consciousness through Republican talking points. It continues beyond just the Twitter Files, Congress or Musk.
The Supreme Court is currently hearing a case that alleges that social media companies removed or banned posts at the urging of the Biden administration and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The evidence presented before the court found that companies removed 50% of the material the bureau’s agents flagged as problematic. However, receiving a favorable outcome at the same rate as flipping a coin is mere probability and does not prove the intimidating censorship influence that’s alleged.
As my conversations with Congress uncovered, there are legitimate concerns about jawboning, or informal requests from the government to social media companies about content. There are also serious questions about how authoritarian regimes abuse social media take-down requests, especially as Trump runs for reelection, and platforms like X have started complying with government demands. One need only to look at Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party in India to see how a government can use its power to successfully assert undue pressure to censor content from social media companies.
Beginning to address these serious issues cannot come from the Twitter Files, recent congressional hearings about them or the cases before the Supreme Court. Rather, real transparency is needed into how social media companies have operated that can only continue to come as those of us who have done the work inside of those companies share evidence.
But we shouldn’t have to risk our lives and livelihoods to do so. We need the help of a bipartisan independent regulatory body with whistleblower protections to safely convene these conversations. Starting from these facts is essential. Relying on unproven theories, ideas, or political rhetoric threatens all of our freedoms.
Anika Collier Navaroli is currently a Senior Fellow at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University and a Public Voices Fellow on Technology in the Public Interest with The OpEd Project. She previously held senior policy official positions at Twitter and Twitch. In 2022, she blew the whistle about her warnings to Twitter that went unheeded in the days before the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and the platform’s ultimate decision to suspend former President Donald Trump.