On Jan. 5, 2021, the lawyers and specialists on Twitter’s safety policy team, which set rules about violent content, were bracing for a day of brutality in Washington. In the weeks since President Donald Trump had tweeted a call for his supporters to gather in the nation’s capital for a protest he promised would be “wild,” the site had erupted with pledges of political vengeance and plans for a military-style assault.
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“I am very concerned about what happens tomorrow, especially given what we have been seeing,” said one member of the team, Anika Collier Navaroli, in a video call, the details of which are reported here for the first time. “For months we have been allowing folks to maintain and say on the platform that they’re locked and loaded, that they’re ready to shoot people, that they’re ready to commit violence.”
Some participants in the call pushed the company to adopt a tougher position, arguing that moderators should be able to remove what they called “coded incitements to violence” — messages, such as “locked and loaded,” that could be read as threats. But a senior manager dismissed the idea, saying executives wanted them to take action against only the most flagrant rules violations, adding, “We didn’t want to go too far.”
“What if there’s violence on the ground?” responded another team member in Twitter’s Dublin office. “Would we take action … or do we have to wait for violence — someone getting shot?”
The next day, a mob of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol, leaving five people dead and more than 100 police officers injured.
Two and a half years after those events, the role of social media companies in fomenting the violence remains a volatile topic. Twitter’s current owner, Elon Musk, commissioned a series of reports intended to reveal how the company had previously sought to squelch conservative speech, and a Republican-led committee in the House of Representatives is working to build the case that the tech giants have been digitally weaponized against conservative ideas.
But the video and other newly obtained internal Twitter records show that, far from working to censor pro-Trump sentiment in the days before the Capitol riot, the company’s leaders were intent on leaving it up — despite internal warnings that trouble was brewing.
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Congressional Republicans, Trump supporters and Musk allies have condemned the company for suspending Trump’s account in the riot’s aftermath, saying its employees were too quick to punish the former president because of their liberal prejudice.
But the records reveal a company that fought until the end to give some of Trump’s most belligerent supporters the benefit of the doubt, even as its internal teams faced an overwhelming volume of tweets threatening retribution in line with Trump’s lies that the election had been stolen.
They also show that Twitter’s leaders were reluctant to take action against Trump’s account two days after the insurrection, even as lawyers inside the company argued that his continued praise of the Capitol rioters amounted to “glorification of violence,” an offense punishable then by suspension under Twitter’s rules.
Trump’s 88-million-follower account was ultimately suspended on the night of Jan. 8, hours after he’d tweeted that “great American Patriots … will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!” The suspension, the records show, was taken only after employees had assembled for executives a list of examples in which Twitter users responded to Trump’s tweets with calls for further violence across the United States.
The records also undercut claims that Twitter had worked on behalf of the Biden administration in freezing Trump’s account, as Trump claimed in a lawsuit against Twitter that was dismissed last year by a federal judge.
None of the records obtained by The Washington Post — including the 32-minute video, a five-page retrospective memo outlining the suspension discussions and a 114-page agenda document detailing the safety policy team’s meetings and conversations — show any contacts with federal officials pushing the company to take any action involving Trump’s account.
What the Jan. 6 probe found out about social media, but didn’t report
The records were part of a large set of Slack messages, policy documents and other files given to the House Jan. 6 committee in preparation for its landmark hearings, though the committee never made them public. The Post obtained the records from a person connected to the investigation, and their authenticity was confirmed by another person with knowledge of their contents.
Tech is not your friend. We are. Sign up for The Tech Friend newsletter.
“I am very concerned about what happens tomorrow, especially given what we have been seeing,” said one member of the team, Anika Collier Navaroli, in a video call, the details of which are reported here for the first time. “For months we have been allowing folks to maintain and say on the platform that they’re locked and loaded, that they’re ready to shoot people, that they’re ready to commit violence.”
Some participants in the call pushed the company to adopt a tougher position, arguing that moderators should be able to remove what they called “coded incitements to violence” — messages, such as “locked and loaded,” that could be read as threats. But a senior manager dismissed the idea, saying executives wanted them to take action against only the most flagrant rules violations, adding, “We didn’t want to go too far.”
“What if there’s violence on the ground?” responded another team member in Twitter’s Dublin office. “Would we take action … or do we have to wait for violence — someone getting shot?”
The next day, a mob of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol, leaving five people dead and more than 100 police officers injured.
Two and a half years after those events, the role of social media companies in fomenting the violence remains a volatile topic. Twitter’s current owner, Elon Musk, commissioned a series of reports intended to reveal how the company had previously sought to squelch conservative speech, and a Republican-led committee in the House of Representatives is working to build the case that the tech giants have been digitally weaponized against conservative ideas.
But the video and other newly obtained internal Twitter records show that, far from working to censor pro-Trump sentiment in the days before the Capitol riot, the company’s leaders were intent on leaving it up — despite internal warnings that trouble was brewing.
ADVERTISING
Congressional Republicans, Trump supporters and Musk allies have condemned the company for suspending Trump’s account in the riot’s aftermath, saying its employees were too quick to punish the former president because of their liberal prejudice.
But the records reveal a company that fought until the end to give some of Trump’s most belligerent supporters the benefit of the doubt, even as its internal teams faced an overwhelming volume of tweets threatening retribution in line with Trump’s lies that the election had been stolen.
They also show that Twitter’s leaders were reluctant to take action against Trump’s account two days after the insurrection, even as lawyers inside the company argued that his continued praise of the Capitol rioters amounted to “glorification of violence,” an offense punishable then by suspension under Twitter’s rules.
Trump’s 88-million-follower account was ultimately suspended on the night of Jan. 8, hours after he’d tweeted that “great American Patriots … will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!” The suspension, the records show, was taken only after employees had assembled for executives a list of examples in which Twitter users responded to Trump’s tweets with calls for further violence across the United States.
The records also undercut claims that Twitter had worked on behalf of the Biden administration in freezing Trump’s account, as Trump claimed in a lawsuit against Twitter that was dismissed last year by a federal judge.
None of the records obtained by The Washington Post — including the 32-minute video, a five-page retrospective memo outlining the suspension discussions and a 114-page agenda document detailing the safety policy team’s meetings and conversations — show any contacts with federal officials pushing the company to take any action involving Trump’s account.
What the Jan. 6 probe found out about social media, but didn’t report
The records were part of a large set of Slack messages, policy documents and other files given to the House Jan. 6 committee in preparation for its landmark hearings, though the committee never made them public. The Post obtained the records from a person connected to the investigation, and their authenticity was confirmed by another person with knowledge of their contents.
