Matt Taibbi: Free speech, Elon & the Twitter files — Transcript

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1. 0:03by the way so Matt last year in May you
2. 0:07and I had a conversation on Fires so to
3. 0:10speak podcast about the collective
4. 0:12freakout that it seemed Talking Heads
5. 0:15and mainstream media were having to the
6. 0:17prospect that Elon Musk might take over
7. 0:19Twitter fast forward seven months and
8. 0:22somehow you are in Twitter's files doing
9. 0:26the Twitter files can you just explain a
10. 0:27little bit how that came to be
11. 0:30yeah that was totally random
12. 0:32um I I did at one point suggested in a
13. 0:36column that if uh if he were to open up
14. 0:40the the internal correspondence of
15. 0:42Twitter that he would become an American
16. 0:43folk hero uh but the rumor was kind of
17. 0:48already going around that he was
18. 0:49thinking about doing that so
19. 0:51um
20. 0:52maybe a little bit I was hoping that he
21. 0:55would see that and uh you know I was
22. 0:57sort of raising my hand and volunteering
23. 0:59but it was very random I got I got
24. 1:02called by Twitter and as you know many
25. 1:04other reporters yeah
26. 1:06um soon got involved and initially we
27. 1:08didn't think we were looking at much and
28. 1:10after about a week and a half was when
29. 1:13we realized we were looking at something
30. 1:14very significant yeah can you talk about
31. 1:16your approach to that reporting too did
32. 1:17you go out to San Francisco did you go
33. 1:19to the offices and how do you even begin
34. 1:21to look at that
35. 1:22Trove of data
36. 1:24we I did go out to San Francisco
37. 1:27and
38. 1:29the only guidance that we had really was
39. 1:32with the first Twitter files because I
40. 1:36talked about that with the Twitter
41. 1:38Executives my idea with that was I was
42. 1:42still thinking kind of old school first
43. 1:44amendment
44. 1:46um you know I wasn't thinking in orwelly
45. 1:49in terms I was thinking in terms of uh
46. 1:52you know sort of American speech law and
47. 1:55I was thinking if there was some kind of
48. 1:58communication between something like the
49. 2:01FBI and Twitter
50. 2:03what would those Communications look
51. 2:05like I figured the place we would most
52. 2:08likely find that if it existed was in
53. 2:11the hunter Biden laptop incident because
54. 2:14Mark Zuckerberg had mentioned sort of
55. 2:17obliquely being warned about that but
56. 2:20after that there was really no guidance
57. 2:22we just sort of had a whole gigantic
58. 2:25pile of stuff and it was from that that
59. 2:28we had to build a plot of what we were
60. 2:32looking at that's one of the reasons I
61. 2:34was very glad for the Missouri V Biden
62. 2:36lawsuit because they came to a lot of
63. 2:39the same conclusions we did sort of
64. 2:40independently and um and that was
65. 2:43reassuring
66. 2:44so for folks who followed Matt he has a
67. 2:47very helpful capsule summary of all the
68. 2:49Twitter files on your website which I
69. 2:51use to kind of help prepare for this
70. 2:53conversation but in doing the Twitter
71. 2:55files what surprised you the most what
72. 2:58did you find that was just more shocking
73. 3:01than anything else
74. 3:04so uh how many people here have ever
75. 3:06seen the movie All the President's Men
76. 3:08yeah everybody great journalism movie
77. 3:11right
78. 3:12um Ellen J pacula there's this scene in
79. 3:15it where Robert Redford is at the
80. 3:17arraignment of the Watergate burglars
81. 3:20and right at the end he hears one of the
82. 3:24burglars James McCord when he's asked
83. 3:26what he does for a living he sort of
84. 3:28Whispers Central Intelligence Agency and
85. 3:31you know red Robert Redford immediately
86. 3:34kind of his eyes light up you can't
87. 3:36believe what he's looking at and he you
88. 3:38know he whispers a little expletive we
89. 3:40had that moment I would say
90. 3:43a week and a half into the project we
91. 3:46had already started seeing emails that
92. 3:49were saying things like flagged by a FBI
93. 3:52flagged by DHS but for me it was the
94. 3:55first time I saw an email that had this
95. 4:00thing they called the industry meeting
96. 4:01so there would be that the header of the
97. 4:04email would be usually a government
98. 4:06official from the FBI or some other
99. 4:10government agency then it would there
100. 4:11would be
101. 4:1330 or 40
102. 4:15representatives of private companies and
103. 4:18they range from Pinterest to Wikimedia
104. 4:20to Google to Facebook to Twitter and
105. 4:22then there would be an agenda underneath
106. 4:25it and it would say U.S government
107. 4:27briefing
108. 4:30um beginning with like other government
109. 4:33agency briefing on Ukraine so that's
110. 4:37like the intelligence Community sort of
111. 4:39talking to all these companies about you
112. 4:43know sort of briefing them on on trends
113. 4:46that was shocking to me because that
114. 4:47showed the entire arrangement in one
115. 4:50picture and uh you know from there we
116. 4:52were able to kind of construct more
117. 4:54about how the communication worked but
118. 4:56that was that was the real big shock for
119. 4:58me yeah there was some recent news that
120. 4:59I read as well uh coming out of some of
121. 5:02these Congressional hearings
122. 5:04about how I guess American law
123. 5:06enforcement is passing along requests
124. 5:09from the Ukrainian intelligence service
125. 5:10to these companies
126. 5:12and from best we can tell they're not
127. 5:15vetting them at all and I don't know how
128. 5:17much they're asking them to do anything
129. 5:18with it but it is concerning that sort
130. 5:20of interaction right oh my God yeah and
131. 5:24just you know especially with the threat
132. 5:26of revoking section 230 and some of the
133. 5:28other sort of um
134. 5:32reforms that government has been
135. 5:34threatening social media companies in
136. 5:36particular with uh the it's it's
137. 5:39important I think even after the Twitter
138. 5:40files has kind of waned that we're still
139. 5:43shedding light on on some of these
140. 5:44activities and I did want to ask you
141. 5:46about the Twitter files awaiting right
142. 5:47because over the course of the last
143. 5:50couple of months some of the journalists
144. 5:53who were involved in the Twitter files
145. 5:54reporting were no longer involved Barry
146. 5:56Weiss for example criticized Elon Musk
147. 5:58for his deplatforming of some
148. 5:59journalists and then your Twitter files
149. 6:02reporting ended when you criticized Elon
150. 6:04musk's approach to sub stack which at
151. 6:07the time was launching a a mini Twitter
152. 6:09competitor and you have strong
153. 6:12allegiances to sub stack your your
154. 6:14journalism is hosted there and I will
155. 6:17say for anyone who cares about
156. 6:19journalism and freedom of speech
157. 6:21substack is some of our greatest
158. 6:23Partners there uh Chris and Hamish and
159. 6:25you know and they're just fantastic and
160. 6:27they care deeply about these issues so
161. 6:28can you talk a little bit about how that
162. 6:30ended and you know Elon sharing some of
163. 6:33your private correspondences with them
164. 6:34and yeah I mean that was sad I mean
165. 6:38elon's a complicated person he's got
166. 6:40things going on in his professional life
167. 6:44that I I couldn't even comprehend to
168. 6:47comprehend
169. 6:49um the initial interview that I had with
170. 6:50him I can't say that I fully understood
171. 6:53what he what he wanted out of the
172. 6:56Twitter files he talked about
173. 6:58um
174. 6:59you know hoping to restore some
175. 7:01credibility to the platform for people
176. 7:03who were unsure of what was going on
177. 7:05behind the scenes and I think the
178. 7:07Twitter files to some degree helped on
179. 7:09that front because it showed some
180. 7:11willingness to be open but
181. 7:14I I you know the it ended in in
182. 7:18acrimonious fashion which I think was
183. 7:20too bad
184. 7:21um
185. 7:21you know I was trying to protect the
186. 7:23reporting by remaining independent I
187. 7:27thought if there was any kind of
188. 7:28relationship between us that we'd be
189. 7:31criticized even more he didn't see it
190. 7:33that way I I think it's a
191. 7:34misunderstanding but it's too bad but
192. 7:37still it went on for a very long time I
193. 7:40mean all things considered I thought it
194. 7:43was going to be a lot more temporary
195. 7:44than it was yeah I mean Twitter is
196. 7:47definitely one of the primary public
197. 7:49forums for our national conversation and
198. 7:51I think both you and I were very
199. 7:53optimistic about everything Elon was
200. 7:55saying in the spring of last year when
201. 7:57he was talking about freedom of speech
202. 8:00how do you think that panned out in in
203. 8:03practice is it a mixed bag how do you
204. 8:04see it
205. 8:06I've come around to the opinion that
206. 8:08anytime there are owners of these
207. 8:10platforms that there's always going to
208. 8:12be a problem
209. 8:13um
210. 8:14you know there's there are Myriad
211. 8:16pressures as you know that these
212. 8:18companies come under not just from the
213. 8:21FBI and you know the the DHS but also
214. 8:24from uh advertisers and people who are
215. 8:28doing Advertiser boycotts and uh you
216. 8:31know members of Congress and so they
217. 8:34start to make compromises and this is
218. 8:36one of the things we saw over a period
219. 8:38of time with old Twitter which is that
220. 8:41they would start to do something they
221. 8:42would they would say no we can't remove
222. 8:45that it's not a violation of our
223. 8:47policies but we we'll de-amplify it once
224. 8:51they start down that road suddenly
225. 8:52they're doing it all over the place and
226. 8:54before you know it you have a completely
227. 8:56artificial representation of reality and
228. 8:58I think I think that happens to any
229. 9:00company that's trying to make money yeah
230. 9:03so you testified in Congress in March
231. 9:07and there was an editorial On The Wall
232. 9:09Street Journal that spoke to a visit you
233. 9:12happen to receive from the IRS on the
234. 9:14day that you testified
235. 9:16presumably a government official to
236. 9:18quote Milton Friedman who said I'm here
237. 9:20from the government and I'm here to help
238. 9:21but how did you interpret that visit
239. 9:24from the IRS on that day
240. 9:26uh are there any updates
241. 9:29yeah so I I testified I think it was
242. 9:32March 9th in Washington I took a train
243. 9:34home
244. 9:35um Amtrak got home my wife um
245. 9:39very nonchalantly said Oh by the IRS
246. 9:42came today while you were testifying and
247. 9:44showed me a note date left in the door
248. 9:47it's it was very funny it said call me
249. 9:50in four days
250. 9:51apparently this is a tactic they use
251. 9:54because they want you to worry all
252. 9:57weekend what the problem is
253. 10:00um so I called right away of course it
254. 10:01didn't answer and then after four days
255. 10:03they called they sent a letter it really
256. 10:06was the IRS it turned out to be a
257. 10:09problem connected to well there were two
258. 10:11things but real the big thing they were
259. 10:13worried about was my 2018 return which
260. 10:17they said had been retroactively
261. 10:19rejected due to concerns about identity
262. 10:23theft and I thought this had to be a
263. 10:25coincidence so I I just told the
264. 10:27committee about it the committee sent
265. 10:29off a letter
266. 10:30asking what was going on and I didn't I
267. 10:33didn't get worried until I saw what came
268. 10:35back
269. 10:36um
270. 10:36it turned out that they had opened the
271. 10:38case on December 24th 2022 which was a
272. 10:43Saturday Christmas Eve and it just
273. 10:46happened to be the day that we dropped a
274. 10:49a very big Twitter file story about the
275. 10:51relationship between Twitter the FBI and
276. 10:54even the CIA so I got very scared at
277. 10:58that point
278. 10:59um
279. 11:00look
280. 11:02I mean is both Democratic and Republican
281. 11:05administrations have been caught up in
282. 11:07this problem of using the IRS
283. 11:08politically I can't say for sure that's
284. 11:11happening in in this case but I think
285. 11:15you know they're what they're trying to
286. 11:17do if if this is politicized as they're
287. 11:19trying to scare off future reporters
288. 11:22from going down this road because who
289. 11:23needs it right yeah and that's that's a
290. 11:26problem you talked a little bit about
291. 11:28problem with modern journalism uh I went
292. 11:32to journalism school
293. 11:33not the choice I would have made if I
294. 11:36could do it all over again but I was
295. 11:38inspired by folks like you right
296. 11:40um enterprising journalists and
297. 11:42there is a new trend in journalism this
298. 11:44idea of moral Clarity journalism as
299. 11:46opposed to objective journalism that is
300. 11:48we don't need to approach any story from
301. 11:50an objective perspective we don't need
302. 11:52to get all the sides we don't need to
303. 11:53get all the zookeepers and the girl is
304. 11:55and you know we don't you know to the
305. 11:57extent we know that there is a moral
306. 11:59answer to this story we can focus on
307. 12:01that so I was wondering if you had
308. 12:03thoughts on that because you you also do
309. 12:06editorial journalism as well which is
310. 12:08some of that approach and it seems like
311. 12:10more people want to do that and they
312. 12:12want to do less of the All the
313. 12:13President's Men style Journey right
314. 12:15right
315. 12:17um yeah I think we've talked about this
316. 12:19before but there was a very influential
317. 12:21art column in the New York Times in
318. 12:24August of 2016 called Trump is testing
319. 12:27the Norms of objectivity and journalism
320. 12:29it said basically that journalists no
321. 12:32longer had to just be true they had to
322. 12:34be true to history's judgment so this
323. 12:36was kind of a Clarion call in the
324. 12:38business
325. 12:39yeah
326. 12:41asking people to do away with the old
327. 12:43version of how we did the job which is
328. 12:46more how I described it which is we
329. 12:48don't really care what the truth is like
330. 12:50the whole whole point of the job is we
331. 12:52interview people we give it to you you
332. 12:54do what you want with the information
333. 12:56and we're done we move on to the next
334. 12:58thing we try to get it right but if you
335. 13:01know and then the next story we don't
336. 13:04bring any preconceived notions with us
337. 13:05we start all over again
338. 13:08um that way of doing business which was
339. 13:10standard for everybody is now very much
340. 13:14in the past and people are really doing
341. 13:17narrative driven journalism where they
342. 13:20kind of know how they're going to shade
343. 13:22things before they even start
344. 13:23interviewing people yeah which I think
345. 13:25is very dangerous yeah we're here in the
346. 13:27state of Tennessee and
347. 13:30um there was a free speech controversy
348. 13:32or so you were told that uh here a
349. 13:34couple of months ago involving the
350. 13:36legislators who
351. 13:38were voted out by the state legislature
352. 13:41and and fire you know we do rapid
353. 13:42response work and we hear there's this
354. 13:44free speech story and we try and
355. 13:45understand the story right before we
356. 13:47opine on it and one of the things you
357. 13:49noticed about a lot of the coverage of
358. 13:50it was a lack of context uh the fact
359. 13:54that legislators had taken over the
360. 13:56floor
361. 13:57and brought a Bullhorn in fact on the
362. 13:59floor and we're leading those in the
363. 14:00galley the chant which complicates the
364. 14:02Free Speech argument or claim that a lot
365. 14:05of the supporters of these legislators
366. 14:06had had made and we're finding that
367. 14:08increasingly common right that there's
368. 14:10because there's this moral Clarity
369. 14:11perspective and because I think a lot of
370. 14:13the journalists agree with uh the
371. 14:15protesters on the floor of the at the
372. 14:17Tennessee State House that just that
373. 14:18context is removed and then you see more
374. 14:20subtle things for example I was reading
375. 14:22the Washington posts reporting on uh
376. 14:24Missouri V Biden and you know the
377. 14:26sub-handed is like Trump trump appointed
378. 14:28judge issues ruling protected speech is
379. 14:31in quotation marks free speeches and
380. 14:33quotation marks and so it's these kind
381. 14:35of like subtle ways that journalism is
382. 14:36morphed it's not the way I learned
383. 14:38journalism when I was in Jay school that
384. 14:40is helping to shape the narrative I
385. 14:42guess toward that more moral Clarity
386. 14:44perspective
387. 14:45yeah and that is very scary
388. 14:50um you know for years before before I
389. 14:53got involved in stories like the Twitter
390. 14:54files I did a lot of uh long-form
391. 14:58journalism for Rolling Stone
392. 15:01um that was about the financial sector
393. 15:03and one of the first things that you
394. 15:05learn in journalism is that almost every
395. 15:07story is far more complicated than you
396. 15:10think it is and there's very little
397. 15:12black and white uh in reality when you
398. 15:15start digging down into almost any story
399. 15:17there are all kinds of nuances
400. 15:21things are much more convoluted than
401. 15:24than are advertised and the trick in
402. 15:27journalism I always thought was to
403. 15:29capture all those little things so that
404. 15:31people get the whole picture but we're
405. 15:34moving in a direction and if you know I
406. 15:38Orwell described this in 1984 where
407. 15:42um in a totalitarian Society what they
408. 15:46really want to do is they want to
409. 15:47eliminate all Shades of Gray they want
410. 15:50to reduce everybody
411. 15:52to black and white distinctions so that
412. 15:55when they're reading something they're
413. 15:58they're perennially looking at a binary
414. 16:00choice and that you know that's what I
415. 16:05was kind of talking about in the speech
416. 16:06is that it's sucking the ability of
417. 16:10people's ability to think for themselves
418. 16:12away when they're constantly only
419. 16:16deciding between X or Y or a or b
420. 16:20um if they can't see the Shades of Gray
421. 16:23you're left with a population that
422. 16:25doesn't you know doesn't know how to
423. 16:27think for itself and I think that's
424. 16:28terrible that's what that moral Clarity
425. 16:30perspective on journalism suggests a
426. 16:32lack of faith in the audience to make
427. 16:33their own exactly to make up their own
428. 16:35minds we I see we've got two and a half
429. 16:37minutes left here so I'll just ask one
430. 16:38final question when we're talking about
431. 16:40the Twitter files we're talking about
432. 16:41Job owning done on behalf of the
433. 16:43government uh you know sometimes you
434. 16:46know reaching a First Amendment
435. 16:47violation as the judge determined in
436. 16:49that Missouri V biting case
437. 16:51um
438. 16:52they're pressuring these companies to
439. 16:54censor their users but we've also seen
440. 16:55efforts by Governors and state
441. 16:58legislatures and elected officials to
442. 17:00pressure companies themselves to shut up
443. 17:01so for example we've seen in the State
444. 17:04of Florida
445. 17:05what happened with Disney and you know
446. 17:07uh Rhonda Santos gets on the phone with
447. 17:10the CEO of Disney and says you know this
448. 17:11isn't going to end well for you or you
449. 17:14see Republican AGS going after Target
450. 17:17they sent a letter to Target saying that
451. 17:18some of the closing they were selling
452. 17:19was obscene they also objected I guess
453. 17:21to some Satanist clothing that might
454. 17:22have been unavailable there yeah but it
455. 17:25happens on every side of the aisle right
456. 17:26and this is why I think nonpartisan Free
457. 17:29Speech advocacy is so important and
458. 17:30that's what we're trying to stick to
459. 17:31here at fire you see it happen in the
460. 17:33state of New York where Law Enforcement
461. 17:36Officers they're lean on financial
462. 17:38institutions to not do business with the
463. 17:40NRA because the state of New York
464. 17:42objects to the NRA's Second Amendment
465. 17:45advocacy so I was wondering what your
466. 17:47perspective is on on that sort of issue
467. 17:49too and whether you see that to be a
468. 17:50growing Trend along with the larger kind
469. 17:53of job owning we've seen that that you
470. 17:56did with the Twitter files explored yeah
471. 17:57definitely just quickly I would I would
472. 18:00say my perspective on this has always
473. 18:01been that this is not a partisan issue
474. 18:04that even in the Twitter files we saw
475. 18:07lots and lots of pressure to go after
476. 18:11leftist movements whether it was the
477. 18:13yellow vest movement in Europe or you
478. 18:15know promodoro protesters in Venezuela
479. 18:18or even the green party you know they
480. 18:20were denialisted uh
481. 18:23when people don't recognized is that
482. 18:25it's the mechanism that's the problem
483. 18:27yes and once they build this thing it
484. 18:29will be very very hard to unbuild you
485. 18:31know and and that's that's what I really
486. 18:33worry about well Matt I appreciate you
487. 18:35taking the time being here with us at
488. 18:36Freedom Fest thanks very much
489. 18:41I think that was awesome thank you
490. 18:44[Music]