Musk takes on US govt in ‘Twitter Files’, then says ‘…I was Person of the Year’ | World News - Hindustan Times
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Elon Musk takes on US govt in latest round of ‘Twitter Files’, then says ‘…I was Person of the Year’

By, New Delhi
Jan 04, 2023 10:49 AM IST

In the new batch of ‘Twitter Files’, journalist Matt Taibbi has claimed the social networking site was pressurised by US government agencies to remove 250,000 accounts.

Twitter chief Elon Musk on Wednesday took to Twitter to remember 2021 when he was named Time Magazine's ‘Person of the Year’. The new boss of the social networking site, who acquired the firm last year wrote a post for his 124.4 million followers, “12 months ago, I was Person of the Year.”

Twitter chief Elon Musk. (Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP)
Twitter chief Elon Musk. (Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP)

The magazine, which releases its ‘Person of the Year’ name in December every year, chose Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and “the spirit of Ukraine” for the honour for 2022. Zelenskyy and Ukraine's spirit were given the recognition for the east European nation's resistance shown in the face of invasion by its former Soviet member Russia.

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Tesla and SpaceX chief Musk was bestowed with the honour in 2021, with Time editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal describing him as a “person with extraordinary influence on life on Earth, and potentially life off earth too” at the time.

Time magazine first presented its ‘Person of the Year’ award in 1927.

Musk's latest tweet came hours after he took an aim at the United States (US) government in the latest round of ‘Twitter Files’. Retweeting a post made public by journalist Matt Taibbi, the micro-blogging site's owner wrote, “US govt agency demanded suspension of 250k accounts, including journalists and Canadian officials.”

Also Read | Journalist suspensions widen rift between Twitter and media

The new release of ‘Twitter Files’ claims that the social networking firm was pressurised to work hand-in-hand with the US government agencies to search for Russian meddling. Taking on the Global Engagement Center, Taibbi called it a “fledgling analytic/intelligence arms of the State Department” and said that it directly went to the media with a report titled ‘Russian Disinformation Apparatus Taking Advantage of Coronavirus Concerns’.

“The GEC flagged accounts as ‘Russian personas and proxies’ based on criteria like, ‘Describing the Coronavirus as an engineered bioweapon,’ blaming ‘research conducted at the Wuhan institute,’ and ‘attributing the appearance of the virus to the CIA’,” Taibbi wrote in one of the tweets.

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The GEC report included a list of accounts that followed “two or more” Chinese diplomatic accounts and was 250,000 names long. An earlier batch of ‘Twitter Files’ claimed that former US President Donald Trump was de-platformed from the site following pressure from the firm's employees. Trump was reinstated on Twitter last year after Musk bought Twitter.

Journalist Bari Weiss has helped author ‘Twitter Files’ that began in December 2022 along with Taibbi, a former Rolling Stone writer, and author Michael Shellenberger besides other journalists.

(With inputs from AFP)

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    A journalist with 7+ years of experience, I pretty much inhale and exhale news – figuratively speaking. Cooking, reading and playing with my dog take up the remaining hours of my normal day. I have an inclination for true crime stories, and love listening to such podcasts.

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