Matt Taibbi's Integrity Sand Pit

Earlier this year, the Indian government asked Twitter and YouTube to take down a documentary critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Both complied. Two weeks ago, Twitter also complied with a request from the Indian government to block 122 accounts supposedly critical of India's actions in Punjab.

I don't run an international social media company but I imagine there are no obvious choices to make when a government makes a demand and threatens to jail your employees if you don't comply or has police raid your offices. You could close up your offices and not have any employees anywhere in the country, but then you risk having the government retaliate by just blocking access completely, as several countries have already.

Google also dealt with this dilemma in China. In exchange for access to a potential market with 1.3 billion people at the time, Google agreed in 2006 to offer a version of its services that hewed to the CCP's severe censorship requirements. They gave up in 2010 after they found out that several Chinese activists had their Gmail accounts hacked (presumably by the CCP). From a purely financial perspective, it probably would've been in Google's best interests to dutifully continue complying with CCP's censorship regime and just look the other way. That they didn't is commendable from a principled perspective, but it's also not obvious to me whether China's population would have been better off with a hobbled obedient Google versus nothing at all.

Despite the hostility in India, (old) Twitter wasn't a total doormat and did pushback against censorship efforts by suing the Indian government over its takedown law. This lawsuit was something that Musk specifically complained about while he and Twitter were lawfighting about the sale, as stated in the counterclaim he filed:

¶ 181. In 2021, India’s information technology ministry imposed certain rules allowing the government to probe social media posts, demand identifying information, and prosecute companies that refused to comply. While Musk is a proponent of free speech, he believes that moderation on Twitter should “hew close to the laws of countries in which Twitter operates.”

¶ 182. As a result of India’s new rules, recent public reporting suggests that Twitter has faced various investigations by the Indian government, requests to moderate content, and requests to block certain accounts.

¶ 183. India is Twitter’s third largest market, and thus any investigation into Twitter that could lead to suspensions or interruptions of service in that market may constitute an [Material Adverse Effect].

Musk was clearly worried that (old) Twitter was rocking the boat too much in India. Even as a free speech maximalist, I don't see an obvious choice here. There's an obvious tension between standing on principle while also not jeopardizing your wallet at the same time. One has to give, and there's nothing inherently embarrassing about that given the stakes at play.

Fast forward back to the present, in the context of India's recent takedown demands, I wouldn't have an objection if Musk came out with a statement that said "Although we disagree with the demands of the Indian government, we are exploring our legal options but have no choice but to comply in order to avoid jeopardizing access to 1.4 billion people." That's regrettable from a free speech perspective, but what else can you do? But as far as I can tell, Twitter has kept quiet and refused to say anything about its role in facilitating government censorship.

In contrast to the delicate diplomatic game Musk has to play in India, Musk faced no such concerns when speaking about the US government's efforts to take down information it didn't like. Matt Taibbi covered exactly this topic in Twitter Files No. 6, describing how the FBI made several removal requests to Twitter, not all of which were complied with.

Since Musk was the source for the Twitter Files documents, it's reasonable that as the owner of the company he would have a sharp financial interest to be extremely selective about what gets disclosed to journalists. Similarly, since Taibbi was one of the journalists handpicked by Musk to receive such a scoop, Taibbi might have an aversion from criticizing the actions of Musk-owned Twitter too strongly. So when the news about India's removal requests came out two weeks ago, MSNBC's Mehdi Hasan sarcastically tweeted "I'm sure Taibbi is all over this.", referencing the conflict of interest at play. Taibbi responded "Why don’t you invite me on your show to talk about it? Since you’re so absolutely sure of what I’ll say." and Hasan complied.

In terms of how this specific question played out, you can see for yourself at this timestamp. Hasan asks if Taibbi is willing to criticize Musk for complying with the Indian government censorship requests and Taibbi declines, claiming he doesn't know enough about the story to have an opinion. It bears repeating that the whole reason he asked to be invited on Hasan's show was to talk about India's censorship! Not knowing enough to have an opinion is fine, but this apparent gap in Taibbi's knowledge seems rather suspicious. Given his reporting, he clearly has an interest in reporting on the relationship between Twitter and censorious government requests, but apparently his curiosity stops at this particular line?

Taibbi's was clearly not happy with the interview but his follow-up statements kept avoiding the central reason he asked to be interviewed, the censorship by India's government. He pivoted instead to talking about the numerous mistakes MSNBC has made over the years which, sure, ok, but a dodge is still a dodge.

Consider a parallel scenario, involving TikTok employees. It's the easiest own maneuver, but watch how the CEO of TikTok transmogrifies into a human pretzel in front of Congress when asked about Uyghur persecution in China. The same thing happened to TikTok's Head of Public Policy last December, where he kept trying to backflip out of his skin. The evasion in answering the Uyghur question is reasonably interpreted as strong evidence that TikTok executives are afraid of being fired for acknowledging something so verboten by the Chinese state. A clear demonstration of how much control the CCP has over the platform.

So with that in mind, I think the best conclusion one can draw from the evidence above is that Taibbi feels constrained from criticizing Musk because Musk is too valuable a source. That on its own does not negate or render false the Twitter reporting he has already done, but it seems obvious that he's not playing with a free hand. Journalism is especially reliant on credibility and trust because so much of it happens behind curtains. For whatever cannot be corroborated by outside sources, we have to trust that a journalist is engaging in enough due diligence in vetting sources and investigating claims. Taibbi is seriously jeopardizing his credibility here, and I can't see how the pay-off is worth it.

[P.S. While writing this, Taibbi announced that he will leave Twitter after the platform started blocking links to Substack. That fact that he is willing to speak up against Musk/Twitter slightly mitigates my overall criticism of Taibbi's integrity.]