White House dismisses Musk's Twitter files as a distraction

The White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre dismissed Elon Musk's release of the so-called Twitter Files as a distraction at a time when she says the platform is facing a rise in hate speech.

The exchange came days after Musk, who acquired Twitter in late October, published bombshell revelations about what led the tech giant to suppress a New York Post story on Hunter Biden's laptop in the final weeks of the 2020 election.

Musk outsourced his findings to Substack journalist Matt Taibbi who published a lengthy thread detailing the platform's censorship and internal decisions that were made. At the time, Twitter Safety alleged that the articles were in violation of its hacked materials policy. She said that Musk would haphazardly push this distraction that is full of old news if you think about it. At the same time, Twitter is facing very serious questions about the rising volume of anger, hate, and antisemitism on their platform and how they are letting it happen. Critics of Musk's Twitter acquisition say his stewardship has resulted in a rise in hate speech. Musk, who has described himself as a free speech absolutist, said that hate speech impressions, i.e. Freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom of reach, Musk said earlier this month. Andrea Stroppa, a data analyst who has worked with Twitter's Trust and Safety team as an independent researcher, said on Saturday that the suspension rate for accounts engaging in child sexual abuse exploitation material has doubled over the past few days.