Matt Taibbi, one of the journalists Elon Musk handpicked to disseminate the so-called Twitter Files, found himself flailing Thursday when confronted by MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan over the key errors in his reporting.
At one point in the heated and lengthy interview, which spanned more than 20 minutes, Hasan brought up some glaring mistakes within Taibbi’s reporting on the supposed anti-conservative censorship and government interference that took place within Twitter prior to Musk’s purchase of the platform.
Noting that Taibbi repeatedly referenced the Election Integrity Project (EIP) throughout the Twitter Files, Hasan noted how critics have pointed out that much of Taibbi’s reporting on the center is just false.
ADVERTISEMENT
“You said the EIP was founded as a response to the government dropping its proposal for a disinformation governance board,” the MSNBC host declared while displaying Taibbi’s tweet on the topic. “It wasn’t, it was formed two years earlier. You suggest it was government funded, even though during the 2020 election you’re covering, it wasn’t.”
Hasan continued: “You say they labeled 22 million tweets as misinformation in the run-up to the 2020 vote—they didn’t. They flagged 3,000 election misinformation tweets for labeling, so you were only 21,997,000 off.”
The Win Every Argument author further pointed out that Taibbi claimed “the EIP was partnered with the government Cybersecurity Infrastructure Agency—CISA—to censor Twitter,” but the reporter mixed up the government agency with the nonprofit firm Center for Internet Security.
While Taibbi initially owned up to the CISA error, he attempted to defend the “22 million tweets” claim, prompting Hasan to retort that it was the total for all tweets the agency mapped. In the end, he explained, they only flagged to Twitter a few thousand as misinformation prior to the 2020 election.
“You’ve said a lot of things, um, I stand by my story,” Taibbi stammered. He further claimed he had “fixed” the error on CISA, but the tweet was still up at the time the interview was conducted.
“Why not [fix the error]? Do you not have editors at [your site] The Racket?” Hasan asked.
“I didn’t realize that until now,” Taibbi replied. (Though he said he stood by his story, he would end up correcting three different tweets on Thursday afternoon following the interview’s recording.)
While Taibbi suggested on Thursday that he was invited out of the blue by Hasan and he begrudgingly appeared on the show, Hasan challenged his guest on the actual impetus for their chat.
“No, I don’t particularly want to,” Taibbi exclaimed when Hasan asked him if he’d like to criticize Musk now. Taibbi added that he’s never had a problem with the Tesla CEO and thinks Musk “is good for Twitter” now, prompting Hasan to flag a recent Twitter exchange between the two.
“You’re saying he’s good for Twitter and good for speech,” Hasan proclaimed. “I’m saying he’s using Twitter to help one of the most right-wing governments censor speech. I will criticize that. Will you?”
When Taibbi insisted he needed to “look at the story first,” Hasan flashed Taibbi’s own March 24 tweet in which he wrote “invite me on your show to talk about it” since “you’re so absolutely sure of what I’ll say.” Taibbi’s tweet was in response to Hasan wondering if the Twitter Files reporter would have a reaction to the Musk-owned social site blocking access to accounts at the request of India’s government.
A floundering Taibbi, confronted with his own tweet, said he’d “have to ask about the particulars on it” before attempting to pivot the discussion back to his Twitter reporting.
“This came up the first time, I think it was Twitter Files #6,” Taibbi declared, complaining that Hasan was “arguing” that Taibbi “shouldn’t have done this story that I worked hard on because Elon Musk tweeted something.” Hasan, meanwhile, replied that Musk had actually “banned journalists,” before noting that Taibbi’s own Twitter Files cohort Bari Weiss even criticized Musk for kicking journalists off the social media site.
“So, it’s weird that Bari Weiss has more integrity on that—some might argue, your critics might say—than you did,” Hasan concluded.
Taibbi, who recently testified before Congress about the “weaponization of government” in social media, attempted to get in front of the interview before its Thursday night broadcast on NBC’s streaming platform Peacock.
“Again, Just had a very contentious interview with @MehdiRHasan, who made me aware of three errors in the #TwitterFiles, which as a responsible journalist - unlike MSNBC, which has not corrected years of huge mistakes - I am now retracting/correcting,” Taibbi tweeted.
The independent journalist also published a lengthy rant in his newsletter, complaining that “MSNBC sucks” while informing his readers that he had accepted an invite to Hasan’s show despite his better judgment.
Much of the rest of post was devoted to blasting the cable-news outlet for its Russiagate coverage and accusing it of not correcting or retracting its supposedly false reporting.
“I’m looking forward to it as one would a root canal or rectal,” Taibbi wrote. “I accepted the invitation because it would have been wrong to refuse, on the off chance he was planning a good-faith discussion. If you’re reading this, things have gone another way.”
