(Dmytro “Henry” Aleksandrov, Headline USA) An independent journalist Paul Thacker revealed on Thursday in the latest round of Twitter Files that a “journalist” and a “banning queen” Taylor Lorenz had “privileged access” to the higher-ups at the social media company before Elon Musk bought Twitter.
Thacker reported that Lorenz communicated with those who controlled Twitter’s backend, using her connections as a way to ban certain accounts and support others she worked with in her reporting.
The journalist reminded everyone at the beginning that after Musk bought the company and took over as CEO, Lorenz was “apoplectic,” and had warned that Musk was “opening the gates of hell” by allowing free speech on the platform.
As he explained, months prior, Lorenz was going after numerous accounts, including those that were not as popular as her own. One of those accounts, @fearthefloof, was banned from the platform and then mysteriously deactivated, despite “no ban evasion, abuse, harassment toward Taylor Lorenz, platform manipulation or the sharing of personal information.” It remains suspended to this day because the person behind the account dared to reveal that Lorenz comes from a family of millionaires.
Then, Thacker pointed out that Lorenz “seems to work in concert with her sources,” saying that after she doxxed Libs of TikTok, Alejandra Caraballo sent a letter to Twitter asking to remove the popular conservative account from the platform. Lorenz quoted Carabello in her article not long after that.
The privileged access to Twitter didn’t stop there for Lorenz. She was also able to avoid any criticism on the platform. After Tucker Carlson mocked her on then-his show, Twitter put out a notice telling the GET team asking them to “keep an eye on things.”
“Can we please Monitor the conversation around @taylorlorenz?” the request said.
“She was specifically targeted by Tucker Carlson… and I think she’s going to be in the center of an abuse campaign on the platform. She’s had tremendous trouble with abuse on her before and we need to be careful with her.”
Thacker said that there was no evidence that the platform provided similar levels of support to other journalists.
