Why Leaked Pentagon Documents Are Still Circulating on Twitter and Discord

On Discord, a messaging platform popular with video game players, the Pentagon documents may have been circulating as early as March. Since Discord chat groups — known as servers — are not directly managed by the company like a Facebook or Twitter feed, the distribution of the Pentagon documents would have been difficult to spot.

Mr. Musk did not respond to a request for comment on Saturday, and Discord declined to comment. It is not known if the companies, which are both based in the United States, have been asked to remove the Pentagon material.

In the past, Twitter may have removed the material under rules that prohibit the publication and distribution of hacked materials, two former executives told The New York Times. Under this policy, Twitter would remove tweets with “real or synthesized hacked materials” or place warning labels on the material. Some of the Pentagon material circulating on social media may have been manipulated.

But there were caveats to Twitter’s rules, as they were described in a policy document, which was last updated in October 2020. The rules allowed for exceptions for material that forms the basis for reporting by news agencies. And debates inside social media companies about what to allow online have often been similar to discussions that traditional media have about whether leaked or hacked material is of enough public interest to justify publishing.

It was not clear on Saturday whether the Pentagon material was hacked or intentionally leaked — the images circulating appeared to be photographs of documents. The documents could fall into a gray area that, at least in the past, would have led to discussion among compliance officers inside the company about whether they qualified for a takedown.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/08/technology/leaked-pentagon-documents-twitter-discord.html