Posted on 12/07/2022 5:50:36 AM PST by Heartlander
Elon Musk made good on his promise to increase transparency by releasing Twitter’s internal communications surrounding the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story leading up to the 2020 election. The documentation, laid out in a detailed thread by Substack journalist Matt Taibbi on Friday evening, revealed what almost anyone who had been paying attention suspected: that the social media giant colluded to suppress a legitimate news story to impact the 2020 election. The thread explained that tools that were initially added to Twitter to combat issues like spam and financial fraud eventually became avenues for censorship. According to Taibbi, both political parties could, in theory, lobby for the censorship of posts they objected to, but in practice the censorship had a consistent bias. Because the censorship system was based on connections and personal favors, the Twitter team’s extremely progressive political orientation led them to honor the requests of the left far more often than the requests of the right. The internal documents show Twitter staff regularly removing posts at the request of both the Biden team and the Democratic National Committee.
While conservatives, who are used to media bias, should not be shocked at the level of collusion on display, having the smoking gun is always valuable. The Twitter Files reveal a bureaucratic preference cascade in which a network of smaller decisions and biases led to one of the biggest scandals in recent memory. Taibbi’s reporting shows how the effort to suppress the New York Post’s report utilized extraordinary measures previously only used to block extremely malicious material like child pornography. White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany was locked out of her account after tweeting about the story, and links to the story were blocked even in private direct messages. The story was, in theory, blocked under the company’s policy on hacked material, but the internal documents reveal that many employees knew this reasoning was dubious. Questions about legality and violations of the First Amendment were raised but seemed to be immediately trampled by the internal momentum of the decision. The prospect of Donald Trump winning reelection was too much for the progressive bureaucracy inside Twitter to bear, and so at every opportunity they doubled down on the decision to censor the report.
One would think that clear evidence of a conspiracy by a major corporation to suppress journalism in the attempt to influence a democratic election would enrage your average reporter, but of course the response was exactly the opposite. Establishment hacks quickly went to work attempting to assassinate Taibbi’s character, accusing him of doing “PR for the richest man in the world." Far from being shocked by the politically motivated attack on freedom of the press, liberal journalists rushed to voice their support for the censorship and declare the story a “nothingburger." There is no smoking gun, nothing to see here, just the internal communications of a company doing its job to stop the election of Donald Trump.
These moments are always difficult for conservatives, because with these major revelations of corruption, they always expect a price to be paid. The rules have been broken, the sacred trust of journalists revealing the truth has been infringed, the legitimacy of elections has been impacted; surely justice will follow. But that moment will not come, because the very class of people whom Americans rely on to hold the powerful accountable do not just agree with this decision, they fully endorse it. The left will drone on and on about the importance of democracy, write endless articles about the sacred duty of the press, but they only see these institutions as tools for the retention of power. Democracy is only valuable when it assures the advance of a left-wing agenda. Journalism is only valuable when it is destroying the enemies of the progressive movement. Any journalist revealing the corruption inside Twitter that led to the censorship of the Hunter Biden story is a traitor to the party who deserves to be discredited and discarded.
Sam Harris had a very revealing moment on the "Triggernometry" podcast that truly speaks to the liberal mindset around the Hunter Biden story. Harris was famously part of the Intellectual Dark Web, a loose collection of thinkers like Ben Shapiro, Joe Rogan, and Jordan Peterson who were supposed to represent a sensible and rational consensus that would allow public discourse to move beyond the woke censorship that seemed to dominate the public square. The neuroscientist has logged dozens, perhaps hundreds, of hours championing the marketplace of ideas and the need for open discussion. Yet when discussing the Hunter Biden story in an interview, Harris was very clear that he agreed with the coordinated effort to silence the truth. Sam went so far as to claim that he would not have cared if Hunter Biden had the corpses of children in his basement because defeating Trump was a far more important priority. Harris seemed legitimately surprised when the shocked podcast hosts disagreed with his willingness to casually abandon his advocacy for free speech and open dialogue. The Twitter Files show that this mentality is not exclusive to Harris but is instead widely held by progressives in elite positions. Donald Trump was seen as such an existential threat to their power that no principle could be held above the goal of destroying the former president's chances of reelection.
This approach to politics is a very difficult thing for those on the right to process. Conservatives care more about rules than about victory, which is valuable for building high-trust societies but very bad in our particular moment, when their enemies own every institution that interprets and enforces the rules. Those of a conservative disposition naturally want to believe that the system works and that shared values of honesty and fair play will shame their opponents into correcting their behavior once corruption has been revealed. Unfortunately, this shared moral fabric no longer exists, and journalists are happy to abandon their theoretical duty to objective truth-telling and holding the powerful accountable if it means manufacturing political victory in the short term. Progressives do not see this as a betrayal of shared values, but instead as an appeal to a higher value. The one thing leftists know above all else is that they have the right to rule. If they do not hold back the conservative hordes at every turn, America could become a scene from "The Handmaid’s Tale" in the blink of an eye. Anything that would endanger that right must be eliminated or suppressed.
Knowing corruption is occurring is one thing, but having the receipts to prove it definitively is another. Musk plans to release another set of the Twitter Files with Bari Weiss soon, which may hold even more shocking revelations. No matter what comes next, the one thing conservatives should not expect is a serious backlash from the establishment towards the censorious efforts of Twitter during the 2020 election. Progressive institutions do not care about democracy or the duty of the press, and they enthusiastically support the manipulation and censorship of social media to generate their preferred outcome. Victories for the right will not come from sweeping revelations that hold the powerful to account, but by doing what Elon Musk has done: Capturing powerful institutions of the progressive machine, exposing their corruption, and stripping out the bureaucracy that has been allowed to transform these organizations into arms of the Democratic Party.
Didn’t need to see the Twitter files to know this has been true for quite some time. Many were warned about this years ago, but instead chose to shoot the handful of messengers here.
Depressing and so true. Support like minded people. Avoid the Left.
Yes, while I did not read the article, the left will do anything to win. GOP are the Rotary/Garden club. Libs/Dems are union thugs. Until the cheating and their tactics are stopped or even met by our side, we haven’t a chance. It so blatant and in your face. Very sad.
Our country is GONE......we kicked out GOD and now are DOOMED.
The RATs fight to win.
The GOP does not fight.
Correction: The left has won. It’s over.
Nothing will happen as a result.
This will continue and actually get worse.
The deep state has people embedded into nearly every major corporation and institution in our nation.
They coordinate, support and report on anyone against their agenda. They can take out CEOs that refuse to get on board with ESG. If necessary, they stage it (like the Whitmer kidnapping and Jan 6).
Interesting how anything and everything committed by the left is considered “nothing burgers,” but anything and everything alleged to have been done by the right is considered “worse than Watergate.”
A little history lesson here, “Watergate” wasn’t “Watergate” until AFTER Woodward and Bernstein supposedly did an investigation. Today, even though we probably have ten fold more “reporters” and “journalists” than we did fifty years ago, we only have a fraction of the number actual investigation we had back then.
Pick a story, any story and you’ll have a predictable end result as soon as the political parties are disclosed. With an “R” guilty as charged, with a “D” innocent of any allegations . . .
This first batch got filtered by ex-FBI guy Jim Baker. Just think how bad it really is.
Musk fired Baker and the rest of the cleaning crew, janitors.
I hope he is able to identify the collusion between the social media and the main stream media, like the NYT, WP, etc., and put them on the defensive (if that is possible).
there are some that say there’s no difference between the 2 parties. not so....
dems will stop at nothing to gain, retain, use and abuse power to get what they want.
pubbies are more interested in getting a fluff-job from the NYT, invited to the ‘right’ parties in DC and being graceful losers. and when they are in power, they accomplish nothing that matters...
And the GOP isn’t willing to do anything about it, except ask you for money and your vote every election cycle, then ignore you again until the next election rolls around.
“Interesting how anything and everything committed by the left is considered “nothing burgers,” but anything and everything alleged to have been done by the right is considered “worse than Watergate.””
Yes, this point is not even debatable, it is empirical.
Trump was impeached for a phone call to Ukraine for allegedly doing what Biden described himself doing. On video. Trump’s call was on tape and we all heard it. There is no ambiguity or room to maneuver.
“These moments are always difficult for conservatives, because with these major revelations of corruption, they always expect a price to be paid. The rules have been broken, the sacred trust of journalists revealing the truth has been infringed, the legitimacy of elections has been impacted; surely justice will follow. But that moment will not come, because the very class of people whom Americans rely on to hold the powerful accountable do not just agree with this decision, they fully endorse it.”
That’s the money quote. No-one in the old media or ruling class thinks they did anything wrong. If they can get away with it, they will do it again with no qualms whatsoever.
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