"Don't think they're American nitpicks, zoom out a bit and you'll get an extremely disconcerting view, not so much of Twitter, but of the workings, machinations and behavior of the media as a whole." - Bart Nijman
Update Thu April 27:
TF TUCKER CARLSON by Paul D. Thacker & Texas Lindsay
THE TWITTER FILES @ ThreadreaderApp
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TRANSLATIONS
๐ณ๐ฑNederlands๐ณ๐ฑ
Door Maaike van Charante (opiniez.com)
@ MaaikeVanCharante.nl (up to date)
and
๐ซ๐ท ๐ช๐ธ ๐ต๐น ๐ฉ๐ช ๐ฎ๐น
No idea how up to date and/or complete
You know more/better translations?
Missed something that should be added?
Other?
Leave a comment down below!
Open 2 everyone, no blogspot account needed.
Or hit me up @ Twatter
DutchTwitterFiles, April 25, 2023
Thread + Article:
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1651086123764969473.html
Achter de schermen ‘desinformatie’ bestrijden: wat deden ambtenaren samen met Facebook en Google? via NRC „Zou jij dit aan Twitter kunnen doorsturen?”, mailt de ambtenaar. „Misschien kunnen ze deze man blokkeren?” O jee o jee.
* * * * * * *
The Free Press: Our Reporting at Twitter
"If the story of Twitter's former overlords is about their prejudices and power trips, the question now is what Elon Musk will do with the powerful tools they created."
- By Bari Weiss
thefp.com/p/why-we-went-to-twitter
"You won't agree with everything we run. And we think that's exactly the point." - The Free Press
* * * * * * *
GLOSSARY OF “TWITTER FILES” TERMS
•Government Agencies and NGOs
- CISA: The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, an agency within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
- CENTCOM: Central Command of the Armed Forces
- ODNI: Office of the Director of National Intelligence
- FITF: Foreign Influence Task Force, a cyber-regulatory agency comprised of members of the FBI, DHS, and ODNI
- “OGA”: Other Government Agency, colloquially — CIA
- GEC: Global Engagement Center, an analytical division of the U.S. State Department
- USIC: United States intelligence community
- HSIN: Homeland Security Information Network, a portal through which states and other official bodies can send “flagged” accounts
- EIP: Election Integrity Project, a cyber-laboratory based at Stanford University that sends many reports to Twitter
- DFR: Digital Forensic Research lab, an outlet that performs a similar function to the EIP, only is funded by the Atlantic Council
- IRA: Internet Research Agency, the infamous Russian “troll farm” headed by “Putin’s chef,” Yevgheny Prigozhin
•Twitter or Industry-specific terms
- PII: Can have two meanings. “Personally identifiable information” is self-explanatory, while a “Public Interest Interstitial” is a warning placed over a tweet, so that it cannot be seen. Twitter personnel even use “interstitial” as a verb, as in, “Can we interstitial that?”
- JIRA: Twitter’s internal ticketing system, through which complaints rise and are decided
- PV2: The system used at Twitter to view the profile of any user, to check easily if it has flags like “Trends Blacklist”
- SIP-PES Site Integrity Policy — Policy Escalation Support. SIP-PES is like Twitter’s version of a moderation Supreme Court, dealing with the most high-profile, controversial rulings
- SI: Site integrity. Key term that you’ll see repeately in Twitter email traffic, especially with “escalations,” i.e. tweets or content that have been reported for moderation review
- CHA: Coordinated Harmful Activity
- SRT: Strategic Response Team
- GET: Global Escalation Team
- VF: Visibility Filtering
- GUANO: Tool in Twitter’s internal system that keeps a chronological record of all actions taken on an account
- VIT: Very Important Tweeter. Really.
- GoV: Glorificaiton of Violence
- BOT: In the moderation content, an individualized heuristic attached to an account that moderates certain behavior automatically
- BME: Bulk Media Exploitation
- EP Abuse: Episodic abuse
- PCF: Parity, commentary and fan accounts. “PCF” sometimes appears as a reason an account has escaped an automated moderation process, under a limited exception
- FLC: Forced Login Challenge. Also called a “phone challenge,” it’s a way Twitter attempts to verify if an account is real or automated. “Phone challenges” are seen repeatedly in discussions about verification of suspected “Russia-linked” accounts
- IO: Information Operations, as in The GEC’s mandate for offensive IO to promote American interests.
via racket.news/p/capsule-summaries-of-all-twitter
* * * * * * *
Twitter Files journalists:
Matt Taibbi * Bari Weiss * Lee Fang
Michael Shellenberger * David Zweigh
Leighton Woodhouse * Abigail Shrier
Nellie Bowles * Isaac Grafstein
Alex Berenson * Paul D. Thacker * Texas Lindsay
Matt Orfalea * Genรจve Campbell * Andrew Lowenthal
Twitter Files Part 1 (link): December 2, 2022, by MATT TAIBBI
TWITTER AND THE HUNTER BIDEN LAPTOP STORY
Recounting the internal drama at Twitter surrounding the decision to block access to a New York Post exposรฉ on Hunter Biden in October, 2020.
Key revelations: Twitter blocked the story on the basis of its “hacked materials” policy, but executives internally knew the decision was problematic. “Can we truthfully claim that this is part of the policy?” is how comms official Brandon Borrman put it. Also: when a Twitter contractor polls members of Congress about the decision, they hear Democratic members want more moderation, not less, and “the First Amendment isn’t absolute.”
1a. Twitter Files Supplemental, December 6, 2022, by MATT TAIBBI
THE “EXITING” OF TWITTER DEPUTY GENERAL COUNSEL JIM BAKER
A second round of Twitter Files releases was delayed, as new addition Bari Weiss discovers former FBI General Counsel and Twitter Deputy General Counsel Jim Baker was reviewing the first batches of Twitter Files documents, whose delivery to reporters had slowed.
Twitter Files Part 2, by BARI WEISS, December 8, 2022
TWITTER’S SECRET BLACKLISTS
Bari Weiss gives a long-awaited answer to the question, “Was Twitter shadow-banning people?” It did, only the company calls it “visibility filtering.” Twitter also had a separate, higher council called SIP-PES that decided cases for high-visibility, controversial accounts.
Key revelations: Twitter had a huge toolbox for controlling the visibility of any user, including a “Search Blacklist” (for Dan Bongino), a “Trends Blacklist” for Stanford’s Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, and a “Do Not Amplify” setting for conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Weiss quotes a Twitter employee: “Think about visibility filtering as being a way for us to suppress what people see to different levels. It’s a very powerful tool.”
With help from Abigail Shrier, Michael Shellenberger, Nellie Bowles, and Isaac Grafstein.
Twitter Files, Part 3, by MATT TAIBBI, December 9, 2022
THE REMOVAL OF DONALD TRUMP, October 2020 - January 6th, 2021
First in a three-part series looking at how Twitter came to the decision to suspend Donald Trump. The idea behind the series is to show how all of Twitter’s “visibility filtering” tools were on display and deployed after January 6th, 2021.
Key Revelations: Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth not only met regularly with the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, but with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). Also, Twitter was aggressively applying “visibility filtering” tools to Trump well before the election.
Twitter Files Part 4, by MICHAEL SHELLENBERGER, December 10, 2022
THE REMOVAL OF DONALD TRUMP, January 7th, 2021
This thread by Michael Shellenberger looks at the key day after the J6 riots and before Trump would ultimately be banned from Twitter on January 8th, showing how Twitter internally reconfigured its rules to make a Trump ban fit their policies.
Key revelations: at least one Twitter employee worried about a “slippery slope” in which “an online platform CEO with a global presence… can gatekeep speech for the entire world,” only to be shot down. Also, chief censor Roth argues for a ban on congressman Matt Gaetz even though it “doesn’t quite fit anywhere (duh),” and Twitter changed its “public interest policy” to clear a path for Trump’s removal.
Twitter Files Part 5, by BARI WEISS, December 11, 2022
THE REMOVAL OF DONALD TRUMP, January 8th, 2021
As angry as many inside Twitter were with Donald Trump after the January 6th Capitol riots, staffers struggled to suspend his account, saying things like, “I think we’d have a hard time saying this is incitement.” As documented by Weiss, they found a way to pull the trigger anyway.
Key revelations: there were dissenters in the company (“Maybe because I am from China,” said one employee, “I deeply understand how censorship can destroy the public conversation”), but are overruled by senior executives like Vijaya Gadde and Roth, who noted many on Twitter’s staff were citing the “Banality of Evil,” and comparing those who favored sticking to a strict legalistic interpretation of Twitter’s rules — i.e. keep Trump, who had “no violation” — to “Nazis following orders.”
Twitter Files Part 6, by MATT TAIBBI, December 16, 2022
TWITTER, THE FBI SUBSIDIARY
Twitter’s contact with the FBI was “constant and pervasive,” as FBI personnel, mainly in the San Francisco field office, regularly sent lists of “reports” to Twitter, often about Americans with low follower counts making joke tweets. Tweeters on both the left and the right were affected.
Key revelations: A senior Twitter executive reports, “FBI was adamant no impediments to sharing” classified information exist. Twitter also agreed to “bounce” content on the recommendations of a wide array of governmental and quasi-governmental actors, from the FBI to the Homeland Security agency CISA to Stanford’s Election Integrity Project to state governments. The company one day received so many moderation requests from the FBI, an executive congratulated staffers at the end for completing the “monumental undertaking.”
Twitter Files Part 6-2, by MATT TAIBBI, December 18, 2022
Supplemental: In July of 2020, San Francisco FBI agent Elvis Chan tells Twitter executive Yoel Roth to expect written questions from the Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF), the inter-agency group that deals with cyber threats.
Twitter Files Part 7, by MICHAEL SHELLENBERGER, December 19, 2022
THE FBI AND HUNTER BIDEN’S LAPTOP
The Twitter Files story increases its focus on the company’s relationship to federal law enforcement and intelligence, and shows intense communication between the FBI and Twitter just before the release of the Post’s Hunter Biden story.
Key Revelations: San Francisco agent Elvis Chan “sends 10 documents to Twitter’s then-Head of Site Integrity, Yoel Roth, through Teleporter, a one-way communications channel from the FBI to Twitter,” the evening before the release of the Post story. Also, Baker in an email explains Twitter was compensated for “processing requests” by the FBI, saying “I am happy to report we have collected $3,415,323 since October 2019!”
Last month Michael Shellenberger and I were among the journalists who reported on the Twitter Files. In this video I made for Public, Michael explains what the Twitter Files revealed about the Hunter Biden laptop scandal, and why we need a new Church Committee to rein in the FBI. pic.twitter.com/zXHmEeKkiR
— Leighton ๆ Woodhouse (@lwoodhouse) January 11, 2023
Twitter Files Part 8, by LEE FANG, December 20, 2022
HOW TWITTER QUIETLY AIDED THE PENTAGON’S COVERT ONLINE PSYOP CAMPAIGN
Lee Fang takes a fascinating detour, looking at how Twitter for years approved and supported Pentagon-backed covert operations. Noting the company explicitly testified to Congress that it didn’t allow such behavior, the platform nonetheless was a clear partner in state-backed programs involving fake accounts.
Key revelations: after the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) sent over a list of 52 Arab-language accounts “we use to amplify certain messages,” Twitter agreed to “whitelist” them. Ultimately the program would be outed in the Washington Post in 2022 — two years after Twitter and other platforms stopped assisting — but contrary to what came out in those reports, Twitter knew about and/or assisted in these programs for at least three years, from 2017-2020.
Lee wrote a companion piece for the Intercept here:
Twitter Files Part 9, by MATT TAIBBI, December 24th, 2022
TWITTER AND “OTHER GOVERNMENT AGENCIES”
The Christmas Eve thread (I should have waited a few days to publish!) further details how the channels of communication between the federal government and Twitter operated, and reveals that Twitter directly or indirectly received lists of flagged content from “Other Government Agencies,” i.e. the CIA.
Key revelations: CIA officials attended at least one conference with Twitter in the summer of 2020, and companies like Twitter and Facebook received “OGA briefings,” at their regular “industry” meetings held in conjunction with the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security. The FBI and the “Foreign Influence Task Force” met regularly “not just with Twitter, but with Yahoo!, Twitch, Cloudfare, LinkedIn, even Wikimedia.”
Twitter Files Part 10, by DAVID ZWEIGH, December 28, 2022
HOW TWITTER RIGGED THE COVID DEBATE
David Zweig drills down into how Twitter throttled down information about COVID that was true but perhaps inconvenient for public officials, “discrediting doctors and other experts who disagreed.”
Key Revelations: Zweig found memos from Twitter personnel who’d liaised with Biden administration officials who were “very angry” that Twitter had not deplatformed more accounts. White House officials for instance wanted attention on reporter Alex Berenson. Zweig also found “countless” instances of Twitter banning or labeling “misleading” accounts that were true or merely controversial. A Rhode Island physician named Andrew Bostom, for instance, was suspended for, among other things, referring to the results of a peer-reviewed study on mRNA vaccines.
Twitter Files, by KANEOKA THE GREAT, December 28, 2022
Elon Musk slams CISA censorship network as 'propaganda platform.'
This DHS-backed censorship consortium used 120 analysts to censor millions of social media posts on elections and covid-19
Twitter Files Part 11 and Part 12, by MATT TAIBBI, January 3, 2023
HOW TWITTER LET THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY IN
and
TWITTER AND THE FBI “BELLY BUTTON”
These two threads focus respectively on the second half of 2017, and a period stretching roughly from summer of 2020 through the present. The first describes how Twitter fell under pressure from Congress and the media to produce “material” showing a conspiracy of Russian accounts on their platform, and the second shows how Twitter tried to resist fulfilling moderation requests for the State Department, but ultimately agreed to let State and other agencies send requests through the FBI, which agent Chan calls “the belly button of the USG.”
Revelations: at the close of 2017, Twitter makes a key internal decision. Outwardly, the company would claim independence and promise that content would only be removed at “our sole discretion.” The internal guidance says, in writing, that Twitter will remove accounts “identified by the U.S. intelligence community” as “identified by the U.S.. intelligence community as a state-sponsored entity conducting cyber-operations.”
The second thread shows how Twitter took in requests from everyone — Treasury, HHS, NSA, FBI, DHS, etc. — and also received personal requests from politicians like Democratic congressman Adam Schiff, who asked to have journalist Paul Sperry suspended.
Twitter Files Part 13, by ALEX BERENSON, January 9, 2023
HOW TWITTER COVERED UP COVID TRUTHS
New addition Alex Berenson details how Twitter throttled down or erased true information about COVID-19, with the help of a former Pfizer lobbyist, Scott Gottlieb.
Key Revelations: Twitter senior political liaison Todd O’Boyle feared that onetime acting FDA commission Brett Giroir’s correct observations about the effectiveness of natural immunity were “corrosive” and might “go viral,” and put a misleading label on the tweet. Gottlieb also pressured Twitter to remove Berenson himself.
Twitter Files Part 14, by MATT TAIBBI, January 12, 2023
THE RUSSIAGATE LIES
One: The Fake Tale of Russian Bots and the #ReleaseTheMemo Hashtag
Internal communications at Twitter show that Russian bots were not in fact hyping the classified memo of Republican congressman Devin Nunes in January of 2018.
Key Revelations: Three key Democrats — Senators Dianne Feinstein and Richard Blumenthal, and former House Intel Committee chief Adam Schiff — cited a think tank called Hamilton 68 in denouncing a memo by Nunes as aided by “Russian influence operations.” Yet all three were told by Twitter executives there were no Russians in the picture. Said former Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth, “I just reviewed the accounts that posted the first 50 tweets with #releasethememo and… none of them show any signs of affiliation to Russia.”
One: The Fake Tale of Russian Bots and the #ReleaseTheMemo Hashtag
Twitter Files Part 14-2, by MATT TAIBBI, January 13, 2023
Supplemental: More Adam Schiff Ban Requests, and "Deamplification"
A brief thread of 10 tweets showing that the former head of the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, sent repeated requests for bans of people critical of their office.
Key Revelation: Schiff and the DNC both not only asked for the takedown of an obvious satire by “Peter Douche,” but requested takedowns of accounts that were critical of the Steele dossier and outed the name of the supposed “whistleblower” in the Ukrainegate case, Eric Ciaramella. Schiff staffers said that while they “appreciate greatly” efforts by Twitter to deamplify certain accounts, they worried such effort s “could… impede the ability of law enforcement to search Twitter.”
Twitter Files Part 15, by MATT TAIBBI, January 27, 2023
MOVE OVER, JAYSON BLAIR: TWITTER FILES EXPOSE NEXT GREAT MEDIA FRAUD
"What makes this an important story is the sheer scale of the news footprint left by Hamilton 68’s digital McCarthyism. The quantity of headlines and TV segments dwarfs the impact of individual fabulists like Jayson Blair or Stephen Glass."
I’m trying to assemble a list of news stories and TV segments pegged to Hamilton 68 and will publish it once done, hopefully this weekend. I think people will be shocked by the scale of this
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 27, 2023
"The definitive, authoritative piece on press coverage of Russiagate the world has been waiting for" - Matt Taibbi
Looking back on the coverage of Trump - Columbia Journalism Review
For the past year and a half, CJR has been examining the American media’s coverage of Trump and Russia in granular detail, and what it means as the country enters a new political cycle. Investigative reporter Jeff Gerth interviewed dozens of people at the center of the story—editors and reporters, Trump himself, and others in his orbit.
https://www.cjr.org/special_report/trumped-up-press-versus-president-ed-note.php
Twitter Files Part 16, by LEE FANG, January 16, 2023
How the pharmaceutical industry lobbied social media to shape content around vaccine policy.
The push included direct pressure from Pfizer partner BioNTech to censor activists demanding low-cost generic vaccines for low-income countries.
FaceBook Files, by ROBBY SOAVE, January 19, 2023
THE CDC EMAILS: Twitter is not the only social media site to face pressure to censor content. I obtained emails showing that the CDC had significant influence over covid moderation at Facebook and Instagram. Here’s what I found.
See also: youtu.be/RL4FwgrJ8MA
Accurate thread
— Mr. Tweet (@elonmusk) January 26, 2023
"Elon was bringing people in and out constantly and seems to be aware of pretty much every issue. He thinks maybe the entire code has to be torn down and start from scratch. At the end last night he said that the whole situation is “a flaming dumpster rolling down the street.”
"The entire machine behind Twitter is designed to shadowban. It’s almost as if that was the primary goal rather than the product itself."
threadreaderapp.com/thread/1618667912377810945?refresh=1674825087
I know, numbering is getting confusing, nevermind, now both Fang's & this one is called
Twitter Files Part 16, by MATT TAIBBI, February 18, 2023
COMIC INTERLUDE: A Media Experiment
The real story emerging in the #TwitterFiles is about a ballooning federal censorship bureaucracy that's not aimed at either the left or the right per se, but at the whole population of outsiders, who are being systematically defined as threats.
๐ฌ๐งThe Lockdown Files, by THE TELEGRAPH, February 28, 2023
"The Telegraph has got hold of a cache of WhatsApp messages between Matt Hancock and the main decision-makers during the pandemic. It confirms our worst suspicions. They weren't 'following the Science'. It was a clown show." - Toby Young (Free Speech Union)
"This exchange shows how close to a propaganda state we got during Covid. The media taking direct orders from their chums in government to stoke fear and “demand” for virus services that wasn’t there." - Freddie Sayers (UnHerd)
Twitter Files Part 17, by MATT TAIBBI, March 2, 2023
New Knowledge, the Global Engagement Center, and State-Sponsored Blacklists
Americans have been paying taxes to disenfranchise themselves, as government agencies and subcontractors undertake a massive digital blacklisting project
Twitter Files: Statement to Congress, MATT TAIBBI, March 9, 2023
THE CENSORSHIP-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX
And/or watch here youtu.be/i-Ip_MHYmkY
Twitter Files Part 18, by MATT TAIBBI, March 17, 2023
The Great Covid-19 Lie Machine Stanford, the Virality Project, and the Censorship of “True Stories”
Thread MICHAEL SHELLENBERGER, April 6, 2023
"Whistleblower tells me that the Censorship Industrial Complex is preparing “a full court press against the Twitter Files reporters….The press will be targeting each of you, your histories, and your personal and business connections.”
To which I say: Bring it on, fascists."
Twitter Files part 19, by PAUL D. THACKER, April 20, 2023
The FAUCI PHARMA FILES.
A modest beginning, but more to come.
Twitter Files part 20, ANDREW LOWENTHAL, April 25, 2023
THE INFORMATION CARTEL
Twitter Files part 21, by MATT ORFALEA, April 25, 2023
HOW TO FIND RUSSIANS ANYWHERE
Twitter Files, by PAUL D. THACKER, April 27, 2023
Why did Twitter censor Tucker Carlson? Better yet, who helped Twitter do that?
Twitter Files, by TEXAS LINDSAY, April 27, 2023
Tucker Carlson Supplemental
Look on their respective sites / substacks / platforms for more on their research, see links below.
* * * * * * *
TwitterFiles Infographic
Click to enlarge
Elon Musk & Michael Shellenberger On The Twitter Files, Dec. 24
"As I was leaving Twitter headquarters in San Francisco last Friday, David Sacks, the famed tech investor and co-host of the popular All-In podcast, invited me to follow Elon Musk in a special podcast about the Twitter Files." youtu.be/HE5CTKqWEV0&t=4865s
Here is an email from White House Digital Director @RFlaherty46 telling Facebook to censor @TuckerCarlson and @TomiLahren.
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) January 7, 2023
They respond “running this down now.”
This is completely insane and a total violation of the first amendment. pic.twitter.com/lOpyt5zGEw
The very tip of the YouTube censorship iceberg (2 minutes):
"In June 2020, I gave an interview about the virus farce to two clever young men, Konstantin Kisin and Francis Foster, who run a popular web broadcast called TRIGGERnometry. I said what I have been saying here – that the crashing of the economy and the stifling of personal liberty were utterly out of proportion to the danger from Covid-19. I gave evidence for my view and quoted eminent experts. I do not think I said anything that was false or abusive. But, within a couple of hours of launching the interview, Konstantin and Francis noticed a very strange thing. It was almost impossible to find, even if you knew where to look. Usually, their programme quickly garners large numbers of viewers, and it had done so on a previous occasion when I’d been interviewed by them on another matter."
PETER HITCHENS: How shadowy censors tried to remove my 'unhelpful' Covid views from YouTube
YouTube caught red handed censoring lockdown scepticism: our interview with respected journalist Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah is hidden from you because he dared to criticise the lockdown. Technically they haven’t deleted it but the video cannot be found by search. Please RT. /1 pic.twitter.com/N5Hu590EdV
— TRIGGERnometry (@triggerpod) June 1, 2020
"Twitter Files Were the Tip of the Iceberg"
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The Fifth Wave: Twittermania, A twisted drama of faith, politics and media, in five acts
https://www.discoursemagazine.com/culture-and-society/2023/01/18/the-fifth-wave-twittermania/
Are the ‘Twitter Files’ a Nothingburger?
"There are real concerns about moderation, bias, and transparency—but the polemics are veering into ugly conspiracism."
- by Cathy Young @CathyYoung63
thebulwark.com/do-the-twitterfiles-matter-or-are-they-a-nothingburger/
Why Does the Media Keep Ignoring the Twitter Files?
"And so, over time, lies of omission became the media’s primary weapon. Today, they’re often the most powerful lies of all."
- by Konstantin Kisin @KonstantinKisin
konstantinkisin.substack.com/p/why-does-the-media-keep-ignoring
The Twitter Files should disturb liberal critics of Elon Musk – and here’s why
- by Kenan Malik @kenanmalik
๐ณ๐ฑHet bleef te stil rond de Twitter Files
Of hoe de media van manipulaties aan elkaar hangen
"Denk niet dat het Amerikaanse nitpickings zijn, zoom een beetje uit en je krijgt een uiterst ontluisterend beeld van niet zozeer Twitter, maar van de werking, machinaties en gedragingen van de media als geheel."
-door Bart Nijman @BartNijman
substack.zzp.pt/p/de-twitter-files-of-de-machinaties
The secrets of Hunter Biden’s laptop spell trouble for Joe
"I saw this again myself last week in Toronto during a debate on the trustworthiness of the mainstream media. Against me at the MUNK DEBATE were the writer Malcolm Gladwell and The New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg. On my side was the journalist MATT TAIBBI — a man whose name will come up again."
- by Douglas Murray @DouglasKMurray
The Misunderstanding of Elon Musk
His hypocrisy isn’t the real problem. But the real problem with Elon is a very big problem.
"This may seem like a small thing—a minor distortion that has the effect of gratuitously deepening America’s tribal divide by just a hair. But these little distortions, these incremental contributions to the morphing of truth into falsehood, happen zillions of times each week on social media, and they do as much damage to America as the big fat lies do. In an ideal world, the head of Twitter would be someone who is mindful of this problem, not part of it."
- by Robert Wright @robertwrighter
nonzero.substack.com/p/the-misunderstanding-of-elon-musk
Twitter exec says 'hundreds of thousands' of Russian disinformation accounts still active on Twitter
Twitter's former head of Trust and Safety told Congress that "counterfeit" Russian accounts targeting the US are still active as part of an "ongoing campaign."
"Hidden in the middle of this week’s House Oversight Committee hearing was a startling admission from a former Twitter executive that has been overlooked by almost everyone."
weaponizedspaces.substack.com/p/twitter-exec-says-hundreds-of-thousands
What’s Possessed Us? “The Story Paradox” by Jonathan Gottschall
The Story Paradox explores the myriad ways in which the seemingly giant leap from fiction to reality has been, for some, more of a mincing step.
"This is precisely what the Internet Research Agency in Saint Petersburg, Russia did in 2016 to hobble American democracy. One of its campaigns involved setting up one Facebook group for Texans wary of the growing number of Muslims in their community and another for those same Muslims. Gottschall reports:
'Both Facebook groups were highly successful propaganda efforts. The Heart of Texas accumulated 250,000 members, and United Muslims boasted 300,000. In total, posts to these two sock puppet groups were liked more than eight million times and shared more than ten million times.'
The groups’ activities were not restricted to Facebook. On 21 May 2016, they both responded to calls to protest at the Islamic Da’wah Center in Houston. “Feel free to bring along your firearms, concealed or not!” members of the Heart of Texas were told. Luckily, both the protest and the counter-protest remained peaceful (this time)."
areomagazine.com/2022/06/14/whats-possessed-us-the-story-paradox-by-jonathan-gottschall/
One name at the centre of the story about Elon Musk’s “Twitter Files” is that of Jay Bhattacharya. A professor at Stanford’s medical school, he rose to prominence as a co-author of the “Great Barrington Declaration”, which opposed Covid lockdown measures. Last week it emerged that Twitter had placed him on a “trends blacklist” to secretly limit the popularity of his tweets. Following that, Elon Musk contacted Professor Bhattacharya, and invited him in to Twitter HQ to discuss the matter — and view the evidence of his censorship for himself.
He spoke exclusively to Freddie Sayers about that visit, what he and Musk discussed, and the wider implications of his suppression by Twitter. youtu.be/tUBJjK_rKZY
Who is Dr. Bhattacharya? Here a perfect interview on the John Anderson podcast: Rethinking COVID youtu.be/zl-divqmfNw
Must Watch Video!
Matt Taibbi: "Wednesday night I had the privilege of taking part in the prestigious Munk debates in Toronto, Ontario. Along with The War on the West author and reporter Douglas Murray, we took on New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg and New Yorker writer Malcolm Gladwell, arguing: “Be it resolved: Don’t trust mainstream media.”
A pre-event vote of attendees and listeners showed 48% support for our “side,” versus 52% for theirs. 82% of thousands of audience members claimed to be willing to change their minds. They were telling the truth, as it turned out. In a bitter slugfest that featured tense confrontations, impassioned oratory (especially from Douglas), and several almost unbelievably petty exchanges, Douglas and I swung the vote 39% in our favor, ending with a 67%-33% win, the most decisive rout in the history of the event."
MUNK DEBATE, With
Matt Taibbi & Douglas Murray
vs
Michelle Goldberg & Malcolm Gladwell
* * * * * * *
Expect more about all of this on their respective platforms/substacks:
MATT TAIBBI
- Racket racket.news/
- twitter.com/MTaibbi
- Who is Matt Taibbi, the Journalist Behind the Hunter Biden TwitterFiles nypost.com/2022/12/03/who-is-matt-taibbi-journalist-behind-hunter-biden-twitter-files/
- Bridget Phetasy's Walk-ins Welcome podcast: Matt Taibbi Discusses The Faillure of Traditional Media:
[Note: This is a previously broadcast episode that we decided to rebroadcast in honor of the Twitter files.]
Matt Taibbi, author and journalist, drops in to discuss the state of modern journalism, why it's increasingly difficult to source news you trust, "soft" censorship, link rot and stories that disappear, the instinct to conformity that is an epidemic in newsrooms right now, and why eventually the mob will always come for you.
They cover Matt's background, how he comes from a family of reporters, what he learned from his dad about how to treat sources, his 10 years in Russia running his own newspaper, how Americans don't have any sense of what it means to lose their ability to speak openly, the evolution of Substack, when the "subscriber bubble" will burst, the disincentives to doing in-depth, long form reporting these days, an audience's ability to parse nuance, their willingness to question their own motives, and why the problem with the rhino is the problem with everything.
BARI WEISS
- The Free Press thefp.com/
- Common Sense csnetwork.substack.com/)
- bariweiss.com/
- Honestly with Bari Weiss podcast honestlypod.com/
- twitter.com/BariWeiss
- As TRIGGERnometry guest youtu.be/Rfa1oSbhzbc
- Bari, Bari, Quite Contrary: How Bari Weiss Ditched Her Haters and Found Peace (But Not Quiet) in L.A.:
“The Free Press is for the vast majority of Americans who aren’t on the hard left or hard right…It’s telling those people that they’re not crazy and they’re not alone."
lamag.com/citythinkblog/bari-weiss-twitter-substack-columnist/
MICHAEL SHELLENBERGER
- shellenberger.org/
- PUBLIC News public.substack.com/ Shellenberger, Woodhouse, and growing. Reporting on cities, energy, and the environment
- threadreaderapp.com/user/ShellenbergerMD
- twitter.com/ShellenbergerMD
- youtube.com/@ShellenbergerNews/
- As TRIGGERnometry guest youtu.be/2Wbg6MAgMy4
LEIGHTON WOODHOUSE
- Social Studies leightonwoodhouse.substack.com/about
- twitter.com/lwoodhouse
- PUBLIC News public.substack.com/
LEE FANG
DAVID ZWEIGH
ABIGAIL SHRIER
- abigailshrier.com/
- The Truth Fairy abigailshrier.substack.com/
- twitter.com/AbigailShrier
- As TRIGGERnometry guest youtu.be/3uqht5dcJAI
NELLIE BOWLES
ISAAC GRAFSTEIN
ALEX BERENSON
- twitter.com/AlexBerenson
- Unreported Truths alexberenson.substack.com/
- alexberenson.com/
- twitter.com/robbysoave
- @ The Hill TV: Rising linktr.ee/risingthehill
- reason.com/
- youtube.com/@ReasonTV
* * * * * * *
And last:
GROUND NEWS
Compare coverage. Check your news blindspot. Be well informed
"Ground News is a platform that makes it easy to compare news sources, read between the lines of media bias and break free from algorithms." ground.news/about
Ground News: A comprehensive guide of Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter and tenure as Twitter’s CEO through news headlines: threadreaderapp.com/thread/1604970705132703744.html
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