Tag: Twitter

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First Amendment rights Internet controversy public opinion social media

The Mockingbird Shuttle

Twitter, Elon Musk, censorship, surveillance

“After weeks of ‘Twitter Files’ reports detailing close coordination between the FBI and Twitter in moderating social media content, the Bureau issued a statement Wednesday,” journalist Matt Taibbi tweeted on Christmas Eve. “It didn’t refute allegations. Instead, it decried ‘conspiracy theorists’ publishing ‘misinformation,’ whose ‘sole aim’ is to ‘discredit the agency.’”

Taibbi offered a droll retort: “They must think us unambitious, if our ‘sole aim’ is to discredit the FBI. After all, a whole range of government agencies discredit themselves in the #TwitterFiles. Why stop with one?”

Indeed. The federal government is full of rogue, anti-​constitutional cabals.

Elon Musk’s Twitter Files release of behind-​the-​scenes Twitter deliberations over which political news stories and Twitter accounts to trounce upon, and what medical information to declare as “misinformation” and which to allow, yielded more than just the influence of J. Edgar Hoover’s legacy outfit.

“The files show the FBI acting as doorman to a vast program of social media surveillance and censorship, encompassing agencies across the federal government – from the State Department to the Pentagon to the CIA.”

Twitter employees referred to these other outfits as “OGA” — for “Other Government Agenies.”

There were so many that Twitter “executives lost track.”

The vastness of the operation boggles the mind. “The government was in constant contact not just with Twitter but with virtually every major tech firm.”

It is worth remembering that the lore of the Deep State includes the controversial but rarely-​mentioned “Operation Mockingbird,” whereby the CIA fostered paid mouthpieces (disinformation agents) throughout the media, back in the Sixties.

Now we have uncovered an operation that dwarfs this by several orders of magnitude.

Certainly, the behavior of the FBI and these OGAs has had an effect: they directed public opinion during the pandemic and in the lead-​up to the 2020 election. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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First Amendment rights media and media people national politics & policies social media

Twitterpated by the Feds

twitter, censorship, mind control

Elon Musk’s sunlight on Twitter’s backroom censorship dealings has cast a black shadow upon the U.S. Government.

The revelations are called The Twitter Files, and I linked to the first two installments, tweetstormed last week by Matt Taibbi and Bari Weiss, on Monday. 

But Musk’s released information to his select set of journalists did not stop there.

The third set was also made public by Taibbi, and dealt with the company’s deliberations and politics of January 2021, and the banning of a sitting president — and Twitter’s most popular user — from the platform.

Michael Shellenberger had the honor of delivering to the public the fourth set, showing how Twitter executives changed policies and made up stuff on the fly to ban the aforementioned Donald J. Trump.

The fifth batch, ushered into our view by Bari Weiss, again, included an especially interesting tidbit: “Internal correspondence shows those assigned to evaluate Trump’s tweets didn’t see proof of incitement of the Capitol riot” but “[t]hat didn’t stop for massive internal calls to ban the president” — quoting The Daily Mail’s synopsis.

“Between January 2020 and November 2022,” Taibbi tweeted in the sixth outing, “there were over 150 emails between the FBI and former Twitter Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth… a surprisingly high number are requests by the FBI for Twitter to take action on election misinformation, even involving joke tweets from low-​follower accounts.” Twitter’s “Trust and Safety” team appeared to go out of its way to find excuses to ban accounts, and is egregiously misnamed.

Michael Shellenberger’s contribution in the seventh Twitter File blast is perhaps most shocking of all:

  • The FBI was deliberately lying about the status and contents of the Hunter Biden laptop before as well as after the infamous (and suppressed) New York Post story.
  • The FBI “wargamed” about the laptop with social media executives before the story broke.
  • The FBI “compensated” Twitter for the collusion — to the tune of over $3 million.
  • And the FBI apparently has not stopped — its work with Twitter is ongoing.

To top it all off, Lee Fang supplied the eighth set, complete with poop about Pentagon pressure, propaganda, and “concierge service.”

In sum, the federal government made Twitter its b … uh … disinformation agent.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Note: Yes, Virginia, “twitterpated” is a word!

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general freedom international affairs Regulating Protest social media

Rotten Apple

rotten apple, China

Apple Inc. has a good side and a bad side.

A strong work ethic, oodles of innovativeness, much neat technology.

But a taste for censorship and a willingness to abet the censorious efforts of China’s totalitarians.

One manifestation of Apple’s contempt for unfettered discourse? Its apparent threat to kick the Twitter app off the iOS platform now that Twitter is run by someone friendlier to freedom of speech than the previous management.

Obnoxious though this would be, it’s not half as horrible as knowingly facilitating Chinazi repression. Yet Apple has recently crippled the iPhone AirDrop feature that protestors in China have used to share files like videos of the surging protests against the government’s insane zero-​COVID mega-​lockdown policies.

Because of a new iOS update, iPhone users in China — and only in China — can now only send files to persons not on their contact list for just ten minutes, hampering the ability of protesters and others to evade Chinese government censorship.

The company’s officers read the news. If Apple really didn’t intend to do this, all it has to do is roll out another update pronto to restore full AirDrop functionality.

Reclaim the Net notes, however, that Apple has often helped the Chinese Communist Party conduct its censorship: for one thing, by removing thousands of apps from its Chinese store at their behest. The deleted apps include VPN apps that helped users evade China’s wide-​ranging and determined censorship of the Internet.

Think Different, Apple, not in lockstep with tyrants.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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A Welcome Discovery

Joe Biden, censorship, Twitter, Facebook, 1st Amendment, free speech

In recent years, several lawsuits have been launched alleging collusion between the Biden administration and big social media companies to violate our First Amendment rights.

Unfortunately, most of these suits have been dismissed.

Journalist Alex Berenson did obtain some satisfaction after suing Twitter for suspending his account last year because he questioned the efficacy of COVID-​19 vaccines.

The suit accused Twitter of acting “on behalf of the federal government in censoring and barring him.” Berenson’s account was finally reinstated as part of the settlement. But only Twitter was required to take any remedial action; the government was required to do nothing.

Still ongoing is a lawsuit launched by the attorney generals of Missouri and Louisiana against the Biden administration for urging social media giants to suppress speech about things like COVID-​19 and elections “under the guise of combating ‘misinformation.’ ”

Now a judge has granted the states’ motion for discovery, enabling the attorneys general to make document requests and issue subpoenas to social media platforms. The AGs hope to learn which federal officials have been urging censorship and what exactly they said.

In a certain respect, these actions seem almost superfluous, since administration officials, including Biden, have repeatedly and publicly called on social media to censor harder.

But the more evidence we can get on how the federal government has been urging firms to censor on its behalf and in violation of the First Amendment, the better. 

That brings us closer to getting it to stop.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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All a‑Twitter

Elon Musk, Twitter, deal, bargaining, woke

On Friday, Elon Musk bowed out of his attempt to take over Twitter.

And Twitter stock plummeted over 10 percent in trading on Monday.

Citing the woke corporate social media company’s non-​disclosure of information that he had been requesting for many, many weeks, Mr.Musk withdrew his offer.

The big issue, here, is the possibility that Twitter is over-​valued because the company has allowed “bots” to proliferate. That is, accounts run by computers and AIs and scammers who create accounts and then just crank out content that have no value for advertising — which is how the company makes most of its money.

“Twitter claims that only 5 percent of its monetizable daily active user (mDAU) base consists of bots,” explains Nicholas Dolinger at The Epoch Times, “but Musk has argued that the number is much higher, and that Twitter, in misrepresenting the total number of bots, has misled him in such a way as to void the agreement.”

The best part of the story may be the “meme” Musk shared about it, “implying that Twitter would face embarrassment at having to disclose information about the prevalence of bots on the platform in court.”

Twitter user @ZanderfromNOLA offers an image that shows that bot problem: multiple accounts for healthcare professionals all saying the exact same thing, word for word, pushing the COVID vaxxes. It could be a propaganda campaign from Big Pharma. Or it could be the CIA. Or China. Or even Russia! Who knows? But the wealth of duplicate and obviously suspect content on the platform suggests that Musk’s initial offering of $44 billion was way too generous.

The humiliation that Twitter has suffered may be well-deserved.

But will humiliation nudge along any decent reforms?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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FYI re Musk

Elon Musk, Tesla, Twitter, law, Democrats, Republicans

“Tesla is building a hardcore litigation department where we directly initiate & execute lawsuits,” Elon Musk says in a recent tweet. “The team will report directly to me. Please send 3 to 5 bullet points describing evidence of exceptional ability.”

Now a major target of the commies and Democrats, Musk has good reason to seek expert legal assistance. Indeed, he prophesied his peril in an infamous tweet, and he prophesied correctly — leading to the de rigueur sex scandal … and another funny tweet.

But it’s not all seedy, partisan sturm und drang:

  • Musk knows how to make stuff, like electric cars and spaceships. Of course, other hugely successful entrepreneurs happen to be very bad politically, not the sort whose legal team you’d want to join if you’re a good guy. But …
  • Soon after Ukraine publicly asked Musk for Starlink satellites to help maintain communications in the wake of Russia’s invasion, Musk sent thousands to the country.
  • Musk has made a deal (not yet completed) to buy Twitter, avowedly motivated by the goal of liberating tweet speech. (The FCC recently contradicted reporting that it has pondered trying to block the purchase.)
  • He opposes subsidies for electric vehicles and favors more gas and oil production, which have been under assault by the Biden administration.
  • He can no longer abide the Democrats, the party of “division and hate.”

Musk’s record isn’t perfect. But chances are that the help he’s seeking will be used in a good cause. 

Just FYI — in case you’d like to boil down your resume to pursue this opportunity. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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