Recent "Twitter Files" Drop More Outrage

The recent Twitter files dump might be one of the most damning yet. But like all of the others, those whose theories are being confirmed will be FAR more interested than those whose theories are being exposed.

The Hunter Biden laptop/NY Post/Twitter dustup in October 2020 was the beginning of a series of events that culminated in Elon Musk buying Twitter in late 2022. Twitter had blocked this story because they saw what the ‘October Surprise’ in 2016 did to Hillary. It was blatantly obvious to everyone what they were doing.  They locked the NY Post out of their Twitter account until they deleted a (totally true) story *they* didn't like.

It was galactic-level gaslighting. A story so obvious, so true, with photographs, videos, and voicemails. And they all said YOU were crazy. You were the dumbasses that didn't get it. And they went through great pains to bury it and even greater pains to punish those who shared it.

Actively censoring content they disagreed with while allowing groups like the Taliban to post freely was an eye-opener for many.  I was consistent in defending Twitter and Facebook’s right to keep or delete any information they saw fit.  But this changed everything.  Working hand-in-hand with the Government to address so-called “misinformation” made this a First Amendment issue. It changed the entire calculus of the debate.

For several years, those who supported social media’s silencing of dissenting voices knew their efforts relied heavily on government influence and coercion.  So it was crucial to make it appear as if the sanctions and censorship were coming directly and solely from Twitter, with no government influence. It allowed them to say with a straight face that since it’s not the GOVERNMENT silencing them, it’s not REALLY censorship. Plausible deniability and all that.

Indeed, it was almost comical to watch people on the left cynically invoke the very libertarian property rights argument they rejected in the Colorado Baker Case.  The same people who would force a baker to "bake the damn cake" and then assign him mandatory sensitivity training, suddenly started sounding like Murray Rothbard on Red Bull when it came to voluntary association.  “If you don't like Twitter or Facebook or YouTube, go build your own!”

Matt Taibbi, one of the independent reporters given access to information, has authored over a dozen “Tweetstorms” showing the incestuous relationship that developed during the pandemic between the privately-owned platform and governmental agencies. A plethora of emails and documents show close collaboration between the Department of Homeland Security and the private sector. Twitter's Vijaya Gadde (fired by Elon Musk) met monthly with DHS to discuss censorship plans. A Microsoft exec texted DHS: "Platforms have got to get comfortable with government"

Taibbi writes, "This is the Censorship-Industrial Complex at its essence: a bureaucracy willing to sacrifice factual truth in service of broader narrative objectives. It’s the opposite of what a free press does."

The examples have been too numerous to share.

Facebook and Twitter created special portals for the government to request content takedowns rapidly. The portals, along with NGO partners used to censor a wide range of content, including obvious parody accounts and content disagreeing with Gov’t pandemic policy.

The communications showed Tech companies including Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Discord, Wikipedia, Microsoft, LinkedIn, and Verizon meeting monthly with the FBI to discuss how they would deal with misinformation during the election season.

FBI agent Laura Dehmlow was in communications with Facebook that led to the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story in 2020 over the false allegation that it was “disinformation.”  She later met with Twitter and the DHS to stress “we need a media infrastructure that is held accountable.”

In the 3/9/23 Twitter drop, it was more of the same. But a bit worse. (see pic)

And this isn’t even the only infuriating part of the Twitter Files. Other drops shone a light on a progressive Twitter workforce that routinely restricted the reach of accounts that didn’t toe their narrative line. You know…doing that thing that they said “no one was doing?”

The bottom line is that our friendly little federal government chose to use the confusion of a pandemic to act even more monstrously than usual.  They relied on the chaos---indeed, they FUELED it, in order to do what governments do---become unaccountable totalitarian monsters if normal checks are removed.

The government, their media allies, and quasi-governmental think tanks colluded to attack entities that expressed skepticism about COVID policies…and anything else they didn’t like.  And they did it under the disgusting aegis of “protecting people from misinformation.”

Why is this important?  Many reasons, but here is the biggest.  Over the long haul, having enough people who believe it's better to challenge "bad" ideas not with “better” ideas but with a Government-manufactured muzzle will cause us to abandon any support for the notion of Free Speech.

No-no one will go to jail for this.  Very few will pay ANY price at all.  Freedom lovers will have to accept this.  But we can gain some succor from hoping that this will make a lot more people a lot less willing to trust "the experts" during the next crisis. And that’s too bad because the next time, the experts might be right.