The ‘Twitter Files’ segment on Twitter is exploding as Matt Taibbi walks us through on how and why Hunter Biden’s laptop story was suppressed on the social media giant’s platform.
In this article, I’m going to break down the key highlights of the ‘Twitter Files’ part 1.
Let’s get started!
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“Twitter Wasn’t Always Like This”
Matt Taibbi says that in the beginning, Twitter more than lived up to its statement, “the power to create and share ideas and information instantly, without barriers.”
But at some point, this statement was completely manipulated.
That is, when both Democrats and Republicans gained access to directly influence what was allowed on Twitter and what wasn’t.
At first, tools for controlling speech were designed to combat the likes of spam and grifters, or financial fraudsters.
Over time, Twitter staff began to take advantage of this leverage tool by accepting speech manipulation on the platform from outside sources.
And apparently, CEO Jack Dorsey had no idea this was occurring!
By 2020, requests from connected actors to delete tweets were routine.
Email exchanges would read: “More to review from the Biden team.”
The reply would come back: “Handled.”
According to Taibbi, celebrities and unknowns alike could be removed or held for review on the behalf of a political party.
A Major Imbalance Between Democrats and Republicans
While both Democrats and Republicans had access to these tools, the system wasn’t balanced.
Because Twitter was overwhelmingly staffed by people of democratic political orientation, there were more channels, more ways to complain, and more opportunities for Democrats to take advantage of than there was for the Republican party.
Twitter Political Contributors
In 2018, Democrats contributed $295,722 to Twitter while Republicans only contributed $11,100 for access to manipulate speech on the platform.
2020 showed a massive jump in contributions from the Democratic party, totaling to $909,431.
The Twitter files shows us that Democrats tampered with elections in 2020 by removing content on Twitter that interfered with their campaign.
One of the biggest coverups being Hunter Biden’s laptop story.
Let’s dive into it.
Why Hunter Biden’s Laptop Story Was Hidden
On October 14, 2020, the New York Post published ‘Biden Secret Emails‘, an exposed based on the contents of Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop.
Twitter took extraordinary steps to suppress the story, removing links, and posting warnings that it may be “unsafe”, says Taibbi.
The transmissions to share via direct message were blocked, a tool that is reserved for extreme cases, such as child *ornography.
White House spokeswoman Kaleigh McEnany was locked out of her account for sharing the story on Twitter.
This also led public policy executive Caroline Strom to reach out to the Twitter team regarding the unusual circumstances.
Twitter’s response to Strom was that Hunter Biden’s laptop story had been removed for violation of the company’s “hacked materials” policy.
According to Matt Taibbi, these decisions were made from those with the highest levels of authority in the company without the knowledge of from former CEO Jack Dorsey.
Head of legal, policy, and trust Vijaya Gadde played a key role.
“They just freelanced it,” is how a former employee characterized the decision.
A Violation of the 1st Amendment
Democratic congressman Ro Khanna reached out to Gadde in efforts to hop on a call and discuss the backlash on ‘re speech’.
“Khanna was the only Democratic official I could find in the files who expressed concern, says Taibbi.”
“Hope you’re well Vijaya! But this seems a violation of the 1st Amendment principles. If there is a hack or classified information or other information that could expose a serious war crime and the NYT was to publish it, I think the NYT should have that right.”
“A journalist should not be held accountable for the illegal actions of the source unless they actively aided the hack. So to restrict the distribution of that material, especially regarding a Presidential candidate, seems not in the keeping of the principles of NYT v Sulivan“, said Ro Khanna.
This has been part 1 to the ‘Twitter Files’ exposing why Twitter blocked Hunter Biden’s Laptop story and how Democrats were able to influence the election by suppressing a story that had the potential to sway public opinion.
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About The Author
Frank to say Democrats tampered or influenced an election is a overstep. It may be troubling that free speech was suppressed, but nothing on level of Donald Trump’s clear tampering and trying to influence Georgia’s Secretary of State to find 11, 780 votes. If you’re gonna do political article’s cover that part too. Stick to AMC
Amen.
Don’t get offended guys, @Colin, @Lisa. There’s no political bias here, simply the truth. Could have been the other way around, words would have been the same. It’s like when there’s suppression in AMC publicity, suppression in data that in the hands of retail can hurt big hedge funds; the narrative is being tampered with and influenced by suppressing key information. Which leads to the main point here, wrong is wrong. Motley Fool says, ‘sell AMC, the stock is dead’. How about publicize the short interest data, hedge fund conflicts of interest, AND THEN let people decide whether they want to buy or short AMC. See, in this scenario, Motley Fool is tampering with public opinion and influencing the public to short AMC, rather than buy it, BECAUSE they’re suppressing the other information (information our community has been sharing, SAME information that got us from $5 per share to $72 per share when MSM said that would never happen). Something to think about guys.
I wonder if Dems felt they had to pay so much money to combat the far-right because the King of Twitter (aka, the Donald) had the loudest mouth of all of the mouths in all of the metaverse? Correlation is not causation, but… hmmm… that’s an interesting coinkydink, woon’tcha say?
Elon Musk has become my favorite African
He seems to be a good guy.
Let’s start a discussion! Leave your thoughts below.