RANT: YCMTSU!

IN THE UNITED STATES THE OTHER WEEK, Journalists Matt Taibbi and Michael Schellenberg sat before a congressional panel of “The Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government.” They were there to provide information concerning inappropriate (and probably illegal) censorship activities on the part of social media platforms, and specifically Twitter. Over the past several months, Taibbi and Schellenberg were given access to Twitter files* and internal documents through the auspices of the platform’s new owner, Elon Musk. Combing through a massive archive, the two gained an unprecedented look at how the social media giant operates. They were able to look ‘under the hood’, examining how and why certain “tweets” are promoted and allowed to “trend” with long dialogue threads and thus gaining a wider readership than other tweet posts. Taibbi and Schellenberg gained insights into the platform’s decision-making process on how tweets are either censored and allowed to algorithmically⁺ go by the wayside. Most important were internal documents and DMs connecting the platform’s executives with government officials and intelligence agency operatives whose overtures to the social media company were clearly requests to single-out ‘problematic’ tweets and to “deplatform” offending Twitter accounts. For example, Twitter accounts that U.S. intelligence agencies deemed as conspiratorial, like the 'Russian bots threat' farrago, were deleted, even after Twitter's own technical service was unable to find a significant number of Russian-involved accounts that could have affected the outcomes of either the 2016 or 2020 presidential elections. Twitter did what it was told. It was a you scratch my back and I won't regulate you into submission sort of relationship between the social media platform and government. (The company would go-along-to-get-along). 

BILLIONAIRE-OWNER Musk has his own reasons for releasing internal Twitter accounts and documents to the journalists. No doubt there’s a mix of altruism along with a stiff shot of bottom-line imperatives. But, whatever the case, the revelations are startling and, again, we see  connections between Twitter and Deep State agencies and operatives in private emails and DMs from federal officials expressing concerns with certain Twitter accounts and asking the company to ban problematic ones from the platform. Further, they found what can only be called collusion between “Big Tech”, government and various intelligence agencies (FBI, CIA, Homeland) to promote algorithmically some Twitter accounts and to suppress others. Other social media platforms operated (and still operate) in a similar fashion.

 

NO CLEARER EXAMPLE of this is the now-infamous “Hunter Biden lapdance top” imbroglio, with all its sordid pornography, but also containing evidence of wrongdoing on the part of Hunter and his father (the President), evidence that is perhaps not proof of guilt in a court of law, but may very well be in the court of public opinion.

 

TWITTER locked out the New York Post’s Twitter account three weeks before the Presidential elections in November of 2020. The Post could not publish any information it had about the laptop on Twitter, nor link up with any other Twitter accounts. IN A TIME when the digital public square has almost entirely supplanted the brick and mortar one, it should come as no surprise that whoever has the job of ‘gatekeeper’ bears what should be a solemn responsibility to ensure that everyone has access, and that the platform be a place where opinions are freely exchanged, and debates contested honestly and openly. However, this goal is not often present enough at Twitter or at most social media platforms in business today.

 

KEEPING A LID on Hunter’s laptop and all its unseemly revelations is not the role of a social media platform. Nor should it ever be, except for tweets that breech agreed upon community standards or instances of criminality. In 2020, Twitter users and the broader public had a right to read and study those texts and emails on the laptop, as well as analysis from newspapers like the Post. A neutral, hands-off Twitter would have facilitated this. INSTEAD, there was a year or two of Clown Show shenanigans around such extraneous questions like: who had access to the laptop, when, where; what did they do with it? Was it really Hunter’s? Etc. And the party favourite, of course, was Russia who'd somehow ginned up and weaponized the laptop to embarrass Joe Biden. (I think the old gentleman is long past being embarrassed, don’t you?) 

POINT IS, the content of the laptop and what it might reveal about Joe Biden’s suitability to run for the highest office in the land was downplayed by the MSM and social media, while the public was distracted by all the nonsense going on around it. It’s only now, two years later that what’s inside the laptop is being discussed in greater detail. In 2020 the public had a right to know, but Twitter executives thought otherwise. IF I UNDERSTAND all the machinations involved in the laptop clusterfuk correctly, these executives acted on their own to suppress information that might be damaging to Joe (“I Need a Nap”) Biden’s bid for the White House. And they succeeded.

"Ummm! Google!"

RESEARCH by Taibbi and Schellenberger shows there was (and is) a good deal of collusion and back channel deal-making between social media platforms and the Deep State, and while the Twitter executives may have acted on their own initiative, as far as we know, it seems likely they did so because it would please the powers that be in Washington, who hold the threat of regulation and unfavourable legislation over their heads.   

WOULD having a freely-functioning 'Twitter-verse' have tipped the elections scales to favour Donald Trump over Joe Biden in 2020? We’ll never know, but in an ideal world, partisanship of this nature would not be part of the ‘DNA’ in any social media platform. If promoting free and public discourse is not uppermost in the minds of the people who are running these digital platforms if, instead, they take upon themselves the role of a publisher of news and commentary, then they should have to abide by the legal restrictions of a publisher. You can’t say you’re a neutral platform for the dissemination of news and information, and at the same time act as a publisher—i.e., editing and curating (or censoring)the content you offer. Try as you will, you can’t suck and blow at the same time. [And we’ve all been down that road before! Ed.]

THE HUNTER BIDEN LAPTOP SAGA is but one exposed and egregious example of what may be an incurable disease, endemic throughout today’s social media organizations, at least as they’re currently configured. Mysterious algorithms, hidden data-harvesting, back-channel DMs with spooks and power brokers are ultimately trust-breakers for people struggling to discover factual news and be privy to honest, engaged discussions about the truly difficult questions we all need answered, and soon. If social media companies cannot or will not provide such services, then a pox on all their houses!

 

HAVING SAT ACROSS A TABLE facing a panel of hostile interlocutors, I know how uncomfortable such settings can be, and I admit to cringing a bit when several of the Democratic members during the sub-committee hearings were outright hostile and derisive of Taibbi and Schellenberg, making numerous ad hominem attacks in a shameful and petty display, most juvenile in my opinion. What are these lawmakers afraid of, to act in such a manner? Uncovering biases and censorship practices within supposedly unbiased and transparent social media organizations should be in everyone's interest. Right? Or am I missing something?  Is it possible there are other motivations at play for these so-called representatives of the people besides a search for truth and justice? 'Representatives', my ass! 💰 Just sayin'.

BUT, Matt and Michael kept their cool (I would have lost it; props to them!), presenting their findings and airing their concerns around how pervasive censorship regimes are within social media organizations. And they did so despite the hostile reception their words received.

AMERICAN author James Howard Kunstler, in a recent blog post, gives his take on the congressional hearings in his usual cogent and well-honed prose:

 

“You get the picture? Now how about that other war: our government’s war against us? What canny reporters (Taibbi, Schellenberger) are calling the Censorship Industrial Complex has been pretty well outed. Everybody knows that the FBI, CIA, DHS, and many other agencies, via hijacked social media, have worked tirelessly to confound and bamboozle the public debate about, really, everything that matters. The odd part is that roughly half of America doesn’t seem to care. Of course, that is the same half of the country that has fallen in love with surveillance, censorship, political prosecutions, election monkey business, mandated mRNA shots, and other excursions into bad faith. Their auditors in the mainstream news media actually seem to relish their roles as enforcers of unreality.” (James Howard Kunstler)

 

Cheers, Jake

 ^{______________________________________________}

 

* “An algorithm is a mathematical set of rules specifying how a group of data behaves. In social media, algorithms help maintain order and assist in ranking search results and advertisements. On Facebook, for example, there is an algorithm that directs pages and content to display in a certain order.” (Digital Marketing Institute)

 

 

                                                                             [You won't catch me any where near that fucking bird! Ed.]

    

 

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