Some people are saying that the first installment of the Twitter Files isn’t a big deal. Maybe. But it does reveal some important details that destroy forever the Big Tech myth of a professional team that was following an objective set of rules. Instead what got on or stayed off had very much to do with personal contacts. It’s the old, “It’s a club and you’re not in it” line. Literally.
Slowly, over time, Twitter staff and executives began to find more and more uses for these tools. Outsiders began petitioning the company to manipulate speech as well: first a little, then more often, then constantly.
By 2020, requests from connected actors to delete tweets were routine. One executive would write to another: “More to review from the Biden team.” The reply would come back: “Handled.”
Celebrities and unknowns alike could be removed or reviewed at the behest of a political party:
.Both parties had access to these tools. For instance, in 2020, requests from both the Trump White House and the Biden campaign were received and honored.
What that meant was that if someone with influence, like say a leading member of a political campaign, objected to something you said, they could get it taken down, not based on any legal means, but because they knew someone or because being part of a political campaign meant that they were taken seriously.
How often did this happen? Who knows. But at least one of the targeted tweets had been sent out by the actor James Woods, which the DNC demanded that Twitter take down.
Twitter and likely Facebook operated under multiple sets of rules. Access defined everything.
And the howls of media acolytes all tweeting variations of the same attack at Matt Taibi, that he’s doing PR for Elon Musk, get access just how insular that access is and how much privilege there is to protect.
It’s about power. And the marketplace of ideas can’t be held hostage that way.
“Access defined everything.”
Makes sense. In an evil “capitalist” system it’s more what you know than who you know. In a socialist system it’s all about who you know.
An honorable man would not be in Biden’s situation.
If you boiled it all down, technology has made 3 things possible. It has made it possible for more people to live on the planet at one time, made it possible to kill more people at one time and made it possible to control what people hear about
on the up side, it has allowed cats to post comments, buddy. 😉
The root causes of government censorship are everywhere including here at FPM. The root causes are in that individual human mind that becomes filled with fear and/or loathing when someone voices an idea or a fact that fills another person with fear and/or loathing.
That’s why comments that don’t contain personal insults, obscenities, or encitements to violence, but contain ideas the moderators simply don’t like personally, get deleted everywhere, including here at FPM.
Emotionalism is the root cause that eventually leads to censorship.
FWIW, I had posts defending you from your compulsive troll disappear.
He’s attacked me too.
LOL. My post is being “moderated”.
Dear “THX1138” & “Ugly Sid”,
As we have explained numerous times: In order to eliminate the torrent of spam that has historically flooded our comments section, there are certain keywords that will result in comments ending up in the moderation queue.
All comments made by legitimate commenters—including all of your historical comments—have been regularly approved. They may simply require a little time before a team member can manually approve them.
We could quite easily ban individuals from the comments section—so if we indeed had some sort of mysterious vendetta against you both, we wouldn’t even be having this discussion.
Thanks.
I appreciate your patience, and the simple fact I can post.
FWIW, I was banned from FP for several years, apparently for complaining about the persistence of spam.
I recall all those spam posts, they was sometimes more spam than real comments. Thank you for your efforts to eliminate.
mine too! and mine was literally a little joke about cats…felines.
who moderates cats?
got the answer above! Hi, moderator. I am usually very serious since my jokes aren’t that funny. Have a nice day moderating.
Tweeter Cheaters 🙂