Elon Musk and Twitter

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Michael Stuart Kelly Grand Master

Michael Stuart Kelly

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I am over 45 minutes into the Fitton video and no problems so far.

But they are now discussing the war in Ukraine and things like that, so I stopped.

I may listen to the whole thing later or not. I probably will, but not now. In the comments to the thread, I did not see anyone complain about mutes, but some did complain about Tom Fitton rambling. :) 

 

So why am I am hot on the tail of this?

It's because, if it was the Pentagon releasing bots to shut down free speech, I was witnessing provable treason unfold in real time. Or close to it. And I want that shit here on OL for your edification and entertainment.

:) .

Don't forget that all those recordings have logs and Elon is spearheading has an intense effort to identify all of the cutouts.

 

Apropos of nothing, in the former Space, they discussed the photo going around of Elon with Jared Kushner during the soccer game in Qatar. One of the people said that was at the general VIP box, so all kinds of VIPs went there. Of course, there might have been some secret communication between the two, but most likely there were just cordialities if they spoke at all. It was more likely that neither new the other was going to be there until they got there. 

Michael

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Let's not leave this as an abstract statement. Let's put a little meat on it and give it a concrete. But I will leave it up to you to find the links. They are numerous. I'll just describe the con

Michael Stuart Kelly
Michael Stuart Kelly

Jack Posobiec just said something very, very interesting. He said that Elon Musk did not just buy a social media company. He also bought a massive trove of evidence of lawbreaking by untold

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Michael Stuart Kelly Grand Master

Michael Stuart Kelly

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Man, is Elon getting red-pilled fast.

I think he is beginning to see what a bubble he had been living in politically. And the bubble comes courtesy of the Deep State, fake news media, Democrat party fraud, embezzlement of military-industrial complex funds, and so on.

That's just from a few minutes ago.

Michael

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Michael Stuart Kelly Grand Master

Michael Stuart Kelly

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14 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Meanwhile, reality keeps pumping along.

And

This one only has 21 tweets.

Better version for reading coming soon...

And here it is.

 

QUOTE

Lee Fang

1. TWITTER FILES PART 8

*How Twitter Quietly Aided the Pentagon’s Covert Online PsyOp Campaign*

Despite promises to shut down covert state-run propaganda networks, Twitter docs show that the social media giant directly assisted the U.S. military’s influence operations. 

2. Twitter has claimed for years that they make concerted efforts to detect & thwart gov-backed platform manipulation. Here is Twitter testifying to Congress about its pledge to rapidly identify and shut down all state-backed covert information operations & deceptive propaganda.

image.png

3. But behind the scenes, Twitter gave approval & special protection to the U.S. military’s online psychological influence ops. Despite knowledge that Pentagon propaganda accounts used covert identities, Twitter did not suspend many for around 2 years or more. Some remain active. 

4. In 2017, a U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) official sent Twitter a list of 52 Arab language accounts “we use to amplify certain messages.” The official asked for priority service for six accounts, verification for one & “whitelist” abilities for the others.

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5. The same day CENTCOM sent the list, Twitter officials used a tool to grant a special “whitelist” tag that essentially provides verification status to the accounts w/o the blue check, meaning they are exempt from spam/abuse flags, more visible/likely to trend on hashtags. 

6. The CENTCOM accounts on the list tweeted frequently about U.S. military priorities in the Middle East, including promoting anti-Iran messages, promotion of the Saudi Arabia-U.S. backed war in Yemen, and “accurate” U.S. drone strikes that claimed to only hit terrorists.

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7. CENTCOM then shifted strategies & deleted disclosures of ties to the Twitter accounts. The bios of the accounts changed to seemingly organic profiles. One bio read: “Euphrates pulse.” Another used an apparent deep fake profile pic & claimed to be a source of Iraqi opinion.

image.png

 

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8. One Twitter official who spoke to me said he feels deceived by the covert shift. Still, many emails from throughout 2020 show that high-level Twitter executives were well aware of DoD’s vast network of fake accounts & covert propaganda and did not suspend the accounts. 

9. For example, Twitter lawyer Jim Baker mused in a July 2020 email, about an upcoming DoD meeting, that the Pentagon used "poor tradecraft" in setting up its network, and were seeking strategies for not exposing the accounts that are “linked to each other or to DoD or the USG.” 

10. Stacia Cardille, another Twitter attorney, replied that the Pentagon wanted a SCIF & may want to retroactively classify its social media activities “to obfuscate their activity in this space, and that this may represent an overclassification to avoid embarrassment.”

image.png

11. In several other 2020 emails, high-level Twitter executives/lawyers discussed the covert network and even recirculated the 2017 list from CENTCOM and shared another list of 157 undisclosed Pentagon accounts, again mostly focused on Middle East military issues. 

12. In a May 2020 email, Twitter’s Lisa Roman emailed the DoD w/two lists. One list was accounts “previously provided to us” & another list Twitter detected. The accounts tweeted in Russian & Arabic on US military issues in Syria/ISIS & many also did not disclose Pentagon ties.

image.png

13. Many of these secretive U.S. military propaganda accounts, despite detection by Twitter as late as 2020 (but potentially earlier) continued tweeting through this year, some not suspended until May 2022 or later, according to records I reviewed. 

14. In August 2022, a Stanford Internet Observatory report exposed a U.S. military covert propaganda network on Facebook, Telegram, Twitter & other apps using fake news portals and deep fake images and memes against U.S. foreign adversaries. 

https://public-assets.graphika.com/reports/graphika_stanford_internet_observatory_report_unheard_voice.pdfchrome-extension://gmpljdlgcdkljlppaekciacdmdlhfeon/images/beside-link-icon.svgchrome-extension://gmpljdlgcdkljlppaekciacdmdlhfeon/images/beside-link-icon.svg

15. The U.S. propaganda network relentlessly pushed narratives against Russia, China, and other foreign countries. They accused Iran of "threatening Iraq’s water security and flooding the country with crystal meth," and of harvesting the organs of Afghan refugees. 

16. The Stanford report did not identify all of the accounts in the network but one they did name was the exact same Twitter account CENTCOM asked for whitelist privileges in its 2017 email. I verified via Twitter’s internal tools. The account used an AI-created deep fake image.

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17. In subsequent reporting, Twitter was cast as an unbiased hero for removing “a network of fake user accounts promoting pro-Western policy positions.” Media covering the story described Twitter as evenly applying its policies & proactive in suspending the DoD network. 

18. The reality is much more murky. Twitter actively assisted CENTCOM’s network going back to 2017 and as late as 2020 knew these accounts were covert/designed to deceive to manipulate the discourse, a violation of Twitter’s policies & promises. They waited years to suspend. 

19. Twitter’s comms team was closely in touch with reporters, working to minimize Twitter’s role. When the WashPost reported on the scandal, Twitter officials congratulated each other because the story didn’t mention any Twitter employees & focused largely on the Pentagon.

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20. The conduct with the U.S. military’s covert network stands in stark contrast with how Twitter has boasted about rapidly identifying and taking down covert accounts tied to state-backed influence operations, including Thailand, Russia, Venezuela, and others since 2016. 

21. Here is my reported piece w/more detail. I was given access to Twitter for a few days. I signed/agreed to nothing, Twitter had no input into anything I did or wrote. The searches were carried out by a Twitter attorney, so what I saw could be limited.

image.png

TWITTER AIDED THE PENTAGON IN ITS COVERT ONLINE PROPAGANDA CAMPAIGN

 

If you want details about how I go about my reporting, a little more about myself, and further documentation & discussion, I just started a Substack. Sign up here:

image.png

Lee Fang - Substack

END QUOTE

 

Still having fun?

You betcha.

Now it's the Pentagon, not just the FBI.

:)

Michael

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Michael Stuart Kelly Grand Master

Michael Stuart Kelly

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For as much as I love what Elon Musk is doing, I think we need to keep him and the context in balance.

So here is a podcast critical of him and what he is doing at Twitter by two people who are not his fans, but they are no establishment toadies: James Corbett and Whitney Webb.

Nor are they fans of Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss and all the rest.

 

I found a video version for convenience (there are speed controls, for instance).

hoI0qEWpI2U1_640x360.jpg

6554b6be8c0d829a8bf63ae0c82cf121_link.pn Whitney Webb & James Corbett | Behind the Twitter Files Hype | Dec. 16, 2022

WWW.BITCHUTE.COM
Source: http://unlimitedhangout.com http://corbettreport.com In this episode, Whitney and James Corbett discuss the Twitter Files...

 

This is actually an audio podcast. You can listen to it here on Whitney's Unlimited Hangout podcasts (without speed controls):

Behind the Twitter Files Hype with James Corbett

 

Or you can go to James Corbett's site (also without speed controls):

Interview 1776 - Behind the Twitter Files Hype on Unlimited Hangout

The_Corbett_Report_Side_1.jpg

cropped-podcastlogonewnew-180x180.jpg Interview 1776 - Behind the Twitter Files Hype on Unlimited Hangout - The Corbett Report

WWW.CORBETTREPORT.COM
In this episode, Whitney and James Corbett discuss the Twitter Files phenomenon and how the hype around it is being utilized for more...

This link is important because of the Show Notes. But I am pasting them below.

Quote

SHOW NOTES

UnlimitedHangout.com

Twitter files

James Corbett’s videos on Elon Musk

Whitney Webb’s articles on The Intercept

Other Links

 

 

If you like thinking critically in addition to surfing on core stories and narrative, this hits the spot. 

For instance, James and Whitney talk about the "Savior Narrative" Elon is cultivating which is similar to Trump's "Savior Narrative." Also, both wonder why Elon is not releasing actual documents instead of the summaries he is providing. Great question. They talk about his past and his government commitments. And they go into some relevant history on how this stuff is never as it seems, not even with Snowden and Wikileaks. They give facts, names and dates. And on and on.

So enjoy.

I am.

 

btw - I luvs me some savior narrative and I luvs me some critical thinking.

Guess what?

I can do both at the same time and I can do both in a seesaw rhythm. And I can keep it all straight in my brain.

You are an OL reader, so I am pretty sure you can, too.

:) 

Michael

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Michael Stuart Kelly

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A new Dump dropped.

It looks like this only has 8 tweets.

Anyway, the easier reading version will come later.

 

For the time being, you can use read an easy reading version here:

twitter-security-hack-fail.jpg

tgpfavicon.png JUST IN: Another Twitter Files Drop: Twitter and "Other Government Agencies"

WWW.THEGATEWAYPUNDIT.COM
This is a breaking story…please refresh page for updates as the Twitter thread unrolls. Another round of Elon Musk’s Twitter files were...

Enjoy.

:) 

Michael

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Michael Stuart Kelly

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On 12/24/2022 at 12:32 PM, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

A new Dump dropped.

It looks like this only has 8 tweets.

Here's the easier to read version.

Actually, there are 56 tweets. There were only 8 when I posted that as Taibbi was still putting them up. This should be Part 9, but Taibbi did not number it.

 

QUOTE

1. THREAD: The Twitter Files
TWITTER AND "OTHER GOVERNMENT AGENCIES" 

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. 

2. It didn’t refute allegations. Instead, it decried “conspiracy theorists” publishing “misinformation,” whose “sole aim” is to “discredit the agency.”

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3. 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? 

4. 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. 

5. The operation is far bigger than the reported 80 members of the Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF), which also facilitates requests from a wide array of smaller actors - from local cops to media to state governments. 

6. Twitter had so much contact with so many agencies that executives lost track. Is today the DOD, and tomorrow the FBI? Is it the weekly call, or the monthly meeting? It was dizzying.

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7. A chief end result was that thousands of official “reports” flowed to Twitter from all over, through the FITF and the FBI’s San Francisco field office. 

8. On June 29th, 2020, San Francisco FBI agent Elvis Chan wrote to pair of Twitter execs asking if he could invite an “OGA” to an upcoming conference:

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9. OGA, or “Other Government Organization,” can be a euphemism for CIA, according to multiple former intelligence officials and contractors. Chuckles one: “They think it's mysterious, but it's just conspicuous." 

10. “Other Government Agency (the place where I worked for 27 years),” says retired CIA officer Ray McGovern. 

11.  It was an open secret at Twitter that one of its executives was ex-CIA, which is why Chan referred to that executive’s “former employer.” 

12. The first Twitter executive abandoned any pretense to stealth and emailed that the employee “used to work for the CIA, so that is Elvis’s question.”

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13. Senior legal executive Stacia Cardille, whose alertness stood out among Twitter leaders, replied, “I know” and “I thought my silence was understood.”

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14. Cardille then passes on conference details to recently-hired ex-FBI lawyer Jim Baker.

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15. “I invited the FBI and the CIA virtually will attend too,” Cardille says to Baker, adding pointedly: “No need for you to attend.” 

16. The government was in constant contact not just with Twitter but with virtually every major tech firm. 

17. These included Facebook, Microsoft, Verizon, Reddit, even Pinterest, and many others. Industry players also held regular meetings without government. 

18. One of the most common forums was a regular meeting of the multi-agency Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF), attended by spates of executives, FBI personnel, and – nearly always – one or two attendees marked “OGA.”

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19. The FITF meeting agendas virtually always included, at or near the beginning, an “OGA briefing,” usually about foreign matters (hold that thought).

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20. Despite its official remit being “Foreign Influence,” the FITF and the SF FBI office became conduit for mountains of domestic moderation requests, from state governments, even local police:

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21. Many requests arrived via Teleporter, a one-way platform in which many communications were timed to vanish:

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22. Especially as the election approached in 2020, the FITF/FBI overwhelmed Twitter with requests, sending lists of hundreds of problem accounts:

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23. Email after email came from the San Francisco office heading into the election, often adorned with an Excel attachment:

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24. There were so many government requests, Twitter employees had to improvise a system for prioritizing/triaging them:

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25. The FBI was clearly tailoring searches to Twitter’s policies. FBI complaints were almost always depicted somewhere as a “possible terms of service violation," even in the subject line:

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26. Twitter executives noticed the FBI appeared to be aasigning personnel to look for Twitter violations. 

27. “They have some folks in the Baltimore field office and at HQ that are just doing keyword searches for violations. This is probably the 10th request I have dealt with in the last 5 days,” remarked Cardille.

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28. Even ex-FBI lawyer Jim Baker agreed: “Odd that they are searching for violations of our policies.”

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29. The New York FBI office even sent requests for the “user IDs and handles” of a long list of accounts named in a Daily Beast article. Senior executives say they are “supportive” and “completely comfortable” doing so.

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30. It seemed to strike no one as strange that a “Foreign Influence” task force was forwarding thousands of mostly domestic reports, along with the DHS, about the fringiest material:

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31. “Foreign meddling” had been the ostensible justification for expanded moderation since platforms like Twitter were dragged to the Hill by the Senate in 2017:

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32. Yet behind the scenes, Twitter executives struggled against government claims of foreign interference supposedly occurring on their platform and others:

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33. The #TwitterFiles show execs under constant pressure to validate theories of foreign influence – and unable to find evidence for key assertions. 

34. “Found no links to Russia,” says one analyst, but suggests he could “brainstorm” to “find a stronger connection.”

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35. “Extremely tenuous circumstantial chance of being related,” says another.

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36. “No real matches using the info,” says former Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth in another case, noting some links were “clearly Russian,” but another was a “house rental in South Carolina?”

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37. In another case, Roth concludes a series of Venezuelan pro-Maduro accounts are unrelated to Russia’s Internet Research Agency, because they’re too high-volume:

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38. The Venezuelans “were extremely high-volume tweeters… pretty uncharacteristic of a lot of the other IRA activity,” Roth says. 

39. In a key email, news that the State Department was making a wobbly public assertion of Russian influence led an exec – the same one with the “OGA” past - to make a damning admission: 

40. “Due to a lack of technical evidence on our end, I've generally left it be, waiting for more evidence,” he says. “Our window on that is closing, given that government partners are becoming more aggressive on attribution.”

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41. Translation: “more aggressive” “government partners” had closed Twitter’s “window” of independence. 

42. “Other Government Agencies” ended up sharing intelligence through the FBI and FITF not just with Twitter, but with Yahoo!, Twitch, Clouldfare, LinkedIn, even Wikimedia:

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43. Former CIA agent and whistleblower John Kiriakou believes he recognizes the formatting of these reports. 

44. “Looks right on to me,” Kiriakou says, noting that “what was cut off above [the “tearline”] was the originating CIA office and all the copied offices.” 

45. Many people wonder if Internet platforms receive direction from intelligence agencies about moderation of foreign policy news stories. It appears Twitter did, in some cases by way of the FITF/FBI. 

46. These reports are far more factually controversial than domestic counterparts. 

47. One intel report lists accounts tied to “Ukraine ‘neo-Nazi’ Propaganda.’” This includes assertions that Joe Biden helped orchestrate a coup in 2014 and “put his son on the board of Burisma.”

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48. Another report asserts a list of accounts accusing the “Biden administration” of “corruption” in vaccine distribution are part of a Russian influence campaign:

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49. Often intelligence came in the form of brief reports, followed by long lists of accounts simply deemed to be pro-Maduro, pro-Cuba, pro-Russia, etc. This one batch had over 1000 accounts marked for digital execution:

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50. One report says a site “documenting purported rights abuses committed by Ukrainians” is directed by Russian agents:

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51. Intel about the shady origin of these accounts might be true. But so might at least some of the information in them – about neo-Nazis, rights abuses in Donbas, even about our own government. Should we block such material? 

52. This is a difficult speech dilemma. Should the government be allowed to try to prevent Americans (and others) from seeing pro-Maduro or anti-Ukrainian accounts? 

53. Often intel reports are just long lists of newspapers, tweets or YouTube videos guilty of “anti-Ukraine narratives”:

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54. Sometimes - not always -Twitter and YouTube blocked the accounts. But now we know for sure what Roth meant by “the Bureau (and by extension the IC).”

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55. The line between “misinformation” and “distorting propaganda” is thin. Are we comfortable with so many companies receiving so many reports from a “more aggressive” government? 

56. The CIA has yet to comment on the nature of its relationship to tech companies like Twitter. Twitter had no input into anything I did or wrote. The searches were carried out by third parties, so what I saw could be limited. 

Watch @bariweiss, @ShellenbergerMD, @lhfang, and this space for more, on issues ranging from Covid-19 to Twitter's relationship to congress, and more. 

END QUOTE

 

There you have it.

And from the looks of things, it's just getting started.

Elon himself said, "To be totally frank, almost every conspiracy theory that people had about Twitter turned out to be true.”

See here for the tweet by Alx and Elon saying it on video.

:) 

Michael

 

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Michael Stuart Kelly

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There's already a brand new tweet dump.

 

 

 

Now we're getting to some really really good stuff, although the former stuff was great, too.

But this stuff is going to be used in some massive class action suits next year.

No doubt.

Simpler version for reading coming later.

Note: It looks like they stopped numbering the tweet dumps, but this would be No. 10 if they kept the numbering going.

 

EDIT:

There are 41 tweets in this thread. At the end, Zweig gives a link to an "expanded version" at The Free Press.

https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-43

apple-touch-icon-1024x1024.png How Twitter Rigged the Covid Debate

WWW.THEFP.COM
The platform suppressed true information from doctors and public-health experts that was at odds with U.S. government policy.

 

Also, here is an easy-to-read version on Thread Reader.

1607378386338340867.jpg

6554b6be8c0d829a8bf63ae0c82cf121_link.pn Thread by @davidzweig on Thread Reader App

THREADREADERAPP.COM
@davidzweig: 1. THREAD: THE TWITTER FILES: HOW TWITTER RIGGED THE COVID DEBATE – By censoring info that was true but inconvenient to U.S. govt. policy – By discrediting doctors and other experts who...

 

Michael

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Michael Stuart Kelly

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Here we go, easier reading version, Part 10 (although it is not numbered that way by Zweig).

4 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

 

 

 

QUOTE

1. THREAD:

THE TWITTER FILES: HOW TWITTER RIGGED THE COVID DEBATE

– By censoring info that was true but inconvenient to U.S. govt. policy
– By discrediting doctors and other experts who disagreed
– By suppressing ordinary users, including some sharing the CDC’s *own data* 

2. So far the Twitter Files have focused on evidence of Twitter’s secret blacklists; how the company functioned as a kind of subsidiary of the FBI; and how execs rewrote the platform’s rules to accommodate their own political desires. 

3. What we have yet to cover is Covid. This reporting, for The Free Press, @TheFP, is one piece of that important story. 

4. The United States government pressured Twitter and other social media platforms to elevate certain content and suppress other content about Covid-19. 

5. Internal files at Twitter that I viewed while on assignment for @TheFP showed that both the Trump and Biden administrations directly pressed Twitter executives to moderate the platform’s pandemic content according to their wishes. 

6. At the onset of the pandemic, according to meeting notes, the Trump admin was especially concerned about panic buying. They came looking for “help from the tech companies to combat misinformation” about “runs on grocery stores.” But . . . there were runs on grocery stores.

image.png

7. It wasn’t just Twitter. The meetings with the Trump White House were also attended by Google, Facebook, Microsoft and others.

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8. When the Biden admin took over, one of their first meeting requests with Twitter executives was on Covid. The focus was on “anti-vaxxer accounts.” Especially Alex Berenson:

image.png

9. In the summer of 2021, president Biden said social media companies were “killing people” for allowing vaccine misinformation. Berenson was suspended hours after Biden’s comments, and kicked off the platform the following month. 

10. Berenson sued (and then settled with) Twitter. In the legal process Twitter was compelled to release certain internal communications, which showed direct White House pressure on the company to take action on Berenson.

Jesse Jackson can't swim*

image.png

 

11. A December 2022 summary of meetings with the White House by Lauren Culbertson, Twitter’s Head of U.S. Public Policy, adds new evidence of the White House’s pressure campaign, and cements that it repeatedly attempted to directly influence the platform. 

12. Culbertson wrote that the Biden team was “very angry” that Twitter had not been more aggressive in deplatforming multiple accounts. They wanted Twitter to do more.

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13. Twitter executives did not fully capitulate to the Biden team’s wishes. An extensive review of internal communications at the company revealed employees often debating moderation cases in great detail, and with more care than was shown by the government toward free speech. 

14. But Twitter did suppress views—many from doctors and scientific experts—that conflicted with the official positions of the White House. As a result, legitimate findings and questions that would have expanded the public debate went missing. 

15. There were three serious problems with Twitter’s process:

First, much of the content moderation was conducted by bots, trained on machine learning and AI – impressive in their engineering, yet still too crude for such nuanced work. 

16. Second, contractors, in places like the Philippines, also moderated content. They were given decision trees to aid in the process, but tasking non experts to adjudicate tweets on complex topics like myocarditis and mask efficacy data was destined for a significant error rate

image.png

 

17 Third, most importantly, the buck stopped with higher level employees at Twitter who chose the inputs for the bots and decision trees, and subjectively decided escalated cases and suspensions. As it is with all people and institutions, there was individual and collective bias 

18. With Covid, this bias bent heavily toward establishment dogmas. 

19. Inevitably, dissident yet legitimate content was labeled as misinformation, and the accounts of doctors and others were suspended both for tweeting opinions and demonstrably true information. 

20. Exhibit A: Dr. Martin Kulldorff, an epidemiologist at Harvard Medical School, tweeted views at odds with US public health authorities and the American left, the political affiliation of nearly the entire staff at Twitter.

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21. Internal emails show an “intent to action” by a moderator, saying Kulldorff’s tweet violated the company’s Covid-19 misinformation policy and claimed he shared “false information.”

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22. But Kulldorff’s statement was an expert’s opinion—one which also happened to be in line with vaccine policies in numerous other countries. Yet it was deemed “false information” by Twitter moderators merely because it differed from CDC guidelines. 

23. After Twitter took action, Kulldorff’s tweet was slapped with a “Misleading” label and all replies and likes were shut off, throttling the tweet’s ability to be seen and shared by many people, the ostensible core function of the platform:

image.png

24. In my review of internal files, I found countless instances of tweets labeled as “misleading” or taken down entirely, sometimes triggering account suspensions, simply because they veered from CDC guidance or differed from establishment views. 

25. A tweet by @KelleyKga, a self-proclaimed public health fact checker, with 18K followers, was flagged as “Misleading,” and replies and likes disabled, even though it displayed the CDC’s *own data.*

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26. Internal records showed that a bot had flagged the tweet, and that it received many “tattles” (what the system amusingly called reports from users). That triggered a manual review by a human who– despite the tweet showing actual CDC data–nevertheless labeled it “Misleading” 

27. Tellingly, the tweet by @KelleyKga that was labeled “Misleading” was a reply to a tweet that contained actual misinformation.

Covid has never been the leading cause of death from disease in children. Yet that tweet remains on the platform, and without a “misleading” label.

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28. Whether by humans or algorithms, content that was contrarian but true was still subject to getting flagged or suppressed

This tweet was labeled “Misleading,” even though the owner of this account, @_euzebiusz_, a physician, was referring to the results of a published study

image.png

29. Andrew Bostom, a Rhode Island physician, was permanently suspended from Twitter after receiving multiple strikes for misinformation. One of his strikes was for a tweet referring to the results from a peer reviewed study on mRNA vaccines.

image.png

30. A review of Twitter log files revealed that an internal audit, conducted after Bostom’s attorney contacted Twitter, found that only 1 of Bostom’s 5 violations were valid.

image.png

31. The one Bostom tweet found to still be in violation cited data that was legitimate but inconvenient to the public health establishment’s narrative about the risks of flu versus Covid in children.

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32. That this tweet was not only flagged by a bot, but its violation manually affirmed by a staff member is telling of both the algorithmic and human bias at play. Bostom’s account was suspended for months and was finally restored on Christmas Day. 

33. Another example of human bias run amok was the reaction to this tweet by Trump. Many Trump tweets led to extensive internal debates, and this one was no different.

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34. In a surreal exchange, Jim Baker, at the time Twitter’s Deputy General Counsel, asks why telling people to not be afraid wasn’t a violation of Twitter’s Covid-19 misinformation policy.

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35. Yoel Roth, Twitter’s former head of Trust & Safety, had to explain that optimism wasn’t misinformation.

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36. Remember @KelleyKga with the CDC data tweet? Twitter’s response to her is clarifying: “we will prioritize review and labeling of content that could lead to increased exposure or transmission.”

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37. Twitter made a decision, via the political leanings of senior staff, and govt pressure, that the public health authorities’ approach to the pandemic – prioritizing mitigation over other concerns – was “The Science” . . . 

38. Information that challenged that view, such as showing harms of vaccines, or that could be perceived as downplaying the risks of Covid, especially to children, was subject to moderation, and even suppression. No matter whether such views were correct or adopted abroad. 

39. What might this pandemic and its aftermath have looked like if there had been a more open debate on Twitter and other social media platforms—not to mention the mainstream press—about the origins of Covid, about lockdowns, about the true risks of Covid in kids, and much more? 

40. Thanks to @ShellenbergerMD, @lwoodhouse, @lhfang and the team @TheFP for their help reporting this story. 

41. An expanded version of this thread is available now @TheFP!

How Twitter Rigged the Covid Debate

 

END QUOTE

 

I'm glad all this is coming out, but why do I keep getting the feeling that it is too little, too late?

Hmmmmm...

Maybe it's all those deaths.

Who can bring those dead people back?

 

Just remember who caused those deaths whenever you see such a person in public trying to be respectable. You will be looking at a person who murders for money.

I want to see these people punished as such.

Michael

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ThatGuy

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53 minutes ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

 Internal files at Twitter that I viewed while on assignment for @TheFP showed that both the Trump and Biden administrations directly pressed Twitter executives to moderate the platform’s pandemic content according to their wishes. 

Hmmm...

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Michael Stuart Kelly Grand Master

Michael Stuart Kelly

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26 minutes ago, ThatGuy said:

Hmmm...

TG,

Did you read what the Trump people wanted?

They wanted to stave off a buying stampede, to keep people calm.

And the Biden people?

They wanted to sell the Big Jab grift by ramping up panic.

 

I see the Trump people as misguided with good intentions.

I see the Biden people as bullies skinning people alive and dead.

Michael

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ThatGuy

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5 minutes ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

TG,

Did you read what the Trump people wanted?

They wanted to stave off a buying stampede, to keep people calm.

And the Biden people?

They wanted to sell the Big Jab grift by ramping up panic.

 

I see the Trump people as misguided with good intentions.

I see the Biden people as bullies skinning people alive and dead.

Michael

I did see it, yes. And I had the same assessment. Still, "the road to hell is paved with good intentions", and all that...

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Michael Stuart Kelly Grand Master

Michael Stuart Kelly

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Based on Elon's recommendation, I am reading this thread carefully.

 

It is relevant to the Twitter Files dumps because kanekoa referenced them with a hash and Elon recommended the thread. So that by itself makes it worth reading.

But I will not do an OL easy reading thing on it. I mean, come on.  If I go down that rabbit hole, I will be doing nothing but Twitter threads left and right all the time. :) 

 

However, I myself will be reading it using Thread Reader. Here's the link:

1608231209875963904.jpg

6554b6be8c0d829a8bf63ae0c82cf121_link.pn Thread by @KanekoaTheGreat on Thread Reader App

THREADREADERAPP.COM
@KanekoaTheGreat: 1/ THREAD🚨 #TwitterFiles @elonmusk slams CISA censorship network as 'propaganda platform.' This DHS-backed censorship consortium used 120 analysts to censor millions of social...

 

And I will likely comment on it after I finish. 

Michael

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Michael Stuart Kelly Grand Master

Michael Stuart Kelly

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3 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

And I will likely comment on it after I finish. 

I went through the entire thread and its links and videos.

I could list all of the names of the people and all of the details, but I think it more productive to give you an overall view.

It boils down to the following.

1. The US government is prohibited from censoring US citizens.

2. To get around this prohibition, the US government uses separate organizations and cutouts to promote censorship of those it wants to censor (with backroom deals galore and lots of government money thrown all over the place).

3. Kanekoa gave a bunch of names, organizations, issues, sums of money, and so on to documents the indirect censorship.

4. As gravy, there are a lot of Democrats presented saying voting machines are dangerous and evil right after the 2016 election. This was presented as a counterpoint to the 2020 standard for censoring, which is casting doubt on the election.

So even though the Dems saying voting machines are evil in 2016 is not the main point, the video compilation is so cute in light of the 2020 election, I included it here. It's in Tweet 25.

Watch it and think about the 2020 and 2022 elections and see if you can make that work in your brain.

 

:)

Michael

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