s on Twitter Files (10) // Scott Johnson

David Zweig posted yesterday a tenth set Twitter Files in a 41-part thread. This set addresses Twitter’s moderation of Covid problems. Zweig summarized his findings within the first of 41 tweets.

Zweig’s concluding tweet announced that he had posted an expanded version at The Free Press. This is Bari Weiss’s new site. Zweig’s expanded column version is published under “How Twitter rigged The Covid Debate.” Weiss added the comment:

David has been covering Covid for three years, focusing on the science behind many of our country’s policies. He had been noticing and criticizing biases in mainstream media coverage of the pandemic for years. This was in addition to the way it was presented on social media platforms such as Twitter. This story needed to be tackled by someone better than us.

The Twitter thread is short and easily accessible. It also includes a column in traditional form that illustrates key tweets. I encourage interested readers to examine the material with their own eyes.

Zweig’s revelations are not surprising. The work flies under the banner of misinformation/disinformation. Twitter was an arm of the American political and public-health authorities, bringing us back to 2020. Dr. Fauci was the science, so it was. Jumping ahead to Biden’s era, Zweig’s column strikes a familiar chord:

The American people were told to be very afraid of Covid when the Biden administration assumed power. They should do exactly what they say to keep safe.

In July 2021, the then-U.S. In July 2021, the then-U.S. Surgeon General Vivek M Murthy issued a 22-page advisory about what the World Health Organization called an “infodemic” and asked social media platforms for more help to stop “misinformation.”

Murthy stated, “We are asking them” “We can’t wait any longer for them to take action.”

This was the message that the White House had already sent to Twitter executives via private channels. According to Lauren Culbertson (Head of U.S. Public Policy at Twitter), one of the Biden administration’s initial meeting requests was about Covid. It focused on “anti-vaxxer account,” according to a meeting summary.

Alex Berenson had no choice but to leave:

In the summer of 2021 (the day after Murthy’s memo), Biden publicly stated that social media companies were “killing” people by allowing misinformation regarding vaccines. Twitter immediately locked Berenson from his account and suspended him for a month. Berenson sued Twitter. Berenson settled with the company and is now back on Twitter. Twitter was forced to provide internal communications as part of the lawsuit. They revealed that the White House had met directly with Twitter employees and pressured them into taking action on Berenson.

Culbertson’s summary of meetings, which was emailed to colleagues in December 2022 adds new evidence to the White House’s pressure campaign and illustrates how it attempted to direct influence what content was allowed to be posted on Twitter.

It wasn’t just Berenson. Martin Kulldorff, a Harvard epidemiologist, had to be suppressed. Dr. Andrew Bostrom was to be expelled. Oppositions that were not in line with the public health and political authorities had to be suppressed.

The suppression was done by crude bots, Twitter staff and a Philippine customer support desk (my description, not Zweig’s). This is laughter — better than any medicine given by the authorities. Zweig refers to the Philippine contractors:

Although they were given decision trees to assist in their process, the task of assigning non-experts with adjudicating tweets on complex topics such as myocarditis or mask efficacy data was bound to lead to a high error rate. It is absurd to think that remote workers could police medical information down to this fine level.

We can identify. We’ve all been there.

Let’s take a look at this example.

We have Jim Baker, former FBI general counsel/Twitter deputy chief counsel, making a cameo to respond to President Trump’s tweet warning against Covid.

Zweig asks the crucial question towards the end of his thread.

Zweig ends his column with these thoughts

Twitter supported the government’s official line that mitigation was better than other concerns throughout the pandemic. Information that challenged this view, such as information that highlighted the low risk of the virus in children or raised questions about vaccine safety and effectiveness, was subject to moderated and suppression.

This is not just about the power of Big Tech and legacy media to shape our debate – although it is.

It is also the story of children from underprivileged backgrounds, who are now miles behind their peers in math and English. It’s the story about the people who died by themselves. It’s also the story of small businesses that closed down. It’s the story of the 20-year-olds who remain unidentified in San Francisco, for whom there has never been a return of normal.

Could this have been different if Twitter had allowed the open forum for debate it claimed to believe in?

It’s not science, as we all realized long ago. It’s not about public safety. It’s all about control.