s on Twitter Files, cont’d // (Scott Johnson).
Elon Musk has divided up the Twitter Files documenting the platform’s history of censorship to Matt Taibbi and Bari Weiss. Each one has posted lengthy threads on Twitter about the contents of the files. I posted my notes in Taibbi’s first thread, December 6. Following the publication of parts 2, 3 and 4 over the last few days, I have an abbreviated list of notes and questions.
* Bari Weiss rediscovered the thread here part 2 (December 8, 2008). Weiss discusses “Twitter’s secret Blacklists.”
* Matt Taibbi continued here in Part 3 (December 9). Taibbi discusses “The removal of Donald Trump.”
* Michael Shellenberger continues with part 4. (December 10). Shellenberger discusses “The removal of Donald Trump: January 7, 2017.
* How did Musk acquire and allocate the documents? Is each reporter given a different set of documents? It’s not clear to me.
* I believe Twitter has many uses, but it is not conducive for long-form journalism. This is a cumbersome and inefficient way to proceed.
* It is important to determine the scope of documents being reviewed and/or withheld. The documents should be made online.
* Miranda Devine spotted Taibbi’s first thread and pointed out that something was wrong. James Baker, former FBI general counsel and Russia hoax prankster, was in the Twitter kitchen making a mess. Since then, he has been fired.
* Baker’s presence in the company during the rollout Twitter Files is a serious moment. To assess the damage that Baker caused to the unfolding disclosures, we need a forensic audit.
* It would be helpful to have the conclusions/findings of reporters separately and in order by importance.
* Old Twitter was a Democratic operation. It was a tool of mainstream media and a part of the national security establishment. This seems to be the most important finding from the Twitter Files thus far. For example, Taibbi’s Part 3 thread is linked above.
20. This post about the Hunter Biden laptop situation shows that Roth not only met weekly with the FBI and DHS, but with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI): pic.twitter.com/s5IiUjQqIY
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 9, 2022
* What is the FBI and the rest national security establishment doing in this situation? Something is not right. We need to do serious accounting, to put it mildly.
* I am limiting the scope of material in parts 2, 3 and 4. Bari Weiss lists some of the most prominent victims of Twitter’s suppression heterodox voices in her thread. This is a terrible situation.
3. For example, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya from Stanford ( @DrJBhattacharya), who claimed that Covid lockdowns would cause harm to children. Twitter placed him on a “Trends Blacklist,” which stopped his tweets from trending. pic.twitter.com/qTW22Zh691
— Bari Weiss (@bariweiss) December 9, 2022
* Elon Musk, New Twitter, and the mainstream media are to be considered enemies of the state by the Democrats, the national security establishment, and the mainstream media.
* It would be useful to have the findings and conclusions from the reporters separately, in order of importance.
* Taibbi stated at the end of Part 3 that “while there have been tidbits here, there about topics ranging FROM COVID TO foreign policy, but the reality is the data set are enormous and we still need to work through them,” as I said above. This is an awkward and difficult way to go.
