Biggest news event ‘of the last decade’ unfolds, Twitter files show BOTH parties ‘had access to censorship tools’ but …

Elon Musk began the process of unveiling Twitter’s suppression of stories as promised with a surprising twist: “Both parties had access to these tools.”

After revealing that he had come across communications between the social media company he acquired and officials related to throttling the spread of information, such as the details surrounding Hunter Biden’s laptop ahead of the 2020 presidential election, Musk announced he would be making those details public. To fulfill that promise, journalist Matt Taibbi was tasked with explaining the details in a thread dubbed “The Twitter Files.”

As a precursor to the specifics of the laptop story, Taibbi began part one by framing the “Frankensteinian tale of a human-built mechanism” that had gone beyond the “control of its designer” and was sustaining the narrative desired by the establishment.

“Both parties had access to these tools,” the journalist made clear, implicating the Republicans as well as the Democrats. “For instance in 2020, requests from both the Trump White House and the Biden campaign were received and honored. However: This system wasn’t balanced. It was based on contacts.”

“Because Twitter was and is overwhelmingly staffed by people of one political orientation,” Taibbi elaborated with a chart showing the political donations of employees that favored the left by more than 95 percent, “there were more channels, more ways to complain, open to the left (well, Democrats) than the right.”

Explaining that the mechanisms for these suppression tools came out of an effort to combat “the likes of spam and financial fraudsters,” Taibbi noted, “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,” he said with a screenshot provided, “would come back: ‘Handled.”

As it stood, Part One of the Twitter Files would go on to recount the “How and Why” of the blocking of the Hunter Biden laptop story by the social media company, naming certain former Twitter employees like the ousted head of legal, policy and trust, Vijaya Gadde and then-safety chief Yoel Roth.

What Taibbi did not reveal in the lengthy post were the names of the Republicans who had allegedly gone along with the Democrats in tasking social media to regulate the spread of information in their favor.

The importance of those details could not be more pertinent as “Fox & Friends Weekends” co-host Will Cain pointed out.

“One of the biggest news events of the last decade is unfolding on @mtaibbi thread. It’s no overstatement to say the future of real democracy, free thought, and mind control is wrapped up in the reveal by @elonmusk of Twitter and Hunter Biden,” he tweeted.

Kevin Haggerty

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