Twitter files #5: retrofitting the “rules” in order to ban Trump
[NOTE: Part V of the Twitter files can be found here.]
The powerful wokesters at Twitter wanted to ban Trump, the guy they all knew – just knew – is a Nazi. And so when he didn’t violate their rules, they made up a new one to enable them to ban him. Let’s call it retrofitting the rules in order to get Trump.
Oh, and they broke another rule, the one about making allowances for heads of state – the one that lets people like Khameini keep on tweeting that Israel is a cancerous tumor that must be destroyed (Bari Weiss lists many such examples from around the world of heads of state explicitly calling for massive violence and being allowed to tweet on). Then again, maybe it was the Twitter gatekeepers who were the election deniers, and didn’t think that Trump was president in the first place.
There were some rather lonely voices protesting the banning, including this one: “‘Maybe because I am from China,’ said one employee on January 7, ‘I deeply understand how censorship can destroy the public conversation.'”
Maybe because I am from China. Let that sink in.
The MSM apparently isn’t covering any of this – except with a pillow, till it stops moving. They want the Twitter files to be trees that fall in the forest with only the right witnessing the crash. That’s why I think that Musk’s insistence that these revelations be published on Twitter itself, rather than on something like Substack or in the NY Post, was a good move that guarantees the widest possible audience given the MSM’s refusal to deal with it.
You can find more about how how it was done here, but the gist of it is this:
Twitter executives, including former head of legal, policy and trust Vijaya Gadde, reinterpreted then-President Donald Trump’s final Jan. 8, 2021, tweets to overrule the initial finding of the site’s safety team that they were not in violation of the rules, according to internal messages published by journalist Bari Weiss Monday.
Trump first tweeted that the “75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me … will have a Giant Voice long into the future. They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!” before tweeting a follow-up roughly an hour later saying he would not attend Joe Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20, 2021. Members of Twitter’s safety team initially rejected increasingly agitated calls from Twitter staff to ban Trump, saying that neither message was in clear violation of the rules, as they contained no overt or coded incitement to violence.
Less than 90 minutes after this initial assessment by the Twitter safety team, Gadde messaged another higher-ranking staffer that the safety team, suggesting that the team may have been incorrect to interpret the term “American Patriots” as being in reference Trump voters as opposed to the rioters present on Jan. 6…
Gadde said it was hidden code for incitement to violence. Talk about Orwellian interpretations! Or perhaps against a rule about “glorification of violence” – but to even imagine any of that, they had to interpret “American patriots” as the January 6th demonstrators rather than Trump’s voters, although Trump said the latter.
The left is used to running all the major media (except Fox) and social media outlets. It considers it their right to do so, because they are virtuous. The idea that someone else could now be in charge, allowing more voices to be heard, is anathema to them. Outrageous – how dare Musk?
There should never be any censorship of any politician using an official account. If they say something outrageous, we especially need to know.
I’m a free speech near absolutist. However, even if one buys the Twitter argument for moderation, it makes no sense to shield the public from the public statements of elected officials.
[I was once put in facebook jail for posting, without comment, a photo of a tweet by Congressman Jim Jordan which included all the official indicia of his office. The congressman had pointed out something that the lefties didn’t like. Big Brother is evil. Censorship is a critical weapon used by Big Brother.]
It is still not clear how much Dorsey knew of the corruption at his company (he is guilty, likelier than not), but far worse were those in charge of running Twitter, from the Grindr-obsessed so-called “PhD” Yoel Roth to the odious V Gadde (similar to “Scary Poppins” in her contempt for free speech) and P Agrawal. All three were paid many millions for their regime of censorship and will perhaps be further rewarded for their misbehavior with “golden parachutes”, although Musk may perhaps be able to challenge that.
Neo: “…Gadde said it was hidden code for incitement to violence. Talk about Orwellian interpretations! ” Talk about meta: Gadde’s words are code to the Twitter Trust Team, code that means “I am giving you cover and, under the cover, a direct instruction to SHUT THIS GUY DOWN NOW.” Her code was about Trump’s “code” which was embedded like steganography or digital watermarks in the innocent surface shapes and sounds of ostensible meaning. Trump’s “code” could be decoded by a brave genius such as Gadde, using the sophisticated tools of the deconstructionists and victimologists, who can find power discourse everywhere and hate speech in the most benign expression.
This hopelessly subjective screen on reality is of a piece with all the other mental pathologies that can be collected under the rubric of Critical Studies.
“Then again, maybe it was the Twitter gatekeepers who were the election deniers, and didn’t think that Trump was president in the first place.”
This of course is very likely. Yet even now few progressives seem willing or able to recognize the widespread denial of the legitimacy of the 2016 election. It’s pretty much a textbook example of doublethink. “Trump, illegitimately put in office through a hacked election, must be punished for denying the legitimacy of an election.”
It’s good that Musk is trying to get around the MSM, but he’s not being very successful unfortunately. If the story could possibly break through that edifice, that would be a significant step.
Here’s a quote from the one “analysis” I found on CNN where the guy explains what a nothing-burger this is and why news organizations are correct to ignore it. Truly amazing:
“The chief reason most news organizations aren’t up in arms about the story is because the releases have largely not contained any revelatory information. So far, the files have failed to do much outside highlight exactly how messy content moderation can be — especially when under immense pressure and dealing with the former President of the United States. That was the case on Monday when the fifth installment of the Twitter Files were released revealing some of the behind-the-scenes debate that preceded Donald Trump’s ban.”
It was particularly telling that right after they finally decided to ban Trump someone immediately chimed in that it was time to ban ‘medical misinformation’.
It was touched on a little with Jay Battacharya but I would really like to see the Twitter Files over Covid related issues.
physicsguy,
Yes, they seamlessly shifted from ‘this doesn’t happen’ to ‘old news, everybody knows this happens’ very quickly.
It may not be breaking through the mainstream media for obvious reasons but it still very important that it is coming out.
Twitter is small potatoes compared to Facebook/Instagram and Google/YouTube.
Those outfits probably have dozens of their own Yoel Roth’s embedded in them.
That messy is doing a lot of heavy lifting, and camouflage.
Griffin:
The report is that the Twitter COVID files are coming next.
Call me old fashioned but the only content moderation that should be practiced is to eliminate that which is clearly illegal, child porn and incitement for example. If you have to manipulate and interpret the words to make them violate the rules or law then you are engaged in propaganda and/or censorship.
“Hidden code”, aka the right-wing extremist dog whistle, is only ever clearly heard and understood by those on the Left.
I have a feeling that this whole Musk/Twitter story is developing into a major “illustrative moment.” The mainstream media is aggressively ignoring & papering over & spinning the story. I suspect they are winning and Musk’s reputation is headed towards Trump territory. Tesla stock way down and investors are complaining.
I hope I’m wrong. Maybe Musk can figure out some twists on his strategy.
I suspect they are winning and Musk’s reputation is headed towards Trump territory.
TommyJay:
I understand your pessimism. I remain bullish that Musk is peeling off Dem supporters and will continue to do so.
The mainstream media, as well as the Chinese Communist Party in China, will do what they can to suppress dissent. Their powers are formidable. Nonetheless, some “disinformation” continues to leak through because the party line is so crazy and the stakes are so high for ordinary citizens.
How much of a difference it makes and how quickly are the questions at hand.
IMO the Democrat Party and the CCP in their present radical forms are doomed. But that’s just me.
Re: Musk / Trump
An important difference — aside from these two being very different people — is that Musk is new on the menu. Americans are still figuring him out and Musk does a great job of surprising people and amusing many. Rather like Trump in 2016.
Well. I’ve never liked Trump all that much, though I’ve come to an appreciation. He exceeded expectations in job review parlance. However, the big problem I see with Trump in 2022 is that he is stale.
Plus he is six years older now.
Can government-social media collusion to censor tweets be a crime?
“Government remains bound by the First Amendment even when it works through private cutouts. There would be no purpose to a Bill of Rights if government could evade it by using private entities to do its dirty work. As the Supreme Court put it in Frost & Frost Trucking Co. v. Railroad Commission (1926), “It is inconceivable that guaranties embedded in the Constitution of the United States may thus be manipulated out of existence.” From a Wall Street Journal article that’s behind a paywall. 🙁
The government agencies have taken pains to couch their directions in a non-specific way to create plausible deniability. But their intent to steer election news was quite clear.
Tonight Tucker Carlson streamed a list of former CIA, FBI, and NSA officials who were working at Twitter when Musk took over. They even had d some former foreign spies working there. Was Twitter becoming an intelligence organization for the Dems?
The MSM can deny there’s anything new, but it appears to me that we are seeing a heck of a lot more than anyone dreamed existed.
The whole “code” for incitement to violence idea isn’t new, although the wording might be. Remember when they used to call it “dog whistles?” (Ignoring the fact that, if you can hear the dog whistlye, you’re the dog
My whole take on any “insurrection” by “right wing extremists” is this (borrowing heavily from Larry Correia): right-leaning folks in America have hundreds of millions of guns and billions, if not trillions, of rounds of ammunition. If we wanted to stage an insurrection, you’d know it.
Oh heck, why not just quote Larry: “for most people on the left political violence is a knob, and they can turn the heat up and down, with things like protests, and riots, all the way up to destruction of property, and sometimes murder… But for the vast majority of folks on the right, it’s an off and on switch. And the settings are Vote or Shoot Fucking Everybody. And believe me, you really don’t want that switch to get flipped, because Civil War 2.0 would make Bosnia look like a trip to Disneyworld.”
https://monsterhunternation.com/2018/11/19/the-2nd-amendment-is-obsolete-says-congressman-who-wants-to-nuke-omaha/
A perspective on how Twitter got to its position of power.
The parts omitted are important, but I just wanted to give the gist of the argument.
And hindsight is always 20/20 – it’s seeing things coming before they get here that is the trick.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1602300086905704449.html
Doc Zero 2022-12-12
“…It considers it their right to do so, because they are virtuous….”
Indeed; but the other—ESSENTIAL—half of the equation is MISSING:
“…because they are virtuous AND BECAUSE their PERCEIVED opponents are, for all intents and purposes, “semi-fascists”, “deplorables”, “insurrectionists”, “white supremacists”…”NAZIS”…alas…who MUST BE PUT DOWN (or placed behind bars with NO LEGAL RESORT).
It is PRECISELY THIS that JUSTIFIES, in their eyes, EVERYTHING: all the lies, all the crimes, all the intimidation, all the violence, all the perversion—IN SHORT, hijacking the country** and imposing their “VIRTUE” upon it….
** …along with—under the arch, hubristic, arrogant, “BENEFICIAL” aegis of the WTF—the world.
Social media is countermanded by the US IC, the Fourth Branch of Federal government.
Tucker Carlson gets very close to paralleling Sundance at The Last Refuge (aks, The Conservative Tree House blog) and his nested formulation, because the new R head of the House Intel Committee caused Tucker of being a Russian agent because THATS WAHAT HIS INTEL BRIEFING TOLD THE COMMUNIST NGRESSMAN, as Tucker with outrage explains:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKEWD4-nwyA&t=2405s
Earlier in Tuesday, Sundance tied the threads together in this substantial post, explaining how Twitter, Facebook, and other social media messaging gets controlled by the IC. https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/12/13/incoming-republican-house-foreign-affairs-chairman-calls-tucker-carlson-an-agent-of-russia-based-on-dc-intel-briefing/
Tucker further explains how he came around to empathise with Trump, and because his Leftist DC neighbours acted outraged at Trump when Trump asked reasonable questions about like NAT — yet p they could not entertain serious FP questions.
This turned Tucker to see beyond their fragile bubble.
The system cannot be enduring, he says, because it’s based in lying — and by “system” Tucker means our political, our economic, and our FP system.
Yelling and rage is a sign of primitive deception, says Tucker.
This cannot stand. Tulsi Gabbard concurs with Tucker.
His insights fits well within Angelo Codevilla’s insistence that we are under a classic oligarchy whose rule will be mercifully short (Feb21).
As Tucker states, they are getting hysterical because they (the IC/Ruling Class) know that their legitimacy is paper thin and crumbling.
Heh, I’ll quote myself(!?)…
“It is PRECISELY THIS that JUSTIFIES, in their eyes, EVERYTHING: all the lies, all the crimes, all the intimidation, all the violence, all the perversion—IN SHORT, hijacking the country** and imposing their “VIRTUE” upon it….”
…and add…”and (heh) ALSO JUSTIFIES STEALING ELECTIONS” (not that adding this is at all necessary…of course(!)..)…
“Huge Development in Kari Lake’s Election Lawsuit”—
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2022/12/13/huge-development-in-kari-lakes-election-lawsuit-n1653242
Key grafs (RTWT—it’s not long…)
‘…Lake’s lawsuit is driven by whistleblowers who have come forward with complaints about how the 2022 elections were conducted.
‘ “We’ve had three whistleblowers from Maricopa County reach out and say the system is seriously flawed,” Lake told Just the News on Monday. “They were throwing out tens of thousands of signatures saying they were scribbles that in no way matched. But somewhere between there, the ballots were being completely tossed out and they got looped back into the system and counted as if they were fine.”
‘ Lake also noted that 25,000 “additional ballots and early voting ballots were discovered two days after Election Day.”
‘ They “just showed up,” she observed. “It shows the whole system has serious problems.”
‘ “We believe that up to 135,000 ballots were pushed through that should not have been pushed through,” Lake continued. “We’re asking a judge to let us take a look at all of the envelopes and compare signatures, so that we can find out for sure how many bad, fraudulent ballots got through in that way, of basically cheating or breaking the rules.”…’
File under: But, but, but…this is EXACTLY what we did in 2020 (and in other states in 2024)…SO WTF’s THE PROBLEM, YOU FASCISTS?????
Oops.
Should be “…(and in other states in 2022)…”
Watching the Bloomberg financial channel. Headline uses the term “election deniers” as a factual statement. Just Dem cheerleaders. All the time.
Walked through the kitchen where my wife has the Today show on. “CDC is strongly urging people to wear masks as a good medical quality mask is the best protection against the flu.”
Science and truth are dying. And our government and news media are relentlessly beating them to death.
Misinformation is killing people. The perps are government, news media and Big Tech. Free speech saves lives.
TJ on December 14, 2022 at 3:48 am said:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKEWD4-nwyA&t=2405s
Barry Meislin on December 14, 2022 at 4:01 am said:
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2022/12/13/huge-development-in-kari-lakes-election-lawsuit-n1653242
Thanks for those links. Amazing, especially TJ’s Tulsi & Tucker interview.
Tonight Tucker Carlson streamed a list of former CIA, FBI, and NSA officials who were working at Twitter when Musk took over. They even had d some former foreign spies working there. Was Twitter becoming an intelligence organization for the Dems?
That CTH post with the link to Tulsi and Tucker’s conversation has already been posted by someone else. It is definitely worth watching. Another conversation video worth watching is here. Kotkin is discussing his book, “The Coming of Neo Feudalism.”
TJ: seconding TommyJay’s thanks for that clip of Tulsi Gabbard and Tucker Carlson. Everybody should watch it. Here’s Tucker saying, in the plainest possible way, that members of Congress are owned by the intelligence community:
https://youtu.be/SKEWD4-nwyA?t=2580
Quotes:
Carlson: “I’m just telling you there are members of Congress who are controlled by the intel agencies, and that’s a fact, and I just think that that’s completely incompatible with a free society or with democracy and I don’t know why nobody ever says it.”
Gabbard: “I think you just said why they never say it, right?”
Gabbard refers to Chuck Schumer’s January 2017 comment on the Rachel Maddow show about how Trump was “dumb” to take on the intelligence community “because they have six ways from Sunday of getting back atcha”. Clip of Schumer saying it:
https://youtu.be/by4MzrVODeQ?t=82
She says, correctly, that Schumer spoke the quiet part out loud. She and Carlson also note that Schumer’s statement got no meaningful response from the powers that be and conclude that’s because the D.C. establishment (a) knows it’s true and (b) doesn’t care. They’re OK with it.
They go on to talk about the gormless GOP establishment figures of good character whom Bauxite thinks we should be happy to vote for (e.g. Mitt Romney, who accused Gabbard of “treason”–a charge she called him on and which he, typically, didn’t have the guts to defend or back up), Ukraine, and the media.
Again, I recommend the video to everyone on this forum. Health warning for self-designated conservatives who care a lot about superficial markers of worthiness and good character: Gabbard and Carlson use salty language, including the f-word. I found their language entirely appropriate and extremely refreshing. Carlson also has some good things to say about Trump, which might be upsetting for establishment conservatives of the worthiness school. Based on this clip, I’d seriously consider voting for Gabbard in 2024 or beyond (if she runs). I don’t care if she comes from a weird cult-y family and uses the f-word in public. She gets the big issues. That’s probably why she dropped out of politics.
Yep, in spite of past perceived flakiness (perhaps not only “perceived”), Gabbard is THE ONLY Democrat to stand up and say, “THIS IS WRONG” WRT her (former) party’s criminal shenanigans.
She also took on Hillary Clinton very handily and is well known for telling the person currently playing “VP” a few inconvenient facts during the primary debates way back when…(seems like such a long time ago…).
Heroic. (To be sure, she IS a vet….)
Hubert:
I don’t know what you’re talking about when you write that Bauxite (or anyone else here) thinks we should vote for Romney. First of all, no one here is advocating voting for Romney, nor has anyone advocated voting for him during the Trump years. Second of all, unless he tries to run for national office, one would have to be a Utah resident to vote for him next time, if in fact he runs for re-election to the Senate, which he may not.
But if you’re talking about voting for him in 2012 when he ran against Obama – I advocated it then and if I had it to do all over again I would advocate it again. A Romney presidency from 2012 to 2016 certainly would have been better than an Obama one.
The power and scope of the administrative state is the root problem. The core power in the administrative state is the intel and police agencies. The expanse and power of these agencies is unconstitutional, and they are unwilling to give it up.
Media and big tech go along. It’s the easy way, and also since they are all university educated they share ideology and beliefs. Outliers, like Sharell Atkinson who report stories that they don’t want get sidelined and have careers cut short.
Thank you Hubert, Mike K, TommyJay. AGREED. This is very consequential stuff
Somewhere online this morning, someone attacked Tucker because of his wealth. I had no idea. So I looked into it.
It seems half of his fortune is inherited and has been well invested in real estate, recently amounting to half his net at $250 million.
The other half is earned from FNC, where his annual income is $41 million, plus ratings bonuses amounting to several million more.
For comparison I checked out Rush Limbaugh’s net at death, in early 2021.
$600 million, with $85 million annual income from his talk radio gig, etc.
Thus, taking away Tucker’s inheritance, is he really in Rush’s league? I think not — not yet. Perhaps in the decade ahead. But not at $45 million a year.
I don’t recall WHY Tucker was attacked, other than wealth. Some nefarious associations I suppose? If I see some credibly raised, then I might look into it. Otherwise, I’m done here on this topic.
I’d only add that, like Neo, his capacity to rethink himself — to challenge his set opinions — does earn him positive credibility.
Neo: Romney is an example (“e.g.”) of a typical establishment GOP politician. He embodies the qualities that Bauxite respects–an (apparently) orderly personal life, the appearance of gravitas, Scheinheiligkeit (“show-holiness”–it’s better in the original German), a demonstrated willingness to “reach across the aisle” to “get things done”, appeal to middle-of-the-road voters–and that Trump mostly lacks. That’s what I’m talking about.
I too voted for Romney in 2012. I too agree that he was a much better choice than Obama and that he would have been a better–or less harmful–president. That’s why I voted for him. But that was ten years ago. A lot has happened since then. A lot has been revealed as well about the workings of D.C. and the GOP.
I think I’ve been pretty clear in my comments on this forum. So has Bauxite. He respects the GOP establishment. I don’t. He despises Trump and MAGA voters. I don’t. I don’t think the kinds of politicians he favors are capable of addressing the situation we find ourselves in, primarily because they helped get us here. I’m not entirely sure who is. Maybe DeSantis is. Maybe we’ll have a chance to find out. In that connection, I thought Daniel Gelernter made a good point in his piece from a few days ago in American Greatness. He argued (as a Florida resident, among other things) that the center of political gravity will soon be shifting to the states and that DeSantis would be of more use as a model and a rallying point for other GOP governors.
Hubert:
Well, I suppose I should let Bauxite speak for him or herself, but I don’t recall a lot of admiration for the Romneys of the world.
As for DeSantis, he’s already served as that model. Unless there’s another good candidate in 2024, I would like to see him run for president. Of course, it’s early, and things could change. But I think Gelernter is wrong, wrong, wrong.