Nov302022

Episode 640 – The Ball Has Dropped!

The chaos over Twitter continues but Elon Musk is creating some chaos of his own.

And leave it to President Trump to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

 

Twitter Chaos Continues

Twitter and Elon Musk continue to piss off the right people. This is a perfect time for a fledgling reporter from Fox News to cruise around Congress and make a bunch of people uncomfortable. I don’t know who she is but both her “interviews” were telling and went viral.

Here she is, asking Elizabeth Warren about Elon Musk and Twitter. If you don’t remember, Elon and Chief Liz have had several fights on Twitter. Apparently, Elon is the only billionaire that owns a social media platform. Here’s the confrontation:

That’s not how it is working. Musk wants everyone to be able to say anything they want (to a point). He believes that banning and suspending people should be a last resort. But he is doing it. He suspended Kanye West for posting anti-Semitic material. I don’t think he should have, but he did. He has also permenantly banned Alex Jones.

I don’t know why she is bitching about. Musk making the determination of what can be said is a good thing because it is really transparent. We know it is Musk making the decisions. As far as the “billionaire” thing, what about Facebook, Instagram, the New York Times, the Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and all the other platforms and publications? They are all run by billionaires. She doesn’t have too much of a problem with them (except the Wall Street Journal which is run by Rupert Murdoch). Maybe it’s because, to those companies, she’s a hero.

I am also shocked that there is so much being made about Twitter, everyone is forgetting about Apple, who more and more appears to be a Chinese company controlled by the CCP. During the riots in China, Apple decided to discontinue their Air Drop service in China. This service was used by Chinese citizens to transfer information outside of China without being blocked or monitored. Here is the same Fox News reporter asking Apple CEO, Tim Cook, who uses slave labor in China to make your iPhones including Uyghur concentration camp prisoners, about cancelling air drop and the protesters in China. Listen:

Crickets.

Yeah, we should worry about Twitter allowing free speech. Maybe we should worry about companies like Apple and TikTok (an actual Chinese company) that help the tyranny of China and not worry about Elon Musk and Twitter.

 

More Twitter Drama

Elon Musk continues to light the world up. On Friday, he released a rather long Twitter thread on journalist, Matt Taibbi’s Twitter account. Musk sent his findings to Taibbi who published it to Twitter. I will summarize the tweet storm and then tell you what I think.

Here is the introductions:

What you’re about to read is the first installment in a series, based upon thousands of internal documents obtained by sources at Twitter. What you’re about to read is the first installment in a series, based upon thousands of internal documents obtained by sources at Twitter. What you’re about to read is the first installment in a series, based upon thousands of internal documents obtained by sources at Twitter. In an early conception, Twitter more than lived up to its mission statement, giving people “the power to create and share ideas and information instantly, without barriers.” 

As time progressed, however, the company was slowly forced to add those barriers. Some of the first tools for controlling speech were designed to combat the likes of spam and financial fraudsters. 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. 

The next 30 posts involved evidence which included E-mails and forensic information. What we learned:

  • The Biden campaign team was directly involved with what on Twitter should be censored. Some of the accounts banned include pro-Republican and anti-China accounts. Forensic information was provided.
  • Forensic information was also provided concerning James Woods account being suspended at a direct request by the DNC.
  • Here’s what disturbing, both the Trump administration and the Biden campaign were in contact with Twitter.
  • But the censorship was not balanced. 99% of Twitter employees donated to the Democrats. A chart was provided showing this.
  • Now, to the Hunter Biden story:
  • Twitter took extraordinary steps to suppress the story, removing links and posting warnings that it may be “unsafe.” They even blocked its transmission via direct message, a tool hitherto reserved for extreme cases, e.g. child pornography.
  • White House spokeswoman Kaleigh McEnany was locked out of her account for tweeting about the story, prompting a furious letter from Trump campaign staffer Mike Hahn, who seethed: “At least pretend to care for the next 20 days.”
  • This led public policy executive Caroline Strom to send out a polite WTF query. Several employees noted that there was tension between the comms/policy teams, who had little/less control over moderation, and the safety/trust teams.
  • Strom’s note returned the answer that the laptop story had been removed for violation of the company’s “hacked materials” policy.
  • Although several sources recalled hearing about a “general” warning from federal law enforcement that summer about possible foreign hacks, there’s no evidence – that I’ve seen – of any government involvement in the laptop story. In fact, that might have been the problem…
  • The decision was made at the highest levels of the company, but without the knowledge of CEO Jack Dorsey, with former head of legal, policy and trust Vijaya Gadde playing a key role.
  • “They just freelanced it,” is how one former employee characterized the decision. “Hacking was the excuse, but within a few hours, pretty much everyone realized that wasn’t going to hold. But no one had the guts to reverse it.”
  • You can see the confusion in the following lengthy exchange, which ends up including Gadde and former Trust and safety chief Yoel Roth. Comms official Trenton Kennedy writes, “I’m struggling to understand the policy basis for marking this as unsafe”.
  • Several E-mails were revealed that said the censoring of the story was “f-ed”. But they went with it anyway.
  • There was an e-mail exchange involving Ro Khanna concerned this might be a First Amendment issue. It is not clear if Khanna was worried about violating free speech or being caught violating free speech (though I think it is the former).
  • A consulting company called NetChoice sent an E-mail stating that the House Judiciary Committee was polled (3 Democrats and 9 Republicans) and they wondered why the story was blocked. NetChoice warned that a “blood bath” was coming from investigations.
  • Carl Szabo, a guy from NetChoice, sent a letter that showed the attitudes of law makers:

That is an amazing letter. The Democrats want more moderation of Democratic scandals so the coverup of this scandal doesn’t look like that big a deal. And the 1st Amendment is not absolute? Since when?

I listened to a space on Twitter while the thread was being released. One of the guys talking was political commentator Sebastion Gorka, a Conservative political commentator. He said the release of these files was not that big a deal because there was no real evidence. I disagree. I think this is the perfect amount of evidence. Here’s why:

  • We have names, dates, E-mails.
  • There are a lot more that they would not release. E-mails never go away, I’m sure he has a bunch more.
  • That forensic data clip, there’s a lot more. That is going to be used to figure out how slanted the company was.
  • The fact that Ro Khanna used his G-Mail account is telling. This is an unsecure account that cannot be tracked by the government.
  • We also see the philosophy the old regime had when it comes to free speech.

So disagree with Gorka. Yes, there isn’t a ton of evidence, but it shows Musk potentially has a ton of evidence.

What happens now, we’ll have to see. Republicans barely control the House so they will investigate. The have nothing to do with the Senate and Presidency, so nothing will be questioned there. The media is dead silent about this except for Fox News and other Conservative media outlets. I’m thinking everyone is hoping this just goes away.

It won’t. Elon Musk is planning another data dump this week. She will be using Taibbi and Bari Weiss this time. Can’t wait to see what this one reveals. But if it reveals nothing, Elon Musk has proven to be the champion troll and marketer. Twitter was going insane on Friday.