Teams of employees were tasked with suppressing the visibility of accounts or subjects deemed undesirable or dangerous—all in secret, without informing users.
The censoring of Dr. Bhattacharya is especially damning.
Dr. Bhattacharya was an early critic of pandemic policies and spoke out against their negative impact on children, which has included severe learning loss, with low-income students losing an average of three semesters of reading and math skills. We have crippled kids, and it was all to pacify paranoid hypochondriacs.
The ideologues and Grievance Studies major moonlighting as Twitter employees led the charge in shutting down debate, inquiry, and skepticism — a triumvirate integral to real science — and instead enforced a culture of counterproductive moralism, in this case unilaterally deciding to override a dissenting expert in an area of core competence during the middle of a pandemic.
This was not some random guy spreading “misinformation,” this was a full professor from the Stanford School of Medicine with an MD and PhD and specific domain expertise in public health policy. Dr. Bhattacharya was also a chief architect of the Great Barrington Declaration, which predicted the disastrous consequences of scientifically bereft, socially disastrous lockdown policies and advocated for the focused protection of vulnerable populations as opposed to shutting down society and forcing everyone to isolate in their homes like agoraphobic recluses in cut rate motels.
Had debate about the blatantly unscientific policies enforced during the pandemic not been shut down and people like Dr. Bhattacharya been listened to, society would be infinitely better off today in virtually every way imaginable. Instead he was censored, his name was tarnished and vilified, his career was disrupted, and his reputation called into question. If Twitter was willing to shadow ban a sitting professor of medicine for having a cogent view that ran counter to the establishment narrative, think of how many other people were also subjected to the same censorship.
Since they are a private platform, I am not as outraged by the various methods of censorship as some - it isn’t like Bhattacharya‘s paper was hard to find generally outside Twitter after all.
However, out of all of this, what I am VERY interested in is the government meddling with a private platform’s censorship decisions, because that could be considered a violation of free speech and a weaponization of SM for political gain by current government powers. So, I’d really like to know if the decisions around Bhattacharya‘s VF were spurred on by the folks at the NIH or FDA. That type of private company-federal government collusion (dems, you do know the meaning of fascism, right?) is where the real story is, not some random dude who happens to be at the helm, like Yoyoel, imposing VF according to his political beliefs.
Civilization is like a giant rock tumbler that forces everyone to constantly rub against each other in chaotic, unpredictable, and frequently caustic ways. It’s messy and uncomfortable, but it ultimately helps to knock off our rough edges while retaining our essential and unique character. The bad direction Twitter was moving civilization in was it’s attempt to impose, in the digital realm, a discrete set of rules designed to bring greater order and complicity to our normally chaotic discourse. That created three unintended problems. 1) By simplifying the rules of discourse to favor or suppress certain points of view, the rock-tumbler effect that would normally apply fairly equally and indiscriminately to everyone becomes disproportionate, knocking few rough edges off some people while breaking others to pieces. 2) As people become increasingly aware that this effect is real and intended by the elites in charge of making the rules, trust wanes and discourse becomes more bitter and antagonistic. 3) The general breakdown in civility online inevitably spills over into the real world. What happens on Twitter doesn’t stay on Twitter. Perhaps the greatest self-deception in the Internet age is that our online behavior somehow has no real bearing on how we conduct ourselves in the real world. As society becomes uncivil in the digital realm, so it will become in real life.
The most damning part of these stories is the media actors not discussed. NYT, WaPo etc. If these new organizations didn't have the same bias as Twitter, Twitter's actions wouldn't have been as powerful and this would have been called out a long time ago because the trends in Twitter would have conflicted with the historically trusted media sources. It is also damning that Musk only brought in "independent" journalist to cover his story. Thank you Bari for having the guts to start your own thing!
To me, the big lesson here is that no one should be getting their information mainly from one source.
Though Twitter and other social media platforms claim to be forums that include many sources, obviously this is not really the case. Facebook, too, clearly has a thumb on the scale. We need to understand that social media companies are media companies, just like Fox news, or the Washington Post. Bias will be present, no matter who owns them. Social media try to obscure this by claiming to be open platforms for all people, but clearly some people are “more equal than others.” Or, more to the point, some ideas are considered more worthy than others. Rather than letting the public decide which ideas have merit, media companies curate them, ostensibly for the public’s own good.
We need to read from a variety of sources and viewpoints. We won’t find that variety either in legacy media, or social media. The Free Press has been great so far, but it will never be my sole, or main, source of information - no single source can be that. I will say, however, that the Free Press is one important part of the mix.
It is really disheartening that executives of a public company can freely lie to us and to Congress. I would think that kind of fraud would be abhorrent to everyone.
Doxing anyone should be a crime. If the so-called moderators at Twitter thought they should "protect' people from hate speech and/or misinformation, publishing a person's address certainly qualifies as something to protect people from.
I really like what Musk has done with the Twitter Files. But the idea of him laughing (a lot) at the notion of power is very eyebrow raising - to say the least.
The next step is for Congress to enact a digital Bill of Rights for users across all platforms (Twitter, Facebook, PayPal, GoFundMe) so that we don’t have to worry about this as much in the future.
Everything that happened with these doctors regarding Covid is literally identical to what has been done to realist climate scientists.
There is no difference whatsoever.
And it’s very arguably a much bigger story as it’s gathering steam to waste tens of $trillions and possibly collapse the things that support modern civilization.
Elon should move Twitter HQ to a place fifty miles from any Starbucks. This would eliminate the need for a Human Resource department.
Much is being made of the question, is Twitter really important? If you read Bari’s resignation letter from the NYT you know it is. Legacy media used it for narrative coordination. The Borg are collectively calling the release of Twitters operating protocols a nothing burger. Don’t let them shadow ban this moment. Support all involved in the independent media. Go on with your bad-self Bari and your too numerous to mention cohorts.
Medical advice from half-aunt Nancy might not be the best, but you shouldn’t block her from offering it. If you have medical advice from a recognized group of experts maybe your should listen. Even if you don’t agree, that’s how science works. Present the counter argument and see who is most plausible.
The censorship that occurred on Twitter was wrong in every way, in my opinion. I’d never heard of Battacharya’s paper. If I never heard about it I wouldn’t have a reason to look it up. I think of the young people that committed suicide during the shutdowns. What about the children that were stuck home with abusive parents. So much damage done in so many ways! Censorship by political parties was just as wrong, maybe worse. I was upset when the Laptop information was shut down so close to the election & I was glad for the ‘Twitter Files’ that addressed it. Election interference should be illegal, if it already isn’t. I too want to know if DHS, FBI, FDA, or any other governmental institutions were responsible for censorship or anything else on Twitter. If they were I hope it’s found outs& addressed! This is just my thought: I’d like to see Elon Musk move Twitter to somewhere in the country where you could balance hiring people from both political parties. That won’t happen in CA.
Great story. Here's my key take away from Elon Musk:
"I’m open to ideas,” Musk said. “I’ve got a lot of work on my plate. I was just worried that Twitter was sending civilization in a bad direction.”
I suggest that Musk should KEEP IT SIMPLE: "My Twitter, my rules, no apologies or pretense."
Even The Free Press is hinting that the solution is the popular government solution from both sides of the aisle: THERE OUGHT TO BE A LAW.
If Musk can't own Twitter for real, he can save himself time, energy and anguish. The Republican House, Democrat Senate and President will be delighted to take Twitter off Musk's hands. The US will send in the bureaucrats and some high level former Twitter employees -- they know the systems.
Civilization will continue down that dark road in a bad direction. And God help the rest of us. We'll need it.
The censoring of Dr. Bhattacharya is especially damning.
Dr. Bhattacharya was an early critic of pandemic policies and spoke out against their negative impact on children, which has included severe learning loss, with low-income students losing an average of three semesters of reading and math skills. We have crippled kids, and it was all to pacify paranoid hypochondriacs.
The ideologues and Grievance Studies major moonlighting as Twitter employees led the charge in shutting down debate, inquiry, and skepticism — a triumvirate integral to real science — and instead enforced a culture of counterproductive moralism, in this case unilaterally deciding to override a dissenting expert in an area of core competence during the middle of a pandemic.
This was not some random guy spreading “misinformation,” this was a full professor from the Stanford School of Medicine with an MD and PhD and specific domain expertise in public health policy. Dr. Bhattacharya was also a chief architect of the Great Barrington Declaration, which predicted the disastrous consequences of scientifically bereft, socially disastrous lockdown policies and advocated for the focused protection of vulnerable populations as opposed to shutting down society and forcing everyone to isolate in their homes like agoraphobic recluses in cut rate motels.
Had debate about the blatantly unscientific policies enforced during the pandemic not been shut down and people like Dr. Bhattacharya been listened to, society would be infinitely better off today in virtually every way imaginable. Instead he was censored, his name was tarnished and vilified, his career was disrupted, and his reputation called into question. If Twitter was willing to shadow ban a sitting professor of medicine for having a cogent view that ran counter to the establishment narrative, think of how many other people were also subjected to the same censorship.
https://euphoricrecall.substack.com/p/the-twitter-files-part-ii-censoring
Since they are a private platform, I am not as outraged by the various methods of censorship as some - it isn’t like Bhattacharya‘s paper was hard to find generally outside Twitter after all.
However, out of all of this, what I am VERY interested in is the government meddling with a private platform’s censorship decisions, because that could be considered a violation of free speech and a weaponization of SM for political gain by current government powers. So, I’d really like to know if the decisions around Bhattacharya‘s VF were spurred on by the folks at the NIH or FDA. That type of private company-federal government collusion (dems, you do know the meaning of fascism, right?) is where the real story is, not some random dude who happens to be at the helm, like Yoyoel, imposing VF according to his political beliefs.
Civilization is like a giant rock tumbler that forces everyone to constantly rub against each other in chaotic, unpredictable, and frequently caustic ways. It’s messy and uncomfortable, but it ultimately helps to knock off our rough edges while retaining our essential and unique character. The bad direction Twitter was moving civilization in was it’s attempt to impose, in the digital realm, a discrete set of rules designed to bring greater order and complicity to our normally chaotic discourse. That created three unintended problems. 1) By simplifying the rules of discourse to favor or suppress certain points of view, the rock-tumbler effect that would normally apply fairly equally and indiscriminately to everyone becomes disproportionate, knocking few rough edges off some people while breaking others to pieces. 2) As people become increasingly aware that this effect is real and intended by the elites in charge of making the rules, trust wanes and discourse becomes more bitter and antagonistic. 3) The general breakdown in civility online inevitably spills over into the real world. What happens on Twitter doesn’t stay on Twitter. Perhaps the greatest self-deception in the Internet age is that our online behavior somehow has no real bearing on how we conduct ourselves in the real world. As society becomes uncivil in the digital realm, so it will become in real life.
The most damning part of these stories is the media actors not discussed. NYT, WaPo etc. If these new organizations didn't have the same bias as Twitter, Twitter's actions wouldn't have been as powerful and this would have been called out a long time ago because the trends in Twitter would have conflicted with the historically trusted media sources. It is also damning that Musk only brought in "independent" journalist to cover his story. Thank you Bari for having the guts to start your own thing!
To me, the big lesson here is that no one should be getting their information mainly from one source.
Though Twitter and other social media platforms claim to be forums that include many sources, obviously this is not really the case. Facebook, too, clearly has a thumb on the scale. We need to understand that social media companies are media companies, just like Fox news, or the Washington Post. Bias will be present, no matter who owns them. Social media try to obscure this by claiming to be open platforms for all people, but clearly some people are “more equal than others.” Or, more to the point, some ideas are considered more worthy than others. Rather than letting the public decide which ideas have merit, media companies curate them, ostensibly for the public’s own good.
We need to read from a variety of sources and viewpoints. We won’t find that variety either in legacy media, or social media. The Free Press has been great so far, but it will never be my sole, or main, source of information - no single source can be that. I will say, however, that the Free Press is one important part of the mix.
It is really disheartening that executives of a public company can freely lie to us and to Congress. I would think that kind of fraud would be abhorrent to everyone.
Doxing anyone should be a crime. If the so-called moderators at Twitter thought they should "protect' people from hate speech and/or misinformation, publishing a person's address certainly qualifies as something to protect people from.
Coining obtuse newspeak terms like "visibility filtering" is a consistent mark of totalitarianism in action.
The man is on a mission to save the world from itself. I hope he succeeds.
One move he made here, that really spurred me to join Twitter, is who he selected to investigate. Bari. Matt. Wow. Perfect start.
I really like what Musk has done with the Twitter Files. But the idea of him laughing (a lot) at the notion of power is very eyebrow raising - to say the least.
The next step is for Congress to enact a digital Bill of Rights for users across all platforms (Twitter, Facebook, PayPal, GoFundMe) so that we don’t have to worry about this as much in the future.
Here is a VERY apropos comment from Bret Weinstein that covers this entire shadowbanning/visibility filtering game-playing thing.
Weinstein said,
"Language is not built to withstand an attack by sophistry."
I wish such a clear statement would trend and become the "talk of the town-square"
As we continue to equivocate on the meanings of words, we wallow in swill and repeat the same mistakes over and over, sticking our heads in the sand.
Everything that happened with these doctors regarding Covid is literally identical to what has been done to realist climate scientists.
There is no difference whatsoever.
And it’s very arguably a much bigger story as it’s gathering steam to waste tens of $trillions and possibly collapse the things that support modern civilization.
So spare a moment, Bari, Matt and Elon.
I have but two points.
Elon should move Twitter HQ to a place fifty miles from any Starbucks. This would eliminate the need for a Human Resource department.
Much is being made of the question, is Twitter really important? If you read Bari’s resignation letter from the NYT you know it is. Legacy media used it for narrative coordination. The Borg are collectively calling the release of Twitters operating protocols a nothing burger. Don’t let them shadow ban this moment. Support all involved in the independent media. Go on with your bad-self Bari and your too numerous to mention cohorts.
Medical advice from half-aunt Nancy might not be the best, but you shouldn’t block her from offering it. If you have medical advice from a recognized group of experts maybe your should listen. Even if you don’t agree, that’s how science works. Present the counter argument and see who is most plausible.
The censorship that occurred on Twitter was wrong in every way, in my opinion. I’d never heard of Battacharya’s paper. If I never heard about it I wouldn’t have a reason to look it up. I think of the young people that committed suicide during the shutdowns. What about the children that were stuck home with abusive parents. So much damage done in so many ways! Censorship by political parties was just as wrong, maybe worse. I was upset when the Laptop information was shut down so close to the election & I was glad for the ‘Twitter Files’ that addressed it. Election interference should be illegal, if it already isn’t. I too want to know if DHS, FBI, FDA, or any other governmental institutions were responsible for censorship or anything else on Twitter. If they were I hope it’s found outs& addressed! This is just my thought: I’d like to see Elon Musk move Twitter to somewhere in the country where you could balance hiring people from both political parties. That won’t happen in CA.
Great story. Here's my key take away from Elon Musk:
"I’m open to ideas,” Musk said. “I’ve got a lot of work on my plate. I was just worried that Twitter was sending civilization in a bad direction.”
I suggest that Musk should KEEP IT SIMPLE: "My Twitter, my rules, no apologies or pretense."
Even The Free Press is hinting that the solution is the popular government solution from both sides of the aisle: THERE OUGHT TO BE A LAW.
If Musk can't own Twitter for real, he can save himself time, energy and anguish. The Republican House, Democrat Senate and President will be delighted to take Twitter off Musk's hands. The US will send in the bureaucrats and some high level former Twitter employees -- they know the systems.
Civilization will continue down that dark road in a bad direction. And God help the rest of us. We'll need it.