HOW TWITTER RIGGED THE COVID DEBATE

Whether by humans or algorithms, content that was contrarian but true was still subject to getting flagged or suppressed.

Thus far the Twitter Files have focused on evidence of Twitter’s secret blacklists; how the company functioned as a kind of subsidiary of the FBI; and how execs rewrote the platform’s rules to accommodate their own political desires. When the Biden admin took over, one of their first meeting requests with Twitter executives was on Covid. The focus was on “anti-vaxxer accounts.

A December 2022 summary of meetings with the White House by Lauren Culbertson, Twitter’s Head of U.S. Public Policy, adds new evidence of the White House’s pressure campaign, and cements that it repeatedly attempted to directly influence the platform.

Culbertson wrote that the Biden team was “very angry” that Twitter had not been more aggressive in deplatforming multiple accounts. They wanted Twitter to do more.

Twitter suppressed views—many from doctors and scientific experts—that conflicted with the official positions of the White House. As a result, legitimate findings and questions that would have expanded the public debate went missing. Inevitably, dissident yet legitimate content was labeled as misinformation, and the accounts of doctors and others were suspended both for tweeting opinions and demonstrably true information.

There were countless instances of tweets labeled as “misleading” or taken down entirely, sometimes triggering account suspensions, simply because they veered from CDC guidance or differed from establishment views. Whether by humans or algorithms, content that was contrarian but true was still subject to getting flagged or suppressed.

THE TWITTER FILES: HOW TWITTER RIGGED THE COVID DEBATE

– By censoring info that was true but inconvenient to U.S. govt. policy

– By discrediting doctors and other experts who disagreed

– By suppressing ordinary users, including some sharing the CDC’s *own data*

Note: This is my summary of David Zweig's correspondence list that has exposed the government's collusion with and guidance of Twitter's censorship.

We must hold those responsible for censorship accountable. Only by rigorously defending the First Amendment can we defend ourselves against an authoritarian state that uses law enforcement agencies against its own citizens.  

NEW: "Very angry" Biden administration officials directly implicated in Covid censorship, according to @ElonMusk files. This raises significant criminal and civil liability issues. Tom Fitton@TomFitton