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Elon Musk is the gift that just keeps on giving. On Thursday evening, the second edition of the “Twitter files” was dropped by way of Bari Weiss.
Weiss exposed an attempted cover-up by now-fired Twitter general counsel Jim Baker prior to this latest release, but that was apparently just the beginning. In her lengthy thread, the reporter laid out proof that Twitter was shadow-banning conservative accounts, including those that clearly hadn’t violated any actual policy of the social media giant.
RedState reported on the details, noting that figures like Dan Bongino were blacklisted from being amplified and barred from searches, and he was just one of many. There was an actual portal that allowed Twitter to click on buttons that said “trends blacklist,” “notifications spike,” and “do not amplify.”
What that means is that a heck of a lot of people who said shadow-banning wasn’t happening have been proven to be liars who were willing to toe the line for the big tech companies without having the facts.
Let’s start with Ben Dreyfuss, who called conservatives paranoid and suggested it was going to be “funny” when the supposed proof came out that shadow-banning wasn’t actually happening. Welp, that didn’t happen.
So when do we get that update, @bendreyfuss? pic.twitter.com/m5xo8dDDVy
— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) December 9, 2022
Naturally, Dreyfuss, because he’s a typical leftwing hack, responded by suggesting that he was actually right all along. Why? Because according to a blog post, Twitter defined shadow-banning as making someone’s posts completely invisible to anyone. That’s a ludicrous dodge.
One, the entire point of the term shadow-banning is that someone’s posts aren’t being completely made invisible to other users. Rather it relates to things like search bans, amplification bans, and throttling of likes. Two, Twitter doesn’t get to define its own malfeasance. That’s like giving a murderer the benefit of the doubt on what the definition of murder is. You’d think the press, which claims to speak truth to power, would be skeptical of a big tech company having that kind of power, but nope. They toe the line like dutiful little soldiers.
The rest of us know it’s gaslighting, though. And speaking of gaslighting, here’s another satisfying receipt, this time from MSNBC’s Kasie Hunt.
MSNBC’s @kasie Hunt: Idea Twitter “shadow bans” conservatives “has been widely debunked.”
Read Related Also: ‘If Republicans Win, Our Children Will Be Arrested and Conceivably Killed’ – RedState
“This has been debunked by Twitter. They say this is not something that they actively engage in.” pic.twitter.com/GQLPtmvDbA
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) March 19, 2019
It was widely “debunked,” she said while having absolutely no proof to back up her assertion at all. That’s one of the problems with the modern “fact-checking” industry. You can’t “debunk” something without evidence that it’s not true. You can claim it’s not proven, but the rush to make absolute judgments for political purposes in lieu of any real investigation is the name of the game. In this case, Hunt just repeated a claim by Twitter verbatim as a fact. That’s not how journalism is supposed to work.
Of course, the last way the press is trying to downplay these revelations is to pretend they are old news. For that act, we rely on Will Oremus, the “tech reporter” over at The Washington Post.
“This thing we told you wasn’t happening and insulted you for believing was happening, but because someone wrote some speculatory articles prior, it’s not news.”
Long walk + Short pier, Will. https://t.co/qrj9BulRlu
— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) December 9, 2022
Yes, there were “whole news cycles about Twitter shadowbans.” Those news cycles consisted of people like Oremus either insisting it wasn’t happening or completely redefining the terms so as to suggest what was happening was good. Weiss’ reporting is not old news. It shows us the portals that Twitter denied existed. It also shows us that Twitter was lying while attempting to hide behind semantics.
You’d think a “tech reporter” whose entire job it is to cover big tech companies would be interested in something like that. Unfortunately, he’s not because he and his colleagues are just as partisan as those who cover the broader political beat. It’s actually pathetic to see it all play out.
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