Teams of employees were tasked with suppressing the visibility of accounts or subjects deemed undesirable or dangerous—all in secret, without informing users.
The revelations of the Twitter files will not be sufficient to change the trajectory of contemporary American society. To paraphrase Sinclair Lewis, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his world view depends on his not understanding it.” That is a polite mental construct. More apt I think is the vision of the woke as cultists. Polite discourse and the rational display of fact after fact will not dissuade true believers. In the end it will take actual physical displacement of the deep state in order to return the country to a place where rational discourse and honest debate can occur. I am sorry to say the truly “woke” among us will never surrender their beliefs and positions of power peacefully. Victory for a democratic and free society is not assured no matter how many revelations of deceit and criminal behavior are uncovered. It will be a generation or generations long struggle that must begin in the schools at the earliest of age. Children must be taught ethics, civics, and above all, critical thinking. They must be taught at an early age that no one has all the right answers, and that power corrupts, always. Those who support an open democracy will have to fight hard starting at the local level, meaning school boards and local positions, mayors, etc. moving to county and state offices, then congressional seats and other national positions. Only after some semblance of political control, or at least balance, is obtained can the long slow process of weeding out the unelected, unaccountable, and faceless members of the deep state occur. Its members exist in the government, the media, the tech giants, and most completely, in academia. Hopefully there will be a tipping point where deep state activists see the error of their way. I am afraid, however that that will occur only when they realize their careers are at risk, not because of any deep seated reevaluation of their beliefs.
The groupthink on Covid lockdowns that Twitter perpetuated epitomize the dangerous tendencies of the PMC to enforce intellectual conformity in the name of “safety”. What damage they did to a whole generation by subjugating honest discourse!
Foucault was right: whoever controls the means of discourse controls everything.
The groupthink on Covid lockdowns that Twitter perpetuated epitomize the dangerous tendencies of the PMC to enforce intellectual conformity in the name of “safety”. What damage they did to a whole generation by subjugating honest discourse!
Foucault was right: whoever controls the means of discourse controls everything.
Hopefully Musk transitions to a system with more clear standards and away from the sporadic bursts or his own banning-agenda. The heavy reigns of Twitter are better in his hands than his predecessors, but I’d prefer he do away with the old system altogether
“All this was happening at the same time that major institutions across America—in the media, education, tech and elsewhere—were becoming less tolerant of views that, a few years ago, were considered well within the 40-yard lines of American politics but are now deemed far outside the parameters of acceptable discourse.”
Based on the Twitter Files, it appears that all discourse to the right of the lefthand 20-yard line was “outside the bounds of acceptable discourse.”
The height of naivety is to leave out the long history of the DNC at IRS getting caught and admitting to suppressing tax exempt to dissidents, of the DNC at FBI spying on dissident Presidential campaign, of the DNC at FBI and Justice spying on President and using NYT and the rest of US media to lie about all of it and spread "misinformation". All blamed on "Trump".
Only the innocent are punished. And, all the DNC "police" are rewarded lavishly for their loyalty to the Party. it's a chapter straight out of Solzhenitsyn Gulag Archipelago.
Hey Bari, the real meat will be found on the Twitter Fascist Partner Portal. Why not request elon give you all the data on the upstream part of the InfoReich
Brilliant reporting, and I suspect the FP staff is just getting started on this. One idea I'd love to see reporting on is the (un)intended consequence of VF as it pertains to monetization of user visibility.
If Twitter was actively and intentionally filtering content causing such content to gain more relevance than it otherwise would, does it not also stand to reason that it artificially caused users to share such content AND opinions? In a growing online world of (non-celebrity) influencers and actual celebrities, their voices grew louder as their tweets gained attention. They gained followers and as such gained wealth through marketing relationships justified by "person x has y million followers". It seemed obvious to me that "having an opinion," so long as it supported the acceptable narrative, became valuable to an industry that for as long as history shows typically tried to stay "off the radar" socially/politically.
So with those (undisputed) facts as a foundation, is it not reasonable to think that influencer/celebrity opinions and therefore content were directly and artificially generated by what they believed would "trend" and therefore lead them to more followers and money? The very word "influencer" seems to imply we know the answer to this question, but I'd love to read some reporting on the behind the scenes attempts to create a "culture of influencers" as opposed to a "culture of informers" or a "culture of leaders".
You were Great in the NYT today Bari!! But I disagree: For way too long unscrupulous reporters have doxxed their enemies, and that is immoral. Putting a life or lives at risk because you do not like the person you are covering is just wrong. tsk tsk never been good and now in the punitive "woke world" it is commonplace. So, if Musk creates a reasonable anti-doxxing policy and applies it equally and fairly then that is a step in the direction of honest reporting rather than malicious ragging by social justice warriors .
Well I hope the Musk team can keep anti-Semitic, racist and hate for other groups off the platform. We should read about views on the left, on the right, in the middle but people who resort to name calling and threatening physical harm should be banned.
I am Jewish; let the wicked anti-Semites post their bile and we, all of us, my fellow members of the Tribe in particular must CRUSH them online. How is it working out for Kanye et. al. for example? Ye my eye. Together Reasonable Americans are destroying him. Antisemitism does not disappear just because we do not see it. Let the scum rise to the top and then skim it off.
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.
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.
There is a common perception that people are easily led or led astray. We see plenty of reasons to believe it. The solution isn't found in our elites filtering information. That gives them too much power, and Twitter's files showed it did corrupt them. The answer is teaching everyone to think, to question, to analyze, and, most importantly, to suspend judgment until all the facts are in. Journalists, as they are our daily historians, must lead the way. They must show the reader what facts are still missing and why judgment now isn't reasonable (as it most often is not). Otherwise, they are not journalists and should be called out.
"The answer is teaching everyone to think, to question, to analyze, and, most importantly, to suspend judgment until all the facts are in."
I teach at a college in SW MO. My class is entitled, "Critical and Creative Thinking Using Information Technology" and what you wrote is exactly what I teach my students to do. It is so important in life to reserve judgment until you have all the facts.
The revelations of the Twitter files will not be sufficient to change the trajectory of contemporary American society. To paraphrase Sinclair Lewis, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his world view depends on his not understanding it.” That is a polite mental construct. More apt I think is the vision of the woke as cultists. Polite discourse and the rational display of fact after fact will not dissuade true believers. In the end it will take actual physical displacement of the deep state in order to return the country to a place where rational discourse and honest debate can occur. I am sorry to say the truly “woke” among us will never surrender their beliefs and positions of power peacefully. Victory for a democratic and free society is not assured no matter how many revelations of deceit and criminal behavior are uncovered. It will be a generation or generations long struggle that must begin in the schools at the earliest of age. Children must be taught ethics, civics, and above all, critical thinking. They must be taught at an early age that no one has all the right answers, and that power corrupts, always. Those who support an open democracy will have to fight hard starting at the local level, meaning school boards and local positions, mayors, etc. moving to county and state offices, then congressional seats and other national positions. Only after some semblance of political control, or at least balance, is obtained can the long slow process of weeding out the unelected, unaccountable, and faceless members of the deep state occur. Its members exist in the government, the media, the tech giants, and most completely, in academia. Hopefully there will be a tipping point where deep state activists see the error of their way. I am afraid, however that that will occur only when they realize their careers are at risk, not because of any deep seated reevaluation of their beliefs.
The groupthink on Covid lockdowns that Twitter perpetuated epitomize the dangerous tendencies of the PMC to enforce intellectual conformity in the name of “safety”. What damage they did to a whole generation by subjugating honest discourse!
Foucault was right: whoever controls the means of discourse controls everything.
The groupthink on Covid lockdowns that Twitter perpetuated epitomize the dangerous tendencies of the PMC to enforce intellectual conformity in the name of “safety”. What damage they did to a whole generation by subjugating honest discourse!
Foucault was right: whoever controls the means of discourse controls everything.
Hopefully Musk transitions to a system with more clear standards and away from the sporadic bursts or his own banning-agenda. The heavy reigns of Twitter are better in his hands than his predecessors, but I’d prefer he do away with the old system altogether
“All this was happening at the same time that major institutions across America—in the media, education, tech and elsewhere—were becoming less tolerant of views that, a few years ago, were considered well within the 40-yard lines of American politics but are now deemed far outside the parameters of acceptable discourse.”
Based on the Twitter Files, it appears that all discourse to the right of the lefthand 20-yard line was “outside the bounds of acceptable discourse.”
The height of naivety is to leave out the long history of the DNC at IRS getting caught and admitting to suppressing tax exempt to dissidents, of the DNC at FBI spying on dissident Presidential campaign, of the DNC at FBI and Justice spying on President and using NYT and the rest of US media to lie about all of it and spread "misinformation". All blamed on "Trump".
Only the innocent are punished. And, all the DNC "police" are rewarded lavishly for their loyalty to the Party. it's a chapter straight out of Solzhenitsyn Gulag Archipelago.
Hey Bari, the real meat will be found on the Twitter Fascist Partner Portal. Why not request elon give you all the data on the upstream part of the InfoReich
Brilliant reporting, and I suspect the FP staff is just getting started on this. One idea I'd love to see reporting on is the (un)intended consequence of VF as it pertains to monetization of user visibility.
If Twitter was actively and intentionally filtering content causing such content to gain more relevance than it otherwise would, does it not also stand to reason that it artificially caused users to share such content AND opinions? In a growing online world of (non-celebrity) influencers and actual celebrities, their voices grew louder as their tweets gained attention. They gained followers and as such gained wealth through marketing relationships justified by "person x has y million followers". It seemed obvious to me that "having an opinion," so long as it supported the acceptable narrative, became valuable to an industry that for as long as history shows typically tried to stay "off the radar" socially/politically.
So with those (undisputed) facts as a foundation, is it not reasonable to think that influencer/celebrity opinions and therefore content were directly and artificially generated by what they believed would "trend" and therefore lead them to more followers and money? The very word "influencer" seems to imply we know the answer to this question, but I'd love to read some reporting on the behind the scenes attempts to create a "culture of influencers" as opposed to a "culture of informers" or a "culture of leaders".
You were Great in the NYT today Bari!! But I disagree: For way too long unscrupulous reporters have doxxed their enemies, and that is immoral. Putting a life or lives at risk because you do not like the person you are covering is just wrong. tsk tsk never been good and now in the punitive "woke world" it is commonplace. So, if Musk creates a reasonable anti-doxxing policy and applies it equally and fairly then that is a step in the direction of honest reporting rather than malicious ragging by social justice warriors .
Well I hope the Musk team can keep anti-Semitic, racist and hate for other groups off the platform. We should read about views on the left, on the right, in the middle but people who resort to name calling and threatening physical harm should be banned.
I am Jewish; let the wicked anti-Semites post their bile and we, all of us, my fellow members of the Tribe in particular must CRUSH them online. How is it working out for Kanye et. al. for example? Ye my eye. Together Reasonable Americans are destroying him. Antisemitism does not disappear just because we do not see it. Let the scum rise to the top and then skim it off.
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.
One thinks of Antony's funeral oration
But Agrawal said Twitter did not shadow ban
And Agrawal is an honorable man
So are they all, honorable men
And Gadde said Twitter did not shadow ban
And Gadde is an honorable man
So are they all, honorable men
And Yoel Roth said Twitter did not shadow ban
And Yoel Roth is an honorable man
So are they all, honorable men
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.
There is a common perception that people are easily led or led astray. We see plenty of reasons to believe it. The solution isn't found in our elites filtering information. That gives them too much power, and Twitter's files showed it did corrupt them. The answer is teaching everyone to think, to question, to analyze, and, most importantly, to suspend judgment until all the facts are in. Journalists, as they are our daily historians, must lead the way. They must show the reader what facts are still missing and why judgment now isn't reasonable (as it most often is not). Otherwise, they are not journalists and should be called out.
"The answer is teaching everyone to think, to question, to analyze, and, most importantly, to suspend judgment until all the facts are in."
I teach at a college in SW MO. My class is entitled, "Critical and Creative Thinking Using Information Technology" and what you wrote is exactly what I teach my students to do. It is so important in life to reserve judgment until you have all the facts.
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 must be the only person on the planet who has never - not once! - looked at Twitter!