Social media
September 14, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Virginia Democratic House of Delegates candidate Susanna Gibson is mired in a scandal of her own making. If she survives it, she deserves to be the “face” (broadly understood) of the Democratic Party. Like us, the Washington Free Beacon is giving the Gibson scandal the kind of attention it would get if she were a Republican. Joe Simonson’s Free Beacon story is headlined “Cocksure Virginia Democrat Slams Media for Reporting
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August 9, 2023 — John Hinderaker
We now know that the federal government, led by the FBI, has engaged in a prolonged program of censorship that focused on social media. It began, as far as we know, during the Trump administration, and at that time was directed largely against the President. It has flourished during the Biden administration, in which the FBI and other agencies have acted as enforcers, suppressing dissent from the Biden administration’s line,
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August 3, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Matt Taibbi published his powerful July 28 Racket News column “The New ‘Facebook Files’ Show Everything the First Amendment Was Designed to Prevent” for subscribers only. Racket New has now posted the column as narrated by Jared Moore on YouTube and on podcast platforms. I have embedded the video below. Toward the end of his column Taibbi warns: “In hindsight it could equally be argued Biden was killing people [as
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July 25, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Former New York Post editor Emma-Jo Morris testified last week to the House Weaponization of Government Committee chaired by Rep. Jim Jordan. The committee has posted the text of her statement here. I have posted video below. Morris was the deputy politics editor leading national coverage at the Post, where she also reported the Hunter Biden “laptop from hell” series. Her work for the Post is collected here. She has
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July 16, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Matt Taibbi has made a valuable contribution to the documentation of the government’s suppression of heterodox and nonconforming speech on Twitter. He is an honest and dogged journalist. I have therefore sought to draw attention to his work in face of such denials and evasions as those to which FBI Director Christopher Wray testified under oath on July 12 before an occasionally showboating congressional committee last week. Taibbi wrote in
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July 13, 2023 — Scott Johnson
FBI Director Christopher Wray testified before the House Ways and Means Committee yesterday. Republican representatives did not distinguish themselves in their ability to wring the truth from Wray in their allotted five minutes. Indeed, they were more or less pitiful. Had they been allotted more time, however, they would still have found themselves up against a hard case. Wray is incorrigible. We know that the FBI was instrumental to the
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July 11, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Matt Taibbi posted “Take that, Internet censors!” last week to comment for his paid subscribers on Judge Doughty’s ruling in Missouri v. Biden. As we have reported, Judge Doughty’s ruling preliminarily enjoins the federal government’s censorship regime and is on appeal to the Fifth Circuit as of yesterday. Big Brother is not happy. Taibbi has now made his “Take that” post available in video and podcast form with narration by
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July 11, 2023 — Scott Johnson
In “Walk away, Joe,” I tried to provide legal background on likely next steps in Missouri v. Biden — the most important free speech case to come down the pike since I don’t know when. Western District of Louisiana Judge Terry Doughty has entered a preliminary injunction limiting the communications of the federal censorship regime — President Biden and designated officials/agencies — with social media companies. Judge Doughty’s preliminary injunction
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July 7, 2023 — Scott Johnson
President Biden is not going to walk away from the extensive censorship regime he has implemented in the executive branch. The censorship was preliminarily enjoined on Independence Day by Chief Judge Terry Doughty of the Western District of Louisiana in Missouri v. Biden. Judge Doughty’s injunction order is posted online here. It is supported by Judge Doughty’s 155-page memorandum here. I commented briefly on the injunction in “Enjoining Mr. Joe”
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July 5, 2023 — Scott Johnson
It doesn’t quite have the ring of driving Miss Daisy, but on Independence Day a federal judge enjoined the Biden administration’s communications with social media companies. You can tell this is good news by the dyspepsia of the New York Times: A federal judge in Louisiana on Tuesday restricted the Biden administration from communicating with social media platforms about broad swaths of content online, a ruling that could curtail efforts
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June 17, 2023 — John Hinderaker
Over the last few years, the establishment, including government agencies like the FBI, the hegemonic tech companies that control social media, and the press generally, has tried hard to suppress information on several topics. These topics include, among others, the effectiveness of anti-covid measures and treatments, the safety of covid vaccines, Joe Biden’s corruption, and the existence and prevalence of voter fraud. Wrongspeak on any of these topics has been
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May 9, 2023 — Scott Johnson
In late March Tablet published Jacob Siegel’s “A Guide to Understanding the Hoax of the Century.” Subhead accompanied by the profile of a blackbird’s head: “Thirteen ways of looking at disinformation.” (The subhead and graphic allude to the Wallace Stevens poem). It’s a long-form essay that runs to some 13,000 words. The introduction is followed by a table of contents with links to the chapters: I. Russophobia Returns, Unexpectedly: The
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April 21, 2023 — Steven Hayward
It is fun watching celebrities and leftists moaning about losing their cherished blue check marks on Twitter. It is clearly a status symbol for them, and I thinking Musk is once again a genius for exposing the vanity and insecurity of the blue-checkers. Now, I thought leftist hyperbole had already decreed that we’re all dead from repealing net neutrality and the Trump tax cuts, but apparently the newest cause of
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April 6, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Last week Tablet published Jacob Siegel’s “A Guide to Understanding the Hoax of the Century.” Subhead accompanied by the profile of a blackbird’s head: “Thirteen ways of looking at disinformation.” (The subhead and graphic allude to the Wallace Stevens poem). Siegel’s magnum opus runs to some 13,000 words. The introduction is followed by a table of contents with links to the chapters: I. Russophobia Returns, Unexpectedly: The Origins of Contemporary
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March 2, 2023 — John Hinderaker
That isn’t surprising–social science data have long shown that conservatives are generally happier than liberals. But this study, which sampled 12th graders from 2005 through 2018, documents the deteriorating condition of liberals, and especially liberal girls: Adolescent internalizing symptoms (e.g. depressive affect) have increased over the past decade in the US, particularly among girls. The reasons for these increases are unclear. We hypothesize that increasing exposure to politicized events has
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February 16, 2023 — Scott Johnson
The Twitter Files lie at the intersection of the law enforcement and national security establishment, the bigfoot press, social media, and the Democratic Party. Reporter Matt Taibbi has immersed himself in the Twitter Files courtesy of Elon Musk. By my rough count, Taibbi has posted 10 or so of the 15 Twitter Files threads so far. Taibbi has also compiled a summary of each of the threads here at his
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February 8, 2023 — John Hinderaker
Tomorrow the House of Representatives’ Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government will hold its first hearing, chaired by Jim Jordan. The existence of this committee illustrates the vital difference between a narrow minority and a narrow majority. Under Democratic rule, “weaponization” of federal agencies was applauded, not investigated. The committee’s name refers in part to the Democrats’ deployment of the FBI and CIA as partisan agents. Donald
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