Twitter

A bloodbath in the Supreme Court

Featured image This morning the Supreme Court held oral argument in the case that is now styled Murthy v. Missouri. C-SPAN has posted audio of the oral argument here. The case arises from the government’s “encouragement” of censorship by the social media platforms, as documented in the Twitter Files. We have followed the case as it has wended its way through the district court to the Fifth Circuit and then to the »

Mr. X

Featured image The current issue of the Claremont Review of Books carries the informative review of Walter Isaacson’s biography of Elon Musk by Helen Andrews. The Andrews review is relatively brief and extremely interesting. I want to single out the penultimate paragraph: Conservatives ought to support Musk because he will need all the help he can get. The deep state has him in its crosshairs and will not stop until he is »

Oh, yeah: The Samizdat Prize

Featured image RealClearFoundation president David DesRosiers has announced the inaugural winners of of its Samizdat Prize. Tonight’s the night. The Samizdat Prize is intended to honor the most important users of the First Amendment in the United States. The prize aspires to confer the honor that various of the Pulitzer Prizes bestow and should replace them in the mind of right-thinking men and women. In the words of DesRosiers, the award that »

13 ways of looking at disinformation

Featured image In March 2023 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. I meant to include Siegel’s column in my take on “The year in columns.” Indeed, I had devoted a separate post »

Elon Isn’t Perfect, But He’s Right

Featured image Elon Musk provoked a firestorm by agreeing with a tweet that many construed as anti-Semitic: Musk subsequently described his tweet as “foolish” and “literally the worst and dumbest post that I’ve ever done.” Nevertheless, it, together with a smear by Media Matters that purported to show prominent advisers that their ads were showing up adjacent to neo-Nazi content (they were, but only on Media Matters’ computers, having twisted the X »

Calls For Genocide Banned From Twitter

Featured image Controversy has been swirling around Elon Musk and Twitter. Musk issued a tweet that was at best stupid and at worst anti-Semitic: You have said the actual truth — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 15, 2023 Musk’s tweet apparently was part of his running battle with the Anti-Defamation League, which you can read about here. A number of companies, including IBM and Apple, have suspended advertising on Twitter, and the Biden »

The Twitter Files, Live and In Person

Featured image This Real Clear Opinion Research survey has disquieting news about Americans’ tolerance of censorship. Carl Cannon comments on the results, including the partisan breakdown. Suffice it to say that not many Democrats are going to the wall for free speech these days. But I want to comment on just one aspect of that survey: It is remarkable that the number of people who think the government should censor “hateful posts »

Elon Puts His Money Where His Platform Is

Featured image This is truly extraordinary: Twitter (or whatever it is called now) will pay the legal fees of anyone who gets fired because of something he or she did on that platform: If you were unfairly treated by your employer due to posting or liking something on this platform, we will fund your legal bill. No limit. Please let us know. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 6, 2023 Will such people »

Where have all the left-wing flowers gone?

Featured image 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 »

“Your name came up a lot”

Featured image Who knew that RFK Jr. has a podcast? Not I. I learned from Matt Taibbi’s email update that RFK Jr.’s June 12 episode covers the Twitter Files and censorship in a conversation with Taibbi himself. Taibbi states what seems to me a home truth: “The Twitter Files are a unique thing.” RFK Jr. is of course a player in the Twitter Files story that Taibbi has to tell. “Your name »

Twitter Files updates

Featured image Racket News has unlocked Andrew Lowenthal’s column “Twitter Files Extra: How the World’s ‘No-Kidding Decision Makers’ Got Organized.” Subhead: “The Atlantic Council is hosting its 360/0S Summit at RightsCon this week, and Twitter Files documents tell us more about how this VIP-room-within-a-VIP-room was formed.” Lowenthal describes himself as a writer and consultant focused on digital authoritarianism and civil liberties. He manages the Network Affects site on Substack and now works »

Don’t shoot Matt Taibbi either, take 4

Featured image Matt Taibbi published the subscribers-only post “My crazy IRS case” on May 24 at his Racket News site. I picked it up and quoted from it in part 2 of this series on the deep-state harassment of Taibbi. Taibbi’s post on his IRS case is now available in the video below, narrated by Jared Moore. I can only add that attention must be paid, or so one would think. »

Now showing at a tweet near you

Featured image The documentary “What is a woman?” has been posted to Twitter, where it will remain available for viewing this weekend. The Daily Wire covers the appearance of the film on Twitter here. I have embedded the Daily Wire tweet embedding the video below. John Hinderaker posted the background to the film’s appearance on Twitter here along with his review: “[I]f you haven’t seen the movie, you should. It was produced »

On Twitter, Free Speech Is Hanging On [Updated]

Featured image Elon Musk pledged to make Twitter a free speech zone, but it hasn’t always turned out that way. Yesterday a controversy unfolded over the Daily Wire’s plan to stream the movie “What Is a Woman?” for free on Twitter. First of all, if you haven’t seen the movie, you should. It was produced and directed by my friend Justin Folk and stars the Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh. Despite its depressing »

Don’t shoot Matt Taibbi either, take 3

Featured image In her weekly Wall Street Journal column Kim Strassel turns her attention to the IRS — the cases of Matt Taibbi (discussed here yesterday) and Gary Shapley (discussed in the adjacent post this morning). Strassel notes that Taibbi “may have been targeted by the IRS in retribution for documenting the joint censorship efforts of Big Tech and the federal government.” Coincidences abound. In particular: Mr. Taibbi in March told the »

Don’t shoot Matt Taibbi either, take 2

Featured image Following up on “Don’t shoot Matt Taibbi either,” I want to note Matt Taibbi’s subscribers-only post “My crazy IRS case.” Taibbi has of course been a key contributor to the Twitter Files. In his Twitter Files reporting Taibbi has documented the government/social media censorship industrial complex led by the FBI. See, for example, his December 24, 2022 Twitter Files thread “Twitter and ‘other government agencies.'” The FBI disapproved of Taibbi’s »

Notes on the Twitter Files (21)

Featured image I have tried to keep the numbering of this series compatible with the series itself as posted to Twitter Files. I might otherwise pass over the twenty-first installment of the series — “How to find Russians anywhere.” This thread was written by Matt Orfalea together with his colleague Matt Taibbi (per tweet number 26) and is accessible via the the tweet below. The thread now consists of 27 tweets that »