Using the lack of interest by one’s regular news sources as evidence that a story doesn’t matter is a bridge too far for me. I won’t scede that kind of power to any news organization.
Any social media platform that even entertains a request for removal by any political campaign is too much involvement by a social media platform. Let the source of the story put their reputation on the line, don’t give them that kind of shield by muffling them.
Oh, Jesus! Think!
Given his long history of apologizing for Russia, Matt Taibbi is a terrible choice to explain the back story behind Twitter's (stupid) decision to prevent a shoddy NY Post story on "Hunter Biden's" "laptop" from going viral. He's an even worse choice to complain about the takedown of leaked...
www.emptywheel.net
December 3, 2022
"..Taibbi’s own apologies for Russia didn’t just start with the Russian imperialism and war crimes, however.
He was long a critic of what he called “RussiaGate” based on the tried and true tactic of treating the Steele dossier and Alfa Bank allegations — and
not the legal verdicts that confirmed Trump’s National Security Advisor, campaign manager, Coffee Boy, personal lawyer, and rat-****er (Roger Stone)
all lied to hide the true nature of their Russian ties — as the primary substance of the case. Taibbi scolded others about shoddy reporting even while he adhered to
the Single Server fallacy that not only assumed all the hacked material came from just one server, but ignored the hack of
Amazon Web Services content and abundant other evidence attributing the hacks to Russia from other cloud companies. Then there was the time Taibbi
tried to smack down on claims that Maria Butina used sex to entice targets, in which he made error after error, all without allowing his false claims to be disrupted by consulting the actual primary sources.
That’s the guy Elmo decided would be a credible voice to tell us what happened with the “Hunter Biden” “laptop” story.
That matters because, as Andy Stepanian
explained last night, Twitter had advance warning of a Russian information operation targeting Hunter Biden during the summer of 2020, months before the release of the “Hunter Biden” “laptop.”
Matt Taibbi is either woefully misinformed about this or cynically lying. How do I know? Because I attended two meetings with Twitter representatives in July and August 2020 wherein the Hunter Biden story was discussed within the larger framework of election integrity.
Matt Taibbi’s analysis has myriad problems but the biggest problem is his failure to underscore what initially prompted twitter staff to designate the content in the Post story as “stolen” or “hacked” material. This came from conversations with law enforcement in summer of 2020.
During the election integrity meetings I was present for little was known about how the material would eventually be published. I recall one spokesperson suggesting the Hunter Biden content may publish via “something like wordpress” or “wikileaks-styled” website.
This is the contact with FBI that Twitter and Facebook had about Hunter Biden in 2020,
not any immediate response to the Post story. It’s almost certainly what Mark Zuckerberg
was referring to in a Joe Rogan interview that has been misrepresented in the aftermath.
Taibbi, the self-described reverse chauvinist,
describes any Hunter Biden-specific warnings as general — mentioning neither Hunter Biden nor Russia — and omits the timing."
local12.com
nypost.com
www.vox.com
