Journalists Matt Taibbi and Bari Weiss have been handed a trove of documents from Twitter, detailing why they censored the story of Hunter Biden's laptop
Taibbi released the first tranche of the documents on Friday, and Weiss on Thursday followed up with a second series
Weiss revealed that conservatives and lockdown skeptics were deliberately down-ranked by Twitter, to stop their accounts gaining prominence
Among those blacklisted were Fox News regular Dan Bongino and youth activist Charlie Kirk, plus Stanford CDC critic Dr Jay Bhattacharya
Jack Dorsey and his head of legal, Vijaya Gadde, both denied that Twitter ever deliberately downgraded or 'shadow banned' any accounts
The documents from Taibbi showed panic among senior Twitter staff in October 2020 when The New Post reported on the contents of Hunter's computer
Twitter kept a 'secret blacklist' of topics and accounts to prevent them from trending, according to data obtained by journalist Bari Weiss - with up to 200 'cases' being dealt with a day by a special division within the company.
Conservative commentators such as Dan Bongino and Charlie Kirk were deliberately put on a 'search blacklist' - in the case of Bongino - or tabbed 'do not amplify', in the case of Kirk.
Those who questioned the prevailing COVID orthodoxy of lockdowns and mask mandates, such as Stanford's Dr Jay Bhattacharya, who argued that lockdowns harmed children, were also placed on a 'search blacklist'.
In October 2020, journalist Dave Rubin asked then-CEO Jack Dorsey: 'Do you shadowban based on political beliefs? Simple yes or no will do.'
Dorsey replied: 'No.'
Vijaya Gadde, Twitter's head of legal, policy, and trust, also denied that Twitter operated such blacklists.
'We do not shadow ban,' she said in 2018, according to Weiss - speaking alongside Kayvon Beykpour, Twitter's head of product.
They added: 'And we certainly don't shadow ban based on political viewpoints or ideology.'
Weiss made the revelations on Thursday in the second tranche of what has been termed The Twitter Files.
Elon Musk, who bought Twitter in October for $44 billion, was gleeful about the revelations regarding the company he now owns - retweeting Weiss' thread, with a popcorn emoji.
Within Twitter, the practice was termed 'visibility filtering', Weiss reported.
'Think about visibility filtering as being a way for us to suppress what people see to different levels. It's a very powerful tool,' one senior Twitter employee told her.
Twitter would block searches of individual users, make a specific tweet less easy to find, block posts from the 'trending' page, and remove them from hashtag searches.
Another source, a Twitter engineer, told Weiss: 'We control visibility quite a bit. And we control the amplification of your content quite a bit. And normal people do not know how much we do.'
Weiss said that the matter was dealt with by Twitter's Strategic Response Team - Global Escalation Team, known as SRT-GET - a group that handled 200 cases a day.
A higher-level team, known as SIP-PES, 'Site Integrity Policy, Policy Escalation Support,' dealt with more complex and high-profile cases.
Dorsey and his replacement as CEO, Parag Agrawal, sat on the group, as did Gadde and Yoel Roth, the global head of trust and safety.
The group would need to intervene if any action was taken to limit the popular account @LibsofTiktok - whose account was tabbed internally: 'Do Not Take Action on User Without Consulting With SIP-PES.'
Weiss said that account was suspended six times in 2022, and the author, Chaya Raichik, blocked from her account for at least a week each time.
Her account was suspended, they told Raichik, due to violations of Twitter's 'hateful conduct' policy - but internally, Twitter admitted there was no violation.
In an October 2022 memo from SIP-PES obtained by Weiss, the committee concluded that the account 'has not directly engaged in behavior violative of the Hateful Conduct policy.'
Tucker Carlson, Fox News host, immediately seized on the report, saying it 'confirms what many suspected but none knew for certain - which is that Twitter routinely censored prominent critics of the Biden administration, with no factual justification whatsoever.'
The documents detail how Twitter in October 2020 decided to censor the New York Post's reporting on the contents of Hunter Biden's laptop. They feared the contents were obtained through hacking, but had no evidence to prove it, and it quickly emerged that the laptop had simply been left at a repair store.
Jack Dorsey, the then-CEO of Twitter, admitted that censoring the legitimate reporting was a significant error.
Twitter's new owner and 'Chief Twit' Elon Musk on Wednesday claimed the 'most important' Twitter data was 'deleted' and 'hidden' from the Dorsey.
Musk, 51, has vowed that 'everything we find will be released' as his newly acquired company continues to release the Twitter Files.
On Wednesday, Dorsey, 46, replied to Musk's tweet about delaying the second batch of the Twitter Files, calling for the new CEO to 'release everything' at once.
'If the goal is transparency to build trust, why not just release everything without filter and let people judge for themselves? Including all discussions around current and future actions?' Dorsey wrote.
'Make everything public now.'
Musk replied that everything would be released, but even the 'most important data was hidden (from [Dorsey] too) and some may have been deleted.'
#1
Theoretically, Dorsey could be held accountable. That would be like James Wolfe being held accountable for leaking to his girlfriend. Accountability for a DC or Tech elite would be like catching a Yeti riding a unicorn.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
12/09/2022 12:02 Comments ||
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[Breitbart] The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has awarded 281,000 green cards to corporate-hired foreign graduates in 2022, double the huge giveaway of 140,000 cards in 2019.
The revelation comes just after the House delayed floor debate on the EAGLE Act, which seeks to accelerate the government delivery of green cards promised to Indian H-1B visa workers by Silicon Valley investors, the Fortune 500, and their many subcontractors.
But the investor-backed EAGLE Act also includes a sneak plan that would let U.S.-based employers offer the huge prize of lifetime U.S. work permits to an unlimited number of foreign workers. Those dangled work permits would be swapped by companies to many foreign workers in exchange for a few years of cut-rate blue-collar or white-collar service.
The EAGLE debate was again delayed on Wednesday because Democratic legislators are divided over the corporate giveaways.
The 281,000 number is another problem for the bill’s champion, Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) because the Indian contract workers were the biggest winners of the 2022 giveaway.
The Indian workers won 18,418 green cards in 2019 — and they won 91,639 cards in the 12 months up to October 2022.
That five-fold spike of green cards for Indian contract workers and their families deflates the EAGLE Act’s public argument: That the bill is needed to help the many Indian workers who have overloaded the federal “country cap” process for sharing green cards with nations around the world.
DHS boasted about the huge corporate giveaway on December 7, which was achieved because the agency converted green cards for family migrants into visas for corporate migrants:
Backed by crucial fiscal support from Congress, USCIS [U.S. Citizneship and Immigration Services] restored fiscal stability and turned the tide on backlog growth …. [and] in coordination with the Department of State, the agency utilized more than 281,000 employment-based visas, twice the typical statutory annual allotment. This was made possible due to the large number of family-sponsored visas that remained unused in FY 2021 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The EAGLE Act bill is being pushed by Lofgren and is backed by tech investors in her district who recruit foreign workers with the dangled promise of green cards and renewable work permits.
The investors want to import more cheap visa workers to inflate their stock prices and to keep their workers compliant. The foreign workers also help the California investors to keep their worksites in-state, instead of hiring Americans in distant, lower-cost states.
The five-fold increase for Indian workers under President Joe Biden happened while many U.S. companies continued to hire many foreign visa workers — and to fire tens of thousands of American graduates.
The tech layoffs have a broad impact. Each unemployed U.S. graduates tend to apply for jobs in related fields, so pushing other American graduates out of many varied job opportunities.
“Since the start of 2022, more workers in tech have been laid off than in 2020 and 2021 combined,” Yahoo! News reported on December 1. The layoff number reached 146,000 on December 7, according to a count by Layoffs.fyi.
That layoff number is roughly equal to the number of foreign workers who g0t green cards from DHS in 2022. The higher 281,000 number announced by DHS includes the employees and family members, which typically amounts to half the yearly total.
Federal rules allow companies to hire visa workers regardless of how many qualified Americans want the job.
[IsraelTimes] US Senator Chuck Schumer ...Senator-for-life from New York, renowned for his love of standing in front of cameras and microphones. Schumer has been a professional politician since 1975, when disco was in flower, which is 47.00903 years, or 329.06321 years in dog years. Senate minority leader as of 2017... was unanimously elected Thursday for another term as Senate Democratic leader, helming a bolstered 51-seat majority for a new era of divided government in Congress.
Senate Democrats met behind closed doors at the Capitol to choose their leadership team for the new Congress that begins in January. The session was quick and upbeat, with no challengers. Unlike the contested Republican elections, the Democratic leaders were selected by acclamation. Applause was heard in the halls.
"We had a great unified meeting, where we were both very glad about what we were able to accomplish in the last Congress and setting aspirations — strong aspirations — that we will accomplish as much in the next two years," Schumer said afterward, flanked by the dozen-member team.
#6
Unconfirmed: Tired of partisanship senator Kyrsten sinema abandons dems goes Independent.
That was just on the news Airandee, so mostly confirmed.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
12/09/2022 8:50 Comments ||
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#7
#5 The intent was that the Senate represent the States of which 13 sovereign ones banned together to create the Constitution. It was not intended to represent the 'people', that is what the House is for.
Senators should be elected by States not metropolitan areas. Senators should be chosen by an electoral process similar to Presidents. Each political subdivision, be it county or parish, gets one electoral vote. Within those subdivision the choosing of the elector can be 'democratic' as in majority or plurality selection. That way the State is represented not a major urban area.
#8
Originally, (pre 17th Amendment) senators were elected by the state legislature. Whichever party ran the legislature decided which party the senators of that state would be.
Currently, how many states have a (R) legislative majority but 1 or both senators are (D).
PeeAye comes to mind.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
12/09/2022 9:17 Comments ||
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#9
In my opinion Schumer is in worse health than Biden. My opinion is he will not last much longer. More than just trichotillomania.
Posted by: Tom ||
12/09/2022 11:19 Comments ||
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#11
I'd call Schumer a reptile but Besoeker told me to stop insulting reptiles...even if I do believe they have certain characteristics in common.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
12/09/2022 11:52 Comments ||
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#12
Schumer has a checked past. His resiliency with regard to Dem leadership can either be attributed to his strategic brilliance or to the fact that he is a compromised puppet of someone else. Any tertiary inspection of his statements on any topic yields sufficient evidence to reject the null hypothesis that he is brilliant.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
12/09/2022 12:08 Comments ||
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#13
^ I'd tend to believe he is the one who has kompromat on enough of his colleagues to maintain his grip on power.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
12/09/2022 12:33 Comments ||
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[An Nahar] Pennsylvania government regulations would be revised with extensive definitions of sex, religious creed and race under a proposal set for a vote on Thursday — a change some Republican politicians see as an overreach on a subject they think should not be addressed without legislation.
The proposal before the Independent Regulatory Review Commission would enshrine into writing a set of definitions regarding the types of employment, housing, education and public accommodations discrimination complaints that can be brought before the state Human Relations Commission.
Advocacy groups say greater clarity about the terms sex, religious creed and race would be a significant step forward, building on a 2018 decision by the commission to start accepting complaints about anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination.
"There are some issues where it's very clear where the discrimination has happened or hasn't happened," said Rachel Wentworth, executive director of the Fort Washington-based Housing Equality Center of Pennsylvania. "But there's a lot of gray areas, areas where the laws are worded in a way that's more broad. So we really welcome any type of regulation or guidance which clarifies some of what's covered under those laws."
The proposal would define "sex" as including pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding, sex assigned at birth, gender identity or expression, affectional or sexual orientation and differences in sex development.
"Race" discrimination would include ancestry, national origin, ethnic characteristics, interracial marriages and association, traits such as hairstyles that are historically associated with race, and national origin or ancestry.
And "religious creed" would cover all aspects of religious observance, practice and belief.
In a May letter to the Independent Regulatory Review Commission, state Rep. Seth Grove, R-York, argued the new definitions were in effect an end-run around the Legislature.
"The policy choice of whether Pennsylvania should extend the definition of 'sex discrimination' in such a manner remains just that: a policy choice," Grove said. "As such, it is squarely and exclusively the prerogative of the General Assembly to pursue."
Rep. Dan Frankel, D-Allegheny, a longtime proponent of LGBTQ+ nondiscrimination bills, said Republican opponents "have blocked every attempt that we've had on the House floor to do this. So that provides plenty of rationale to proceed on the regulatory basis."
The Pennsylvania Catholic Conference, the public affairs arm of the state's bishops, said the sex discrimination proposal will hurt small businesses and religious entities and would not protect religious freedom. State law permits religious organizations to hire or employ on sex-based grounds when that is a bona fide part of the job.
Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf's press secretary, Beth Rementer, said he favored making changes through state law. "Unfortunately, given Republican led efforts to push legislation that only seeks to discriminate and bully individuals and their refusal to take up commonsense bills, this action through regulation is one more way the administration can protect Pennsylvanians," Rementer said.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/09/2022 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
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#1
IRRC. Well named, the article irks me.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
12/09/2022 7:27 Comments ||
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JFK was shot dead during a presidential motorcade in Dallas, Texas 59 years ago
Yet more than 15,000 files on his death remain locked at the National Archives
A large batch of the files are expected to be revealed next week after the Biden administration was hit with a lawsuit demanding that all records be declassified
Was Oswald, or had Oswald ever been, a US Intelligence Community source? Should be a simple YES or NO.
Posted by: Besoeker 2022-12-09 02:01
Beso,
Exactly. Every couple of years we get reports of 'smoking guns', which usually end up being something along the lines of 'Oswald liked to drink Moxie', or something like that.
I have always said, and still do, that if there's a smoking gun in there, it will be that it turns out that Oswald was making no secret of what he wanted to do, and a half dozen Alphabet Agencies had clues that, had they put them together, would have stopped him cold.
#3
...Oh, and one other thing - especially after the last few years, anyone who thinks the US Government is going to release documents that prove it knew anything about the assassination of a President simply hasn't been paying attention.
"I'll tell you something [about John Kennedy's murder] that will rock you," he said. "Kennedy was trying to get to Castro, but Castro got to him first."
~ LBJ
Judge Andrew Napolitano recounting a phone call with Trump in December 2020, when Napolitano asked Trump why he hadn’t released the JFK files. Trump’s answer, if true, was cryptic: “Judge, if you saw what I saw, you would know why I can’t release them.”
Well, that would be a surprise - that shit was awful. My mother used to drink that crap because she knew us kids wouldn't. I think I used it a few times to clean pennies when I started a coin collection kit.
#12
If you're going for a conspiracy theory, I kind of like the one that says that known communist Oswald had enough of a link to Soviet agents to make the assassination suspicious, but nothing actionable. Rather than risk escalation (nukes can ruin your day), they hid the dubious stuff--a conspiracy to cover up junk. Sort of like keeping grand jury testimony secret.
But without information, I'll stick with Oswald the loner.
Posted by: James ||
12/09/2022 9:38 Comments ||
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#13
On just the mechanics of the shoot, I recommend this:
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
12/09/2022 9:49 Comments ||
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#14
#11 'Oswald liked to drink Moxie',
Well, that would be a surprise - that shit was awful. My mother used to drink that crap because she knew us kids wouldn't. I think I used it a few times to clean pennies when I started a coin collection kit.
Posted by: Raj 2022-12-09 09:18
Raj,
You're the FIRST person I've ever actually run across who knows about the stuff! I gather it was an....um...acquired taste - can you describe it?
#15
Consider that case of Oswald's repatriation to the US and the re-issuance of a passport without the traditional investigation at DoS. What agency short-circuited that whole event? Research the Gill book and you find interesting hints.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
12/09/2022 11:55 Comments ||
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#17
Moxie is an acquired taste that I got used to in High School. The aftertaste I never got used to. It is a bad version of Dr Pepper. No reason to drink it other than as an affectation.
As for Kennedy files, this seems like the Charlie Brown football gig. About all anyone can hope for is that they divulge something unintentionally.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
12/09/2022 11:57 Comments ||
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#18
The next prexidential assassination will be as unexpected and shocking as any of them. It was never going to be Trump.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
12/09/2022 11:57 Comments ||
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#19
About all anyone can hope for is that they divulge something unintentionally.
Leaks are the rule that proves the exception.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
12/09/2022 11:58 Comments ||
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#21
My wife's step-father drank Moxie. Named his dog Moxie also.
It's an "Interesting" taste for sure. I tried it a couple of times and the closest I can come to describing it is unsweetened, carbonated, bitter, Licorice soda. Not good at all. Right up there with horehound candy.
#26
You know, it's honestly clear to me that the CIA, FBI and other three letter agencies are not on the side of America. They should all be transferred to Alaska and the north sea at the old NORAD radar sites with no internet to ensure all their files (On paper) are correct. Never let anyone finish until they quit or retire. Complaints should automatically receive demotions.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
.JPG)
