Glenn Greenwald butchers Taylor Lorenz for 'asylum-worthy babbling' about Musk's Twitter plans
Greenwald slammed Lorenz for publishing 'alarmist' content he said should not be considered journalism.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The Intercept co-founder and independent journalist Glenn Greenwald ripped into Washington Post tech reporter Taylor Lorenz for her recent article claiming Elon Musk’s reinstatement of banned Twitter accounts will turn the platform into a "free-for-all hellscape."
Greenwald criticized Lorenz’s reporting, accusing her of finding "3 or 4 people more neurotic, clearly unstable, and censorship-happy than she" to trash Twitter and its new owner.
On Thanksgiving, Lorenz published a piece titled, "‘Opening the gates of hell’: Musk says he will revive banned accounts." It was a report detailing the "alarm of activists and online trust and safety experts" over Musk’s recent announcement that he would be granting "amnesty" to accounts that had been previously banned on the platform.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}ELON MUSK EXPOSES 'SECRET CLOSET' FULL OF 'STAY WOKE' T-SHIRTS AT TWITTER HQ
Glenn Greenwald feels "censorship has become the liberals’ North Star" but only when rhetoric they want to silence doesn’t coincide with their ideology. (EVARISTO SA/AFP via Getty Images) (Getty Images)
Musk made the announcement after consulting Twitter users with an online Twitter poll asking, "Should Twitter offer a general amnesty to suspended accounts, provided that they have not broken the law or engaged in egregious spam?" The majority of voters clicked, "Yes."
Musk’s polling strategy was the same one he used to decide to reinstate former president Donald Trump’s account to the platform.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}On Twitter, Greenwald bashed Lorenz and other outlets doing similar reporting. His thread on the subject began by targeting an Axios article, accusing it of over-the-top liberal criticism of Musk’s maneuver in order to spin the narrative it was harmful for society.
He tweeted, "BREAKING! Allowing those disliked by liberals to be heard on the internet will *literally* kill many people, warn the most neurotic, mentally unwell, petulant petty-tyrants who have declared themselves ‘online safety experts’ and are now called that by liberal media outlets."
The rest of his thread focused on Lorenz’s reporting, which he accused of pushing the same narrative.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"Taylor Lorenz miraculously found 3 or 4 people more neurotic, clearly unstable, and censorship-happy than she, bestowed them with fake expertise titles, and now the WPost is blasting out her alarmist asylum-worthy babbling to millions. #journalism," Greenwald tweeted.
Washington Post columnist Taylor Lorenz. (MSNBC)
The independent journalist followed up his assessment by criticizing one of the cited experts in Lorenz’s article, Harvard Law School’s clinical instructor Alejandra Caraballo, an outspoken left-wing figure. Caraballo told Lorenz that Musk taking over was "like the gates of hell opened on this site tonight."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Greenwald ripped Caraballo, tweeting, "This is one of Lorenz’s Twitter friends - just look at tweets of hers to see how unhinged and disturbed she is - whom the WPost cites as an expert to warn Musk's mildly greater free speech is ‘existentially dangerous for various marginalized communities.’"
He provided screenshots of some of Caraballo’s previous tweets. One from more than a week ago featured her saying, "I don’t think Twitter will last through the weekend." In another, she tweeted, "Since this site is like about to collapse imminently, here are my other socials." She then provided links to her Mastodon and Instagram accounts.
FILE - Tesla CEO Elon Musk attends the opening of the Tesla factory Berlin Brandenburg in Gruenheide, Germany on March 22, 2022. Musk has sold 4.4 million shares of Tesla stock worth roughly $4 billion, most likely to help fund his purchase of Twitter. (Patrick Pleul/Pool Photo via AP, File)
Greenwald also bashed Lorenz for citing UCLA professor Sarah Roberts, who suggested that the results of Musk’s Twitter poll might be "manipulated."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"Lorenz’s article quotes her unwell Harvard friend, a partisan goon at Media Matters, a UCLA professor whose pro-censorship insanity is off-the-charts, but not one person who thinks censorship is dangerous," Greenwald tweeted.
He added, "Including the other side is ‘journalism,’ which is not what Taylor does."
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}For good measure, Greenwald also knocked a bit of similar reporting from the Associated Press, which published a piece stating that "online safety experts" think Musk reinstating banned accounts will "spur a rise in harassment."
Greenwald asked, "What the f*** is an ‘online safety expert’? Do you see how media outlets baptize totally fake expertise industries and titles (like ‘disinformation reporter’) to launder their highly politicized censorship agenda as scientific, data-based and neutral?"