Musk's Twitter bombshells keep coming. Social media company was giant conservative censorship machine
Twitter, before Musk was part an enormous erosion of free speech in America. Conservatives the tech company didn't like were subject to 'visibility filtering'
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Like an episodic series, part two of the so-called Twitter Files dropped on Thursday evening. It should be called, "The Blacklist." It’s as shocking and unbelievable as the fictional version on television. Except the Twitter tale is real. And odious.
Despite repeated denials by Twitter executives over the years, it turns out that the social media company was doing exactly what many critics suspected —secretly building blacklists of conservatives to diminish or disappear on their powerful platform. They weren’t practicing responsible content moderation, as they claimed. No, they were deviously devising a system of content oblivion.
If you dared to offer information or opinion with which the progressive elites at Twitter disagreed or objected, your tweets would vanish into a cyber black hole. Your followers would strangely begin to dwindle. Any ideas and thoughts that didn’t conform strictly to Twitter’s woke orthodoxy of ideological purity were suppressed. It became a punitive censorship machine that applied its contrived and contorted standards with brute force.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}ELON MUSK'S SECOND INSTALLMENT OF 'TWITTER FILES' REVEALS 'SECRET BLACKLISTS,' BARI WEISS REPORTS
How many times did we hear Twitter insist that it has never engaged in "shadow banning?" It was a lie. They dislike the term, so they simply conjured up a new one called "visibility filtering." Techies love to invent new stuff, even if it’s a rip-off or a ruse. In this case, it was the same thing masquerading as different jargon.
Pre-Musk, Twitter contributed mightily to the alarming erosion of free speech in America. Over time, it became a sad monument to narrow-minded intolerance. Imperious executives were morally and intellectually corrupt. They robbed people of the chance for speech they might wish to hear or to engage in robust debate. It was antithetical to the principles of free expression. This unbridled power allowed them to punish political adversaries and protect partisan allies. They did so with mendacious impunity and little regard for the public interest.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Maybe Elon Musk, the new owner of Twitter, can right the listing ship. His actions following the first installment of the Twitter Files a week ago suggests he can. In a show of uncommon strength and resolve, he booted out the sly fox skulking in Twitter’s henhouse.
James Baker was caught with a mouthful of feathers when Twitter owner Elon Musk learned that his deputy general counsel played a pivotal role in censoring the Hunter Biden laptop story in October of 2020. Baker was promptly sacked. But that’s not all.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Musk also discovered that Baker may have tried to cover it up by sanitizing the Twitter Files in advance of their release last weekend. Unbelievably, it was Baker who secretly "vetted" them — which is code for expunging incriminating records — just before they were handed off to journalists Matt Taibbi and Bari Weiss. Management at Twitter, including Musk, had no idea what Baker was up to.
Weiss said her "jaw hit the floor" when she discovered Baker’s dirty fingerprints on the files. On his own, he took charge of curating the internal Twitter documents that were coughed up on Musk’s order for review and reporting. Given Baker’s own complicity in the original (and wrongful) suppression of an important story that was damaging to then-candidate Joe Biden, Baker should have been the last person at the social media company to be allowed anywhere near the Twitter Files.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}After Baker was shown the door on December 6, former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey fired off a tweet suggesting that all of the Twitter Files should be made public "without filter and let people judge for themselves." Of course, Dorsey could have done that himself when he helmed the platform. But that would have required courage. Instead, he tried in vain to mollify critics with a pablum of excuses and hollow mea culpas for the company’s illegitimate censorship.
James Baker was fired by new Twitter owner Elon Musk.
Musk immediately responded to Dorsey’s salvo by advising that the "most important data was hidden (from you too) and some may have been deleted, but everything we find will be released." It was a not-so-subtle way of dismissing Dorsey as chronically clueless. No need. That was established long ago. But it was also a sign that Musk suspects Baker of purging the Twitter Files to conceal the ugly truth. That likely explains why there’s no mention of the FBI’s machinations anywhere in the files. The documents seemed to have been neatly scrubbed.
The blunder of hiring Baker rests squarely on Dorsey’s shoulders. Baker’s checkered history at the FBI can be described as a "profile in corruption." In his prior capacity as the bureau’s general counsel during the crooked Comey era, Baker was instrumental in fueling the Russia collusion farce. He treated the phony dossier as scripture and the Alfa-Server scam as gospel, knowing full well that it was all an insidious fiction.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}He was pals with Michael Sussmann, Hillary’s lawyer, who fed Baker a load of anti-Trump garbage. Baker was also knee-deep in crafting the lawless spy warrants from the FISA court. His clandestine leaks to the media were meant to sully Trump with lies. Those shenanigans eventually brought Baker under investigation. So, he grabbed his taxpayer-funded pension and fled the Hoover Building for good.
Baker’s happy landing at Twitter in June of 2020 was politically advantageous. He was a card-carrying Trump hater. At the time, so were the tech giant’s management and staff. His wily maneuvers as the chief lawyer for FBI Director James Comey’s band of merry miscreants offered a match made in partisan heaven. Twitter welcomed Baker with open arms. The FBI must have loved it, too. It gave the bureau an operative and mole inside the platform’s executive suite just months before the presidential election. How convenient.
But from a competence standpoint, Baker’s arrival at Twitter was a head scratcher. His background is intelligence ops (i.e., spying) and national security. Information technology? Cyber networks? His resume is conspicuously thin. Bear in mind that Baker is old school. He’s a walking ad for Brooks Brothers, circa 1960s. You know … more comfortable on a Smith-Corona typewriter than a computer. He thinks the only spam is the faux meat in a can. Aren’t bots for tots?
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}No matter. His FBI rolodex was jammed with useful idiots. And smart guys, too. The kind of people who could stir up political mischief and peddle disinformation while chewing gum at the same time. It was no surprise, then, that Baker’s prior employer began working in concert with Twitter to kill the laptop story with what turned out to be a bogus warning of an imminent "hack and leak" scheme.
FBI agent Elvis Chan held weekly meetings with Twitter in the two months leading up to the 2020 presidential election, as noted in my last column. He cautioned that "individuals associated with political campaigns would be the subject of hacking attacks" by the Russians (it’s always the Russians, don’t you know) for the purpose of spreading false information on social media platforms, including Twitter. In a sworn affidavit, Twitter’s former head of site integrity, Yoel Roth, remembers that Hunter Biden was specifically mentioned by the FBI.
Naturally, that gave Twitter the fatuous excuse to kill the damning laptop evidence published by the New York Post that Hunter Biden — with his dad’s help — was pocketing millions of dollars from foreign sources in exchange for access and promises of influence. Suppressing the story may have tipped the election in Joe’s favor.
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There was never a hack. It was a cleverly contrived con. The laptop and its smoking gun contents were the real deal. Emails show that Twitter execs knew it and voiced concerns internally. But Baker encouraged the censorship that was instigated by his old haunt, the FBI.
Naturally, that gave Twitter the fatuous excuse to kill the damning laptop evidence published by the New York Post that Hunter Biden — with his dad’s help — was pocketing millions of dollars from foreign sources in exchange for access and promises of influence. Suppressing the story may have tipped the election in Joe’s favor.
You won’t be shocked to learn that Baker and Chan had worked together before during the misbegotten investigation of Trump known infamously as Crossfire Hurricane, aka The Russia Hoax. You’ll find that tidbit of information buried on page 239 of Chan’s deposition in a censorship lawsuit brought by two state attorneys general. It was a cozy group —Baker, Chan, Peter Strzok, and Lisa Page. The usual suspects. The Deep State’s tentacles stretched all the way from Washington to Silicon Valley.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}What Twitter never counted on was Musk. Malefactors at the site figured their political manipulations could continue in perpetuity. They never envisioned that an iconoclast entrepreneur would pony up $44 billion to upset the apple cart and expose the skullduggery behind their targeting of Republicans and their boosting of Democrats.
For too long, it had been so easy. With a few simple keystrokes, vexing conservatives like actor James Woods could be vanished overnight. Clever algorithms engineered the disappearance of any derogatory stories on the Bidens. Positive stuff was elevated. It was a breeze. Censorship reigned supreme at Twitter.
Hunter Biden's laptop was at the center of a Big Tech censorship campaign in 2020. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)
Until Musk showed up one day. He turned the joint honest by firing the folks who had commandeered the social media site for nefarious purposes. He cleaned house and, presto, the chicanery ended. Well, almost. Somehow, he missed Baker until it was too late. The Twitter Files were likely purified of the most salacious details.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Maybe the damage done can be undone. Perhaps the authentic and unspoiled files can be reconstructed or resurrected. That’ll probably require the handiwork of tech gurus and forensic specialists. In Silicon Valley, those are a dime a dozen. Sure, it’ll cost a pretty penny, but Musk has deep pockets.
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Fortunately for the American public, the new owner of Twitter has an even deeper respect for free speech principles, fairness, and transparency. As Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once noted, "Sunshine is the best disinfectant."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}It will take time and effort to mop up all the filth at Twitter. Kicking James Baker to the curb is a good start.