Seems likely, Isailedaway.

Twitter, the FBI, and the First Amendment
by Byron York, Chief Political Correspondent |
December 06, 2022 04:30 PM
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opini...first-amendment


TWITTER, THE FBI, AND THE FIRST AMENDMENT. New Twitter owner Elon Musk made a lot of news in the conservative world on Friday when he released information about Twitter's infamous suppression of the October 2020 New York Post story about Joe Biden and influence peddling, a story based on evidence from Biden's son Hunter's laptop. The article, published in the last three weeks of the 2020 presidential campaign, noted that Hunter Biden was engaged in shady business dealings in Ukraine and reported that one of his Ukrainian associates thanked him for arranging for the associate to meet Hunter's father, then the vice president of the United States. One reasonable inference to draw from the story was that Hunter and Joe Biden worked together to reward the people who were paying Hunter Biden at least $50,000 a month to do nothing in particular.

The information Musk released essentially confirmed what we already knew: that Twitter suppressed the New York Post story without having a legitimate reason to do so. Twitter executives embraced the false notion that the story was "Russian disinformation" as a rationale to kill the story as far as Twitter was concerned.

Other social media companies, notably Facebook, also suppressed the story. And many legacy media institutions just ignored it. The laptop, of course, was later authenticated, even by some of the press institutions that mostly ignored it initially, such as the New York Times and the Washington Post. It's impossible to say what effect, if any, the story might have had on the election had those institutions run with the story at the time rather than trying to hide it. In any event, Musk's newly released documents confirm that Twitter suppressed the story without a legitimate reason.

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But here's a really interesting part. There are more documents than just those Musk is erratically releasing.

Turns out there was a complaint to the Federal Election Commission concerning Twitter's action, dating from October 2020, when the New York Post story was published. The complaining group was the Tea Party Patriots Foundation, which alleged that by censoring the Hunter Biden article, Twitter had essentially made an "in kind" contribution to the Biden campaign. The group lost the complaint, but as part of the process, Twitter's chief censor, Yoel Roth — his actual title was "head of site integrity" — filed a declaration with the FEC.

In that declaration, Roth said that since 2018, he had had "regular meetings with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, and industry peers regarding election security." Roth revealed that in those meetings, the federal government officials said they were expecting some sort of 2016-style foreign election interference in the lead-up to the 2020 election. Here is what Roth said, in its entirety:

During these weekly meetings, the federal law enforcement agencies communicated that they expected "hack and leak" operations by state actors might occur in the period shortly before the 2020 presidential election, likely in October. I was told-- excerpt, rest at link above --

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opini...first-amendment
Why efforts to dismiss Musk's 'Twitter Files' by liberal media won't work this time
The connection between Democrats and Twitter and the company's decision to censor the Hunter Biden laptop scandal will not disappear
By Jonathan Turley | Fox News


MSNBC and CNN appeared to minimize the release of the "Twitter files" about the Hunter Biden laptop story and former RNC chair Michael Steele said "we are perpetuating lies."

In the aftermath of the release of the "Twitter Files," the media and political establishment appear to be taking a lesson from Karl Marx who said, "history repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce."

The censoring of the Hunter Biden scandal before the 2020 election by Twitter and others was a tragedy for our democratic system. That tragedy was not in its potential impact on a close election, but the massive (and largely successful) effort to bury a story to protect the Biden campaign. It has now ended in farce as the same censorship apologists struggle to excuse the implications of this major story.

The Twitter Files confirmed that Twitter never had any evidence of a Russian disinformation campaign or hacking as the basis for its decision to censor the New York Post story. Indeed, some at Twitter expressed concern over preventing the sharing of the story. Former Twitter Vice President for Global Communications Brandon Borrman asked if the company could "truthfully claim that this is part of the policy" for barring posts and suspending users.
Elon Musk plans to drop more Twitter documents relating to the 2020 election Video

OUTRAGE AT MUSK-TAIBBI 'TWITTER FILES' DUMP REVEALED MEDIA ARE THE TRUE 'BOTS,' SOME CRITICS SAY

Those voices were few and quickly shouted down as the company barred the sharing of the story, including evidence of a multimillion-dollar influence peddling scheme by the Biden family. The back channel communications between Biden campaign and Democratic operatives show a willing use of the company to suppress political discussion of the scandal before the election. It was an all-hands-on-deck moment for the media and Twitter was eager to lend a hand.

Over a year ago, I discussed how the brilliance of the Biden campaign was to get the media to become invested in the suppression of the story. After two years, major media finally but reluctantly admitted that the laptop was authentic as well as the emails detailing massive transfers of money from foreign interests (including some with foreign intelligence links).

Many have responded by shrugging that influence peddling is not necessarily a crime, ignoring that it is still a massive corruption scandal with serious national security concerns. After all, as Heather Digby Parton argued in Salon on December 5, "There is nothing there other than a man making money by trading on his family name."
Jim Jordan on Hunter Biden laptop censorship: This baloney will never happen again Video

After the release of the "Twitter Files," many of these same figures have shifted to excuse the censorship done at the request of Biden campaign or Democratic operatives.

For some of us who come from long-standing liberal Democratic families, it has been chilling to see the Democratic Party embrace censorship and denounce free speech, including organizing foreign and corporate interests to prevent Musk from restoring free speech protections.

ELON MUSK'S NEXT TWITTER BOMBSHELLS COULD EXPLODE SOCIAL MEDIA TYRANNY

Beyond personally attacking Elon Musk and Matt Taibbi, many have resorted to two claims that are being widely repeated in the media to avoid discussing the coordinated censorship efforts between this company and Democratic operatives.

What will be the impact of Elon Musk's revelations about Twitter's suppression of the Hunter Biden story? Video

What Censorship?

One of the old saws of censorship apologists is that without a government directing the suppression of free speech, it is not censorship.

That is clearly untrue. Many groups like the ACLU stress that "censorship can be carried out by the government as well as private pressure groups."

The same figures insist that if, there is not a violation of the First Amendment (which only applies to the government), there is no free speech violation.

ELON MUSK'S 'TWITTER FILES' INCREASE SUSPICION DEMS HAVE 'DEPUTIZED' BIG TECH TO POLICE SPEECH, WARNS BONGINO-- excerpt, rest at link above --

Quote: Isailedaway wrote in post #24

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I wonder how long it will be before Dems denounce Twitter as 'fake news'?

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Former FBI Agent Reveals Massive Election Interference in ‘Bombshell’ Court Testimony
https://beckernews.com/former-fbi-agent-...estimony-48062/
by Becker News
December 7, 2022

A Big Tech lawsuit has uncovered one of the most disturbing revelations yet about social media companies’ collusion with law enforcement agencies to police speech on the Internet. A former FBI agent, Elvis Chan, revealed during the court hearings that the bureau held weekly meetings with major social media companies prior to the 2020 and 2022 elections.

On Wednesday, the court transcript of former FBI agent Elvis Chan’s testimony was released and corroborated earlier reports.

“Mr. Chan, or Agent Chan, who do you recall on the social media platform side participating in these — in these working group meetings that you have been testifying about from 2020 and 2022?”

“The companies that I remember attending the meetings are Facebook; Microsoft; Google; Twitter; Yahoo!, which have been known as Verizon Media at the time; Wikimedia Foundation and Reddit,” Agent Chan said.

Chan was then asked why the FBI was participating in these meetings.-- excerpt, rest at link above --

Another weird twist:



Twitter executive for Middle East is British Army 'psyops' soldier
Part-time officer has worked on 'behavioural change' projects in the region
The head of the British Army has described the 77th Brigade's talents as including "social media, production design, and Arabic poetry" (British Army)
By Ian Cobain
Published date: 30 September 2019 08:22 UTC | Last update: 2 years 11 months ago
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/twitt...al-warfare-unit


The senior Twitter executive with editorial responsibility for the Middle East is also a part-time officer in the British Army’s psychological warfare unit, Middle East Eye has established.

Gordon MacMillan, who joined the social media company's UK office six years ago, has for several years also served with the 77th Brigade, a unit formed in 2015 to develop “non-lethal” ways of waging war.

The 77th Brigade uses social media platforms such as Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, as well as podcasts, data analysis and audience research to conduct what the head of the UK military, General Nick Carter, describes as “information warfare”.

Carter says the 77th Brigade is giving the British military “the capability to compete in the war of narratives at the tactical level” and to shape perceptions of conflict. Some soldiers who have served with the unit say they have been engaged in operations intended to change the behaviour of target audiences.

What exactly MacMillan is doing with the unit is difficult to determine, however: he has declined to answer any questions about his role, as has Twitter and the UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD).

Twitter would say only that “we actively encourage all our employees to pursue external interests”. The MoD said that the 77th Brigade had no relationship with Twitter, other than using it for communication.

'Using non-lethal engagement... as a means to adapt behaviours of the opposing forces and adversaries'

- The British Army

The 77th Brigade's headquarters are located in Hermitage, Berkshire, west of London. Its creation combined several existing military units such as the Media Operations Group and the 15 Psychological Operations Group.

At its launch, the UK media was told that the new unit of “Facebook warriors” would be around 1,500 strong, and made up of both regular soldiers and reservists. In recent months, the army has been approaching British journalists and asking them to join the unit as reservists.

While clearly engaged in propaganda, the MoD is reluctant to use that word to describe the unit’s operations.-- excerpt, rest at link above --

FBI agent details information suppression scheme used during 2020 election
Testified to success at getting about half of the reports targeted taken down
By Bob Unruh
Published December 8, 2022 at 4:28pm
https://www.wnd.com/2022/12/fbi-agent-de...-2020-election/


That the Biden administration, through multiple channels, schemed to suppress reports on social media and elsewhere it disliked during the 2020 election season already has been documented.

Now testimony is coming out about how big the operation, which allowed administration officials to complain to various foundations and the FBI about disliked messages, and the foundations then would lobby Big Tech for censorship, actually was.

According to an investigative report at Just the News, FBI agent Elvis Chan's testimony in a lawsuit over censorship brought by officials in Missouri and Louisiana has become available.

His statements confirmed that the FBI "ran an operation during the 2020 election that requested social media companies remove content as disinformation."

TRENDING: Harsh news for thousands of U.S. troops booted for refusing COVID vax

And he implicated the top levels of the bureaucracy.

The report explains Chan operated in the FBI's cyber branch in San Francisco, and confirmed he supervised a "command post" in his home city that pursued censorship of what the FBI claimed was "disinformation."

Among the topics that the FBI lobbied to suppress was accurate reporting about Hunter Biden's suspect international business deals that generated payments to the Biden family of millions from Russian and Chinese sources.

"He described a sprawling operation that at time enlisted the help of FBI field offices around the country, federal prosecutors, and FBI and Justice Department lawyers before his unit would make the final request to social media to block content deemed by the operation to be disinformation or in violation of each company’s term of service," the report said.

He recalled getting responses from social media companies, often with confirmation "they had taken down the posts."-- excerpt, rest at link above --

Female former Twitter employees sue company, claiming Musk's firings were sexist against women
https://justthenews.com/government/court...m_campaign=twjs
Slightly more than half of all recent layoffs were reportedly women.


Twitter lays off employees on short notice
Social media giant Twitter sent out a company wide memo on Thursday night announcing that a mass layoff was due today at noon. All company badges were suspended and offices closed for the safety of employees. A new class action suit is being filed against Twitter in response.
By Just the News staff

Updated: December 9, 2022 - 11:30am

Article
Dig In

Twitter is facing a lawsuit from two of its female former employees over allegations that the company discriminated against women workers in its recent round of layoffs. 

The suit "accus[es] the social media company of disproportionately targeting female employees for layoffs," according to Reuters.

The suit reportedly claims that the company "laid off 57% of its female workers compared to 47% of men" following the takeover of the company by billionaire Elon Musk. 

Massachusetts attorney Shannon Liss-Riordan claimed that female employees at Twitter "had targets on their backs" upon Musk's takeover. -- excerpt, rest at link above --