Ask Me Help Desk - The Twitter Files

Yes Musk is the man of the year. He has sacrificed $10s of billions of his own wealth to protect free speech in a country where the Constitution explicitly prohibits the government from the censorship they have engaged in now for a number of years . Musk used to be the darling of the tree hugger crowd . He invested a fortune in the development of the "green " technologies they lust . If not for Musk there would be no American transportation of astronauts and supplies to the ISS .

Now the same lefties who used to be the champions of freedom of speech vilify him for outing bad actors in the intel and law enforcement agencies ;and in Silicon Valley. The nation owes him a debt of gratitude.
It is stunning to think that the left used to believe McCarthyism was a national threat ;and now completely embrace it's concepts and tactics.

It is my hope that others with the means get a sense of the liberty that was in the founders of the country . They too risked their fortunes in the pursuit of freedom.

The censorship that the government actively engaged in at Twitter and other Big Tech platforms not only hurt the specific person targeted. It also is a First Amendment violation against the intended audience. In fact, that is where the main damage is done.

SCOTUS made that point clear in 1976 'Virginia Board of Pharmacy v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council '

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In a 7-to-1 opinion, the Court held that the First Amendment protects willing speakers and willing listeners equally.

Virginia State Board of Pharmacy v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, Inc. | Oyez

1973 Norwood v. Harrison SCOTUS held that the government "may not induce, encourage or promote private persons to accomplish what it is constitutionally forbidden to accomplish."

This is not just true of Twitter . The government pressure on social media to restrict so called harmful content is also a clear violation . It is questionable how much censoring is voluntary and how much is induced by government pressure .

These Tech companies get a double barrel of it when government intel and law enforcement pressure them . They also are getting it from Congress demanding so called moderation.

more Backpage v Dart 2015 commentary on lib 'Slate ' magazine

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Although Posner spends much of his opinion ridiculing Dart’s attempt to repackage his legal coercion as counseling from a concerned citizen, the core of his decision reaffirms two key First Amendment principles. The first is that government agents cannot replace outright censorship with “official bullying” in order to slip past the strictures of the Constitution.......

The second First Amendment principle at stake here is the right of websites to curate and organize information free from government constraint. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act already protects websites from liability when users post illegal material. But what about the more basic right of Backpage (and websites like Yelp and Google) to assemble, classify, and publish vast amounts of data as they see fit? The Supreme Court has suggested that the transmission of information is a type of speech—which seems especially true on Backpage, where information is conveyed through expression. Does the First Amendment really permit the government to pressure websites into removing information it doesn’t like?
For Posner, the answer is a vehement no. His decision is a definitive rejoinder to officials like Dart, who cloak censorial intentions (shutting down adult ads) in the garb of a noble battle (stemming sex trafficking). We might stop a lot of crimes by permitting censorship of the Internet, trading our First Amendment freedoms for the vague promise of greater safety. Posner’s response to this temptation is one worth taking to heart: The trade-off isn’t worth it.

Backpage v. Dart: A judge smacks down a sheriff’s intimidation campaign against adult ads. (slate.com)

How are the first two descriptions significantly different from the last one? Why would it take 3.5 mil for Twitter to essentially send some information to the FBI? Why would Twitter need to do that to begin with?

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Schellenberger tweeted that the FBI was paying Twitter millions of dollars for help with its "influence campaign". He quoted an associate that, "I am happy to report we have collected $3,415,323 since October 2019!”

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latest instalment of the files reveals that Twitter was essentially an FBI PAID informant and collaborator . The FBI paid the company $3.4 million taxpayer monopoly bucks to do their bidding.

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The actual truth was that the FBI reimbursed Twitter for its expenses in complying with requests for information from Twitter.

If Twitter was paid to supply information to the FBI, then in what way was it not a "PAID informant and collaborator"?

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Originally Posted by tomder55

The censorship that the government actively engaged in at Twitter and other Big Tech platforms not only hurt the specific person targeted. It also is a First Amendment violation against the intended audience

There was no government censorship and no violation of the First Amendment.

It's ok for you to believe that, but you need a court case or something legal to prove it.

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Originally Posted by tomder55

They did not ONLY use Twitter to suppress speech .Matt Taibbi reported, “the government was in constant contact not just with Twitter, but with every major tech firm.

None of that is a violation of the First Amendment.

Taibbi tweeted “there’s no evidence — that I’ve seen” that the federal government had a role in suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story, but that “the decision was made at the highest levels of the company

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The sole condition he agreed to was to do the reporting on Twitter's platform.

Taibbi wrote. "What I can say is that in exchange for the opportunity to cover a unique and explosive story, I had to agree to certain conditions."

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Taibbi wrote. "What I can say is that in exchange for the opportunity to cover a unique and explosive story, I had to agree to certain conditions."

The quote you give is from December 2 That information is out of date

I can't give you the exact quote because it is on Taibbi's TK substack which is a subscription paywall that I don't subscribe to .
He gave the conditions he was working under on December 10 . He said he did NOT give up any editorial control and that he had to agree to publish only on Twitter's platform .

Note to Readers on the "Twitter Files" (substack.com)

Maybe with more digging I will find someone who did a c/p of his published comment on TK

However ;co-author Bari Weiss made a Tweet on December8 that spelled out the condition Musk gave them .

28. The authors have broad and expanding access to Twitter’s files. The only condition we agreed to was that the material would first be published on Twitter.

Bari Weiss on Twitter: "28. The authors have broad and expanding access to Twitter’s files. The only condition we agreed to was that the material would first be published on Twitter." / Twitter

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https://www.askmehelpdesk.com/custom...quote_icon.png Originally Posted by tomder55 https://www.askmehelpdesk.com/custom...post-right.png
They did not ONLY use Twitter to suppress speech .Matt Taibbi reported, “the government was in constant contact not just with Twitter, but with every major tech firm.

None of that is a violation of the First Amendment.

I gave 3 court cases that says otherwise . Censorship by the government through proxies is still censorship and a 1st amendment violation .

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Censorship by the government through proxies is still censorship and a 1st amendment violation .

Even if it wasn't, it should still be a major alarm bell for anyone who values freedom. To simply blow it off as not violating the first amendment smacks of partisanship on a high level.

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Originally Posted by tomder55

The quote you give is from December 2 That information is out of date

I can't give you the exact quote because it is on Taibbi's TK substack which is a subscription paywall that I don't subscribe to .

Ok, fair enough. Not to bother researching the issue.

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I gave 3 court cases that says otherwise

You gave past cases, not current cases on the specific issue.

what do the Dems like to call it ? oh yeah 'stare decisis ' The Virginia case was 7-1 decided by one of the most liberal courts in history ,the Marshall court . Norwood was a unanimous decision . Backpage was an appellate decision in the 7th circuit which is basically the lib Chi-town district court .

But then that was the 1970s when lib Dems believed in civil liberties . I just have to wonder how the current court progressives would see things like protecting the bill of rights . Are they national statists like the Dems who nominated them ?

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Originally Posted by tomder55

what do the Dems like to call it ? oh yeah 'stare decisis

Do you mean like in Roe v Wade where the Trump appointees outright lied in their confirmation hearings re "stare"?

ok I look forward to the case when the FBI has to disclose in discovery how they were exposed by their 2016 election interference .

So they embedded the machinery of their manipulation into the private sector .
The incorporation of the intel and law enforcement agencies with Big Tech ;progressive think tanks ; and the compliant press makes it a behemoth that is the real threat to liberty in this country .

$3.5 million US taxpayer money was paid to Twitter alone to manipulate the outcome of the 2020 elections . And Twitter is but one of the companies they coerced .

And that is just the FBI . The Twitter files have so far only dealt with the FBI and to a lesser extent the CIA . Other agencies roles that have been briefly mentioned like DHS's 'Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency' (CISA) played important roles too .

CISA was set up to "protect" infrastructure from cyberattack. But they expanded the definition of infrastructure to include the election process. Instead of concentrating on threats like Russian malware ;they became cyber-censors who's bigger concerns was tweets about the integrity of mail in voting .

Michael Benz a former State Dept official, now the executive director of the Foundation for Freedom Online tweeted

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Chris Krebs, as CISA censorship czar at DHS, deputized disinformation flagging to the Atlantic Council, whose London-based team censored US opinions about mail-in ballots in 2020.Atlantic Council has 7 living CIA directors currently on its board:

Mike Benz on Twitter: "Chris Krebs, as CISA censorship czar at DHS, deputized disinformation flagging to the Atlantic Council, whose London-based team censored US opinions about mail-in ballots in 2020. Atlantic Council has 7 living CIA directors currently on its board: https://t.co/vmZKSCztbs" / Twitter

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The size, scale and speed of DHS's censorship operation are vastly larger have been reported. Based on our investigation, below are seven bottom-line figures summarizing the scope of censorship carried out by DHS speech control partners, as compiled from their own reports and videos:

22 Million tweets labeled “misinformation” on Twitter;
859 Million tweets collected in databases for “misinformation” analysis;
120 analysts monitoring social media “misinformation” in up to 20-hour shifts;
15 tech platforms monitored for “misinformation” often in real-time;
<1 hour average response time between government partners and tech platforms;
Dozens of “misinformation narratives” targeted for platform-wide throttling; and
Hundreds of millions of individual Facebook posts, YouTube videos, TikToks, and tweets impacted, due to “misinformation”

Terms of Service policy changes that DHS partners openly plotted and bragged tech companies would never have done without DHS partner insistence and “huge regulatory pressure” from government.

The citations above are from just the DHS censorship network’s impact on the 2020 election cycle alone. That was two years ago, when the narrative management machine referenced by The Intercept was first getting formed. Even the above figures, however, just scratch the surface of the full story.

While The Intercept rightly noted that DHS's “truth cops“ now take on a range of other topics – such as Covid-19 and geopolitical opinions – it all started from, and grew out of, DHS's speech control infrastructure set up to censor speech about elections.
That started with the 2020 election. But it continues, importantly, with the 2022 midterm elections, which are ongoing this week.

DHS Censorship Agency Had Strange First Mission: Banning Speech That Casts Doubt On ‘Red Mirage, Blue Shift’ Election Events (foundationforfreedomonline.com)

In a couple of weeks of Twitter disclosures ,more has been done to expose the deep state interference in elections than was ever exposed by John Durham's 3 years of investigation.

It is no coincidence that James Baker ,the author of the FBI warrants to spy on the Trump campaign was later embedded in Twitter . His last act there was an attempt to censor the Twitter files being released .He was also hired by CNN as an analysist which tells you how deep the government has embedded into the private sector . CNN also just recently hired former Rep Adam Kinzinger who is noted as one of the 2 RINOs that were selected to be on the Jan 6 kangaroo court .

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https://www.askmehelpdesk.com/custom...quote_icon.png Originally Posted by tomder55 https://www.askmehelpdesk.com/custom...post-right.png
what do the Dems like to call it ? oh yeah 'stare decisis

Do you mean like in Roe v Wade where the Trump appointees outright lied in their confirmation hearings re "stare"?

All nominees lie in the confirmation process. They learned that after Robert Bork told the truth and was mercilessly trashed .

Stare does not apply to cases that were wrongly decided . If that were not so then Plessy would be the law of the land .

The cases I cite support the 1st amendment freedoms . Those were but a few of the many such cases supporting basic liberty in a free society .

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22 Million tweets labeled “misinformation” on Twitter;
859 Million tweets collected in databases for “misinformation” analysis;
120 analysts monitoring social media “misinformation” in up to 20-hour shifts;
15 tech platforms monitored for “misinformation” often in real-time;
<1 hour average response time between government partners and tech platforms;
Dozens of “misinformation narratives” targeted for platform-wide throttling; and
Hundreds of millions of individual Facebook posts, YouTube videos, TikToks, and tweets impacted, due to “misinformation”

I can hardly wait to see what kind of excuse is put forward for this.

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Do you mean like in Roe v Wade where the Trump appointees outright lied in their confirmation hearings re "stare"?

I don't think that's true. All appointees will defer giving a legal opinion on cases that could potentially appear before the court, a practice that, as Tom pointed out, began with the shameful treatment of R. Bork by Senate dems. But one way or the other, that's not lying. A.C. Barrett went to great lengths to point out that a handful of court decisions were in the category of "super precedents" that were not expected to ever change, but that Roe was not one of them. That was not simply her opinion. She had a wagonload of scholarly opinions to support that idea, and as I remember it was not seriously challenged by the dems.

Stare Decisis is not intended to be set in concrete. That was the meaning of her discussion about super precedents.

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Originally Posted by tomder55

ok I look forward to the case when the FBI has to disclose in discovery how they were exposed by their 2016 election interference

'Til then.....................................

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that is the real threat to liberty in this country

The real threat to liberty in this country is Trump trying to overthrow the government. Ain't nuthin' even close to a liberty threat than that nutjob and his wacky cohorts.

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$3.5 million US taxpayer money was paid to Twitter alone to manipulate the outcome of the 2020 elections

That's been explained to you more than once right here on these pages. Repeating it will never make it true.

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And that is just the FBI . The Twitter files have so far only dealt with the FBI and to a lesser extent the CIA . Other agencies roles that have been briefly mentioned like DHS's 'Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency' (CISA) played important roles too

When you have something solid to report, get back to me.

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In a couple of weeks of Twitter disclosures ,more has been done to expose the deep state interference in elections than was ever exposed by John Durham's 3 years of investigation.

That's not saying much. Durham was a total joke. It went nowhere and sputtered out like a spent balloon.

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It is no coincidence that James Baker ,the author of the FBI warrants to spy on the Trump campaign was later embedded in Twitter

Embedded? Did you mean HIRED? Nice try at slanting the truth.

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He was also hired by CNN as an analysist which tells you how deep the government has embedded into the private sector

OK, now it's CNN hires. What's next? Sesame Street?

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the Jan 6 kangaroo court .

Kangaroo court? Did you see the reams of documents, videos, audio, eyewitness testimony from TRUMP REPUBLICAN STAFFERS? Are you really that blind to the truth? Thousands and thousands of pages proving every charge? What more could you possibly want?

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Originally Posted by tomder55

All nominees lie in the confirmation process. They learned that after Robert Bork told the truth and was mercilessly trashed

Nice admission that the Trump appointees lied. And so many such good Catholics.

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The real threat to liberty in this country is Trump trying to overthrow the government.

Oh brother. TDS strikes again.

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that the Trump appointees lied

Ridiculous accusation for which, as usual, he has no evidence.

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"Almost every conspiracy theory that people had about Twitter turned out to be true," Elon Musk said on the All-In podcast in late December. "Is there a conspiracy theory about Twitter that didn't turn out to be true?"

Did 'Every Conspiracy Theory' About Twitter Turn Out to Be True? (reason.com)

Adam Schiffhead used his power as the Chair /ranking member of Congressional Intel Committee to pressure Twitter to delete postings and suspend users. He and his staff repeatedly requested posts taken down on subjects as frivolous and a parody of Clueless Joe.

In one extreme case he requested that journalist Paul Sperry be suspended because Sperry had revealed the identity of Schiff's secret whistleblower during the Trump Ukraine impeachment . That whistleblower was Eric Ciaramella ,a partisan Dem emperor holdover at the WH .

Sperry was indeed suspended by Twitter . He claims he got no explanation why.

The fact that the government is interfering with the operation of the free press should be of enormous concern for all of us.