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IPFS News Link • Free Speech

From Shadow Bans to Black Lists, Musk Forces a Free-Speech Reckoning for Politicians and Pundits

• http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org,by jonathan turley

Here is the column:

"We don't make exceptions for jokes or satire." That line from a third tranche of company documents released by Twitter's new owner, Elon Musk, captures the social media giant's censorship culture. Its humorless, officious tenor is all too common with state censors throughout history. Censorship creates an insatiable appetite for more censorship, where even jokes become intolerable.

Censorship apologists are running out of room for evasion. They first insisted that Twitter was not censoring disfavored views and then said that claims of secret throttling or shadow banning were "conspiracy theories." They then insisted that there was no evidence of meetings with the FBI or other agencies.

These latest Twitter files shatter all of these past spins. This includes confirmation of "shadow banning" and other suppression techniques despite denials by former CEO Jack Dorsey under oath before Congress and public denials by top corporate executives.

The legal ramifications will become clearer as more information emerges. Yet, a far more significant problem already is confirmed in these files: the existential threat of corporate censors to free speech.

In the new material released late Friday, journalist Matt Taibbi confirmed that Twitter executives met weekly with FBI, Homeland Security and national intelligence officials to discuss "disinformation" they felt should be removed from the site. Those discussions apparently included the Hunter Biden laptop story.
 


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