Taibbi - The Twitter Files, Part 1
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Man, oh man...
- Thread: THE TWITTER FILES
- What you’re about to read is the first installment in a series, based upon thousands of internal documents obtained by sources at Twitter.
- The “Twitter Files” tell an incredible story from inside one of the world’s largest and most influential social media platforms. It is a Frankensteinian tale of a human-built mechanism grown out the control of its designer.
- Twitter in its conception was a brilliant tool for enabling instant mass communication, making a true real-time global conversation possible for the first time.
- In an early conception, Twitter more than lived up to its mission statement, giving people “the power to create and share ideas and information instantly, without barriers.”
- As time progressed, however, the company was slowly forced to add those barriers. Some of the first tools for controlling speech were designed to combat the likes of spam and financial fraudsters.
- Slowly, over time, Twitter staff and executives began to find more and more uses for these tools. Outsiders began petitioning the company to manipulate speech as well: first a little, then more often, then constantly.
- By 2020, requests from connected actors to delete tweets were routine. One executive would write to another: “More to review from the Biden team.” The reply would come back: “Handled.”
- Celebrities and unknowns alike could be removed or reviewed at the behest of a political party:
10.Both parties had access to these tools. For instance, in 2020, requests from both the Trump White House and the Biden campaign were received and honored. However:
11. This system wasn't balanced. It was based on contacts. Because Twitter was and is overwhelmingly staffed by people of one political orientation, there were more channels, more ways to complain, open to the left (well, Democrats) than the right. opensecrets.org/orgs/twitter/s…
- The resulting slant in content moderation decisions is visible in the documents you’re about to read. However, it’s also the assessment of multiple current and former high-level executives.
Okay, there was more throat-clearing about the process, but screw it, let's jump forward
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@jon-nyc said in Taibbi - The Twitter Files, Part 1:
Now we’ll never know what happened.
Do you believe Taibbi has a track record as a fabulist?
Well, he writes narrative driven pieces and has at least since he got back from Moscow. I've been critical of him since he ran a drum circle in Zucotti park and wrote laughable shit for Rolling Stone. Back then his narrative was pro-leftist Occupy Wallstreet stuff, today it's more bog-standard twitter contrarianism. He always has a power structure in mind against whom he imagines and writes his stories, and that's the thread that is consistent throughout his career.
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Well, he writes narrative driven pieces and has at least since he got back from Moscow. I've been critical of him since he ran a drum circle in Zucotti park and wrote laughable shit for Rolling Stone. Back then his narrative was pro-leftist Occupy Wallstreet stuff, today it's more bog-standard twitter contrarianism. He always has a power structure in mind against whom he imagines and writes his stories, and that's the thread that is consistent throughout his career.
@jon-nyc said in Taibbi - The Twitter Files, Part 1:
Well, he writes narrative driven pieces and has at least since he got back from Moscow. I've been critical of him since he ran a drum circle in Zucotti park and wrote laughable shit for Rolling Stone. Back then his narrative was pro-leftist Occupy Wallstreet stuff, today it's more bog-standard twitter contrarianism. He always has a power structure in mind against whom he imagines and writes his stories, and that's the thread that is consistent throughout his career.
I’d be curious what specifically makes you think he won’t be an honest broker of the information he has access to. Duly noted that you’ve marginalized and dismissed him in your own head, but at some point those dismissals become too common to take seriously.
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@jon-nyc said in Taibbi - The Twitter Files, Part 1:
Well, he writes narrative driven pieces and has at least since he got back from Moscow. I've been critical of him since he ran a drum circle in Zucotti park and wrote laughable shit for Rolling Stone. Back then his narrative was pro-leftist Occupy Wallstreet stuff, today it's more bog-standard twitter contrarianism. He always has a power structure in mind against whom he imagines and writes his stories, and that's the thread that is consistent throughout his career.
I’d be curious what specifically makes you think he won’t be an honest broker of the information he has access to. Duly noted that you’ve marginalized and dismissed him in your own head, but at some point those dismissals become too common to take seriously.
Like I said I’ve been reading him for 15 years. He does narrative-based journalism.
It’s not that I think he’ll make shit up, most of the time narrative-based journalism is ‘true’ in the sense that the checkable facts are correct, it’s just that the approach is misleading as only the facts that support the narrative are presented.
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Like I said I’ve been reading him for 15 years. He does narrative-based journalism.
It’s not that I think he’ll make shit up, most of the time narrative-based journalism is ‘true’ in the sense that the checkable facts are correct, it’s just that the approach is misleading as only the facts that support the narrative are presented.
@jon-nyc said in Taibbi - The Twitter Files, Part 1:
Like I said I’ve been reading him for 15 years. He does narrative-based journalism.
It’s not that I think he’ll make shit up, most of the time narrative-based journalism is ‘true’ in the sense that the checkable facts are correct, it’s just that the approach is misleading as only the facts that support the narrative are presented.
Well as I recall from reading him, his narratives are generally at odds with larger and more common and more dishonest narratives. It would be difficult to combat narratives without carving out a narrative shaped hole in them. I was curious if you could offer an example of lies of commission or omission he’s told in the past. But if not that’s ok. I’m pretty sure this investigation is along the lines of what he’s done in the past, and of the journalists who have nothing to lose reputationally by being honest as they dissect left leaning biases in the halls of cultural power, he is a fine choice by Musk to lead the task.
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Isn't all journalism narrative based?
“Cry havoc and let slip the DOGE of war!”
Those who cheered as J-6 American prisoners were locked in solitary for 18 months without trial, now suddenly fight tooth and nail for foreign terrorists’ "due process". — Buck Sexton
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Opinion from Red State on James Woods...
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Opinion from Red State on James Woods...
@Jolly said in Taibbi - The Twitter Files, Part 1:
Opinion from Red State on James Woods...
Known to have the highest IQ in Hollywood.
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@Jolly said in Taibbi - The Twitter Files, Part 1:
Isn't all journalism narrative based?
Taibbi has built a career dissecting popular narratives. Where Jon's disdain comes from, was in his take down of Goldman Sachs 15 years ago. Remember when Jon was palpably afraid of mob anger against investment bankers? That's around the time Taibbi was gaining fame with his journalism exposing some of the industry's worst practices. So the process in jon's head began, where Matt became a marginalized and dismissed human being. It's a psychological threat-countering mechanism, and it well explains jon's rage against Trump's brand of populism too.
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It’s a rather strange worldview that every opinion you don’t share must be the result of some psychopathology.
@jon-nyc said in Taibbi - The Twitter Files, Part 1:
It’s a rather strange worldview that every opinion you don’t share must be the result of some psychopathology.
I think you have a very normal psychology. Books have been written about normal and prectable error in human thought, judgment, and perception. I bet you've even read them.
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@jon-nyc said in Taibbi - The Twitter Files, Part 1:
It’s a rather strange worldview that every opinion you don’t share must be the result of some psychopathology.
I think you have a very normal psychology. Books have been written about normal and prectable error in human thought, judgment, and perception. I bet you've even read them.
Why don’t you read his famous “vampire squid” article and tell me if you think that represents good journalism, and that only someone’s fear for their personal safety could lead them to think otherwise.
Only non-witches get due process.
- Cotton Mather, Salem Massachusetts, 1692
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The ironic thing is the only substantive thing we learned from this Twitter thread that we didn’t already know is that the GOP also had back channels to Twitter to report tweets.
@jon-nyc I didn't know that Twitter blocked DMs between people, a practice usually reserved for the most reprehensible things - child porn.
I didn't know that Trump's press secretary was suspended.
The fact that the GOP had access to report tweets is interesting. Did they, in fact, report those?
"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
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Why don’t you read his famous “vampire squid” article and tell me if you think that represents good journalism, and that only someone’s fear for their personal safety could lead them to think otherwise.
@jon-nyc said in Taibbi - The Twitter Files, Part 1:
Why don’t you read his famous “vampire squid” article and tell me if you think that represents good journalism, and that only someone’s fear for their personal safety could lead them to think otherwise.
Maybe you could point me to a serious refutation of that piece? I can't read the original as it's behind a paywall.
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@jon-nyc I didn't know that Twitter blocked DMs between people, a practice usually reserved for the most reprehensible things - child porn.
I didn't know that Trump's press secretary was suspended.
The fact that the GOP had access to report tweets is interesting. Did they, in fact, report those?
@George-K said in Taibbi - The Twitter Files, Part 1:
@jon-nyc I didn't know that Twitter blocked DMs between people, a practice usually reserved for the most reprehensible things - child porn.
I didn't know that Trump's press secretary was suspended.
You or I might not have known but it was known and reported about.
The fact that the GOP had access to report tweets is interesting. Did they, in fact, report those?
Matt didn’t tell us, I guess it’s not part of his narrative.
