Taibbi - The Twitter Files, Part 1
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Searching for serious rebuttals to Taibbi's piece, I found one person's attempt to describe the mainstream fallout:
https://archives.cjr.org/the_audit/taibbi_goldman.php
Mainstream financial journalism is doing its level, eye-rolling, heavy-sighing best to stuff Matt Taibbi back into the alt-press hole he came from, but he’s not going along with it, and the mainstreamers in any case are making a big mistake.
The Rolling Stone writer cemented his status as the enfant terrible of the business press with “The Great American Bubble Machine,” a 10,000-word excoriation of Goldman Sachs, a muckraker’s-eye view of Goldman history, exploring the bank’s and Wall Street’s contributions to various financial disasters, starting with the Great Depression, skipping to the Tech Wreck, the Mortgage Wreck, the oil bubble of 2008, the bailout, and the looming cap-and-trade plan. Salted with “fuck”s, “shit”s and written with brio and hyperbole in the New Journalism tradition, it caught the financial community, which very much includes the financial media, utterly off-guard, unused as it is to hearing its flagship described as a “giant vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity.”
Financial cognoscenti quickly sought to dismiss the piece as so much conspiracy-mongering perpetrated by a financial illiterate. Funny, but that illiterate’s piece ran more than a month ago, and people can’t stop talking about it. Perhaps not coincidentally, it feels like the general financial news has been all-Goldman, all-the-time ever since.
Ex-Deal and Wall Street Journal staffer Heidi Moore stepped into a buzzsaw last week week when she wrote one of the biggest non-sequiturs of the financial crisis, a column in Slate’s Big Money arguing that Goldman’s success comes from the fact it’s better at what it does than everyone else, therefore, apparently, criticism is unwarranted.
As Taibbi (who needs no help defending himself) pointed out on his own blog, Moore addresses precisely none of the substantive criticisms that have been leveled at the bank, including big ones, like (1) buying predatory loans, (2) selling defective mortgage-backed securities while (3) shorting them at the same time, and (4) buying defective insurance from American International Group, then having those bad bets redeemed in full by government programs ratified by ex-Goldman executives. This is to say nothing of the role ex-Goldman alums played in laying the groundwork for the decade’s financial recklessness—Robert Rubin’s contribution to deconstructing financial regulation and Henry Paulson’s lobbying to loosen capital restrictions in 2004, to name just two.
And it goes on. As the author of that piece notes, it's generally eyerolls and giggles in place of rebuttals. Yep, that's how that works. We can watch it here too.
For all the clamor, criticism of what Taibbi’s actually written has been surprisingly weak. The best critics could offer was that Taibbi exaggerated Goldman’s particular role in this or that crisis and that financial crises are far too complex for this frame (or for them, I suspect, any frame at all) —that and make disparaging remarks about Taibbi’s alleged self-righteousness, amateurism, ignorance, etc. While the attacks on Taibbi aren’t couched as defenses of Goldman, the net effect is the same.
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@jon-nyc the RWEC called Trumps
tweetpostmessage political suicide."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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@George-K said in Taibbi - The Twitter Files, Part 1:
@jon-nyc the RWEC called Trumps
tweetpostmessage political suicide.I wonder if they mean that literally, as intentionally ending things. Sometimes suicide is used to describe an accidental consequence of a stupid action. I can see it in the literal sense (as in intentionally ending his political aspirations), and I hope that's what it is. But it's not clear to me that he wouldn't continue pursuing the nomination with that messaging in place.
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@George-K said in Taibbi - The Twitter Files, Part 1:
@jon-nyc the RWEC called Trumps
tweetpostmessage political suicide.I wonder if they mean that literally, as intentionally ending things. Sometimes suicide is used to describe an accidental consequence of a stupid action. I can see it in the literal sense (as in intentionally ending his political aspirations), and I hope that's what it is. But it's not clear to me that he wouldn't continue pursuing the nomination with that messaging in place.
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Elon Musk and Tucker Carlson Don’t Understand the First Amendment
By David French
tl;dr
"Twitter is a private company—not the federal government."
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Elon Musk and Tucker Carlson Don’t Understand the First Amendment
By David French
tl;dr
"Twitter is a private company—not the federal government."
@George-K said in Taibbi - The Twitter Files, Part 1:
Elon Musk and Tucker Carlson Don’t Understand the First Amendment
By David French
tl;dr
"Twitter is a private company—not the federal government."
Tell Mr. French that Twitter was a PUBLIC company while they were pulling their shenanigans.
Secondly, the law is usually behind society, particularly technology. I've long agreed with the position that social media such as Twitter or Faceypage is the modern equivalent of the town square. It's time for the law to catch up.
“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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If what the DNC did would have been illegal for a government actor to have done, then Mr French has presented a technically correct argument that still won’t pass the sniff test of anybody concerned with keeping the government away from Twitter moderation.
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If Twitter was a public company, I fail to see how that changes anything. The fact that it's private now lets Musk do pretty much whatever he wants, and that includes disclosing whatever he wants.
If, as @jon-nyc said, the GOP had access, the question remains what, if anything, was done with that access. The fact that I own a handgun is irrelevant unless I use to commit a crime. I have access, but...
A lot of the deflection is directed toward the allegation that the censoring of the laptop story is because of the First Son's dick pics. That's a legitimate concern, of course, but it's a deflection to the larger story which alleges that there is evidence of influence-peddling by the VPOTUS.
As to government interference, I haven't seen anything to indicate that the government actually interferes with Twitter - yet. I saw a story that the Trump White House communicated with Twitter regarding stories. If the communications regard issues of national security, I have no problem with it. If they regard coverup of corruption, then there's a problem of course.
Finally criticism has been made of Taibbi's style of reporting, in that he is omitting things that don't fit his argument. That may well be true, but unless you can show that what he revealed is demonstrably false, that's irrelevant.
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If Twitter was a public company, I fail to see how that changes anything. The fact that it's private now lets Musk do pretty much whatever he wants, and that includes disclosing whatever he wants.
If, as @jon-nyc said, the GOP had access, the question remains what, if anything, was done with that access. The fact that I own a handgun is irrelevant unless I use to commit a crime. I have access, but...
A lot of the deflection is directed toward the allegation that the censoring of the laptop story is because of the First Son's dick pics. That's a legitimate concern, of course, but it's a deflection to the larger story which alleges that there is evidence of influence-peddling by the VPOTUS.
As to government interference, I haven't seen anything to indicate that the government actually interferes with Twitter - yet. I saw a story that the Trump White House communicated with Twitter regarding stories. If the communications regard issues of national security, I have no problem with it. If they regard coverup of corruption, then there's a problem of course.
Finally criticism has been made of Taibbi's style of reporting, in that he is omitting things that don't fit his argument. That may well be true, but unless you can show that what he revealed is demonstrably false, that's irrelevant.
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@jon-nyc said in Taibbi - The Twitter Files, Part 1:
@George-K How is it irrelevant ?
Is it irrelevant when the NY Times does it?
A fair point. But, selectively omitting parts of a story (as you suggest he did) is substantively different from omitting the entire story, as the NYT did.
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@jon-nyc said in Taibbi - The Twitter Files, Part 1:
@George-K How is it irrelevant ?
Is it irrelevant when the NY Times does it?
A fair point. But, selectively omitting parts of a story (as you suggest he did) is substantively different from omitting the entire story, as the NYT did.
@George-K said in Taibbi - The Twitter Files, Part 1:
@jon-nyc said in Taibbi - The Twitter Files, Part 1:
@George-K How is it irrelevant ?
Is it irrelevant when the NY Times does it?
A fair point. But, selectively omitting parts of a story (as you suggest he did) is substantively different from omitting the entire story, as the NYT did.
There was an eye roll campaign of giggly dismissal targeted at Taibbi when Taibbi took down Goldman Sachs and by extension the investment banking industry. That campaign would have been more substantive regarding the dishonesty or inaccuracies in his reporting, if only the dishonesty and inaccuracies existed sufficiently. They did not, and if they existed, they would have been uncovered. Jon’s claim that Taibbi has no credibility, has no credibility.
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@George-K said in Taibbi - The Twitter Files, Part 1:
Elon Musk and Tucker Carlson Don’t Understand the First Amendment
By David French
tl;dr
"Twitter is a private company—not the federal government."
Tell Mr. French that Twitter was a PUBLIC company while they were pulling their shenanigans.
Secondly, the law is usually behind society, particularly technology. I've long agreed with the position that social media such as Twitter or Faceypage is the modern equivalent of the town square. It's time for the law to catch up.
@Jolly said in Taibbi - The Twitter Files, Part 1:
"Twitter is a private company—not the federal government."
Tell Mr. French that Twitter was a PUBLIC company while they were pulling their shenanigans.
“public company” is still not “government”
Secondly, the law is usually behind society, particularly technology. I've long agreed with the position that social media such as Twitter or Faceypage is the modern equivalent of the town square. It's time for the law to catch up.
Now you like “big government.”
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@George-K said in Taibbi - The Twitter Files, Part 1:
@jon-nyc the RWEC called Trumps
tweetpostmessage political suicide.Only if the leadership of the GOP finally have a positive result in their ongoing and seemingly interminable search for a pair of balls.
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There seems to be some confusion in the definition of public and private. You can use those words to describe whether a non-government company is listed on the stock exchanges, but that's not Mr French's usage. He was distinguishing between the public and private sectors.
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@Jolly said in Taibbi - The Twitter Files, Part 1:
"Twitter is a private company—not the federal government."
Tell Mr. French that Twitter was a PUBLIC company while they were pulling their shenanigans.
“public company” is still not “government”
Secondly, the law is usually behind society, particularly technology. I've long agreed with the position that social media such as Twitter or Faceypage is the modern equivalent of the town square. It's time for the law to catch up.
Now you like “big government.”
@Axtremus said in Taibbi - The Twitter Files, Part 1:
@Jolly said in Taibbi - The Twitter Files, Part 1:
"Twitter is a private company—not the federal government."
Tell Mr. French that Twitter was a PUBLIC company while they were pulling their shenanigans.
“public company” is still not “government”
Secondly, the law is usually behind society, particularly technology. I've long agreed with the position that social media such as Twitter or Faceypage is the modern equivalent of the town square. It's time for the law to catch up.
Now you like “big government.”
No, I like the First Amendment.
Do keep up.
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We seem to only be focusing on the legality and not the morality and ethics. @jon-nyc regardless of the law, was it moral and ethical for the highest levels of Twitter to suppress news stories that were damaging and exposing potentially illegal activities by the former VPOTUS and current Democrat candidate for the Presidency?
The Brad
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BTW, something missing?
“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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We seem to only be focusing on the legality and not the morality and ethics. @jon-nyc regardless of the law, was it moral and ethical for the highest levels of Twitter to suppress news stories that were damaging and exposing potentially illegal activities by the former VPOTUS and current Democrat candidate for the Presidency?
@LuFins-Dad as a former roommate and law student told me after his first day of law school (I was an intern...):
"The truth has nothing to do with justice and justice has nothing to to with the law."
