Four top-level former Twitter executives went before a US House Committee this week, raked over the coals for their cosy relationship with US intelligence agencies, and their propensity to remove content that went against the bureaucratic health machinery and Democratic party dictates.
Whilst the censoring of the New York Post's Hunter Biden laptop story was the prime focus, much attention was also paid to the pandemic. Congresswoman Nancy Mace stated that "Twitter worked overtime to suppress accurate COVID information". Citing Professor Jay Battacharya's appearance on a "trends blacklist", she lashed at the executives; "apparently the views of a Stanford doctor are disinformation to you people".
Highlighted too was Great Barrington Declaration co-author and former Harvard Professor Martin Kulldorff. His tweet that those previously infected did not need to take the vaccine, was deemed 'false information' by Twitter (the CDC now recognises “natural immunity”).
"Why did you or anyone else at Twitter believe you had the expertise to censor a doctor's expert opinion?" Mace rightly chastened.
Why does this censorship matter? Because we got the exact opposite of the protecting public health that the Twitter execs say was driving their concerns. In lacking key information about the risks and benefits of a medical intervention informed consent was not possible. As a result, healthy people who did not need the vaccine took an unnecessary risk, to say nothing of the billions of dollars of public money that was funneled from taxpayers into the bank accounts of the mega-rich.
From the child learning loss of kids forced to wear now widely debunked masks, to those denied early treatment options, to effects on menstruation and fertility. Pick your pandemic collateral and Twitter (among other social media) was there working closely with intelligence agencies and other powerful actors to keep us 'safe'.
It did not keep us safe - it left us vulnerable to the predations of powerful bureaucrats, politicians, and corporations whose interests we do not share.
The simple word for this is corruption.
Everyone scratches their head endlessly regarding how progressives came to support collusion with intelligence agencies, protect Big Pharma, give up on free speech, and so much more.
For more than seventeen years I was the Executive Director of EngageMedia, a non-profit dedicated to freedom of expression, privacy, and other "digital rights". We also worked on 'anti-disinformation' initiatives, though none specifically related to COVID. Brexit and Trump catalysed a major shift from tackling corporate and state disinformation to focusing on a kind of 'disinformation' street crime. This went into overdrive during the pandemic.
This moral panic worked well for the powerful and for those working in an increasingly bloated 'anti-disinformation' field, who were happy to police the wrong think of everyday people, to say nothing of Stanford doctors and Harvard professors.
I believe many in this field are pro-social and well-intentioned, but they have taken a censorship shortcut that undermines the very mission they are on.
A reckoning is long overdue for the 'anti-disinformation' field. Let's hope it comes soon or none of us will be 'safe'.
Yes - many of us took unnecessary risks we cannot possibly detox our way out of. It’s maddening! Thank you for this piece. Looking forward to many more.
> kids forced to wear now widely debunked masks
The study you refer to here has itself been “widely debunked” here (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/feb/27/dont-believe-those-who-claim-science-proves-masks-dont-work) and elsewhere.