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LORD, Your word declares that men are liars. Save us from an ungodly generation, and turn this nation toward Your light.
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Executives at Twitter sat on the Hunter Biden laptop story for purely political reasons, by all appearances, and it’s clear that this sort of chicanery has got to stop if our nation is to survive.

From The Daily Signal. After Twitter CEOĀ Elon MuskĀ teased a massive reveal Friday afternoon, journalist Matt Taibbi released a Twitter thread revealing the confusion at the social media company after it censored the New York Postā€™s Hunter Biden laptop story in the lead-up to the 2020 presidential election.

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Taibbiā€™s Twitter thread, which Musk retweeted, revealed that Twitterā€™s top executives didnā€™t have a good explanation for censoring the story, but stuck with the decision, anyway. It also showed that Republican and Democratic congressional staff weighed in against the move.

Taibbi recounted thatĀ Twitter tookĀ ā€œextraordinary stepsā€ to suppress the Postā€™sĀ Oct. 14, 2020, storyĀ reporting on emails from Hunter Bidenā€™s laptop implicating Joe Biden in his sonā€™s foreign business dealings. The social media company even went so far as ā€œremoving links and posting warnings that it may be ā€˜unsafe.ā€™ They even blocked its transmission via direct message, a tool hitherto reserved for extreme cases, e.g. child pornography.ā€

Twitter locked then-White House press secretary Kaleigh McEnany out of her account for tweeting about the story. Taibbi shared an email from then-President Donald Trumpā€™s reelection campaign staffer Mike Hahn, who noted that all McEnany did was ā€œcite the story and firsthand reporting that has been reported by other outlets and not disputed by the Biden campaign.ā€

ā€œI need an answer immediately on when/how she will be unlocked,ā€ Hahn added. ā€œAt least pretend to care for the next 20 days,ā€ he added, referencing the election.

Taibbi next shared a message from public policy executive Caroline Strom, who asked her coworkers, ā€œAre you able to take a closer look here?ā€

An analyst responded that ā€œthe user was bounced by Site Integrity for violating our Hacked Materials Policy.ā€

Yet it remains unclear what sparked the initial decision to censor the story, according to Taibbi.

ā€œAlthough several sources recalled hearing about a ā€˜generalā€™ warning from federal law enforcement that summer about possible foreign hacks, thereā€™s no evidenceā€”that Iā€™ve seenā€”of any government involvement in the laptop story,ā€ he wrote. ā€œThe decision was made at the highest levels of the company, but without the knowledge of CEO Jack Dorsey, with former head of legal, policy and trust Vijaya Gadde playing a key role.ā€

Taibbi quoted one former employee, who said of the decision, ā€œThey just freelanced it.ā€

ā€œHacking was the excuse, but within a few hours, pretty much everyone realized that wasnā€™t going to hold. But no one had the guts to reverse it,ā€ the employee reportedly added.

Taibbi shared a few messages illustrating the confusion. Communications staffer Trenton Kennedy wrote: ā€œIā€™m struggling to understand the policy basis for marking this as unsafe, and I think the best explainability argument for this externally would be that weā€™re waiting to understand if this story is the result of hacked materials. Weā€™ll face hard questions on this if we donā€™t have some kind of solid reasoning for marking the link unsafe.ā€ . . .

Yoel Roth, Twitterā€™s then-safety chief, cited ā€œhacked materialsā€ as the policy rationale, but noted that ā€œthis is an emerging situation where the facts remain unclear. Given the SEVERE risks here and lessons of 2016, weā€™re erring on the side of including a warning and preventing this content from being amplified.ā€

Brandon Borrman, then Twitterā€™s vice president of global communications, asked, ā€œcan we truthfully claim that this is part of the policy?ā€

Jim Baker, then-deputy counsel, wrote that ā€œcaution is warranted.ā€ He suggested Twitter ā€œassumeā€ that the materials ā€œmay have beenā€ hacked, even as he noted that ā€œsome factsā€ indicated ā€œthat the computer was either abandoned and/or the owner consented to allow the repair shop to access it for at least some purposes.ā€

Taibbi noted that some Twitter staffers seemed not to understand the basic tenets of the First Amendment and Supreme Court jurisprudence on it.

He cited an exchange between Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., who alerted Twitter to the ā€œhuge backlashā€ this move had been generating among members of Congress on the issue of ā€œspeech,ā€ as in free speech.

Gadde replied, noting that McEnanyā€™s account ā€œwas not permanently suspendedā€”we requested that she delete the tweet containing material that is in violation of our rules and her account is restricted until she complies.ā€

Gadde noted that Twitter ā€œput out a clarifying threat of Tweets earlier this evening to explain our policy around the posting of private information and linking directly to hacked materials,ā€ as if this policy would resolve any free speech concerns.

Khanna replied, ā€œBut this seems a violation of the 1st Amendment principles. If there is a hack of classified information or other information that could expose a serious war crime and the NYT [The New York Times] was to publish it, I think the NYT should have that right.ā€

ā€œA journalist should not be held accountable for the illegal actions of the source unless they actively aided the hack,ā€ the congressman added. ā€œSo to restrict the distribution of that material, especially regarding a Presidential [sic] candidate, seems not in the keeping of the principles of [the 1964 Supreme Court case] NYT v. Sullivan.ā€

Khanna continued, ā€œI say this as a total Biden partisan and convinced he didnā€™t do anything wrong. But the story now has become more about censorship than relatively innocuous emails and itā€™s become a bigger deal than it would have been.ā€

Carl Szabo of the research firm NetChoice sent Twitter staffer Lauren Culbertson an email with the results of a quick poll involving congressional staffers. The survey suggested that a ā€œblood bathā€ would await the company in congressional hearings, and that nine Republican staffers said, ā€œthis is a tipping point. Itā€™s just too much.ā€

One staffer said the scandal represented ā€œtechā€™s ā€˜Access Hollywoodā€™ moment and it has no Hillary to hide behind.ā€ Another said, ā€œtech is screwed and rightfully so.ā€

Meanwhile, Democratic staffers suggested the censorship hadnā€™t gone far enough.

ā€œIn their mind, social media ā€¦ doesnā€™t moderate enough harmful content so when it does, like it did yesterday, it becomes a story. If the companies moderate more, conservatives wouldnā€™t even think to use social media for disinformation, misinformation, or otherwise.ā€

Szabo added, ā€œWhen pushed on how the government might insist on [more tech moderation], consistent with the First Amendment, [the Democratic staffers] demurred: ā€˜the First Amendment isnā€™t absolute.ā€

Taibbi noted that Twitterā€™s Hunter Biden move followed an increasing censorship trend. While ā€œsome of the first tools for designing speech were designed to combat the likes of spam and financial fraudsters,ā€ outsiders started ā€œpetitioning the company to manipulate speech.ā€

He cited an exchange between Twitter executives, where one sent a list of items ā€œto review from the Biden team,ā€ and the other would reply, ā€œhandled these.ā€ (Micah Lee, a blogger at The Intercept, noted that the tweets in the particular list Taibbi includedĀ contained revenge porn.)

Although Twitter received and honored requests from both team Trump and team Biden, ā€œthe system wasnā€™t balancedā€ but rather ā€œbased on contacts,ā€ and Twitterā€™s staff leaned heavily Democratic. Indeed, Twitter staff long have leaned left, withĀ 99% of their donationsĀ going to Democrats in the 2022 midterms, as they did in previous years.

ā€œTodayā€™s revelations demonstrate once again thatĀ Big Tech is an ideological monopolyĀ policing Americansā€™ speech,ā€ Kara Frederick, director of The Heritage Foundationā€™s Tech Policy Center, said in a prepared statement about Taibbiā€™s reporting. ā€œBig Techā€™s control of information and access to the digital space undermines free speech, interferes in our elections, and jeopardizes U.S. national security.ā€ (The Daily Signal is The Heritage Foundationā€™s news outlet.)

ā€œMusk has done what lawmakers should have already accomplished: exposing Big Tech companies as foot soldiers of the progressive Left,ā€ Frederick added. ā€œWhen AmericansĀ believeĀ the 2020 presidential election outcome would have changed given information deliberately hidden by the Left with theĀ help of Big Tech, apologies from former Silicon Valley executives will not cut it.ā€

Although it is impossible to know what would have happened had Twitter not suppressed the Postā€™s reporting on the contents of Hunter Bidenā€™s laptop, aĀ Media Research Center pollĀ conducted in the days after the 2020 election found that 36% of self-described Biden voters said they were not aware of the evidence behind claims that Joe Biden was personally involved in his son Hunterā€™s business deals with China, a claim bolstered by emails found on Hunterā€™s laptop. Thirteen percent of those voters (4.6% of all Biden voters in the sample) said that if they had known the facts, they would not have voted for Biden.

Such a shift away from Biden would have given Trump the election, according to the Media Research Centerā€™s analysis of the election results. Had the Biden-China story seen the light of day, Trump would have won the election with 289 electoral votes, the analysis claimed.

Twitter alsoĀ banned conservatives, including a Heritage Foundation expert, shortly before the 2022 midterms.

Frederick added that ā€œAmericans should not have to rely on billionaires to deliver this necessary transparency,ā€ and that elected officials should ā€œconstrain Big Techā€™s pernicious practices. It is past time for aggressive reforms and proper oversight to ensure that Big Tech is held accountable.ā€

Share your prayer for the media in the comments.

(Used with permission. The Daily Signal.Ā  Photo credit: Getty Images. )

 

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Darlene DeAngelis
December 6, 2022

Father God expose all the evilness in this world thank you Father God for giving us spiritual eyes to see and spiritual ears to hear thank you for giving us awareness of what is going on Father God you are taking every Empire of the devil in destroying it piece by piece thank you Lord thank you for all you do thank you for hearing our prayers your people want to come out of the wilderness rise up and let this evilness know we are no longer going to take this you know the lies and deceits they are right in front of you may you correct your children in such a way that they tremble to the core their soul lord you are Almighty all powerful and may they realize that quickly in Jesus name I pray

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Joseph
December 6, 2022

Lord, let the Satonic liars be exposed.

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