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Notes -
Twitter Files 10
Another thread, another author writing for the Twitter Files. Link
David Zweig writes the following.
Twitter and other important internet platforms (Google, Facebook, etc.) were in meetings with the Trump WH since the start of the pandemic to help combat misinformation. The Trump WH was concerned with 5G conspiracies, "runs on grocery stores", and "panic buying".
The Biden WH on the other hand was concerned about Covid. They wanted high-profile anti-vaxx accounts taken offline, noting people like Alex Berenson. The justification was that Covid misinformation was killing lots of people.
Twitter did not immediately capitulate, they were internally hesitant and debating as to whether to suppress people spouting arguments that went against government positions on the topic. But this does not mean that they didn't suppress people.
Twitter's moderation, as you might expect, consists of machine-learning bots at the first layer, then contracted moderators from the Phillipines, and lastly review by "higher level employees" (implied American, or familiar with the culture).
Twitter took the establishment position on Covid, sure, but this went far beyond just applying the "misinformation" tag to people saying vaccines don't work or that Covid is a hoax. It went as far as slapping that label on anyone saying anything that contradicted the mainstream CDC position on anything Covid-related or Covid-narrative-related. In most cases, the same message was seen ("Misleading: Learn why health officials recommend the vaccine for most people") and could no longer be interacted with. Some examples:
Dr. Martin Kulldorff, an epidemiologist at Harvard Medical School, argued that not everyone needed to take a vaccine, and that it was good for old people and their caretakers, but children and people with natural immunity were fine.
@KellyKGA cited CDC statistics to argue that Covid was not the leading cause of child deaths from disease.
@_euzebiusz_ cited a study which argued that mRNA vaccines were associated with cardiac arrests.
I have to say, if there was ever a case that reeked of TDS to me, it would be Jim Baker complaining and asking why Donald Trump saying "Don't be afraid of Covid" wasn't a violation of the company's Covid policies, to which Yoel Roth reminded him that it was a "broad, optimistic statement". Or maybe Baker just had a day of Covid-brain, who knows?
In any case, I'm really annoyed that Zweig doesn't talk at all about the Trump WH and what Twitter did or did not do during that time, or about any other requests the Biden WH might have made. Yeah, it's Covid and all that, but are you seriously telling me the Biden WH didn't ask about other topics? At least tell us if so. Tell us about how many requests were made, percentages of fulfilled requests, etc. You could very much do that here and make a stronger, more principled point.
As for what was said, I don't really think it's new. Even if you didn't have the Twitter Files, you could look at the cases that are given as examples and come to the same conclusion - Twitter was suppressing anything that was against establishment narratives on Covid.
P.S: whoever got him his evidence/screenshots should be fired, who uses Twitter even semi-professionally and posts pictures of a computer monitor instead of screenshots?
As with most conspiracy facts, when they come out, the significance is not that they are new. The significance is that we have yet another proof that the crazy conspiracy theory guys who said it from the start were actually right all along. And The Experts (TM) who denied that is is about controlling the narrative and suppressing the debate, and claimed it's only to combat "dangerous health misinformation" that could "hurt people", lied to us all along. It's not new, just now we have the receipts.
Said what from the start? There's quite a bit of nonsense in that category, most of which is still not backed up by these press releases.
The people who were relatively level-headed at the start, saying things like "kids under 16 really have no reason to use up doses," have been reasonably validated. Those paranoid about microchips and 5G and injecting
bleachdisinfectant have not. Keep that in mind before trying to encourage people to follow the independent free-thinkers. I still don't believe their success will generalize.That Big Tech (and Big Social Media) perform censorship and narrative pushing at the behest of US government, for political and partisan reasons. That many of the things The Experts (TM) say about COVID and prevention measures (including masks, lockdowns, effectiveness and safety of the vaccines, necessity of children vaccination, etc.), as well as about COVID origins, are not The Science Is Settled (TM) and some of them are plain false. And that at least some of The Experts (TM) knew it in advance and chose to lie and censor "for own good" - or for the benefit of the political party they belong to.
You want to warn me that if there's freedom, you can make mistakes. Thank you, I know. The other side of it, which somehow is always omitted, is when there's Settled Science (TM), there also are very costly - and often deadly - mistakes, but unlike the former case, where you bear the consequences of your own mistakes, here you bear the consequences of somebody else's mistakes and you have no choice not to. And on the top of that you're supposed to be thankful for it - after all, they were taking away your freedom for your own good!
You are free to follow The Experts (TM) off whatever cliff they are leading you to. It would be nice though to give people - especially those that are being proven right again and again in their conspiracy facts - an option to not to be dragged with you by the force of government coercion.
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This is a major part of why this matters: Normal sane questions about the official COVID / vaccination narrative were ALL lumped into the "5G towers" category in precisely this way. The intended effect of banning a doctor who says, "Maybe babies don't need vaccination" was to put them in the same "heretic" bucket as the "Bill Gates Depopulation" theorist.
This was an acceleration of the previous "stigmatize anti-vaxxers" paradigm that made any questioning about vaccine schedules or ingredients tantamount to "mass murder."
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Injecting bleach is actually a valid treatment. I’ve had it done to me it works. For specifically a viral infection in my eye.
And granted I didn’t actually use bleach but betadine a strong disinfectant used to clean things after surgery. I can’t even remember if Trump said bleach or just disinfectant.
Nasal spray disinfectants I believe have strong studies on them for fighting COVID.
And you can buy it at wal-mart to throat gargle.
The whole bleach thing was a leftist conspiracy that rightists believes it. But there’s also similar medical usages to kill viruses.
Here’s Trumps actual comment
He continued.
"And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning, because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it’d be interesting to check that, so that you’re going to have to use medical doctors with, but it sounds interesting to me. So, we’ll see, but the whole concept of the light, the way it kills it in one minute. That’s pretty powerful."
All of which is a scientifically studied with positive results COVID treatment (inhaling nasal disinfectants)
Ah, you're right. My mistake.
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Speaking of tech company censorship: Youtube deleted a video from pharmaceutical company Aytu Bioscience about a proposed technology for using UV light inside the lungs, which they released a press-release about a few days before Trump's comments and was developed by researchers at Cedars-Sinai who had been working on it since 2016. Their Twitter account was also suspended for a little while. (I wonder if there was any internal discussion about that the Twitter Files journalists could look up?) Given the timing it seems very likely it was what Trump's comment was referring to (or at least the part of the comment mentioning light), it was probably mentioned to him in one of his regular coronavirus meetings. Youtube deleted the video because a New York Times reporter reported it to them:
He also wrote a NYT article about it in which he talked to a Youtube spokesperson, which confirms the removal was intentional rather than purely automated. You'd think that if nothing else Youtube would have sufficient double-standards favoring credible institutions to not censor pharmaceutical companies talking about research they're involved with in cooperation with Cedars-Sinai, but apparently not.
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That does not sound like an injection. It sounds like external application, as I have had done when I have had eye infections (albeit bacterial, not viral, so it was an antibiotic, not iodine). And that is the point: There are all sorts of substances which are beneficial when used externally, but harmful when used internally. Even the nasal spray study you link to below appears not be meant to be inhaled but rather to be applied to the lining of the nose. The actual study makes that clear: The goal is to develop something to "reduce[] nasal shedding", and they tested the effectiveness by using nasal swabs "collected at 5, 15, and 60 minutes post-dose to assess immediate and residual impact of treatment."
Yeah, it does seem that the treatment is to bathe the eye in iodine, rather than to inject it ["It is already used perioperatively as standard of ophthalmic care"].
My main point is there are treatments quite similar to injecting bleach. Eye baths because your eyes are an organ and not like your skin. Nasal sprays because that’s an internal treatment and diluted enough can kill viruses without threatening internal processes. Chemo therapy is even closer to injected something bad to kill bad and good.
Blueanon running with he said we should literally drink bleach probably did hurt the sale and development of betadine nasal sprays which probably costs more lives than a few people dying from drinking bleach. Because the product was too close to his comments and Trump of course could never be right.
And my point is that the treatment is NOT even remotely similar to injecting bleach. You are talking about localized treatments on the surface of the body -- the nasal sprays in question were applied to the nasal epithelium, were they not? And the eye baths are just that: Baths; the eye is immersed in fluid which surrounds the surface of the eye. There are, of course, [treatments that inject medicine into the eye}(https://www.aao.org/eye-health/treatments/eye-injections), but those appear to be antibiotics, not antiseptics, and even in those, AFAIK the medicine is confined to the eye, unlike injections that address infections, which are distributed throughout the body. And it is the "throughout the body" part that makes injecting bleach hazardous, is it not?
PS: I don't know whether Trump was right or wrong; for all I know, it is possible to develop some sort of injectable antiseptic. I am just saying that your example is not evidence one way or the other.
Going to be honest I just disagree. These uses seem similar though not identical to injection. Even moreso nasal sprays because your definitely digesting some of the substance.
I guess I simply don't understand that the fact that users might accidentally inhale a chemical that is not meant to be inhaled says anything about the viability of designing that or any other substance to be intentionally inhaled or injected. It seems completely irrelevant.
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Yea it’s the same thing as the very fine people quote. Where he never said KKK were the fine people but the left decided to say he did and promoted it everywhere.
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Holy shit, I had no idea that wasn't what she'd actually said. I assumed it wasn't quite a direct quote, but a distillation of something she'd said, rather than a deliberate fabrication from a media snake looking for a dunk. MTG's actual post is (from my perspective) pretty kooky, but this doesn't justify the willful distortions. Jonathan Chait, the weasel that got that ball rolling, explains thusly:
The story in which Chait definitely didn't say that she used the words "Jewish space laser" is titled "GOP Congresswoman Blamed Wildfires on Secret Jewish Space Laser". Every time that I think I have adjusted my views of journalists to be sufficiently low, I find out that I need to turn that mental ratchet once more.
Having just read the post, "GOP congresswoman blamed wildfires on secret jewish space laser" is... not a bad description. What's the willful distortion you're seeing here?
I had no idea that the same post was speculating on possible corruption as well.
It's almost as if reframing it in maximally silly terms will allow the non-kooky bits to be ignored.
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I would consider an accurate and neutral single-sentence framing of MTG's post to be "MTG speculates that wildfires may be caused by industrial mistake with space-based solar power". The use of "laser" implies to almost any reader that this is an intentional, aimed weapon; MTG speculates that such a beam could look like a laser, not there is a weapon being used. There is no suggestion in her post that said "laser" is "Jewish" in anyway. I would consider describing her speculation as being a "secret Jewish space laser" to basically just be dishonest dunking.
I loathe journalists, and MTG is at least putatively on my side. Her post is written in the profoundly annoying "just asking questions" style which adds a degree of ambiguity, but I don't think your summation is accurate. She claims that connected officials gain fiscal advantage from the wildfires, and have implemented policy to maximize this advantage: the areas under threat from wildfires are the same areas where the high-speed rail project is planned to go through, and the same officials are investing in the power company supposedly causing the fires, the rail project the fires are enabling, while passing legislation to protect the power company from adverse consequences of the fire. The implication I'm reading is that they're setting the fires on purpose, not a mistake.
MTG herself uses the term "laser or beam of light" twice, making the claim that it's reasonable to attribute the fires to such space-based beams.
Does the industry in question even exist? Obviously the company is a thing, but do they actually have emitters or a ground station operating? Much less a setup scaled sufficiently to deliver significant power?
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Yes, it is a distortion, here is link to her original post.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/marjorie-taylor-greene-qanon-wildfires-space-laser-rothschild-execute.html
It is not "secret Jewish space laser", but "secret Rotschild space solar power microwave transmission"
Do not blame her, we are all science fiction nerds, we would love to live in world where launch costs were low enough to make this possible.
On the other hand, rather not - imagine how high would energy prices have to be to make this pay, or imagine the power of aerospace lobby to push for this bondoogle anyway.
Maybe MTG is visitor from another timeline, either utopian or dystopian compared to ours? This would explain many things.
SpaceX has plenty of military contracts with secret payloads. There are also plenty of military installations in California.
Beamed energy would be great for military logistics. Especially for the remote outposts in Afghanistan that we were still maintaining at the time of MTG's post.
Blue light is most probably a transformer frying or power lines arcing, but maybe not.
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MTG's thesis is that a well-connected energy company is beaming energy down from space, and that these beams are being used to intentionally start wildfires, apparently to clear the way for the high-speed rail project.
"Secret": She implies a secret plan to use the collectors to set wildfires, and also implies that the company may have more satellites in space than is publicly known.
"Jewish": The Rotchschilds connection, natch.
"Space Lasers": the solar emitters are putatively in space, and she mentions eyewitness accounts of "lasers or blue beams of light", and then suggests that the solar emitter beam might resemble a laser or beam of light.
"Secret Jewish Space Lasers" is not a maximally-charitable interpretation of her claim, but it's certainly defensible. I do not think it can be fairly argued that the journalists in question are twisting her words. She really did claim that possibly-secret space-based satelites were being used by democrats and the Rothschild corporation to start wildfires with concentrated energy beams.
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Using bleach as universal cure is way older than Trump presidency.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_Mineral_Supplement
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Miracle_Mineral_Supplement
(Yes, know all problems with rational wiki, but it is good resource for all kinds of alternative medicine and miracle treatments. Consulting RW before you decide to use ancient native cure instead of soulless Western medicine might save your wallet and your life)
Whether bleach use increased during coronavirus panic in response to Donald's unfortunate utterances, is disputed.
https://reason.com/2020/04/28/the-myth-of-the-bleach-drinking-masses/
Why are you trying to lump him in with quacks, when he literally linked a mainstream optometry journal?
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I, and I think many other people want more information about this.
Notice how the following paragraph I mention using betadine and not bleach (and Trump never said bleach but a disinfectant).
And yes this treatment was painful. But I also had a nasty eye virus and was unable to look at light for weeks before this treatment. It’s not the least bit enjoyable to apply a strong disinfectant directly to your eye.
https://www.reviewofoptometry.com/article/whats-the-buzz-about-betadine
And it was studied as a nasal spray for covid https://www.uwa.edu.au/news/Article/2022/February/Study-finds-nasal-spray-could-aid-battle-against-COVID
Again trump said disinfectant and bleach was blueanon. Drinking disinfectant probably wouldn’t work but it is used to reduce viral load when the virus is in the eyes, ears, throats.
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Why do contrarians have to answer for every tinfoil conspiracy? Where are the generalized successes of the expert class in discussing controversial issues?
Per the OP:
Not really. Crazy conspiracy guys were at the start saying:
COVID is fake
COVID is just a flu
COVID is killing tens of millions in China
COVID is dangerous only to Asians, White people are immune
COVID is going to kill us all, hide in a bunker!
and many more.
Official position was changing overnight by 180 degrees, while there were too many mutually contradictory "unofficial" positions to count.
Better question than "who was right in early 2020?" is "what the official authorities knew at the time and how they made their decisions?"
https://twitter.com/MichaelPSenger/status/1607425359229890560
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Yes, plenty of verifiable facts were and are dismissed as crazy conspiracy theories. Why does that mean people who were talking about them have to answer for theories about graphene or whatever?
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If the contrarians have, indeed, went with the line "vaccine is not as efficient in combatting disease or particularly preventing its spread as was claimed particularly during the most fervent phase of vaccine advocacy", of course they don't have to answer for tinfoil conspiracies.
However, there are also people who did, say, claim that the vaccine is going to kill or sterilize something like a quarter or a half of the vaccinated population in a very short order, few months to an year, and who are now doing victory laps when it is revealed that, indeed, vaccine is not as efficient in combatting disease or particularly preventing its spread as was claimed particularly during the most fervent phase of vaccine advocacy, even though that's quite a different claim from the most lurid vaccine genocide visions.
Birthrates are down, cardiac incidents are up.
If you expect random High-school graduate citizens taking a side in a political debate to quantitatively accurate instead of merely directionally correct, then you're holding them to a higher standard that the government, media, and the academic-medical-industrial complex have held themselves for the past 3 years.
Again, "birthrates are down and cardiac incidents are up" - both something that could have multiple different explanations, such as COVID itself, lockdown aftereffects and other social developments than Covid - is qualitively different from the most lurid predictions of mass death and sterility, and even if one would manage to ascertain a partal correlation with vaccines, something I haven't actually even seen anyone conclusively show from the data, that would be far from something allowing the lurid-prediction-makers to start declaring they were correct all along.
Generally the random high-school-graduate citizens also generally don't develop these views by themselves but by trusting media figures, politicians and academic-medical-industrial figures - sure, these would be instances of the contrarian type, but still generally claiming credibility on the basis of their credentials etc.
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Can you name any motters who are doing that? Because I thought our dissidents stayed pretty firmly within the bounds of rationality, although admittedly I got burned out on covid talk pretty quick.
There's been a few mottizeans that I recall claiming there would be unspecified declines in fertility due to the vaccine(including myself).
I don't recall anyone claiming "the vaccine will sterilize half the vaccinated population".
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I wasn't talking about Motters here, more referring to my observation of some local Covid dissident types.
Motters! @Fruck how could you?? Our proper name is Mottizens thank you very much.
Ohhh you would be a good little mottizen wouldn't you? Not I! Fuck your pretty little cottage with the pretty little white picket fence and pretty little petunias in front of it. And your pretty little mailbox and the pretty little dog sitting off to the side prettily chewing on a pretty little possum carcass, and all the other trappings of your pretty little life. I am forming a resistance to the tyranny of friendliness imposed by zorba and his lackeys - sitting up in their ivory tower, clucking and stroking their beards, chuckling conspiratorially as they grow fat off the fruits of our labour. I say enough! I say we take back the night! And the first step is to stop being good little mottizens, paying your taxes and judging posts for Rationalatosk (who minds the tree of knowledge). Instead be a motter, be hard and tough and mumble a bit, and still help Rationalatosk but be snippy about it, and we will smash the state and send its minions running for the hills! Motters for life!
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Ah I thought you said the first comment too, and I was going to say I don't think we need to worry about that 5g shit or sterilising half the population when we're encouraging free thinking on the motte. It does kind of feel like covid skeptic motters never get a victory lap, but I know that's mostly observation bias.
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Both dissidents and experts contain multitudes. Some dissidents overstated, beyond what the evidence shows, the dangers of vaccines, but experts were also guilty of exagerating the harns of the virus itself. That the sane dissidents are by the mainstream media tarred with the same brush as the 5G qanon believers, but all experts aren't consider discredited by some of them, falsely, claiming that Covid was the fourth or fifth leading cause of death in all pediatric age groups, is the hypocrisy.
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And now the existence of those nuts is going to be picked at by embarassed officials and censors to pretend that all of the criticism of their incompetent bungling was at the level of Nicki Minaj's cousin's friend's balls.
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