Author and journalist Matt Taibbi published the latest edition of the Twitter files Thursday. This one shows the government and groups it funds conspiring with Twitter and other Big Social platforms to censor posts that were objectively true about the COVID shot and other things.
Taibbi testified yesterday at a House Judiciary Committee hearing. "They talked explicitly about censoring stories of true vaccine side effects and other true stories that they felt encouraged hesitancy," he explained.
According to Taibbi, they also targeted what they determined was "election misinformation" – despite the jury still being out on the 2020 election – because they were afraid what hearing the truth would do to people.
"They believe that ordinary people can't handle difficult truths," he shared. "And so, they think that they need minders to separate out things that are controversial or difficult."
Twitter files journalist Michael Shellenberger was also at the hearing. He testified that the slippery slope was very slick indeed.
"You go from a situation where we were fighting ISIS recruiting … and then it was Russian disinformation," Shellenberger described. "And now they're in a situation where they're wanting to censor true information – accurate facts – because they're worried that people might behave in ways that they don't want them to?"
Then he reminded committee members about a constitutional truth many Americans have either forgotten or purposefully buried: "The First Amendment protects our right to be wrong; it protects our right to lie – and being wrong is a big part of being a human being and having a democracy."
