Twitter revelations shine light on 'biased media'

Last weekend’s dump of files and information by new Twitter owner Elon Musk has exposed a dangerous and possibly illegal collusion between Democrats and Twitter under its former management.

It is at least arguable that the censorship of that story by social media and a large part of the legacy media could have tilted the 2020 Presidential election toward our current president, Democrat Joe Biden.

One poll, conducted by the Media Research Center in 2020 from Nov. 9-18 showed that as many as 17% of those who voted for Biden might have chosen differently at the polls had they been given fair media coverage of the candidates in the weeks leading up to the election, specifically regarding the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story. The poll was taken from 1,750 Biden voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Nevada, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, all crucial swing states, six of which went by a hair to Biden.

The liberal media finally ended their denial about the Hunter Biden laptop story. CBS News admitted the data from the laptop was authentic, a mere 769 days after the New York Post broke the story and got its Twitter account banned as a result.

The Babylon Bee, a right-leaning satire website used the occasion for a hilarious headline: “CBS News Officially Confirms That Lincoln Has Been Shot.” Coincidentally, the Babylon Bee also had its Twitter account banned by the humorless lefties who Elon Musk has since shown the door. 

The revelation of apparent censorship of the laptop story was handled on Twitter, after Musk gave a heads up, by Matthew Taibbi, an award-winning author, columnist, Rolling Stone contributing editor and podcaster.

Taibbi methodically rolled out files, emails and other info which firmly establishes Twitter’s censorship of details about the laptop story. The information is on Twitter for all to see, and Elon Musk has promised more to come.

As for the media reaction to all of this, it has ranged from totally ignoring the story (covering up the coverup) to attacking Musk and Matt Taibbi. I might also mention at this point that Taibbi is certainly no right-winger, but is apparently that rare individual in media who thinks the First Amendment and free speech shouldn’t be subject to control by government, corporate media or Big Tech.

Twitter’s censorship and banning of accounts was allegedly done in response to requests from Democrats, especially in the Biden campaign. The censorship was at least initially accomplished without the knowledge of Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, with former head of legal policy and trust of Vijaya Gadde playing a key role.

One file released and reported on by Fox News, shows that a communications official at Twitter, Trenton Kennedy, wrote this: “I’m struggling to understand the policy basis for marking this. The laptop story is unsafe. Twitter’s former head of trust and safety, Yoel Roth, explained that Twitter had to censor the story so that Donald Trump would not be reelected president.” There you have it, sports fans. Election interference.

So, the left has apparently been caught red-handed interfering in an election. It likely wasn’t just Twitter, either. Remember the 51 “intelligence experts” who told us the Hunter Biden laptop story was Russian disinformation?  What did they know?

A Washington Standard article, published back on April 2, was aptly entitled “The 51 'Intelligence' Officials Who Lied About Hunter Biden’s Laptop — When Are We Going to Prosecute Them?” I suspect the Republican House will be calling them all on the carpet soon.

Don’t forget Facebook, either. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, in an interview with Joe Rogan, said, “Basically, the background here is the FBI, I think, basically came to us — some folks on our team — and was like, ‘Hey, just so you know, like, you should be on high alert,'” Zuckerberg said the FBI added, "‘We thought that there was a lot of Russian propaganda in the 2016 election. We have it on notice that, basically, there’s about to be some kind of dump that’s similar to that. So just be vigilant.'”

To be fair, Zuckerberg said he didn’t recall if the laptop story was specifically mentioned, so draw your own conclusions.

As for me, I agree with commentator Todd Starnes, who tweeted, “The #twitterfiles are worse than we thought. The Biden campaign was literally deciding what people could and could not tweet. And the leftists who worked at Twitter were more than happy to oblige. They sabotaged the 2020 presidential election.”

Dwight Weidman is a resident of Greene Township and is a graduate of Shepherd University. He is retired from the United States Department of Defense, where his career included assignments In Europe, Asia, and Central America. He has been in leadership roles for the Republican Party in two states, most recently serving two terms as Chairman of the Franklin County Republican Party. Involved in web publishing since 1996, he is the publisher of The Franklin County Journal. He has been an Amateur Radio Operator since 1988, getting his first license in Germany, and is a past volunteer with both Navy and Army MARS, Military Auxiliary Radio Service, and is also an NRA-certified firearms instructor.