Musk just pantsed the government-media information complex
As Elon Musk airs Twitter’s dirty laundry in public, we are learning that the FBI and other government agencies used the social media company to shape public opinion about what is fact and what is fiction on the important issues of the day, including Hunter Biden’s laptop. Putting aside the question of why government agency officials would twist facts rather than follow them to their logical conclusions, the brazenness of these efforts seems reckless.
Why didn’t the FBI consider the blowback that would occur if the public learned of these influence operations? The answer is that the alphabet agencies have been doing this for decades with the mainstream press. They treated their new comrades at Facebook and Twitter as rough equivalents of their buddies at the New York Times and Washington Post. The problem is that social media executives are not journalists.
Can you imagine the howls of protest that would have erupted if Musk purchased the New York Times and mass released emails from government officials to journalists. The entire reporting and editorial staff would have walked out in protest until Musk was ousted. But nothing of the kind has happened here because Yoel Roth is not a journalist and Vijaya Gadde is not an editor. Recall, the whole premise of Section 230 liability protection is that Twitter is a platform, not a publisher.
So the legacy media sits mostly on the sidelines in stunned silence as the government-media information complex stands exposed, pantsed by an impish billionaire.
Why isn’t The New York Times covering this story? Partly because it is staffed by elitists, like the government officials themselves, who support suppression of speech in the name of defeating MAGA conservatism. But also partly because government agents were engaged in similar influence operations with legacy media journalists. The censorship of conservative viewpoints, narratives, and even facts was being carried out under the cover of government-endorsed throttling of dangerous “disinformation” and “misinformation.”
What appears to outsiders as a shocking story about the government chilling freedom of speech and the press appears to legacy journalists as just another day at the office. To report and opine on the Twitter Files would be a rather awkward exercise in self-reflection.
The incoming Republican-controlled Congress should hold hearings to investigate which government agents met with social media companies and how they acted to encourage censorship. They should question these same government officials about the other media entities (print, television, radio and internet) they communicated with to influence news coverage. The legacy press will not be happy about this line of questioning, but it is a necessary step to shed light on how the administrative state works to “protect” the public from truthful information.
Journalists can shield their sources but government agents cannot claim to protect the targets of their influence campaigns. Citizens deserve to know how and why government officials, who are sworn to uphold freedom of speech rather than subvert it, were using taxpayer-funded time and resources to interfere with the public’s access to accurate information.