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1 year ago

135

Censorship Industrial Complex
By Terry A. Hurlbut
Yesterday morning, at 9:00 a.m. EST, Matt Taibbi dropped yet another Twitter Files thread. He did not give this one a number, but instead headlined it “Statement to Congress.” Presumably this thread contains, or concerns, his testimony before the House Judiciary Select Subcommittee on Weaponization of the Federal Government. In any event he titled it The Censorship Industrial Complex. In it he revealed his insights from examining the treasure trove of correspondents, posts, videos, graphics, photographs, and other documents and media that formed the basis of the Twitter Files series.
Context for the Censorship Industrial Complex
Matt Taibbi and his colleague Mike Shellenberger testified, as they earlier said they would, before the House Weaponization Subcommittee. The hearing began with Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-U.S.V.I.), the Ranking Member, accusing both men as “direct threats to all who disagree with them.” (Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, the Chairman, struck her remarks from the record over her vituperative objections.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NLb9uWmLEk
The two testified under something of a cloud. Earlier this month, the Federal Trade Commission demanded to know their sources. Elon Musk, as CEO of Twitter, seems to have told the FTC to go pound sand. He certainly protested the FTC’s demand as yet another example of weaponization of government.
Such is the background for Matt Taibbi’s thread that he dropped before he took his seat at the green table. He describes the censorship industrial complex, the collection of think tanks and government agencies who gave Twitter their orders.
An argument that didn’t work for William Calley at My Lai; an argument that didn’t work for the Nazis at Nuremberg.
Actor Kevin Pollack, as Lt. (jg) Sam Weinberg USNR, in A Few Good Men (1992)
Twitter cannot absolve itself completely for obeying those orders, except to say that they are under new management.
The thread
Herewith the “odd numbers” of the thread, which runs to 51 tweets:
https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1633830002742657027
https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1633830009822650368
https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1633830017854767107
https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1633830026247569416
https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1633830032526417928
https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1633830038658486274
https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1633830047269396483
https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1633830053657313286
https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1633830059579682817
https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1633830067028754432
https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1633830073324437507
https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1633830080295337984
https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1633830086481965057
https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1633830092576284678
https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1633830099152957441
https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1633830104144183298
https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1633830112138502153
https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1633830116349607939
https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1633830122867539976
https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1633830128903127042
https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1633830136419328005
https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1633830143369281539
https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1633830149669146626
https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1633830157109837825
https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1633830164726685700
https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1633830168673546245
CNAV has before covered some of the items this thread mentions, like the Disinformation Governance Board. We invite you to review these four articles describing the proposal, review, and shutdown of this board (or so we thought). Nor should we forget the Intercept piece describing Facebook, Twitter, and other social media as State actors.
Reaction, as ever, varies from “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!” to “See, we told you so,” to “Ho, hum.” In the WTF category we have this dialog raising two salient points.
https://twitter.com/ClayinVA/status/1633903573330214933
Another user made the obvious comparison:
https://twitter.com/Kp78A4/status/1633893707618430979
Still another user posted this summary:
https://twitter.com/AGORACOM/status/1633911527647346690
Then another user raised a point he found sadder still:
https://twitter.com/SaltySeaFl/status/1633912458296406016
And indeed many, like Ranking Member Plaskett, who call themselves Americans are copacetic with this behavior.
This user asked a time-honored question, that one usually asks about prison guards:
https://twitter.com/teedubya/status/1633851506721017856
Another user spoke of his suspension from the platform for sharing about certain side effects:
https://twitter.com/Storiesofinjury/status/1633920954211483648
But of course we also get the Ho Hum reaction – though now people are putting the Ho Hum-ers in their place:
https://twitter.com/MarekZee/status/1633835590352502789
One wonders what Benjamin Franklin would have thought of this exchange:
https://twitter.com/jonatha14828976/status/1633865400353161217
Analysis
Benjamin Franklin was correct, of course:
Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
Today the ones feeling unsafe, are mainly Democratic Party officeholders. They asked for the censorship, they formed the censorship industrial complex, and they benefited from it. Now they fear the government, or at least the House of Representatives, turning against them. Stacey Plaskett made that abundantly, if rudely and unprofessionally, clear.
The Senate of ancient Rome seated the Varian Commission to punish those who advocated for extending the Roman citizenship further in southern Italy – which is to say, the Italian Allies or Socii, whence “Social War.” After Rome won that War, the Senate decided to extend the citizenship as part of the peace. And then the Varian Commission became the Plautian Commission, to punish those who had opposed extending the citizenship! The J6 Committee and the Weaponization Subcommittee are the modern counterparts of the Varian and Plautian Commissions.
George Santayana said,
Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
The Weaponization Subcommittee is deeming that doom now – and Taibbi and Shellenberger’s testimony are part of that process. This latest unnumbered Twitter File serves as another part.
We also must remember, and close, with Lord Acton’s quote:
Power [corrupts], and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Link to:
The article:
https://cnav.news/2023/03/10/editorial/talk/censorship-industrial-complex/