Here's a weird story. You may recall that a few months ago someone—we don't know for sure who—leaked a hacked dossier of information about JD Vance. The dossier had been compiled by the Trump campaign while they were vetting Vance and was relatively uninteresting. We know that because every single news outlet that received the dossier declined to publish it or even write about it, and lack of newsworthiness was the stated reason.
This unanimity struck a lot of people as a bit odd coming from a press corps that had reported a few years earlier on John Podesta's hacked risotto recipe. Yes, really. But finally Ken Klippenstein broke ranks and posted the entire thing. He made it available via Twitter, which blocked the link and then closed Klippenstein's account because, allegedly, publishing hacked material violated Twitter's rules.
But that turned out not to be the real reason. Today the New York Times reported what actually happened:
After a reporter’s publication of hacked Trump campaign information last month, the campaign connected with X to prevent the circulation of links to the material on the platform, according to two people with knowledge of the events. X eventually blocked links to the material and suspended the reporter’s account.
Twitter suspended Klippenstein's account because Donald Trump asked them to. Shortly after this was made public they tacitly admitted the story was true by reinstating Klippenstein's account. Here is Klippenstein's take on what happened:
The media’s decision not to report on the dossier’s contents — and what it says about Vance — is the result of government pressure and interference. The media blackout laid the groundwork for X to actively suppress my story when I decided to publish the dossier in full, empowering the Trump campaign to successfully push for having links to my article taken down not just from X but also from Instagram, Facebook, and Google Docs. Even the major media, which are plenty critical of Trump, would not cover the clearly newsworthy document. Why? Because they are reluctant to break from the position taken by the Intelligence Community, the White House, the political campaigns, and the social media and Internet companies. These virtual censors have profound influence over what the public can and cannot see.
I'm not sure I've seen any evidence of government pressure here. In fact, I'm not sure I've seen any evidence that any agency of the government cared one way or the other if the dossier was published. Obviously there was interest in finding out who hacked the documents, since that's illegal, but nobody cared much about the contents themselves.
This is really the oddest part of the whole story. Why hack such a worthless batch of documents in the first place? Why refuse to publish them if they contained nothing defamatory or legally questionable? Why pressure Twitter to take down links to something that wasn't harmful to the Trump campaign?
I suppose we may never know. But there's one thing we do know: Elon Musk's dedication to free speech apparently has its limits. When Trump calls, it turns out his principles become suddenly and distinctly malleable.
Point of the weird story is that musk will do what trump asks him to do, which means musk will do what putin tells trump to tell musk to do. Election Day should be special.
MEOOOOOW. Reap what you sow. A convicted felon sex offender whore monger controls the Republicans. Attracts others with little or no morals. Reap what you sow.... Republicans...Kitties know.
I know these are silly but I still really like it. Kitties know.
Musk is quite a hypocritical person, you know. He embraces the decentralized blockchain but eschews it in social media in order to exert and maintain control over it.
BTW, the link was shared widely in the Fediverse.
His companies actively avoid proprietary software and consume open source... without releasing any support for open source and selling some of the most closed hardware and software out there.
The NYT,. WaPo, Twitter, Meta and all major news networks agreed that countless cell phone videos of President Trump shooting some Puerto Rican on Fifth Avenue a week before the election were not suitable to publish.
"We don't encourage violence," said the NYT Editorial Board.
"Sic Semper Spic," said JD Vance who graduated from Yale Law School.
The VP Candidate later explained it was just a joke.
Musk is known to boot people off Twitter for making fun of him, so this is not at all a surprise.
Can’t begin to care about foolish people who still use Xitter or other social media believing that they are performing a public service.
Funny, when it's the primary source of updates from government offices and journalists...
They should stop communicating that way. I don’t get the weather forecast from Xitter. And clearly… journalists are just assholes now.
It is one thing not to write about a dossier, another to prevent access to it for everyone (I suppose some time after the election we will find out--when it is potentially too late).
If I had access to the dossier I would trust the press that there is o nothing there. Now that I don't I have to suspect something fishy.
I would also want to know if Klippenstein has any concrete reason to suspect the Biden administration of suppressing the document. I would not just blindly trust the administration nor Klippenstein.
For your pleasure - here is a link to the dossier: https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/read-the-jd-vance-dossier
Yeah, his reinstatement on Twitter sounds like a quid pro quo - he blames 'the government' and he gets back on.
You know, instead of blaming X Twitter, who were the only ones to block him.
So how is it that even the reporter, acting as self-styled whistle blower, blames it all Trump style on the gum'mint? Does he think that Trump is still president? Doesn't he know from our Trumpian overlords that Biden stole the presidency?
Oh look it's that right wing love of free speech. If there's a football they pull away at the last minute more than "free speech", I dunno what it is.
Republicans are hypocrites. In other news, water is wet and the Pope is Catholic. Yawn.
Well, not Catholic enough for some...
First, it's Trump's team that asked Xitter to take it down. That's not the government (as much as they wish they were right now).
Second, cut the media some slack. After eight years of their decrying foreign interference with elections to help Trump, wouldn't it be hypocritical to exploit foreign interference to hurt Trump by disseminating their work?
In this case, both camps were targeted. Harris's was secure, "Trump's wasn't.
This situation is different. Harris has never called for foreign meddling, Trump has.
yeah, i thought the most surprising thing about the hacked materials is how boring they were. i didn't read the whole thing, but all the summaries i saw were just rehashes of stuff i already knew or didn't care about at all.
Who cares about the Vance dossier? The press should be reporting on Vance's success as a venture capitalist (at Theil's shop) which made him immensely rich. The deals he put together, his astute investing techniques, the successful businesses he helped launch, his negotiating skill, and quant expertise.
We need to know those special aspects of Vance that took him from a getting a routine Yale JD to a complex and whirlwind financial environment where he thrived. Aren't you curious what those are? Surely the press will tell us before the election takes place.
Otherwise it looks as if Thiel simply warehoused Vance for a few years, gave him trivial work (mostly meet and greet the 'famous' author), and essentially created a Potemkin parvenu. And that would be a big story if true, don't you think?
That's because Thiel warehoused him for a few months.
If they guy posted the link, why don't we have it?
I left Twitter a week or two after Musk took over. There was a lot of pushback from some progressives against shaming people for staying, with claims such as "Twitter is the only place for marginalized artists to connect with potential customers," made by people who were not marginalized artists needing to connect with customers.
So there was an appeal to the concept of Twitter as indispensible infrastructure, network effects, and so on. Sure, the owner might be an avowed opponent of social progress, but "So-and-so who owns newspaper such-and-such is probably as bad, but knows better than to be drawn into political discussions."
These arguments are now completely without merit. Get off now. This includes prominent journalists. You're not Sophie Scholl, bravely fighting the tide; you're a collaborator.
Sure, if by 'without merit' you mean 'still completely valid'.
Get the government offices of it - or at least on others - and I wouldn't need to go back.
Stop picking on people who need to sell their wares.
Collaborating can often be convenient, beneficial and profitable.
Collaborators often want to be left alone to benefit from the collaboration without judgement.
Lifes tough, gotta make choices.
There are people who I like to read on there. By far the best way to get info on Ukraine. Don't care if I support Musk by being on it or not.
Yes
Are you having an episode? There's been no Twitter for a while.