More and more, the big tech oligarchs are behaving more like Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping when it comes to the media than George Washington nearly every U.S. president since before Barack Obama started spying on journalists.
What began as gentle throttling of content and reach (mostly against conservatives) has since expanded into outright information suppression that simultaneously pushes disinformation as ‘fact’ while burying facts as disinformation.
Worse, dissent is no longer being tolerated; users on all the major platforms are being forced to comply with and conform to ‘the statist’ point of view and perspective or suffer banishment to the electronic wilderness.
And now, according to Breitbart News, Twitter has become the official arbiter of what is and is not ‘accurate’ when it comes to sharing information about the COVID-19 vaccines:
Social media giant Twitter announced this week that it will begin labeling tweets that share “misleading information” about the coronavirus vaccine and will implement a strike system for repeat offenders of the “misinformation policy.”
The Verge reports that Twitter announced on Monday that it will begin labeling tweets that share what the company decides is misleading information about coronavirus vaccines. The labels will link to relevant information from government bodies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and a system allowing for five strikes will be implemented for users that repeatedly violate its misinformation policies.
Of course, the platform’s description of “misinformation” is very highly subjective; for instance, are Twitter’s speech Nazis going to quash any tweets sharing Dr. Anthony Fauci’s comments about wearing two masks instead of one, even though there isn’t enough research indicating two masks are better than one (or three, or 12)?
Or will Twitter allow any viewpoint of Fauci’s to be shared as gospel because he’s Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser and an avowed lib?
By the same token, is Twitter going to censor people who question Fauci’s ‘wisdom’ despite the fact that he’s been wrong about the COVID-19 pandemic far more than he’s been right?
Again, these are subjective views about what is and is not “accurate” and what qualifies as “misinformation.”
According to The Verge, this is what Twitter’s editors will focus on:
Misinformation about the nature of the virus
Misinformation about the efficacy of treatments and preventive measures
Misinformation about regulations, restrictions, and exemptions in association with health advisories
Misinformation about the prevalence of the virus and the risk of infection or death
Misleading affiliations (for example, claiming to be a doctor or public health official)
Some of these are pretty clear-cut; you can’t claim to be a doctor, for instance, just because you might play one on TV. But the nature of the virus; will views about COVID originating in China be silenced? What about opinions stating the virus may have been created in a lab (because those very legitimate claims have been researched and examined, including being touted by a Chinese virologist)?
What qualifies as “misinformation about the efficacy” of virus treatments — will real-live accounts of vaccine harm be allowed on Twitter?
The fact is, we won’t know until this policy has been in practice for a while. But honestly, if past is prologue, we’re pretty sure that Twitter will only allow “the official line” as it comes from the Biden White House to be shared.
