Two days of infamy in a row.
First was the memory of Pearl Harbor, then came the assassination of John Winston Lennon in New York City.
What was John doing in the Big Apple anyway?
According to one biographer, a rich Japanese girl, having relocated to the Big Apple, was to put on an "art exhibit" in London. Chief amongst her "works of art" was a step ladder in the middle of the gallery, with a small type of Post-It stuck to the ceiling directly above. Were one to climb the ladder to see what there was written, one would fInd:
YOU ARE HERE.
Art? Indeed.
But the proprietor knew John Lennon and knew he'd once upon a time studied art, so he invited him. And, at some point that evening, he introduced Lennon to the "artist".
Yoko Ono.
Ono wasn’t impressed. She had no idea who John Lennon was. Returning to New York, she told her acquaintances about the London exhibit and the people she'd met.
"John Lennon? You met a Beatle?"
Ono didn't know what a "Beatle" was either.
Her acquaintances filled her in. Suddenly she was very interested in John Lennon.
Lennon, and the other Beatles, and their wives and girlfriends, and Donovan, and who knows who else, flew off to India to meet with the Maharishi. Lennon and Ringo tired of it quickly, with Ringo remarking that his time could have been better spent at a Butlin's. Ringo and wife Maureen returned to England, and so did John and wife Cynthia. As an afterthought, John suggested Cynthia take their kid and herself off to a Greek island for a proper holiday, as he and Paul were going to be working in Abbey Road with the thirty-some songs they'd composed in India.
The Beatles wanted all the songs on a coming double LP, despite George Martin's objections, probably because they wanted to get out of their EMI contract and get going with their own Apple record label.
Whatever: for this left John alone in the house in town. And it's now a curious person started turning up again at the Lennon doorstep.
Unannounced, every time.
Yoko Ono. Of course.
Initially, before the trip to India, when she turned up unannounced at his door of an evening, Lennon would tell her to fuck off. He had family there. What was she doing in Big Smoke? Lennon sent her on her way, time and again. Presumably Ono just flew home to New York to charge her batteries before embarking on a new invasion.
One fateful evening, when Lennon was now home from India and his wife and child were in Greece, Ono once again rang the bell. This time Lennon let her in.
The rest is history.
But this piece isn't about Lennon, or that monkey who had nothing to hide, or that fateful day. But let's remember him a bit anyway. After all, he wanted to give peace a chance.
What happened to Lennon in New York would not likely have happened in London.
Twitter Files Episode 2
Elon turned the Twitter Files over to Matt Taibbi, only later to discover that the docs passed through the slimy fingers of Jim Baker. Now, with Baker in the streets or over at Camp Hillary, the files went to Bari Weiss.
Things were quiet for a few days. Then, about 19:15 local time yesterday evening, Twitter Files Episode 2 began.
The team around Jesse Watters on Fox danced right along.
The Tucker Carlson team, with only forty-five minutes to go, effected a complete scramble.
The NY Post had a nice writeup.
https://nypost.com/2022/12/09/twitter-and-democrats-lied-about-censorship/
"Calling executives the “Head of Legal, Policy, and Trust” (Vijaya Gadde) and the “Global Head of Trust & Safety” (Yoel Roth) doesn’t alter their status as some of the greatest censors in history."
So did the Western Journal.
Links
Here's the actual thread. Elon's one stipulation was that everything first be published on Twitter.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1601007575633305600.html
Here's an archive. Thirty posts all told.
Takeaways
There will be many reflections on what this new trove means. Here are a few.
Doctor Jay
Doctor Jay Bhattacharya from Stanford, coauthor of the Great Barrington Declaration, argued that the harsh Covid lockdowns used in many countries were harmful. He was censored by Twitter - he was put on a "Trends Blacklist", reducing his visibility.
Bongino
Dan Bongino ended up on a "Search Blacklist", meaning people wouldn't be able to find him through the site's search engine.
Charlie Kirk
The account of Charlie Kirk was set to "Do Not Amplify", yet another method for reducing visibility.
“We Don't Do That!”
Bari points out that the infamous Vijaya Gadde is on record for denying any such shenanigans ever took place.
"We do not shadow ban. And we certainly don’t shadow ban based on political viewpoints or ideology." - Vijaya Gadde
SRT-GET
Strategic Response Team - Global Escalation Team (SRT-GET) handled low-echelon cases.
SIP-PES
Site Integrity Policy, Policy Escalation Support handled high-echelon cases. These cases were kept confidential. SIP-PES included Vijaya Gadde and Yoel Roth.
Libs of TikTok
Ah, LTT. Whose sole goal is to show the outside world how much weird and perverse stuff goes on over on TikTok. (Viewer discretion advised. Really.)
There isn't much commentary on LTT posts - they’re mostly lifted from the originals and posted "as is".
But Twitter didn't like it.
LTT hadn't actually violated the Twitter TOS but they had to be thwarted anyway.
Bari’s post #20 sums thing up.
The committee justified her suspensions internally by claiming her posts encouraged online harassment of "hospitals and medical providers" by insinuating "that gender-affirming healthcare is equivalent to child abuse or grooming".
Insinuations indeed.
From Bari
Bari winds up with:
“We're just getting started on our reporting. Documents cannot tell the whole story here. A big thank you to everyone who has spoken to us so far. If you are a current or former Twitter employee, we'd love to hear from you.”
One Down, How Many Yet To Go?
An overriding question has to be "what about the rest?" Facebook page owners have shadow-banning as an openly accessible feature. Although this doesn't apply to the site as a whole.
The code to these monster sites is not open source. Even entertaining the thought that this happened only to Twitter is foolish in the extreme. Compared to Facebook, Twitter was cheap to buy. What happens to Facebook, Google, and all the rest?
But a very big thanks to Elon for now.