1.TWITTER FILES #19
The Great Covid-19 Lie Machine
Stanford, the Virality Project, and the Censorship of “True Stories” pic.twitter.com/v41dyC26ZR— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 17, 2023
3.“Reports of vaccinated individuals contracting Covid-19 anyway”; “natural immunity”; suggesting Covid-19 “leaked from a lab”; even “worrisome jokes”: pic.twitter.com/CM5THKGYRu
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 17, 2023
5.Just before @ShellenbergerMD and I testified in the House last week, Virality Project emails were found in the #TwitterFiles describing “stories of true vaccine side effects” as actionable content. pic.twitter.com/dKxTnxDc3a
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 17, 2023
7.Though the Virality Project reviewed content on a mass scale for Twitter, Google/YouTube, Facebook/Instagram, Medium, TikTok, and Pinterest, it knowingly targeted true material and legitimate political opinion, while often being factually wrong itself. pic.twitter.com/Xakyj2PMye
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 17, 2023
9.Two, it accelerated the evolution of digital censorship, moving it from judging truth/untruth to a new, scarier model, openly focused on political narrative at the expense of fact.
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 17, 2023
11. February 22, 2021: Stanford welcomed Twitter veterans like Yoel Roth and Brian Clarke, instructing them on how to join the group JIRA system. You can watch the friendly welcome video here: https://t.co/E2KfN87GlI
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 17, 2023
13.Through July of 2020, Twitter’s internal guidance on Covid-19 required a story be “demonstrably false” or contain an “assertion of fact” to be actioned. But the Virality Project, in partnership with the CDC, pushed different standards. pic.twitter.com/K23SpK9SgJ
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 17, 2023
15. In one email to Twitter, VP addressed what it called the “vaccine passport narrative,” saying “concerns” over such programs “have driven a larger anti-vaccination narrative about the loss of rights and freedoms.”
This was framed as a “misinformation” event. pic.twitter.com/ZdbKE1tFac— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 17, 2023
https://t.co/LnGrUXgDN9 March of 2021, Twitter personnel were aping VP language, describing “campaigns against vaccine passports,” “fear of mandatory immunizations,” and “misuse of official reporting tools” as “potential violations.” pic.twitter.com/AeUdbGIoBa
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 17, 2023
19.That same GEC report found in the #TwitterFiles identified former Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, and former Italian Democratic Party Secretary Nicola Zingaretti (who’s been compared to Bernie Sanders) as “highly connective” accounts in a “Russia-linked” network. pic.twitter.com/be1RvAVFrk
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 17, 2023
21.VP warned against people “just asking questions,” implying it was a tactic “commonly used by spreaders of misinformation.” It also described a “Worldwide Rally for Freedom planned over Telegram” as a disinformation event. pic.twitter.com/VgOJpTN2Ey
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 17, 2023
23.VP was repeatedly, extravagantly wrong. In one email to Twitter on “misinformation,” it spoke of wanting to “hone in” on an “increasingly popular narrative about natural immunity.” pic.twitter.com/KQGM42CAcl
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 17, 2023
25.Later, when “the CDC changed its methodology for counting Covid-19 cases among vaccinated people,” only counting those resulting in hospitalization or death, VP complained that “anti-vaccine” accounts RFK Jr. and “WhatsHerFace” retweeted the story to suggest “hypocrisy.” pic.twitter.com/7Y3NnkkP2d
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 17, 2023
https://t.co/ZJFh45HlyD a chilling irony, the VP ran searches for the term “surveillance state.” As an unaccountable state-partnered bureaucracy secretly searched it out, the idea that “vaccines are part of a surveillance state” won its own thoughtcrime bucket: “conspiracy.” pic.twitter.com/KTJpzIBspx
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 17, 2023
29. The next day, April 27, 2022, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced in a House Appropriations Subcommittee hearing that a “Disinformation Governance Board” had been created, to be headed by the singing censor, Nina Jankowitz. https://t.co/OwWF7PW1Ct
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 17, 2023
31.The Virality Project was specifically not based on “assertions of fact,” but public submission to authority, acceptance of narrative, and pronouncements by figures like Anthony Fauci. The project’s central/animating concept was, “You can’t handle the truth.”
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 17, 2023
33. “This continual process of seeding doubt and uncertainty in authoritative voices,” Graphika wrote, in a report sent to Twitter, “leads to a society that finds it too challenging to identify what’s true or false.” pic.twitter.com/gb826OHEEH
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 17, 2023
35.A Cleveland Clinic study showed previous infection offered the “same immunity” as the vaccine, but VP said discovery was susbservient to narrative: “Whether or not… scientific consensus is changing, ‘natural immunity’ is a key narrative… among anti-vaccine activists.” pic.twitter.com/wmdiynJG4y
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 17, 2023
37.From the start, Stanford explained the Virality Project would essentially continue the work of its 2020 Election Integrity Partnership. “The same JIRA system from the EIP is up and running,” they wrote. pic.twitter.com/kTgFYKGQuI
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 17, 2023
39.We also showed video in which Stamos introduced EIP Research Director Renee DiResta as having “worked for the CIA.” DiResta in 2021-2022 would be listed as a “Stanford scholar,” “leading” the Virality Project. https://t.co/gJWFyVXzwu pic.twitter.com/7jh15ZPmBZ
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 17, 2023
41.“We talk way too much about foreign…it’s sexy, and it’s fun, and it’s a little bit cold warry,” Stamos said, adding the “vast majority” of problems were now domestic. “We have like an 80-20 breakdown… I think that needs to be flipped.” https://t.co/QBXplySWtx
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 17, 2023
43.VP would later say it partnered with “several government agencies,” including the Office of the Surgeon General and the CDC. It reportedly also worked with DHS’s CISA (Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency) and GEC, among others. pic.twitter.com/WUlrkFk7JX
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 17, 2023
https://t.co/6whUaYR1ja recap: America’s information mission went from counterterrorism abroad, to stopping “foreign interference” from reaching domestic audiences, to 80% domestic content, much of it true. The “Disinformation Governance Board” is out; but truth-policing is not.
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 17, 2023
UPDATE:
While @mtaibbi & I were testifying before Congress on the weaponization of the federal government, an IRS agent showed up at his house. What an amazing coincidence https://t.co/gRGSIa3HRr
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) March 28, 2023