I don’t think he does, I think he can literally see engagement falling in the days after a stunt and he’s trying to keep it up. Matt seemed to imply there would be another thread following this one so buckle up
There is a story here! Politicians having direct access to social networks to suppress narratives they don't like is interesting. But 1) I don't think it's surprising and 2) it appears it was not politically motivated at least in a bipartisan sense.
A story but one delivered with the kind of panache to drive traffic.
A lone company acting on its own to suppress a story may not be surprising to you, but collaboration between government and a corporation to suppress speech definitely should be. It's where fascism begins.
That's not even remotely news. This came out years ago. Still, your characterization is a bit ridiculous.
None of this news today except that Taibbi has now proven that Twitter actually did have an internal debate about whether to take down the laptop story, which runs contrary to his own narrative.
That's why I think your characterization is ridiculous because there is: a) no suppressing of narratives; b) the "direct connection" is the same thing any other VIP would have. Further to this, the guy was running for President of the united states, I can think of dozens of reasonable reasons why the campaign would want to have quick access to someone at Twitter. Also, your characterization is ridiculous because on top of assuming all that (which are contrary to the facts you are pointing to), you also made all of these assumptions without even bother to inquire what it was that was taken actually taken down.
And I agree! My point is they had that channel, not a value judgement on whether that was in or out of twitters terms of service.
You may say this was known years ago, and that's also true, but the general public probably doesn't know this.