Elon Musk’s promised Twitter exposé on the Hunter Biden story is a flop | Hacker News Reader

Elon Musk’s promised Twitter exposé on the Hunter Biden story is a flop

theverge.com

15 pointsmikece20 comments

On deck: FBI Special Agent Elvis Chan a la his deposition yesterday that he held weekly meeting with big tech companies ahead of the 2020 presidential election?

Just business as usual. . .

Where is the guy who dropped the laptop? Nobody can find the most famous missing person since Jimmy Hoffa?

It was Jimmy Hoffa.

I don't know if I'd call it a flop, I didn't even hear about it until right before it came out, was this discussed or hinted about at all before today? The people who like Hunter Biden stories loved it.

Elon should think a little harder before getting involved in this stuff. I doubt whether most potential electric car buyers would buy from the MyPillow guy when there is growing competition.

This sort of thing never changes minds, it just entrenches people further in their positions. Same as the daily story about a "Bad Thing Trump Did", nobody really cares, each side just uses it to reinforce conclusions they already have, and it's written for those who already believe. (Same as what I guess will be a bunch of rushed "it was a flop" stories like this one)

I definitely agree it's an absolutely pointless thing for Musk to get involved with. I don't see how it could advance any interests he has and it just makes him look like one of these low brow political folks

> it just makes him look like one of these low brow political folks

Musk is one of these low brow political folks. He is an authoritarian by nature.

His free advice for Ukraine is to submit to Russia. Ukraine advised Musk to "fuck off": https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/04/zelenskiy-hits...

But Russia loved him for it: https://futurism.com/the-byte/russia-loves-elon-musk-now

His free advice for Taiwan is to submit to China: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/oct/08/elon-musk...

Musk says China rocks and the US is full of complacency and entitlement: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/31/tesla-ceo-elon-musk-china-ro...

He ridiculously called California's covid measures fascist: https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/29/21242102/elon-musk-corona...

But had Tesla praise China's covid measures because Tesla "believed Shanghai's COVID-19 measures helped lay the foundation for the city's future development": https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-...

He's always been like this.

> I don't see how it could advance any interests he has

I posted about this at the top level.

Yesterday he kicked Kanye off and proved his “free speech” and “no censorship” stance didn’t mean what he portrayed it did. And the far right was turning on him.

Today he hyped this and they love him again.

Much easier to be loved by one side than hated by both. He seems to have gotten out of a sticky situation.

> and it just makes him look like one of these low brow political folks

Yep, but he seems to have been playing that card for a few months now.

If you're a liberal who likes the idea of an electric car, and knew Musk as the Tesla guy, bringing to market sexy electric cars people actually want, and then you see him waging a culture war siding with Trump et al and going well out of his way ($billions out of his way) to dunk on liberals...

You're right, it's not going to change you from liberal to conservative. But it absolutely could change how how you feel about Elon Musk and your interest in buying a Tesla.

I'm not sure how many coal-rolling giant-pickup-driving climate-denying MAGA types would be interested in Teslas just because Elon has started pandering to them.

I think you are right. Because "journalists" who post stuff like this like it isn't a big deal are seemingly entrenched on one side. I actually tried to post a link to the NY Post story on my Facebook and had it blocked. I was unable to even send the link via the Facebook Messenger to my friends -- the private message was deleted automatically and never sent.

The coordination between Big Tech, MSM and Government officials to silence a valid and true story right before an election is a pretty big deal, IMHO.

It has a bigger impact when you are one of the people being silenced. To me this is a huge issue. Not a single article about it on CNN, ABC News or CBS News at this point yet either. But there are a ton about the ex-President or about how Twitter is being ruined by Musk. I find that pretty telling.

Which government officials set out to silence the Hunter Biden laptop story? There was an email from Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna pointing out that there didn't seem to be any illegality involved and that even if there was, publication would still be protected by the first amendment.

> To me this is a huge issue. Not a single article about it on CNN, ABC News or CBS News

I just looked at Google News and there were articles about it from CNN and NBC that were published well in advance of your comment, as well as from a large number of smaller mainstream outlets. CBS did not have a story about it but had a recent story about the Hunter Biden laptop being declared genuine. I didn't see anything about it on the ABC website.

idk, I have no beef with you saying the big media outlets handled the story badly, but making counterfactual statements of your own in the process makes me doubt your objectivity.

I love the whole "they don't want you to know" schtick. Always takes 5 seconds to disprove.

They don't want you to know they were never hiding it from you.. The other they..

They being the ones that want you to believe they don't want you to know... The other they!

It was clear that both parties regularly listed people and stories they wanted squelched, with the dems having more pipelines into twitter. Seems very unlikely the laptop story never got a mention, but we don't know for sure. The series has just started however.

I don't see an article on CNN or CBS or ABC about the musk revelations that came tonight on Twitter, feel free to link me?

Nothing is on any of their front pages, nor did a google site: search reveal anything to me.

I just went to Google News: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/02/tech/musk-twitter-hunter-bide...

It's the top story in CNN's US News section at the moment, is that good enough for you?

I didn't suggest there was anything on CBS or ABC. As I wrote above CBS did not have a story about it but had a recent story about the Hunter Biden laptop being declared genuine. I didn't see anything about it on the ABC website.

Thank you for the link, I couldn't find any stories on cnn.com -- guess they posted it in the business section? Thanks for the link though.

Valid and True -- The reason many news organizations cited for not posting it was that the data was fake. It was Russian disinformation. We now know that's not true. The data was real, and thusly, a valid and factually correct news story by the NY Post.

In other words, there were absolutely no valid reasons to block access to the story or ban the NY Posts accounts, or the WH press secretary's account for linking to it.

There was no valid reason to block me from posting it, or sending it via private message to my friends.

The only reason was that they simply didn't want the story to get any attention as they knew it would certainly influence some people into NOT voting for Biden.

News orgs claimed to know it was fake and Russian disinformation?! Do you have sources for this?

Is Elon going to run for President in 2024 ?

Yesterday the right was pissed at him because his free speech/no censorship Twitter promise failed in the face of Kanye, resulting in the new Kanye ban.

Today Elon announced Hunter Biden “news” (which seems like 95%+ known info). Now they love him again for shining a light on “the truth” and seem to have forgotten about yesterday.

Funny how that worked out for Elon, huh?

"Elon Musk does not understand how First Amendment works," episode 47.

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