Matt Taibbi Thoughts on Congress Twitter Hearing

> 23. Well, you say, so what? Why shouldn’t civil society organizations and reporters work together to boycott “misinformation”? Isn’t that not just an exercise of free speech, but a particularly enlightened form of it?

> 24. The difference is, these campaigns are taxpayer-funded. Though the state is supposed to stay out domestic propaganda, the Aspen Institute, Graphika, the Atlantic Council’s DFRLab, New America, and other “anti-disinformation” labs are receiving huge public awards.

> 25. Some NGOs, like the GEC-funded Global Disinformation Index or the DOD-funded Newsguard, not only seek content moderation but apply subjective “risk” or “reliability” scores to media outlets, which can result in reduction in revenue. Do we want government in this role?

On one hand, as more organized actors (governments or corporations) enter information warfare (I won't call it disinformation, since it is trivial to manipulate the masses by cherry-picking what gets more exposure. Something traditional media is also guilty of.), I can't help but see such censorship roles as simply necessary - without them, "platforms" will be flooded by propaganda masquerading as organic content by ordinary people.

On the other, it is beyond laughable to think these shadowy censors won't be corrupted (or even more probably, be founded on corruption) [1,2], and whether the US government has a hand in them makes little difference. At a minimum, their censorship should be made acutely, plainly obvious, and the censoring organizations themselves should be made known. It is simply dishonest to hide it, to deceive people into thinking only spam and harassment are censored, while doing far more under that cover. But it is more likely social media itself will have to be abandoned, treated no different than a cocaine habit, as manipulation eclipses organic interactions.

Presenting the role of the US govt. as key may be relevant from a 1st amendment point of view, if legality is what you care about. But it's really only the difference between a state-corporate censorship/propaganda machine, and a purely corporate one.

[1] Covid-19 Drugmakers Pressured Twitter to Censor Activists Pushing for Generic Vaccine - https://theintercept.com/2023/01/16/twitter-covid-vaccine-ph...

[2] Twitter executive for Middle East is British Army 'psyops' soldier - https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/twitter-executive-also-pa...