Twitter Files: Adam Schiff Pressured Twitter to Censor New York Post Reporter Paul Sperry

(Whoops, I'm definitely not up to speed, I forgot to post at 2pm. Sorry.)

David French's "the government isn't censoring, it's just persuading" claim is looking more corrupt and more filthy by the day.

"We don't do this." That response from Twitter to Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) is a singular indictment, coming at the height of Twitter's censorship operations. Apparently, there were some things that even Twitter's censors refused to do.

One of those things was silencing critics of Schiff and his House committee.

In the latest tranche of "Twitter Files," journalist Matt Taibbi revealed that Twitter balked at Schiff's demand that Twitter suspend an array of posters or label their content as "misinformation" and "reduce the visibility" of them. Among those who Schiff secretly tried to censor was New York Post columnist Paul Sperry.

Sperry drew Schiff's ire by writing about a conversation allegedly overheard by one of his sources. Sperry's article, which appeared in RealClearInvestigations, cited two sources as overhearing two White House staffers discussing how to remove newly-elected President Trump from office. The article raised the possibility of bias on the part of an alleged key player in launching the first Trump impeachment, CIA analyst Eric Ciaramella. The sources reportedly said that Ciaramella was in a conversation with Sean Misko, a holdover from the Obama administration who later joined Schiff's staff. The conversation -- in Sperry's words -- showed that "just days after [Trump] was sworn in they were already trying to get rid of him."

Rather than simply refute the allegation, Schiff wanted Sperry and other critics silenced. His office reportedly laid out steps to cleanse Twitter of their criticism, including an instruction to "remove any and all content about Mr. Misko and other Committee staff from its service -- to include quotes, retweets, and reactions to that content."

...

We now know Schiff was actively seeking to censor specific critics on social media. These likely were viewed as more than "requests" since Schiff was sending public letters threatening possible legislative action against these same companies. He wanted his critics silenced on social media. After all, criticizing his investigations or staff must, by definition, be misinformation -- right?

His office seems to have indicated they knew Twitter was using shadow-banning or other techniques to suppress certain disfavored writers. In the letter, his staff asked Twitter to "label and reduce the visibility of any content."

Twitter, however, drew the line with Schiff; one of its employees simply wrote, "no, this isn't feasible/we don't do this."

Twitter did, however, later permanently ban Sperry. At some point, government pressure -- or as David French calls it, "jawboning" (probably thinking back to his college days as the Sweetheart of Sigma Chi) -- works.

Jonathan Turley notes that the newest Twitter files point out that Schiff's latest censorship tactic was to claim that any information he didn't like comes from "QAnon." If no one believes your "Russian Collusion" bullshit any longer, just start claiming QAnon Bullshit.

Meanwhile, Schiff, while claiming to not favor censorship, is continuing to demnd more censorship.

Schiff is unlikely to be deterred by the release of these communications. He recently sent a letter to Facebook, warning it not to relax its censorship efforts. His letter, written with Reps. André Carson (D-Ind.), Kathy Castor (D-Fla.) and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), reminded Facebook that some lawmakers are watching the company "as part of our ongoing oversight efforts" -- and suggested they may be forced to exercise that oversight into any move by Facebook to "alter or rollback certain misinformation policies."

Schiff's actions embody the slippery slope of censorship. By labeling his critics as QAnon supporters or purveyors of "misinformation," he sought to have allies in social media "disappear" critics like Sperry -- yet he found that even those allies could not stomach his demands. extreme

Yeah but they did, ultimately.

At Instapundit, Ed Driscoll reminds us of Kevin McCarthy's pledge that Adam Schiff will be himself deplatformed from the Intelligence Committee, should he become Speaker.

That bitch better not bitch out.

posted by Ace at 03:08 PM

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