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Tough_Ambassador3935 t1_j1e6ira wrote

Reply to comment by Status_Fox_1474 in Twitter secretly boosted US psyops in Middle East, report says by datamigrationdata

That is quite a long reply -- and not one to which I will be able to respond at comparable length.

I will begin by saying that some of your claims are false, and really just flagrantly false. Take this one, for example:

> And even if there was truth to it, Twitter took steps to stop the widespread dissemination of dick pics -- that was Taibbi's main complaint. That dick pics weren't shared (and they should not have been).

Again, flagrantly false. Here is Taibbi's original thread. Not only are "dick pics" not Taibbi's "main complaint," but they aren't even mentioned at all. Nor were there any "dick pics" in the New York Post's original story. That entire talking point is a complete red herring.

Or this:

> Finally, for Twitter, it was a company. It wasn't the Democrats making decisions. It was a then-public company that had stakeholders to answer to. Let's go to the first discussion -- Hunter Biden's laptop. At the time, very little of it could be verified. Even the New York Post, which first reported on it, went with a "staff" byline because the writers, who were ordered to write it, didn't trust the information fully.

Michael Shellenberger's post from a few days ago demonstrates that the FBI took possession of Hunter Biden's laptop -- the same laptop that was the basis of the NY Post story -- in December 2019 and then spent 2020 priming Twitter "to dismiss reports of Hunter Biden’s laptop as a Russian 'hack and leak' operation" (quote from Shellenberger) even though they obviously knew perfectly well that it was nothing of the sort. That is the story -- not "dick pics."

> Now let's talk about Libs of TikTok

Why? I get that you do not like Twitter -- or at least that you do not like its current policies -- but Libs of TikTok has nothing to do with your insinuations about the Twitter Files or the journalists involved.

> Internally at the Times, she became a shit-stirrer

Quoting just one of your attacks on Weiss. Were you there, at the New York Times? I'm guessing not. I wasn't either, but your version of events obviously isn't her side of the story, and it doesn't make any effort to be judicious. On the contrary, your comment is littered with the pettiest of complaints: she made two -- two -- mistakes on Twitter?

Not to mention all the tu quoque fallacies and the random personal attacks. Weiss and Musk do not live up their own principles, in your very uncharitable opinion? And someone at the New York Post was accused of sexual harassment? Fine, you don't like these people, but there is nothing of substance these various ad hominems.

In my earlier comment, I asked two things: (1) What made the Twitter Files "dishonest" or "suspect" and (2) what were the failings of the journalists involved.

Again, you wrote quite a lot, but you didn't do a very good job of answering the questions or even of being honest yourself.

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Status_Fox_1474 t1_j1e9rls wrote

>On the contrary, your comment is littered with the pettiest of complaints: she made two -- two -- mistakes on Twitter?

She didn't make the second mistake on Twitter. She did erroneous research in her post. She's also not a journalist. She's an opinion writer, who is paid to give opinions. And her opinions don't seem to have any research in them as well, leading to errors.

You asked what her shortcomings were as a journalist. I gave them to you.

I'm also tired of talking about the Twitter files. Thank you for being so wrong about them and have a great day.

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Tough_Ambassador3935 t1_j1eggfa wrote

Up to you.

I can tell from the way you write that you have had the benefit of a good education, yet your "arguments" here seem much more emotional than rational. You simply dislike Bari Weiss, Elon Musk, and various others, and you filter everything through that lens of disdain -- hence the sarcasm, the condescension, and everything else.

You literally just said, "I'm also tired of talking about the Twitter files. Thank you for being so wrong about them and have a great day." And you linked me to an article entitled "Hello! You’ve Been Referred Here Because You’re Wrong About Twitter And Hunter Biden’s Laptop."

That kind of behavior would be ridiculous under any circumstances, but the article is dated December 9. Shellenberger's Twitter Files post on the Biden laptop, on the other hand, is from December 19.

Even Jack Dorsey, founder of Twitter and CEO at the time the New York Post story was censored, has admitted that the censorship was a "mistake." Through independent confirmations from the New York Times, CBS News, and perhaps others, we now know for certain that the laptop documents were authentic. And thanks to the Twitter Files, we know that the "intelligence community" knew the materials were authentic, knew how they were obtained, and misled Twitter (and probably others) about a "fake" or a "hack."

These seem like things worth knowing. As does the information in the Al Jazeera article linked in the OP.

But you seem more interested in congratulating yourself for linking me to another article by someone else who doesn't like Bari Weiss and claims that "Bari Weiss knows nothing about Australia." And the cringey "Hello! You’ve Been Referred Here Because You’re Wrong About Twitter And Hunter Biden’s Laptop" thing I mentioned above.

As I said, up to you.

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fenrir245 t1_j1eit7v wrote

> yet your “arguments” here seem much more emotional than rational. You simply dislike Bari Weiss, Elon Musk, and various others, and you filter everything through that lens of disdain – hence the sarcasm, the condescension, and everything else.

He literally posted every single reason as to why Bari Weiss is untrustworthy, yet you are dismissing the all based off some claim of “condescension”. You sure you’re not the emotional one here?

Also as far as “dick pics” go, the tweets and docs mentioned in the twitter files thread were of dick pics. You just didn’t bother to actually go check what those tweets were actually about, and this is a reason as to why Twitter Files itself is suspect. Obviously being about dick pics would completely defeat the accusations being made, hence it was conveniently left out, and who knows what else is being left out of these “Files”?

Also given you do not understand why Libs of TikTok is relevant to the conversation, it looks like you yourself haven’t read the Twitter Files.

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Tough_Ambassador3935 t1_j1hluez wrote

This thread is now dead, so my comment is going to be super-quick.

> He literally posted every single reason as to why Bari Weiss is untrustworthy

At best, he demonstrated that someone with a huge paper trail of public writings has occasionally been wrong about things. And what things, exactly? Well, first he said that Weiss had made two mistakes (ever?) on Twitter. And more recently, he linked to a random article entitled, "Bari Weiss Knows Nothing about Australia." I don't find any of this even remotely damning. In fact, the case against Weiss is so weak as to be laughable.

> Also as far as “dick pics” go, the tweets and docs mentioned in the twitter files thread were of dick pics.

Maybe go see for yourself instead of just parroting this copypasta you ingested elsewhere on Reddit. Here again is Matt Taibbi's original installment. There are 36 tweets in that thread. Please feel free to read through them and see if they bear out your claim that "the tweets and docs mentioned in the twitter files thread were of dick pics." There have been several other Twitter Files installments since the first, including the one on which the article linked in the OP is based; feel free to check those for "dick pics" as well.

> Also given you do not understand why Libs of TikTok is relevant to the conversation, it looks like you yourself haven’t read the Twitter Files.

If neither you nor the other post are able to articulate why they are relevant, then I will continue to believe that they are not. I don't feel any need to prove a negative.

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