On Monday, Twitter owner Elon Musk concurred with a journalist's opinion that Russiagate, the disparaging term for the theory and investigation into whether Donald Trump and Russia cooperated to manipulate the 2016 election, was "one of the most deranged and unhinged conspiracy theories in modern history."
Glenn Greenwald, a journalist and co-founder of The Intercept, responded to a Washington Post article by Tim Starks titled "Russian trolls on Twitter had little influence on 2016 voters."
Russiagate Conspiracy
Russiagate was promoted by the "vast majority of media corporations,'scholars,' think tank frauds, and NYT/'disinformation NBC's teams,'" according to Greenwald.
True
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 9, 2023
Musk replied with "true" to Greenwald's tweet.
The Washington Post's story centered on a study indicating that Russian influencers in the 2016 election contacted very few Twitter users, and those who they did reach were likely to be partisan Republicans inclined to oppose Hillary Clinton.
The author of the report, Justin Tucker, informed Starks that the tale was grossly exaggerated. Throughout his presidency, many media sources promoted the story that Trump conspired with Russia to steal the 2016 election.
Per Fox News, the Robert Mueller probe occupied the majority of his first term and was the topic of near-constant media coverage. In 2021, The Washington Post amended articles that relied on the flawed Christopher Steele dossier, which was the basis for various Russiagate claims.
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Elon Musk Twitter Issues
Recently, Elon Musk is receiving criticism for restoring Michael Flynn to Twitter on the second anniversary of the January 6 attack on the United States Capitol, as per Newsweek via MSN.
Friday saw the return of retired Army general and former national security advisor to former President Donald Trump Michael Flynn. Two days after Trump supporters physically stormed the Capitol in a failed attempt to prevent the certification of President Joe Biden's 2020 presidential election victory, his account was permanently deleted.
Prior to the attack on the Capitol, Flynn was one of the most prominent proponents of bogus assertions that Biden had "stolen" the election.
Flynn was also a notable proponent of the disproved pro-Trump QAnon conspiracy theory, reiterating and applauding the linked "where we go one, we go all" motto and tweeting allusions to the subject. He expressed gratitude for Musk's return to the platform.
A torrent of Twitter users criticized Musk for the timing of the reinstatement. Since assuming control of the platform in October, the billionaire has been regularly accused of promoting a right-wing tilt despite claiming to advocate neutrality and "free expression."
Some critics of Musk's reinstatement noted that Flynn had urged for the use of force to reverse Trump's 2020 defeat, soon before Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in an effort to overturn the loss by force.
Flynn talked with Trump at the White House weeks before the attack on the Capitol and pushed him to take election equipment and use the military to force fresh elections in areas where he lost.
Flynn's account was reinstated mere hours after Trump confidant Roger Stone tagged Elon Musk in a tweet requesting the reinstatement of the retired general. The reinstatement also occurred one day after Flynn stated he would like to return to the platform to reply to criticism on the right-wing program Man in America.
Meanwhile, the so-called Twitter Files, produced by a group of independent journalists with access to internal corporate papers, reveal how the federal government influenced the flow of information on one of the major social media platforms in the world.
Some tech pundits assert that the Twitter Files contain no secrets: they were already aware of the tens of thousands of takedown requests the company receives each month from law enforcement agencies and courts, or they had previously opined on the immense difficulties associated with content moderation.
However, the Twitter Files have revealed crucial new information. They demonstrate that the business suppressed debate on significant policy topics by shadowbanning particular accounts without justification and then misled the public, according to Reason.com.
They demonstrate that the White House and FBI repeatedly coerced Twitter into complying with spurious removal demands. And they present proof that the intelligence community likely impacted the decision to bury the Hunter Biden laptop story during the 2020 presidential campaign of Joe Biden.
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