The free speech intellectual commentator who coined the term “Intellectual Dark Web” scorched Twitter for “artificially controlling” the national dialogue online.
Managing Director of Thiel Capital and host of "The Portal" podcast Eric Weinstein wrote a fiery Twitter thread raking the platform’s leadership over the coals for “opaque manipulation of the national conversation.” Weinstein declared to Twitter leadership: “[W]e have a right to know your algorithms.”
Weinstein opened his thread by addressing Twitter founder and CEO Jack Dorsey on Feb.15, airing an extensive list of grievances against the platform. In the thread, Weinstein implored Dorsey: “I am asking you as a friend and as a STEM PhD who has been responsible on your platform for over a decade to grant some heterodox tweeters academic freedom.”
In the thread, Weinstein shared an earlier post he had made. He complained that Twitter had allowed the U.S. Surgeon General to post a controversial claim about the effectiveness of masks as the absolute truth. The screencapped tweet, purportedly made by the U.S. Surgeon General, urged Americans to “STOP BUYING MASKS” because they are “NOT effective in preventing the general public from catching the #coronavirus.” Weinstein had the following to say about the screencapped tweet:
“The SG DELETED the tweet I called out as a lie in real time. Here’s the lie the Surgeon General’s office covered up.
“@jack: We can’t afford the responsible heterodox subjected to @TwitterSafety.
“@nytimes: we can’t afford @TaylorLorenz & @nhannahjones enforcing your groupthink.”
Weinstein requested in his mid-February thread that Dorsey and Twitter leadership must allow commentators to speak freely about developing stories with the same tolerance the platform allows for established organizations: “Let some of be[sic] those who watch the watchers of your @TwitterSafety. We all need oversight of the oversight.”
Weinstein slammed Twitter for clearly manipulating the national conversation while doing a terrible job of hiding it:
“No one believes in your opaque Terms of Service. @TwitterSafety is artificially controlling our conversation determining who I can see & who I cannot.
“Point Blank: You do *not* have the right to manipulate the US national conversation just because it takes place on your servers.”
Weinstein also took the time to hammer the platform’s general rigging of political dialogue lately:
“NOTE: I am noticing how I seldom see tweets from my friends with large followings the way I used to unless I visit their timelines. I’m noticing how much longer it now takes to grow a following on Twitter compared to other platforms. This is increasingly feeling like gaslighting[.]”
Twitter’s handling of censorship has been especially haphazard since the COVID-19 pandemic began. The World Health Organization (WHO), which has still been unfathomably trusted by Big Tech, was too reliant on Chinese authorities, and misinformed nations around the globe as to the nature of the virus as late as January 14. WHO claimed in a tweet that can still be viewed on Twitter:
“Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China.”
Twitter has still not labelled the tweet as misinformation.
Conservatives are under attack. Contact Twitter: (415) 222-9670 or mail to 1355 Market Street Suite 900 and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on “hate speech” and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us at the Media Research Center contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.
