The Silence of the Conservative Voice and The Twitter Files

Is there a silence of conservative voices on social media? One of the narratives coming out of the 2020 election (which we are still talking about three years later) is that there was conspiracy among major tech companies to silence conservative voices. This was merely a talking point until the recent investigative journalism by Matt Taibbi from the internal files and emails as released by Elon Mush. The project is called “The Twitter Files.”

Why This is Important

Twitter, as social media companies goes is middling at best, however, it the place where celebrities, politicians, government agencies, corporations, and ordinary people all meet. Elon Musk is right about it being the public forum. Conversations happen on Twitter that can’t happen on Facebook or Instagram. Twitter is public, anyone can join into any discussion, and anyone can develop a following. Twitter had an instantaneous nature to it due to the short length of tweets as well as having an active feed of new posts. Elon Musk has broken the last part somewhat with his “For You Page” and “Following” tabs. It’s hard to see a mix of people you follow and people saying things you might be interested in.

Since Musk’s controversial takeover, he has unbanned many accounts that were banned in the past and the For You Tab has taken a right-wing bent. In just my personal FYT I’ve seen blatant racism, sexism, and endorsement of violence against minorities.

Ultimately, Twitter is important because the people that are on it are important. Without all the visible people on the platform, Twitter would have closed up shop years ago. It barely got off the ground to begin with and Twitter has rode the wave of being one of the most cited social media platforms in the interest ecosystem second only, possible, to Reddit. Twitter has caused revolutions so violent that foreign governments will ban its use (Iran, China, Turkey, Russia).

Let’s explore what the Twitter Files revealed and see if there is anything to the serious allegations that have been put forth by Matt Taibbi and others.

Matt Taibbi and the Twitter Files

The main thrust of the Twitter Files is that Twitter worked with the FBI and…