Not a Nothingburger

 

Interview with "Stay Free" With Russell Brand: On the UK Files and CTI League

Thanks to Rusty Rockets for a great talk, published Friday. Excerpt, with links, here:

MATT TAIBBI DEC 2 I had the good fortune to talk with Russell Brand eariler this week. Russell is one of my favorite people, though I always exit our conversations wishing I could wear more interesting clothes (after exchanges with Douglas Murray, I just stand in front of a mirror and say “interlocutor” over and over again). This time around we got to talk about a variety of topics, including still-to-come UK Files reports, the #CTILeague, and the future of populist uprisings. For the full discussion on Rumble

Hey... I think we should take advantage of the different situations that life throws at us, alone and in company, although I am a young woman I have learned several things alone, I have been disappointed but I think that all this is part of growing up, living and move forward... now, I can say with certainty that I have a healthy heart and willing to give the best and also receive the best, I know what I deserve, I also know that it is not the time to make excuses, let's look for solutions and make it real... So tell me, do you feel ready for something different from now on? Jenn

Not a Nothingburger: My Statement to Congress on Censorship

The key question in censorship is always the same. Who's doing it?

MATT TAIBBI DEC 2 For time reasons, I had to cut my actual address a bit short Thursday. This statement, which began with a nod to Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, is what was entered into the congressional record: November 30, 2023 Chairman Jordan, ranking member Plaskett, members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to speak. Exactly one year ago today I had my first look at the documents that came to be known as the Twitter Files. One of the first things Michael, Bari Weiss and I found was this image, showing that Stanford’s Dr. Jay Bhattacharya had been placed on a “trends blacklist”:

This was not because he was suspected of terrorism or incitement or of being a Russian spy or a bad citizen in any way. Dr. Bhattacharya’s crime was doing a peer-reviewed study that became the 55^th-most read scientific paper of all time, which showed the WHO initially overstated Covid-19 infection fatality rates by a factor of 17. This was legitimate scientific opinion and should have been an important part of the public debate, but Bhattacharya and several of his colleagues instead became some of the most suppressed people in America in 2020 and 2021.

That’s because by then, even true speech that undermined confidence in government policies had begun to be considered a form of disinformation, precisely the situation the First Amendment was designed to avoid. 

When Michael and I testified before the good people of this Committee in March we mentioned this classically Orwellian concept of “malinformation” — material that is somehow both true and wrong — as one of many reasons everyone should be concerned about these digital censorship programs.

But there’s a more subtle reason people across the spectrum should care about this issue.

Former Executive Director of the ACLU Ira Glasser once explained to a group of students why he didn’t support hate speech codes on campuses. The problem, he said, was “who gets to decide what’s hateful… who gets to decide what to ban,” because “most of the time, it ain’t you.”

https://www.harryanddavid.com/h/promotions/flat-rate-shipping

https://coupon.lowcostlivin.com/sam-s-club/?utm_source=2023-12-0254747_10&utm_medium=daily