The Post confirmed the contents of the laptop and ran a series of blockbuster stories showing a solid connection between Joe Biden and his drug-addicted son and his numerous shady dealings with the Chinese and the Russians.
But after a letter from 50 former intelligence officials was published claiming that the laptop was almost certainly a Russian plant to influence the election, every major social media platform forbade mention of the laptop or the Post stories. Hundreds of posts were flagged as “misinformation” and Facebook refused to carry New York Post stories in their news feed. It’s almost as if a gigantic curtain had been drawn, making the story disappear into cyberspace.
We can debate the “what ifs” of this story forever. What if the articles had been allowed to circulate? It’s still an open question whether the biased news media would have picked up the stories, leaving the Post and a few conservative sites to report on it. Would the laptop stories have influenced the 2020 presidential election?
But the “Russian disinformation” angle began to fall apart almost immediately. By March of 2022, most major news outlets had been shamed into admitting their belief that the laptop was disinformation was bogus.
The fact that CBS took this long to admit what most other news outlets had already is telling. It’s why many on the right do not trust any media — and certainly not the federal government — to police “misinformation.”
And the fallout continues, Matt Taibbi, himself a victim of YouTube censorship, points out that the platform has maintained videos posted on the laptop story that should now clearly be labeled as “misinformation.”
There are plenty more of these. If you want to widen the criticism to Google, these “Russian disinformation” stories still pop up high in searches (see here, here, here, here, and here, for instance). YouTube and Google now become exhibit A in the ultimate truth about any attempt to “moderate” content at scale. If you make even a good-faith effort to weed out “disinformation,” relying on official bodies to help, what you’ll be left with is… official disinformation.
But this isn’t a good-faith effort to weed out untruths. YouTube has become a place that censors true content but traffics in official and quasi-official deceptions. It’s become indistinguishable from a state censorship bureau. If they feel they’re right about their decisions, they should be happy to explain themselves to people like me. Until then, they can expect more love letters from this address.
The left’s complaints about Twitter are absurd. They want to play nanny to the American people to “protect” us from lies and disinformation. But who’s going to protect us from them when they censor news about themselves that they don’t want us to see?
The Founders — those dead white guys who owned slaves and were terrified of the “mob” — were pretty smart about this free speech thing. Put it all out there and let the people decide what’s true.
Sometimes, people get it wrong. But most of the time, they get it right. And that’s what has the left terrified about Twitter: It’s not “hate” the left fears; it’s freedom.
Just like all the other tyrants of history.
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