San Francisco, Dec 27 (IANS) The US government has pressured Twitter to elevate certain Covid-19 information and suppress other content, while the platform suspended top medical professionals who disagreed with the establishment’s views during the peak of the pandemic, new ‘Twitter Files’ were alleged.
Independent journalist David Zweig released new ‘Twitter Archives’ on how the microblogging platform “manipulated the Covid debate” and relied on bots and third-party contractors to moderate Covid-related topics.
“Twitter censored information that was true but inconvenient for US government policy, discredited doctors and other experts who disagreed, and cracked down on ordinary users, including some who shared data from the CDC itself,” Zweig alleged.
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According to him, both the current administration of Joe Biden and the former administration of Donald Trump have pressured Twitter and other technology giants such as Google, Facebook and Microsoft to disseminate information about Covid.
“Internal files on Twitter that I viewed showed that the Trump and Biden administrations directly pressured Twitter executives to moderate pandemic content from the platform in accordance with their wishes,” tweeted Zweig late on Monday.
At the start of the pandemic, according to meeting notes, “Administrator Trump was especially concerned about panic buying.”
Zweig said that when the Biden administration took office, “one of his first requests to meet with Twitter executives was about Covid. The focus was on ‘anti-vaxxer accounts’. Especially Alex Berenson.”
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l media companies were “killing people” by allowing misinformation about vaccines.
“Berenson was suspended hours after Biden’s comments and kickstarted the platform the following month,” he posted.
“A December 2022 summary of meetings with the White House by Lauren Culbertson, Twitter’s head of US public pooooooooooooooooolicy, adds new evidence of the White House pressure campaign and consolidates that it has repeatedly attempted to directly influence the platform,” added Zweig.
Twitter CEO Elon Musk said a follow-up article to the new ‘Twitter Files’ is coming next week, featuring leading doctors and researchers from Harvard, Stanford and other institutions, “many of whom have, of course, been actively suppressed.” on twitter”.
–IANS