Elon Musk's Twitter Files Dump

In this mailing: - Peter Schweizer: Elon Musk's Twitter Files Dump - Lawrence A. Franklin: Qatar's World Cup: What Visitors Were Not Shown [] [Elon Musk's Twitter Files Dump]( by Peter Schweizer • December 13, 2022 at 5:00 am [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [WhatsApp]( [Telegram]( [Send]( [Print]( - It was not "Russian disinformation." Nor was it "unsafe." The executives running Twitter in the twenty days before the 2020 presidential election clearly knew that, and tried to find other justifications for what amounted to raw censorship. - Twitter's bias in censoring or banning conservative accounts for "hate speech" while happily servicing accounts for the Iranian ayatollah and the Taliban is a running joke. In a series of secretly recorded interviews with Twitter employees, Project Veritas had already confirmed that "shadow-banning," manipulating the number of followers shown by certain accounts, and selectively "de-boosting" certain tweets in its algorithms was a well-established, standard manipulation of the platform's stated purpose: "We serve the public conversation. That's why it matters to us that people have a free and safe space to talk." - Kudos to Khanna for his lonely but principled stand for free speech. Taibbi also noted in his thread that Khanna was the only Democratic official to do so. - China's enticements to the Biden family are but one example of this campaign. We learned through this research how insidious and effective the Chinese government has been at co-opting not just the families of senior elected officials, but captains of industry, financial behemoths, and the wealthiest American philanthropists and educational institutions. - The Biden story also showed the ingenuity of corrupt politicians who essentially "outsource" their corruption to family members rather than risk a possible paper trail leading back to themselves. The Bidens, even more than Bill and Hillary Clinton before them, were a family influence business. - We have all learned about other stories of political interference and foot-dragging within the FBI. The public is right to wonder whether federal prosecutors are as serious about pursuing this case as Twitter's Democratic partisans were in squelching it. - Further, President Biden's Attorney General, Merrick Garland, continues to task the bureau with investigating the Jan. 6 riots as a deep conspiracy, while simultaneously ignoring what certainly appear to have been well-organized efforts by Antifa to foment violence during the George Floyd riots, and violence done by pro-abortion organizations after someone on Twitter publicized the home addresses of Supreme Court justices. - For more than two critical weeks, under secret pressure from the Biden campaign and Democrats who were desperate to bury a devastating story that implicated their presidential candidate in his son's corruption by Chinese intelligence-connected businessmen. The Post's story was factually accurate, legitimately reported, and was (belatedly) authenticated by other news outlets. In short, there was no reason to do what Twitter, Roth, and Gadde did, other than pleasing a political party with whom they agreed. The New York Post story on Hunter Biden's laptop was no "hack." It was not "Russian disinformation." Nor was it "unsafe." The executives running Twitter in the 20 days before the 2020 presidential election clearly knew that, and tried to find other justifications for what amounted to raw censorship. Elon Musk's release of internal Twitter correspondence around the censoring of the New York Post's blockbuster "Hunter Biden laptop" story merely confirms what most knew already -- that Twitter under Jack Dorsey and Parag Agrawal was staffed with Democratic Party partisans who censored information they thought would damage their cause. In a Tweet thread on Dec. 2, journalist Matt Taibbi exposes the smoking gun -- the frantic attempts to claim without evidence that any reference to the NY Post's story had to be banned from the platform because it might have come from "hacked materials." This, we can see now, was never seriously believed, even inside Twitter, as the email exchanges make clear. [Continue Reading Article]( [] [Qatar's World Cup: What Visitors Were Not Shown]( by Lawrence A. Franklin • December 13, 2022 at 4:00 am [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [WhatsApp]( [Telegram]( [Send]( [Print]( - Qatar claims that 37 workers died during the construction phase of its World Cup infrastructure projects. The organization Amnesty International asserts that authorities in Qatar failed to investigate the deaths of thousands of migrant workers who lost their lives working on construction projects associated with the World Cup. One UK press report puts the total number of victims at 6,750. - The workers often arrive in debt, due to extortionate fees charged by recruiters who facilitate the employment process. Qatar's kafala (sponsorship) system is so fraught with abuse that it approaches the level of human trafficking. - Working conditions are medieval. Laborers have little to no access to health care: they cannot afford health insurance and there are no on-site clinics. They are also forced to work long hours, often seven days a week. Many migrants die from the extreme heat during Qatar's summer: temperatures sometimes reach above 44 degrees Celsius (112 degrees Fahrenheit). - Despite the presence of a large US military base, Qatar's ruling Al-Thani family is a huge financial supporter of various terrorist groups, including Hamas. This wealthy, conservative Sunni mini-state is also a sanctuary for several terrorist operatives. Up to 6,750 foreign laborers are reported to have died in Qatar while working on construction projects associated with the World Cup. Working conditions for foreign laborers in Qatar are medieval, and their living conditions are often not fit for humans. Pictured: Foreign laborers, working on the construction site of the al-Wakrah stadium, walk back to their accommodations at the Ezdan 40 compound on May 4, 2015, in Qatar. (Photo by Marwan Naamani/AFP via Getty Images) The violation of migrant workers' human rights in Qatar has been massive and woefully underreported by the Arab Gulf State and many others. Qatar's dismal treatment of "guest workers" has become more pronounced and visible since its selection in 2010 by FIFA as the site of this year's World Cup football (soccer) tournament. Qatar claims that 37 workers died during the construction phase of its World Cup infrastructure projects. The organization Amnesty International asserts that authorities in Qatar failed to investigate the deaths of thousands of migrant workers who lost their lives working on construction projects associated with the World Cup. One UK press report puts the total number of victims at 6,750. [Continue Reading Article]( [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [RSS]( [Donate]( Copyright © Gatestone Institute, All rights reserved. You are subscribed to this list as {EMAIL} You can change how you receive these emails: [Update your subscription preferences]( or [Unsubscribe from this list]( [Gatestone Institute]( 14 East 60 St., Suite 705, New York, NY 10022