Oliver Darcy's mendacity, poor preparation displayed

 Anyone thinking that Oliver Darcy is a journalist with integrity is kidding themselves. You don't have to take hours studying this Reliable Sources Newsletter to find multiple serious mistakes in it. In the opening paragraph, Darcy wrote "Jim Jordan is shaking down Mark Zuckerberg. The hyper-partisan Ohio Republican, still on an unsuccessful years-long journey to dishonestly portray Silicon Valley as unfairly censoring American conservatives, is now wielding the power of the federal government in his quest to besmirch Meta."

First, it's dishonest to say that the Twitter Files didn't uncover multiple examples of Jack Dorsey's Twitter telling Twitter to shadow-ban certain tweets. Further, Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger found examples of Twitter suspending accounts like President Trump, Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany, the New York Post and the Babylon Bee at the government's request. Specifically, this was done on orders of the FBI.

When the federal government tells a social media company to suspend the accounts of private companies, that's a major violation of these organizations' First Amendment rights. Mssrs. Taibbi and Shellenberger have the receipts proving that's what the FBI was doing so that game is finished. So much for dishonestly portraying Silicon Valley as unfairly censoring American conservatives.

In the article on CNN's website, Darcy wrote this:

Jordan, who sits atop the powerful House Judiciary Committee, has embarked on a fishing expedition at Facebook, demanding Zuckerberg turn over reams of internal documents that pertain to Meta’s content moderation decisions.

In the email newsletter, it was different:

Jordan, who sits atop the powerful House Oversight Committee, has embarked on a fishing expedition at Facebook, demanding Zuckerberg turn over reams of internal documents that pertain to Meta's content moderation decisions.

That's a significant difference. Then there's this:

In effect, Jordan is coercing Zuckerberg into turning over documents that will then be used to mendaciously smear the Meta chief’s company. And if Zuckerberg fails to comply, Jordan has threatened to hold him in contempt of Congress — an action that could carry with it serious legal consequences.

Darcy hasn't proven mendacity on Jordan's behalf thus far but he's certainly thrown that term around a bunch. This is, in my opinion, a classic case of all hat and no cattle. Further, I'm not impressed with so-called journalists that market in allegations, not proof.

Matt Taibbi wrote this article about the Facebook Files:

In one damning email, an unnamed Facebook executive wrote to Mark Zuckerberg and Cheryl Sandberg:

We are facing continued pressure from external stakeholders, including the White House and the press, to remove more Covid-19 vaccine discouraging content.

We see repeatedly in internal communications not only in the email above, but in the Twitter Files, in the exhibits of the Missouri v Biden lawsuit, and even in the Freedom of Information request results beginning to trickle in here at Racket, that the news media has for some time been working in concert with civil society organizations, government, and tech platforms, as part of the censorship apparatus.

Matt Taibbi: