Left-wing journos attack reporter Matt Taibbi for exposing Musk’s Twitter files
Mainstream news reporters — in lockstep with Democratic strategists — rushed to social media to smear journalist Matt Taibbi as a “sad” “fraud” as he released his bombshell report on political censorship at Twitter.
“Matt Taibbi…what sad, disgraceful downfall,” Daily Beast columnist and New York Times contributor Wajahat Ali posted. “Selling your soul for the richest white nationalist on Earth.”
On Friday, billionaire Elon Musk — who vowed to give the social media giant a free-speech overhaul when he bought it last month — released to Taibbi a shocking collection of inside correspondence proving that Democrat insiders leaned on Twitter’s censors to suppress The Post’s coverage of Hunter Biden’s laptop ahead of the 2020 presidential election.
While Ali was hitting send, Dem pollster Matt McDermott tweeted a nearly identical put-down.
“Matt Taibbi always was, and still remains, a fraud,” McDermott wrote. “Doing PR for the richest person in the world should come as no surprise.”
The Democrat’s words appeared to have been cut-and-pasted from a tweet NBC’s Ben Collins had posted moments before.
“Imagine throwing it all away to do PR work for the richest person in the world,” Collins wrote. “Humiliating s–t.”
Conservatives on Twitter pummeled Collins, who has made a specialty of attacking Republicans.
“You have so much bitterness and contempt against other people,” wrote independent journalist Andy Ngo. “I hope you find healing in your life.”
“Please keep tweeting,” GOP rapid response staffer Jake Schneider told Collins. “Your meltdown is hilarious.”
Dozens of journalists — including MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, NBC’s Brandy Zadrozny, and the New Republic’s Jacob Silverman — and Democrat partisans piled on, drawing the scorn of investigative reporter Glenn Greenwald.
“The whole sleazy, in-group liberal gang from NBC, Daily Beast, etc — all the censorship advocates who think censorship advocacy is somehow compatible with journalism — are furious that the the acts of their Dem Party allies in getting the Biden story censored are being exposed,” Greenwald posted.
Meanwhile, Yoel Roth, Twitter’s former head of trust and safety who left the company when Musk completed his takeover, accused the site’s new owner of endangering the censors.
Catch up on Twitter’s censorship of The Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story
- Happening now: Email found on Hunter’s laptop reveals Joe Biden named in 2017 message seeking China natural gas deal
- Our original report: Smoking-gun email reveals how Hunter Biden introduced Ukrainian businessman to VP dad
- Editorial: Why has the public turned against “experts”? Twitter’s secret shadow bans show why
- Dorsey bows out: Musk warns Dorsey evidence of Twitter censorship “may have been deleted”
- Musk’s musings: Elon Musk: Twitter blacklisting proves “the inmates were running the asylum”
“Publicly posting the names and identities of front-line employees involved in content moderation puts them in harm’s way and is a fundamentally unacceptable thing to do,” Roth posted Friday on Mastodon, the Twitter-like site where many Musk opponents have decamped.
Roth admitted Wednesday that the social media giant “has interfered in elections.”