Twitter Targets Trump

(AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey testifies before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Capitol Hill, Wednesday, Sept. 5, 2018, in Washington. Lawmakers have sparred over whether a now-reversed change to auto-suggestions on Twitter had unfairly hurt Democrats or Republicans more. Dorsey isn’t saying which, but tells lawmakers he’ll follow up. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

We cannot get re-elect…we cannot win this re-election… excuse me, we can only re-elect Donald Trump…

This is a quote from Joe Biden at a campaign appearance.  Many of us here at Redstate jumped on the statement as yet another gaffe from the king of such utterances.  Of course, there was something else to that part of his speech left out by many: “…if in fact we get engaged in this circular firing squad here.”

Watching the full video in context, one is left with the unmistakable impression that Biden did not endorse Trump.  Likewise, although one never knows with Biden and how his brain works, no rational American would believe that Biden actually endorsed Trump.  What it proves is that a 78-year-old Biden is clearly incapable of stringing more than two coherent words together.  The man cannot distinguish between his wife and sister, let along what state he is in.

However, that should not stop anyone from taking his words, no matter how “out of context,” and using them against him.  It is what politicians do on a regular basis.  It is what the media does on a regular basis.  And so we come to a tweet from Dan Scavino, Trump’s social media campaign guru, who put the comment out there on Twitter, minus that last part cited above.

For the first time in their history, Twitter tagged the video as “manipulated.”  This caused the mainstream media to get all excited and run the story that Trump had “deceptively edited” the video of Biden saying those words.  According to the media and Twitter, leaving out twelve words brings down the hammer on Trump and his campaign.

In February, Twitter announced that it would flag posts containing “synthetic or manipulated” material.  The definition of “synthetic” or “manipulated” was never really explained by the Twitter gods, so we really do not know what they mean.  In their vague explanation of the rules, they said a Tweet could be “deceptive” if it could “result in confusion or misunderstanding,” and that it is “manipulated” if it “suggests a deliberate attempt to deceive people.”  That could describe just about any political message other than “Vote for me.”

Facebook is no better.  They removed a series of Trump reelection ads after Democrat activists, the media and lawmakers said the words “official census” were deliberately misleading.  Granted, the title of the ads may have been, but the actual text of the ad made it very clear they asking people to voluntarily lend their information with the campaign.  Facebook suggested that the Trump campaign was harvesting information which is kind of rich coming from a company like Facebook which regularly engages in the practice.

Quoting politicians out of context is the oldest trick in the political playbook.  The media takes a certain glee in doing just that when it comes to President Trump.  Remember the “fine people” comment regarding Charlottesville?  Remember the “Mexicans are rapists” comments?  Remember the “illegal immigrants are animals” line of attack?  In all these examples, there were zero apologies, no corrections, no flagging, nothing, nada, zilch!

After Nancy Pelosi’s premeditated act of ripping up Trump’s State of the Union Speech, Blinky and the Democrats requested that a Trump ad showing that act be taken down by social media.  The ad repeatedly showed her ripping up the speech as Trump made several points, instead of just one rip at the end.  They said the ads were deceptive and manipulative.  Both Twitter and Facebook refused to take down the ads and stood up to the Democrats.  We all thought that the social media giants had grown a huge set of balls.  But now, both companies have decided to reverse course, put their tails between their legs, and give into pressure.  That is, as long as the pressure comes from only one side.

This is the ultimate in Democrat hypocrisy.  The argument that “fake news” or manipulated political ads sways elections is an insult to the American electorate’s intelligence.  This is odd coming from people who believe democracy is too important to be left to actual voters.

The Twitter rules are so arbitrary to the point they can flag silly memes and other such political commentary.  Parodies, like Babylon Bee, have been fact-checked even though they bill themselves at a “parody.”  The silliness is endless.  Hillary Clinton herself has decried Facebook as a “conservative echo chamber.”  She equates Mark Zuckerberg as “authoritarian” and “Trumpian.”  This is clearly a full-court press against social media to shut down speech the Left does not like.

Democrats see social media as crucial to the outcome of American elections.  Many believe to this day that a couple hundred thousand dollars in Facebook ads from the dreaded Russians swayed the 2016 election.  But it is they- the Democrats- who are putting the biggest thumb on the scales of democracy.  In fact, it is a clenched fist.

Someone has noticed- FCC Commissioner Brendan Barr who said:

We’re seeing an intentional and coordinated effort by established gatekeepers to equate political speech they don’t like with the entirely separate categories of doctored deep fakes, illegal content, and deceptive cheap fakes…

The question is: What do we do about it?  Imagine the fact that social media and the Democrats think so little of the intelligence of Americans that they label a factual video clip “manipulated” because it is being used as a meme in an Presidential campaign.  This is what the Democrats think of the ability of the American electorate to distinguish fact from fiction.  They think you are a backwards “hillbilly,” a toothless miner or moonshiner… a deplorable…a rube…a manipulated drone of Russian .  Remember that when you go to the polls on Election Day 2020.