The Twitter Files: Viral nonsense

Matt Taibbi's quest for substance in leaked Twitter documents is an intellectual cul-de-sac.

Last month I spoke with NewsNation about Matt Taibbi's allegation that Twitter and other social media firms colluded with government agencies, academic researchers, and NGOs to “censor” vaccine misinformation.

Taibbi is misguided. There was no collusion. These organizations met openly and often discussed their work to track and expose misinformation with journalists.

Here’s what I told NewsNation:

“At the beginning of the vaccine, there was a lot of misinformation about how these vaccines worked,” said ZDNet tech reporter Dan Patterson. “And what they were trying to do is find out what’s real, and then make sure that false information doesn’t get accidentally amplified.”