Harvard University’s research director of media manipulation, Joan Donovan, penned an op-ed in Politico Magazine on Thursday praising the establishment media for ignoring the “Twitter Files,” claiming the files hold no new revelations.
It’s unknown why Donovan praised the media for ignoring the “Twitter Files” if the files hold no new revelations.
Donovan, who leads the “field in examining internet and technology studies, online extremism, media manipulation, and disinformation campaigns” at Harvard, according to the university’s website, tried to use her expertise to diminish the damning revelations of the “Twitter Files” by praising the media for ignoring the findings that do not “hold new revelations.”
“Over at Twitter, Musk has given privileged access to some ideologically friendly journalists who must publish their findings on his platform,” Donovan prefaced without citing any particular ideology.
FILE – Elon Musk arrives at the justice center in Wilmington, Del., Tuesday, July 13, 2021. According to a filing posted late Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2022, by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Musk sold another $3.58 billion worth of Tesla stock during the week, but it wasn’t clear where the proceeds were being spent. Musk has sold nearly $23 billion worth of Tesla stock since April, with much of the money likely going to help fund his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
Musk has made clear, however, he supports free speech and opposes censorship.
Donovan said Musk’s “ideologically friendly journalists” have revealed collusion between the “deep state” and Twitter, but that details of the files do not “hold new revelations”:
On the other hand, the “Twitter Files” are a desperate attempt to legitimize a well-worn conservative narrative that the suppression of Hunter Biden’s “laptop from hell” proved collusion between the so-called deep state and social media companies… but the details of the “Twitter Files” do not seem to hold new revelations.
Donovan ignored that the revelations have confirmed what former Twitter employees denied and what many Americans alleged; namely collusion between Twitter and federal law enforcement occurred against conservatives.
Harvard’s research director of media manipulation also claimed the “Twitter Files” have been successfully suppressed by the establishment media. She correctly added the establishment media has not “tak[en] the bait” by publishing the damning evidence of collusion between the federal government and Twitter, which she said was good news.
“Musk is baiting mainstream media companies to cover a manufactured scandal about something that happened years ago and it is still not yielding returns,” she wrote. “So far, the media largely isn’t taking the bait, showing that news coverage doesn’t just happen simply because a billionaire tries to engineer it.”
“Silence is still the editor’s best kept weapon in the content wars,” she added.
Donovan alleged the “Twitter File” revelations were simply what Americans already knew: that “media corporations spend a large amount of time and resources discussing how to bend the rules so that politicians and celebrity influencers don’t get suspended.”
Donovan then claimed Musk’s ownership of Twitter has generated a “politically motivated” bias where it had not existed before on the platform.
“To pretend that the ‘Twitter Files’ illustrates internal political bias on behalf of the old regime is to ignore the reality that Musk’s new regime is much more politically motivated,” she claimed.
Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.
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