emptywheel Profile picture
Dec 10 27 tweets 12 min read
The single solitary example that #MattyDickPics does show is Yoel Roth, who is the villain of not just this thread, but the
entire fictional narrative, CORRECTING PEOPLE when they claim Trump was lying.

Wow. Villainous behavior: Making sure people don't falsely accuse Trump.
This tweet is really important for a different reason: it reveals that if Trump said something false about the election it'd be a violation. Well, he did that. So show us what happened in response! That's what you've promised to show us!

Nada. #MattyDickPics doesn't do that.
Let me tell you what happened, because #MattyDickPics didn't do that, even though it was the ONLY JOB he had to do.

What happened when Trump did stuff that would have gotten other people banned is, he didn't get banned.

Seems like an important detail.
So in this thread, at least, #MattyDickPics shows the erosion of exactly one standard: that when someone lies about the election over and over, they get removed.
Here's a tweet that #MattyDickPics uses to show that Roth was meeting with USG regularly, including w/people who worked for DEEP STATE VILLAINS Chad Wolf (illegally in the position) and John Ratcliffe (later shown to have lied abt election stuff in this period).
But note that #MattyDickPics DOESN"T mention? 1) Roth believed at that point that the Hunter Biden laptop was hacked.

While there are still real questions abt provenance of it, that certainly wasn't proven at that point. STILL, it shows WHY he did what he did.
2) It shows that Roth immediately recognized Twitter blew it.

Okay, fine. That's what you wanted to prove, right? You win! They fucked up.
3) Most importantly--bc #MattyDickPics is presenting you this screen cap as "proof" of suspect coordination with the FBI: When Roth ASKED for guidance, FBI said nothing. This is literally the opposite of what #MattyDickPics claims it is.
If #MattyDickPics were an honest journalist, this entire tweet thread would start w/BREAKING: even when Twitter asked, FBI did not get involved in Hunter Biden laptop response.

Instead, #MattyDickPics presents it as part of proof of opposite.
Here's another example of a tweet showing the opposite of what #MattyDickPics claims. His thesis: Roth was totally in bed with "law enforcement." Truth: Those meetings weren't locked into his calendar.
Incidentally, this right wing project takes as given that CISA (Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency) is law enforcement. Not sure if that's what #MattyDickPics means by DHS or not. But CISA is not LE.
Here, #MattyDickPics dings Twitter because the labeled something TRUE that some people had believed was misinformation
Here #MattyDickPics complains that Twitter didn't call FBI/DHS experts, which is funny bc that's something Glenn Greenwald often argues--that people give the Deep State too much authority.
Finally, this. Remember: #MattyDickPics' job is to show what happened before Jan 6. Instead of doing that, he presents a screen cap with no date and projects an opinion, "getting a kick out of intensified relationships with federal agencies" on to Roth w/no evidence.
Now, WITH CONTEXT (starting with a date), this screen cap might actually be genuinely interesting. For example, IF Roth was genuinely meeting with FBI (and not naming his wifi "FBI surveillance van" as a joke), then why wouldn't be put that in his schedule?
As #MattyDickPics has told us OVERANDOVER, Roth met with the FBI a lot. So why couldn't he just put that on his schedule?

There are reasons why it might be different--for example, you may have heard there was a criminal investigation that started around then.
In this entire thread, #MattyDickPics doesn't consider what happens as a criminal investigation starts--and it started during the attack itself.

In other words, this screen cap means something else but #MattyDickPics hasn't bothered to try to figure out.
To sum up: 1) #MattyDickPics admits they are cherry picking and writing up before they understand this 2) #MattyDickPics doesn't show what he promises (lead up to banning, ESPECIALLY Twitter allowing Trump to break rules abt lying) 3) His claims abt Roth are projections.
I want to return to this Tweet from #MattyDickPics' latest thread.

Matty confessed that Elmo's stenographers didn't try to understand the process, then write. They instead cherry picked names they knew.

It's one of multiple confessions that this is not journalism.
Now go to Tweets 15 and 16, and read them with the eye of someone who understands the least little bit about how bureaucracies work--and how they're SUPPOSED to work.
In Safety Operations, people used, "a [] rules-based process for addressing issues like porn, scams, and threats."

This, by the way, is one of the things Elmo has seen fit to gut -- the rules based process addressing threats and scams.
Senior policy execs issue "content rulings on the fly, often in minutes."

He CALLS them "policy execs."

You see, Matty doesn't understand the difference between policy and procedures.

And he's complaining that the people who set policy were ... the policy execs.
There are a WHOLE BUNCH of implications of this misunderstanding (and Matty's decision to cherry-pick those very same policy execs rather than review the process as implemented by people following the rules).
One is that if you decide to check the discussions of "policy execs" to see how the rules are implemented, it's gonna look like they're changing the rules.

Because you know who changes the rules?

The policy execs.

This is a basic reality of how bureaucracies work, btw.
TO BE QUITE SURE, about the only thing #MattyDickPics showed (aside from that Yoel Roth protected Trump against a false claim) is that these Twitter policy execs DID set new rules with Trump. But that's bc they didn't ban him far sooner than they did, which was the rule.
Anyway, I continue to be amused that Matty claims to be outraged by a group of ~10 debating and making policy decisions but he's working for a guy whose group debating policy decisions is just the richest man in the world responding to complaints from the far right on Twitter.
Understand the implication of #MattyDickPics' complaint: that rather than following rules that would have banned Trump Twitter first throttled before they banned. Matty suggests Twitter should have done nothing.

That amounts to a demand that Twitter be an accomplice in a coup.

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More from @emptywheel

Dec 10
Okay, let's see what #MattyDickPics is misrepresenting today. Let's start, first, with what he's not misrepresenting: He is making claims before he understands what he's looking at. Image
He's also not misrepresenting his method: He has chosen names and he's searching on them, not looking at a process and figuring out who's important. Explicitly a cherry pick. Image
Now, this thread PURPORTS to show the lead-up to Trump's banning. Even there, #MattyDickPics does not provide what he promised, as Tweet 5 and 6 are about what happened after. Image
Read 25 tweets
Dec 7
To summarize what happened today:
1) WaPo wrote a sycophantic story saying, "two searches, lots of cooperation" which looked a lot like the "lock on a door" stories from August.
2) CNN said, "four searches, would not attest there were no class docs.
3) NYT said, maybe 3 searches, no docs.
4) WaPo (adding a journo) said, "on second thought, there were those 2 docs in a storage facility Trump never uses."
5) NYT: Oh yeah, we got those 2 docs too!

Where was the fourth search?
I had forgotten I had said this. (Busy. Almost done with Christmas shopping.)

Turns out ... I was right.
Read 5 tweets
Dec 7
Reminder: Every single time Trump sources have claimed cooperation they were covering something up. Maybe this time it'll be different! But ... thus far Trump's belief he can snooker DOJ has proven to be false.
Just as an example, "breakdown in trust" is doing a whole lot of work, and none of it is accurately conveying to readers what happened.
CNN version of the Trump search story differs in two ways from the WaPo (on top of avoid the bullshit language spinning Trump's past obstruction). First, four properties were searched, not two.

edition.cnn.com/2022/12/07/pol…
Read 6 tweets
Dec 7
Even weirder than #MattyDickPics 2.0, in which he tries to turn a lawyer reviewing docs into a scandal (and betrays he knows nothing abt the underlying stories) is the response to "Elmo being investigated for converting offices to bedrooms."
The richest man in the world has, in a matter of weeks, started dictating that his employees live at work.

Thus far it is being received on the same axis of tribalism.

"Goddamn liberals in SF won't let Elmo treat his employees like chickens!"
I suppose if Elmo can keep his chief chicken cluck cluck clucking about lawyers doing lawyer things, he'll avoid scrutiny abt the fact he's treating his workers like chickens.

Imagine what the author of Griftopia would say about all that cluck clucking?
Read 4 tweets
Dec 7
Let's talk about all the ways @lhfang continues to embarrass @theintercept.

1) He accepted a tip. He passed it on.

See how much of the rest Lee simply made up?
@lhfang @theintercept 2) Then, Baker killed a NYT story into the topic.

Somehow Lee missed that part.
@lhfang @theintercept 3) WHAT WE NOW KNOW is that the FBI totally bolloxed the investigation.
a) Agents didn't look at the data before concluding
b) They let Alfa self-report
c) They ignored a hack that had already happened at Spectrum

Something else Lee doesn't bother to tell you.
Read 4 tweets
Dec 6
Incidentally, the lesson of Roger Stone is important:

Roger Stone was prosecuted for lying to Congress bc it was a good hook for obstruction/witness tampering charges.

Virtually no one understands, but DOJ continued to investigate Stone 4 CFAA/conspiracy while prosecuting him.
Bannon, on the other hand, may have avoided false statements charges bc 1) the evidence wasn't as clear cut 2) they wanted his testimony re Stone and probably other things.

Thus the tension, until not that long ago, bt Bannon and Stone.
When Judge Mehta had to delay the Navarro contempt trial, DOJ wanted it in November to try to coerce Navarro to flip. I SUSPECT there were investigative reasons why.
Read 4 tweets

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