Thread by @emptywheel

#MattyDickPics is desperately trying to disclaim any tie to Elmo's censorship in the service of Erdogan. Who knows? Maybe he believes the things he is desperately squealing? Maybe he HAS to believe it, like he HAS to believe there was no there there to the RU investigation...

https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1657413841163042821

But the reason why I've ALWAYS said that the Twitter Files was a fascist project is because Matty ROUTINELY got caught making shit up. Straight up false claims, belied by the very screen caps he was posting, starting from his ignorant horror abt Hunter Biden's dick pics.

The project has always been about claiming 2+2=5.

Removal of an inorganic campaign to post non-consensual dick pics that violate Terms of Service = "censorship."

When @mehdirhasan caught #mattydickpics making false claims -- in one case ALTERING what his screen cap said to make CIS into CISA -- Matty explained that he altered his screen cap content because he BELIEVED the false thing to be true.

@mehdirhasan Matty never found censorship.

The lesson about Turkey is that Twitter was actually pretty vigorous about pushing back on censorship requests.

Matty helped to get Jim Baker fired, one of the people who helped make that happen. That has a DIRECT role in Elmo's Turkish censorship

@mehdirhasan But after finding that Twitter doesn't censor, after WILDLY misrepresenting why the FBI contacted Twitter, how often, and via what means, Matty moved on to claiming that IDENTIFYING disinformation = censorship.

That is, he now claims that "more speech" = censorship.

@mehdirhasan And, after refusing to condemn Elmo doing this in India, Matty now defends only himself.

He STILL isn't condemning censorship in DIRECT service of stifling democracy.