Category Twitter Exposed

Jun 2 2023

Musk Outlines the Financials of Twitter – Platform Content Is Determined Through the Prism of Revenue


Posted originally on the CTH on June 1, 2023 | Sundance 

Twitter CEO Elon Musk has provided some convincing commentary about his willingness to forgo revenue in order to retain “free speech.” However, more recently he has qualified that outlook by saying, “Freedom of speech is not the same as freedom of reach.”  Musk noting Twitter will block, remove, censor, shadow ban, deboost, downrank and stop content from amplifying based on the determination of those in charge of Twitter content.

This controlled “freedom of reach” perspective, which is really shadow-banning in practice, is generally accepted and now admitted.  Against this backdrop, it becomes important to understand the priorities of the platform to understand the guidelines of the platform.  Within this context the financials are key to understanding what elements are included within “approved content.” {GO DEEP}

Twitter is now a private company, therefore understanding the financials of Twitter is a little more challenging than when they were required to post their financial statements publicly.  However, Elon Musk gave an interview with the Babylon Bee yesterday and revealed some of the internal financial challenges. [VIDEO HERE]  I am going to summarize the status of the Twitter financial position according to what Musk himself revealed.

♦ Twitter was initially purchased by Musk and his investors for around $44 billion.  The company now estimates its value around $20 billion.  Musk overpaid.

♦ Musk put roughly $30 billions of his own net worth into the purchase and financed the rest.

♦ Current outstanding debt on the financing for the purchase is around $12.5 billion. Per Musk statement.

♦ Current debt service, interest on the loans (from investors), is roughly $1.5 billion/yr.  $120.5 million per month for debt service.  Per Musk statement.

♦ Previous revenue (when public) was roughly $4 billion/yr.  Twitter was generally breaking even.

♦ Advertising revenue, as a result of changes in industry in combination with concerns about Twitter, are “half” what they were during the acquisition phase, per Musk statement.  That puts current advertising revenue around $2 billion/yr.

♦ Per conversation, current status of Twitter is -$3 billion/yr and could be as high as -$4 to 5 billion/yr.  This makes complete sense if $4 billion in revenue was generally the breakeven point (before acquisition), and now they have $2 billion in revenue and $1.5 billion in additional debt service [as they trim operational costs (including labor) to offset].

♦♦ For the bottom line to be an operational loss of $3 to $5 billion (est) per year, Twitter is generally losing around $300 million per month.

♦ There is only so much Tesla stock Musk can sell to support Twitter.  He has limits. Per conversation.

♦ Twitter has around $100 million/mo in liquid cash available. Per conversation.

Twitter is in locked contracts with AWS and Google cloud services through 2025 at roughly $300 million per year for both [AWS $100 million, Goog $200 million].

There’s your prism for platform content!

Elon Musk needs revenue desperately.

Twitter urgently needs advertising revenue.

Without revenue or acquisition of another platform (with assets) to offset the current status of Twitter, it is only a matter of time before bankruptcy.   [Note, Twitter investors are backstopped with Tesla/SpaceX as collateral against default.]

The tightrope… Elon Musk must appease the Google advertising control agents and adhere to content rules and regulation (DEI etc.) in order to maximize his revenue.  That’s where Linda Yaccarino comes in as a critical player.

Bottom line, Musk has to make decisions through one prism, THE ECONOMICS.  Musk’s decision-making, pro freedom or not, is constrained by this financial dependency. Hence, a lot of the platform censorship elements remain (including some personnel) and now the outreach to appoint Google/WEF approved Linda Yaccarino in an effort to enhance the revenue.

When you are perplexed about Musk decision making….  THERE’S YOUR ANSWER.

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May 29 2023

Musk Admits He Doesn’t Control Platform Censorship Decision making – Watch the Twitter Financials


Posted originally on the CTH on May 29, 2023 | Sundance 

Everything I have outlined about Twitter is going to surface as accurate over time.  There are two major elements: (1) DHS govt influence, now evidenced in the Twitter Files; and (2) the Twitter financial issues, which explain the recent hiring of Linda Yaccarino, which are soon to surface.

Yesterday, Elon Musk responded to criticism of Twitter censorship, vis-a-vis government demands, with this Tweet: “Please point out where we had an actual choice and we will reverse it.”

The Musk supporters are saying Musk has to comply with government demands if their national laws require it. However, that angle doesn’t take into consideration the choice that Musk/Twitter always have.

If the platform content is not approved by a government, and that govt then demands removal or censorship of that content, Twitter always has two options. One, to comply with the demand and block or restrict the user content (which is the direction they have taken); or two, stop allowing the platform to operate in the country demanding the censorship. It is the latter option that everyone always avoids mentioning.

However, the issue appears to be bigger and goes to the heart of the second aspect of Twitter we have noted.

Twitter is not viable as a business model, under the construct of its creation. Twitter operates on Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud, and Google Cloud.

Both big tech monopoly systems are extremely expensive and as a result Musk is stuck in contracts with AWS and Google that are major financial drains. Twitter does not operate any server infrastructure; the only asset that Twitter has on the tech engineering side is the software to operate the platform.

Absent any hardware infrastructure, Musk is vulnerable to the excessive costs of AWS & Google.

Keep in mind that all cloud-based systems are arguably U.S. government subsidized and end in server farms built and owned by the U.S. govt. Send something to a cloud-based system, or operate your tech through a cloud-based system, and you are essentially operating on govt hardware.

[This is the background #2 issue to Jack’s MAgic Coffee Shop.]

As you can see from this article in March 2023 [MUST READ], Musk was behind in his payments to Jeff Bezos (Amazon, AWS) but up to date on his payments to Google.

In essence, even as the article admits, Elon Musk is making payment decisions based on determinations of how best avoid advertising revenue interruptions.  Keep this in mind.

As you can see in the article, Musk is on the hook for contracts with AWS through 2025.  As written, “AWS is not willing to renegotiate the five-and-a-half year contract it signed with Twitter in 2020.”  That is before Musk took ownership. “That contract required Twitter to pay $510m over that period. It was signed when Twitter was expecting to move its main timeline over to AWS, but that never occurred (instead it hosts Twitter Spaces and other services), meaning that Twitter is not fully making use of the contract.”  So, Jeff Bezos (AWS) has a hook into Musk for roughly $100 million a year.

Additionally, “Twitter uses Google Cloud to a greater degree, with its own five-year contract worth $1bn. While Twitter is also looking to reduce its Google Cloud costs.”  That puts Musk on the hook for $200 million a year to Google, and Google controls the vast majority of advertising revenue on the web.

Each system, AWS and Google, represents a threat vector for Twitter (Musk), insofar as Twitter cannot operate without the cloud services each provider contributes to the data processing.

Absent his own data processing systems, Musk is vulnerable to the AWS/Google demands. $300,000,000/yr just for them.   Again, keep this in mind.

This is all part of the financial section I have written about extensively, and it has an impact on the content.

With this information as the overlay, how much freedom does Musk actually have with the platform when he is dependent on Google and Amazon to operate?  The same Google who controls the majority of his revenue (advertising) controls his data processing.  See the problem?

On content, look at what AWS did to Parler as an example of what they could do to Twitter if Musk is not compliant.  On revenue, consider how Google already has influence over the monetization of any platform on the internet; combined with terms and conditions for content control they can exert through their revenue power.

♦ Amazon (AWS, CIA, U.S. Govt) then becomes the primary control lever for rules and guidelines on content, the government compliance stuff.  How does it surface?  Musk saying, he must censor Turkish political opposition parties.

♦ Google then becomes the primary control lever for Twitter revenue.  How does that surface?  Musk hiring Linda Yaccarino as CEO of Twitter.

Can you see it now?

Do the irreconcilables start to reconcile?

Does Elon Musk saying, “Please point out where we had an actual choice and we will reverse it,” start to make sense now?

Given that Musk is on the hook for $300 million/yr, and that’s just one expense, I suspect Musk is closer to bankruptcy with Twitter than most people think.

The operating costs are too extreme for the business model.  They always were; however, I suspect the USG was indirectly subsidizing Twitter through data processing when Jack Dorsey had ownership.

The subsidy would be part of the private-public partnership, where the USG was benefitting from their ability to control public information and public opinion.

With the USG control via DHS and FBI now in sunlight (Twitter Files), the financial side has always been the second -and hidden- big picture element around Jack’s Magic Coffee Shop.

Bottom line, Musk has to make decisions through one prism, THE ECONOMICS.  Musk’s decision-making, pro freedom or not, is constrained by this financial dependency. Hence, a lot of the platform censorship elements remain (including some personnel) and now the outreach to appoint Google/WEF approved Linda Yaccarino in an effort to enhance the revenue.

As the end dates of the contract terms with AWS and Google start to come closer, decisions will have to be made if Musk wants a sustainable platform.  Either he builds out new hardware (extremely costly and likely cost prohibitive) or he looks for an existing platform that he might be able to merge with and operate.

If you are a platform owner of reasonable scale, and you control your own servers and data-processing, watch out for David Sacks (repping for Elon) to tap you on the shoulder.  Twitter is in a bind, or Musk needs to sink buckets of money he doesn’t have into building something.  The financial viability is now the primary prism, not principles of free speech.

On the content side Elon Musk needs content providers, which explains the thirst for Tucker Carlson and even the DeSantis launch to gain some operational impact.  That’s likely where his key tech advisor David Sacks again comes into play.  On the type of content, that’s where Linda Jaccarino steps in as the Google/WEF bridge to approved content revenue.

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May 14 2023

Strange “Democracy” – Govt of Turkey Demands Twitter Remove Political Opposition, Elon Musk Agrees


Posted originally on the CTH on May 13, 2023 | Sundance 

The authoritarian government of Turkish President Recep Erdogan, a man of notoriously manipulative and unstable disposition intent on recreating the Ottoman empire, demanded that in advance of their elections Twitter remove the voice of the opposition party.  Elon Musk complied:

This decision is interesting because it shows that despite his questions about the need to defend democracy and free speech, Twitter owner Elon Musk is willing to support the removal of opposition political parties during elections.

Musk justifies this decision by saying the choice was between shutting down a political viewpoint or shutting down all of Turkish Twitter access.  Musk chose to simply eliminate one set of voices in opposition to the existing government in Turkey.

When Rumble was faced with a similar threat from France, Rumble stood with the principle of freedom and refused to block content the administration of Emmanuel Macron did not like.  Rumble left France rather than comply with authoritarian censorship demands.  Twitter remains operational in Turkey, willing to support the authoritarian censorship demands.  An interesting contrast.

I have fielded many calls in the past few days about this seemingly 180° reversal from Elon Musk in his ‘speech’ positions.  The hiring of Linda Yaccarino was one massive datapoint that seemed to indicate the priorities of Musk had changed.  The acquiescent to Turkish government requests less than 24 hours later is another datapoint.

The general questions all fall in the spectrum of ‘what has changed’?

I will answer here, what I have answered privately.

When I published my thesis on the background of Twitter called Jack’s Magic Coffee Shop, the essential outline contained two basic cornerstones.

First, the United States government was operating to control the information on the Twitter platform with direct access to the content.  Second, the USG was subsidizing it.

Two years ago, people thought I was nuts about government control over content.  However, in the last several months the information from within Twitter, specifically the Twitter Files outlining the DHS influence and control, has verified exactly the issue CTH noted in the very first outline of Jack’s Magic Coffee Shop.

However, it is the second aspect behind the platform that people have yet to recognize.  When the fulsome story is told in hindsight, you will see that I am correct.

The second aspect is that Twitter cannot financially exist as a viable communication platform without government subsidy.

As it is currently structured, including the AWS cloud-based services for data processing, the costs associated with handling 30 million active simultaneous users (24/7) exceeds the business model for self-sufficiency.  It simply costs too much without ownership of the metal.

Amazon Web Services (AWS), and other cloud-based services (Microsoft etc), are efficient for platforms who do not then need to employ as many engineers to keep the data processing operational; but they are very costly.

Data processing for 30 million simultaneously active users engaging with the platform is extremely expensive.  Every engagement feature makes this issue worse. It is simply an issue of scale.  Unfortunately, unlike traditional business models, the per user costs do not decrease as the number of simultaneous users increase.

There is no viable business model for a ‘free’ or low-cost user-based platform that requires data processing for this scale of simultaneous users without a massive amount of money to create the actual servers (metal-based operations).  A cloud service (AWS) is expensive, and Musk is on the hook for every penny in data processing cost.

There have also been many reports that AWS is technically an endpoint U.S. government operation. Meaning the actual data processing is done by systems attached to U.S. government operations.  While staying away from the granular tech on this issue, it remains most likely that government subsidy underpins the ability of Twitter to exist and function as a platform.

The motive behind the public-private partnership is symbiotic and long precedes Musk purchasing the platform.

The evolution of Twitter from a private to a quasi-public institution under the control of DHS took place over a decade.  Essentially from 2012 (Arab Spring), and the first requests of the U.S. government for assistance, to the present day.  As the public-private partnership relationship grew, Twitter was viewed as beneficial to the interests of the U.S. government as a controlled communication platform, and the financial subsidy to retain the viability of the platform was predictable as an outcome.

As with all things connected to the deep state IC, over time controlling content on the platform became increasingly obvious.  The Twitter files reveal the scale of this issue as it was available to understand via internal communication correspondence. However, as admitted by the journalists requesting the searches of the Twitter database, they really don’t know the full scale and scope of the government involvement in Twitter.  My personal suspicions of govt scale greatly exceed those journalistic reviews, driven in part by my experience as a target of the background actors.

Which brings me back to the question that everyone asks me about the motive for Musk’s ideological reversal.   Surprise, it’s the money!

There is only one force more powerful than the firmly committed and espoused ideology of an altruistic mind, ECONOMICS.

The economics of the thing always supersedes and overpowers the other issues related to the thing.   If the U.S. government wanted to shift the full scale of cost to operate Twitter onto the shoulders of Musk, the platform would not survive.

Tap Musk on the shoulder, or allow Musk to discover this financial dependency organically, and suddenly the reality of the thing changes. Nothing changes espoused opinion faster than money, just ask Steve Cortes.

It is a simple truth in everything: if you see a person change opinion quickly and radically, look at the money behind them.

There are two vectors for economics to change things.  First, the gain of money as an enticement. Ex. you do this, you get paid. The second vector is more powerful, the removal of money as an enticement. Ex. you do this, or the existing payment stops.

If you look at the financial background of an abrupt change, almost every time you will find the answer to the motive that puzzles you.

May 14 2023

Big Picture – Elon Musk Confirms Hiring DEI Advocate Linda Yaccarino as Twitter CEO


Posted originally of the CTH on May 13, 2023 | Sundance 

Twitter platform owner Elon Musk has confirmed the hiring of Linda Yaccarino as CEO of Twitter. Many reactions are happening, but CTH analysis generally likes to stay ahead of the reactions and more into the future of what each datapoint means.  That said, here’s some context.

The general or more common logic, completely understandable, is to look at the hiring of Yaccarino as binary.  Either Musk was previously lying about everything he believed in, or the revenue situation is at a critical mass. Otherwise, it really doesn’t make sense to bring in Linda Yaccarino.

Before going deeper, it is critical to know just how ideological Linda Yaccarino is.  The former head of NBCUniversal is the apex voice in the system of promoting Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) from an advertising perspective.   I’m not talking about a little bit ideological, I mean the full dna-level, metastatic, this is the core essence of what makes Yaccarino believe she has purpose in life.

Changing social culture by leveraging commercial enterprise is Yaccarino’s life work.

Literally Linda Yaccarino believes that advertisers should determine the product being sold. This is not a spoof, exaggeration, hyperbole or a spin on her outlook. Yaccarino believes marketing and advertising executives should be able to control the physical content, the actual stuff, created by the publisher they pay to advertise their product.

A traditional example might be Ford Motor Company telling Motor Trend magazine what positions to place ads for competitors in the auto industry as a contingency for their ad spend.  A modern example might be Disney telling Fox News what content may be discussed by Tucker Carlson.  This is the origin of DEI ideology controlling platform content.

To understand how this mindset applies to Twitter and Elon Musk, watch a few minutes of this previous interview between Yaccarino and Musk at a convention of advertisers. This is an example of how the NBCUniversal executive thinks.  WATCH (prompted):

You can see in the back and forth, how Musk tries to stick to his core principles about “free speech” while Yaccarino uses terms like “partnership”, “collaboration”, and “mutual benefits” to leverage her advertising team’s agenda.

It is important to understand the views expressed by Musk and Yaccarino are mutually exclusive.  There is no free speech when the advertisers are permitted to determine the content of that speech.  Musk tries to negotiate a nuance, but the core of the dynamic is in conflict.

Any good, stable and even-tempered corporate executive will tell you the marketing team is consistently the least valuable mindset at the corporate table.

Factually, most of the people who fail out of business schools fail down into the humanities dept.  However, sometimes those emotionally driven ideologues simply move into the marketing and advertising fields within the business majors.  The outcome of this truism is Alissa Heinersheid and her destruction of the Bud Light brand through marketing.

Linda Yaccarino is the apex voice in the system that has allowed advertisers to determine content.  She would be the ideal candidate within an organization like Google, but she is oil in the water of Twitter.  So, what gives?

Why would Elon Musk hire Linda Yaccarino as the CEO of Twitter?  We return to the binary issue…. Either Musk really doesn’t believe in what he previously advocated, or Musk has hit a wall of acceptance and generating revenue is now more important than the platform itself?   For the latter, essentially the economics of the thing is determining the outcome of the thing.

There is a third alternative; a less familiar dynamic that has surfaced in the past and does provide a reference.  This is what I call the “ino” hiring process within large institutions and organizations; “ino” stands for In Name Only.

An executive is hired to represent the division/organization, in name only.  They have no actual control, influence or power.  They are simply figureheads installed to create the optics needed for the institution to continue operations.

The ino practice is also visible with ‘diversity hires’.  A person is hired not to drive the mission of the organization, but to deflect opposition away from the achievement of the organizational mission.  However, all ‘in name only’ (ino) hires always end up in the exact same conversation within the organization.

When the ino realizes they are essentially irrelevant to the function of the organization, that means their opinions and recommendations are never part of the organizational outcome, there is always a conversation with the following words: “then why did you hire me?”  This conversation always happens, it is the one constant in an ever-changing business world.

So, there’s three basic dynamics:

Elon Musk was not as committed to ‘Free Speech’ as he originally defined it.

Priorities have changed and now Revenue is more vital than Free Speech.

Musk is still committed but needs to create the illusion of DEI acceptance.

In considering the last element, Mrs. Yaccarino does not present herself as an ino-person who will accept a position and then not deliver on the intent of her mission.

So, what does this tell us about the future of Twitter content?

I think we all know the answer….

~ This just happened today ~

WHY?

Because the now-restricted Twitter Account created THIS:

The CNN Town Hall Massacre

Posted in 1st Amendment, Big Tech, Cultural Marxism, Culture, Deep State, Joe Biden, Uncategorized

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May 10 2023

Tucker Starting on Twitter – Yes He Was Fired Probably for Jan 6th Clips


Armstrong Economics Blog/Press Re-Posted May 9, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

May 10 2023

Tucker Carlson Announces Venture with Elon Musk’s Twitter Broadcasting


Posted originally on the CTH on May 9, 2023 | Sundance 

Only if you really understand the background of Jack’s Magic Coffee Shop, an argument can be made that the deal between Elon Musk and Tucker Carlson is trying to get the unsubsidized financial viability of Twitter under the control of an independent platform.  At least, that’s my slant on the positive perspective here.

As a free communication platform, Twitter has never been, and is not now, financially viable.  However, if Musk can continue finding ways to monetize the platform, subscriptions, exclusive content, advertising, and now broadcasting etc., he might finally be able to break free from the data processing subsidy running behind it.  We should be cautiously optimistic, yet pragmatic to the reality of the challenge.

Toward that end, Tucker Carlson announced today an intent to use the social media platform as a free speech and journalistic broadcasting system.  If Elon Musk chooses to make Carlson the anchor of this ¹Twitter enterprise it would be akin to ²Fox streaming services making Carlson the anchor of Fox News digital, via Fox Nation.  {Direct Rumble Link} WATCH:

Tucker Carlson teams up with Twitter

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¹On an investment/return approach, it would make a lot of sense for Elon Musk to give Tucker Carlson a percentage stake in the enterprise (25% backend wealth) in combination with a front-end lump sum and generous expense deferred contract [all write-offs for Musk].  Carlson retains full proprietary control of his created content; Musk gets platform profitable; a genuine win-win.

²Tucker Carlson and the show Tucker Carlson Today was the prior anchor of Fox Nation digital. Murdoch shot themselves in the streaming foot when they fired him.  However, you will notice Murdoch waited until Carlson had produced a year’s worth of yet to be broadcast long-format programming which Fox Nation still owns.

(Via Axios) Tucker Carlson, two weeks after being ousted by Fox News, accused the network Tuesday of fraud and breach of contract — and made a host of document demands that could precede legal action.

Why it matters: The aggressive letter from his lawyers to Fox positions Carlson to argue that the noncompete provision in his contract is no longer valid — freeing him to launch his own competing show or media enterprise.

On Tuesday, Carlson announced he would be bringing his show to Twitter.

“Starting soon we’ll be bringing a new version of the show we’ve been doing for the last six and a half years to Twitter,” he said in the video. “We bring some other things too, which we’ll tell you about. But for now we’re just grateful to be here. Free speech is the main right that you have. Without it, you have no others.”

The intrigue: The Twitter move would seem to technically violate Carlson’s contract with Fox, but his lawyers’ letter effectively holds that Fox breached the contract first.

Sources told Axios that Carlson’s lawyers sent their letter before he took to Twitter to announce his new show.

Catch up quick: Axios reported Sunday that Carlson, frustrated by being held to his contract, is preparing to unleash allies to pressure the network into letting him work for — or start — a right-wing rival.

Carlson’s contract runs until January 2025 and Fox wants to keep paying him, which would prevent him from starting a competing show.

Carlson already has gotten eye-popping offers from several right-wing outlets, and has talked to Elon Musk about working together.

The details: The letter — from Carlson lawyer Bryan Freedman to Fox officials Viet Dinh and Irena Briganti — said Fox employees, including “Rupert Murdoch himself,” broke promises to Carlson “intentionally and with reckless disregard for the truth.”

The lawyers accuse Fox executives — which two sources say are Dinh and Murdoch — of making “material representations,” or promises, to Carlson that were intentionally broken, constituting fraud.

Notably, the letter alleges Fox broke an agreement with Carlson not to leak his private communications to the media and not to use Carlson’s private messages “to take any adverse employment action against him.”

Multiple outlets have reported on Carlson’s redacted communications from pre-trial discovery documents and have suggested that they led to his ousting.

The letter also alleges Fox broke promises not to settle with Dominion Voting Systems “in a way which would indicate wrongdoing” on the part of Carlson and not to take any actions in a settlement that would harm Carlson’s reputation.

Carlson was told by a member of the Fox board that he was taken off the air as part of the Dominion settlement, two sources briefed on a conversation told Axios. (read more)

*Headline updated 10:52pm EST as Musk denies any current joint partnership – which makes sense, giving the pending litigation on the contract at Fox News.

Apr 25 2023

President Trump Reacts to Fox News Firing Tucker Carlson – Full Interview


Posted originally on the CTH on April 25, 2023 | Sundance 

President Trump appears on Newsmax with Greg Kelly {Direct Rumble Link} for an extensive interview.  The first question from Kelly to President Trump is a reaction about Fox News and Tucker Carlson.  Additional questions about current events.  President Trump’s remarks about Ron DeSantis are interesting.  WATCH:

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Apr 24 2023

Twitter Corruption Went Deeper Than We Thought


Armstrong Economics Blog/Corruption Re-Posted Apr 24, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

We knew Twitter was corrupt before the Musk takeover. We knew that Twitter had verified fact-checkers and the ability to de-platform individuals of power, such as then-President Trump. Yet, this piece of information has been swept under the rug. The government had backdoor access to view every user’s private messages. All of them!

“The degree to which government agencies effectively had full access to everything that was going on on Twitter blew my mind,” Musk told Tucker Carlson. Every government official and head of state uses Twitter from around the world. Twitter emerged as the favored platform for leaders to speak directly to the public in real-time. Musk also highlighted the dangers of AI in that interview, which is an important topic for another day.

Musk received backlash for labeling organizations as “state-affiliated” and later changed them to “government funded.” National Public Radio deleted their account after Musk declared they were “state-affiliated,” and Canadian Broadcasting Corp. and Swedish public radio also halted their accounts. Verified accounts with the blue checkmarks are only verified by supplementing a phone number. The blue checkmarks began 14 years ago when Twitter aimed to verify that accounts were real. However, they quickly became a status symbol for politicians, celebrities, activists, and journalists where their Tweets were seen as “real news” since that little blue checkmark indicated they were someone important. Some balked at paying fees for the verification, such as basketball star LeBron James, and Musk said he was personally paying for LeBron’s blue checkmark to stifle his tantrum. There are a slew of imposter accounts online now, but maybe, just maybe, people can do their own fact-checking instead of relying on what a government-funded organization says is true.

I do not think we realize how big of a hit the loss of Twitter was for intelligence agencies. EVERY politician and world leader is on there. We’ve seen how careless these politicians are with online safety (see: Hillary Clinton), and I have no doubt many used the platform to send what they thought were secretive messages.

Apr 22 2023

House Judiciary Committee Releases Evidence of U.S. Intelligence Community Conducting Domestic Political Disinformation Campaign


Posted originally on the CTH on April 21, 2023 | Sundance 

The House Judiciary Committee has released evidence {Letter Here}, gained from a transcribed interview with former Acting CIA Director Mike Morell, showing a coordinated plan by former and current Intelligence Community officials (both parties) to work with the political campaign of Joe Biden in order to influence the 2020 election outcome.

Within the transcribed interview, Mike Morell admits to receiving a phone call from current Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, with a request to create disinformation and protect Joe Biden from scrutiny over the Hunter Biden laptop revelations.  Morell then coordinated with 50 intelligence officials to fabricate a claim that Russians had created the Biden laptop story as a disinformation campaign.  The reality was that Morell organized the U.S. intelligence community to create disinformation on behalf of Joe Biden.

[House Judiciary] – […] “Based on Morell’s testimony, it is apparent that the Biden campaign played an active role in the origins of the public statement, which had the effect of helping to suppress the Hunter Biden story and preventing American citizens from making a fully informed decision during the 2020 presidential election. Although the statement’s signatories have an unquestioned right to free speech and free association—which we do not dispute—their reference to their national security credentials lent weight to the story and suggested access to specialized information unavailable to other Americans. This concerted effort to minimize and suppress public dissemination of the serious allegations about the Biden family was a grave disservice to all American citizens’ informed participation in our democracy.” (more)

[SOURCE]

The United States federal police force, the FBI, is politically weaponized against American citizens.

The United States intelligence community is politically weaponized against American citizens.

The United States justice department, the DOJ, is politically weaponized against American citizens.

We need to take down the four pillars that support the Fourth Branch of Government.  The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), the Dept of Homeland Security (DHS), the Dept of Justice National Security Division (DOJ-NSD), and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), all need to be dissolved.

After those four pillars are removed, the Patriot Act needs to be abolished and the FBI placed under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Marshals service.

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Apr 19 2023

Is Elon Musk Doing Damage Control Using Tucker Carlson Interview?


Posted originally on the CTH on April 18, 2023 | Sundance

I write the headline in the form of a question but in reality, all of the data points in one direction, yes.

If I am going to be brutally honest, this Elon Musk scenario is like the August 2022 review when it became obvious all of the DeSantis 2024 data only reconciled in one direction.  In many ways, Musk is to social media interests as DeSantis is to DC UniParty interests.

More than half the readers here have picked up on the clues and cues showing Musk has a very real motive to position himself in the best light possible given the situation that surrounds him.  Unfortunately, that position creates conflicts between ideals (what’s possible) and reality (what limits surround one’s ability).  Musk is riding a tiger, and the intelligence community ring masters control the beast.

The damage control motive is a few layers deep.  However, one of the recent events that would lead to Musk’s public need for brand image protection comes from the situation with Matt Taibbi:

…”When we got into the Files, we were caught off guard. The content-policing system was more elaborate and organized than any of us imagined. A communications highway had been built linking the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence with Twitter, Facebook, Google, and a slew of other platforms. Among other things this looked more like a cartel than a competitive media landscape, and I had an uneasy feeling early on that publicizing this arrangement might create a host of unanticipated problems for everyone involved. Still, there was no question this was in the public interest. So we kept going.”  (more)  ~ Matt Taibbi

On the issue of Twitter File access and personal motivation, Taibbi’s best financial and short-term professional interests would be served most by retaining a positive relationship with Musk/Twitter.  The fact that Taibbi would turn away from the lucrative interests, says something positive about his compass heading.

Accepting the COVID-19 files were never released, what some have called the Fauci files, and accepting the revelations within the filtered internal documents stopped abruptly, we can consider that ‘stakeholder’ interests became more consequential as the outside peering gained depth.  Likely the core of the platform, which we now know is based on a U.S Government intelligence relationship, needed a protective boundary.

When you overlay the reality that all of Elon Musk’s ventures are dependent on the same USG for viability, the vulnerability & motive to shape outcomes (via messaging) is stark.  Tesla, SpaceX, Star Link and all of Musk’s endeavors are intertwined with government approvals, authorizations and operations.  Control of the Twitter platform as a tool for public opinion is in alignment with those same Big Gov interests.

Another core issue that should be the focus of attention, a string that can unravel the gordian knot, is the financial mechanisms of Twitter.

As a business model, Twitter never made any sense.  That’s the obvious answer why no other Tech business ever made an effort to absorb or merge it.

When you overlay the government activity, then overlay the financial value to the government for the access and control that everyone now admits was in place, the Occam’s Razor of financial operations would indicate some form of government subsidy (direct or indirect) along with some form of financial funding (again, direct or indirect) was in the background of the platform.

As CTH has said for several years, a financial agreement in the background of Jack’s Magic Coffee Shop just made sense.  The platform held/holds a value to the U.S. govt, so a subsidy in operations for sustainability of the influence seemed obviously motivated.

While there are some important datapoints showing Musk trying to take steps to make Twitter a viable business without govt support (80% staffing reductions, monthly fees for premium content, etc.) the prior financial relationship is almost certainly still in place.  The internal operations, the preestablished public-private partnership, at the core of the platform also appears to retain the same general executive operators as before the takeover.

Again, I go back to Twitter File Release #8 – […] “The United States intelligence apparatus was/is actively using and working with the Twitter platform to align with U.S. government interests.  The govt was coordinating, instructing, assisting and benefitting from the relationship.  Pro govt positions were amplified, and information adverse to the interests of the Pentagon and State Dept was removed, hidden, throttled.

Unfortunately, as admitted by Twitter File #8 Author Lee Fang, a writer for The intercept, “The searches were carried out by a Twitter attorney, so what I saw could be limited.” There is no ‘could be‘ in that statement.  The searches were limited, specifically time limited putting all of the scrutiny on the timeline when Donald Trump was in office.

CTH has no vested interest in this pretending nonsense.  We all know, hell, its public record, the use of Twitter and Facebook as a tool to advance U.S. foreign policy began during the Obama administration.  There are dozens of mainstream press accounts of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton reaching out to Twitter and Facebook for support during the ’11/’12 Arab Spring.   This is not controversial, it happened.

However, the current release uses a carefully applied time filter only showing DoD and DoS use of the platform (to assist foreign policy) starting in 2017, when President Trump took office.  This is intentional.  The origin of the practice starts with Barack Obama. (more)

Twitter file release #8 was curated, fullstop!

That curation reality is empirical within the data itself.  That acceptance stands as a solid foundation to recognize that all of the releases are filtered and curated to protect certain levels of interest.  And within that larger truth we discover the reason why the government sponsored COVID-19 operations were never fully revealed.

Just as AG Bill Barr was shown to be mitigating damage that could come from the American public discovering that Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches of government all collaborated in the Trump-Russia fabrication, presumably Barr motivated to save the country from the reality within the scale of corruption, so too does the network around Elon Musk hold a similar motive.

You put all this together and the sheer weight of it indicates Elon Musk appeared on the Tucker Carlson broadcast to shape public opinion favorably away from the reality of what the real Twitter story reveals.  Government control is even bigger than general public understanding.  Elon Musk was/is doing damage control.

Outhouse Counsel – “He voted for the cabal behind Obama, Clinton, and Biden. Not Biden. He placated the low-info left audience with his Democrat “credentials”, impressed the hopeful with the sincerity of his little nonsequitorious “admissions”, and then sought to appease the appalled on the right with another “admission” that he’s not happy with Biden and why can’t we have a common-sense moderate middle. He then frosted this cake with humble sweetener that was designed to reinforce his naivety in certain areas; the posturing that when he bought Twitter he really didn’t understand the EXTENT of the government infiltration.

And he did this over and over again, gently saying rather alarming things quietly and in a way that could be taken multiple ways because they were tempered by seemingly guileless admissions, hopeful commentary, and witty self-deprecation (he was fooled by erstwhile competitor google/Ai founder , he sheepishly shrugs at his losing money by buying during bad timing, he fired employees from “Twitter” but he’s also implicitly a victim of those who voluntarily left but no mention of who now works for X Corp…)

He is a genius at more than computer coding. Please don’t fall for it.”

There are trillions at stake…