Elon Musk’s Exposure
of Twitter
Elon Musk has
named three authors/journalists to release and discuss the inner machinations
and workings of the old Twitter just before and after the 2020 election with
respect to the suppression of the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop and the
censorship of President Trump. These
three individuals are Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss and Michael Shellenberger.
If there is a
common thread among these three writers, research shows that they are pragmatic
liberal centrists who espouse the practical, rather than the progressive
extremist views of the political spectrum.
Another common thread is that they all are associated with and write on “Substack”,
a San Francisco authors’ and journalists’ publishing platform.
Matt Taibbi
Matthew Colin
Taibbi, born March 2, 1970) is an American author, journalist, and podcaster.
He has reported on finance, media, politics, and sports. A former contributing
editor for Rolling Stone, he is an author of several books, co-host of Useful
Idiots, and publisher of the newsletter, TK News, on Substack.
Taibbi began as
a freelance reporter working in the former Soviet Union, including a period in
Uzbekistan, from where he was deported for criticizing President Islam Karimov.
Taibbi later worked as a sports journalist for the English-language newspaper
The Moscow Times. He also played professional baseball in Uzbekistan and Russia
as well as professional basketball in Mongolia. In 1997, he moved back to
Russia to edit the tabloid Living Here, but eventually left to co-edit rival
tabloid The eXile. Taibbi returned to the United States in 2002 and founded the
Buffalo-based newspaper The Beast. He left a year later to work as a columnist
for the New York Press.
In 2004, Taibbi
began covering politics for Rolling Stone. In 2008, Taibbi won a National
Magazine Award for three columns he wrote for Rolling Stone. Taibbi became
known for his brazen style, having branded Goldman Sachs a "vampire
squid" in a 2009 article. His work often has drawn comparisons to the
gonzo journalism of writer Hunter S. Thompson, who also covered politics for
Rolling Stone. In 2019, he launched the podcast Useful Idiots, co-hosted by
Katie Halper. In 2020, he began self-publishing his online writing on Substack.
In recent years, Taibbi's writing has focused on culture war issues and cancel
culture. He has criticized mainstream media including its coverage of
Russiagate. In 2022, Taibbi published the Twitter Files.
Taibbi has
authored several books, including The Great Derangement (2009); Griftopia (2010);
The Divide (2014); Insane Clown President (2017); I Can't Breathe (2017); and
Hate Inc. (2019).
Bari Weiss
Born March 25,
1984 is an American journalist, writer, and editor. She was an op-ed and book
review editor at The Wall Street Journal (2013–2017)[1] and an op-ed staff
editor and writer on culture and politics at The New York Times (2017–2020).[2]
Since March 1, 2021, she has worked as a regular columnist for German daily
newspaper Die Welt. Weiss edits the Substack newsletter entitled "The Free
Press" and hosts the podcast Honestly.
According to The
Washington Post, Weiss "portrays herself as a liberal uncomfortable with
the excesses of left-wing culture" and has sought to "position
herself as a reasonable liberal concerned that far-left critiques stifled free
speech." Vanity Fair described Weiss as "a provocateur". The
Jewish Telegraphic Agency said that her writing "doesn't lend itself
easily to labels." Weiss has been described as conservative by Haaretz,
The Times of Israel, The Daily Dot, and Business Insider. In an interview with
Joe Rogan, she described herself as a "left-leaning centrist".
Weiss prefers
not to label her sexual orientation but has stated that although she had been
married to a man, she is mostly attracted to women. While attending Columbia
University, she had an on-and-off relationship with comedian Kate McKinnon. She
also dated Ariel Beery, with whom she had co-founded Columbians for Academic
Freedom. From 2013 to 2016, Weiss was married to environmental engineer Jason Kass.
Since 2018, Weiss has been in a relationship with Nellie Bowles, a former tech
reporter for The New York Times. The couple have since married, according to
the National Review[89] and have a daughter.
Michael D.
Shellenberger
Born June 16,
1971 is an American author and former public relations professional whose
writing has focused on the intersection of politics, the environment, climate
change and nuclear power, as well as more recently on how he believes
progressivism is linked to homelessness, drug addiction and mental illness. He
is a co-founder of the Breakthrough Institute and co-founder of the California
Peace Coalition. He is also the founder of Environmental Progress.
A self-described
ecomodernist, Shellenberger believes that economic growth can continue without
negative environmental impacts through technological research and development,
usually through a combination of nuclear power and urbanization. A
controversial figure, Shellenberger disagrees with most environmentalists over
the impacts of environmental threats and policies for addressing them.
Shellenberger accepts that global warming is occurring, but argues that
"it's not the end of the world." Shellenberger's positions and
writings on climate change and environmentalism have received criticism from
environmental scientists and academics, who have called his arguments "bad
science" and "inaccurate". In contrast, his positions and
writings have received praise from writers and journalists in the popular
press, including conservative and libertarian news outlets and organizations]
In a similar manner, many academics criticized Shellenberger's positions and
writings on homelessness, while receiving mixed reception from writers and
journalists in the popular press.
Shellenberger
was a Democratic candidate for Governor in the 2018 California gubernatorial
election, placing ninth in a field of twenty-seven candidates with 0.5% of the
vote. In 2021, he supported recalling Governor Gavin Newsom in the 2021
California gubernatorial recall election. Shellenberger ran as a "No Party
Preference" candidate in the 2022 gubernatorial election, placing third in
a field of twenty-six with 4.1% of the vote.
Substack
Substack is an
American online platform that provides publishing, payment, analytics, and
design infrastructure to support subscription newsletters. It allows writers to
send digital newsletters directly to subscribers. Founded in 2017, Substack is
headquartered in San Francisco.
History
Substack was
founded in 2017 by Chris Best, the co-founder of Kik Messenger; Jairaj Sethi, a
developer; and Hamish McKenzie, a former PandoDaily tech reporter. Best and
McKenzie describe Ben Thompson's Stratechery, a subscription-based tech and
media newsletter, as a major inspiration for their platform. Christopher Best
operates as chief executive as of March 2019.
Content
Substack users
range from journalists to experts to large media sites. Among the high-profile
writers to have used the platform are Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist and
author Glenn Greenwald, culture critic Anne Helen Petersen, music essayist
Robert Christgau, and food writer Alison Roman. The New York Times columnist
Mike Isaac argued in 2019 that some of these companies see newsletters as a
more stable means to maintain readers through a more direct connection with
writers. In 2020, The New Republic said there was an absence of local news
newsletters, especially in contrast to the large number of national-level
political newsletters. As of late 2020, large numbers of journalists and
reporters were coming to the platform, driven in part by the long-term decline
in traditional media (there were half as many newsroom jobs in 2019 as in
2004). Around that time, The New Yorker said that while "Substack has
advertised itself as a friendly home for journalism, [...] few of its
newsletters publish original reporting; the majority offer personal writing,
opinion pieces, research, and analysis." It described Substack's content
moderation policy as "lightweight," with rules against
"harassment, threats, spam, pornography, and calls for violence;
moderation decisions are made by the founders."
In 2019,
Substack added support for podcasts and discussion threads among newsletter
subscribers.
Major writers on
Substack include historian Heather Cox Richardson, journalists Matt Taibbi and
Bari Weiss, authors Daniel M. Lavery, George Saunders, travel writer Blake
Nelson and Chuck Palahniuk, novelist Salman Rushdie, tech journalist Casey
Newton, blogger and journalist Matthew Yglesias, and economist Emily Oster.
As of November
2021, the platform said it had more than 500,000 paying subscribers, representing
over one million subscriptions. Substack announced in January 2022 that it
would begin private Beta testing video on its platform.
Ray Gruszecki
December 10,
2022
