Elon Musk’s Exposure of Twitter

 

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