Ted Lieu Deletes Tweet After Getting Fact-Checked By Elon Musk

Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) deleted a tweet Monday after getting called out by Twitter CEO Elon Musk for posting false information about the latest release of “The Twitter Files.”

The latest Twitter Files release showed that the Biden administration pressed the social media platform to suppress alleged COVID “disinformation” while promoting the White House’s preferred messaging.

“Dear @davidzweig: The tweet you cite is in fact misleading. People of all ages at high risk from COVID generally benefit from vaccines,” Lieu tweeted. “Prior natural immunity may last only a few months. COVID appears to be a leading cause of death for children.”

Musk responded to another tweet that stated: “@tedlieu The preprint you linked to has actually been re-written as a result of my critique because it is seriously flawed and inaccurate. You linked to the old version.”

Musk said, “Ted is linking to misleading data @CommunityNotes.”

Lieu’s tweet was subsequently deleted.

Well done @elonmusk pic.twitter.com/6rYa3xCtiF

— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) December 26, 2022

The newest release of The Twitter Files came in a Twitter thread from reporter David Zweig.

The federal government reportedly “rigged” the COVID debate, “By censoring info that was true but inconvenient to U.S. govt. policy,” as well as “discrediting doctors and other experts who disagreed,” and “ordinary users,” according to Zweig.

The pressure to suppress certain COVID details while elevating a preferred narrative included officials in both the Trump and Biden administrations.

“Internal files at Twitter that I viewed while on assignment for @thefp showed that both the Trump and Biden administrations directly pressed Twitter executives to moderate the platform’s pandemic content according to their wishes,” Zweig tweeted.

Zweig later offered evidence that the push toward select COVID information was not limited to Twitter.

“It wasn’t just Twitter. The meetings with the Trump White House were also attended by Google, Facebook, Microsoft and others,” he tweeted alongside a screenshot of the companies involved.

The Twitter Files also cited examples of suppression by bots — automated intelligence that flagged certain content — while also outsourcing moderation to workers in faraway locations like the Philippines.

The contracted workers “in places like the Philippines, also moderated content. They were given decision trees to aid in the process, but tasking non experts to adjudicate tweets on complex topics like myocarditis and mask efficacy data was destined for a significant error rate,” Zweig documented.

In some cases, content was suppressed even when users cited the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) own data. In the example cited by Zweig, a bot initially flagged the tweet, with the post receiving many “tattles,” referring to reports by other users.

Dillon Burroughs contributed to this report.

Nord Stream Whodunit Gets Complicated As Russia Takes Steps To Repair Sabotaged Pipelines

Russia is preparing to make expensive repairs to a pair of natural gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea that many Western experts suspected Moscow had ordered sabotaged to begin with.

Moscow’s latest moves complicate already uncertain theories about who could be responsible for bombing the Nord Stream pipelines in September and why. Swedish investigators looking into the incident have concluded that a state actor is most likely responsible, though they cannot say for sure who, according to The New York Times.

On September 26, three explosions sprung four leaks in Nord Stream 1 and 2. The bombings took place at two locations inside the exclusive economic zones of Sweden and Denmark in the Baltic Sea.

After the explosions, many Western leaders and experts blamed the leaks on Russian aggression. U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said on September 30 that Russia “seems” to be the culprit. Experts hypothesized that Moscow was sending a threatening message against the West’s underwater infrastructure, as well as cutting off a main artery for Europe’s access to Russian gas fields ahead of winter.

Russia has repeatedly denied the accusations. Investigators have failed to come up with evidence to support the charge against Russia. Some European officials have backed off earlier condemnations of Russia and expressed regret that so many fingers were pointed at Moscow before proper evidence was gathered to support the charge.

“The governments that waited to comment before drawing conclusions played this right,” one European official told The Washington Post.

The most likely suspect is either a state or state-backed terror group, according to the Post.

“We know that this amount of explosives has to be a state-level actor,” Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto told the Post. “It’s not just a single fisherman who decides to put the bomb there. It’s very professional.”

The Nord Stream pipelines do not service Finland. Still, the event is a warning. “The lesson learned is that it shows how vulnerable our energy network, our undersea cables, internet … are for all kinds of terrorists,” Haavisto said.

Daniel Stenling, Sweden’s top counterintelligence official, declined to posit a culprit to the Times. He said that the attack was “very interesting” following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“In the big context of the war in Ukraine that is ongoing, it’s very interesting and very serious,” he told the Times while emphasizing the growing threats from Russia on cybersecurity and espionage.