The New York Times is making celebrities of a few dozen alleged “QAnon” accounts on Truth Social in an effort to smear the platform and its creator, former President Donald Trump, because it allows more free speech than its highly censorious Silicon Valley competitors.
The essence of The New York Times’ complaint is that there is too much free speech on Truth Social, because some accounts that have been banned on Twitter are still allowed on Trump’s platform (Trump, of course, was also banned by Twitter, and every other major Big Tech platform, while he was still in office).
Steven Brill and Gordon Crovitz, co-CEOs of NewsGuard (D Dipasupil and Stephen Chernin /Getty)
Via The New York Times:
NewsGuard, a media watchdog that analyzes the credibility of news outlets, found 88 users promoting the QAnon conspiracy theory on Truth Social, each to more than 10,000 followers. Of those accounts, 32 were previously banned by Twitter.
The report relies on data from NewsGuard, which Breitbart News has covered extensively in the past, and which has been condemned by top House Republican and House Armed Services Committee member Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN).
Despite presenting itself as a fake news watchdog, NewsGuard’s own founders have fueled false claims about major national news stories. At the height of the 2020 presidential election cycle, NewsGuard co-founder Steve Brill stated on national television that he thought there was a “high likelihood” that the Hunter Biden laptop story was a “hoax perpetrated by the Russians.”
In a comment to the Federalist, a representative of Truth Social said The New York Times condemned the newspaper for failing to correct its own shoddy reporting.
“Lacking any sense of humor, irony, or basic common sense, and having zealously promoted the Russia collusion hoax, the Russian bounties hoax, and countless other ludicrous fabrications, the New York Times is the last media company on Earth that should be accusing anyone else of spreading conspiracy theories — by contrast, Truth Social has reopened the Internet and given the American people their voice back. If the Times has any dignity left, it should return its Pulitzers and apologize for their continued slander and defamation of Truth Social.”
In a comment to Breitbart News, NewsGuard co-CEO Gordon Crovitz emphasized that the organization was not singling out Truth Social, and that it takes misreporting on the Hunter Biden story into account when assessing news sites.
“NewsGuard’s special reports have covered the spread of misinformation across all of the major social media platforms–not just Truth Social–for example, recent reports analyzed how TikTok’s algorithm feeds users Russian propaganda, how Chinese and foreign outlets have filled the void of RT and Sputnik on YouTube, and how Facebook and Twitter failed to enforce their own policies related to COVID-19 misinformation.”
“You asked about the Hunter Biden laptop issue. We have failed news sites on the responsible reporting criterion if they reported that the laptop did not belong to Hunter Biden laptop or declared that it was the product of a Russian disinformation effort.”
Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News. He is the author of #DELETED: Big Tech’s Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal The Election.
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