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Tweet by Matt Taibbi @mtaibbi

The Great Covid-19 Lie Machine: Stanford, the Virality Project, and the Censorship of “True Stories”

🧵 The TL;DR

The Virality Project was a wide-reaching effort from government, academia, and big tech to control political messaging on social media. It targeted true material and opinions, pushed different standards for truth, and pushed the idea that the public shouldn't be trusted to make judgements on their own.

    🔑 Key Points

  • The Virality Project was a joint effort between Stanford University, federal agencies, and several NGOs to monitor and control political messaging on social media.
  • It knowingly targeted true material and legitimate political opinion, while often being factually wrong itself.
  • The project pushed different standards for truth and misinformation than what Twitter had in place, pushed narratives, and labeled valid claims as 'misinformation'.

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