Rita Panahi: Big Tech’s influence in US election sets dangerous precedent

The suppression of the NY Post’s Biden Files story set a dangerous precedent that saw enormously powerful Big Tech companies undoubtedly influencing the US election.

Big Tech’s sinister influence on the 2020 US presidential election has been laid bare, again, with the New York Times’ belated acknowledgment last week that the bombshell Biden Files stories were legitimate and accurate.

Of course anyone with a functioning frontal cortex knew the New York Post’s exclusive reports were real when they were published in the weeks leading up to the election.

However, that did not stop social media giants, Twitter and Facebook, together with the bulk of the mainstream media conspiring to suppress and discredit a series of highly damaging stories on the Biden family that threatened to derail Joe Biden’s campaign.

Within hours of the Post’s first explosive story both Twitter and Facebook blocked users from sharing it and deleted copies that were already posted. Indeed, the Post’s official Twitter account was locked and tweets sharing the article were deleted.

A number of conservative accounts, including the personal account of the White House press secretary, that had posted a link to a story splashed on the front page of a major newspaper had their accounts suspended or locked.

Not only did Twitter disappear a legitimate news story by labelling it “potentially harmful” but they then promoted as their ‘top story’ a verifiable lie claiming “then vice-president Biden played no role in pressuring Ukraine officials into firing the prosecutor”, despite the fact that there is a 2018 video of Biden confirming he played a role.

Twitter did apologise, after the election, for their actions and false claims that the Post’s stories were “hacked” but the damage was done; they had achieved their singular goal of protecting the Biden campaign.

Big Tech had a seemed determind not to undermind Joe Biden’s campaign. Picture: AFP

The overwhelming majority of the media joined the suppression and misinformation campaign; either ignoring a hugely significant story about the Biden family’s dodgy business dealings including 10 per cent “for the big guy” or worse labelling the revelations as a “hoax” and “Russian misinformation”.

This despite the Post uncovering extensive emails, photographs and even video of drug fuelled sexual escapades and significantly communication that showed Biden’s personal involvement in his son’s business dealings including meeting with a top Burisma executive. Burisma is the Ukrainian gas company that paid Hunter Biden $83,000 per month in “consultancy fees” despite the drug-addled misfit having zero industry expertise or experience.

The media’s role in burying an important series of stories was a shameful new low and demonstrated why an enormous number of Americans see the fourth estate as “the enemy of the people” with polls revealing that only one in 10 Republicans has any trust in the news media.

One cannot downplay the complicity of compromised members of the intelligence community who aided and abetted the disinformation campaign. Without any evidence 51 intelligence experts wrote a letter claiming the Post’s yarn had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”

When you can’t trust the “fact-checkers” to check facts. When you can’t trust the news media to report the news, when you can’t discern the line between news, opinion and activism then you have a genuine crisis of trust in the mainstream media.

the New York Post’s exclusive was deemed false by 51 intelligence experts.

Last week in a blistering piece the New York Post Editorial Board wrote: “The 51 former “intelligence” officials who cast doubt on The Post’s Hunter Biden laptop stories in a public letter really were just desperate to get Joe Biden elected president. And more than a year later, even after their Deep State sabotage has been shown again and again to be a lie, they refuse to own up to how they undermined an election. The officials, including CNN pundit and professional fabricator James Clapper — a man who was nearly charged for perjury for lying to Congress — signed a letter saying that the laptop “has the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”

International security expert Professor Max Abrahms wrote: “The Hunter Biden laptop story shows that the supposed experts of Russian disinformation quoted ad nauseam in the media don’t have the foggiest idea what it even looks like.”

Writer Drew Holden noted: “People will try to hand-wave Hunter Biden’s laptop away as just a story about pictures but remember: these emails implicate not just Hunter but also President Biden in a bribery/illegal pay-to-play scheme involving a hostile foreign power.”

The Post’s Jon Levine summed it up: “The conspiracy to suppress this information by mainstream media, big tech companies and the Democratic Party is the single greatest act of disinformation ever perpetrated in the social media era.”

The suppression of the NY Post’s Biden Files story set a dangerous precedent that saw enormously powerful Big Tech companies, staffed by Leftist ideologues, censoring stories that were damaging to the Democrats.

The impact of the combined propaganda campaign undoubtedly influenced the election result which was precisely the purpose.