Rita Panahi: ‘Twitter Files’ raises questions about big tech ‘rigging COVID debate’

The manner in which big tech systematically silenced infectious disease experts who challenged the government narrative around Covid restrictions is appalling.

The latest instalment of the Twitter Files – documents and communications that show high level interference, suppression and sometimes straight out corporate bastardry committed by Big Tech often at the behest of government bodies – are perhaps the most damning yet.

They show the US, and much of the West, adopted a Chinese Communist Party-inspired approach to science and public policy.

Elon Musk’s release of these internal files raise serious questions about the manner in which Twitter, and no doubt other big tech giants, “rigged the Covid debate” by censoring and suppressing factual information that challenged the government narrative around lockdowns, mandates and restrictions.

What’s just as appalling is the manner in which big tech, with the enthusiastic assistance of the mainstream media, systematically silenced and/or discredited leading infectious disease experts who disagreed with the White House and Centre for Disease Control positions.

Elon Musk’s release of these internal files raise serious questions about the manner in which big tech giants “rigged the Covid debate”.

Free Press writer David Zweig, who was given access to the cache of documents, wrote that the suppression of views from well-credentialed doctors and scientific experts saw “legitimate findings and questions that would have expanded the public debate” deliberately ignored.

There were physicians permanently banned for tweeting the CDC’s own data that showed the low risk the disease posed healthy young children.

Among those impacted was Harvard Medical School professor and epidemiologist Martin Kulldorff, who had some of his entirely accurate tweets shadowbanned for spreading “false information” even when his expert opinion was in line with policies in a number of countries.

Kuldorff and other public health experts, including Stanford Medical School professor Dr Jay Bhattacharya, warned against the futility of some Covid restrictions while highlighting the significant harms of others.

Stanford Medical School professor Dr Jay Bhattacharya warned against the futility of some Covid restrictions.

For this they were viciously maligned. Kulldorff favoured a strategy of focused protection as opposed to the lockdowns, masking and school closures implemented in New York and California.

This week he posted: “In a pandemic, censorship kills,” and decried the manner in which “a public official narrative was established” which no one was allowed to question.

As Zweig wrote: “Twitter made a decision, via the political leanings of senior staff, and government pressure, that the public health authorities’ approach to the pandemic – prioritising mitigation over other concerns – was “The Science” … what might this pandemic and its aftermath have looked like if there had been a more open debate on Twitter and other social media platforms — not to mention the mainstream press — about the origins of Covid, about lockdowns, about the true risks of Covid in kids, and much more?”