Elon Musk’s first Twitter manipulation effort was a big flop

The “Twitter Files” he helped promote were supposed to be a smoking gun about Democratic election interference at Twitter. The revelations fell far short.

Over the weekend, conservatives, led by Elon Musk, tried to whip up right-wing fury and manufacture a political scandal after Musk had promised to share evidence of Twitter wickedly wielding its influence over U.S. elections. Ultimately, the “proof” fell far short of being the smoking gun that right-wingers had promised. 

Essentially, what we got from conservatives was just a Twitter regurgitation of the same conspiratorial claims that got then-President Donald Trump impeached back in 2019: that Democrats nefariously worked to suppress stories about unproven wrongdoing by Hunter Biden, Joe Biden’s son — behavior that Trump and fellow Republicans baselessly allege the elder Biden worked to cover up as well.

It’s noteworthy that, years into this right-wing conspiracy about the president’s son, Republicans have presented no proof of its veracity. On the other hand, news reports and government probes have found that foreign adversaries have helped spread claims about the Biden family in a seeming effort to sow division in U.S. politics, similar to Russia’s strategy in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. With that in mind, it’s understandable why (reasonable) people in charge of social networks would be cautious — even hyper-cautious — about sharing something perceived to be potentially foreign-sourced disinfo.

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