A Letter to Twitter’s Jack Dorsey
(The following letter was written to Twitter founder & CEO, Jack Dorsey)
Dear Jack Dorsey,
As a pioneer in the industry, you of course know that social media platforms were created as an alternative to mainstream media to provide people with more direct means of obtaining information. Companies like Facebook and Twitter boast the ability to provide users with a forum that facilitates open discussion and encourages free speech.
Over the past few years, Twitter has displayed its negligence towards the preservation of the aforementioned values.
Twitter is clearly a partisan social media platform: censoring certain factually evident information, while exhibiting indifference toward false information that aligns with its agenda. Clearly, Twitter lacks consistency in its values department. Consistency would mean either permitting free speech irrespective of its veracity, or only allowing the dissemination of factually proven information on its platform. Upon looking at Twitter’s mission statement, it is clear that the company claims to supply users with the former.
Extracted straight from Twitter’s website: “The mission we serve as Twitter, Inc. is to give everyone the power to create and share ideas and information instantly without barriers. Our business and revenue will always follow that mission in ways that improve – and do not detract from – a free and global conversation.” When analyzing a few cases of Twitter’s censorship of certain media, it is evident that its business practices and value proposition are not aligned.
For example, Twitter censored the New York Post due to a factually evident article it wrote about the information contained on Hunter Biden’s computer drive. According to Twitter, the reason they censored the New York Post was because they suspected Hunter Biden’s computer drive to be hacked. Fine. So let the status quo be all sources of information are considered “hacked” until proven otherwise. Yet, when The New York Times posted to Twitter an unproven article about Donald Trump—claiming he paid only $750 in federal income taxes in 2017— it wasn’t doomed to the same fate as its counterpart. But why not? Isn’t it hacked until proven otherwise? Just as Biden’s un-hacked laptop was deemed hacked, how much more so the hacked source of Trump’s tax returns should be considered hacked. Senator Ted Cruz had held countless hearings with Jack Dorsey, in which the Twitter CEO understood his mistakes regarding instances of biased censorship, specifically the suppression of the New York Post.
Realizing its bent logic and hypocrisy, Twitter uncensored the New York Post.
You only know what you see. With that in mind, Twitter feeds its users information that coincide with its leftist agenda and suppresses media that go against it. Consumers are deceived into thinking they have equal access to all information, when in reality they are spoon-fed what Twitter want them to think.
As consumers, we should all make sure that the company selling us “product”, especially information, is completely transparent and honest about its agenda. Only then can one choose where to obtain the information they seek. People should be able to discover their values, whether liberal or conservative, on their own accord. A much more natural course than the force-feeding we are used to from Twitter and Big Tech, or more accurately, Big Brother.
Best Regards,
Jack Dweck
Reflections on Pearl Harbor Day
Dear Editor:
I’m writing this in the waning hours of December 7th, 2020: The 79th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Not too many now living in America know much about that day. I remember it well. Clearly. The year was 1941. I was a Brooklyn 8-year-old and awaiting The Shadow radio program that was broadcast every Sunday at 3PM and sponsored by Blue Coal. An announcer broke in to report that that our base at Pearl Harbor, in Hawaii, had just been attacked by Japanese aircraft. My mother screamed out loud. My Dad yelled at us to grab all the crap stuff we had around the apartment that was made in Japan. Cursing, he threw it all out the window to smash on the backyard concrete.
The next morning my lifelong buddy, Alfred Fischer, who passed away last year, and I walked the four blocks to PS 97 and we discussed the situation. We knew about the wars in Asia and Europe. We watched Movietone News every Saturday at the Highway Theater, we read the Daily News and Daily Mirror, listened to the radio and collected War Cards that came in gum wrappers. They pictured Jap soldiers bayoneting Chinese babies and burning down their homes. We were scared.
That morning at school, Ms. Rauch, the principal, calmly addressed us in the auditorium. She explained that yes, President Roosevelt had declared war on Japan but that we were to be patriotic, proud Americans and that we would eventually win. We knew we would. After all, our comic book heroes, Bulletman, Batman, Captain Marvel and Superman were on our side. We were 8 year-olds. And we loved to stand by our seats and pledge to the flag every morning in class. Our neighborhood quickly changed. all the older boys disappeared, either enlisted or were drafted. Joey Pinto, my stickball role model, who lived across the street died somewhere in the Pacific. Six of my cousins fought in Europe. One came home with the Silver Star.
We rallied each and every patriotic holiday at Archie C. Ketchum Square on Kings Highway and West 9th Street, where a WW1 cannon had been in place since I could remember. Guys in uniform, probably veterans, fired off volleys as the flag was raised on these occasions with crowds of people saluting, applauding, crying and singing the National Anthem. There were no gatherings where we were lectured about how we caused the war and why we were responsible for the hatred of our enemies. This was then.
December 7th, Pearl Harbor Day, is not a holiday to be celebrated. It’s a day to bless the greatness of our nation. It is a day of reflection. It’s a day to recall the sacrifices our boys made to win that war which was foisted upon us. Of the fragility of our freedoms that we ordinarily take for granted. I think back to those days when we were truly a UNITED States. We were not divided. During that War, Democrats and Republicans fought on the battlefields, side by side as buddies and local and national politics were merely inconsequential side issues to be discussed. Not too important then, when our kids were being killed thousands of miles away. The years have eroded our history. It’s being shredded. That saddens me this day. Joey should not have died in vain.
Sincerely
Alan Bergstein
