NBC ‘Disinformation’ Reporter Blames Twitter Files For ‘Speech Inflation’

NBC “disinformation” reporter Ben Collins claimed Tuesday that the Twitter Files led to a lack of censorship on social media that caused “speech inflation.”

“The real answer here is political gamesmanship, here,” Collins told “Morning Joe” co-host Willie Geist, who observed that social media sites were backing away from previous censorship, noting the reinstatement of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Instagram following a 2021 ban. “Over the last two years the number one priority for the Republican Congress was to bring up the Twitter files and all these things about speech on the internet. You know what happened, really? We have less speech. It costs eight bucks to post something on Twitter that gets seen now.”

Musk introduced Twitter Blue, a subscription model for Twitter that provides a number of features, including higher character limits, the ability to edit posts and seeing 50% fewer ads that can be purchased for $8 a month on the web, according to Twitter Help.

Journalists Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss and Michael Shellenberger all reported on censorship and “shadow banning” carried out by the social media site based on documents released by Elon Musk, who closed the deal to purchase Twitter for $44 billion in October, seeking to create a “common digital town square” on the site, according to The Wall Street Journal. Musk said that transparency on issues like the censorship of an October 2020 report by the New York Post was “necessary to restore public trust.”

Shellenberger and Taibbi testified during a March 9 hearing held by the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, describing the findings from multiple reports based on the documents provided by Musk. The FBI reportedly paid Twitter $3.5 million between October 2019 and February 2021, according to Shellenberger.

“What we have is – you know, it’s speech inflation, basically,” Collins said. “All of the good information out there costs money. It costs money to say stuff on the internet and cost money to get good information on the internet.”

“We have evolved past this point on the internet where you can get good information or even speak your mind,” Collins claimed.

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact [email protected]