In the Twitter files saga, Bari Weiss, Matt Taibbi, Michael Shellenberger, and other journalists have told a tale of perfidy at least as old as Socrates. Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, the social media platform engaged in censorship of disfavored scientific viewpoints via a menagerie of algorithmic silencers: shadow-banning, deboosting, demonetization, deplatforming, and trends blacklisting. Punitive actions were conducted passive-aggressively. Some knew they were targets but given no substantive reasons for their banning or reasonable opportunities to appeal. Others only learned of their punishments long after the fact, if ever. Like Dean Wormer in Animal House, the favored tool of Twitter censors was double-secret probation.
