Four years after the Twitter Files, the Missouri v. Biden case ends in a consent decree barring government from threatening protected speech - a belated but important victory
In the world I grew up in -- 60s into the 80s -- Matt and Bari and Shellenberger would have gotten Pulitzers for this story, and achieved fame equal to Woodward and Bernstein.
Is there a more important constitutional provision than the First Amendment? I can't think of one, because it's the one thread that runs through every other part of the Constitution. Without the free flow of information, nothing else works right, if at all: not the government, not the press, not the courts, not free markets. It would be impossible for citizens to trust government, and thus impossible for the rest of the Constitution to sustain itself.
As Matt says, a huge, huge win for everyone regardless of political stripe. God Bless Matt and all of the soldiers in this fight.
She was not willing to agree to Musk's terms of publishing the findings initially on Twitter. I think she was right, and that is part of the reason that the very important Twitter Files never got an actual foothold with the wider media. They could simply point to the fact that Musk was controlling everything, including the point of initial publication, so it was easy for them to dismiss anything and everything that was found. I have plenty of criticisms of BarI Weiss, but her instincts were correct here.
Sorry but that’s ridiculous - the Twitter Files were seen by record numbers of people, and Musk had no control over the reports. I was initially against the same condition because I’m a long-form writer, but quickly realized the content fit the format perfectly and was almost impossible to suppress as well. Bari didn’t leave because of the condition, either, she left because Elon shut some reporter accounts down over the publication of his jet location.
No articles on the insane IHRA laws passed in 38/50 states? Freedom of speech has not “won”, it is being choked by the oligarchs who actually rule this country.
You are correct about credit, and I am not attempting to award her any such thing here. However, I do believe if Musk had allowed all the reporters - Weiss, Taibbi and Shellenberger - to report on this via their own Substacks, that the story would have had more legs. It is just an opinion. Cheers.
(Updated for the immune to irony.) Fuck the facts is right - and one person who definitely did nothing to get the Twitter files out is Elon Musk. Glad we can agree on that. Clever!
Really happy so many have recc'd your comment, which like Matt's article completely forgets to identify Elon Musk and the 44 billion he spent to gift Matt, Bari, and Michael the story. Who needs facts? Nice! Clever, too!
Exactly! Whatever happened to gratitude and recognition? Elon probably couldn't have done it without them, but they definitely would NEVER have even known about it without Elon! I'm so sick of this crap! I expected better from the likes of Matt et al.
I'd hardly call it a gift. Buying Twitter was a calculated business decision, and a lot of the $44 billion was financed or paid for with overvalued Tesla stock. My own speculation is that Jack Dorsey was tired of being bullied by government officials and offered it to his friend and frenemy Elon because Elon had the wealth and influence to give the government the middle finger.
Exactly - the fact that Matt, Bari, and Michael owe the entire story to Elon Musk should never be mentioned in an Victory Story about the Twitter Files. Perfect sense of justice you and Matt share. Agreed! Fuck Elon.
Sorry, I'm certain you and your wife don't teach this kind of mealy-mouthed bs in the home. The "world's best journalist" wouldn't have a moment's problem opening with "Despite" ; "The Irony"; "What a crazy world"(your current go to) and then Elon. Not buying your "I'm too feeble bs."
No Elon, no Twitter Files - except here at "We only care if it's true" TM.
He deserves credit for saving this country from permanent Soviet-style DNC thought police! And he deserves credit for attempting to create a town-square free debate space with the former twitter. Matt repaid Elon’s great financial and social risk by using that material to create his own Substack. To be honest, I had never heard of Matt Taibbi before the Twitter Files. And I’ve subscribed to his Substack ever since. Didn’t think he was such an ungracious p@&k though.
Just as substacks goal, Racket news or the goal of any functional business is. No one should build efficient things, grow and make money. Anarcho primitivism is the only way forward.
and every govt employee involved got off scot-free. how do you punish a govt agency? what a joke. some harsh examples need be made of the govt employees who violate our rights. harsh as in their existence is hell on earth or not on earth at all.
I'm delighted Matt didn't even mention the man who reached into his pocket, forked over 44 billion dollars to buy Twitter - saved us all, and handed Matt, Michael, and Bari the story of their lives on a platter.
Elon Musk. I had to go back and triple check the article coz it was so hard to believe Matt could have published this without identifying the actual individual who made the Twitter Files possible?!?
But fuck Elon, right? Fuck Walter, fuck all the "little" people who don't measure up in Matt's eyes, and the eyes of so many here. Emily is paid to do what? Rubber stamp this p-o-s?
No idea, yet, whether other commenters have mentioned Elon. If nobody has that just confirms how much of an open sewer this comments board has turned into.
Elon's name should have been highlighted and recc'd to the roof for pulling the fat out of the fire for all of us.
An article about the Twitter Files saving our bacon and Elon gets written out of the story by one of the folks Elon handed the story to. Wow!
Venality, arrogance, or just plain old ingratitude. How about all three!
No Elon - no X - no X - no Twitter Files - no X - Substack gets censored; Auto-pen, or Kamala returns to the WH, and then were all in the virtual gulag - until the physical ones can be built and staffed. For real.
It is amazing to watch the -only other option -political party double down on hatred of the private sector, the free market, U.S. taxpayers, builders, savers, property owners. Their cities are almost all completely bankrupt. Adam Carolla, as a lifelong Angeleno, has good, funny takes on the constant idiocy.
Can anyone of the smarty-pantses here tell me of another private citizen since Ben Franklin who has done as much for the USA as Elon on so many fronts? I'd really like to know.
I'm willing to bet there are, but they've been lost in our collective memory.
Matt underplays his own role in keeping this issue alive. Only by reading Racket Newa and other Substacks are we likely to find out about such important decisions. The MSM will bury it on p. 23 if they mention the decision at all. Free speech for me, but not for thee.
I guess the question now is, will readers of The Guardian and the New York Times ever see this story, and if they do, what form will the report take? Technically, are you 'censoring' the information commons if, instead of suppressing reports, you systematically neglect to bring information to people's attention in the first place, while pretending you're practicing journalism?
If you are systematically neglecting to bring (all relevant )information to people's attention then yes, you are censoring by omission...
Many journalists from the Guardian and NYT etc believe they are there to report their own cultural marxist(progressive..I hate that word) world view on how things should be.
Equating Marxism and progressivism is false. Marxist and progressive ideology are not the same thing. While both exist on the political left and share a desire for social change, Marxism is a specific theory advocating worker-led revolution to replace private property with common ownership, creating a classless society not based on capitalism. Progressivism is a broader, reformist movement aiming to improve society within the existing capitalist framework. Progressives work within existing political systems to correct societal inequalities, while communists replace them with a state-controlled economy.
That's true of some progressives, but certainly not all. You're being evasively disingenuous here. One doesn't have to 'equate' Marxism and progressivism to acknowledge the strong influence of Marxism on progressivism's essentially Utopian project.
I was responding to Mike Williams who equated Marxism with Progressivism.
As for your claim that progressivism is “essentially a Utopian project” — that is an oft-used statement by right wingers to try to smear progressivism as a naive attempt to create an ideal society where conditions are perfect and free from human evils such as corruption, hate, and greed. That is not what progressivism is. Progressivism is about improving society through government action as well as citizens’ activism that targets social injustice, economic inequality and corruption.
I'm a Canadian who's always voted NDP, slightly to the left of the Liberal Party (NDPers are often described as 'liberals in a hurry'). But I'm no more interested in consuming legacy media propaganda that imagines it's speaking for my political preferences than against them. Nor do I care if an argument owes an intellectual debt to 'right wingers' or 'left wingers'; all that matters to me is the soundness of the argument. The notion that as an alternative to actually grappling with an argument's merits, all that's needed to dismiss it is classify it left or right, is profoundly illogical and anti-intellectual.
As for the virtue posturing conceit that progressivism is any more 'about' improving society and targeting corruption, etc., than every other political and/or ideological movement aspires to be, it's probably the one that alienates non-progressives the most, though few progressives ever seem to grasp why this would obviously be true. You're closer to the mark when you speak of 'government action' and 'citizens' activism,' since progressives do indeed have a predilection for weaponizing the legislative process to force cultural changes on people in areas that many consider none of government's business.
That's an authoritarian impulse progressives share with Marxists and other Utopians as a matter of historical record, which is why those familiar with that record remain wary of progressives. For my part, I find it difficult to take seriously anyone who thinks being ethically opposed to "greed" is something that could ever be politicized.
“progressives do indeed have a predilection for weaponizing the legislative process to force cultural changes on people in areas that many consider none of government's business.” The progressive movement arose as a response to the negative effects of industrialization. Progressives sought to regulate private industry, strengthen protections for workers and consumers, expose corruption in big business and generally improve society. Legislation was the only way to accomplish this. Appealing to the robber barons’ sense of decency was not going to accomplish anything. The robber barons thought it was none of the government’s business how they treated their workers and what they put in the products they sold to consumers.
“I find it difficult to take seriously anyone who thinks being ethically opposed to ‘greed’ is something that could ever be politicized.”Legislative regulation of greed is essential to prevent the exploitation of consumers, workers and the environment by prioritizing collective welfare over personal gain. Unrestrained greed drives financial instability, economic inequality and corporate corruption, none of which is a good thing.
Easy to conflate the various flavors of "progressivism." I tend to agree with you on "cultural progressivism," where whichever group of progressives' proposals are certain to solve whatever it is that's irritating them, regardless of what it might mean for anyone else.
Disagree that old school economic progressivism (it really is a dumb term, unfortunately) was utopian though. There were real problems during the early Progressive Era, and the proposed solutions were pretty practical for the most part, at least in monetary economics. Evidence for that is that Progressive Party's political momentum stalled once the world was able to discover, mine and mint enough new gold to better support the credit economy of the time.
Today, hard money is no longer an issue, but income and wealth inequalities arguably are. Rational, capitalist-friendly "progressivism" may offer some ideas worth considering. Though we might have to go back to the 1890s or 1930s to find them.
I'm not sure what I can add to what I've already said on this topic. Societies need both conservative and progressive (or liberal) strains in order to evolve and thrive, for reasons that should be obvious, and in a climate of sensible intellectual debate political disagreement would be recognized as, at bottom, an argument over what sort of balance best meets everyone's needs. America has generally had a good record in this regard: the country succeeded in creating stable institutions and traditions while leaving sufficient space for innovation and reform. The most astute critics of America have always been Americans themselves, and many of those critics ended up not despised as traitors and malcontents but venerated as exemplary figures who contributed much to the country's development.
There are several problems with Utopianism, but an inability to identify specific ills and come up with practical remedies for them isn't necessarily one of them; so it's unclear why you seem to think pointing out someone's successful problem-solving record qualifies as an argument that he couldn't also harbour Utopian impulses. We can drop the word if you like, but doing so won't alter the fact that today's self-styled progressives are authoritarian, rigidly doctrinaire, and intolerant of dissenting opinion, impulses incompatible with those that have heretofore made the American experiment so successful.
As for wealth inequality, I've never resented the fact that some people have more wealth than I do, nor felt guilty that some have less; that every individual finds him/herself situated somewhere on this hierarchical continuum is inevitable, not evidence of social or economic failure. Let Elon Musk have his billions; not a dollar of his wealth comes at my expense or yours. Every year, just like Musk, you and I still receive exactly the financial return that our own investments entitle us to, and that's fairness as far as I'm concerned. In sharp contrast, singling out one percent of the citizenry and hitting it with a 'wealth' tax, just because its assets are coveted by others and there to be taken, would be pure theft.
Of course, I also don't want the bottom rung of society falling below subsistence level, so I'm all for having social/economic safety nets. Like most people who can afford to I contribute to various charities, and I have no objection to paying taxes that help fund teachers' salaries, old age security pensions and unemployment insurance programs, and keep public libraries open. Those are all public goods, and in the nineteenth century they were leftist innovations, though conservatives waved the white flag on these nods to 'soft socialism' a long time ago. Despite what some of America's more hysterical progressives would have voters believe, no one on the right advocates eliminating essential social programs. Conservatives, though, do want to trim bloated bureaucracies and eliminate fraud and other system abuses, goals you'd think everybody would be onside with. They also want to see program benefits distributed according to need, not the irrelevant criterion of one's membership in certain population groups, a stipulation that strikes me as eminently reasonable.
I think we agree on just about everything. I simply added some historical context (early Progressives had some sound criticisms and policy planks) as contrast to some of the features of modern progressivism you've pointed to (more utopian, far less tolerant, and in many ways couldn't be more different from "old" Progressives, as you've noted elsewhere).
TBC, I also don't resent anyone for their wealth or income, but I think it's reasonable to assume, without veering into utopianism, that there are indeterminate thresholds that can cause more social tensions and aggregate opportunity costs than would otherwise be the case. In my view, a well-functioning capitalist system (1) allows as many people an opportunity at building wealth (which the US still does very well), but (2) (more controversially perhaps) doesn't arc back toward a kind of neo-feudalism where privilege begets privilege to an excessive* extent and, more importantly IMO, mobility between poverty and wealth declines. Don't think I'm saying anything controversial here.
I wasn't trying to add to your seeming exasperation. I'm with you on the intolerance of "disagreeable" speech/sentiments being an unseemly feature of modern "progressives" and a distraction from the kinds of things old progressives sometimes managed to do. They're not alone in this, of course, and to some extent it's probably a natural feature of the Internet Age and social media and other technologies that we just need to continue to adapt to and get more skilled with over time. (The subject of this post may point to that happening.) Nate Silver wrote an interesting comparison to prior innovations in mass communication (TV, radio, printing press), was a chapter in The Signal and The Noise IIRC. We've been here before.
*"Excessive" being unquantifiable and more of an aggregate political judgment, but a massive wealth gap can obviously impact political discourse and influence.
US settles social media censorship case, bars agencies from threatening penalties
By [Reuters staff]
March 24, 2026
Crickets from WaPo, WSJ, NYT.
No full straight-news reporting on the consent decree has appeared yet on WaPo’s site. They had an editorial: behind the publication’s paywall. “The Trump administration’s First Amendment promise” (also headlined in places as “Trump DOJ reaches a settlement to end social media censorship”). It was published online on March 25, 2026
No dedicated coverage of the March 24, 2026 consent decree settlement in the Missouri v. Biden case (the Twitter Files–related social-media censorship lawsuit) has been published by The Wall Street Journal as of March 26, 2026.
The New York Times has not published any reporting on the March 24–25, 2026 consent decree settlement in Missouri v. Biden
Thanks for taking the trouble to do this, Kathleen. Sadly, the result tends to confirm that the reservations polls suggest most Americans have about legacy media's reliability as trustworthy information sources remain warranted. The Narrative hasn't been enlarged to accommodate dissenting judgments, and probably won't be.
Marxism is an economic doctrine that sounds heavenly but creates an economic, philosophical and cultural environment that is both repressive and leads to poverty for all but the few in control. Progressives are economic Marxists despite all the historical evidence suggesting the failure of that system. As Mike stated, they let facts and history be damned.
Who were you asking? Mike Williams used the word 'Marxist,' yet your query appeared in my email, which normally only happens when questions are directed to me. 'Define' is a word more appropriately used in connection with lexical meanings, and even 'doctrine' seems inadequate to designate a political philosophy that can claim numerous doctrines. I think of Marxism primarily as a field of study encompassing the writings of Marx and many others (Engels, Croce, Habermas, Marcuse, Sartre, etc.), with political, ideological and social dimensions and a history that's still unfolding. If your aim is to contest Mike's view that Marxist sentiments exist in the editorial offices of the New York Times, and in today's incarnation of progressivism, you might be better off stating your grounds for doing so, instead of getting into a squabble over the adequacy or inadequacy of definitions. A dictionary is simply going to tell you a Marxist is a follower of the political and economic theories of Karl Marx.
My grievance against the New York Times and the Guardian (I'm the one who mentioned them; Mike's the one who mentioned Marxism) isn't that the brains trust guiding them are Marxists but that they're frauds and hypocrites. Journalism's mission is to present reality, unedited, to the public so that people can make up their own minds on issues. If, instead, you're masquerading activist projects as journalism, that's fraud. Using the platform of journalism to substitute your own judgment for the public's, to push the public in directions you think best, is a betrayal of mission and a frankly authoritarian project. If you think you have that kind of wisdom, by all means start your own think tank and try to persuade people you know what you're talking about. But don't pretend what you're doing has anything to do with journalism.
Matt, without the dogged, tireless persistence of folks like you, so much of this would’ve never seen the light of day. If I had a billion bucks I’d endow the Matt Taibbi Chair of Investigative Journalism at Columbia J-school… But they’d probably turn me down.
Exactly. Elon Musk played no part in any of this and Matt is entirely right to cut Elon out of his Matt Spikes Elon's Football moment.
"I'd like thank - me, myself, my imagination, my tireless efforts, my suck-up fans, who are equally indifferent to factual accuracy. How I, Bari, and Michael pulled this off by ourselves I'll never know."
Unfortunately, the victory is largely illusory because the Supreme Court (namely Roberts, Barrett, and Kavanauagh) let us down. These plaintiffs have done amazing work, but they were left with little-to-no leverage following SCOTUS’s evasion of the case based on standing. The consent decree restates black letter law, it lasts ten years, and it only applies to three defendants and the named plaintiffs.
To call it a “victory in court” is an overstatement at best. It is a settlement agreement that merely states that defendants will follow the law. It’s akin to signing an agreement not to burglarize the house next door.
Nonetheless, kudos to all involved for getting the initial discovery and for fighting the good fight.
I was referring to the many caveats about the meaning of the bloody Magna Carta. Apparently, you are myopic and unable to process a historical analogy.
Magna Carta empowered a small group of Barons to exercise restraint upon the actions of God's representative in England, John I anointed and unquestioned King of England. Hence "A man's home is his castle!"
It took a lot of twists and turns to get to "The Pentagon Papers" and everloving Larry Flint.
Now our own Matt Taibbi has taken his place in this legend.
Yes, you have every right (the first) to be a curmudgeon, but please do pay attention
I’m well aware of the caveats of the Magna Carta. This document simply lacks the upside that people want to ascribe to it. There will be victories along the way (I already pointed out that discovery and the original injunction were significant), but this isn’t one of them.
> "[Democrats] not only refused to listen, but insisted on nominating two hardcore speech ignoramuses in Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, while smearing people like Kheriaty for bringing this case."
One of the most annoying habits of the Democrats is nominating inept candidates who advocate for ridiculously bad policies, then expressing bewilderment when they lose, then blaming the voters as "racist transphobic misogynists" when they don't "vote Blue no matter who."
Ocasio-Cortex- the Left's Super Squad leader- billed citizens 20K+ for Ketamine treatment-illed as an official filing for “leadership training and consulting.”
The Democrats gaslit the entire country about their role in speech suppression, election irregularities and God help us, Covid. It will be hard for many to forgive or forget, regardless of party. Thank God for the efforts of Elon Musk, and for you and your Twitter Files compatriots.
You do realize that the people currently running the federal government are calling for censorship, right? Brendan Carr publicly stated “Broadcasters that are running hoaxes and news distortions - also known as the fake news - have a chance now to correct course before their license renewals come up.” There are no “hoaxes and news distortions” — just reporting that dear leader Trump does not like.
Of course the FCC cannot even regulate the broadcast networks like CBS, NBC and ABC — it only has the authority to reject the licenses of individual affiliates of those networks when they come up for renewal. Additionally, the Trump message that Carr retweeted only mentioned war coverage by The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal and the FCC has no authority over newspapers either.
Oh, of course there are hoaxes and news distortions. On both sides. I do not like Carr's approach to this problem, but the problem is real - the major outlets ON BOTH SIDES do it all the time. The public hears half of the story, or no story at all if the facts do not align with the media outlet's political persuasion. If only we, as a nation, could regulate mandatory disclosure of both sides of all major controversies. But alas, that's impossible.
Enough with the false equivalence. Carr is the only FCC chairman who has ever threatened broadcasters with the revocation of station licenses over alleged "fake news" (i.e. news that POTUS does not like).
Great news Matt!! Thank you so much for carrying the water and keeping a light on this! Really happy for the plantiffs as well!
Cheers to all lovers of free speech!
In the world I grew up in -- 60s into the 80s -- Matt and Bari and Shellenberger would have gotten Pulitzers for this story, and achieved fame equal to Woodward and Bernstein.
Is there a more important constitutional provision than the First Amendment? I can't think of one, because it's the one thread that runs through every other part of the Constitution. Without the free flow of information, nothing else works right, if at all: not the government, not the press, not the courts, not free markets. It would be impossible for citizens to trust government, and thus impossible for the rest of the Constitution to sustain itself.
As Matt says, a huge, huge win for everyone regardless of political stripe. God Bless Matt and all of the soldiers in this fight.
not weiss.
she flagrantly avoided getting involved to such an extent that musk finally said ‘you won’t report on it so just get out.”
zero credit to her
Finally, Musk, lower case, gets a mention - not for making the Twitter files possible, but as a club to bash Bari. Wonderful!
she made her own choice and decided to bash herself.
She was not willing to agree to Musk's terms of publishing the findings initially on Twitter. I think she was right, and that is part of the reason that the very important Twitter Files never got an actual foothold with the wider media. They could simply point to the fact that Musk was controlling everything, including the point of initial publication, so it was easy for them to dismiss anything and everything that was found. I have plenty of criticisms of BarI Weiss, but her instincts were correct here.
Sorry but that’s ridiculous - the Twitter Files were seen by record numbers of people, and Musk had no control over the reports. I was initially against the same condition because I’m a long-form writer, but quickly realized the content fit the format perfectly and was almost impossible to suppress as well. Bari didn’t leave because of the condition, either, she left because Elon shut some reporter accounts down over the publication of his jet location.
No articles on the insane IHRA laws passed in 38/50 states? Freedom of speech has not “won”, it is being choked by the oligarchs who actually rule this country.
That matters not a jot.
She doesn’t deserve any credit for the Twitter Files reporting. Zero.
You are correct about credit, and I am not attempting to award her any such thing here. However, I do believe if Musk had allowed all the reporters - Weiss, Taibbi and Shellenberger - to report on this via their own Substacks, that the story would have had more legs. It is just an opinion. Cheers.
(Updated for the immune to irony.) Fuck the facts is right - and one person who definitely did nothing to get the Twitter files out is Elon Musk. Glad we can agree on that. Clever!
Really happy so many have recc'd your comment, which like Matt's article completely forgets to identify Elon Musk and the 44 billion he spent to gift Matt, Bari, and Michael the story. Who needs facts? Nice! Clever, too!
Exactly! Whatever happened to gratitude and recognition? Elon probably couldn't have done it without them, but they definitely would NEVER have even known about it without Elon! I'm so sick of this crap! I expected better from the likes of Matt et al.
I'd hardly call it a gift. Buying Twitter was a calculated business decision, and a lot of the $44 billion was financed or paid for with overvalued Tesla stock. My own speculation is that Jack Dorsey was tired of being bullied by government officials and offered it to his friend and frenemy Elon because Elon had the wealth and influence to give the government the middle finger.
TSLA is up 60% since the Twitter deal was done.
Great news and well reported. You covered the facts and broader context and implications. That’s the reporting I come to Racket for.
Exactly - the fact that Matt, Bari, and Michael owe the entire story to Elon Musk should never be mentioned in an Victory Story about the Twitter Files. Perfect sense of justice you and Matt share. Agreed! Fuck Elon.
Elon deserves credit for opening the files, but how can I give someone who suppresses content - including mine - a free speech attaboy?
Sorry, I'm certain you and your wife don't teach this kind of mealy-mouthed bs in the home. The "world's best journalist" wouldn't have a moment's problem opening with "Despite" ; "The Irony"; "What a crazy world"(your current go to) and then Elon. Not buying your "I'm too feeble bs."
No Elon, no Twitter Files - except here at "We only care if it's true" TM.
He deserves credit for saving this country from permanent Soviet-style DNC thought police! And he deserves credit for attempting to create a town-square free debate space with the former twitter. Matt repaid Elon’s great financial and social risk by using that material to create his own Substack. To be honest, I had never heard of Matt Taibbi before the Twitter Files. And I’ve subscribed to his Substack ever since. Didn’t think he was such an ungracious p@&k though.
Agreed. Elon's main concern is long-term profit, and we're lucky that it happened to coincide with free speech.
Just as substacks goal, Racket news or the goal of any functional business is. No one should build efficient things, grow and make money. Anarcho primitivism is the only way forward.
Nothing wrong with making money. It takes merit to be profitable.
and every govt employee involved got off scot-free. how do you punish a govt agency? what a joke. some harsh examples need be made of the govt employees who violate our rights. harsh as in their existence is hell on earth or not on earth at all.
Taibbi, you did so much, along with Michael Shellenberger and others - this is a win you influenced mightily.
Supporting Matt with my subscription was one of the most important things I've done.
This is our victory as much as Matt's, isn't it? We've all done so much.
Agreed. So good to read this this AM
I'm delighted Matt didn't even mention the man who reached into his pocket, forked over 44 billion dollars to buy Twitter - saved us all, and handed Matt, Michael, and Bari the story of their lives on a platter.
Elon Musk. I had to go back and triple check the article coz it was so hard to believe Matt could have published this without identifying the actual individual who made the Twitter Files possible?!?
But fuck Elon, right? Fuck Walter, fuck all the "little" people who don't measure up in Matt's eyes, and the eyes of so many here. Emily is paid to do what? Rubber stamp this p-o-s?
No idea, yet, whether other commenters have mentioned Elon. If nobody has that just confirms how much of an open sewer this comments board has turned into.
Elon's name should have been highlighted and recc'd to the roof for pulling the fat out of the fire for all of us.
An article about the Twitter Files saving our bacon and Elon gets written out of the story by one of the folks Elon handed the story to. Wow!
Venality, arrogance, or just plain old ingratitude. How about all three!
No Elon - no X - no X - no Twitter Files - no X - Substack gets censored; Auto-pen, or Kamala returns to the WH, and then were all in the virtual gulag - until the physical ones can be built and staffed. For real.
Thank god for Elon!
I can let you borrow my username the next time you talk to Elon if you'd like. Could help bring your obvious man crush to its consummation.
It is amazing to watch the -only other option -political party double down on hatred of the private sector, the free market, U.S. taxpayers, builders, savers, property owners. Their cities are almost all completely bankrupt. Adam Carolla, as a lifelong Angeleno, has good, funny takes on the constant idiocy.
It might be worth again mentioning that Elon Musk took substantial risks to make the rest possible.
If he hadn't bought Twitter, none of this would have come to light.
Can anyone of the smarty-pantses here tell me of another private citizen since Ben Franklin who has done as much for the USA as Elon on so many fronts? I'd really like to know.
I'm willing to bet there are, but they've been lost in our collective memory.
He's still in court battling Twitter issues, lost so much $$ on the whole ordeal.
Matt underplays his own role in keeping this issue alive. Only by reading Racket Newa and other Substacks are we likely to find out about such important decisions. The MSM will bury it on p. 23 if they mention the decision at all. Free speech for me, but not for thee.
Bad day at the Ministry of Truth.
Ha. That’s fabulous. That’s also why I subscribe - for comments such as this!
You deserve a lot of credit for this, Matt. Great work and thank you. 🇺🇲🍻
I guess the question now is, will readers of The Guardian and the New York Times ever see this story, and if they do, what form will the report take? Technically, are you 'censoring' the information commons if, instead of suppressing reports, you systematically neglect to bring information to people's attention in the first place, while pretending you're practicing journalism?
If you are systematically neglecting to bring (all relevant )information to people's attention then yes, you are censoring by omission...
Many journalists from the Guardian and NYT etc believe they are there to report their own cultural marxist(progressive..I hate that word) world view on how things should be.
Let facts and history be damned.....
The New York Times, America's paper of (our side of the) record.
Fishwrap of Record.
LOL. Or Birdcage liner of Record.
Equating Marxism and progressivism is false. Marxist and progressive ideology are not the same thing. While both exist on the political left and share a desire for social change, Marxism is a specific theory advocating worker-led revolution to replace private property with common ownership, creating a classless society not based on capitalism. Progressivism is a broader, reformist movement aiming to improve society within the existing capitalist framework. Progressives work within existing political systems to correct societal inequalities, while communists replace them with a state-controlled economy.
That's true of some progressives, but certainly not all. You're being evasively disingenuous here. One doesn't have to 'equate' Marxism and progressivism to acknowledge the strong influence of Marxism on progressivism's essentially Utopian project.
I was responding to Mike Williams who equated Marxism with Progressivism.
As for your claim that progressivism is “essentially a Utopian project” — that is an oft-used statement by right wingers to try to smear progressivism as a naive attempt to create an ideal society where conditions are perfect and free from human evils such as corruption, hate, and greed. That is not what progressivism is. Progressivism is about improving society through government action as well as citizens’ activism that targets social injustice, economic inequality and corruption.
Oh, like in Minnesota?
What specifically in Minnesota are you referring to?
I'm a Canadian who's always voted NDP, slightly to the left of the Liberal Party (NDPers are often described as 'liberals in a hurry'). But I'm no more interested in consuming legacy media propaganda that imagines it's speaking for my political preferences than against them. Nor do I care if an argument owes an intellectual debt to 'right wingers' or 'left wingers'; all that matters to me is the soundness of the argument. The notion that as an alternative to actually grappling with an argument's merits, all that's needed to dismiss it is classify it left or right, is profoundly illogical and anti-intellectual.
As for the virtue posturing conceit that progressivism is any more 'about' improving society and targeting corruption, etc., than every other political and/or ideological movement aspires to be, it's probably the one that alienates non-progressives the most, though few progressives ever seem to grasp why this would obviously be true. You're closer to the mark when you speak of 'government action' and 'citizens' activism,' since progressives do indeed have a predilection for weaponizing the legislative process to force cultural changes on people in areas that many consider none of government's business.
That's an authoritarian impulse progressives share with Marxists and other Utopians as a matter of historical record, which is why those familiar with that record remain wary of progressives. For my part, I find it difficult to take seriously anyone who thinks being ethically opposed to "greed" is something that could ever be politicized.
“progressives do indeed have a predilection for weaponizing the legislative process to force cultural changes on people in areas that many consider none of government's business.” The progressive movement arose as a response to the negative effects of industrialization. Progressives sought to regulate private industry, strengthen protections for workers and consumers, expose corruption in big business and generally improve society. Legislation was the only way to accomplish this. Appealing to the robber barons’ sense of decency was not going to accomplish anything. The robber barons thought it was none of the government’s business how they treated their workers and what they put in the products they sold to consumers.
“I find it difficult to take seriously anyone who thinks being ethically opposed to ‘greed’ is something that could ever be politicized.”Legislative regulation of greed is essential to prevent the exploitation of consumers, workers and the environment by prioritizing collective welfare over personal gain. Unrestrained greed drives financial instability, economic inequality and corporate corruption, none of which is a good thing.
Easy to conflate the various flavors of "progressivism." I tend to agree with you on "cultural progressivism," where whichever group of progressives' proposals are certain to solve whatever it is that's irritating them, regardless of what it might mean for anyone else.
Disagree that old school economic progressivism (it really is a dumb term, unfortunately) was utopian though. There were real problems during the early Progressive Era, and the proposed solutions were pretty practical for the most part, at least in monetary economics. Evidence for that is that Progressive Party's political momentum stalled once the world was able to discover, mine and mint enough new gold to better support the credit economy of the time.
Today, hard money is no longer an issue, but income and wealth inequalities arguably are. Rational, capitalist-friendly "progressivism" may offer some ideas worth considering. Though we might have to go back to the 1890s or 1930s to find them.
I'm not sure what I can add to what I've already said on this topic. Societies need both conservative and progressive (or liberal) strains in order to evolve and thrive, for reasons that should be obvious, and in a climate of sensible intellectual debate political disagreement would be recognized as, at bottom, an argument over what sort of balance best meets everyone's needs. America has generally had a good record in this regard: the country succeeded in creating stable institutions and traditions while leaving sufficient space for innovation and reform. The most astute critics of America have always been Americans themselves, and many of those critics ended up not despised as traitors and malcontents but venerated as exemplary figures who contributed much to the country's development.
There are several problems with Utopianism, but an inability to identify specific ills and come up with practical remedies for them isn't necessarily one of them; so it's unclear why you seem to think pointing out someone's successful problem-solving record qualifies as an argument that he couldn't also harbour Utopian impulses. We can drop the word if you like, but doing so won't alter the fact that today's self-styled progressives are authoritarian, rigidly doctrinaire, and intolerant of dissenting opinion, impulses incompatible with those that have heretofore made the American experiment so successful.
As for wealth inequality, I've never resented the fact that some people have more wealth than I do, nor felt guilty that some have less; that every individual finds him/herself situated somewhere on this hierarchical continuum is inevitable, not evidence of social or economic failure. Let Elon Musk have his billions; not a dollar of his wealth comes at my expense or yours. Every year, just like Musk, you and I still receive exactly the financial return that our own investments entitle us to, and that's fairness as far as I'm concerned. In sharp contrast, singling out one percent of the citizenry and hitting it with a 'wealth' tax, just because its assets are coveted by others and there to be taken, would be pure theft.
Of course, I also don't want the bottom rung of society falling below subsistence level, so I'm all for having social/economic safety nets. Like most people who can afford to I contribute to various charities, and I have no objection to paying taxes that help fund teachers' salaries, old age security pensions and unemployment insurance programs, and keep public libraries open. Those are all public goods, and in the nineteenth century they were leftist innovations, though conservatives waved the white flag on these nods to 'soft socialism' a long time ago. Despite what some of America's more hysterical progressives would have voters believe, no one on the right advocates eliminating essential social programs. Conservatives, though, do want to trim bloated bureaucracies and eliminate fraud and other system abuses, goals you'd think everybody would be onside with. They also want to see program benefits distributed according to need, not the irrelevant criterion of one's membership in certain population groups, a stipulation that strikes me as eminently reasonable.
I think we agree on just about everything. I simply added some historical context (early Progressives had some sound criticisms and policy planks) as contrast to some of the features of modern progressivism you've pointed to (more utopian, far less tolerant, and in many ways couldn't be more different from "old" Progressives, as you've noted elsewhere).
TBC, I also don't resent anyone for their wealth or income, but I think it's reasonable to assume, without veering into utopianism, that there are indeterminate thresholds that can cause more social tensions and aggregate opportunity costs than would otherwise be the case. In my view, a well-functioning capitalist system (1) allows as many people an opportunity at building wealth (which the US still does very well), but (2) (more controversially perhaps) doesn't arc back toward a kind of neo-feudalism where privilege begets privilege to an excessive* extent and, more importantly IMO, mobility between poverty and wealth declines. Don't think I'm saying anything controversial here.
I wasn't trying to add to your seeming exasperation. I'm with you on the intolerance of "disagreeable" speech/sentiments being an unseemly feature of modern "progressives" and a distraction from the kinds of things old progressives sometimes managed to do. They're not alone in this, of course, and to some extent it's probably a natural feature of the Internet Age and social media and other technologies that we just need to continue to adapt to and get more skilled with over time. (The subject of this post may point to that happening.) Nate Silver wrote an interesting comparison to prior innovations in mass communication (TV, radio, printing press), was a chapter in The Signal and The Noise IIRC. We've been here before.
*"Excessive" being unquantifiable and more of an aggregate political judgment, but a massive wealth gap can obviously impact political discourse and influence.
The Guardian and NYT are “cultural Marxists”? Such confusion!
Like the philosophy but also like their good pay and lifestyles.
I looked and found that Reuters reported.
US settles social media censorship case, bars agencies from threatening penalties
By [Reuters staff]
March 24, 2026
Crickets from WaPo, WSJ, NYT.
No full straight-news reporting on the consent decree has appeared yet on WaPo’s site. They had an editorial: behind the publication’s paywall. “The Trump administration’s First Amendment promise” (also headlined in places as “Trump DOJ reaches a settlement to end social media censorship”). It was published online on March 25, 2026
No dedicated coverage of the March 24, 2026 consent decree settlement in the Missouri v. Biden case (the Twitter Files–related social-media censorship lawsuit) has been published by The Wall Street Journal as of March 26, 2026.
The New York Times has not published any reporting on the March 24–25, 2026 consent decree settlement in Missouri v. Biden
Thanks for taking the trouble to do this, Kathleen. Sadly, the result tends to confirm that the reservations polls suggest most Americans have about legacy media's reliability as trustworthy information sources remain warranted. The Narrative hasn't been enlarged to accommodate dissenting judgments, and probably won't be.
Could be like "oh no hate speech won", maybe 😅
They might print it where they report high school sports ...
I'm curious, what do you think Marxist means? Are you even able to define it for yourself
Marxism is an economic doctrine that sounds heavenly but creates an economic, philosophical and cultural environment that is both repressive and leads to poverty for all but the few in control. Progressives are economic Marxists despite all the historical evidence suggesting the failure of that system. As Mike stated, they let facts and history be damned.
I wasn't asking you. But since you think it sounds heavenly, in what way specifically? What is the doctrine
Who were you asking? Mike Williams used the word 'Marxist,' yet your query appeared in my email, which normally only happens when questions are directed to me. 'Define' is a word more appropriately used in connection with lexical meanings, and even 'doctrine' seems inadequate to designate a political philosophy that can claim numerous doctrines. I think of Marxism primarily as a field of study encompassing the writings of Marx and many others (Engels, Croce, Habermas, Marcuse, Sartre, etc.), with political, ideological and social dimensions and a history that's still unfolding. If your aim is to contest Mike's view that Marxist sentiments exist in the editorial offices of the New York Times, and in today's incarnation of progressivism, you might be better off stating your grounds for doing so, instead of getting into a squabble over the adequacy or inadequacy of definitions. A dictionary is simply going to tell you a Marxist is a follower of the political and economic theories of Karl Marx.
I was asking the guy who thinks the NYT and Guardian are full of Marxists. I want to know what he thinks he's saying when he uses that word
My grievance against the New York Times and the Guardian (I'm the one who mentioned them; Mike's the one who mentioned Marxism) isn't that the brains trust guiding them are Marxists but that they're frauds and hypocrites. Journalism's mission is to present reality, unedited, to the public so that people can make up their own minds on issues. If, instead, you're masquerading activist projects as journalism, that's fraud. Using the platform of journalism to substitute your own judgment for the public's, to push the public in directions you think best, is a betrayal of mission and a frankly authoritarian project. If you think you have that kind of wisdom, by all means start your own think tank and try to persuade people you know what you're talking about. But don't pretend what you're doing has anything to do with journalism.
Read my entire post. It states Marxism is historically anything but heavenly.
Read my question. What about it sounds heavenly
Who cares? It’s a clamorous mouth noise label, we likes it.
Congrats to you too, Matt. Well done.
I'd have thought you'd be one of the few? any? to credit Elon. Elsewhere perhaps? Interesting.
Matt, without the dogged, tireless persistence of folks like you, so much of this would’ve never seen the light of day. If I had a billion bucks I’d endow the Matt Taibbi Chair of Investigative Journalism at Columbia J-school… But they’d probably turn me down.
No. They would take your money and keep being a nest of Woke snakes.
Exactly. Elon Musk played no part in any of this and Matt is entirely right to cut Elon out of his Matt Spikes Elon's Football moment.
"I'd like thank - me, myself, my imagination, my tireless efforts, my suck-up fans, who are equally indifferent to factual accuracy. How I, Bari, and Michael pulled this off by ourselves I'll never know."
It’s all about setting the legal precedent! The ruling will live on!Thanks Matt!
Unfortunately, the victory is largely illusory because the Supreme Court (namely Roberts, Barrett, and Kavanauagh) let us down. These plaintiffs have done amazing work, but they were left with little-to-no leverage following SCOTUS’s evasion of the case based on standing. The consent decree restates black letter law, it lasts ten years, and it only applies to three defendants and the named plaintiffs.
To call it a “victory in court” is an overstatement at best. It is a settlement agreement that merely states that defendants will follow the law. It’s akin to signing an agreement not to burglarize the house next door.
Nonetheless, kudos to all involved for getting the initial discovery and for fighting the good fight.
History and Reality have always been tragic.
There were lots of caveats about the meaning of Magna Carta, but, here we are with a myth that has made some difference. Thus progress stumbles along.
This isn’t a “caveat.” Judge Doughty’s injunction in this case was a great victory at the time; this is not.
It offers no precedent, its restrictions only last ten years, and it only applies the parties.
The victory here was that the documents, the twitter files, and more exposed the nature of the censorship apparatus and a few of its chief villains.
We don’t need to pretend that the settlement agreement (which lacks any teeth to it) has made any difference.
Did you understand my comment? Please reread.
I was referring to the many caveats about the meaning of the bloody Magna Carta. Apparently, you are myopic and unable to process a historical analogy.
Magna Carta empowered a small group of Barons to exercise restraint upon the actions of God's representative in England, John I anointed and unquestioned King of England. Hence "A man's home is his castle!"
It took a lot of twists and turns to get to "The Pentagon Papers" and everloving Larry Flint.
Now our own Matt Taibbi has taken his place in this legend.
Yes, you have every right (the first) to be a curmudgeon, but please do pay attention
I’m well aware of the caveats of the Magna Carta. This document simply lacks the upside that people want to ascribe to it. There will be victories along the way (I already pointed out that discovery and the original injunction were significant), but this isn’t one of them.
Hopefully the Berenson case and the "Disinformation Dozen" case will bring real wins.
It takes a long time for the wheels of Justlce to turn, even if its a lagging indicator of the culture shift/vibe change.
"The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice" is a famous quote popularized by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1965
I think culture reacts faster than the judicial system, which moves like a glacier.
> "[Democrats] not only refused to listen, but insisted on nominating two hardcore speech ignoramuses in Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, while smearing people like Kheriaty for bringing this case."
One of the most annoying habits of the Democrats is nominating inept candidates who advocate for ridiculously bad policies, then expressing bewilderment when they lose, then blaming the voters as "racist transphobic misogynists" when they don't "vote Blue no matter who."
Yes thank you.
Harris, Ocasio-Cortez, Brandon, Blumenthal, Goldman, Swalwell, Walz, Markey, Beto, Murphy, etc., etc., are not just "inept" they are DUMB!!!
Ocasio-Cortex- the Left's Super Squad leader- billed citizens 20K+ for Ketamine treatment-illed as an official filing for “leadership training and consulting.”
No moral compass.
The Democrats gaslit the entire country about their role in speech suppression, election irregularities and God help us, Covid. It will be hard for many to forgive or forget, regardless of party. Thank God for the efforts of Elon Musk, and for you and your Twitter Files compatriots.
Thanks, Matt, for your part in this.
It's frightening that people in government actually fought FOR this censorship!
.
I hope they are all identified to discourage them from running for public office.
You do realize that the people currently running the federal government are calling for censorship, right? Brendan Carr publicly stated “Broadcasters that are running hoaxes and news distortions - also known as the fake news - have a chance now to correct course before their license renewals come up.” There are no “hoaxes and news distortions” — just reporting that dear leader Trump does not like.
Of course the FCC cannot even regulate the broadcast networks like CBS, NBC and ABC — it only has the authority to reject the licenses of individual affiliates of those networks when they come up for renewal. Additionally, the Trump message that Carr retweeted only mentioned war coverage by The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal and the FCC has no authority over newspapers either.
Oh, of course there are hoaxes and news distortions. On both sides. I do not like Carr's approach to this problem, but the problem is real - the major outlets ON BOTH SIDES do it all the time. The public hears half of the story, or no story at all if the facts do not align with the media outlet's political persuasion. If only we, as a nation, could regulate mandatory disclosure of both sides of all major controversies. But alas, that's impossible.
Enough with the false equivalence. Carr is the only FCC chairman who has ever threatened broadcasters with the revocation of station licenses over alleged "fake news" (i.e. news that POTUS does not like).
Ironically they're called Democrats ... Oh, I see, that's not the same thing as democrats ...