The people's voice of reason
The people's voice of reason
October 18, 2024–If you’ve been following The Gazette recently, you’re aware that there were reports made on X (formerly Twitter) of allegations of sexual abuse made by underage boys against Democratic Vice Presidential nominee and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.
Operative word: WERE. They’re all gone now.
As of late Thursday, the video of the supposed accuser that was posted Wednesday had been deleted from the posting account, @TheWakening. The video had been shared by @Carlos_Turcios, and this post had also been deleted.
The account that initially broke this story last Saturday, @DocNetyoutube, has apparently been deleted, as well. As you’ll recall from my earlier articles, @DocNetyoutube had reported contact with three alleged victims, only two of whom could collaborate their stories. After releasing information about a then-14 year old boy, including graphic descriptions of Walz’s actions toward him, @DocNetyoutube went silent after one last post early Monday morning.
Shortly before midnight on Thursday, I checked this account, as Ian Carroll (@Cancelcloco) had said on Monday afternoon that he’d been in contact with both DocNetyoutube and one accuser, and that DocNetyoutube had been put in Twitter jail for 72 hours.
It appears that “72 hours in Twitter jail” became a death sentence for the @DocNetyoutube account.
At the time of this writing, Ian Carroll’s account was still active, and you can see his response to these allegations (I hope) at: https://x.com/Cancelcloco/status/1846309129847259423
So, where does this leave us? I don’t know. Certainly there were questions being raised about the video. I personally scanned it with two AI deep fake detection programs, with mixed results, as I previously reported. If a more sophisticated analysis than mine showed it to have been fraudulent, then deleting it was the correct course of action. I would have liked to see a notice about why it was deleted, including the evidence that it was fraudulent (because I’m funny that way) but I have an extremely low tolerance for lies presented as truth like that. I especially take accusations of sexual abuse VERY seriously, for Reasons that aren’t funny at all.n
However, for an entire account with (as I recall) 2-3 million followers to be summarily removed from the platform? When the poster had taken pains to verify the accusations, notify both the Office of the Vice President as well as the Harris campaign long before posting those accusations? Accusations from three people, who are all now adults, two of which can allegedly support their claims?
“Odd” is one way to describe this. “Stinks to high heaven” is another.
Remember four years ago when the New York Post account was removed from Twitter when the Post attempted to break the Hunter Biden laptop story? While the Post’s account was ultimately restored, the laptop story was successfully buried until after the election. Remember that post-election poll that showed 17% of Biden/Harris voters would not have voted for him had they known things the media covered up pre-election?
Is this another Hunter’s laptop coverup in progress? Rather than risk an investigation into serious allegations—as bad or worse than the allegations against Judge Roy Moore that gave us Doug Jones in the Senate—have the Powers That Be moved to squash these allegations at the source? At least until after the election?
Granted, DocNetyoutube posted screenshots of his notification of the VP’s office, precisely because the law requires these records to be preserved. A FOIA request should be able to obtain these emails as the first steps towards investigating this matter. But, FOIA requests take time. Investigations take time—time that is in very short supply before the election.
We know the Feds monitor our social media posts, from the Twitter Files and multiple other sources. I doubt you’ll find any copy of the now-deleted video on X, and reposting it will likely be a futile effort. But what of at least one more accuser, the then-14 year old boy who said he and Walz had 10 or 12 sexual encounters in Nebraska before Walz “resigned” and moved to Minnesota?
We know of an alleged third accuser, who couldn’t collaborate their story to DocNetyoutube’s satisfaction. What about their sworn testimony? Isn’t that sufficient evidence right there? Remember, we must ALWAYS believe the victim! Unless they’re accusing Democrats, of course. Ain’t that right, Tara Reade?
As things now stand, it looks like this issue is as dead as a three-day-old fish, and smells just as bad. Barring new information, we’ve got nothing, and I certainly don’t expect this FBI and DoJ to do anything about it.
I’m also concerned about the chilling effect this will have on citizen journalists who post news on X, especially those who rely on the platform for their livelihood. If you take all reasonable precautions and follow good journalistic practices—like I believe DocNetyoutube did—and still get a massive account wiped out when you break a story that embarrasses powerful figures or goes against the Narrative? How is X any different from ABCBNBCNNSNBC? Well, except that the alphabet swarm don’t seem to bother with journalistic ethics these days.
We were told that Elon Musk was going to fix this kind of blatant censorship when he bought X. We were told it was going to be a true free speech platform. We were told it was going to become THE platform for open source citizen journalism.
Looks like we were told a lot of things that aren’t really true.
Rather than deleting the video, why not let the X community vet it? That was already happening, and that vetting was making me seriously question it. Instead of killing DocNetyoutube’s account, why not address the accusations directly, openly and honestly? Why not, at the very least, have an investigation opened and expedited, with full transparency?
Or is this just the same old censorship we’ve seen before to “protect” us from “misinformation” or “disinformation?” Hunter’s laptop was “Russian disinformation” until it wasn’t, after all.
If this was all a fake news smear campaign to discredit the Democratic VP nominee, then say that. Some people won’t believe what the FBI or DoJ have to say—so what? People have the First Amendment right to believe silly things, like “America is a democracy!” (Psst, Kamala…it’s actually not, it’s a constitutional republic!) I should say, we have that right at the moment—at least until John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz take it away from us, like they say they want to do.
And if those of us who took these reports in good faith and wrote about them for other outlets wind up with egg on our faces? So be it! That’s the price of doing business. As far as I’m concerned, these were all ALLEGED reports, never proven facts, and I tried to make that crystal clear.
That being said, deleting videos and accounts without explanation, when they concern a topic this explosive, smacks of a coverup whether it is or is not. At the very least, it’s horrible optics for the platform, and ultimately for Tim Walz. Until and unless this is resolved, it will hang over him and his family for the rest of his life, and beyond.
That’s not good for him or his family. It’s not good for Elon Musk, his platform, and his dreams for X. It’s not good for the original poster, DocNetyoutube, or any other serious content creator on X.
Most of all, it’s not good for the American voters who deserve to be made aware of this issue and its investigative outcome before they cast their ballots.
My previous Gazette articles on this topic:
Flashback: Poll: 17% of Biden Voters Would Have Abandoned Him if They Knew About Stories the Media Censored—
https://www.westernjournal.com/poll-17-biden-voters-abandoned-knew-stories-media-censored/
Dr. Bill Chitwood is a retired Child, Adolescent and Family Psychiatrist who does political consulting and media relations. He is the author of Beyond Maga, available on Amazon under his pen name, Doc Contrarian. He can be found on Substack and social media as @DocContrarian.
Opinions expressed in the Alabama Gazette are the opinions and viewpoints of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the Alabama Gazette staff, advertisers, and/ publishers.
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