I know, I know. It’s not a shock. If the Washington Post is lying it must be a day ending in -day.

The latest example is a report that I immediately knew was false but had no evidence to back that judgment up so I let it pass. It was a claim that went around Twitter and then into the MSM that Elon Musk had a fit at Twitter headquarters and forced engineers to rewrite the algorithm to ensure his tweets always were the first users could see.

It was a ridiculous claim, but in today’s hyper-partisan environment, it spread like wildfire. Or rather, like any MSM-backed misinformation.

Your article is false and obviously so. Do you really do no research at all? I mean, like reading a few tweets, for example. https://t.co/c3ST23XX15

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 17, 2023

The Washington Post devoted prime real estate and TWO reporters to the story, clearly investing significant resources to spread the rumor. The Jeff Bezos-owned propaganda outlet–quite the irony there–couldn’t let the opportunity to dunk on Musk escape, even if they had to ignore facts.

With two reporters you think they could bother to actually investigate the claim. But no. That would be reporting, not spreading a convenient narrative.

SAN FRANCISCO — Nearly four months into Elon Musk’s ownership of Twitter, one of the most influential social media websites has been transformed into a mercurial billionaire’s personal sandbox.

Twitter users knew the site would change under Musk, who purchased the company in October for $44 billion and installed himself as CEO on a promise of restoring “free speech.” What many underestimated was the extent to which Musk would make wholesale changes with the potential to disrupt the experience across the site for his own benefit.

That approach was illustrated dramatically this week when the site Platformer reported Twitter had made major algorithmic changes — on Musk’s orders — that resulted in users seeing the billionaire’s tweets first. Musk had been worried that his engagement was declining: His tweet throwing support behind the Philadelphia Eagles in the Super Bowl had not performed as well as President Biden’s, for example. The fix that Twitter rolled out pushed Musk’s tweets to the top of many users’ feeds, something widely noted by users.

The WaPo did an analysis of engagement with Musk’s tweets that purports to show how engagement with his account has spiked, although the range of dates they used was rather sparse–the last few days in January and the first for February, noting that his engagement on SuperBowl Sunday was especially high.

Really? People were on their phones a lot on Super Bowl Sunday? Who could have guessed?

One of the reasons I knew the story was bogus was that I am ridiculously online, and live on Twitter because it allows you to see breaking news as it breaks. I don’t recommend that as a lifestyle, but it is vital to my job.

I follow Musk and saw no spike in the number of times I see his tweets. In fact, lots of people on the Left spread this claim around, but nobody else, suggesting that it was a coordinated campaign to create a false impression. This happens all the time on Twitter and is not exclusive to either Right or Left. It is just the normal workings of propaganda merchants.

Diving into WaPo’s story it was clear that the sources were fired Twitter employees trying to strike back at Musk. The complaints were all about how Musk is remaking Twitter according to his personal priorities, such as getting rid of bots.

Horrors! Getting rid of bots?! I guess we all know why these guys were fired–they thought that Twitter being populated by millions of bots is A-OK. Good riddance!

They don’t like his free speech priorities, his politics, or especially that he fired them.

The Post ate all this up because they hate Musk too.

They just did no actual reporting on the issue. They coyly note that Twitter hadn’t responded “yet” to their inquiries, but as has been established, reporters often contact the subjects of hit pieces minutes prior to publishing. Taylor Lorenz is particularly famous for this, although sometimes she just skips calling to get comments while claiming to have done so.

Even before he bought Twitter, Musk emphasized the site’s need to crack down on spam and bots, particularly those shilling cryptocurrency.

“If our Twitter bid succeeds, we will defeat the spam bots or die trying!” Musk posted on April 21, shortly before the deal was made, a day before he decried what he said were verified “scam crypto bots” on the site.

It wasn’t that crypto bots weren’t a problem.

“All the examples were pretty unique to him, but there were these long-standing issues that overlapped,” one of the former employees recalled.

Musk’s pronouncements about the problems plaguing Twitter even before the takeover were often raising alarms about issues that were far from the typical user’s experience, according to the former employees.

Ah! The CEO had a vision for how things should work, and when he got the chance decided to make the platform fit his vision.

Shocking.

This all confirms why the latest Gallup poll showed that only 25% of Americans don’t either believe or suspect that the MSM is lying to them to push a narrative.

It’s because the MSM is lying to us in order to push a narrative.