NPR's Eric Deggans says to expect the amount of disinformation in our media ecosystem to explode

Remember that morning when you found out Twitter wouldn’t let you share that New York Post scoop on Hunter Biden’s laptop? That was a pretty big deal, but Twitter didn’t want to be used to spread “disinformation.” And then more than 50 former senior intelligence officials signed a letter saying that the disclosure of the emails on that laptop so close to the election “had all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” NPR even went so far as to release a statement explaining why it would NOT be covering the laptop:

Why haven't you seen any stories from NPR about the NY Post's Hunter Biden story? Read more in this week's newsletter➡️ https://t.co/CJesPgmGvo pic.twitter.com/jAi7PnpbZf

— NPR Public Editor (@NPRpubliceditor) October 22, 2020

That aged well. We don’t think the Post will encounter a similar suppression effort under a Twitter owned by Elon Musk, but NPR TV critic Eric Deggans (why does NPR have a TV critic?) says to expect an explosion of misinformation and disinformation in our media ecosystem. NPR is part of that media ecosystem, right? Will it do as good a job now as it did then on deciding what stories were a “waste of time” and “pure distractions”?

The world's richest man just closed a deal to buy one of the world's most influential social media platforms. Expect the amount of misinformation and disinformation in our media ecosystem to explode. Sigh. https://t.co/kXvP1Tggw5

— Eric Deggans at NPR (@Deggans) April 25, 2022

It’s just a link to the New York Times’ coverage of the purchase; the explosion of misinformation angle is all Deggans’.

Now do Jeff Bezos …

— Tom Martino (@tom_martino1) April 25, 2022

Strange that NPR didn't have the same reaction when Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post.

Why is it that promises of free speech terrify the media so much?

— Media Research Center (@theMRC) April 25, 2022