Michael Shellenberger

CBR Chair of Politics, Censorship & Free Speech @UAustinOrg : Dao Journalism Winner : Time, "Hero of Environment" : Author, “Apocalypse Never,” "San Fransicko"

[Michael Shellenberger @shellenberger]

Last year, the French government launched a criminal investigation into Elon Musk's X over evidence of "foreign interference." But now the man who sent the letter that triggered the investigation admits to me that he was targeting Musk's politics, not any foreign interference.

[Michael Shellenberger @shellenberger]

@MrWinMarshall @MrAndyNgo ❤️

[Winston Marshall @MrWinMarshall]

This is awesome. Good for Ed Sheeran

I remember the hell of going through this kind of thing 5 years ago (for praising Andy Ngo’s expose on Antifa and BLM). Insane public scrutiny and media attention. But the actual painful part was seeing friends take the side of the mob. Guys who had been groomsmen at my wedding. Cowards. The beauty of these situations is you clear out the clowns. All the bullshit in your life. Gone. And some unexpected heroes emerge. And the new friends and family on the other side are real. It’s glorious, actually. God is good.

Ed Sheeran did not cancel anyone. The venue owner and promoters did. But Ed Sheeran was nevertheless cancelled for not bowing to the baying Gaza-brain mob. He’s proved to be built of strong stuff

Good for him

[Michael Shellenberger @shellenberger]

@mazemoore 😒

[MAZE @mazemoore]

Well look at this.

March, 2021. CNN's Brian Stelter does a segment on if President Biden should remove Fox News from the White House Press Pool.

Censorship for thee, just not for me.

[Michael Shellenberger @shellenberger]

@mazemoore 🎯

[MAZE @mazemoore]

Jake Tapper devoted his show virtually every night for two years to covering and spreading the Russia hoax.

Then Tapper actually had the nerve to tell JD Vance that he didn't spread the Russia hoax.

CNN and the people on that clown network should not ever be taken seriously.

[Mike Lee @BasedMikeLee]

We backfill Europe’s defense needs

Then Europe weaponizes government against us

Not cool

[Michael Shellenberger @shellenberger]

When the Paris prosecutor opened its criminal investigation of X in July 2025, it said the two complaints behind it alleged the platform’s algorithm was used for foreign interference. Seven months later, it raided X’s Paris office and summoned Elon Musk.

The July 11, 2025 communiqué, signed by Laure Beccuau, the Paris prosecutor, said that on January 12, 2025, the cybercrime section of her office had received two complaints, one from a federal deputy and one from a senior official of a French public institution, and that “these complaints reported the supposed use of the X (ex-Twitter) algorithm for purposes of foreign interference.”

Media around the world ran headlines like the one used by Le Monde: “France probes X over foreign interference, as investigation closes in on Musk.” On the day of the raid, journalists described the case as an inquiry into “whether X allowed foreign powers to manipulate its algorithm.”

But the member of France’s National Assembly, its parliament, who filed the first complaint, Deputy Éric Bothorel, told Public that he was targeting Musk’s speech and X’s algorithm, not foreign interference. Bothorel shared his January 2025 letter.

“I was not speaking in my complaint to the prosecutors of foreign interference,” he wrote in French, “but of deliberate interventions by the owner or any other person at X, ex-Twitter, that seemed to alter the original functioning of the algorithm.”

He explained that at the end of 2024 he and other longtime users noticed that the posts rising in their feeds “seemed more and more politically oriented, all going in one particular direction....”

https://t.co/JGk30mkW8S

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[Michael Shellenberger @shellenberger]

Last year, the French government launched a criminal investigation into Elon Musk's X over evidence of "foreign interference." But now the man who sent the letter that triggered the investigation admits to me that he was targeting Musk's politics, not any foreign interference.

[Michael Shellenberger @shellenberger]

@AlessandroStru4 @KirkegaardEmil Crazy

[Michael Shellenberger @shellenberger]

@niusde_ @Pauline__Voss 😂

[Michael Shellenberger @shellenberger]

@EricBurlison @ChrisUKSharp 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

[alex gutentag @galexybrane]

Jurors in the Lindsay Clancy trial should have come to a decision based on the facts. Instead, they brought a therapeutic agenda to the courtroom, rejecting legal standards to “help” Clancy and support the cause of “mental health.” 

The lone holdout now faces unprecedented demonization and doxxing for refusing to go along with their activism. This smear campaign is the result of a progressive moral inversion that threatens to undermine the jury system.

[Michael Shellenberger @shellenberger]

The lone holdout juror in the Lindsay Clancy trial was accused of domestic violence, has a restraining order filed against him, and is months behind on paying his rent, NBC Boston reported on Friday. This history suggests he may have lied on his juror questionnaire, the local news station noted. After NBC Boston ran its story, a blogger found and exposed the holdout’s full name, photo, and address. “Now that the holdout juror in the Lindsay Clancy case is getting the negative attention he deserves, it’s easy for [Plymouth County, Massachusetts] District Attorney Tim Cruz to agree to a plea deal that gets Lindsay the help she needs,” argued a lawyer in the Boston Herald.

But in effectively revealing the juror’s identity, NBC Boston broke with established journalistic norms and made him a target. “My family cannot leave the house,” the holdout’s brother said. “They are leaving notes at my mother’s house.” Reporters usually only investigate jurors’ backgrounds after they have come forward publicly. For example, when reporters revealed that a juror in the Derek Chauvin trial had participated in a political protest wearing a “Black Lives Matter” T-shirt and baseball cap, they did so after the juror had identified himself and given a TV interview. The Clancy holdout, in contrast, had not given interviews, and his name is still legally sealed by the court....

https://t.co/1K3wwXoLNA

Please subscribe now to read the rest of this brilliant essay by @galexybrane !

https://t.co/1K3wwXoLNA

[Michael Shellenberger @shellenberger]

The holdout juror in the Lindsay Clancy trial behaved badly, say progressives. But he appears to have followed the law & the evidence. Behind these attacks on him is the view that some people are victims of “the system” and those who defend it are perpetrators. By @galexybrane

[Julian Reichelt @jreichelt]

Wenn sie die Medien dazu bringen können, zu behaupten, dass dieser Perverse eine Frau ist, dass Frauen Mädchen auf der Toilette vergewaltigen, dann können sie Medien dazu bringen, alles zu behaupten. Dann können sie Menschen dazu bringen, alles zu behaupten. Das ist die Macht der Propaganda. Und diese Schlagzeile ist ein Tiefpunkt in der Geschichte von BILD. Der Täter ist ein Mann. Es ist wirklich krank und gehirngewaschen, ihn als Frau zu bezeichnen.

[James Holland @James7Holland]

Ursula is currently giving her speech on the (sorry) State of the European Union.

She calls for:
- more EU taxes
- a bigger EU budget
- further militarisation of the EU
- an EU Security Council
- EU to have its own NATO article 4
- a new EU Heatwave Plan
- a new EU Kids Act
- a new EU Firefighting Fleet
- a new EU Water Initiative
- a new EU Care Deal
- Canada to become EU "associate member" (not what Carney has been saying all week..)
- more nuclear (having helped kill it in 🇩🇪)

This speech is a middle finger to the millions of Europeans who want the EU to do less, and to do it better. This is a power grab.

Brussels can't help but seek to exploit crises for its own interests, and with all EU institutions dominated by a large blob of pro-EU parties, the march to a superstate is relentless.

[Julian Reichelt @jreichelt]

BREAKING NIUS: Bundeskanzler Friedrich Merz will Social Media massiv einschränken und sagt: "Komme mir niemand mit Free Speech!" Man müsse "immer noch in der Lage sein, die Bürger vor falschen Informationen zu schützen."

Gegen Männer wie Merz haben wir das Grundrecht der Meinungsfreiheit als Abwehrrecht. Seine Sicht auf die Bürger ist gefährlich und grenzt an einen verfassungsfeindlichen Verdachtsfall.