The Inquirer Tries to Cancel Jefferson Univ. President for Liking Tweets
The Philadelphia Inquirer has just set a new low bar for its COVID-19 narrative control. Taking some lessons from China’s Cultural Revolution, writer Susan Synder has taken anonymous complaints targeting the president of Jefferson University, Mark L. Tykocinski, for… get this…liking “controversial” tweets on Twitter, and the editors of the paper presented this as news worthy enough to be placed on Sunday’s page one above the fold!
Dr. Tykocinski, who’s been president for less than a year, responded to this exposé by stating, “I regret my lack of understanding of how ‘liking’ a tweet is an implied endorsement. I also regret how my lack of understanding of the Twitter platform caused some to question my views on these complex issues.” Tykocinski says he used the like function simply to bookmark a tweet for future reference.
After chastising Tykocinski, who only has 108 followers on Twitter, to never “like” a controversial subject ever again, the Inquirer made a review of the controversial tweets the paper suggested Tykocinski “endorsed” Top of the list was former New York Times writer Alex Berenson, who was liked by Tykocinski “nearly 30 times” Berenson was removed from Twitter for misinformation early in the COVID-19 crisis, but he sued Twitter, was vindicated in court, and has had his account restored.
The Inquirer attempted to get a statement from Tykocinski endorsing the COVID-19 vaccines, but the best they could get from him was “I do not believe vaccines are harmful. The COVID-19 mRNA vaccines were originally made available through an accelerated [emergency use authorization] process, and hence, the speed at which they were developed saved millions of lives. There is still much to be learned. Academic institutions play a key role in answering these questions.”
The paper felt the need to follow this with the very worn mantra that the COVID-19 vaccines are “safe and effective.” This, of course, is required to be accepted out of hand, and to ask for any evidence that would support such a bold statement is sure to raise suspicion and, perhaps, scrutiny of your digital footprints.
One wishes President Tykocinski would not succumb to cultural bullying and simply make a brief statement that controversy is an essential feature in science, without which growth in understanding would be impossible. However, for the Philadelphia Inquirer, vaccines are beyond science, perfected serums for which only praise may be uttered in their name. Even if they are emergency use authorized only and brought to us not by our health institutions but by the Department of Defense.