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Wired reporter booted off Twitter for distributing Matt Walsh's hacked materials; Walsh says 'a Twitter suspension is going to be the least of his problems'
Screenshot taken from video on the Matt Walsh YouTube channel

Wired reporter booted off Twitter for distributing Matt Walsh's hacked materials; Walsh says 'a Twitter suspension is going to be the least of his problems'

A leftist senior reporter for Wired was booted off Twitter for distributing the contents of conservative commentator Matt Walsh's hacked accounts. Walsh has indicated that a Twitter ban may be the least of the reporter's concerns.

What's the background?

It became apparent Tuesday that Walsh had been hacked allegedly by an individual who calls himself "Doomed" through a process called SIM swapping.

According to Microsoft, SIM swapping or SIM hijacking "is a technique used by fraudsters to get control of your phone number. With your phone number, hackers can take advantage of two-factor authentication to gain access to your bank accounts, social media accounts, and more."

Fraudsters are sometimes able to mine enough data on the victim to convince the victim's mobile carrier to transfer the victim's phone number over to a different SIM card. Once this is done, the fraudster can then access the victim's accounts, by having authentication codes intended for the victim redirected instead to the fraudster's devices.

Walsh's private emails, tax information, and financial documents were rifled through. Lewd and offensive tweets were sent via his hacked Twitter account.

TheBlaze reported that Jeremy Boreing, the co-CEO and co-founder of the Daily Wire, said the hack extended to years of personal emails from Walsh.

Ben Shapiro, Walsh's friend and coworker, noted that in the wake of the hack, the "tolerant and diverse and kind crowd are celebrating, of course."

Insult to injury

Not all leftists passively enjoyed the virtual attack. Some got involved and exploited it further.
Dell Cameron, a leftist reporter at Wired, appears to have solicited Walsh's hacked materials, then wrote them up.
Andy Ngô of the Post Millennial captured screenshots of Cameron's open call for Walsh's stolen content.

After announcing in one tweet, "they got into everything," Cameron wrote, "prove me wrong kids[,] send matt walsh dms to: dell_cameron@wired.com."

Cameron ultimately got in touch with Doomed and penned a piece for Wired Wednesday, in which he described both his conversation with the hacker and the copies of stolen material that Doomed had shared with him.

The hacker told Cameron he was "merely 'bored' and felt like 'stirring up some drama.'" The Wired reporter was evidently keen to aid the criminal in that endeavor.

In the piece, Cameron gleefully shared personal information about Walsh gleaned from the hack and quoted from Walsh's private correspondence.

On Mastodon, the liberal Twitter knockoff, Cameron wrote, "Thanks for all the well-wishes, folks. And yes, it does feel great."

He went on to boast: "The Walsh hack was one of our most-read stories today, with more trafficking originating from Twitter than my editor has seen in a year. Streisand is back, baby!"

Twitter lays down the law

In addition to allegedly soliciting hacked materials, Cameron had posted screenshots of hacked materials on Twitter. For this, he was permanently suspended.

Cameron shared his suspension notice on Mastodon. It indicated he had violated Twitter's rules against distribution of hacked materials.

The notice said, "We don't permit the use of our services to directly distribute content obtained through hacking that contains private information, may put people in physical harm or danger, or contains trade secrets."
Twitter's hacked materials policy states, "The use of hacks and hacking to exfiltrate information from private computer systems can be used to manipulate the public conversation, and makes all of us less secure online. We do not condone attempts to compromise or infiltrate computer systems. As such, we don’t permit the use of our services to directly distribute content obtained through hacking by the people or groups associated with a hack."

Unlike the contents of the Hunter Biden laptop, which was abandoned in a computer repair shop and the subject of at least one criminal investigation, Walsh's accounts were targeted and hacked.

Twitter's private information policy states, "Sharing someone’s private information online without their permission, sometimes called doxxing, is a breach of their privacy and of the Twitter Rules."

One of Cameron's posts of hacked material contained a private phone number.

Additionally, the Twitter private information policy, updated in December 2022, maintains, "You may not publish or post other people's private information without their express authorization and permission. We also prohibit threatening to expose private information or incentivizing others to do so."

Walsh vs. Wired

Following Cameron's suspension, Wired managing editor Hemal Jhaveri issued a statement, claiming, "Neither Dell's story nor his Twitter feed contained hacked materials. We do not believe his account violated Twitter's policy."

Jhaveri added, "We have not received any further explanation from Twitter and our attempts to reach Twitter's press office were met with the customary poop emoji. We ask that the account be reinstated, and that Twitter provide an explanation."

Walsh responded to Wired, characterizing the statement as a "flat out lie."

"Your reporter directly solicited stolen material from my phone. A Twitter suspension is going to be the least of his problems, and yours," added Walsh.

Liberal press circles the wagons

The Daily Beast's Justin Baragona intimated that Dell Cameron's suspension was unwarranted because there is a "carve-out for reporting" in Twitter's current rules and policies.

Baragona also attempted to suggest hypocrisy on the part of Elon Musk, since Musk had denounced his predecessors for shutting down the New York Post story on the Hunter Biden laptop, which was neither hacked nor stolen.

NBC News' Ben Collins similarly equated Cameron's apparent solicitation and regurgitation of hacked content with the New York Post's investigative reporting on abandoned content of national interest.

Andy Ngô rejected Collins' suggestion and stressed the distinction, writing, "Cameron took to Twitter to ask for whoever hacked @MattWalshBlog to email him the stolen material. That person or group did & he proceeded to use that material to write a story that was shared on Twitter."

"Hunter Biden abandoned his property at a computer repair shop & the digital content was later presented to the New York Post," added Ngô. "The then-NYP reporters (@EmmaJoNYC & @FonrougeGab ) did not use Twitter to ask for someone to send them stolen material."

Rolling Stone, which recently got called out for running false reports about Walsh's coworker Michael Knowles, framed Cameron's suspension as "another day in Muskland," suggesting the action taken was "arbitrary."

Extra to defending Cameron, Rolling Stone repeatedly smeared the victim, Walsh, as "anti-sense."

As with the Daily Beast and Wired, Twitter responded to Rolling Stone's requests for comments with only a poop emoji.

Walsh has become a lightning rod for LGBT extremists' and other leftists' hatred, in no small part due to the success of his Daily Wire documentary "What Is a Woman?" which tackles social constructivism and the left's revulsion to biological truths.

OFFICIAL TRAILER: "WHAT IS A WOMAN?"youtu.be

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Joseph MacKinnon

Joseph MacKinnon

Joseph MacKinnon is a staff writer for Blaze News.
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