Detailing government collusion in censorship of political discourse on the platform. He has also repeatedly tweeted about "psyops" implying that intelligence agencies are active on Twitter.
Elon Musk promises to release the "Twitter Files"
by Anonymous | reply 262 | February 7, 2023 4:46 PM |
Definition of a psyop: [Quote]Psychological operations (PSYOP) are operations to convey selected information and indicators to audiences to influence their emotions, motives, and objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of governments, organizations, groups, and individuals.
by Anonymous | reply 1 | November 29, 2022 2:31 AM |
No wonder he likes Stephen King.
by Anonymous | reply 2 | November 29, 2022 2:33 AM |
Does he? Last I saw they were squabbling over $8.
by Anonymous | reply 3 | November 29, 2022 2:36 AM |
r3 yes he had a discussion with King after that on Twitter, you can tell Musk has some respect for King.
by Anonymous | reply 4 | November 29, 2022 2:41 AM |
This guy and Trump are truly the same. They both love to threaten to reveal something big, but never do.
by Anonymous | reply 5 | November 29, 2022 2:45 AM |
R4 How horrible...
by Anonymous | reply 6 | November 29, 2022 2:58 AM |
Sounds good to me. I'm interested to see what's in there.
by Anonymous | reply 7 | November 29, 2022 3:20 AM |
R7 He has mentioned Ferguson, which dates all the way back to 2014.
by Anonymous | reply 8 | November 29, 2022 3:23 AM |
There's also the portal Twitter made available to government officials to make specific requests for posts or users to be censored (under the guise of national security:)
by Anonymous | reply 9 | November 29, 2022 3:25 AM |
r5 Wow.
by Anonymous | reply 10 | November 29, 2022 3:45 AM |
America is not the only country that does these types of things.
There's also laws in some of the UK countries that allow the government to COMPLETELY shut down any mention of something by the press. It's called a D notice.
They also have injunctions that allow rich people to go to court and get a judge to order the media not to mention the person's name in regards to something/anything. It can be as minor as an affair to as serious as a crime, like child molestation. It costs about $50,000 in attorney/court fees. Elton John's husband, David Beckham, Prince William and a bunch of other celebs have gotten them (all to keep the media from reporting on an affair or to stop them from reporting further on affairs they've had).
by Anonymous | reply 11 | November 29, 2022 3:47 AM |
Yes dear, but America has a constitution which specifically forbids the government doing things like this, Other countries do not.
by Anonymous | reply 12 | November 29, 2022 3:49 AM |
R11 Kind of amazed they can get away with that in the U.K. Has there not been any political opposition to that?
It's very explicitly illegal in the U.S. for the government to suppress speech, unless there is a threat to national security. That's why the justification for censorship is always a foreign military threat of some kind, such as the myth of Russian trolls.
If it can be demonstrated that some of these officials didn't have national defense in mind when they were, say, getting opposition party political candidates kicked off of Twitter there will be hell to pay.
by Anonymous | reply 13 | November 29, 2022 4:01 AM |
[quote]myth of Russian trolls.
Myth? Those trolls are very much real. Many credible news outlets like the NYT to academics have investigated and found it to be true. You're not coming off well here.
by Anonymous | reply 14 | November 29, 2022 4:09 AM |
R14 Ahem... BULLSHIT. Russian trolls are a legal fiction to justify mass censorship. The DHS can't openly call for banning specific political viewpoints, can they?
by Anonymous | reply 15 | November 29, 2022 4:13 AM |
Raise your hand, everyone who has been hysterically screeched at and accused of being Boris ☝️
by Anonymous | reply 16 | November 29, 2022 4:15 AM |
R16 If you're denying that Russian trolls exist then I'm not shocked.
by Anonymous | reply 17 | November 29, 2022 4:20 AM |
Actually, Musk revealing these twitter documents might go some way to establishing the veracity - or lack thereof - of the "Russian Trolls" accusations.
I can't wait for him to do this. I'm dying to see what really happened behind the scenes over there.
by Anonymous | reply 18 | November 29, 2022 4:23 AM |
Musk is now attacking Apple because they've stopped advertising on Twitter. Twitter is going to be Musk's downfall. Mark my words: within 5 years this asshole will be bankrupt. He's nuts.
by Anonymous | reply 19 | November 29, 2022 4:28 AM |
R18 except I expect him to cherry pick what gets revealed. Why do you trust him? Everything he's done has pointed towards a far right agenda. He tweeted out what Putin demands for Ukraine and that Vindman is a puppeteer.
by Anonymous | reply 20 | November 29, 2022 4:39 AM |
He attacked Vindman so Musk is definitely in Putin's corner. I wonder if he's also a Putin oligarch.
by Anonymous | reply 21 | November 29, 2022 4:41 AM |
R20 What do you think he'll leave out?
by Anonymous | reply 22 | November 29, 2022 4:42 AM |
He's full of shit.
by Anonymous | reply 23 | November 29, 2022 4:44 AM |
Reinstating Donald Trump's account is also part of it when Trump is a far-right authoritarian who wants to seize control of this country, who will ignore the Constitution, suspend elections, and install himself as dictator.
R22 What do you think when Elon has made his politics clear? I don't trust him to be objective and I'm surprised anyone else would.
by Anonymous | reply 24 | November 29, 2022 4:44 AM |
So you'll dismiss anything released as disinformation.
by Anonymous | reply 25 | November 29, 2022 4:45 AM |
R25 No, I said that I think he will cherry pick.
by Anonymous | reply 26 | November 29, 2022 4:46 AM |
R26 ...and what will he be leaving out?
by Anonymous | reply 27 | November 29, 2022 4:48 AM |
I want to see how many emails ending in ".gov" he releases.
It's obviously no coincidence that Apple moved to strike him only hours after he announced he is going to do this. As if to say "don't you fucking DARE."
Makes me want to see what's under the hood all the more.
by Anonymous | reply 28 | November 29, 2022 5:07 AM |
While Musk is busy doing this, he isn't doing anything worthwhile. He's a crackpot rightwinger.
by Anonymous | reply 29 | November 29, 2022 5:09 AM |
Apple's threatened delisting has got him all freaked out. But if he releases private gov communications I am not sure that will be a winning play to get Apple to come back since it means that he is not able to be trusted. Apple is taking this seriously because they want to show the government that social media can self-regulate.
by Anonymous | reply 30 | November 29, 2022 5:10 AM |
No, Apple wants to stay on the good side of this government, who have basically announced that they are planning on targeting Musk. They have demanded this and Tim Cook is answering their demand.
by Anonymous | reply 31 | November 29, 2022 5:18 AM |
by Anonymous | reply 32 | November 29, 2022 5:38 AM |
Ah yes. Hunter Biden's laptop. That's what he's going to focus on.
by Anonymous | reply 33 | November 29, 2022 5:41 AM |
Oh - you mean the time that the New York Post was kicked off twitter for weeks on end for publishing a story that everyone **now** acknowleges was entirely true?
Yes. I'd like to see the emails from the WH to twitter on that one. Should be very interesting!
by Anonymous | reply 34 | November 29, 2022 5:49 AM |
The WH at the time was Republican though?
by Anonymous | reply 35 | November 29, 2022 6:04 AM |
Musk called Vindman a puppeteer.
[quote]If Vindman had not spoken out at the risk of his career, Ukraine might have been cut off by a vengeful President Trump from the US aid it needed to prepare its defense against Putin's impending invasion.
[bold]Which is why enemies of Ukraine and democracy hate Vindman so much.
by Anonymous | reply 36 | November 29, 2022 6:06 AM |
That laptop story censoring will have been a decision made by Twitter themselves, not something they were ordered to by the government.
Dorsey was forced to admit during a congressional hearing on misinformation and social media in March last year that blocking The Post’s report weeks before the presidential election was a “total mistake” — but he stopped short of revealing who was responsible for the blunder.
He also added that the move to block The Post’s access to its own Twitter account was down to a “process error.”
by Anonymous | reply 37 | November 29, 2022 6:07 AM |
Good point, r35. Sorry, I should have specified .gov world, not WH.
by Anonymous | reply 38 | November 29, 2022 6:08 AM |
R36 And here's the tweet of Putin's demands for Ukraine that Elon put out:
by Anonymous | reply 39 | November 29, 2022 6:10 AM |
No, it was not necessarily a decision took on its own, r37, though it could have been. That's what we're going to find out.
Ever since Zuckerberg admitted that government entities were pressuring FB to eliminate the story off their platform I've been intrigued by this story.
by Anonymous | reply 40 | November 29, 2022 6:11 AM |
so why during a *congressional hearing* didn't Dorsey say 'We were told to by the .gov world'?
by Anonymous | reply 41 | November 29, 2022 6:12 AM |
^^^ a decision twitter took on it's own
by Anonymous | reply 42 | November 29, 2022 6:14 AM |
Good question, r41.
I'm sure there are going to be many people with many questions once he releases these files.
by Anonymous | reply 43 | November 29, 2022 6:15 AM |
Yeah, I won't be shocked if it really isn't the scandalous gov. world conspiracy that people desperately want. It's much more likely that people working at Twitter just decided to do it (which actually, they are allowed to - private companies are allowed to choose who gets to post and what kind of things are posted - DL bans at will and it's perfectly legal for them to).
by Anonymous | reply 44 | November 29, 2022 6:17 AM |
It's necessary for the truth to be exposed. People have been in denial about the situation and having a Big Tech company like Twitter do a full confession is going to blow a hole in the veil.
by Anonymous | reply 45 | November 29, 2022 6:18 AM |
I'm not one of those people r44, I just want to know what the fuck happened there. Perhaps it's because I started my career at the NYP. What twitter did there was, to me, fucking scandalous.
Maybe for you, r44, it's not at all scandalous and media **should** be punished for publishing things you don't like, as they are under authoritarian regimes. I don't think like that and I never will. Sorry.
by Anonymous | reply 46 | November 29, 2022 6:21 AM |
R46 Calm down, I've already posted about how Dorsey says that it was a mistake and I agree with that. The .gov conspiracies are a whole 'nother world though.
by Anonymous | reply 47 | November 29, 2022 6:23 AM |
Also, you can't deny that the 'Hunter Biden's laptop!' is exaggerated and repetitive propaganda and was being used very similarly to how 'Hillary's emails!' was being used (even though she barely did anything much scandalous). Rags like Murdoch's NY Post and Fox News know what they're doing when they keep banging on that drum and amplifying it.
by Anonymous | reply 48 | November 29, 2022 6:26 AM |
r47 ".gov" is my own personal shorthand for US government worker. When I refer to emails from, say, my alma mater, I refer to ".ac.uk", etc.
I know of no one else who uses it, so I'm not sure how it's possible that there are ".gov conspiracies". people, referring to the group you just invented.
No group. Just me, just my own personal view, just my personal way of expressing myself. That's it.
by Anonymous | reply 49 | November 29, 2022 6:27 AM |
R49 Fairly clear that I was referring to you? I was using the term that you used.
by Anonymous | reply 50 | November 29, 2022 6:29 AM |
I don't think it was a "conspiracy".
I think that what happened to Zuckerberg also happened to Twitter. We have evidence in the form of Zuckerberg's own statements that the US government was pressuring social media to delete the story on their platforms.
Where does your "conspiracy" allegation come from? Or did you just lazily throw it in, in order to baselessly denigrate and discredit my comment?
I think we both know the answer to that question, don't we, r50?
by Anonymous | reply 51 | November 29, 2022 6:34 AM |
r45 Just what do you think is "the Truth" that will be exposed? So far, the "truth" as I have read it , is that there is a lap top with a very dubious chain of custody. The lap top appears to have some Hunter Biden files on it. There is still no evidence that it IS Hunter Biden's laptop. Every single time that people in the chain of custody had opportunities to share the hard drive with law enforcement OR the media, those people balked. Enormous conspiracy theories have been generated from something that we don't even know exists. What everyone knows is that Hunter Biden has admitted to having been a drug addict and to have made some very poor decisions. What everyone knows is that Hunter Biden used his father's good name and reputation to get himself appointed to boards and other corporate jobs for which he was only marginally qualified.
What Fox and others keep trying to imply is that Hunter Biden's position on a board of a Ukrainian energy company got Biden Senior to intervene on behalf of that company with the Ukrainian government by insisting on the firing of the Ukrainian prosecutor. What Fox doesn't say is that that prosecutor was thoroughly corrupt, being paid under the table by all sorts of people doing business with Ukraine, and nearly every country in the EU was clamoring for the firing of that prosecutor. No, Fox won't say that because it likes to create the impression that Biden senior actually aided in the corruption of the Ukrainian government.
Having stories like that circulate and get liked and liked and liked on social media doesn't in any way get to the bottom of any sort of story and the facts are completely obscured while people get more and more agitated. It's all in who has the money and the megaphone to promote a story so often that it becomes something factual in the minds of less informed readers.
by Anonymous | reply 52 | November 29, 2022 6:34 AM |
The "Truth" I am interested in knowing, r52, is whether the US government has been meddling with social media platforms. You are from the UK, where this is all fine, but I came to work in America (from the UK) in part FOR its 1st amendment. It really means something to me. I hold it very dear, and I very much want to know if there has been some anti-constitutional fuckery going on here.
by Anonymous | reply 53 | November 29, 2022 6:42 AM |
Lol, I doubt it when Dorsey was questioned in congress about it and didn't say that people using official .gov emails told Twitter to do it. It would be a great way to deflect blame but he just blamed it on an 'mistake' that internal processes/people committed.
by Anonymous | reply 54 | November 29, 2022 6:45 AM |
Well, I suppose, r54, this is exactly what we will find out. Either he told the truth or he lied to congress, and the email trail will tell the true tale.
by Anonymous | reply 55 | November 29, 2022 6:46 AM |
Like this mistake someone internal who was working at the NY Post made!
by Anonymous | reply 56 | November 29, 2022 6:47 AM |
I suspect no "mistakes" of any kind were made in the Hunter Biden laptop story.
I suspect that the US government attempted to strip the NY Post of their first amendment right to publish ANY FUCKING THING THEY WANT TO, and tried to use social media to do so.
A free press is essential, and from all appearances, it looks like the US government may have tried to strip an American press organ of the latter's constitutionally guaranteed right to disseminate their work without government interference.
I don't know if they did or they didn't, but I want to know the truth.
by Anonymous | reply 57 | November 29, 2022 6:53 AM |
R57 But the NY Post was still completely free to publish the story on their website and freely did so throughout. Many other platforms featured the story (Fox News, alternative Twitter-like social media, even mainstream news that isn't pro-GOP). You still haven't properly acknowledged that Twitter is legally free to choose what gets posted there. Now, if there were official .gov world demands, sure but going from what Dorsey told Congress it seems unlikely. Dorsey even says that it was a mistake.
by Anonymous | reply 58 | November 29, 2022 6:58 AM |
If the government got involved in any way, r58, it's unconstitutional and illegal. Split hairs all you like in order to dodge that reality, but you're going to have to deal with the reality at some point anyway.
Maybe they did, maybe they didn't. I don't know, but the old-school journalist in me very much wants to dig down to whatever the truth is there. If you don't like that, then, well, whatever. I don't give a fuck what you want and I never will.
by Anonymous | reply 59 | November 29, 2022 7:03 AM |
R59 How did you not read this: "Now, if there were official .gov world demands, sure"
Now, another thing that makes me suspicious is Elon's teasing of this upcoming 'Twitter Files' instead of just posting the damn files. It feels like he's doing it to create an impression amongst people who don't pay close attention that there were big and scandalous things going on at Twitter.
by Anonymous | reply 60 | November 29, 2022 7:05 AM |
My guess is that he's doing it to provoke a reaction among those who do not want him to publish, r60. I suspect he was hoping they would out themselves that way without him having to lift a finger, which Tim Cook duly did.
by Anonymous | reply 61 | November 29, 2022 7:10 AM |
I hear Stephen King isn't overly fond of him though R2.
by Anonymous | reply 62 | November 29, 2022 7:16 AM |
R61 How did Tim Cook 'duly' do that? As far as I know Apple's threatened delisting was before Elon touted his amazing Twitter Files.
I think Elon is a troll who has fallen into the far right world of thinking and is way out of his depth when it comes to business and what they want from a social media platform (it has to be brand safe and not break the law). Tim Cook's threatened delisting was a business decision, ultimately.
by Anonymous | reply 63 | November 29, 2022 7:17 AM |
r63 Sure, Jan,
by Anonymous | reply 64 | November 29, 2022 7:25 AM |
r19: and it just seems like he's a bit mixed up. If Apple has really stopped their ads on twitter, it doesn't mean they are against free speech. JFC, that's just delusional. Maybe they just don't buy into Trump coming back.
by Anonymous | reply 65 | November 29, 2022 7:26 AM |
R64 Well, here's a case study - Apple delisted Parler from their AppStore and what they required for Parler to be allowed back on.
"Parler, the app that is popular among conservatives, will be available on Apple’s app store after being booted from it in January following the Capitol riots
Last month, Apple announced that the app would be available to people on the app store once Parler changed its content moderation policies. Apple made the announcement in a letter addressed to members of Congress.
In that letter, Apple said it found “a significant number of posts” on Parler that violated its app guidelines for objectionable content, including “posts that encouraged violence, denigrated various ethnic groups, races and religions, glorified Nazism, and called for violence against specific people.”
Apple said in the letter that after a back-and-forth with Parler, they eventually agreed to updates to the app and its moderation practices that would allow it to come back on the app store.
Those content moderation changes, according to the Washington Post, will include artificial intelligence labeling specific posts as “hate.” Posts that get that label won’t be visible on iPhones.
The Post notes that banning hate speech was a condition Apple insisted on for being reinstated on the app store.
“The entire Parler team has worked hard to address Apple’s concerns without compromising our core mission,” Interim CEO Mark Meckler told the Verge in a statement. “Anything allowed on the Parler network but not in the iOS app will remain accessible through our web-based and Android versions. This is a win-win for Parler, its users, and free speech.”
The Verge notes that Parler said its new algorithm will “automatically detect violent or inciting content, while still preserving user privacy.”
by Anonymous | reply 66 | November 29, 2022 7:29 AM |
Apple doesn't allow plenty of apps. Business Insider has listed some of them and you can clearly see that they don't like apps that allow illegality, racism, homophobia and that kind of stuff.
by Anonymous | reply 67 | November 29, 2022 7:32 AM |
r57:Well, the truth may be, if you're some clone of Rupert Murdoch, maybe you want to print any twisted version of any "truth" you care to promote. What does that have to do with your passionate desire for the "truth"?
by Anonymous | reply 68 | November 29, 2022 7:33 AM |
Elon will run aground on the dangerous shoals of Apple and the United States government. The Department of Justice and the IRS have many people who are VERY passionate regarding the truth.
by Anonymous | reply 69 | November 29, 2022 7:36 AM |
r65, I am looking at twitter right now and there is a huge Apple ad right in the middle of my timeline.
by Anonymous | reply 70 | November 29, 2022 7:37 AM |
Supposedly Apple has stopped 'most' of their ads on Twitter. The ones that remain are probably the ones they are confident appear against 'brand safe' content. (This is just my speculation.)
by Anonymous | reply 71 | November 29, 2022 7:38 AM |
Stupid poll.
by Anonymous | reply 72 | November 29, 2022 7:40 AM |
r6. Good to see the authoritarians like yourself outing themselves on here. Anything to stop him, right?
You, as a pro-Authoritarian, do not morally deserve the protection that your astonishing Constitution affords you, but I would have it no other way except that it continues to protect you, because I am the polar opposite to you and to those like you.
by Anonymous | reply 73 | November 29, 2022 7:45 AM |
With Twitter coming clean, the question is whether or not the other platforms will also admit their complicity.
by Anonymous | reply 74 | November 29, 2022 7:53 AM |
R74 Let's wait for the evidence first buddy. Elon still has not posted the Twitter Files.
by Anonymous | reply 75 | November 29, 2022 7:55 AM |
"@d_feldman In 2020 Apple deleted Fortnite, which was literally paying them billions a year in IAP. They’d delete Twitter without blinking.
Fortnite also had more monthly players than Twitter has accounts (and a good percentage of Twitter accounts are inactive)
They could also gradually escalate, for example deranking in the App Store, disabling in Europe where Twitter is likely no longer GDPR compliant, or disabling Apple login"
by Anonymous | reply 76 | November 29, 2022 7:58 AM |
Well, r74, indeed.
by Anonymous | reply 77 | November 29, 2022 7:58 AM |
"@faizsays Documents show why Apple pulling its Twitter ads is devastating for Elon Musk: In the first quarter of 2022, Apple was Twitter's top advertiser, accounting for nearly $50M in revenue"
Elon is shitting himself. Trying to manufacture a spat with Apple to try to pressure Apple into not delisting Twitter because it would make them look bad to those not paying close attention as to the real reasons why Apple is threatening to.
by Anonymous | reply 78 | November 29, 2022 8:27 AM |
r69 has found the man and now he looks forward to The Party 'finding' the crime!
by Anonymous | reply 79 | November 29, 2022 8:27 AM |
Trump's TruthSocial is listed in Apple's AppStore too. The real issue is brand safety and legal compliance. Elon has fired so many content moderators and other legal people... the real reason for Apple's concern.
by Anonymous | reply 80 | November 29, 2022 8:32 AM |
How is it possible that all the racists on Truth Social are ok by Apple but Twitter is suddenly not?
by Anonymous | reply 81 | November 29, 2022 8:34 AM |
They have probably reached an agreement with Apple similar to what Parler did (see R66). Basically censoring TruthSocial of the worst hate elements for Apple while it's probably uncensored for Android and PCs.
by Anonymous | reply 82 | November 29, 2022 8:37 AM |
Why is anyone on here even worried about what Elon Musk does and does not release?
Let him release whatever he likes. Surely it will have zero impact on the average person.
What's the problem?
by Anonymous | reply 83 | November 29, 2022 9:01 AM |
He's turning more into Trump every day.
by Anonymous | reply 84 | November 29, 2022 9:27 AM |
r79: And how can he not? He is hot to party down with criminals, is he not? And do you realize it's you who sound like the Joe McCarthy in this thread? You're not in some way attached to Melon Husk are you? As in, joined at the hip? Will it make a better Christmas for you? I don't even give a shit, about Musk, Twitter, Trump or the government. And I doubt if you do either, you just get your fat tits in a twist over these threads you think you own.
by Anonymous | reply 85 | November 29, 2022 9:51 AM |
Everyone here is so afraid of facts.
by Anonymous | reply 86 | November 29, 2022 10:36 AM |
R86 Sure, I'll bite, what facts?
by Anonymous | reply 87 | November 29, 2022 10:46 AM |
r87 Were waiting for them. That's what this entire thread is about, r87.
Come to that, r87. Why are you here?
Why are you so worried about what some billionare might do with social media?
How does this affect your life, r87?
by Anonymous | reply 88 | November 29, 2022 10:50 AM |
R88 I am allowed to be here, you know. It's a discussion forum. I'm not exactly 'worried' either. It doesn't affect my life. I just find it very interesting.
by Anonymous | reply 89 | November 29, 2022 10:59 AM |
I also see you trying to shut me down...
by Anonymous | reply 90 | November 29, 2022 11:01 AM |
Who is trying to shut you down and how, r90?
by Anonymous | reply 91 | November 29, 2022 11:04 AM |
Too many people became reliant on Twitter as a platform. Tells you the dangers of an echo chamber. Some of the weaker ones could not cope. I don’t use Twitter but I had one particular friend devastated to tears when Elon bought Twitter. I just don’t get it.
by Anonymous | reply 94 | November 29, 2022 1:09 PM |
R69 Ooh, weaponizing government institutions to persecute political enemies!
by Anonymous | reply 95 | November 29, 2022 1:52 PM |
R57 does ANY FUCKING THING include libel? I’m Not saying that’s what’s at stake specifically in this case, just want your hot take on the 1st.
by Anonymous | reply 96 | November 29, 2022 3:51 PM |
R96 It's not libel if it's provable in court.
by Anonymous | reply 97 | November 29, 2022 4:04 PM |
It's well over 24 hours and still no Twitter Files although I understand that 'soon' is subjective so let's give him longer. What sucks is that the right wing has seized on this and is pumping it as propaganda to create a false image. Which I suspect was Elon's intention, to try to use it against Apple if they pull the app.
by Anonymous | reply 98 | November 30, 2022 7:13 AM |
R97 But you are still not legally allowed to libel someone i.e. there are limits to 'free speech' in practice.
by Anonymous | reply 99 | November 30, 2022 7:14 AM |
🎶 do do do do do do THE TWITTER FILES do do do do do do 🎶
by Anonymous | reply 100 | November 30, 2022 7:28 AM |
R98 That's an incredibly short time frame, and he also never gave one. I took his wording to mean "within the next year or so."
by Anonymous | reply 101 | November 30, 2022 7:28 AM |
R101 Wow, that's a ridiculously long time in my opinion. How long does it take to release at least the basic things? Shows how subjective "soon" is. I object to the teasing out of it more than anything else. It allows people to fill in the gaps and the right wing is already weaponizing it but I think that's what he wanted.
by Anonymous | reply 102 | November 30, 2022 7:31 AM |
R102 We're talking about almost 15 year's worth of emails from dozens of people. A year is a short time frame on its own to dig through all that material.
by Anonymous | reply 103 | November 30, 2022 7:42 AM |
Surely he already knows what the scandalous things are? Especially if .gov world people told Twitter to do things - that would be a scandal. Any other censorship would be perfectly legal since Twitter is a private company who is allowed to choose who and what gets posted on there.
by Anonymous | reply 104 | November 30, 2022 7:46 AM |
R104 The government censorship portal is already starting to leak, so I'm assuming they're going to start with that.
by Anonymous | reply 105 | November 30, 2022 7:50 AM |
R105 Do you have a link?
by Anonymous | reply 106 | November 30, 2022 7:54 AM |
[quote] We have evidence in the form of Zuckerberg's own statements that the US government was pressuring social media to delete the story on their platforms.
You seem to be laboring under the delusional assumption that this amounts to government censorship. I can assure you that it does not. Dummy.
by Anonymous | reply 107 | November 30, 2022 9:24 AM |
The "government collusion" is almost certainly conversations the government had with all social media companies about foreign propaganda and large misinformation campaigns.
Much like Assange, Musk will release only that which he thinks makes Democrats look bad, and he won't release anything from Trump even though we know, because it's already been reported on, that Trump demanded all sorts of things be removed from Twitter (and FB) on a regular basis.
by Anonymous | reply 108 | November 30, 2022 9:30 AM |
When considering the First Amendment, you have to remember that some categories of speech are not protected from government restrictions. The main categories are incitement, defamation, fraud, obscenity, child pornography, fighting words, and threats.
by Anonymous | reply 109 | November 30, 2022 10:29 AM |
[quote]r78 Elon is shitting himself.
He's fine. He sends his love.
by Anonymous | reply 110 | November 30, 2022 2:31 PM |
R110 In terms of Twitter from a business perspective he's not though, is he? The EU is getting in on this now:
"The EU has threatened Elon Musk’s Twitter with a European ban unless the billionaire abides by its strict rules on content moderation, setting up a regulatory battle over the future of the social network.
Thierry Breton, the EU’s commissioner in charge of implementing the bloc’s digital rules, made the threat during a video meeting with Musk on Wednesday, according to people with knowledge of the conversation.
Breton told Musk he must adhere to a checklist of rules, including ditching an “arbitrary” approach to reinstating banned users, pursuing disinformation “aggressively” and agreeing to an “extensive independent audit” of the platform by next year.
Musk was warned that unless he stuck to those rules Twitter risked infringing the EU’s new Digital Services Act, a landmark law that sets the global standard for how Big Tech must police content on the internet. Breton reiterated that the law meant, if in breach, Twitter could face a Europe-wide ban or fines of up to 6 per cent of global turnover."
by Anonymous | reply 111 | November 30, 2022 6:15 PM |
The EU is dependent on propaganda to exist.
by Anonymous | reply 112 | December 1, 2022 10:23 AM |
R111, other tech companies have challenged the EU in court over their regulations, and lost.
by Anonymous | reply 113 | December 1, 2022 12:03 PM |
Twitter's overrun with anti-vaxxers and rightwingers. It's done. Stick a fork in it. I wonder if somebody will come up with another twitter.
by Anonymous | reply 114 | December 1, 2022 4:56 PM |
Can't Twitter do like it does in other countries with authoritarian governments and censor only within the EU what the EU doesn't want its citizens to know about?
by Anonymous | reply 115 | December 2, 2022 3:47 AM |
I keep reading this thread title as "Twitter Flies."
by Anonymous | reply 116 | December 2, 2022 4:01 AM |
So now that Taibbi has tweeted their amazing evidence about Hunter Biden's laptop being suppressed, all they have is that the Biden campaign made requests (Biden held no political office and was a private citizen at the time). Taibbi even admits that Republicans also made requests.
There was no .gov world conspiracy and nothing illegal happened after all - just a Twitter screw up. Shocker.
by Anonymous | reply 117 | December 3, 2022 1:39 AM |
I haven't read it yet. It's long. But here.
by Anonymous | reply 118 | December 3, 2022 1:52 AM |
Dickhead Elon is erroneously tweeting that there was government involvement when Taibbi says that there wasn't:
"@elonmusk
Twitter acting by itself to suppress free speech is not a 1st amendment violation, but acting under orders from the government to suppress free speech, with no judicial review, is. If this isn’t a violation of the Constitution’s First Amendment, what is?"
"@mtaibbi
22. Although several sources recalled hearing about a “general” warning from federal law enforcement that summer about possible foreign hacks, there’s no evidence - that I've seen - of any government involvement in the laptop story. In fact, that might have been the problem..."
by Anonymous | reply 119 | December 3, 2022 2:06 AM |
They dumped this WikiLeaks style, but as an absolutely massive thread of tweets that goes on and on. Very hard to read.
It appears to only apply to the suppression of the Hunter Biden article published by the New York Postnin October of 2020.
Here's a (slightly) clearer and easier to read version:
by Anonymous | reply 120 | December 3, 2022 8:18 AM |
California House Representative Ro Khanna was the only Democrat to contact Twitter with concerns about First Amendment violations after they suspended the White House Press Secretary's account for tweeting the Hunter Biden article:
by Anonymous | reply 121 | December 3, 2022 8:21 AM |
Here's Rep. Khanna's email to Vijaya Gadde in which he explains the First Amendment to her:
by Anonymous | reply 122 | December 3, 2022 8:34 AM |
[Quote]Twitter took extraordinary steps to suppress the story, removing links and posting warnings that it may be “unsafe.” They even blocked its transmission via direct message, a tool hitherto reserved for extreme cases, e.g. child pornography.
by Anonymous | reply 123 | December 3, 2022 8:39 AM |
[Quote]The decision was made at the highest levels of the company, but without the knowledge of CEO Jack Dorsey, with former head of legal, policy and trust Vijaya Gadde playing a key role.
[Quote]“They just freelanced it,” is how one former employee characterized the decision. “Hacking was the excuse, but within a few hours, pretty much everyone realized that wasn’t going to hold. But no one had the guts to reverse it.”
[Quote]You can see the confusion in the following lengthy exchange, which ends up including Gadde and former Trust and safety chief Yoel Roth. Comms official Trenton Kennedy writes, “I'm struggling to understand the policy basis for marking this as unsafe”:
by Anonymous | reply 124 | December 3, 2022 8:50 AM |
[Quote]By this point “everyone knew this was fucked,” said one former employee, but the response was essentially to err on the side of… continuing to err.
[Quote]Former VP of Global Comms Brandon Borrman asks, “Can we truthfully claim that this is part of the policy?”
[Quote]To which former Deputy General Counsel Jim Baker again seems to advise staying the non-course, because “caution is warranted”:
Here's Baker's e-mail:
by Anonymous | reply 125 | December 3, 2022 8:54 AM |
Someone's trying very hard to sell this story.
by Anonymous | reply 126 | December 3, 2022 8:55 AM |
I had forgotten that they justification for supressing the story at the time was that the materials had supposedly been hacked. As pointed out by Rep. Ro Khanna above, that doesn't affect whether the materials can legally be published.
There doesn't seem to be an existing documentation of the original emails in which the decision was made to suppress the story and take steps to use the site tools to censor it. I'm assuming those were all deleted.
by Anonymous | reply 127 | December 3, 2022 8:58 AM |
The main culprits appear to be the Twitter legal department, headed by Vijaya Gadde who has a J.D. from N.Y.U. and was pretending to be confused about what the First Amendment is in an e-mail exchange with a congressional representative.
by Anonymous | reply 128 | December 3, 2022 9:00 AM |
James Baker quoted in R125 is a former FBI attorney who left the agency in 2017 and now teaches at Harvard Law:
by Anonymous | reply 129 | December 3, 2022 9:03 AM |
FYI I checked and R120, R121, R122, R123, R124, R125, R127, R128 and R129 are all the same poster.
by Anonymous | reply 130 | December 3, 2022 9:06 AM |
R130 Yeah, no shit you dumbfuck. I'm providing a summary. You're welcome.
by Anonymous | reply 131 | December 3, 2022 9:07 AM |
The Supreme Court is reviewing Section 230 right now. I don't trust SCOTUS, they will do anything to appease their Right Wing Lords but maybe they will remove whatever protection Musk, Google and FB have right now. Musk should be very careful about reinstating those Twitter accounts.
by Anonymous | reply 132 | December 3, 2022 9:14 AM |
[Quote]By 2020, requests from connected actors to delete tweets were routine. One executive would write to another: “More to review from the Biden team.” The reply would come back: “Handled.”
[Quote]Both parties had access to these tools. For instance, in 2020, requests from both the Trump White House and the Biden campaign were received and honored.
He doesn't go into any additional detail about this and I wish he had.
Like I said, it seems that all of the smoking gun documentation which would lay out exactly what happened in detail has been scrubbed.
by Anonymous | reply 133 | December 3, 2022 9:14 AM |
R132 Section 230 needs to die. May it happen quickly.
by Anonymous | reply 134 | December 3, 2022 9:16 AM |
R131 It's not a summary, it's flooding the zone. Are you going to 'summarize' with 36 posts? People can read Taibbi's 36 tweets for themselves from the link provided at R118.
by Anonymous | reply 135 | December 3, 2022 9:20 AM |
Such silly, stupid shit.
Fuck every stupid moron who thinks this is something.
by Anonymous | reply 136 | December 3, 2022 9:23 AM |
R135 Keep scrolling along and it won't be your problem.
Unless your actual problem is that people are talking about this.
by Anonymous | reply 137 | December 3, 2022 9:42 AM |
The New York Post is finally having their day.
by Anonymous | reply 138 | December 3, 2022 12:37 PM |
Yep. Australian billionaire Murdoch-owned NY Post. A trashy right-wing piece of shit tabloid who thinks that Hunter Biden's laptop is big news that will manipulate the idiot population into voting Republican. I can't hold it against stupid people but it's the clever but sociopathic people who create the real evil in this world.
by Anonymous | reply 140 | December 3, 2022 12:40 PM |
The Intercept's Lee Fang:
[Quote]Taibbi confirms that Twitter exec Vijaya Gadde played a key role in suppressing the Oct. 2020 Hunter Biden laptop story. Gadde was later appointed by the Biden admin to an advisory role shaping the Department of Homeland Security's "disinfo" policy.
[Quote]Gadde was appointed to the DHS panel in December 2021 as part of a team crafting policy for "combating misinformation and disinformation impacting the security of critical infrastructure."
by Anonymous | reply 141 | December 3, 2022 11:38 PM |
Boohoo, the NYPost didn't get the smoking gun they are convinced exists (hint: it DOESN'T exist).
“Look, I think we’ve seen quite a bit that’s useful. It’s not really the smoking gun we’d hoped for,” said New York Post columnist Miranda Devine on Carlson’s show. She claimed without evidence that Musk “held back some material.”
“So far I’m deeply underwhelmed,” tweeted Sebastian Gorka, a former deputy assistant to Trump.
by Anonymous | reply 142 | December 3, 2022 11:41 PM |
Nobody cares.
by Anonymous | reply 143 | December 3, 2022 11:42 PM |
LMAO Gadde's committee advised on the creation of the Disinformation Governance Board 😂
by Anonymous | reply 144 | December 3, 2022 11:47 PM |
At this point I'm just opposed in principle to anything Elon Musk says and does. He is so fucking vile.
by Anonymous | reply 145 | December 4, 2022 12:02 AM |
He did an hour long Q & A in which he said there's another drop coming, this time via Bari Weiss. HE said Taibbi and Weiss have total discretion over what gets dropped. He said they'll keep dropping stories they think the public should know about, and that after they've dropped all the relevant stories, they will do a full document dump so that people can pick through them and find anything that Taibbi and Weiss have missed.
by Anonymous | reply 146 | December 4, 2022 12:19 AM |
R146 Thanks, I missed that.
by Anonymous | reply 147 | December 4, 2022 6:45 PM |
Apparently he also said he's going to avoid public appearances for a while for fear of being assassinated.
by Anonymous | reply 148 | December 4, 2022 6:46 PM |
Biden wasn't President when this occurred, Trump was. So Musk can't claim it was government intervention stifling free speech.
by Anonymous | reply 149 | December 4, 2022 6:58 PM |
Can someone please tweet Bari wiess and ask her about the LAPD chief that commented to her that they weren’t going to be doing any police work due to BLM protests. She quoted the LAPD saying he was retaliating for the protests by intentionally letting crime fester.
Please tell me one of you have the guts to tweet her and hold her accountable.
by Anonymous | reply 150 | December 4, 2022 11:47 PM |
Why don't you do it yourself? Weiss won't care anyway.
by Anonymous | reply 151 | December 5, 2022 12:12 AM |
r148 Musk isn't the only one who will need added security. So will Taibbi and Weiss. I hope he's supplying it for them.
by Anonymous | reply 152 | December 5, 2022 12:15 AM |
Link? Has she published?
by Anonymous | reply 153 | December 5, 2022 12:17 AM |
Why would anyone want to kill him merely for releasing twitter files?
by Anonymous | reply 154 | December 5, 2022 12:58 AM |
What a drama queen. Stop giving this clown attention. Doesn’t he have something better to do with his time besides trolling?
by Anonymous | reply 155 | December 5, 2022 1:00 AM |
Bari Weiss is a lunatic. She tried to get a professor fired for daring to say anything negative about Israel. She’s another Miss Freedom of Speech… until you say something she doesn’t like.
by Anonymous | reply 156 | December 5, 2022 1:01 AM |
I don’t have twitter somebody should tweet her. She needs to be on record about the cops.
Sure would explain a lot of unsolved cases like the gay murders in nyc. They have just stopped doing police work but still collecting millions.
by Anonymous | reply 157 | December 5, 2022 5:56 AM |
She is helping to obstruct justice and enabling the criminal negligence by not fully reporting her findings. She is covering it up. Probably saving it for a book or something.
by Anonymous | reply 158 | December 5, 2022 6:01 AM |
People give Maggie H hell but let her slide? What gives?
by Anonymous | reply 159 | December 5, 2022 6:01 AM |
Why am I not surprised that the vile twat Bari Weiss weaseled her way into this shit show?
by Anonymous | reply 160 | December 5, 2022 8:07 AM |
This is the full Twitter thread by reporter Matt Taibbi. Matt Taibbi 1. Thread: THE TWITTER FILES 2. What you're about to read is the first installment in a series, based upon thousands of internal documents obtained by sources at Twitter. 3. The "Twitter Files" tell an incredible story from inside one of the world's largest and most influential social media platforms. It is a Frankensteinian tale of a human-built mechanism grown out the control of its designer. 4. Twitter in its conception was a brilliant tool for enabling instant mass communication, making a true real-time global conversation possible for the first time. 5. In an early conception, Twitter more than lived up to its mission statement, giving people "the power to create and share ideas and information instantly, without barriers." 6. As time progressed, however, the company was slowly forced to add those barriers. Some of the first tools for controlling speech were designed to combat the likes of spam and financial fraudsters. 7. Slowly, over time, Twitter staff and executives began to find more and more uses for these tools. Outsiders began petitioning the company to manipulate speech as well: first a little, then more often, then constantly. 10.Both parties had access to these tools. For instance, in 2020, requests from both the Trump White House and the Biden campaign were received and honored. However: 12. The resulting slant in content moderation decisions is visible in the documents you're about to read. However, it's also the assessment of multiple current and former high-level executives. Okay, there was more throat-clearing about the process, but screw it, let's jump forward 16. The Twitter Files, Part One: How and Why Twitter Blocked the Hunter Biden Laptop Story 17. On October 14, 2020, the New York Post published BIDEN SECRET EMAILS, an expose based on the contents of Hunter Biden's abandoned laptop: 18. Twitter took extraordinary steps to suppress the story, removing links and posting warnings that it may be "unsafe." They even blocked its transmission via direct message, a tool hitherto reserved for extreme cases, e.g. child pornography. 22. Although several sources recalled hearing about a "general" warning from federal law enforcement that summer about possible foreign hacks, there's no evidence - that I've seen - of any government involvement in the laptop story. In fact, that might have been the problem... 23. The decision was made at the highest levels of the company, but without the knowledge of CEO Jack Dorsey, with former head of legal, policy and trust Vijaya Gadde playing a key role. 24. "They just freelanced it," is how one former employee characterized the decision. "Hacking was the excuse, but within a few hours, pretty much everyone realized that wasn't going to hold. But no one had the guts to reverse it." 29. A fundamental problem with tech companies and content moderation: many people in charge of speech know/care little about speech, and have to be told the basics by outsiders. To wit: 36.Twitter files continued: "THE FIRST AMENDMENT ISN'T ABSOLUTE" Szabo's letter contains chilling passages relaying Democratic lawmakers' attitudes. They want "more" moderation, and as for the Bill of Rights, it's "not absolute" An amazing subplot of the Twitter/Hunter Biden laptop affair was how much was done without the knowledge of CEO Jack Dorsey, and how long it took for the situation to get "unfucked" (as one ex-employee put it) even after Dorsey jumped in. There are multiple instances in the files of Dorsey intervening to question suspensions and other moderation actions, for accounts across the political spectrum It's been a whirlwind 96 hours for me, too. There is much more to come, including answers to questions about issues like shadow-banning, boosting, follower counts, the fate of various individual accounts, and more. These issues are not limited to the political right.
by Anonymous | reply 161 | December 6, 2022 12:48 AM |
Before we get too excited about Matt Taibbi, let us take a moment to remember the full month of late January to late February where he insisted that there was no possible way that Russia would invade Ukraine. (His belated apology rang hollow for sure). He has also become an apologist for Tucker Carlson. He didn't used to be this kind of journalist, so it's disappointing to say the least.
by Anonymous | reply 162 | December 6, 2022 8:51 AM |
Taibbi still says that Russia never hacked into voter registration websites and that the whole story was a Democratic Party lie. I'm shocked he apologized about Ukraine and isn't still saying that Russia has never invaded Ukraine at all, it's just a Democratic lie.
by Anonymous | reply 163 | December 6, 2022 9:01 AM |
R162 That's interesting. Edward Snowden also said that Russia would not invade Ukraine.
by Anonymous | reply 164 | December 6, 2022 3:32 PM |
(Needless to say, it was part of Putin's tactics to make sure that most people thought it would be absurd that he would invade and therefore not prepare for it.)
by Anonymous | reply 165 | December 6, 2022 3:33 PM |
The instant I see "Putin" in a post I check out.
by Anonymous | reply 166 | December 7, 2022 12:03 AM |
Attorney James Baker, quoted in R125, was fired by Elon Musk this morning after it was revealed that he had inserted himself as an intermediary between Twitter and the journalists who had been chosen to receive sensitive company documents:
by Anonymous | reply 167 | December 7, 2022 12:10 AM |
Musk claims to have only discovered this on Sunday.
by Anonymous | reply 168 | December 7, 2022 12:12 AM |
To sum up, this is monumenally disappointing. For all the years of hype I was expecting something truly abominable, like videos of Hillary and Joe Biden raping infants while George Soros drank their adrenochrome with a straw. Not a couple sad pictures of Hunter doing drugs with his pants off.
by Anonymous | reply 169 | December 7, 2022 12:19 AM |
And they really think that they've got something super special and constitution-breaking scandalous that Twitter took those dick pictures down.
by Anonymous | reply 170 | December 7, 2022 12:25 AM |
Baker was apparently preventing Bari Weiss from accessing the files, according to Taibbi. He says work has resumed.
by Anonymous | reply 171 | December 7, 2022 12:30 AM |
I told you that fucking weasel Bari Weiss was going to pull some shit!
by Anonymous | reply 172 | December 7, 2022 12:32 AM |
Oh, ok. Here's the full explanation on Baker and his firing this morning:
by Anonymous | reply 173 | December 7, 2022 12:33 AM |
[quote]To sum up, this is monumenally disappointing. For all the years of hype I was expecting something truly abominable, like videos of Hillary and Joe Biden raping infants while George Soros drank their adrenochrome with a straw.
Where on your abominable scale would you place Hunter illegally pedaling influence with Joe as a co-conspirator? Would that be slightly abominable, or perhaps in your mind something less than that?
by Anonymous | reply 174 | December 7, 2022 12:47 AM |
[quote]pedaling
Oh, dear.
by Anonymous | reply 175 | December 7, 2022 12:49 AM |
Please proceed.
by Anonymous | reply 176 | December 7, 2022 1:00 AM |
Abominable is Donald Trump demanding to be made dictator, , and the Republican Party standing behind him nodding and giggling.
by Anonymous | reply 177 | December 7, 2022 1:01 AM |
So the actual files are a big dud so everybody needs to pretend the guy vetting them is the REAL SCANDAL HERE!
Meanwhile, Trump Org is now officially a criminal enterprise and has been for decades.
by Anonymous | reply 178 | December 7, 2022 1:01 AM |
At least you're not all screeching about Putin again.
by Anonymous | reply 179 | December 7, 2022 1:08 AM |
Haven't they conscripted you yet, Natasha? That sucks.
by Anonymous | reply 180 | December 7, 2022 1:10 AM |
Nothing wrong with the US agencies or DNC (who knows what's best for anyone, ever forever) to behave exactly like Chinese Communist censors. It would shock you ladies even less, what that upstart young lass Whitney Webb has uncovered in her double-whammies:
One Nation Under Blackmail, volumes I + II
by Anonymous | reply 181 | December 9, 2022 6:26 AM |
What a complete dud.
by Anonymous | reply 182 | December 9, 2022 6:30 AM |
[quote]Whitney Webb
Yeah, I think I've heard enough already.
"Described as a conspiratorial website, MintPress News publishes disinformation and anti-Jewish conspiracy theories, according to researchers at Rutgers University and others. MintPress News was a major media domain that spread disinformation about the White Helmets, a Syrian volunteer organization. The site has been accused of regularly publishing pro-Russian propaganda."
by Anonymous | reply 183 | December 9, 2022 6:33 AM |
Well, r174, if you had the evidence to back that up, I'd be outraged. The closest anyone's come is emails from Hunter claiming his father will help him, at a time he, a known addict, was using drugs. The emails appear to show the overpromises of a man desperate to make a deal. And the kindest phrasing for the source is a laptop of dubious provenance. If you find any evidence of Joe Biden's involvement, I'll be extremely interested.
Also, I promise never to vote for Hunter Biden again.
by Anonymous | reply 184 | December 9, 2022 7:55 AM |
r181 Whitney, is that you?
See the link for insanity straight from Whitney Webb's mouth.
by Anonymous | reply 185 | December 9, 2022 9:15 AM |
R5 Don't forget about me!
by Anonymous | reply 186 | December 9, 2022 9:55 AM |
R186 Are you the dead one or the one with the dead career?
by Anonymous | reply 187 | December 10, 2022 9:53 AM |
They've dumped so much stuff in the past couple of days I can't keep up with it.
I got sat out in the naughty chair for a while over this thread, too.
by Anonymous | reply 188 | December 10, 2022 10:05 AM |
R188 They have dumped more nothingburger things. Which is why most of the mainstream media isn't even bothering to cover it. Yet it's being hyped by Fox News and the NY Post, which is highly suggestive that it's GOP propaganda.
by Anonymous | reply 189 | December 10, 2022 10:48 AM |
R189 I really couldn't care less if the mainstream media is interested in this. I am interested in this.
I just feel like I'm missing out now because I don't have time to read everything that's been made public in the last couple of days, is all.
by Anonymous | reply 190 | December 10, 2022 11:49 AM |
Wow, so you haven't even read it?
by Anonymous | reply 191 | December 10, 2022 11:56 AM |
Is that some deeply meaningful revelation? I read the stuff from last week and haven't kept up with it this week.
by Anonymous | reply 192 | December 10, 2022 12:03 PM |
We've missed like three drops, but here's today's:
by Anonymous | reply 193 | December 16, 2022 9:01 PM |
Summary quotes:
[Quote]Twitter’s contact with the FBI was constant and pervasive, as if it were a subsidiary.
[Quote]Between January 2020 and November 2022, there were over 150 emails between the FBI and former Twitter Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth.
[Quote]...a surprisingly high number are requests by the FBI for Twitter to take action on election misinformation, even involving joke tweets from low-follower accounts.
[Quote]The FBI’s social media-focused task force, known as FTIF, created in the wake of the 2016 election, swelled to 80 agents and corresponded with Twitter to identify alleged foreign influence and election tampering of all kinds.
by Anonymous | reply 194 | December 16, 2022 9:04 PM |
[Quote]The #TwitterFiles show something new: agencies like the FBI and DHS regularly sending social media content to Twitter through multiple entry points, pre-flagged for moderation.
[Quote]What stands out is the sheer quantity of reports from the government. Some are aggregated from public hotlines:...
[Quote]An unanswered question: do agencies like FBI and DHS do in-house flagging work themselves, or farm it out? “You have to prove to me that inside the fucking government you can do any kind of massive data or AI search,” says one former intelligence officer.
[Quote]“HELLO TWITTER CONTACTS”: The master-canine quality of the FBI’s relationship to Twitter comes through in this November 2022 email, in which “FBI San Francisco is notifying you” it wants action on four accounts:...
Followed by several screenshots of emails.
by Anonymous | reply 195 | December 16, 2022 9:08 PM |
He has quotes from people whose accounts were suspended at the request of the FBI, then:
[Quote]In an internal email from November 5, 2022, the FBI’s National Election Command Post, which compiles and sends on complaints, sent the SF field office a long list of accounts that “may warrant additional action”:...
[Quote]Twitter then replied with its list of actions taken. Note mercy shown to actor Billy Baldwin:...
Billy Baldwin!
[Quote]In a letter to former Deputy General Counsel (and former top FBI lawyer) Jim Baker on Sep. 16, 2022, legal exec Stacia Cardille outlines results from her “soon to be weekly” meeting with DHS, DOJ, FBI, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence:...
[Quote]The Twitter exec writes she explicitly asked if there were “impediments” to the sharing of classified information “with industry.” The answer? “FBI was adamant no impediments to sharing exist.”...
by Anonymous | reply 196 | December 16, 2022 9:12 PM |
I remember reading about wifi-connected voting machines on Datalounge.
[Quote]About one, she writes: “Flagged a specific Tweet on Illinois use of modems to transmit election results in possible violation of the civic integrity policy (except they do use that tech in limited circumstances).”
[Quote]At the bottom of that letter, she lists a series of “escalations” apparently raised at the meeting, which were already “handled.”
[Quote]The ubiquity of the 2016 Russian interference story as stated pretext for building out the censorship machine can’t be overstated. It’s analogous to how 9/11 inspired the expansion of the security state.
by Anonymous | reply 197 | December 16, 2022 9:16 PM |
R105 The government censorship portal was called Teleporter:
[Quote]There were multiple points of entry into Twitter for government-flagged reports. This letter from Agent Chan to Roth references Teleporter, a platform through which Twitter could receive reports from the FBI...
[Quote]FBI in one case sent over so many “possible violative content” reports, Twitter personnel congratulated each other in Slack for the “monumental undertaking” of reviewing them...
by Anonymous | reply 198 | December 16, 2022 9:25 PM |
[Quote]State governments also flagged content.
[Quote]WHY WAS NO ACTION TAKEN?” Below, Twitter execs – receiving an alert from California officials, by way of “our partner support portal” – debate whether to act on a Trump tweet.
I guess that means Teleporter. The request was from the California Secretary of State to remove a tweet by Trump on October 13, 2020 when he was still the sitting President.
by Anonymous | reply 199 | December 16, 2022 9:30 PM |
The Democratic Party is so beyond fucked.
by Anonymous | reply 200 | December 16, 2022 9:32 PM |
[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]
by Anonymous | reply 201 | December 16, 2022 11:14 PM |
Anyone who calls today's FBI-interference drop a "dud" is a brazen and shameless liar.
This is genuinely shocking.
by Anonymous | reply 202 | December 17, 2022 4:04 AM |
r202 Billy Baldwin being staunchly and very openly anti-Trump ending up on a list for the FBI to take potential during his presidency, you would think, sound alarm bells. At the very least a muted ding, ffs.
by Anonymous | reply 203 | December 17, 2022 4:43 AM |
^ *take potential "legal process"
by Anonymous | reply 204 | December 17, 2022 4:44 AM |
Correction. Baldwin ended up on the list this year, I see. Not during Trump's presidency.
by Anonymous | reply 205 | December 17, 2022 4:45 AM |
^the latest days I've seen on a e-mail so far is this past August. A lot of this is post-Trump, though. The FBI did not back off once Biden was sworn in.
by Anonymous | reply 206 | December 17, 2022 8:57 AM |
It isn't "fine" in the UK either, R53. Americans are so fucking stuck up..
by Anonymous | reply 207 | December 17, 2022 9:45 AM |
R207 There is a lot of socially accepted censorship in the UK that wouldn't fly here.
by Anonymous | reply 208 | December 17, 2022 9:47 AM |
The "Twitter Files" have been a total disappointment and have revealed nothing that isn't common at any media company trying to walk the line between moderation and speech. The only people who think that there's been some unlawful collusion or actions here and are clamoring for "arrests and prosecution" (of what?) are the ones who already had bought into that victim worldview. These breathless releases from a handful of hand-picked conservative journalists - all the while ignoring all moderation that occurred under the Trump Administration - is just culture war fodder and will not be convincing any centrist or independent people of anything. Like everything with Elon, it is a dud and he's been burning through his social capital trying to sell this, but failing.
Moderation systems are actually biased in favor of the right wing because so much of right wing discourse nowadays is conspiracy theories and fire-breathing nonsense. If they actually enforced a true both-sides viewpoint they would likely have banned a lot more conservative accounts.
The biggest issue with Twitter was that they disallowed misgendering and basically saying anything disparaging about a trans person (because trans people on Twitter make trans their entire identity, thus ensuring if you critique them you are breaking this rule) allowing themselves to get taken over by trans activists, who then used that as a hammer to eliminate huge amounts of moderate and conservative people who didn't agree with gender identity dogma.
That act was a wholly left-wing authoritarian political one (additionally ironic because the majority of trans women vote Republican) and is, in my view, what tipped the line from a good-natured attempt at balancing both sides, to an authoritarian left-wing cancel machine. I would be very curious to see the stats on how many reports of 'transphobic" behavior actually came in on a daily and weekly basis because the fact that you couldn't have any discourse about the very real and to many concerning issues around gender identity dogma was what really damaged the platform.
The fact that there was such an easy low-hanging fruit for people to get others banned, because gender identity is so nebulous, was what did them in.
Right wing media has always, in recent memory, claimed bias as a way of "working the refs", and is why so many media organizations bend over backwards trying to attack the left in order to balance the fact that they report on the misinformation being pumped into the system by the right.
That being said it is funny how gullible Elon is and how he has been taken in by conspiracy theories. He is so transparently desperate to be adored and he's making mistake after mistake when he gives into his authoritarian urges, he's managed to piss off the libertarians that loved him previously, destroy his reputation amongst moderates and independents, all for a measly five percent bump in right-wing approval.
He's shown himself to be a bad leader, a bad businessman, and not at all the genius visionary that he had been mythologized as and totally dependent on to sell his companies. Even his paid-for-by-Tesla bot army of Elon-as Iron-Man myth-building sycophants can't fix this.
He's also personally blown up the myth that billionaires are somehow above the rest of humanity on terms of understanding and intelligence. When he really got going with his manic Twitter posting and too-online internet consumption, but had not yet bought Twitter, I noticed he seemed to have emboldened other billionaires such as Jeff Bezos to be more direct and try to directly influence opinion by posting on Twitter, which luckily Bezos seemed to stop or reduce once the Myth of Elon started imploding. They have the most power when they influence things behind the scenes (as they have for so long) and yet their egos and the me-me-me narcissism age that created gender identity have made them crave the attention and adoration they feel they deserve, which can lead to their ultimate destruction.
by Anonymous | reply 209 | December 17, 2022 10:26 AM |
R209 Did you copy and paste that from somewhere?
by Anonymous | reply 210 | December 17, 2022 10:51 AM |
Leave Twitter.
by Anonymous | reply 211 | December 17, 2022 11:05 AM |
Musk called this release his "coup de grâce" although Taibbi says there are more reports coming.
by Anonymous | reply 212 | December 17, 2022 11:10 AM |
^What kind of Datalounge fat fingers elderly homosexual typo is that?
by Anonymous | reply 213 | December 17, 2022 11:16 AM |
Elon Musk is full of shit
by Anonymous | reply 214 | December 17, 2022 11:27 AM |
Why does the FBI love Billy Baldwin so much?
by Anonymous | reply 215 | December 17, 2022 2:38 PM |
r209, I'm quite certain that less than .05% of conversations on twitter involved trans, misgendering, etc. Twitter was always about announcements by movie stars, authors and musicians, political discourse, up to the minute journalism, as when wars were breaking out, hoopla about upcoming elections, commentary by pundits, and funny tweets of the day - at least that was what it was back in the day. Articles keep quoting the figure that 75% of the tweets were generated by a much smaller proportion of twitter users, and the categories above are the groups that make up that smaller proportion of users. I can't think of any trans activist who generated a massive volume of tweets, relative to what was being generated on a daily basis world-wide on that platform. POLITICIANS, especially right-wing politicians may have seized on trans people as an "issue" and in that way generated buzz, but that's on them, not on trans people.
by Anonymous | reply 216 | December 18, 2022 1:19 AM |
Elon is a desperate old drug addict whose businesses are imploding fast.
He puts out this pathetic Twitter bullshit trying to deflect attention from the fact that he's crumbling in front of the whole world.
Have some more blow, Elon, don't worry about it. You'll be fine!
by Anonymous | reply 217 | December 18, 2022 4:49 AM |
r218 What justice? Has the FBI faced any real consequences? Twitter (not including the mass firings by Elon)? If anything, they've just been vindicated.
Has Billy Baldwin chimed in about ending up on a list with the FBI merely for his opinions? That one is very confusing and shocking.
by Anonymous | reply 219 | December 18, 2022 5:06 PM |
R202 DL is wall-to-wall shameless liars.
by Anonymous | reply 220 | December 18, 2022 5:42 PM |
Billy Baldwin is absurdly partisan.
[Quote]How dare the FBI try to silence my free speech!
[Quote]That’s Elon’s job.
by Anonymous | reply 221 | December 18, 2022 9:56 PM |
[quote] Anyone who calls today's FBI-interference drop a "dud" is a brazen and shameless liar. This is genuinely shocking.
Absolutely not shocking if you have observed the FBI's political blatant interference since 2016. Just that the media coverup and denial is becoming less strident.
by Anonymous | reply 222 | December 19, 2022 12:22 AM |
R210 Nope
R216 The point was that it was a very easy way to get someone banned, and eventually permabanned. There are a not-insignificant number of trans activist trolls that go out of their way to rile people up on Twitter in order to get engagement, and then they and their followers love to swarm and mass report the people who predictably respond to whatever outrageous statement that was made.
At certain points the sheer number of reports triggers Twitter's automatic restriction algorithms which a real moderator may decide, hours and often days and sometimes weeks later, that it was unwarranted and remove whatever occured (whether it's deboosting, visibility reduction in search, or automatic account lock). It's a known tactic and one that is actively encouraged among the activists in order to root out people that may not agree with the dogma.
Sure, #notalltrans, just the loudest voices, but they are perpetually online ones and as many are autistic they do these things with a precision and repetition that would shock you.
by Anonymous | reply 223 | December 19, 2022 5:39 AM |
R223, are you off of your meds or something?
by Anonymous | reply 224 | December 19, 2022 6:48 AM |
[quote]The Democratic Party is so beyond fucked.
Explain, please.
by Anonymous | reply 225 | December 19, 2022 6:56 AM |
Someone needs to make a brutal fucking documentary about Covid.
The white wingers have amnesia about the death toll, the bodies piling up, how dangerous the lies and bullshit on Twitter (and elsewhere) actually were. They killed a lot of people and that all seems to be forgotten now. Remind them.
I'm glad they shut them up as much as they could and I don't really care how they did it. They did the right thing.
by Anonymous | reply 226 | December 19, 2022 7:01 AM |
That will not come across the way you think it will^
by Anonymous | reply 227 | December 19, 2022 12:30 PM |
The FBI was created and run for decades by an LGBT+person who was also a fanatical right winger who used his powers to mercilessly persecute anyone who didn’t conform to his fascistic ideals. So from the beginning it’s been a shall we say morally ambiguous institution.
by Anonymous | reply 228 | December 19, 2022 1:02 PM |
R224 ad hominems are much easier than engaging with the facts, aren't they
by Anonymous | reply 229 | December 20, 2022 4:52 PM |
R228 I don't think that would come across the way you think it would.
by Anonymous | reply 230 | December 20, 2022 5:17 PM |
The 80 person FBI Twitter task force that assembled the censorship lists cost $3.4 million.
by Anonymous | reply 231 | December 20, 2022 6:52 PM |
They've passed the torch over to the Intercept's Lee Fang. The new drop pertains to the Pentagon running military psychological operations (psy-ops) on Twitter.
Beginning in 2017, Twitter knowingly assisted U.S. Central Command (CENTCOMM) in maintaining a large network of fake profiles in Arabic that targeted fake news and deepfake videos at arab-speaking populations.
by Anonymous | reply 232 | December 20, 2022 8:56 PM |
Unlike Taibbi and Weiss, he has provided his own summary article of his findings.
Thank you Lee!
by Anonymous | reply 233 | December 20, 2022 8:59 PM |
r232 - r233 Holy shit.
by Anonymous | reply 234 | December 21, 2022 4:57 AM |
My immediate thought at finding out that the Pentagon maintains large networks of fake profiles on social media sites to push political narratives on target demographics was "they're doing this to gay men, too."
by Anonymous | reply 235 | December 21, 2022 9:22 AM |
If you read the source documents that breathless FBI story is allegedly regarding, the FBI is just reimbursing Twitter for legal fees involved in meeting certain of its requests, which are concerned with illegal activity, not squelching political speech or 'free speech". Twitter isn't "being paid by the FBI" to censor legal speech.
My opinion of The Intercept has been in the toilet since Greenwald went nuts, and hasn't improved since he left in a huff.
by Anonymous | reply 236 | December 21, 2022 11:27 AM |
R235 Russia, Iran, and China have all documented, well-funded influence campaigns in the US and abroad operating primarily through social media, of course the Defense Department is going to push back against that. Things are not always what they are spun as.
by Anonymous | reply 237 | December 21, 2022 11:30 AM |
I don’t believe a thing coming out of Taibbi’s or the Intercept’s mouths. They’re far right wing operatives now. They’re not doing any sort of truth telling. They’re actively attempting to turn a Democracy into a fascist autocracy.
by Anonymous | reply 238 | December 21, 2022 12:12 PM |
[quote] They’re actively attempting to turn a Democracy into a fascist autocracy.
Everything that they're showing happened with the DOD happened during Trump's presidency. So, the Iran, Russia, and China shit was technically done under his administration and guided by people he appointed to positions to oversee certain matters within the DOD. It should be taken seriously for that alone.
The fact that people are so partisan that they can ignore something like this because their opposing political party is telling them what happened [bold]under someone in the opposing party's leadership[/bold] just because it's the opposing party releasing the info is bizarre. They're telling on themselves, here, and people's heads are in the clouds and fingers in their ears because of who the messengers are. That makes zero sense.
[quote][R235] Russia, Iran, and China have all documented, well-funded influence campaigns in the US and abroad operating primarily through social media, of course the Defense Department is going to push back against that. Things are not always what they are spun as.
Are you suggesting the Trump administration was correct in this operation? Because that is exactly who was responsible:
by Anonymous | reply 239 | December 21, 2022 12:38 PM |
R239 the defense department starting a counterintelligence campaign to counter the huge rise in the use of social media as an influence vector? If it was begun under the Trump Administration, that doesn't make it any less necessary, and just because something was started under Trump doesn't necessarily mean he had anything to do with it. But even if he did, are you trying to say it's automatically bad because it was begun under Trump? I am not sure what you're on about because you seem to be making two conflicting accusations.
And also please let us know when Elon releases the "Twitter Files" covering the Trump Administration's time in office. The fact that this has been entirely focused on the Biden administration, and is made using sympathetic conservative journalists operating under some undisclosed agreement with Elon/Twitter, tells you plenty about what he is trying to do here.
by Anonymous | reply 240 | December 21, 2022 12:46 PM |
**State Department employee detected**
I kid, I kid, but seriously this program is unacceptable and strong arming Twitter into participating in it is unethical.
Why not just enforce the existing U.S. laws and terms of service for Twitter and shut down these foreign influence campaigns?
I think the answer to that question is likely unsavory.
by Anonymous | reply 241 | December 21, 2022 12:51 PM |
R241 Twitter and other networks have tried to get rid of them but they are not always easy to detect. Some accounts lay dormant for years before being activated. Some accounts are hacked. Many post perfectly normal shit, until they are needed for some purpose, and then they start posting propaganda. And especially now with Twitter's staff being gutted it's highly likely that these foreign adversaries took advantage/are taking advantage of the chaos and a whole new fresh set of accounts has been/is being created for later use.
Elon claims to have solved Twitter's bot problem already but that is clearly a big lie as his follower account didn't drop any. I'm not surprised either that he claims Twitter's number of users is higher either, partly for the reasons above. And speaking personally and anecdotally the accounts I have that seem to have been targeted for bot attention see new followers daily, all obviously fake profiles using someone's stolen photos, and the rate of these accounts appearing for me has only accelerated since Elon's takeover.
The FBI was already assisting with the removal of the state -actor propaganda accounts, which is part of what is currently being billed as them "censoring Americans". Many aren't detectable on the surface, they require some coordination and information sharing.
Semi-relatedly, I am convinced Tesla is paying for bots to promote and boost Elon on Twitter, and has been for some time
by Anonymous | reply 242 | December 21, 2022 2:31 PM |
[quote]And also please let us know when Elon releases the "Twitter Files" covering the Trump Administration's time in office.
r240 See r232-r233
by Anonymous | reply 243 | December 22, 2022 4:34 AM |
R242 What a spectacularly detailed and complex scenario you've cooked up out of thin air. The FBI would still not be justified in censoring American citizens if any of that were the case.
by Anonymous | reply 244 | December 22, 2022 11:04 AM |
The FBI has responded, using the tone and cadence of a Marvel supervillain (in my opinion:)
by Anonymous | reply 245 | December 22, 2022 11:12 AM |
I read that in Thanos' voice^
by Anonymous | reply 246 | December 22, 2022 11:52 AM |
So Twitter gets the 3rd Degree and Inquisition, while the MSM goes unscathed and investigated?
Looking at you, NYT, and your published government propaganda and outright lies supporting Dubya's Illegal Invasion of Iraq and favorable coverage of TFDFG.
by Anonymous | reply 247 | December 22, 2022 1:32 PM |
R247 There are entire media outfits that exist solely to do exposé after exposé on mainstream news outlets.
What makes this different is Musk went out of his way to choose journalists with good track records from a variety of alternative news sources to share material with. He has a much broader and more centrist audience for this than, say, Project Veritas does.
by Anonymous | reply 248 | December 26, 2022 4:45 PM |
Here's their website. I hadn't heard of them either.
by Anonymous | reply 250 | December 26, 2022 4:47 PM |
Today's drop is all about Covid censorship. The gist: Trump wanted censorship to prevent public panic, Biden wanted censorship to suppress dissent. Twitter consented to both.
[Quote]At the onset of the pandemic, according to meeting notes, the Trump admin was especially concerned about panic buying. They came looking for “help from the tech companies to combat misinformation” about “runs on grocery stores.” But . . . there were runs on grocery stores.
[Quote]When the Biden admin took over, one of their first meeting requests with Twitter executives was on Covid. The focus was on “anti-vaxxer accounts.” Especially Alex Berenson...
[Quote]Berenson sued (and then settled with) Twitter. In the legal process Twitter was compelled to release certain internal communications, which showed direct White House pressure on the company to take action on Berenson.
by Anonymous | reply 251 | December 26, 2022 4:52 PM |
The Biden White House pressured Twitter to both “elevate” and “suppress” users based on their stances on COVID-19 — ultimately “censoring info that was true but inconvenient” to policy makers, according to the latest edition of the “Twitter files” revealed Monday.
The coercion campaign during the pandemic began with the Trump administration — which asked Twitter to crack down on stories about panic buying and “runs on grocery stores” in the early days of the outbreak — but was stepped up under Biden, whose administration was focused on the removal of “anti-vaxxer accounts,” according to The Free Press reporter David Zweig.
For example, in June 2021, hours after Biden publicly raged that social media companies were “killing people” for allowing purported vaccine misinformation to propagate, former New York Times reporter and noted vaccine doubter Alex Berenson was suspended from the site and was ultimately banned.
Berenson responded by suing Twitter, forcing the release of internal communications that showed the White House had pressured the company to squash his account.
In a Slack message from April 2021, an unidentified Twitter employee said the adminstration “had one really tough question about why Alex Berenson hasn’t been kicked off from the platform”.
“It doesn’t stop infection. Or transmission. Don’t think of it as a vaccine,” Berenson had tweeted.
“Think of it — at best — as a therapeutic with a limited window of efficacy and terrible side effect profile that must be dosed IN ADVANCE OF ILLNESS,” he also wrote.
(And then "vaccine" was quietly redefined to match this tweet)
Among those users whom Twitter did clamp down on was Dr. Martin Kulldorff, an epidemiologist at Harvard Medical School who tweeted in March 2021 that people “with prior natural infection do not need” the COVID-19 vaccine, “[n]or [do] children.”
Kulldorff’s tweet was flagged by the site as “misleading” — even though it was in line with the vaccine policies of “numerous other countries,” Zweig wrote.
Another doctor, Andrew Bostom of Rhode Island, was permanently suspended after tweeting the results of negative studies about the vaccines and highlighting data that coronavirus was less dangerous in children than the flu — information that Zweig wrote was “legitimate but inconvenient to the public health establishment’s narrative about the risks of flu versus Covid in children.”
Bostom’s account was reinstated on Christmas morning.
When former President Donald Trump told his followers in October 2020 that he was “Feeling really good!” after undergoing COVID-19 treatment at Walter Reed Medical Center — and urged his supporters not to be afraid of the virus or let it “dominate your life,” former FBI general counsel turned Twitter honcho James Baker asked the company’s then-watchdog why the message wasn’t flagged.
“Why isn’t this POTUS tweet a violation of our COVID-19 policy? (Especially the ‘Don’t be afraid of Covid’ statement),” Baker, then Twitter’s deputy general counsel asked then-Head of Safety and Trust Yoel Roth and top legal executive Stacia Cardille.
Roth – who quit last month amid Elon Musk’s November takeover – replied to Baker that optimism was not misinformation.
“It doesn’t incite people to do something harmful, nor does it recommend against taking precautions or following mask directives (or other guidelines),” he replied.
The latest revelations came after previous “Twitter Files” found the FBI and CIA had meddled in the social media company, and prompted it to bow to political pressure — including convincing Twitter to censor The Post’s exposé in the weeks before the 2020 election detailing how Hunter Biden used his father’s name to secure questionable business arrangements overseas.
by Anonymous | reply 252 | December 26, 2022 5:49 PM |
R251, Hahaha! Ha! As IF the Trump cadre cared about "panic" in any way, shape, or form!
JFC, Jared went on TV to explicitly declare that any Federal resources to combat Covid-19 "belong to us, not to the states"!
They told governors to go begging and scrounging, because the Trumpian Fascists thought they'd "get back at" Blue states! And Cuomo and Fauci!
Any journalist who thinks Trump or his designees cared then or now about the disease, deaths, science, medicine, supplies, stores, or ANYTHING that doesn't have the potential to put another grifted dollar in their personal pockets---is either a gull or a knave.
They pushed LIES and QUACKERY onto sick American citizens!
by Anonymous | reply 253 | December 26, 2022 6:11 PM |
Thank you R252. Great article.
by Anonymous | reply 254 | December 26, 2022 6:21 PM |
Covid misinformation spreaders are potential killers. Fuck 'em.
by Anonymous | reply 255 | December 28, 2022 5:31 PM |
R252 that headline is exactly why this is a biased attack towards one party over another, by a new CEO that's hell bent on dragging us right... Let's get this straight: BOTH sides were using social media to sway public info, BUT only ONE SIDE is being demonized -- "Biden admin pushed to bar Twitter users...". Even though they admit this started with the previous administration, so why isn't the headline "Both Trump and Biden admin pushed..."?! Oh yeah, we know why.
And I'll be honest, this is kind of a bit nothing, at least for Biden. Trump's admin actually did more damage by wanting covid to be hushed initially, than Biden's wanting anti vaxxers to stop making up shit, IMO. They're liars too -- I remember why they wanted it hushed and it wasn't to prevent panic; it was because they were all doing insider trading. Hurrying to sell off stocks high, before the market crashed, so they could scoop them up for pennies when they dropped. Trump had known meetings with other Republican congressman during that time, discussing covid. They even "investigated" later on, but obviously didn't do anything about one of their own. Funny that story was dropped by media.
I'm not saying the government should have that much overreach either. I think it's a problem, HOWEVER, this isn't what is being blown up -- it's only a thing because it's to fuel the right wing nutters and their conspiracies about Democrats. This isn't to help Americans, or expose the truth, it's a campaign to bolster the right.
by Anonymous | reply 256 | December 28, 2022 6:43 PM |
And most of it does seem like complete meaningless BS. It's shocking that the government is monitoring social media? Not really. Is it shocking they try to counteract misleading info and foreigners igniting hate? Not really. Hunter's laptop? Still a big nothing. Are people really surprised a drug addict tried using his dad's name for financial opportunities? Shouldn't be. There's not a wealthy kid in America that's not doing that daily. We don't even know what it got him, if it got him anywhere at all.
The only shocking part was about covid and the government demanding people be banned. That's a form of government silencing speech. But social media is a new thing and it's very powerful. I'm not sure how our country will survive if we allow every nutter to spew lies, when we know people believe them. On the other hand, idk how this country will survive by silencing opinions, since they can quickly go down a slippery slope. It's a no win. It's also a private company that went along with it all. It's not like they were forced to comply... Unless they were, but that requires proof. That would be where the story lies.
by Anonymous | reply 257 | December 28, 2022 6:52 PM |
No one cares about Elon pushing conspiracy theories just so he can continue to be friends with the people he thinks are the cool kids of Twitter.
by Anonymous | reply 259 | February 7, 2023 10:51 AM |
Very concerned with Russians, like a good U S. government agency.
by Anonymous | reply 260 | February 7, 2023 10:51 AM |
Thanks for bringing Twitter previews back, Mur.
by Anonymous | reply 261 | February 7, 2023 10:53 AM |
r261 They never went away for me.
by Anonymous | reply 262 | February 7, 2023 4:46 PM |