Over at ACM.org, Samuel Greengard speculates Elon Musk buying Twitter is more about freedom to control speech:
The press has mostly accepted Musk's statement that the $44-billion acquisition is a "free speech" crusade that will create wonderful online town squares brimming with democratic ideas! It's 1998 naivete revisited. The Internet will bridge the digital divide! It will end oppression and censorship! It's the dawn of a new era for world freedom!
This isn't 1776, or even 1976. No one assembles at a town square to politely share ideas and debate philosophies. The Federal Communications Commission's imperfect but beneficial Fairness Doctrine is now buried deep in history. Today's online world, while delivering an appearance of democratization, has introduced hidden traps and limitations that we can't see.
It's no secret that algorithmic engines run (and rule) the Internet—and Twitter. They amplify, magnify, and even distort ideas. They introduce biases and, too often, they discriminate. They also manipulate our minds—and our thinking.
[...] Make no mistake, there will be a line; actually, lots of lines. What's more, even if Musk somehow accomplishes the seemingly impossible task of ensuring that everyone on the platform is verified, there's no way to guarantee that this will stop abuse—or that there will be any real penalty for the offenders.
[...] Yes, Twitter will wind up with different rules, results and outcomes—and it may be the better or worse for it. Along the way, some people will cheer, and others will jeer. But framing the discussion as a "free speech" issue is entirely disingenuous. This is simply a billionaire attempting to etch his world view into an algorithm—even if he brands himself a swashbuckling digital freedom fighter.
Previously
After Musk's Twitter Takeover, an Open-Source Alternative is 'Exploding'
Elon Musk has just bought Twitter
Related Stories
Twitter has just accepted Elon Musk's offer to buy the company.
Twitter accepts buyout, giving Elon Musk total control of the company
On April 25th, Twitter's board of directors accepted Musk's offer of $54.20 per share, or $44 billion, for total control of the company. It was the same price he named in his initial offer on April 14th. Upon completion of the transaction, Twitter will become a private company.
Additional coverage on Reuters, The New York Times, NPR and The Wall Street Journal.
From The Wall Street Journal:
The Wall Street Journal reported Twitter and Mr. Musk had reached an agreement to value Twitter at $44 billion.
The takeover, if it goes through, would mark one of the biggest acquisitions in tech history and will likely have global repercussions for years to come related to how billions of people use social media.
Is this the end for Twitter? Will it become a bastion of unfettered free speech, will it become a dumpster fire (you can bookmark this just in case), or will it be "meet the new boss, same as the old boss"?
The decentralized social network is having a moment — again:
We may not yet know exactly what Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter means for the platform, but one Twitter alternative is already booming as a result of the news. Mastodon, the open-source social media service which bills itself as the "largest decentralized social network on the internet," has been "exploding" since Musk's acquisition, according to its founder.
"Funnily enough one of the reasons I started looking into the decentralized social media space in 2016, which ultimately led me to go on to create Mastodon, were rumours that Twitter, the platform I'd been a daily user of for years at that point, might get sold to another controversial billionaire," he wrote. "Among, of course, other reasons such as all the terrible product decisions Twitter had been making at that time. And now, it has finally come to pass, and for the same reasons masses of people are coming to Mastodon."
[...] While Mastodon has been in the spotlight as a potentially viable Twitter alternative in the past, it has yet to reach the mainstream. But its current popularity comes at a moment when Twitter is also exploring how it could become an open-sourced protocol — much like Mastodon.
Unlike Twitter, Mastodon is not a single, centralized service. Though the interface looks similar to Twitter — it has a 500-character limit but otherwise will be mostly recognizable to Twitter users — it runs on an open-source protocol. Groups of users are free to create and maintain their own "instances" with their own rules around membership, moderation and other key policies. Users are also able to take their followers with them between instances.
[...] But all that also comes with extra complexity for new users who may not easily understand Mastodon's unique structure or how it works. But those who stick around long enough may see some significant new features. Rochko said that end-to-end encrypted messaging is in the works, as well as "an exciting groups functionality."
Anyone in the community have experience using or recommending it?
The pressure on Twitter to talk publicly about how it monitors and removes spam accounts continues to mount.
Reports from CNN and The Washington Post reveal an 84-page whistleblower complaint alleging that Twitter isn't motivated to track the true number of spam accounts and hid security vulnerabilities from federal regulators.
The complaint comes from Twitter's former security chief, Peiter Zatko. Zatko is a well-known ethical hacker with the alias "Mudge." He told the Post that he "felt ethically bound" to report his serious concerns to government agencies. He alleges that he was fired for pushing disinclined Twitter executives to address major security problems—which his complaint suggests "pose a threat" to Twitter "users' personal information, to company shareholders, to national security, and to democracy."
Zatko alleges that Twitter execs were more invested in covering up those vulnerabilities, including cherry-picking and misrepresenting data on spam accounts and security threats to regulators and Twitter's board members.
Previously:
Judge Orders Twitter to Give Elon Musk Former Executive's Documents
Elon Musk Pulls Deal to Buy Twitter
Twitter Reportedly Will Give Musk the Full "Firehose" of User Data
Elon Musk Accuses Twitter of Thwarting His Due Diligence, Threatens to Walk Out of Deal
Twitter Users React to Elon Musk Putting Buyout Deal 'on Hold'
Musk Buying Twitter Is Not About Freedom of Speech
After Musk's Twitter Takeover, an Open-Source Alternative is 'Exploding'
Elon Musk has just bought Twitter
Elon Musk Isn't Joining Twitter's Board of Directors After All
Elon Musk Will Join Twitter's Board of Directors
(Score: 0, Insightful) by GreatOutdoors on Monday May 09 2022, @02:37PM (16 children)
The left hates it when they lose the ability to force their will upon others. Even when someone does something good for mankind, it is met with skepticism and ridicule.
Yes, I did make a logical argument there. You should post a logical response.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Monday May 09 2022, @02:40PM (3 children)
Nah, we just find it amusing that you rant and rave about free speech but every single time you make your own platform you immediately start banning people.
Nobody is coming for Truth Social just like nobody came for 4chan..... Because nobody fucking cares.... And rightwingers know that which is why they're trying to buy a platform before it croaks on it's own from natural causes.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 09 2022, @03:09PM (2 children)
Speech for me but not for thee.
It's a private company, they set the terms of use. Remember that argument?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Monday May 09 2022, @04:10PM (1 child)
Good for them, they are free to ban whomever they please. And I am free to point out what raving hypocrites they are for lying about free speech all the time.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 10 2022, @02:39PM
At least we don't have to worry about progressive hypocrisy on the point, given that they've been openly censorious for decades at this point.
Not sure that makes it any better, come to think of it.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 09 2022, @03:14PM (1 child)
I'm curious what you think Musk will bring to Twitter to make it "free speech"? How different is it going to look? There will perhaps be some high profile window dressing, perhaps unbanning some accounts, but what's going to change? The content moderation that is in place there and everywhere else is to abide by various laws, and Musk himself has acknowledged that he wants to make the speech "as free as the law will allow." And if you don't like the "banning" that goes on now (and why is it that you can't get away from the shrill voices yelling about how they're being silenced; the din hurts ones ears all this silence), if you're a proponent of overturning the Section 230 protections, just wait and see when platforms are held liable for publishing lies and see how much banning happens then. Just like how practically every legal firm in the country didn't want to touch the Big Lie lawsuits with a ten foot pole because it would be their asses on the line (not Trump's) for pushing baseless lawsuits built upon lies.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by HiThere on Monday May 09 2022, @06:06PM
Well, it's going to be "free speech" for him. Given the definition of "free speech" that he enunciated. (I.e., it won't be anything that any government he cares about objects to too strenuously.)
What it is for other people...well, we'll see. His definition gave him a lot of leeway.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Gaaark on Monday May 09 2022, @03:58PM (1 child)
The
leftright hates it as much as the left when they lose the ability to force their will upon others. Even when someone does something good for mankind, it is met with skepticism and ridicule.--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 09 2022, @04:08PM
Your comment proves once again that Democrats have to steal any good ideas they have from the Republicans since the only idea they can come up with on their own is "hey, let's raise taxes after we finish our nap".
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 09 2022, @05:09PM (5 children)
Oh really, have you totally missed the anti-freedom legislation being pushed by far right wackos like Mitch McConnell? No? You're ok with that kind of authoritarian oppression?
Get fucked dipshit.
(Score: 2) by ChrisMaple on Tuesday May 10 2022, @05:54AM (4 children)
What is this fascination that leftists have with crude language?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 10 2022, @10:32AM (1 child)
If you don't have a sensible point to make, you've got to swear.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 10 2022, @01:33PM
e.g. Donald J Trump.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 10 2022, @05:18PM (1 child)
What is this fascination Republicans have with pedophilia and rape? Does it have anything to do with lowering age of consent laws they push, or the oppression against women? Maybe it is tied to the fact that Republicans keep voting for pedophiles and rapists. Why do conservatives hate women and children?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 11 2022, @05:24PM
Looks like that upset the groomers that want to force children to give birth to their rapist's offspring. Funny how just paying attention to legislation choices from Republicans shows the reality perfectly. All the otjer BS is them trying to run out the clock and prevent real opposition.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 09 2022, @10:54PM
LOL@Limosine liberals, champagne liberals, first-class seating liberals, fly to Paris with an entourage of 100 people for a climate change conference, but most of all, do as I say (wear masks in public) not as I do (libs caught not wearing masks in public) liberals.
The duh-left are afraid they wont be able to censor posts on twitter anymore, but are terrified this will spread and they will lose the ability to control the narrative on other platforms and MSM. WaaaaWaaaaWaaaa!
Parents are fighting and against racist courses being taught in schools such as critical racist theology nonsense, and the parents are winning all over the US! A good thing.
Parents are fighting to let kids just be kids from age 5-9, telling schools to shove their indoctrination and gender fluid grooming courses up the teacher's and superintendent's ass, and parents are also winning against that all over the US. A good thing.
States are writing their own abortion laws and telling Biden, Nancy, and Another Obnoxious C*nt to FO, and succeeding! A good thing!
Looks like rich black lives matter more than poor ones. BLM leaders across the US are being investigated for fraud for using donation money to buy themselves numerous $5M mansions. A good thing!
People are pushing back against the left's witch hunts and mob-justice, which they gently call 'cancel culture'. A good thing.
Antifa being confronted and unmasked out as the fascists they really are. Funny how anti-fascists always use fascist techniques like violence, intimidation, and threats but claim they are using it for peace.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 09 2022, @11:04PM
MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell Rejoins Twitter, Suspended Again Hours Later [zerohedge.com]
How dare that evil James Bond villain! Imagine that bastard trying to subject the world to his evil ways [mystore.com]. Once again we're free to choose to sleep on cinderblocks, and I'll rest better knowing it... I'm evil like that.
(Score: 4, Touché) by DeathMonkey on Monday May 09 2022, @02:38PM (6 children)
I agree, but also, I am already so fucking bored with this topic that whatever he ends up doing it's not gonna matter because Twitter will be out to pasture with MySpace by the time it happens.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Monday May 09 2022, @05:29PM (1 child)
Gotta love how talking shit about Twitter is now considered trolling!
That was an easy +1 in literally any thread a couple months ago!
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 09 2022, @11:06PM
Oh, just about any shit you post here is an easy +1.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday May 09 2022, @06:09PM (2 children)
I really doubt that Twitter is going to quickly die. If nothing else, Musk will want to preserve an audience for him to give (short) speeches to. But it may well become *less* significant. (If I read the tea leaves correctly, it was already in decline.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 10 2022, @01:37PM
Musk will rename it to MySpaceX.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 10 2022, @02:43PM
It all depends, really.
Let's say he throws it open to all the tweets the law will allow. Genuine, no fooling, no obstacle but the heavy hand of Uncle Sam.
Twitter would likely see a resurgence - more so if he gives a couple of generally requested elements, such as a pure chronological timeline, sarcasm tag, edits and so on.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 10 2022, @12:49AM
He hasn't even bought Twitter yet. As far as I'm concerned, he is just shitposting for attention right now. Added benefit is tanking Twitter's price to give him more leverage to try and bargain for a better price. Once Musk actually closes the financing or registers his sale of Tesla stock, maybe it will be worth paying attention.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by RedGreen on Monday May 09 2022, @02:41PM (41 children)
There is free speech there now. The speech they restrict now is the hateful, misleading information that kills people and that is designed to harass groups of people constantly. The lie that Musk is the savior of free speech is just that a lie, he wants his Aryan buddies to have a free run at spewing their garbage without restrictions.
"I modded down, down, down, and the flames went higher." -- Sven Olsen
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 09 2022, @02:52PM (8 children)
[blows ultrasonic dogwhistle] Musk is a Nazi now!
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 09 2022, @04:37PM (3 children)
If you look at the characters musk has been promoting lately, yeah. He is like the hipster version of a white supremacist. Hair plugs, plastic surgery, and vanity projects to manipulate and control society.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 09 2022, @11:08PM (2 children)
This thread isn't about Joe Biden! Read the topic better!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 10 2022, @12:03AM (1 child)
Ok Corporal Obvious!
Cracks me up you think attacking Biden makes any liberal sad. Fuck that old white conservative creep, winning with "not literally a nazi" is not the crowning achievement the republicans seem to think it is. Fuck Joe Biden! Fuck every GOP white supremacist 10x more!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 10 2022, @06:57PM
... but what about the GOP members who aren't white supremacists? Do they get a pass? Because there're quite a lot of them, you see. A majority. In fact, a supermajority.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday May 09 2022, @10:24PM (3 children)
I don't know whether he's a Nazi for sure, but he's certainly not anti-Nazi.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 10 2022, @07:59PM (2 children)
"Nazi" is an antiwhite, Jew slur, fucktard.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 11 2022, @05:28PM (1 child)
Nazi is what you called yourself in the 40s, now you use Republican. No amount of anti-semitic whining is going to change that, or help you get laid. Your fellow Proud Boys are willing to shove a dildo up your ass to PWN DA LIBS if you're really getting desperate.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 16 2022, @06:58PM
Right. Because Olympia Snowe is a card-carrying Proud Boy.
Wait, hang on, got a call ...
She's not? In fact, most republicans are not? Crazy! ... wait, most republicans think the Proud Boys are batshit fringe nutcases? Go figure.
Sorry about that. Ummm, yeah, looks as if your profiling AI is broken. Better get a fresh update.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 09 2022, @02:59PM (1 child)
And by "hateful and misleading" you mean true but politically inconvenient [nypost.com].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 09 2022, @03:06PM
Ok Runaway.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 09 2022, @03:02PM (3 children)
"free speech"
Everything we don't like = hateful, illegal, misleading, misinformation, russian propaganda
Everything we like = truth, fact check, honest, news, "the science", etc
As someone stuck in the middle it has been out there and plain to see.
It took almost a year for the lab leak theory to stop getting your account banned despite the proximity of said labs to the initial outbreak. It was something obvious a kindergardner could see but nope. Can't discuss it. The same for countless other things where they went from "unhinged conspiracy" to "well ok maybe" in about 6 months.
The left has built a new religion with it's own witch trials and the righht has some cult of personality going with trump (who actually picked the worst people, not the best).
Please STOP!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 09 2022, @03:45PM (1 child)
The ride never ends.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday May 09 2022, @04:04PM
Sometimes it goes up, sometimes down.
Up, down, up, down, up, down....but yes, the ride never really cums to an end.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 10 2022, @08:51PM
You forgot to mention that everyone that disagrees with them is a troll.
(Score: -1, Troll) by fliptop on Monday May 09 2022, @03:31PM (4 children)
You mean like mentioning ivermectin is effective [wordpress.com] at treating the symptoms of Covid? Or when the inventor of the mRNA vaccine procedure talks about potential harms from the Pfizer vaccine and the problems he saw w/ their clinical trials [republicworld.com]?
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 09 2022, @04:36PM (3 children)
Is ivermectin effective at getting rid of Runaway? Asking for a friend.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday May 09 2022, @04:43PM (2 children)
It doesn't work on brain worms unfortunately...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 10 2022, @12:19AM
Your party hates that antiparasitic drug so much, it looks like you are self-identifying with parasites.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday May 10 2022, @02:34AM
Well, I suppose if that brain worm was an ascarid....
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 09 2022, @03:54PM (15 children)
It's interesting, in a stunningly hypocritical way, that you libs claim to believe in "democracy",,, but only when people see things your way.
Why don't you practice what you preach sometime? Give it a try. Open your minds.
Nope? Can't venture away from the protective herd?
Algorithmic mind control: the computers, well, their programmers, have won.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 09 2022, @05:17PM (2 children)
Last I saw it was rightwingers attacking freedoms and cheating elections. Thanks for the laughs tho!
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 09 2022, @11:58PM (1 child)
The washington post is owned by bezos. There is not very much outcry about this from the left despite most I know HATING him. It's simple, he only allows articles that enforce the ideology. He does the work of the establishment.
This has been a violent takeover of the public square by the ruling class. Their current theme is leftism. This thread even shows how the ideology is enforced with ridicule and punishment for going against it.
Thir classic arguments are all there. No you, the right projects, you rAcisTS, oh my poor minorities, etc. Now you may say the right does some of this, but it doesn't even matter. They control no ground. Who is even the "right"? Ancaps, nazis, fascists? Instead all non-"left" ideas are called right, alt-right, trumpist, or whatever the current chant is.
They're downvoting you and calling you crazy, Some real, some bots. They put it in your news, your culture, your movies. They cry about racism and then teach your kids to judge people based on skin color. If you speak against it they scream that your kids are the property of the state.
It's the first "communism" that sells you out to corporations and prioritizes the worst members of society from your own earnings. That pushes you into wage slavery and tells you all about your privilage. Dependence and irrepsonsiblity is rewaded while any kind of self-sufficiency is demonized.
Kudos guys, keep on fighting the revolution, brought to you by large multinational corporations. Don't forget to hit your fellow citizens extra hard, its all their fault. Don't look up.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 10 2022, @12:07AM
Poor dumbfuck, so close to reality then making a U-turn right up your own asshole.
(Score: 2, Redundant) by HiThere on Monday May 09 2022, @06:12PM (8 children)
I notice that you were attacked for being a right winger, but from the post I don't know why. You seem to have effectively described both sides.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 09 2022, @06:43PM
It's tribalism. Everyone 'on our side' is good and anyone who isn't 'like us' is 'the enemy' and therefore evil. It's probably the worst human trait after greed because of the irrational hatred, extremism, and authoritarianism that it engenders.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 09 2022, @09:06PM (6 children)
Thank you other AC for the "tribalism" post. Well said.
Tribalism is much like animal herding- there's power in numbers. People feel safer being with the popular crowd. (I hate writing things that seem obvious...)
I'm politically independent, and actually I'm quite progressive / somewhat liberal, depending on the topic. What I am not is what the Democratic Party has become. Crass, boorish, insulting, belittling, etc. Remember when they used to preach "tolerance"? Kind of backfired, no?
I'm infinitely more apt to vote for a party that behaves with civility, decorum, shows me how they handle things in a better way, rather than the constant constant drone of mean-spirited scolding, mocking, ad hominem, on and on.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 09 2022, @11:40PM
Another "I used to be a liveral" independent? Fork you, you are responsible for all this division, because you have bought the Murdock line on the Democratic Party. You know that none of that is actually true? Do you hate Hilary? Did you ever ask yourself, "why?" You are a sucker, an idiot, a moron, an easily deluded deplorable. Go away! Or we will taunt you a second thyme!! (subvoca)Stupid git!(/subvoca)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 10 2022, @12:12AM (4 children)
"I'm infinitely more apt to vote for a party that behaves with civility, decorum"
So no one from the GOP, Libertarians probably not since they are so prone to being clowns with hit and miss civility and basically no idea what decorum even means. Looks like you'll be needing a new party, the DNC is more civil and decorous but so far still under the thumb of their corporate masters.
Guess you're out of luck Mr. Lying Rightwinger.
(Score: 3, Touché) by ChrisMaple on Tuesday May 10 2022, @06:09AM (3 children)
In order to prevent ear damage, ear protection is required to listen to the shrill screaming of Stacey Abrams or AOC. In order to prevent brain damage, never listen to Kamala Harris.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 10 2022, @01:47PM (1 child)
I see you have all your covfefe in a row.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 10 2022, @05:21PM
And his misogyny! Chris Maple may be a regressive christian dreaming of domestic terrorism, but no one can say he doesn't have his bigotry all nicely laid out.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday May 10 2022, @08:10PM
Haha SHRILL WOMAN BAD.
Meanwhile, clutch those pearls harder about that crude language! [soylentnews.org]
Such concern about the tone of our discussion!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 09 2022, @09:09PM
When "our way" is reality, and the other opinions are batshit insane, it is not a question of agreeing so much as mental health. Go ahead, pump your horse de-wormer snake oil, and the big lie. Tell us about the pedos, and Megan McCain's new book.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday May 09 2022, @11:45PM (1 child)
One word for a 'tude like this: Loser.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 10 2022, @08:54PM
Labeling
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 09 2022, @06:18PM
"The speech they restrict now is the hateful, misleading information that kills people and that is designed to harass groups of people constantly."
sftu, you stupid bitch. The Jew rats just want to make sure nobody finds out what they have been up to all this time. Dumb bitches like you are disgusting and deserve everything you will get.
(Score: 2) by jasassin on Monday May 09 2022, @06:49PM
Sounds like something on a T-shirt...
Information doesn't kill people.
I KILL PEOPLE!
Seriously though, information doesn't kill people. Morons who allow themselves to be brainwashed kill people.
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
(Score: 2, Troll) by Phoenix666 on Monday May 09 2022, @08:06PM (1 child)
I find your speech hateful and full of misleading information that kills people and that is designed to harass groups of people constantly.
See how that works?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 09 2022, @09:07PM
Yeah, which is why we prevent the government from making such judgments and leave it to individuals and businesses how to control their own properties.
Your hypocrisy is amazing. Typical reichwinger, censorship is fine when you agree, but when you don't agree it is massive oppression. If you could at least maintain consistency we would tease you less.
Mind if I doxx you? Or is that suddenly too far?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 10 2022, @02:48PM
In other words, they don't have free speech there now. Thanks for clearing that up.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 09 2022, @02:56PM
They created that organization just for Musk. It was created within days of Twitter changing ownership to Musk.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Monday May 09 2022, @02:57PM (28 children)
Musk's ownership of Twitter gives him a greater degree of control over what is freely spoken on Twitter. In a sense, it's Musk's ideas of freedom of speech that is being enhanced most directly, but freedom of speech is not exactly a zero sum game.
When a platform is free to publish fake news, and further: acts as an echo chamber that drowns out fact based statements... that's less free (for facts, at least) than a platform than a platform that puts some controls / perspective on the content that appears in it. Of course, plenty of reporting sources openly state and frequently repeat "and this is a FACT!" without any credible supporting evidence.
We took a boat ride up a redneck creek yesterday - banners of "2020 was rigged" and "Let's Go Brandon!" abounded, and I get the sense that expression of opposing viewpoints in that forum invite vandalism and other forms of suppression. I'm somewhat proud to say that I live most of my life in another echo chamber, most of whose members legitimately don't know: WTF is Brandon?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 09 2022, @03:17PM (22 children)
It used to be a back and forth. Outright falsehoods tended to be shunned. But since one side put it's finger on the scale it has devolved into 2 rabid camps.
I am in awe of what is put out by suposedly neutral public institutions. My memory of the last 20 years did not magically get erased. I still remember what happened during bush and clinton. I can read the history of actual leftists shooting up congress and having "insurrections" over the supreme court nominees.
The same left moved the overton window on how "free speech" and "facts" exist in the public discourse. Now we ge to lie in the bed they made. They call it a post truth world.
Did you expect the right to not mirror the behavior they were introduced to? To not know WTF is brandon (remember you can disagree, think its stupid, etc) is just plain being uninformed. You are proud of your circle's ignorance?
Of course I'm going to get marked as troll or spam by partisans, these days I count on it. Sorry, I'm going to believe my lying eyes over your "experts" and paid for studies. I'm sure such things existed in 1930s germany and the soviet union. The one thing this has been good for is humanizing attrocities and totalitarian governments. I used to wonder how people were fooled to such a degree and how in the world they could support it. Now I know.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 09 2022, @04:00PM (13 children)
https://usa1lib.org/book/2518445/289e67 [usa1lib.org]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Monday May 09 2022, @04:23PM (12 children)
Yeah, regarding all that (Black Panthers, Weathermen, Symbionese Liberation Army, etc.) were they wrong to be pushing for change? Were they likely to have achieved change without resorting to violence, essentially responding to the violence that was inflicted on the groups they identify with on a daily basis for decades to centuries prior? Are we worse off, as a society, for legally protecting race, gender, disability and other things that distinguish one human from another as a class?
The pendulum swings, and the recent reactions to the civil rights movement are all too predictable. Do you think counter-revolution 50 years after the fact is likely to improve anything?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by HiThere on Monday May 09 2022, @06:17PM (4 children)
Yes, actually I think we are worse off for protecting "race" as a class. We would have been better off protecting "the poor" or "those illegally discriminated against". I'll admit the laws against the latter would have been more difficult to craft, but they could have been better laws. And in the process we should have removed "qualified immunity" from the police.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 09 2022, @07:22PM
When humans stop racially targeting people we can stop worrying about race as an issue. Simple! Before that happens such "enlightened centrism" is actually part of the problem.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday May 09 2022, @07:23PM (2 children)
Absolutely agreed, but if you never lived in 1960s Southern U.S. you don't have a full appreciation of why blacks are poor and something needed to be done about the racial discrimination too.
My elementary school still had the separate water fountains, the colored restrooms were converted to storage by the time I was in school.
We were actually making pretty good progress on helping the poor without much in the way of legislation, until the later 1970s, and of course Ronnie Raygun's crew pretty much pissed on the poor and called it rain.
As for cops and judges, the Obi Wan line of "you shall never find a more wretched hive of scum and villiany" comes to mind...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday May 09 2022, @08:39PM (1 child)
I understand why that happened, though not in grim detail. But enshrining "racism" into law was a bad idea. A different approach should have been chosen.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday May 09 2022, @08:53PM
A different approach was taken in 1865, it didn't work. Sometimes you just gotta call a spade a spade, if you're going to make a difference.
Affirmative action is a clusterfuck of inefficient counter-discrimination, and is surely responsible for some of the current backlash. In my experience, I missed out on a scholarship while my dark classmate who scored lower on the qualifying exam got it. My father was repeatedly passed over for hiring in favor of black women with lower qualifications in every category but race and sex. Even the HR office at my present employer ignored my resume 4 times across the span of 15 years, we can only wonder why, but after I got in the door sideways there have been rigorous hiring quotas (chasing federal dollars that reimburse for compliance). On the flip-side, when layoffs rolled around my job in Texas, I had been in the department 18 months, but was retained while an excellent performing Asian employee of 6 years was let go - and I'm sure there have been other instances where my race/heritage has conferred what should be seen as unfair socio-economic advantages. Certainly in engineering school, we had a fresh from China professor who gave no male student less than a B and no female student higher than a D for four straight semesters before the department took him aside and told him to stop that.
Woulda coulda shoulda matters not at all today nor in the future. What matters is what we do today and going forward.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 09 2022, @06:29PM (4 children)
non-whites are extra-nationals and don't belong in the US. If it weren't for the subversive Jew and gullible Whites the descendants of black slaves would be given a free boat ride home and any choosing to stay would have no protection under law. Nigger "revolutionaries" trying to kill Whitey need to be skinned on a live stream with their pelts hung out to rot. Every time a monkey kills a White person, 100 niggers should be killed until they run for mexico or canada. Mongoloid "native americans" can go north or south or be killed, as well. Whites who believe in multiracial America are brainwashed, racially suicidal slaves and traitors. The USA was founded as a White nation and only subversion of our institutions by the rat-faced Jew has made it into the malignant tumor you see today.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 09 2022, @07:20PM
Hi Nazi, best start preparing yourself for a life inside a 4x2 box.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday May 09 2022, @07:38PM (2 children)
That would be a new US, different from the one with a Statue of Liberty and all that jazz...
You want to create such a white-national utopia? Get yourself some new land, maybe on Mars, and see how that plays out.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 10 2022, @08:10PM (1 child)
"That would be a new US, different from the one with a Statue of Liberty and all that jazz..."
it will have to be a new US but not because of the reason you state. The immigrants beckoned by the Statue of Liverty were always supposed to be White, and i think you know that somewhere under the layers and layers of brainwashing callouses. The reason it would have to be a new US is because most Whites, and all of our current dependents, are ignorant and brainwashed and will fight to stay in their slave womb, at least for a while. Once the non-white hordes the Jews have been bringing in for decades (but are ramping up now that Whitey has been turned into a mushy, spineless host) start killing Whitey then normal brainwashed Whites will start to wake up, but it might be too late by then.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 10 2022, @09:52PM
You are a twisted blight upon morality. May the Devil have fun with your soul.
(Score: 2) by ChrisMaple on Tuesday May 10 2022, @06:30AM (1 child)
Up through the early 1960s the relative economic condition of blacks in the U.S. was improving. With "The Great Society" and "Affirmative Action" it's been slowly getting worse. Regardless of the motives of the proponents, leftist programs do not accomplish their announced goals.
(Score: 3, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday May 10 2022, @01:46PM
IDK where you live, but in the early 1970s in my part of the country, blacks still mostly had their own side of town, their own stores, their own schools (except for the token integration bus), etc. By all outward appearances, their economic conditions were not good relative to even the poor whites. If some chart shows this as "improving" relative to sharecropping, then, sure.
Today, blacks are actually admitted to all state and private Universities in reasonably representative numbers (well, other than the stratospherically expensive private schools), not just the rare all-black schools. They are hired into most jobs, the shock and whispers when a black family moves into a neighborhood don't happen nearly as much as they used to. All in all, they appear to be "moving up" into the middle class fairly free of the impediments that clearly existed 50 years ago.
If your information about "slowly getting worse" is an accurate reflection of actual data, it would be based on mean net worths, not median. Shortly after "Affirmative Action" we got "Trickle Down" which has sent the top 1% spiraling out of the stratosphere, and U.S. blacks are certainly under-represented in that slice of the economic pie, as are 95% of whites. These days if you're not born "up there" you have a better chance of winning a million dollar lottery (which, itself, will still not get you there) than you do pulling yourself into the club by your bootstraps. In terms relative to the mean, the vast majority of people of all colors are suffering relative economic decline.
Regardless of the motives of the proponents,
leftistgovernment programs do not accomplish their announced goals.🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Monday May 09 2022, @04:12PM
The question is: which side put it's finger on the scale first? I'd argue that the boot heels have been stamping on the scales as hard as they possibly can get away with since time immemorial, on both sides. Thankfully, technology has increased transparency to a point that we are getting a glimpse of what is really going on - and again thankfully it appears not to be too terribly bad overall, but you're right, as the pendulum swings we are definitely pushing into the 2 rabid camps phase and "evidence of fraud" is fanning the flames - I hope it doesn't take a civil war to settle things back down.
As proud as I am of being uninformed / ignorant / however you want to characterize it of the leaders of the Flat Earth movement, the local Hare Krishna shrine, etc. There aren't just 2 camps in this world, there are thousands, and as a "common man" I pick and choose the most important camps _to me_ the ones that I feel are having significant impact on my life. Ten miles up a creek, itself 40 miles up a river from the Atlantic Ocean, there is an enclave of rabid dogs - and apparently a bunch of Trump supporters too - coincidence? You tell me.
Do you, really? The difference between the conflict in the Ukraine and, say, WWI, is that today - if you care - you, personally, can directly communicate with individual citizens on the front lines, in HD video in real-time. If you care to, you can seek out people in or close to your circle of friends who have family or personal friends in the conflict zone. Compare that to censored letters trickling back from the front lines months after the fact with people communicating a few words back home in code. Not everybody cares enough to do this kind of direct investigation - actually, an appallingly small fraction of the population is doing it - but... that small fraction is thousands of times more direct communication of first-hand (trustworthy?) information than was even available in, say, Gulf War I. I remember a friend from Jordan at University intently listening to his shortwave during the conflict to get some different (more trustworthy to him) perspective on what was happening.
Whine and moan about the media all you want, the truth is out there AND PERSONALLY AVAILABLE TO YOU if you care enough to actually seek it out. Most of the changes we are seeing in society today I attribute to a tearing down of the walls that used to be used by the powerful to suppress certain ideas they found unpleasant for their own reasons.
As for Musk and Twitter: tempest in a medium sized teapot. At least we will all have a clearer picture of who is shaping the Twitter algorithms after the purchase, but a surprisingly sad sliver of the population will actually be any wiser as a result of that tidbit of information. As always: people will mostly repeat what they want to hear.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 09 2022, @05:45PM (2 children)
So you can sit there lying your slimy face off, and then when you get modded as troll, you can sob and complain about what a victim you are?
Brilliant.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 09 2022, @07:52PM (1 child)
The better sourced and accurate the post, the more likely it is to be modded troll. But only if it runs counter to leftist orthodoxy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 09 2022, @11:10PM
"All's Well That's Orwell"
- Elon Musk
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 09 2022, @07:20PM (1 child)
OK, Boomer. Leftist kids these days, heh? I know you were a liberal, until you got old and the memory started to go. What are all these kids doing on your lawn?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 09 2022, @11:12PM
You know, that bigotry doesn't work with test audiences any more.
You know there's an election coming up... you'd better get caught up on more recent blather.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by cmdrklarg on Monday May 09 2022, @09:54PM (1 child)
You get a heartfelt Overrated from me. I'll tell you why.
Because you are suffering from a psychological mechanism called "projection" that attributes one's own negative qualities to someone else. It seems to be all the rage these days amongst conservatives. Each and every one of your issues with "the left" can also be hung on "the right".
With that being said, it's not the left vs. right conflict that is the actual problem. The *actual* problem is the wealthy and powerful that are prodding both sides with "Let's you and him fight!" while they sit back and watch. Sure, there are rabid lefties just like there are rabid righties, but if one looks at the vast majority of people you will find that they have much more in common than you think. It's a classic case of divide and conquer, and we're the ones being conquered. Do you think that the few people that are the wealthy and powerful could stand up to the millions of us if we decided to rein them in?
Abortion, transgenders, guns, etc. are all wedge issues being exploited to keep us all fighting amongst ourselves so that we're too busy to pay attention to the assholes pulling all the strings.
The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday May 09 2022, @11:51PM
Who said bumfights are a thing of the past?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 09 2022, @04:02PM (4 children)
I'm reserving judgment, but I don't expect him to be this open minded when it comes to his personal interests. I could be wrong, but we'll have to see how many of those banned accounts get reinstated and what happens to accounts that are critical of his interests.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 09 2022, @07:34PM (3 children)
Are you suggesting that Musk is going to #Freearistarchus? How much Dogecoin is that going to take?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 09 2022, @08:54PM (2 children)
I doubt doxxing people will be acceptable, but who knows.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 09 2022, @09:11PM
So not actually free speech, got it. When does your publicly available information become fair game in your mind? Why is it ok to doxx abortion doctors but not random assholes? If doxxing is so bad then surely spreading pro-violence rhetoric aimed at marginalized groups is worse! Or are your ideals limited to what you can imagine impacting you directly?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 09 2022, @11:45PM
Who got doxxed? What was their name, and address, and SS number? (That's “Schutzstaffel,” not Social Security.) And if no one knows, can it really be called doxxing?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 09 2022, @03:06PM (2 children)
Whoever has the gold makes the rules.
Everyone loves it when it works out in their favor, and hates it when it doesn't.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday May 09 2022, @05:41PM
It doesn't take a lot of gold to run Soylent and I read it because I like the rules...
Why do you get to change the rules on websites you don't operate?
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday May 09 2022, @06:19PM
FWIW, to me that's a "Wizard of Id" reference, but I suspect that it wasn't original there.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 09 2022, @03:22PM
We don't yet know what Musk will tell the tweeterati to do. He might tell them, as has been hinted, to rip out the algorithmic timeline in favour of a chronological one again, as just one example.
Free speech can be handled algorithmically; input turns into output. It's when you start to edit things, that it gets messy. It's truer to suggest that policy enforcement is tough to do algorithmically.
Basically, this is a typical EVERYBODY PANIC NOW article based on puffery. I hope that the author was paid by the word.