Discussions on difficult subjects

[Csar]

There's certainly a lot of great people who write great and interesting content there.
One thing I love, for instance, is the many scientists writing about their field, so that, if you follow the right people, you can hear some of the chit-chat and banter from experts about topics you're interested in.

Of course there are decent people, too, and I know my statement was generalizing. I also admit to be lurking every now and then (would never open an account though). But reality shows, that often the loudmouths and blowhards get the most attention and shitstorms of any kind are generated by a handful of folks compated to the vast majority of non-users, blown fully out of proportion due to media coverage.

Seriously, what is wrong with (45% of) this country? I'm so fucking sad looking at this.

Was this a twitter poll? If so, you can sleep better knowing that these are hardly representative. Just a subset of a portion of society that's on a social platform. They usually mean jack. It's like MAGA folks who measure their influence by the crowd size of their rallys or the number of likes on social media, forgetting that the vast majority of people couldn't care less about spending time at a political rally or on social platforms.

[thg]

Seriously, what is wrong with (45% of) this country? I'm so fucking sad looking at this.

[Enjoyed]

This is a real measure on the recent ballot. With 64% of votes counted, there are currently 45.7% of Oregonians who are bat shit fucking crazy.

[Csar]

Ah, I see. Well, yeah, that's batsh*t crazy. It's probably a tribal thing and the measure was introduced by Democrats, and that can't surely be something good in some minds. "They want to take something aways from us, it's history!".
This is what the Republican party has been quite successful in, especially under the former president, to emotionalize everything and distort facts beyond recognition and under no circumstance address the real substance of a matter.

I watched Jordan Klepper's "Fingers the midterms" last night, and this was, again, quite revealing.

There was a great comment that summarized it perfectly:

As Jordan has demonstrated time after time, you can walk these people down a logical path, where they agree with everything until the conclusion. Then they jump off the path and express an opinion completely opposite of what they were just agreeing to. [...]

[MadPooter]

This is what the Republican party has been quite successful in, especially under the former president, to emotionalize everything and distort facts beyond recognition and under no circumstance address the real substance of a matter.

The same can be said about the Left's approach to identity politics (racism, gender issues, sexism).

[Wolkenkrabber]

Seriously, what is wrong with (45% of) this country? I'm so fucking sad looking at this.

Batshit!
Well if you don't like it you could always "go home" (as a couple of Brexiteers have said to me). Things are clearly far more restrained and reasonable in the UK at the mo.

Oh, hang on
https://twitter.com/premnsikka/status/1577559323957284864

(for those not following the story, the UK has agreed a deal with Rwanda where Asylum Seekers arriving in the UK get flown to Rwanda for "processing"...and left there. Or at least that's the plan/"dream"). I would suggest that Suella is the kind of person who likes to pull the ladder up behind her.

The Right are quite good at blaming problems on foreigners! The Tories have been in power for 12 (twelve!) years. Things are shit? Point at the foreigners.
https://twitter.com/theRealRayThomp/status/1587174206059560960

https://twitter.com/maitlis/status/1587164254720999427

Ahh the irony of Brexiteers voting for less foreigners...

[MadPooter]

https://rumble.com/v1xbl8g-the-medias-deranged-hysteria-over-elon-musks-restoration-of-free-speech.html

[Born In Planet Dust]

If people really wanted to deal with that hateful bullshit, rumble, parlor, truth social, the chans, etc. would not only be more popular, but also they would have experienced and capable tech people wanting to deal with that kind of bullshit as well. On a related note, knowing that 8kun has become almost constantly an unusable forum recently due to spam and hackers makes me very happy.

[Stefan]

JFC, Trump loses like one election and now he calls for the constitution to be terminated. Men are clearly too emotional to handle politics.

But don't worry, in 2024 the right will unite behind DeSantis, who is just the same authoritarian white nationalist, but ~respectable~. Can't wait for all the so-called concervatives who, for years, drooled over Trumps incoherent blabber, to rejoice that finally, the GOP will be ~respectable~ again.

[Csar]

JFC, Trump looses like one election and now he calls for the constitution to be terminated. Men are clearly too emotional to handle politics.

Oh no no! Read his newest intellectual outpour. His words were all just twisted by the fake news media!!11eleven!!
I'm currently reading tweets from right wingers who either really want to believe that or claiming he's playing 4D chess or saying it only to piss off the other side, aka gaslighting. It's both hilarious and sad at the same time.

At least one silver lining emerged last week. Kari Lake, the failed Arizonan Governor hopeful and election results denier, not only lost her case  (which was ruled on in August) where she sought an injuction to suspend "electronic voting systems" for the midterms. In that lawsuit, among other things, her team demanded, Arizona needed to use paper ballots - you know, the thing they already use (duh).
Last week, for good measure, her lawyers got sanctioned, too, because they knowlingly brought a frivolous lawsuit - a ruling that is relatively rare. They will now have to pay the legal fees of the Arizonan election board.
And boy, did they get whacked in that ruling:

The Court has already concluded that Plaintiffs' claims are frivolous in that they are
"both baseless and made without a reasonable and competent inquiry." Townsend, 929 F.2d
at 1362. It further agrees with Defendants that under the circumstances, it was objectively
unreasonable and vexatious for Plaintiffs' counsel to initiate additional, time- and resource-
intensive preliminary injunction proceedings based on frivolous claims and to continue
making false and misleading representations about Arizona elections. The remaining
question under Section 1927 is whether Plaintiffs' counsel acted recklessly or in bad faith.
See Blixseth, 796 F.3d at 1008. The Court concludes they did.
[...]
Imposing sanctions in this case is not to ignore the importance of putting in place
procedures to ensure that our elections are secure and reliable. It is to make clear that the
Court will not condone litigants ignoring the steps that Arizona has already taken toward
this end and furthering false narratives that baselessly undermine public trust at a time of
increasing disinformation about, and distrust in, the democratic process. It is to send a
message to those who might file similarly baseless suits in the future.
Kari Lake vs. Katie Hobbs

[Wolkenkrabber]

How's that free speech going Elon?

https://twitter.com/kattenbarge/status/1603556103459143682

https://twitter.com/ZaleskiLuke/status/1603558566954405889

https://twitter.com/OTCeIIy/status/1603554761776693250

[Csar]

It becomes more and more evident to me that Elon is an overrated asshole, suffering immensely from the Dunning-Kruger-effect and an fragile ego. When you watch his many presentations, you'll notice that he actually comes across as pretty shy and a bit insecure in person. But on TW, he can let it all out. Being a rich person who has that genius myth going for him certainly helps getting attention and even admiration being the nasty master-troll.
But more importantly, he most probably is doing all of this stuff to keep spinning the publicity wheel so TW stays in the news cycle. He's also figured out that the right-wing nutjobs are the most profitable and gullible customer he can appeal to so he's pandering to them by setting the troll-level to max. TW desperately needs money.

Btw, I wonder what Donie O'Sullivan might have said that pissed him off. The journalist seemed to be a rather matter-of-fact guy.

[MadPooter]

Man. People are really freaking out about Elon Musk. A lot.

For the record--looks like the recent Twitter drama was a one-day suspension for journalists that re-tweeted links to a Twitter account that was Tweeting the realtime location of Elon Musk's personal jet, violating Twitter's anti-doxxing policy.

There is some debate about whether or not the owner of said Twitter account was using publicly available data, but it seems like the user was using *more* than just publicly available data.

Even still, the one-day suspensions weren't because journalists were being critical of Musk, which seems to be somehow an implicit suggestion in the conversation, even though it's patently false.

Also for the record--a stalker was trying to harass Elon Musk recently by blocking his car and jumping on the hood. Elon Musk wasn't in said car, but Musk's infant son was.

It's shocking how people were silent when, prior to Musk's ownership, Twitter was banning users for tweeting their opinions, arguably not even violating Twitter's TOS.

So all of a sudden people give a shit about free speech, and they can't even get the facts straight to complain about journalists not being able to tweet for a day after violating Twitter's TOS.

Every single voice complaining about Elon Musk was silent when the platform was engaged in outright censorship of voices based on Leftist ideals.

I think Elon Musk is clearly an asshole, and he's said some pretty stupid things in the past.

I think the suspensions of the Twitter accounts *linking* to another Twitter account were questionable, but I do understand he was reacting out of concern for his family's safety.

But at the end of the day, what I'm seeing is people just wanting any reason to hate Elon Musk.

The folks decrying Musk as a hypocrite are themselves hypocrites--if they weren't, we would have seen a lot more people outraged at prior bans on Twitter of Twitter accounts simply posting opinions others disagreed with. And as people know, of course, those bans prior to Musk's ownership were permanent.

[MadPooter]

Quick follow up.

If you actually care about journalists being silenced, you should follow this story:

https://nypost.com/2022/12/16/nbc-suspends-ben-collins-for-mocking-elon-musk-on-twitter/

The short of it is that an NBC News reporter, Ben Collins, was prohibited by NBC from further coverage of Elon Musk on the air due to Collins' tweets of Elon Musk, which were highly critical.

Note that Ben Collins' Twitter account was never suspended, and in fact Collins continues to tweet after the action from NBC.

https://twitter.com/oneunderscore__

[sandelic]

You're forgetting that before Elon you did not have a face to rage against, just some unknown twitter employee.
Now you do, it's him. 
Btw, if those journalists did anything illegal, I'm sure authorities would be involved. 

[Stefan]

Well, it's because he basically *is* the company now. Before he took over, content moderation was done by teams according to internal guidelines, not the antics of a billionaire with the impulse control and moral compass of a 14year old edgelord.

Regarding the stalker incident, apparently it was distressing enough to make a public outcry on Twitter and throw overboard his own principles he's so proud of, but not distressing enough to report it to the police, even though they could easily identify the person given that Musk has their license plates.

The folks decrying Musk as a hypocrite are themselves hypocrites--if they weren't, we would have seen a lot more people outraged at prior bans on Twitter of Twitter accounts simply posting opinions others disagreed with. And as people know, of course, those bans prior to Musk's ownership were permanent.

Yeah, because the bans for people who peddled unhinged conspiracy narratives that resulted in a violent insurrection (Trump&his cronies), profiting from harassing the victims of a terrible shooting (Alex Jones) or misoginy/sexuall harassment (Andrew Tate) (just to name a few examples),  is totally the same as *checks notes* a college student posting public flight tracker data and journalists covering Musks reaction to it. Totally the same thing. Free Speech!

But let's see how serious Musk is with his concerns for releasing private information that could potentially harm somebody when a journalist or activist covering white supremacy/right wing extremist actions gets doxxed. You know, usually somebody not protected by immense wealth, living in a fortified gated community and able to afford round-the-clock security. I wouldn't hold my breath .

[Stefan]

But more importantly, he most probably is doing all of this stuff to keep spinning the publicity wheel so TW stays in the news cycle. He's also figured out that the right-wing nutjobs are the most profitable and gullible customer he can appeal to so he's pandering to them by setting the troll-level to max. TW desperately needs money.

I disagree here, I think that Musk himself is a right-wing nutjob¹. He fully bought into the silly narrative of cancel culture², that silicon valley tech companies and mainstream media are all run by leftists, there are good indications that this directly played a role in his decision to buy Twitter in the first place. Because clearly, if you look at all the shit that is going on in the world, apparently the most pressing issue is Neo-Nazis not having enough of a platform. Again, free speech, hooray!

[1]He might not realise this himself. People who proudly state that they are neither right nor left are usually firmly on the right.

[2]Which, upon closer inspection, usually is just privileged people not being able to deal with the consequences of their shitty actions.

[MadPooter]

I disagree here, I think that Musk himself is a right-wing nutjob¹. He fully bought into the silly narrative of cancel culture², that silicon valley tech companies and mainstream media are all run by leftists, there are good indications that this directly played a role in his decision to buy Twitter in the first place. Because clearly, if you look at all the shit that is going on in the world, apparently the most pressing issue is Neo-Nazis not having enough of a platform. Again, free speech, hooray!

[1]He might not realise this himself. People who proudly state that they are neither right nor left are usually firmly on the right.

[2]Which, upon closer inspection, usually is just privileged people not being able to deal with the consequences of their shitty actions.

Perhaps you liked Twitter better when the United States government had enforcement agencies working with Twitter to censor speech?

https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1603857534737072128

You seem to enjoy the idea that speech should have consequences. Unless words are being used to incite violence (which arguably is what doxxing is, since the only real information that is being communicated is someone's personally identifying information geographically), the only consequence of speech should be... more speech.

There were a lot of bans that happened prior to Musk taking over--I haven't reviewed every one. My understanding is Musk made the decision to un-ban a lot of accounts that were banned prior to Musk's ownership. There probably are some that need to be shut down again, assuming they post hateful content.

I can't remember though... is Kanye still posting on Twitter?

https://twitter.com/kanyewest?lang=en

Nope.

[Stefan]

Mr. Fee Speech Absolutist Billionaire, who bought a whole social media platform for an incredibly inflated price for the purpose of making it the ultimate Free Speech platform and was (is?) widely celebrated for it, is now issuing a blanket ban for accounts linking to other social media platforms, because that is how Free Speech works?
https://twitter.com/TwitterSupport/status/1604531261791522817

I tried to post a link to my mastodon account and Twitter wouldn't allow it

Tbh, it's Musks platform now, and he can allow or disallow any content however he likes. If tomorrow he decides that, going forward, only posts mady by weird incels yodelign epic poems in praise of their chad overlord are allowed, it is well within his rights to do so.
But the fact that so many people buy into his free speech argument crap is stunning to me.

[Csar]

Wow. While I could see where they come from pertaining to promo-accounts since they consider it advertisement for which they want to be paid for, I can only laugh at their stance on private users sharing their other media accounts.

The way it's going they should perhaps rename it to "Litter".