Ten Second News Links and Open Thread for the week of 12/05/2022
There’s a phenomenon where someone writes an essay about this or that but someone else wants to discuss something that has not yet made it to Ten Second News.
This is unfair to everybody involved. It’s unfair to the guy who wrote the original essay because, presumably, he wants to talk about his original essay. It’s unfair to the guy who wants to talk about his link because it looks like he’s trying to change the subject. It’s unfair to the people who go to the comments to read up on the thoughts of the commentariat for the original essay and now we’re talking about some other guy’s links.
So!
The intention is to have a new one of these on the Sidebar every week. If you want to talk about a link, post it here! Or, heck, use it as an open thread.
And, if it rolls off, we’ll make a new one. With a preamble just like this one.
https://www.thebulwark.com/trump-stands-in-the-middle-of-fifth-avenue-and-shoots-the-constitution/
Guess who went on a rage-induced rant on Friday night in order to protest how corrupt and unfair everything is? Guess who also called for the constitution to be suspended in order to have himself installed as dictator for life?
The basic form of an authoritarian is a blowhard in a bar. If Trump were a blowhard in a bar, he would just make the entire experience unpleasant for every other patron until the bartenders kicked him out.
I kind of get why it is tempting to treat Trump like a blowhard in a bar but he was the former President of the United States and he is the presumptive 2024 nominee for the Republican Party. This should probably be taken more seriously than the most unpleasant uncle during the holidays.Report
Every one outside the GOP is taking it seriously. The GOP is ignoring because, in the end, its the only way they hold power. They won’t change their policy prescriptions to suit the modern world, so full on authoritarian dictatorship is all they have left. And so He’s a useful idiot in that regard because he keeps them from having to say it outloud.Report
Here’s the Presidential Oath:
“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
I’m pretty sure that he is coming out and saying “Yeah, I cannot be trusted to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
If you want someone who is going to do that, you’re going to have to go somewhere else.Report
There was quite possibly intentional terrorism against electric substations in North Carolina to prevent a drag show: https://www.thepilot.com/news/controversial-drag-show-ends-early-following-power-outage/article_576fbe72-7355-11ed-9e6c-bf04b3a3e425.htmlReport
Although it hasn’t been proven it was rightwingers, there were numerous armed groups showing up to terrorize drag shows over the past few weeks, so it seems likely.
Which is why allowing Naz.is into Twitter is so dangerous- Their whole goal, their reason for existence, is to terrorize or violently attack their hated outgroup.Report
At this point in the investigation it’s very easy to draw a line between someone you don’t like and something they do that you don’t like.
If we’re going to bet then I’d place a chip on mental illness.Report
First of all, “mental illness” doesn’t negate rightwing incitement.
Secondly, most of these groups- Proud Boys, et al, had explicit rightwing agendas, which they said themselves proudly, and most were very clear about who and what incited them.Report
True. So if it was a group of Proud Boys, they’ll probably tell you something close to what you’re trying to proclaim.
And if it was a mentally ill nut who turned off the power to punish his football team (or whatever), then the Proud Boys being involved will turn out to be a Team Blue fantasy.
That city is a half a million people. There’s going to be lots of things going on. Unless we have some specific reason to think along these lines, it seems a real reach.
The good news is if they did do it then they’ll be bragging about it to their friends and we’ll find out. But with zero evidence it seems a low probability outcome.Report
I’m not even talking about the power outage.
I’m talking about the other half dozen instances of armed rightwingers showing up at drag shows recently.
Their whole purpose is to seek out and terrorize their hated outgroups.Report
Michael Avenatti has been sentenced to 14 years.
Report
Well, there’s one less piece of SIHTAF.Report
He’s… the guy who represented “Stormy Daniels” against Trump.Report
A handful of news personalities saw him as the presumptive 2020 democratic nominee.Report
They timeshare a brain cell between them.Report
You can get Avenatti by extrapolating along the line W to Palin to Trump, but they’re not Democrats.Report
More grist for the mill:
https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/06/politics/january-6-committee-criminal-referrrals/index.htmlReport
I’d really hope we can use charges heavier than “perjury”.Report
Back in February, we talked about Hertz reporting returned cars as stolen.
Update:
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That’s nice – what’s to stop them form continuing to do this and just paying off periodically?Report
That’s a good question. Here’s from Hertz financials, I guess:
(I didn’t use 2020 or 2021 numbers for what strike me as obvious reasons.)Report
They payoffs too expensive and if they establish a pattern of doing so the required payoff would just keep getting more expensive.Report
In the year 2022, Martin Luther King’s successor of interest as pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church became the first African-American to win a full term to the Senate from the State of Georgia.Report
Officially official:
Let’s hope that gas prices return to normal.Report
Do US courts have any jurisdiction over SA’s crown prince?Report
According to this decision – no because he’s now prime minister and thus a head of state. At the time of Kashogi’s death he wasn’t, but apparently the courts weren’t willing to address that.Report
To be honest, I don’t know why he was ever named as a person of interest in the first place.
If a guy gets murdered by another guy, it’s weird to put a third guy on trial for it instead of the second guy. Even weirder if it happened on foreign soil.Report
The NYT and Turkish officials have concluded that the murder was premeditated and some members of the hit team were closely connected to bin Salman.
The CIA has concluded that bin Salman ordered the assassination.
The USA sanctioned 7 Saudis (although not Salman) under Trump.
The Saudis have held trials against 11 Saudis.
3 were acquitted.
3 sentenced to prison.
5 sentenced to death.
Two of the acquitted were high level Saudi security officials. All 5 of those sentenced to death were low level participants, and all 5 were pardoned by Khashoggi’s children.
US courts invited Biden’s legal opinion on what to do after his children tried to get them involved. The Biden admin said as a sitting foreign head of state we shouldn’t be doing this.
——————————
Note the vast difference between “The CIA has concluded” and “we, K’s children, have evidence we could submit to a court”.Report
See? No problem.Report
It’s a big smelly mess. However it seems more a foreign policy issue, than a courts thing.
It’s similar to “what do we do” about Putin and his killing journalists inside of Russia.
If bS had openly murdered K while on US soil while on live camera during an interview, he’d still have immunity as a foreign head of state. We’d deport him but diplomatic immunity is a thing.
K’s children don’t get to set US foreign policy through the courts.Report
The NYT and Turkish officials have also concluded that no one died from genocide before the 1940’s.Report
GA has called it. Warnock won.
Trump is officially a millstone.Report
It seems San Fran may not want to usher in Skynet after all:
https://www.npr.org/2022/12/06/1141129944/san-francisco-deadly-robots-policeReport
Problem isn’t skynet. Problem is “slaughterbots” (see link, it’s a short horror/warning about the technology and it’s potential for misuse).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlO2gcs1YvMReport
Real estate:
Which brings me back to the house that I jog past.
It is now under contract having dropped another 10K. All told, it’s selling for $60K less than original asking price and only ~65K more than the guy bought it for before renovating/flipping.
And I don’t know whether the guy who bought it is going to be underwater next year.Report
I’d make a joke about n- – i this coming but wordpress would have a sad
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/25-suspected-members-german-far-right-group-arrested-raids-prosecutors-office-2022-12-07/Report
It’s a story that is at once weird and scary. It seems highly improbable that even as large a conspiracy as ~300 members could possibly have overthrown the government of Germany, they were well-armed enough that they probably could have killed a lot of people trying. And they seem to have had some German variant of the QAnon/sovereign citizen mythology that I had previously thought was principally a north American thing. Also the whole “every male in this family is named Heinrich and we use Roman numbers to distinguish who they are” thing is just weird weird weird.Report
Calling themselves “Imperial Citizens” is sort of hilarious. I wonder if one group, our wackos or theirs, inspired each other.Report
And every one was a Heinrich
We wouldn’t have a Wilhelm or a KarlReport
Biden successfully got Brittney Griner free when Trump couldn’t:
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Yea, in exchange for a pretty nasty character while other Americans with better claims for release stay in Russian custody. Which isn’t to say her treatment was just, I’ve just never understood why we were supposed to have so much sympathy for someone who can’t figure out obvious stuff like ‘don’t fly to Russia with a vape pen.’Report
The nasty character had already spent a decade in jail. So some of his debt to society has been paid.Report
It was a kidnapping in exchange for a ransom. Not a prisoner exchange.Report
Eh whatever. I see it more as an entitled American going to a country that was dangerous and corrupt before February 24 without taking heed. The price for that shouldn’t be a decade in the gulag but, you know, the whole world ain’t Phoenix, AZ.Report
An entitled American committing a crime in a dangerous and corrupt country, though, right?Report
Yea, and it isn’t like there aren’t still states in the US where you can get jail time for a marijuana vape pen. It almost never happens anymore but it’s on the books. I certainly wouldn’t try my luck with it in the vast, vast majority of other countries, and certainly not Russia.Report
No idea why we give up an arms dealer for an idiot who brings contraband into another country. You’d think we’d use that leverage to get a CIA guy out (assuming one was locked up there) or at least, someone more important.Report
This is the guy those in the know say we should have been going for:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Whelan_(security_director)
He has his own issues but probably is actually a US asset. Obviously he does not check the right boxes to become a cause celebré in the US media.Report
OK, my bad. Your search did better than mine for finding someone more important.Report
“he does not check the right boxes to become a cause celebré in the US media”
Which is what seems distasteful, no?
Notice in these comments how Griner is being examined, her actions interrogated and apparently she doesn’t check the “right boxes” either, in order to be worthy of exchange.
I mean, is Whelan more or less “entitled” than Griner? More or less an “idiot”? Was he more or less “heedless” for not figuring out obvious stuff like “don’t go go to Russia as a mercenary spy”?
I wouldn’t be opposed had the US government selected Whelan over Griner. What seems distasteful to me is the armchair inquisition of worth, scrutinizing these people’s backgrounds and pronouncing them worthy or not.
Both of these people are our fellow Americans, and checkered pasts or no, deserve our government’s assistance.Report
Here’s the deal, and this is all about realpolitk.
From a foreign policy perspective, we should prioritize the return of US citizens as follows:
1) US citizens working / supporting the US in espionage / folks who have had/have access to classified info we don’t want the other side to have.
2) US civilians innocent individuals held/charged who are ENTIRELY not guilty and are being used as pawns by the other side/face severe prison sentences, etc.
3) Same as 2 but face less prison
4) Non US nationals of friendly countries in the same situations as described above in the same order.
5) The guilty who face punishments > than appropriate to the crime, example: execution for theft of a wallet.
6) Everybody else.
FYI…remember when Bush 1 wanted to get those two girls out of Afghanistan who lied on their application NOT to proselytize the locals and still did? I had no problem letting them rot in jail. They knew what they were doing was dangerous. No sympathy.Report
My guess is that unlike Griner, Whelan is actually an objectively dangerous person,
who is probably also a spy for the US . It’s just if we’re going to release an international arms dealer who is also an asset of Russia we want to make sure we get the right value.
I certainly don’t begrudge Griner. You do whatever the hell you can to get out of that situation no matter what you did.Report
This is it. I don’t think anyone would send Griner back; it’s just national pastime to speculate on the value for the trade.
Like paying $86M for 40-yo pitcher. Glad he got paid, but not convinced that’s a good use of $$… then again not my $$.
Slightly more seriously though; if Whelan really is/was an intelligence asset (none of us know), then this was a bad trade. Need to protect/prioritize assets who are at risk abroad. Viktor Bout is a ‘Spy Level’ asset for trade. Not really Schlub for Schlub trade.
If we’re just discussing two schlubs who got picked up? Schlub A was more interesting/valuable than Schlub B … then see above, did we overpay?
Gratuitous coda: see, this is what happens when we can’t just overlook some garden variety Oligarch money laundering to free our citizens on the down-low.Report
“Obviously he does not check the right boxes to become a cause celebré in the US media.”
Russia has been clear they are not releasing him to us. It was either Griner or no one. Even his family has said the US was right to get Griner out while they could.Report
Certainly a possibility. But was she worth letting go of Bout, someone we know the Russians really wanted? That’s more the question.Report
Agreed with that. Was just talking about this with girlfriend.
All available evidence says Griner vs Whelan isn’t a question really worth considering.
Griner vs Bout remains a question and I won’t pretend to have any insights into whether it was the right move or even a good move.
I’m glad she’s home. I do hope it wasn’t a bad move to get her here.
Griner vs Whelan seems to be emerging as a RW talking point to bash Biden.Report
It has been pointed out that the vacuum left in the arms dealer biz by Bout’s imprisonment has been filled. It’s not like more weapons are suddenly going to be dealt.Report
I think that’s more rationalization than endorsement that we got good value for what we had. My understanding is that the Russians saw this less as about getting weapons to people and more of signaling loyalty to their operatives.
I’m not interested in crucifying the administration over it or anything. Just seems like this was not the best return on value. Totally possible of course that there is more to it.Report
If we could have gotten Whelan for Bout, we would have done it long before Griner went to Russia. Russia’s price for Whelan, whom they claim, and who might very well be, a spy, would obviously be much higher.Report
I hear you. I’m just saying we (apparently) traded a Russian military and/or intelligence asset for a WNBA player that brought her marijuana into Russia in violation of its laws. Maybe there was no deal for Whelan to be had for Bout. That doesn’t necessarily mean you trade Bout for whoever else they happen to have.Report
There is reporting form NPR among others that Bout was offered for Whelan previously and Russia declined. If that’s the case then the Administration made the deal it could make.Report
But that’s never enough.Report
The administration was under no obligation to make a deal. Bout still had ~15 years of his sentence. Maybe if he only had a few left and you’re going to lose the bargaining chip regardless then, sure, trade it for whatever is there that day, but it isn’t like Bout was going anywhere.Report
We’re definitely into ‘None of us have any idea how the negotiations actually went’ territory…
BUT, saying NO is literally my job as a negotiator… I say no all the time. And then I say yes, IF…
If I could get a higher value piece, let’s say Bout, for a low value piece, let’s say Griner, knowing that Christmas and Family reunion has disproportionate value to the other side? I’m saying No until Christmas passes.
He who has the deadline loses. That’s the #1 rule of negotiations.Report
Pretty much. I suppose it’s also possible that Bout’s actual value to the Russians is much lower than it has been played up to be and the exchange isn’t so lopsided. We the public will probably never know.
But to your point the side that has to do a deal is the side that loses. I’m still not seeing where we had to.Report
… and we’ll never know what we had to do or when or why. Well, not in a timely sense or until FOIA requests come unredacted for PhD dissertations in 2072.Report
Wiki doesn’t list anyone more important. That might not be true (after all, wiki), but we may have been keeping our people out of Putin’s hands for years for obvious reasons.
Further if memory serves she’s got some medical condition and uses that contraband to treat it.Report
She hadn’t been arrested when Trump was Prez. She was detained in Feb of 2022.Report
Paraphrasing Yoda – when 190 years old you become, look this good you will not:
https://www.npr.org/2022/12/07/1141180557/jonathan-tortoise-birthday-190Report
I think if I cleared 100 I’d look exactly like that.Report
There’s a photo of Jonathan from 1886 with another tortoise and 4 dudes, and every time I see it (seemingly every year), I think about how these dudes got up that morning, dressed, and went about their day, which at one point included someone taking their photo next to the two giant tortoises, completely clueless, and perhaps unable to fathom even the possibility, that almost 140 years later people would be looking at them in that photo because they’re celebrating the birthday of one of those damn turtles.Report
The tweet has that picture of Jonathan with two people, and a helpful caption- “Here’s a picture of him, on the right…”Report
Here, by the way, is the image I mean: https://www.gannett-cdn.com/presto/2020/10/13/NCDT/7280c578-9d4d-48b5-a1dd-87680c46254d-Johnathan_and_another_tortoise__St_Helena.png?width=660&height=495&fit=crop&format=pjpg&auto=webpReport
“Pictured: A group of people with two tortoises (foreground)”Report
Not a link but since it is also an open thread…
My son’s public school sent us a letter informing us that the 2nd grade would be beginning their “health and wellness” curriculum this month and discussed certain topics and resources they’d be using, along with links to state standards. Included among them is a book called, “Trucks And Dolls Are For Boys and Girls,” a simple picture book that aims to breakdown gender stereotypes about what sorts of activities or hobbies are for which sex/gender.
So, if you are in the camp that all schools are secretly trying to turn kids into trans homos, I offer you a data point in the other direction. There is nothing secretive going on there — proactive transparency! — and the curriculum is age-appropriate and would only be offensive to the most close-minded of folks.Report
I hope posting that made you feel better.Report
Yes, posting the truth feels good.
Did posting your bullshit response make you feel better?Report
Comment in mod… I guess I should have said BS.Report
Yep.Report
House passed same sex marriage act. It’s now on Biden’s desk, he’ll sign it.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/house-passes-bill-protect-sex-marriage-sending-bidens-desk-rcna60128Report
As he should. I’m sure Clarence Thomas is already crafting what he hopes will be his majority opinion trashing it.Report
One of the interactions I had in the last few days I was on twitter concerned this law. I clashed with other left-of-center people about it. They opposed the law because the wording used to protect the marriages in question did not specifically and explicitly include same-sex and interracial marriages.
Which was probably the way that Sen. Sinema drafted it, to give Republicans some cover on their right flanks when they voted for it. And that seemed to work, as an appreciable number of Republicans DID vote for it. Moreover, it puts the bill very squarely within the Constitution’s grant of power to Congress under the Full Faith and Credit Clause, so this will be a very difficult law to get overruled when it is inevitably challenged.
But this wasn’t morally pure enough for my left-of-center interlocutors, so they opposed it. Which made me want to face-palm in exasperation. Guys, we got the W and this goes a long way towards making sure we keep it. This is how politics works.
There were also right-of-center folks who opposed it because there was no explicit and overt statement that a religious entity wouldn’t be required to recognize a marriage contrary to its religious tenets. Well, at least that’s why they said they opposed it and I didn’t think it necessary to challenge their sincerity though you can infer that I had doubts. (N.b., even before this law passed, there was no impediment at all to a religious entity refusing to perform a ceremony for, or recognize as religiously valid, marriages contrary to their doctrines; the new law does nothing to change that entirely appropriate state of affairs.)Report
I’m pretty sure the law that prevents requiring churches to recognize same sex marriages already exists. It’s a really well known one too.Report
This must have been obvious to the Republicans who voted for the bill. So what was the provision for? Are enough Republican voters so dumb that this meaningless concession would give the Republican Senators political cover?Report
Marriage is (and should be) mostly a gov thing.
A married Catholic who gets divorced and wants to get married again can, not in the church because they don’t allow that, but the church not “recognizing” the marriage has little to no meaning.Report
Yeah a sizable number of us can no longer stand incrementalism, and being reactive sucks. Its a W but it’s not THE W. And yes I know a W is a W is a W. But just one I’d really like to see a W attached to something fully bold instead of 1/2 bold or 5/8 bold.Report
Thursday night news dump:
Report
Do we have a copy of the full black list? Does anyone?Report
I only have the thread itself.
Edit: But I am also seeing tweets like this now:
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The stuff bari is blowing the lid on is almost exactly what elon said his new improved free speech policy is. This is weapons grade stupid so far.Report
From what I understand, Twitter execs testified in Congress to the contrary.
In any case, this seems to be a new policy:
Report
His policy is hate speech is:
“”New Twitter policy is freedom of speech, but not freedom of reach,” Musk tweeted on Friday. “Negative/hate tweets will be max deboosted & demonetized, so no ads or other revenue to Twitter. You won’t find the tweet unless you specifically seek it out, which is no different from rest of Internet.”
Sounds like shadow banning to me. It’s also just basic content mod.
Musk is promising shadow banning and content mod. lol.Report
So, once again, it’s not about what he’s doing… it’s about how much clout he’s getting for doing it.
In any case, I’m pleased that there seems to be somewhat of an amnesty and even more pleased that there seems to be actual transparency.
No lol required.Report
And if you want to read the last thread where we complained about the amount of clout that Musk was receiving undeservedly, you can do so here.Report
“So, once again, it’s not about what he’s doing… it’s about how much clout he’s getting for doing it.”
So, the issue isn’t what prior Twitter execs did but about what “clout” they got for doing it?
Huh?Report
I want to say that the problem with the previous execs was what they testified before congress when compared to what they actually were doing.Report
Yes, if they lied to Congress, they should be held accountable.
So you have no issue with blacklists and the like… just lying about it?Report
So you have no issue with blacklists and the like… just lying about it?
I have two issues. The first is something related to “The Rules”.
If there is a set of “The Rules”, I like to know what they are.
The second is something vaguely related to “Enlightenment Culture”. It includes stuff like “Free Speech” but is not limited to that.
I don’t *LIKE* blacklists but I understand how, occasionally, they’re preferable to what happens with anarchy. (Remember the conversation we had about people throwing up on the bus and the counter-example was John Rocker? I understand blacklisting people who throw up on the bus.)Report
“I want to say that the problem with the previous execs was what they testified before congress when compared to what they actually were doing.”
So… not this? Sorry… I just need to know which particular mole I’m supposed to be whacking.Report
“So you have no issue with blacklists and the like… just lying about it?”
You ask this with the intimation that replying “yes” would be somehow inconsistent and insupportable.
Jaybird hasn’t ever said that a private club which picks and chooses its members is a bad thing.Report
Previously all the execs at Twitter leaned Left so if something like Hunter Biden’s laptop might cost team Blue the election, then that would be deemed so offensive, disruptive and dangerous that it would be handled appropriately (outright removed).
Musk intends to fix that. The left leaning media saw that sort of thing as a seriously good thing so Musk’s “fix” is really bad, so they’re looking for reasons it’s bad.
Thus we’re seeing a reports on Na.zis who are unbanned and even reports on why only Na.zis would speculate about evolution.
Musk has to be a Na.zi because only Na.zis would set up a system where Hunter’s laptop would be allowed to interfere with the election.Report
Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by moderators with shadow bans.
Who’s gonna do it? You?
Twitter moderators have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Hunter Biden’s dick pic, and you curse Twitter. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know — that suppressing the dick pic, while tragic, probably saved lives; and moderators’ existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives.
You don’t want the truth because deep down in places you don’t talk about at parties, you want moderators on that wall — you need moderators on that wall.
They use words like “brand safety,” “trust,” “harassment.” They use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punch line.
Did they ban the dick pic?
YOU’RE G*DDAMN RIGHT THEY DID!Report
Right after saying that he lost his case and his job.
It’s very fair to ask that a (close to a) public utility be open about the rules it follows and that it follow it’s own rules. It’s fair to insist that people be able to ask why they’ve been banned (or whatever) and for them to point out that it’s wrong.
That helps the Na.zis but the person we’re really trying to help is someone who is just politically inconvenient. The whole “everyone has rights” thing.Report
Is anyone saying otherwise?
I mean, it doesn’t look like there was any banning of conservative thought going on, unless conservative thought is defined as anti-vax and racist trolling.
And I’m not entirely sure Twitter should be regulated as a public utility but I’m open to being persuaded.Report
“Musk intends to fix that.”
Fix… what? Nothing was broken. Rather, some people didn’t like the way Twitter operated. Now someone new is in the driver’s seat and a different group of people don’t like the way Twitter operates.
Ho hum.
Musk can do what he wants. The previous Twitter bosses should have been allowed to do what they want. Trump should be allowed to do what he wants to Truth Social. Etc, etc, etc.
What I’m seeing lots of people doing is pointing at individual action taken by previous Twitter leadership — actions that Musk himself continues to take — and crying foul only about these past incidents. It is clear they don’t actually care about the actions but about the targets of those actions.
Again, I’d like to see the actual Blacklist (or whatever) and everyone impacted by it. If folks have access to it and are choosing to only share particular names off of it, methinks they have an agenda beyond calling out the actions itself.Report
“What I’m seeing lots of people doing is pointing at individual action taken by previous Twitter leadership — actions that Musk himself continues to take — and crying foul only about these past incidents.”
oh, now you’re hitting me? Now you’re hitting me? I thought you said hitting was bad and now you’re hitting me. And I never hit you, baby, not one time. Yeah maybe you got in my way sometimes and I moved you to where I needed you to be and maybe you didn’t like how I did that, but that’s your thing. I think that if we’re gonna have a conversation about hitting then we need to talk about you as much as we talk about me, especially since you went and got a piece of paper saying that I’m not in charge anymore.Report
Perhaps ironically, it’s only because the fash are so loud that we think of this as Twitter having been biased against the far right, or at least, only biased against the far right.Report
And if people like Alice from Queens and Goodtweetman get rolled up as well, hey.
You can’t make an omelet.Report
Coincidentally, Alice from Queens and I follow each other, but I’ve had her muted for like 2 years, so I always forget that she exists. I can’t imagine what she did to get “shadowbanned.”Report
Fash-adjacent-adjacent-adjacent.Report
Twitter is deleting tweets showing Musk getting booed at the Chappelle show.Report
Not really… what was always apparent to those of us who don’t get to sit at the Cool Kids’ table because of our unfashionable ideas was that Twitter really did operate as a club with a Cool Kids’ table.
Honestly, I kinda think that Twitter as ‘The Influential Left in Gossip’ was a dominant motif that made it attractive to folks that used it – self included. Goodness knows its not _really_ for the exchange of ideas.
That said, the risk (as I see it) is that without the Cool Kids, will anyone care about anyone else’s gossip? But simultaneously, without the unfashionables… will the Cool Kids have anything meaningful to say or comment upon? How’s Mastadon going? Also, my feed hasn’t really changed that much … if anything, slightly for the better as I get less amplification of the Cool Kids’ stuff.
Twitter was/is a kind of social ecosystem that was balanced one way — I’m not 100% sure it survives a rebalancing — but if it does, it will be because the moderation flags will be open, even if still somewhat arbitrary and seemingly capricious. I think that’s ultimately a better model than the Cool Kids Table approach. But then I would, since all my ideas are unfashionable.
I can honestly say that I haven’t seen a single use of the N word or any Na.zi uptick or posting. Taylor Lawrence hardest hit. I’m sure that many of the folks who were permanently suspended and returned will get themselves suspended again. I’d rather they be suspended under a system that’s somewhat auditable or understandable… even if it still seems arbitrary and capricious at the end. Hopefully it’s arbitrary and capricious in a consistent way… like baseball umps.
Partly I’m thinking about the very few number of folks who I know were suspended – like ‘Goodtweetman’ – for things that were obviously Cool Kids doing things on behalf of Cool Kids.
But it is strange to see the progression from, there’s no content amplification/degradation based on viewpoint (which might have seemed plausible to people with the right viewpoint) to: ‘Of course we deprecated ideas/content that don’t violate the TOS, but which we, the Cool Kids, wanted deprecated.
And then someone Uncool bought the Cool Kids’ table. That’s weird and doesn’t really happen very often… watching it play out is its own new drama.Report
“what was always apparent to those of us who don’t get to sit at the Cool Kids’ table because of our unfashionable ideas was that Twitter really did operate as a club with a Cool Kids’ table.”
And the thing is, I’d have been happier if Twitter’s management team had just come out and said that.
But one of the rules of Mao is that you never explain the rules to new players. And the tech industry sure does love playing Mao…Report
Heh, sure… that’s what’s somewhat funny about the Left making fun of Elon for not being consistent about Alex Jones… he created a rule:
“I have no mercy for anyone who would use the deaths of children for gain, politics or fame.”
Now… with Rule #1 on the books, how do we define ‘use’ and ‘gain’ and ‘children’ and, etc. etc.
On the one hand, that’s what people asked for – what’s the rule, what’s the reason.
On the other, we may find that the rule and reason may be subject to interpretation.
But If I had to pick secret rules, secret interpretations vs. open rules and suspect interpretations? I’d pick the latter. I can at least yell about the shitty interpretations – until I get shadow banned by the new regime, which, I’m told it totally ok because it’s a private company.
That’s what makes this Twitter issue dumb (fun?); it has nothing to do with principles… it’s just power and the people who had it are embarrassed they lost it and to whom. Losing your primary Narrative engine is very annoying for a politics and ethics based on Narrative.Report
I’m late to the thread. I just finished the second news dump, and we’re already at the “the real issue is how Jaybird communicates” attempted distraction. But there were some great observations by Jaybird, Marchmaine, and DensityDuck here. Kudos.Report
what was always apparent to those of us who don’t get to sit at the Cool Kids’ table because of our unfashionable ideas was that Twitter really did operate as a club with a Cool Kids’ table.
I haven’t seen any evidence of leftward bias, but moderation, by its very definition will discriminate against unfashionable ideas.
Like the broadcast networks of the Dick Cavett post, Twitter’s business model is to deliver eyeballs to advertisers. This means finding the center of cultural gravity and excluding anything that advertisers find unfashionable or offensive.
The fact is, much of conservative thought is in the marginal space which advertisers find unfashionable or offensive.Report
Are we following each other on Twitter? Would like to if we’re not.
And we’re at the “and it was good” portion of the discourse, not the “have we seen any evidence that…”
I’ll give you a moment to catch up.Report
I used to joke about this as the four steps Bill Clinton would do: it never happened, someone else did it, it was the right thing to do, and we’ve already apologized for this so why do you keep bringing it up? A few months later it might be followed by “aren’t you glad we stopped people from doing it?”.Report
I don’t do Twitter.
But no one here or elsewhere has shown evidence of anything more than conventional moderation according to well publicized rules known to everyone,, similar to what Musk himself is easing back into.
Can you provide examples otherwise?Report
Well, there are other perspectives on it.
Report
The dump indicates 200 per day, done by or with the consultation of the highest levels of the company. A bad look, especially after having denied any knowledge of it.Report
Yes he is asking the same question I am.
Can anyone here provide an answer?Report
If they reviewed those 4 accounts 50 times a day, that’d make 200. We can speculate there were more than 4.Report
In all these file dumps is there evidence of consistent partisan bias?
Weren’t requests for suppression from the Trump Administration honored?
Were the deletions justified?
I’m just not seeing any meat to these allegations.Report
The only answer I can really give is Bari Weiss’s thread.Report
You mean the one where she showed that Libs of TikTok was given preferential treatment?
I don’t think that demonstrates what is being asserted.Report
Oh, I failed to notice that we moved from “demonstrate that this happened” to “demonstrate that it happened partisanly”.
You’re absolutely right.
There is absolutely zero evidence that there was any ideological bias behind Visibility Filtering.Report
Have either of you guys realized you’re arguing about what goes on in the back room of Twitter?Report
Honestly I’m not even arguing.
I’m just trying to figure out what all the hoopla is about, since it obviously isn’t about any sort of ideological bias at Twitter.
No one can seem to explain any of it.Report
Well, there’s also stuff like this:
Does it *MATTER* if Twitter squashed people? Of course not. Nothing matters.
But stuff like “oh, yeah, here’s the people they squashed and here’s the internal discussions they had before they did it” is going to be interesting as heck.
They had thumbs on the scales. It will be interesting to see what the scales look like without thumbs.Report
Doesn’t “thumb on the scale” mean “moderating according to our very public and well known terms of service”?
And isn’t Elon bragging about moderating according his new and very public and well known terms of service?
Can somebody here actually make some sort of assertion or claim?Report
Doesn’t “thumb on the scale” mean “moderating according to our very public and well known terms of service”?
This is why the thread is interesting. It allows you to see such confessions as:
Report
Can somebody here actually make some sort of assertion or claim?Report
Does the internal SIP-PES memo not count as “some sort of assertion or claim”?
If not, could you provide an example of something that would qualify as “some sort of assertion or claim”?Report
No, an assertion is where you tell us in your own words what claim you’re trying to make.
If you don’t know what that is, maybe sit this one out and let someone else do the heavy lifting.
This is like the 20th comment on this topic, and no one here has made a simple declarative sentence.Report
The simple declarative sentence is “they said that they were enforcing their TOS but they privately admitted that they weren’t.”Report
See, why didn’t you start with that?
So Twitter tried to enforce their TOS and made mistakes.
This…doesn’t seem particularly shocking. People were talking about this for a long time now. I’ve seen half a dozen examples of people unfairly given time outs or even outright bans.
Got anything else, or is that it?Report
Well, if someone is deliberately making a mistake when enforcing the TOS and makes the mistake knowingly, it could be interpreted as “they didn’t think that they were making a mistake but, instead, had their thumb on the scale.”
Which, may I point out, is not illegal.
It’s a private company and they can do whatever they want.Report
Were they, deliberately making mistakes?Report
This is why I linked to the memo, Chip.Report
Then the answer appears to be no.Report
I imagine that if you refuse to see them arguing “you’re in violation!” publicly and privately acknowledging that the person in question was not in violation as a mistake, you’d see yourself as correct.
From what I understand, the person in question is bad.Report
Jaybird, this is Musk doing a right-wing troll: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/12/twitter-files-explained-elon-musk-taibbi-weiss-hunter-biden-laptop.html
“Specifically, Musk delivered a vast trove of internal Twitter documents to two independent journalists, Matt Taibbi and Bari Weiss, who have long endorsed aspects of the GOP’s indictment of the platform. Taibbi and Weiss proceeded to publish a pair of exposés on Twitter’s inner workings. Dubbed “the Twitter Files,” these reports featured a couple genuinely concerning findings about pre-Musk Twitter’s operations. But they were also saturated in hyperbole, marred by omissions of context, and discredited by instances of outright mendacity. Musk’s commentary on the Twitter Files, meanwhile, proved even more demagogic and deceptive than the exposés themselves.
For these reasons, the Twitter Files are best understood as an egregious example of the very phenomenon it purports to condemn — that of social-media managers leveraging their platforms for partisan ends.”
But the woke seems to drive you mad so….Report
For these reasons, the Twitter Files are best understood as an egregious example of the very phenomenon it purports to condemn — that of social-media managers leveraging their platforms for partisan ends.
What’s the meta-ethic? Because if it’s “people shouldn’t leverage their platforms for partisan ends”, I’m pleased that we’re hammering that out now.
Is that the rule? I’m cool with that rule, for the record.
I’d admit that it seems to be quite different from “private companies can do whatever they want”, though.Report
“Armed white supremacist gangs seem to closely monitor Libs of TikTok’s posts to find new targets, based on the multiple incidents associated with those named on its Twitter feed. Account owner Chaya Raichik, meanwhile, has done nothing to attempt to calm, dissuade, change how she communicates, or otherwise bring an end to the pattern of violence and near-violence driven by her posts. These often include misinformation as well as a conflation of healthy, age-appropriate discussions of diversity with child abuse. Instead of seeking to end the violence directed at the targets she chooses, Raichik and Libs of TikTok are constantly toeing the line, attempting to stop short of what is officially considered either harassment or hate speech, and occasionally catching a ban when Twitter decides that line was crossed.
This is a well-known problem in content moderation. Humans are social learning machines, which means we excel at finding and exploiting any edge cases or uncertainty in a set of rules. As a result, the best practice in content moderation has always been to employ sensitive, thoughtful, nimble human moderators, people who can become aware of patterns of evasion or gamification of the rules and act to delete posts and warn, limit, or ban accounts that repeatedly flout the spirit of the rules, even if those users insist to the end that they’ve followed the policies to the letter. In the case of an account that has repeatedly been a driver of real-world violence, the decision to ban it permanently seems as if it should have been an easy call to make, even if Libs of TikTok never wrote the words “I want you to commit violence based on this information.” However, although Twitter has suspended Libs of TikTok several times, it remains active and no less likely than ever to be a driver of violence against the LGBTQ community and its allies.”
https://slate.com/technology/2022/12/twitter-files-bari-weiss-libsoftik-elon-musk.html
Why are you dying on the hills of Libs of Tik Tok, Jaybird?Report
I’m dying, am I? Pity. At least it’s before the colonoscopy.
Saul, you’re fully in the “but that was good, though” place in the conversation. That’s great. We’re trying to get Chip from “that didn’t happen” to “that’s good though”.
While I do agree that quoting people is one of the worst things that you can do… I mean, it turns “Nobody is saying that! That’s a strawman!” into “You’re nutpicking!” and that’s awful for everybody involved.
But the hill that I’m dying on is the whole distance between “we’re saying she’s engaging in hateful conduct!” and private admissions that what she’s doing does not qualify as hateful conduct.
Now I suppose you could argue that the private admissions were lies or mistakes and that’d be fine…
Hell, you can argue that Libs of Tik Tok needs to be perma-banned for being a bad person! That’d be great too.
But the argument I’m having here is a fairly narrow one.
It’s the whole issue of “give me a single example of X!”, “okay, here’s an example of X!”, thing.
I’m sure that more nothingburgers will be brought to light in the future. We can pivot from “that didn’t happen!” to “but that was good!” some more at that point.
As it is, we’re still stuck in “there’s no evidence of that happening!” over here instead of being fully in “but that’s good, though”.Report
Its probably better if you have conversations with the people here, instead of just regaling us with your conversations with imaginary people.
You’ve given us the motte of “they made mistakes” but we’re still waiting for you to defend the bailey of “They have a bias against conservatives!”
Because even after about 50 comments, nothing has been put forward. If anything, the Taibbi threads indicate exactly the opposite.Report
You’ve given us the motte of “they made mistakes” but we’re still waiting for you to defend the bailey of “They have a bias against conservatives!”
I appreciate that you want me to argue “they have a bias against conservatives!” but that’s not my argument.
(Neither is “they made mistakes” my position.)
At this point, my main argument seems to be “this sort of thing happened” and linking to the threads that contain the documents documenting the events.
Like, the fact that they had (AND USED!) de-boosting tools went from being a conspiracy theory to something that everybody knew.
We’re not even to the “let’s talk about right and wrong” part of the discussion yet. Hell, we’re not even to the “let’s talk about the meta-ethics behind ‘right’ and ‘wrong'” yet.Report
Good thing that bias isn’t your position, because it is ludicrous and without any merit whatsoever.
Your assertion that they used de-boosting tools is another motte. It is a standard part of moderation that everyone has known about and complained about for years.
So every single comment you’ve made here can be summed up as:
1. Twitter used ordinary methods of moderation including banning, de-boosting, and suspensions;
2. Twitter staff at times failed to follow their own TOS;
3. None of this was done in a way that reflected ideological or partisan bias.
Anything else? Any more astonishing scandalous assertions?Report
Yeah, the mixture of 1&2 are the biggies.
As for #3… I don’t think that I’d argue that. It definitely reflected ideological bias.
But, and here’s the point, that’s okay too.
Private companies can do whatever they want. (This includes not following their own TOS!)Report
Except for the fact that no one here has presented a shred of evidence for #3, sure.
But you better hurry.
Elon Musk is now threatening to sue anyone who divulges confidential information.Report
Well, the “shreds” involve the links to the thread.
Now, I don’t think that only conservatives were targeted. That’s not my argument. Lefties were also targeted. Essentially, people who fell too far outside of the waaaay-too-small overton window preferred by the SRT-GET and SIP-PES.
And that’s not illegal. It’s well within Twitter’s “rights” (for lack of a better word) to do.Report
Oh, ok.
So lets add that one:
1. Twitter used ordinary methods of moderation including banning, de-boosting, and suspensions;
2. Twitter staff at times failed to follow their own TOS;
3. None of this was done in a way that reflected
ideological orpartisan bias.4. The moderation was biased against people who have extreme and widely unpopular views.
Speaking on behalf of all liberals everywhere, these assertions seem pretty accurate.Report
Great!
So we’re officially in “it’s good though” rather than “but that didn’t happen”?Report
Well, I never said it didn’t happen but if you and I are in agreement, OK.Report
Of course, of course.Report
I’ve known I had a problem for about three years now, when Chip said that he didn’t believe in limiting principles. I continued trying to engage him in good-faith arguments, but as the years ticked by I reached the point that I did little more than snidely point out his logical inconsistencies and factual…well, factlessness. Then around Thanksgiving he stated (not for the first time, I’m sure, but the first time it sunk in) that he didn’t have the responsibility to engage in good-faith debate. Now, I’m wearing the patch, and I still have the occasional craving, but I intend to see this through and give up the habit completely. Don’t keep being as dumb as I was.Report
Remember the whole “Conflict vs. Mistake” theory from a while back?
He’s all-in on the whole “conflict” thing.Report
Jaybird,
Musk sent this report to Weiss and Tabibi, two writers known for the “own the libz” beat. He is also going around calling former twitter employees pedophiles without qualm or restraint.
Yet you seem more concerned that a very openly homophobic and transphobic account was suspended a few times. So yes, you are dying on this hill but refuse to recognize itReport
Yet you seem more concerned that a very openly homophobic and transphobic account was suspended a few times. So yes, you are dying on this hill but refuse to recognize it
Not exactly, Saul.
I’m more pointing out that X happened in response to someone arguing that we have no evidence that X happened.
Now if you’d like me to defend Libs of Tik Tok, I’d probably just say something like “if what’shername died tomorrow, someone else could immediately begin amplifying the craziest people on Tik Tok and you’d have the exact same problem you had with what’shername because the problem with what’shername is that she amplifies the nuts.”
I mean, it’s not like she’s particularly insightful.
She’s a shelling point. That’s it.
And my pointing out that Twitter Themselves admitted that she wasn’t breaking their TOS according to memos that have been made public is not a defense of a very openly homophobic and transphobic account.
If your problem is with Twitter’s back office, great. The line for that is over there. (You might not like your co-line standers though!)Report
It’s their scale and the pans are holding the free associations of any nitwit with an internet connection. Who cares?Report
They had thumbs on the scales.
Of course they did. They are in the business of selling ads. They will skew the scales in the direction the companies paying $100M for ad placement want. If Disney says, “Don’t put our ads up on displays that include neo-N*zi posts or comments,” well, someone or something is going to render that judgement, and they’re going to make errors in the direction of keeping Disney happy. The Proud Boys are not making $100M ad buys. If there’s a problem getting sufficient ad views on pages without things that could be construed as neo-N*zi content, the algorithms will be tweaked to keep such content from being pushed.Report
The problem, as always, is that the small-batch neo-potsie detectors are calibrated in such a way that results in a *LOT* of false positives.Report
What part of “make errors in the direction of keeping Disney happy” was unclear? Disney said, at least implicitly, “We want to advertise on a social medium where the very large majority of users have a squeaky clean experience.” Twitter obliged. False positives ensued.
You assert that “a lot” of false positives are happening. Out of 500M tweets per day, how many are being misclassified that way? 10%? 1%? 0.1%? 0.01%?Report
The big example I’ve given in this thread is AliceFromQueens.
I *ABSOLUTELY* understand that the goal is to make companies like Disney happy. Heck, there are a bunch of legit celebrities on Twitter as well and it would make sense that any of them would have a backchannel to Twitter and be able to say “can you take care of this guy?” when one of Bill Murray’s stalkers gets a little too weird.
It makes sense for them to do that against people who merely have a BAD VIBE!
The celebrity is the draw! Not FirstnameBunchanumbers! You want the talent to be happy and who cares if someone in the nosebleeds is ticked off!
But I do like the transparency.Report
Lead your shots. Aim for where the goal posts will be.Report
1. Bari Weiss is a grifter and reactionary of highest order;
2. If you are dying on the hill for the wildly homophobic and transphobic Libs of TikTok, you should rethink your life.Report
Ron DeSantis has an insurance crisis on his hands:
https://www.wfla.com/8-on-your-side/united-property-casualty-insurance-ending-business-in-florida/Report
Sinema’s up to her usual games. She knows she’s a dead letter for re-nomination so she’s switching to independant. Poor Schumer is gonna have to keep managing that dingbat and it’s going to be one heck of a mess to try and hold the Senate seat with her perfectly positioned to run as a third party spoiler in ’24.Report
She thinks she’s John McCain. I knew John McCain. I served with John McCain. John McCain was a friend of mine. You, Senator, are no John McCain.Report
I didn’t even like McCain much and even I can say Sinema doesn’t even amount to the grime on the underside of his casket. I sometimes look back at when she got elected and think “How could we not have seen this trainwreck coming?” but other than her being a Green Party alumni there weren’t any concrete warning signs and she DID get elected just barely.Report
A quick check at Ballotpedia says AZ allows for major party, minor party, and actual independent candidates. As a third party candidate, she’d have to jump through their hoops to get nominated. As an actual independent, a back of the envelope calculation says she would need to collect about 45,000 registered voter signatures to get on the ballot. That’s not an enormous hurdle, but someone would have to fund and/or organize the drive.
Slightly related, the Republican candidate for governor here in Colorado this year wasn’t expected to get the nomination, but did so because the favorites were sloppy about dotting i’s and crossing t’s. One of the hurdles to getting a real third-party going in the US is the sheer volume of local/state paperwork that has to be done, year after year after year. The Libertarians and Greens have been at it for decades, and still don’t consistently get their Presidential candidates on the ballot in all 50 states.Report
The GOP would fund and organize that effort without a second thought. They’d do it overtly or they’d happily do it covertly through some obscuring third party, either a bespoke “third way” organization created or organized for that purpose or simply one of their wealthy backers directly supporting the effort. Putting Sinema on the ballot would be manifestly in their interest at ten times the cost and effort it’d actually take.
I agree it’s a lot of work to do for non-professionals but the Republicans are professionals and it’d be an unignorable opportunity for them, especially if they nominate another dingbat candidate for Arizona.
I’ve oft debated with people asserting that Manchin is ten times the Democratic Politician Sinema is and I feel this newest stunt is a solid exclamation mark concluding the end of my point. Frankly, after Sinema, the Dems would be well within their rights to never touch any person who was ever associated with the Green Party ever again.Report
Is the problem Sinema or is the problem Arizona is moderate? Her wiki bio doesn’t suggest she’s crazy or anything, just that she’s pretty moderate and bipartisan.Report
This is not remotely a question of moderation and barely is one of policy. The Senate caucus is chock-a-block full of moderates in good standing. Sinema has personally veered from “bought out by the wealthy” to “Wanna be Maverick of the left” to “WTF are you even thinking?” positions erratically during her entire initial term and has earned the justifiable loathing of all her constituents at home from the centrist to institutionalists to the granola munching left. Now, with no hope of getting re-nominated under the Democratic banner she’s basically threatening to try and throw the future contest to whatever warm body the GOP nominates by running as an independent and siphoning off some number of low info voters who’ll pull the lever for her simply because they recognize her name. In a close race like AZ will be it’s a very solid theat.
Personally, I think the party should boot her to the curb come 2024 and simply do their best with an actual Democratic candidate. Way better to lose that way than to lose trying to boost this deranged unprincipled idiot.Report
I don’t understand what her angle is. If you want to be a maverick then you should do it on popular stuff. That could actually work to the benefit of tbe party. But siding against them for big pharma and high finance? And now this? WTF.
To your above point Manchin could maybe stand to be more transparent at times on how far he is willing/able to go but I don’t really get the beef with him. The reality is that if Democrats are ever going to get big majorities again it will be with more senators and representatives in his mold. They will be more fiscally restrained and code conservative in some ways but generally be there when it counts.Report
She is, at heart, a new age ninny who thinks politics is mainly about how it makes you feel personally. She also likes being the center of attention.
From what I have heard (which is very off hand info), she is a stone cold operator but focuses too much on immediate stuff right in front of her. Long term thinking is not her strengthReport
Sauls read jives with what I’ve heard and my own impressions. Sinema is high on her own supply and is, frankly, not very bright when it comes to long term thinking. She probably also is cocooned in a clique of left libertarian friends and staffers who have her convinced that what the rich people throwing money at her want is also what the masses want. Someone early on figured out they could steer Sinema’s twee maverick pretensions straight into the laps of the plutocrats- and then did.
As for this independent thing? It actually makes perfect sense for a short-term thinker. Sinema has dug herself this huge hole with the party AND Arizona has a sore loser law. If she stayed in the party, she’d lose the primary (in a landslide) and be barred from running. Going independent and doing this game of chicken is the only, remotely, plausible way has a shot at remaining Senator. If she jumped to the GOP, she’d lose their primary. If she stayed Democratic, she’d lose their primary. If she goes independent and threatens to sink the Democratic candidate by splitting the vote with them AND the Dems blink and support her rather than accept that splitting AND the Democratic voters hold their noses and support her then she could be re-elected. It ain’t great odds, but it’s the only odds that aren’t a snowballs chance in Arizona in August.
I think the party shouldn’t blink. She was never cute but she’s way past her sell by date. They should throw in with whatever candidate wins the primary and go whole hog. Schumer should just wrangle her for her Senate vote until that time. The only value Sinema has now is as a proverbial head on the wall for the next bought and sold would be “maverick” to look up at and remember that they’re a member of a functioning party.Report
Will getting on the ballot cost more than $7.876M?
https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/kyrsten-sinema/summary?cid=N00033983
Can’t primary an Independent… so basically puts Team Blue in the 3rd party conundrum… you can’t get rid of her with a Primary, but running against her has XX% of risk siphoning off votes allowing an opposing united party to win with a plurality.
No idea what the XX% calculation would be in terms of R or D siphons… I suspect it’s more than D partisans will want to admit.
The lady doesn’t lack for planning and direction, I’ll give her that.Report
She has fans on the right but only because she causes trouble for the Dems. No way that translates into votes for her over a GOP candidate so whatever thin handfull of votes she’ll pull it’ll be from voters who’d otherwise vote D and in AZ that could well be the margin of victory.
I wouldn’t credit those so much to long term planning as an ability to read the writing on the wall and come up with a desperate extortion scheme to try and dodge the consequences of her own (failure to execute long term planning) actions. Even if she makes good on her threat she still ends up out of office. Maybe she can go the Gabby Giffords route and land a sinecure on Fox.Report
I don’t think she is going to stop caucusing with the Democrats despite what she says but essentially yes, this is challenging Democrats in Arizona to a game of chicken with “Do you really want to risk having Senator Finchem or Lake?”Report
As I read the AZ rules, the hurdle for a registered Dem to get on the primary ballot (and GE ballot if they win the primary) is so low that someone will do it. Given that, the Dems would be foolish if they didn’t field the strongest candidate they can find and full-speed ahead. At least IMO.Report
I agree with both of you. This is positioning for 2024. But unless Sinema has some serious “come to jebus” behavior in the next 2 years the Dems should nominate a real Democrat and let the chips fall where they may. At least with that strategy they can look at themselves in the mirror in the morning with equanimity in any scenario except one where they lose the majority by a single seat*.
*And even in that case being on record as ready to collect a scalp from similar behaving politicians even when it hurts them would be salutary for the party going forward. Rewarding this crap is a recipe for MORE Sinemas.Report
Chait also thinks the Democrats need to risk a Senator Finchem or Lake because this is a game of chicken.Report
It ain’t often I disagree with Jon.Report
There is also the chance that this backfires on her and she pulls more votes from the Republicans especially if they nominate someone like MastersReport
While it’s certainly possible we will see another round of candidates so bad as to throw away an election I would not rely on the Republicans doing anything that helpful again.Report
I’ll repeat my disagreement with you from last year on this:
“She will be challenged regardless. The person the national media is looking towards and where the money is probably already flowing is Rep. Ruben Gallego, who represents a +24 D district. He is not a replacement level Democrat, he’s a Democrat who can beat Democrats in Democratic districts.”
https://ordinary-times.com/2021/10/21/senate-manchin-sinema-fillibuster-politics-senators-biden/#comment-3568469
The Progressive billionaires club (which includes my governor and his wife) had already committed to fund a progressive person of color to challenge Sinema. All eyes were on Gallego, and he polls with about a three to one advantage over Sinema in the primaries. He was almost certainly running for the seat before and I don’t see why he wouldn’t now, unless Biden buys him off with a plum appointment.Report
Mhm, and Rep Gallego has my personal blessing, my well wishes and agnostic prayers! All power to him! Our only disagreement was that a challenger to Sinema necessarily be to her left. A principled moderate could also challenge her and win because the whole party -rightfully- despises her.Report
This reddit link got sent to me.
What I find interesting about it is that it’s not enthusiastic about the big Biden W. Granted, the comments have been turned off. As is the right of the moderators. Nobody is arguing that they don’t have the right to turn comments off.Report
Good news!
Report
You should hear my renewals team talk about their jobs right now…
Well ma’am, the contract says the annual increase is CPI which is currently 8.6%.
Yes, we though it’d be 1.2% forever too.
No, I can’t just make it 1.2% this time.Report
Vox had a good article about the recent coup attempt in Germany. Apparently Germany has its own Sovereign Citizen’s movement known as the Reichsburger movement. There seems to be 20,000 of them in Germany and they are going closer to the AfD political party. Fun times, fun times.
https://www.vox.com/2022/12/9/23500307/germany-coup-prince-heinrich-qanonReport
But – was there a coup attempt in Germany? I don’t see any mention of one.Report
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/25-suspected-members-german-far-right-group-arrested-raids-prosecutors-office-2022-12-07/Report
So, no coup attempt.Report
A foiled coup is still a coup.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/12/germany-coup-arrests-prince-heinrich-qanon.htmlReport
But this wasn’t even a foiled coup, apparently; it was a conspiracy to commit a coup. None of your links indicate any actual attempt, unless I missed something. On the continuum between angry people complaining and taking over a government, is this even anywhere near the middle?Report
Putsch! That was the word I was thinking of. Yeah, a coup is a success, a putsch is a failure, this wasn’t apparently even an attempt. How could I not think of that word in a German context?Report
Just curious. What event has to happen before you would call something a “coup attempt”, Pinky? Does someone have to actually fire a gun at a government official with the intent to overthrow that government?Report
A coup doesn’t require a violent act, classically, but it requires some act.Report
And to be clear – planning to carry out a coup, including obtaining weapons – isn’t such an act?Report
Logically I can’t see how planning to do a thing is doing the thing.Report
Planning to do X is called “conspiracy to do X.” It requires agreement to do X and overt acts, usually preparatory if you catch the conspirators in time. Trying and failing to do X is called “attempted X. Doing X is called “X.” ”
If a bunch of people agree to over throw the government, make plans, and commit overt acts toward accomplishing the ends of the conspiracy, like gathering weapons, it’s conspiracy to overthrow the government.
If they go out into the street and try to overthrow the government, but the cops or the army stop them, it’s attempt to overthrow the government (though there was a previous conspiracy, so you can be charged for both).
If they succeed, it’s overthrow of the government. Since they won, they won’t be charged with overthrowing the government because, now, they are the government.
What’s hard about that?Report
Funny how that logic wasn’t applied to Jan 6 in the US. It was branded a straight up insurrection.Report
Rhodes just got nailed for seditious conspiracy. Tomato, tomahto.Report
Definitions matter, especially legal ones.
“Enacted after the American Civil War of 1861-1865, the charge of seditious conspiracy includes two elements: conspiracy and sedition. Conspiracy is an agreement by two or more people to commit a crime. Sedition is defined as incitement or advocacy of insurrection against an established authority” That was NOT what Jan 6 was labeled.Report
Am I missing the word insurrection there?Report
Might be an “all dogs are mammals so we normally don’t call them that” type thing.Report
Nope, you said “Rhodes just got nailed for seditious conspiracy. Tomato, tomahto.” which I took as “it’s basically the same thing as insurrection”. I pointed out that it’s not.Report
An “insurrection” doesn’t have to be successful. Insurrections fail all the time.Report
This isn’t even especially pedantic. I don’t think Kanye would love my grammar.Report
Is conspiracy even a crime in Germany? I know it’s not in some countries, and that occasionally gets in the way of extradition.Report
It’s Germany. They’ll manage somehow.Report
My brother has been living in Germany for years now. I asked him yesterday how much of a threat this really was. FWIW he said he did not think much of one, and that the German press is treating it as more of a curiosity than anything else. Their media is still about 20 years behind ours in terms of stirring up hysteria over everything. His German girlfriend said she was confused that such people exist in Germany. Of course they are all used to hearing about our idiots over here.
I think the ringleader is some embittered nobility whose main gripe with the government is that he was unable to get his lands back in the east after reunification. I doubt he will be assuming power in the Bundestag any time soon.Report
A while back, I think it was Jaybird who pointed out that we were seeing some really nutty upsets in the World Cup. Got another one today. Good for the Croats! (Even though my bracket is toast.)Report
Croatia made it to the final in 2018. I am not sure why this is the shocking upset everyone states it is.Report
A lot can change in 4 years. Brazil were heavy favorites in the game and overall favorites for the tourney.Report
It’s a shocking upset because I picked Brazil because everyone knew Brazil was going to take the whole thing this year and now the money I put into the pool is on fire.Report
Ah well then, that is understandable.Report
Friday night news dump!
Report
The interesting thing in this thread is the whole “yeah, they totally meet with three-letter agencies” revelation.
“Are you suggesting that it’s illegal to meet with the FBI?”
“No. I am not suggesting that it’s illegal to meet with law enforcement.”Report
“ During this time, executives were also clearly liaising with federal enforcement and intelligence agencies about moderation of election-related content. While we’re still at the start of reviewing the #TwitterFiles, we’re finding out more about these interactions every day.”
Maybe we reserve judgment until they’re at the middle or perhaps even end of reviewing the #TwitterFiles.Report
Eh, I’m perfectly fine with concluding something like “private companies can do whatever they want”.
I am very interested in seeing what comes to light. I mean, I suspected that there was stuff like deboosting and shadowbanning and whatnot. But it’s confirmed now.
I didn’t know that they met with the three-letter agencies. That seems to be confirmed now too.
Private companies can do whatever they want.Report
Twitter broke no laws then and breaks no laws now and any laws intended to address their crappy policies would be far worse than those crappy policies.
If government agencies were putting pressure on Twitter to suppress anyone’s speech for any reason, I’d have some real issues with that.Report
“pressure” can be a myrid of things:
Anything from a call from a Whitehouse staffer, to a visit from one of the “alphabet” agencies, and anything along that range or more. Would you feel ANY intimidation of you got any of these contacts with a request that you take a specific action?
Hell, most people are intimidated when a cop pulls them over. How do you think an in person visit from the FBI feels?Report
Well that’s why I’d like to see more details on the interactions. Did Twitter call the FBI to ask about the laptop? Did Twitter call the FBI to ask how concerned they should be about certain “online movements?” Did the government initiate contact and state what they’d “like” to see happen? Did Twitter call contacts in the WH and say, “How would you like is to handle this?”
Based on the limited reporting, it seems we don’t know. I get that the folks “revealing” this are private actors with their own agendas/interests, but slow-rolling the reveal to garner eyeballs and whatnot is leaving us all a little hamstrung.
I’m uneasy learning there seems to have been this behind-the-scenes coordination between Twitter decision-makers and government actors/agencies. I’d like to know the full story before deciding if/how outrageous that is and we don’t yet have the full story.
Are the #TwitterFiles publicly accessible? Or do these select few journalists have them privately and we’re only seeing what they choose to reveal?Report
I think the only person who has them currently is Taibbi. I agree though that he and/or twitter should just release them.
On your larger question about law enforcement, it appears that to date twitter was offering a friendly posture, like I think much of big tech does. Part of this I think has to do with shows of force against companies that have been less cooperative (Back Pages for instance, which was admittedly pretty seedy) and part of it is ideological. However there’s no reason some of them couldn’t make a bigger fight of it if they decided it was in their interest to do so.Report
What taibbi is avoiding is that there were fricking actual good reasons for 3 letter agencies to be giving warnings and such. Sure gov involvement is always a bit of a yellow flag but we’ve had multiple hacks of high level pol orgs ( DNC in 16 for one). That is serious shite that directly impacts the country.
Taibbi and the entire right wing either wants to forget all that or ignore it. It’s why all this seems so cynical, i get some of the criticisms of twitter but ignoring all the context is just bad faith spin.Report
“Sure it happened but it was good, actually.”
“Did they have a warrant?”
“Why do you keep changing the subject?”Report
Huh? Wha?
If there have been high level hacks of corps, gov and parties that is an Official Bad Thing. The kind of thing cops should keep an eye on. I even said gov involvement is a yellow flag. Caution: possible clusterfudge here.
Just having fed’s around, espcially if they are giving warnings , like “maybe more hacks inbound” is fine. Show me the inappropriate actions by gov, we’ve had plenty over our hx, and i’ll join in. Haven’t seen it yet though and taibbi said he hadn’t seen anything inappropriate though that was all the way last week.
What should the gov response be to big time hacks that were aimed at influencing elections???Report
“Did they have a warrant?”
“So the government should just sit there and let people die?!?”
“No, they should get a warrant.”
“What should the government do in response to threats? NOTHING???”
“No, they should get a warrant.”
“I can’t believe that you think that complete and total inaction is an appropriate response to someone who wants to kill women and children. Presumably women and children in wheelchairs.”
“No, they should get a warrant.”
“Hitler was a fan of eugenics too, you know.”Report
Welcome to the gripping one man play, wherein Jaybird plays both the sensible conservative and lunatic liberal.
All scenes are taken from Mallard Fillmore comic strips and feature such iconic characters as Pointy Headed Academic, Bleeding Heart Pinko, and Googly Eyed College Student.Report
I think it’s a little more complicated than just warrants. Private persons and companies can voluntarily share information with law enforcement any time they want, no warrant required. The question is where we cross the line from private good Samaritan acting independently to agent of the government. I don’t believe we have an answer to that yet. And to greg’s point maybe we aren’t even there with the specific case of twitter. But I think we ought to figure it out sooner rather than later.Report
Sure, if the government wants the information, that’s great. Get a warrant! If the company just up’n gives the information to the government without a warrant… well… I’d like to know why.
I mean, if there’s a reasonable threat out there, surely it’d be *TRIVIAL* to get a warrant. You’ve seen the stuff that judges sign off on!
But if it’s too much trouble and creates too much of a paper trail to get a warrant, I’m at a point where I’m wondering how bad the threat must be… I mean, if it’s too much trouble to get a warrant.Report
Serious question, maybe i’ve missed something. What would the Fed’s need a warrant for? If they were passing on warnings about possible hacks, which has been widely reported a couple years ago that doesn’t need a warrant. There is a pixel trail since we have whatever has been posted and again this isn’t new.
Did twitter give info? If yes did they do it voluntarily and whose info was it? Users or twitters?
There could be a real issue here that i might agree with on. But there is also so much bad faith, lack of transparency and clear ideological motive from musk and crew that it makes it harder to find what is real and serious.
Elon is out there tweeting idiotic fauci tweets and passing on crazy pants sh*tposting about Paul Pelosi it makes his voice very questionable.
On the other hand the old hair metal band Warrant sucked so maybe i don’t care about warrants.Report
Did twitter give info? If yes did they do it voluntarily and whose info was it? Users or twitters?
At this point, it just seems like the three-letters had a back-channel to Trust and Safety and merely pointed out problematic tweets which Twitter helpfully and voluntarily addressed.
I agree that the lack of transparency that we had in the past was bad. But we have more than we did.
Now I could see that there could be a criticism that says “they’re amplifying some of the acts of some of the people and they’re keeping hidden other acts and it’s bad that they’re hiding those other things!”
And, get this, I am 100% on board with that.
More transparency will help us get more information about what happened.
Maybe it’ll even help us frame stuff we see in the future.Report
“What would the Fed’s need a warrant for?”
there’s a pretty good reason actuallyReport
” If the company just up’n gives the information to the government without a warrant… well… I’d like to know why.”
like, I do remember a lot of people — and not conservative Republican people! — being very upset about the idea of Google sending their search history to the FBI, to the point that Google had to do some PR work about it. Now that we need to Dunk On Space Karen, that’s okay?Report
The government needs a warrant to force twitter (or whoever) to allow them to conduct search. However it doesn’t need one if twitter voluntarily lets them in.Report
Jay this is gibberish. You can put words together to mean things. This isn’t it. I’m not gonna try to put meaning onto this.
Was there inappropriate action by the gov? Really truly show me something wrong. WTF do warrants have to do with anything? Was the gov taking people or data to jail?
There was high level hacking that affected elections previously which is a serious thing. Dont’ just yammer, what is the correct action?
There are a lot of difficult issues with various trade offs. I’d say this is one of those. Make some tradeoffs. Show us the hard work to address both sides of this issue.
Wider thought:
Perhaps there should be a discussion about what a Free Speech Culture is. I think a FSC is good and you’ve said you want that. But i have no idea what you mean nor do i see how you deal with trolls who turn sites to crap.Report
WTF do warrants have to do with anything?
Well, for one thing, it creates a paper trail.
You know the “evidence” that you’re asking for? Doing this through channels creates “evidence”.
If you don’t have the paper trail, you’re stuck in a place where you’re laughing at the crazy people who think that Twitter actually worked with the three-letter agencies.Report
Additionally, if there was something like, let me quote you here:
“If there have been high level hacks of corps, gov and parties that is an Official Bad Thing. The kind of thing cops should keep an eye on.”
If that involves a crime, it should be *EXCEPTIONALLY EASY* to get a warrant to look at stuff. If cops don’t want to get a warrant after a crime?
That’s also a red flag.
But if we don’t know who did the hacking and thus don’t know whose stuff to look at? Well, the people who got hacked can hand it over as part of the crime report, right?
There was a report, right?Report
Twitter broke no laws then and breaks no laws now and any laws intended to address their crappy policies would be far worse than those crappy policies.
I absolutely agree that there were no laws broken by Twitter and if I gave the impression that I was suggesting that a law be passed by linking to these threads, I would like to apologize for giving you that impression.
It was not my intention.Report
RE: laws intended to address their crappy policies would be far worse than those crappy policies.
There are multiple problems. The first was Trump was an obvious and ongoing bad actor. He lies and gets people spun up and then moves on to some other lie while the first is being disproven.
Trump showcases the problems associated with Free Speech.
Another problem is although Twitter’s policies were fine, those policies would have allowed Hunter’s laptop to be out in the open before the election. As solid members of Team Blue that wasn’t an acceptable outcome.
So we have “what to do about Trump” and “what to do about the election” and “what to do about Free Speech”.
As for gov involvement, it depends on which gov. Are we talking about the FBI officially, individuals misusing their power, or something else? If you have power and there’s something you strongly disagree with it’s amazingly temping to do something about that while telling yourself it’s the right thing to do.Report
It was out in the open before the election:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/10/21/rudy-giuliani-gives-alleged-hunter-biden-laptop-authorities/6005040002/Report
Would you acknowledge that something is more out in the open if it’s allowed on Twitter than if it’s not?Report
I don’t have a Twitter account. Most Americans don’t have a Twitter account. So only for a certain segment of the world would that be true. And those folks were likely well aware of it from other sources.Report
Exactly. It’s legit news, not fringe theory, not fake news.
Twitter suppressing the laptop’s owner makes no sense unless the reason was “Blue needs to win” which is hardly “hacking”. Worse, they admitted internally they knew darn well it wasn’t hacking but went with that because they needed some reason to ban it.Report
If Twitter was the only way to obtain news anymore you might have a point. But with the story being reported across multiple sources for days and weeks, Twitter’s actions are at best a sad amusement.Report
This Twitter-is-being-mean-to-conservatives nonsense is yet another data point in what a lot of us have noted, the incessant demand by conservatives that they be seen as aggrieved victims of shadowy dark forces.
The woke military is betrays them;
The FBI and IRS target them;
Mass media culture mocks them;
Academia is propagandizes against them;
Tech companies silence them;
Corporations exclude them;
Victims, victims, they are always and forever being oppressed and denied their rightful stature as the rulers of culture and governance.
They could of course do some self-reflection and think about why it is that they are shrinking and growing ever more unpopular. But instead they just keep grinding the axe of resentment and grievance and inventing ever more elaborate theories of how to rule as a minority.Report
I think that that’s one of the big revelations.
“I think that Twitter is deliberately shadowbanning the people they disagree with politically.”
“You’re a conspiracy nut. Your opinions are just not popular. If they were more popular, more people would share them.”
“Okay, looks like they were engaging in shadowbanning people they disagreed with. We have the evidence.”
“This is a nothingburger. Everybody knew they were deboosting Nazis. It’s in the TOS!”Report
That’s the thing about assertions, and why I insisted upon you making one.
You need to back it up with evidence, and right now, you got none. They obviously made mistakes in moderation, but no one has been able to show any sort of ideological or partisan bias.
About the closest you can come is to note that a whole lot of conservatives got caught in the anti-Naz.i snares.
But…that just makes you guys look worse.Report
Okay. Today we are at “they obviously made mistakes”.
Where will we be tomorrow?
“But that was good, actually”, probably.Report
No.
For years now people from all political viewpoints have been criticizing Twitter for making mistakes in moderation.
You haven’t presented anything new. Everything you are saying, and every response, is part of a long running and well publicized argument over how social media moderation should work.
You have an obvious sense of resentment and grievance, but your case as presented makes no sense.
So the grievance is coming from some other place, for some other reason.Report
Fair enough. It must be very frustrating to be on the other side of this and see how other people are responding to how sausage is made.
“We knew that pigs were involved! We knew that it didn’t involve the best cuts of meat!”
“Last week you said that sausage not being vegan was a conspiracy theory.”
“THIS ISN’T ABOUT ME IT’S ABOUT YOUR SENSE OF ENTITLEMENT!”Report
Do we have any lawyers on the board? I have a lead on an opportunity!
Report
Goodness knows I am tired of this discussion but, as a subscriber to Taibbi’s substack I thought I’d share the below from yesterday. Not sure if it’s open to non-subscribers but this is what he sees as the critical take aways from the documents so far. Maybe this will serve to better ground the question of ‘should we actually care about this?’ There’s more to the post but here is the meat of it:
In the meantime, I wanted to draw up a quick summary of the main revelations in these documents. I keep seeing colleagues talking about how it’s a “nothingburger” or “just shows a bunch of normal people doing the best they can,” which I guess is an opinion one could have. I obviously disagree. There’s a lot in this tranche, but here are the key takeaways, as I see them.
FBI/DHS/DNI coordination. We entered this project conscious of reports that federal law enforcement agencies might be in contact with platforms like Twitter about content moderation. After not seeing it in the first batch, the Slack entries in “Part 3” contain multiple, clear displays of cooperation between Twitter and federal law enforcement and/or intelligence, including:
a) Senior executives like Trust and Security chief Yoel Roth not only met regularly with the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, but on at least one occasion liaised with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). This was not known previously.
b) Twitter executives didn’t just meet with agencies like the FBI, and didn’t just get general guidance about trends or warnings. We now have concrete examples of the FBI sending over reports about individual tweets, after which Twitter staff apply warning labels and other actions. This is direct evidence that federal law enforcement is in the business of identifying speech for regulation. How anyone can see that as a non-story is difficult for me to understand.
c) Continuing the theme of learning more about how Twitter works with its “trusted partners” in federal law enforcement, one of the most interesting exchanges was one of the least-noticed. In this Slack, Roth asks Twitter employees if they have a “debunk moment” about “the SCYTL/Smartmantic” vote counting conspiracies. He then says contacts at the DHS told him that these tales were an amalgam of “about 47 conspiracy theories.” He regrets DHS did not make this comment publicly.
This exchange both speaks in Twitter’s favor and serves as further proof of government meddling. The exchange seems to suggest Roth needs something he can hang his hat on to formally bounce a tweet, like a ruling from Politifact or an NPR article (the level of evidence they use to censor tweets reminds me of magazine fact-checking, and not in a good way). We seem to have seen multiple methods: either an agency like the FBI sends over evidence against this or that tweet, or it simply makes an ask informally, after which someone like Roth goes looking for a real-world excuse to ban. Again, it speaks in Twitter’s favor that they even had that much of a process, but it’s clear again that federal agencies are intensely involved with regulating speech at the most micro level.
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/link-to-the-twitter-files-part-3Report
Does Taibbi give a sense as to the volume of these requests to edit or remove tweets?
It’s kind of amazing how central Twitter is to the lives of the people doing the complaining. Lord knows I spend a bit too much time over there, but if it disappeared 5 minutes from now I don’t think I’d shed too many tears.Report
He does not.Report
It kind of matters, doesn’t it? If it’s one or 2 then it’s concerning but not really a problem. If it’s wholesale 86ing of threads or accounts, then we have a problem. Methinks someone purporting to be a journalist, like Matt Taibbi for instance, might be interested in finding an answer.Report
I follow a handful of Professional Writers who claim to rely on Twitter visibility to help increase sales of their books or substacks or whathaveyou.
One of them is *SERIOUSLY* ticked off about this. (Granted, she’s one who was Visibility Filtered. She believes that it was the result of automated filtering happening after multiple reports rather than from this or that guy pressing a button.)Report
While I think the issue of moderation is getting most of the attention, Taibbi is right to lead with the matter of government involvement. We are all well versed in the point that the 1st Amendment does not apply to decisions of a private company. However if twitter was acting as an agent of the state with its decision making the big constitutional questions would very much come back into play.Report
I suppose that that’s where I’m flipped on this.
I think “well, of freakin’ *COURSE* the three-letters worked with Twitter.”
It’d be malpractice for them to *NOT* work with Twitter. “What about the Constitutional issues?” “Are you familiar with the three-letters?”
Now, I can’t believe how freakin’ sloppy the three-letters were… I mean, it’s confirmed that they were working with Twitter rather than forever rumored and forever a paranoid conspiracy theory.
But the moderation is where the social/cultural bodies are buried. The moderation is where we’re going to see the social/cultural embarrassment to the company and previous Trust/Safety folks.
Look for arguments focusing on legality, “rights”, and how everybody knew it worked like this (back when it was still being called a conspiracy theory).Report
Perhaps it would be, but the three letter agencies are also bound by the constitution. The implications of the government gatekeeping private speech are IMO much more disturbing not to mention probably illegal. My hunch is that we can manage in a world where a private tech entity stands or falls on its own profitability but probably not one where the lines between it and law enforcement are blurred.Report
Did either one of you guys read the 2010 issue of Wired, where they discussed in detail the NCS facility in Utah, and how they applied a tap to every phone switch in America with software that scans every tweet, text, and email for keywords related to terrorism?
And any of the subsequent articles and discussions, some right here at OT where we discussed these very things?Report
I wasn’t at OT in those days but I recall the article. It’s actually one of the topics I thought Glenn Greenwald covered really well back when his focus was more on the national security state instead of media criticism.
But yea, the interaction of the government and big tech is an ongoing concern and has a lot more to it than these issues around content moderation.Report
But you were around for our discussions about how the FBI used the various social media accounts of the Jan 6 insurrectionists to track them down, with the eager assistance of the social media companies.
There is a good discussion to be had about these issues, and maybe what Elon Musk can do is to tell us if Twitter is still cooperating with the Chinese, Saudi and various other repressive regimes who are also indirect shareholders of Twitter.Report
If he does that then I think he really will deserve some kudos. Not that I will be holding my breath or anything.Report
You get what you pay for when you use a free advertising medium.Report
Indeed.
She’s quite pleased with the new regime, however.Report