News About Twitter

[GURPS]

Europe Tries Desperately To Rein In Elon Musk Because Free Speech Threatens The Regime’s Grip On Groupthink​

The EU’s gripe with Twitter, as indicated by Breton’s statements, is the potential proliferation of information and speech that threaten the entrenched interests of the ruling regime on the European continent.

The fact that freedom of speech is largely a political phenomenon unique to the United States and that Big Tech found its roots in the same country isn’t a coincidence. Neither is the fact that in its earliest days, Big Tech’s pioneers insisted that their inventions would be used for the proliferation of free speech around the globe. The naivety of this nouveau neoliberalism was short-lived, however, as the cynical realities of running massive transnational corporations became all too real.

Previously, Twitter was one of the international managerial elite’s favorite inventions because it allowed them to set and control the narratives that gave direction to the world’s governments, markets, and more. Now that these people have lost control of the machine that put them at the center of the universe, they want to see it stripped of all utility.

Musk’s re-platforming of dissident voices on a massively popular social media platform that is taking steps, however imperfectly and incompletely, to no longer unfairly, algorithmically suppress counternarrative speech threatens the legitimacy of the EU. If there are enough anti-regime people in Europe who can successfully use the platform to mobilize the masses, what’s to stop another country from successfully organizing a populist, Brexit-style referendum and further delegitimizing the EU? What’s to stop faltering regional secessionist movements, like those in Catalan, from regaining momentum?

 

[GURPS]

Phony free-speech advocate Elon Musk bans prominent left wing Twitter accounts​

Right-wingers hail Elon Musk as a champion of free speech. He frequently boasts of his opposition to censorship in all forms and claims to defend the right of individuals to express their opinions, no matter how controversial they may be. In reality, Musk does not support free expression as much as he pretends to and is, in fact, opposed to its principles.

In Musk's view, free speech means spreading misinformation and personal attacks without consequence. Free speech that he finds offensive is, in his mind, not free speech. It's "spam," and he makes a habit of suspending the Twitter accounts of people he disagrees with.

From The Intercept:

Several prominent antifascist organizers and journalists have had their accounts suspended in the past week, after right-wing operatives appealed directly to Musk to ban them and far-right internet trolls flooded Twitter's complaints system with false reports about terms of service violations.
As the Los Angeles City Councilmember Mike Bonin noted on Twitter, the suspended users include Chad Loder, an antifascist researcher whose open-source investigation of the U.S. Capitol riot led to the identification and arrest of a masked Proud Boy who attacked police officers. The account of video journalist Vishal Pratap Singh, who reports on far-right protests in Southern California, has also been suspended.
Among the other prominent accounts suspended were the Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club, an antifascist group that provides armed security for LGBTQ+ events in North Texas, and CrimethInc, an anarchist collective that has published and distributed anarchist and anti-authoritarian zines, books, posters, and podcasts since the mid-1990s.

Schadenfreude if true ... exactly what the Fascists have been doing to anyone they disagree with

 

[Kyle]

Schadenfreude if true ... exactly what the Fascists have been doing to anyone they disagree with

I guarantee you it’s lost on them.

 

[GURPS]

Several left-wing activists had their Twitter accounts suspended after a false-report campaign by far-right users​

"There's nobody minding the shop anymore," Loder said. "I know everyone that worked on Twitter's trust and safety team over the years has long gone and the team has been more than decimated. It's maybe 5% of the original staff, so what's happening is mass-reporting is allowed to succeed because there's no one double checking whether these reports are valid or not. So people are being suspended for silly things or over nothing at all."

Far-right users like journalist Andy Ngo on Twitter have also urged Musk to address the "large number of Antifa accounts" operating on Twitter. Ngo specifically mentioned CrimethInc calling it an "Antifa collective." Musk then directed Ngo to report Antifa accounts.

CrimethInc said in a written statement to Insider: "We have been using Twitter since 2008. We have never so much as received a warning. On November 25, Elon Musk banned us at the request of a far-right troll who has made a career out of targeting those who oppose fascist violence.

 

[GURPS]

yeah about Chad Loder ......

LA Antifa member Chad Loder sued by woman for falsely claiming she's a criminal convict​

An Antifa member from Los Angeles with a history of advocating deadly violence is being sued by one of his victims for defamation after he falsely accusing her in viral tweets that she is a convict of various crimes.

Robin Nicole Patch, a UCLA's masters in public policy alumna, filed a claim against Chad Loder in small claims court in Los Angeles County earlier this year alleging she had lost work opportunities due to his defamatory statement that she is a convicted burglar and vandal.

"Robin Nicole Patch of El Segundo, CA attended the Proud Boys transphobia rally in Los Angeles last Saturday," tweeted Loder on July 8, 2021 along with photographs of the woman. "Robin, who makes "F*ck Antifa" videos, appears still to be on probation from a 2020 conviction for burglary + vandalism."

The Post Millennial has reviewed court documents on Patch and can independently confirm that she was never convicted of burglary or vandalism, or placed on probation. A 2019 domestic dispute case in Los Angeles involving Patch was dismissed. She otherwise has no criminal history in California.

Los Angeles Antifa member Chad Loder falsely accused Robin Patch of being convicted of burglary and vandalism

Loder, from Redondo Beach, Calif., is a self-described Antifa member and full-time social media activist. He uses Twitter to post doxes on targets—a number of his posts have been removed by Twitter for violating privacy rules—and to call for violence. Several people have filed restraining orders against the 46-year-old ex-tech start-up founder. In a prior investigative report on Loder published by The Post Millennial, we reported on his history of making violent, racist and anti-semitic posts, in addition to being accused by leftist activist women of predatory and creepy behavior.



No Angel, a Hero of the Fascists ....

 

[GURPS]

Why Elon Musk's Twitter takeover is a threat to democracy​

Propaganda

All that is needed to destroy the possibility of a democratic information space for particular political issues, such as climate change, is to provide a platform for, and give legitimacy to, would-be propagandists. But it is possible to generalise this strategy — to target the possibility of democratic legitimacy tout court, by destroying the possibility of consensus on any issue. To do so, one would need a platform that gave equal weight to all voices spreading conspiracy theories about every imaginable issue of public political concern. Kremlin operatives attempted this with their RT television channel. Musk is now attempting this strategy with Twitter.

It is clear why the fossil-fuel industry would want to undermine the possibility of democratically sanctioned action on climate change. But why would the world’s richest man want to undermine the legitimacy of democracy itself?

The answer, by now, should be clear. In a healthy democracy, a shared democratic information space allows everyone to speak truth to anyone. This is the essence of political equality. In a healthy democracy, a middle-class journalist can publish well-researched exposés of multinational corporations or spectacularly wealthy individuals that contribute to a popular consensus in favour of constraining their actions, increasing their taxes, or otherwise holding them to account. If one destroys that information space by nurturing the spread of mass suspicion, it will no longer be possible to marshal citizens against the powerful in this way.

For powerful individuals, democratic legitimacy is a threat, because it is a check on their power. Why wouldn’t one of the world’s most powerful individuals want to eliminate it?

 

[Grumpy]

Hunter Biden laptop bombshell: Twitter invented reason to censor Post’s reporting​

....
The chaos and confusion behind closed doors at Twitter in the immediate aftermath of the October 2020 Hunter Biden expose show that a small group of top-level execs and the DNC decided to label the Post’s story as “hacked material” without any evidence — behind the back of then-CEO and founder Jack Dorsey.
...

:fixed:

 

[SamSpade]

I wonder if Elon Musk KNEW the kind of shitstorm he'd create with Twitter.

Until a few years ago, his name was praised from the left for his brilliance and boldness. And in return, he gave them lots of money. He was their buddy.

The very WORST that can be said of him now with regard to Twitter is that he has allowed all them evil right wingers back on Twitter (well, except Alex Jones, but there you go). That is about the worst you can say. Maybe by kicking the asses of employees so used to the royal treatment for doing damned little had SOMETHING to do with it.

But this has repercussions everywhere - not just the United States government. Across the globe, the once high and mighty are disturbed that what everyone believes can now be shown to be true - that they were deciding FOR the masses, what stories they wanted them to hear and which ones would be silenced.

He now has everyone after him - for doing what, to me, on the surface, seemed to be just a small thing - showing that they censored material. Hell, doesn't every outlet on the Internet do that now? They're doing exactly what you'd expect a guilty but powerful person would do, when threatened - using every means at their disposal, to destroy him.

A man they LOVED so much just a few years ago, and gladly took his contributions.

 

[PJay]

Elon Musk bought a crime scene.

 

[PJay]

“A massive fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.”

Very interesting...

 

[PJay]

wut..Elon Musk drops round 2 today...

 

[PJay]

 

[GURPS]

 

[GURPS]

 

[GURPS]

Twitter Co-Founder Decries Musk's Transparency, Reminisces About 'All the Things we Didn't Make Public to Protect Brave People'​

Twitter co-founder Biz Stone has been openly critical of Elon Musk’s actions since Musk acquired the platform, and engaged in a little whining on Friday during Matt Taibbi’s “Twitter Files” thread by asking why naming names was necessary and that it “seems dangerous.” Saturday night brought a few more tweets from Stone that seemingly admits that the site engaged in a lot more than mere censorship.






Jason Goldman, who was part of the start-up team at Twitter as VP Product before joining the Obama White House as its first Chief Digital Officer, then chimed in, saying:

“This is the most painful part and where I get worked up. Honestly if the thing just died in a fire so be it. Sites die. But he’s acting with such a reckless and incurious disregard to the consequences of his actions. Because he’s never had to deal with any.”

Hmm. Seems like Goldman either has a bit of jealousy toward Musk or knows something the rest of us don’t. But, his words are pretty much par for the course when it comes to tech bros talking about Musk these days. What Stone had to say next is the real eyebrow-raiser.











Protecting Brave People My Ass ..... hiding from the criticism or consequences from their fascist / authoritarian actions

 

[GURPS]

Censorship by surrogate: Why Musk’s document dump could be a game changer​

The Russian disinformation claim was never particularly credible. The Biden campaign never denied the laptop was Hunter Biden’s; it left that to its media allies. Moreover, recipients of key emails could confirm those communications, and U.S. intelligence quickly rejected the Russian disinformation claim.

The point is, there was no direct evidence of a hack or a Russian conspiracy. Even Roth subsequently admitted he and others did not believe a clear basis existed to block the story, but they did so anyway.

[clip]

Censoring communications on Twitter is more akin to the telephone company agreeing to cut the connection of any caller using disfavored terms. And at the apparent request of the 2020 Biden campaign and the DNC, Twitter seems to have routinely stopped others from discussing or hearing opposing views.

The internal company documents released by Musk reinforce what we have seen previously in other instances of Twitter censorship. A recent federal filing revealed a 2021 email between Twitter executives and Carol Crawford, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s digital media chief. Crawford’s back-channel communication sought to censor other “unapproved opinions” on social media; Twitter replied that “with our CEO testifying before Congress this week [it] is tricky.”

At the time, Twitter’s Dorsey and other tech CEOs were about to appear at a House hearing to discuss “misinformation” on social media and their “content modification” policies. I had just testified on private censorship in circumventing the First Amendment as a type of censorship by surrogate. Dorsey and the other CEOs were asked about my warning of a “‘little brother’ problem, a problem which private entities do for the government that which it cannot legally do for itself.” In response, Dorsey insisted that “we don’t have a censoring department.”

The implications of these documents becomes more serious once the Biden campaign became the Biden administration. These documents show a back channel existed with President Biden’s campaign officials, but those same back channels appear to have continued to be used by Biden administration officials. If so, that would be when Twitter may have gone from a campaign ally to a surrogate for state censorship. As I have previously written, the administration cannot censor critics and cannot use agents for that purpose under the First Amendment.

That is precisely what Musk is now alleging. As the documents were being released, he tweeted, “Twitter acting by itself to suppress free speech is not a 1st amendment violation, but acting under orders from the government to suppress free speech, with no judicial review, is.”

 

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