Saturday, August 17, 2024

Links - 17th August 2024 (2 - Hating Elon Musk)

Thierry Breton on X - "Back in the day, #BlueChecks used to mean trustworthy sources of information✔️🐦 Now with X, our preliminary view is that: ❌They deceive users ❌They infrige #DSA X has now the right of defence —but if our view is confirmed we will impose fines & require significant changes."
Bojan Tunguz on X - "America makes software. Asia makes hardware. Europe makes it difficult."
Billboard Chris πŸ‡¨πŸ‡¦πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ on X - "You think you can tell a privately owned business how to hand out blue checkmarks? Have you totally lost your mind? Mets also verifies users. Are you targeting them?"
AwakenedOutlaw⚒️ on X - "The truth is that the left hates the idea that people they disagree with ideologically are allowed to speak or share opinions that aren't in congress with their own."
VisegrΓ‘d 24 on X - "Blue Checkmarks never meant “trustworthy sources of information”."
Hi, I'm KellyJo πŸ™‹πŸ½‍♀️πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ on X - "Blue checkmarks were given to well-known people. Lots of people who were pushing misinformation"
Leftism on X - "Funny, because those "trustworthy" sources turned out to be completely wrong and straight up liars about many things (like Biden's mental health). And I assume that you'll be going after Meta for having the same type of verification system? Or do you only have it out for X and Elon?"
I Meme Therefore I Am πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ on X - "There is nothing more telling than seeing globalists and bureaucrats threatened by the truth."
Ian Miles Cheong on X - "Louis Farrakhan and a number of other crazy people had blue check marks. I guess they were reliable sources of information?"

Richard Hanania on X - "The role of government is not to police the meaning of a blue check. Europe has truly lost its way."

Meme - "America innovates. China replicates. Europe regulates"

Pirate Wires on X - "Musk: EU Wanted "Illegal Secret Deal" to "Quietly Censor Speech"
the european commission wanted 𝕏 to hire a team of people in the eu that would unilaterally oversee the removal of 'misinformation' on the platform, a source with knowledge of the issue told us
On Friday, @elonmusk  said the European Commission (EC) "offered 𝕏 an illegal secret deal: if we quietly censored speech without telling anyone," they would not seek to issue daily fines related to 𝕏’s blue check verification system that could total 6% of the company’s annual revenue.  "The other platforms accepted that deal. 𝕏 did not," his post says.  Elon’s post came after EC commissioner Thierry Breton announced the Commission's preliminary findings that pre-Elon, blue checkmarks "used to mean trustworthy sources of information," but now violate the Digital Services Act because, today, "anyone can subscribe to obtain such a 'verified' status," therefore the commission may "impose fines & require significant changes."
The EC wanted 𝕏 to hire a team of people in the EU that could number in the hundreds to remove 'misinformation' from the platform, a person with knowledge of the issue told PW Editor-in-Chief @micsolana . 𝕏 would have no recourse in these removal decisions, the person said.  "The objective of the Digital Services Act is to ensure a safe and fair online environment for European citizens that is respectful of their rights, in particular freedom of expression," EC spokesperson Thomas Regnier told Pirate Wires over email. "The DSA requires a fair and transparent complaint mechanism for users. If an account is suspended, the user has the right to contest the decision. This means that decisions must not be arbitrary, and users are empowered to protect their online presence... When an account is restricted, the user must be informed and has the right to appeal the decision." Shortly after his post about the secret deal, Elon posted that he plans to take the Commission to court if its preliminary findings are confirmed and it pursues an enforcement action against 𝕏.
The Digital Services Act (DSA) is a new legislative regulatory bundle by the EC that only became fully applicable this February, and seeks to fine companies like 𝕏, Meta, and Google up to 6% of their annual revenue for violations, which include failure to remove "illegal" content once it’s reported. What’s considered illegal can vary depending on the specific national laws of EU member states, provided these laws are compatible with EU law. For example, content that’s illegal in Germany must be removed for users in Germany, even if it is not illegal in another member state.  The EC also accused 𝕏 of failure to "comply with the required transparency on advertising, as it does not provide a searchable and reliable advertisement repository," and prohibiting "eligible researchers from independently accessing its public data," both of which are in violation of its DSA.  In April, Elon publicly feuded with Brazilian lawmakers after he refused to comply with their demands to remove accounts without explanation to account owners or the public. Brazilian lawmakers had previously asked 𝕏 to remove accounts critical of its regime under these conditions.  "We do not know the reasons these blocking orders have been issued. We do not know which posts are alleged to violate the law. We are prohibited from saying which court or judge issued the order, or on what grounds. We are prohibited from saying which accounts are impacted. We are threatened with daily fines if we fail to comply," posted 𝕏’s Global Government Affairs team about Brazil’s demands. 𝕏 ultimately reversed course, and announced it would comply with the Brazilian government’s requests.  Today, the EC's findings are "preliminary," but per the EC, "if the Commission's preliminary views were to be ultimately confirmed... [it] could entail fines of up to 6% of the total worldwide annual turnover of [𝕏], and order [it] to take measures to address the breach."  — Brandon Gorrell (@brandongorrell )"

eigenrobot on X - "one thing I had not realized about twitter under @elonmusk is that he seems to have quietly destroyed the academic Misinformation Studies cottage industry by charging for twitter API access credit where due: this was an enormous public service"

Meme - Travis Allen @TravisAllen02: "I love when the trash takes itself out by leaving Facebook and Twitter to join Parler."
Travis Allen @TravisAllen02: "Will you leave Twitter if Elon Musk buys it?"

Meme - Elon Musk @elonmusk: "My politics are (I think) fairly moderate anyway.
- Safe cities
- Secure borders
- Neutral judiciary
- Sensible spending
- Pro environment"
evan loves worf @esjesjesj: "My politics are moderate:
-Nazi dog whistle
-Nazi dog whistle
-Nazi dog whistle
-Classic Republican position
-Obvious lie"
Yakov Gourevits πŸ‡©πŸ‡ͺ @solr22: "If you declare safe cities, secure borders and neutral judiciary as nazi positions, most people will shrug and say well then I guess I'm a nazi and you will lose."
As usual, a "dog whistle" is the left trying to put words into the mouths of people they disagree with and defame them

What To Do If You've Been Doxed | WIRED (2017) - "There are few more toxic practices online than doxing, the distribution of someone's personal information across the internet against their will. It’s all too common, though, deployed regularly and devastatingly as a means to harass and intimidate. The practice is not limited to public—or briefly internet famous—figures either. Anyone can be a victim, at any time. Doxing is an effective tool for bad actors"
Elon Musk's X Is Suspending Accounts That Reveal a Neo-Nazi Cartoonist's Alleged Identity | WIRED (2024) - "X has locked and suspended the accounts of journalists and researchers who shared the alleged identity of a neo-Nazi cartoonist known as Stonetoss after the cartoonist appealed to site owner Elon Musk."
Harassment and doxxing are good when liberals approve of it. And of course anyone who pushes back against the left wing agenda is a "neo-Nazi"
I looked into the claims that doxxing that Musk approves of is allowed, but they are all fake, because most of the links to doxxing allegations describe anything close to doxxing (since personal information was not revealed), Junlper / Tyler Sternbach posted his own identity and the allegation that Chaya Raichik (Libs of TikTok) doxxed Zach Drennen / Ari Drennen link to a Nov 2023 tweet, but in Mar 2023, Ari posted her old photo and name and proclaimed that "I’m not hiding from my past like I did when I was closeted. No fear, no shame."

Meme - Liberal screeching to sky: "ELON MUSK WAS SUPPOSED TO SMOKE WEED WITH US NOT HAVE OPINIONS I FIND CONTROVERSIAL"

Corporations Offended By Free Speech Are Happy to Invest In Places Without It - "While other social media firms continued to narrow the range of acceptable speech, X was broadening them.  As Vox reported earlier this year, advertising executives were skittish about the service’s greater commitment to freedom of expression, fearing that it would associate them with unsavory content. “Major corporations don’t want to jeopardize what they call “brand safety” by associating with offensive content,” the publication wrote after speaking to a range of industry insiders.   As Public has reported, the presence of much of that offensive content has been exaggerated. But the hundreds of firms that have reduced or eliminated advertising on X felt differently, fearing that their ads may be placed next to content that some may find offensive. In other words, they were offended by being somewhere on the Internet that people are speaking to each other relatively freely with little censorship... Disney is heavily invested in China, where political dissent is heavily suppressed and citizens are monitored by one of the world’s most comprehensive surveillance regimes.   Those investments include not just manufacturing many of Disney’s products but also the sprawling Shanghai Disneyland, which opened under Iger’s watch. Iger and Disney’s passion for entering the Chinese market was so intense that in 2010, he met with the country’s propaganda minister and promised to help “introduce more about China to the world” through the company’s products and platform.   Disney’s case is not unique. Many of the firms that pulled out of Twitter maintain robust presence in countries that maintain repressive speech environments.  Take for instance IBM, which pulled ads in November. The company has a wide range of economic partnerships in Saudi Arabia, which last year was ranked 170 out of 180 on Reporters Without Borders’s index of press freedom.  Apple, which also pulled ads in November, struck a deal to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in China, making a promise to “do its part to develop China's economy and technological prowess through investments, business deals and worker training.”  The message these firms are sending is that free speech – which includes speech that some people may find offensive – makes X too reputationally damaging for them to associate with. But associating with countries that are virtual police states isn’t. This suggests that free speech, warts and all, is more intolerable to these companies than even dictatorship.   Why is that?   Why have corporations turned against free speech?

Michael Shellenberger on X - "The media say antisemitism is rampant on X, but it's not. Wash Post/CCDH won't even release the data to back up their latest claims. The media have abandoned all pretense of objectivity and are waging the worst war on free speech since the rise of totalitarianism 100 years ago."

Thread by @shellenberger on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "The media say "misinformation" is more rampant on X than on their websites, but it's not. The mainstream media got every major story of the last several years wrong. The real reason the media are attacking X is because they are losing so many readers to it. The main sources of disinformation and hate speech are governments and corporate media. They have waged a series of hateful disinformation campaigns and spread wild conspiracy theories to undermine democracy & cover up their failures, eg Covid's origin, Hunter Biden's laptop. {oliticians, news media, and advertisers have entered into an unholy alliance to destroy X as a free speech platform.  Their desperate efforts to maintain censorship show the alarming degree to which they controlled information & thought before 2023. The efforts by the media/corporate advertiser/politician blob are positively maniacal.  They're working through the EU to control the whole of the Internet. They even opened an office in downtown San Francisco to try to control X & other tech companies. Every week brings a fresh disinformation campaign from the media/corporate advertiser/politician blob. The message of the counterpopulist blob is always the same because it's aligned with their financial and political interests.  Their problem is that once their disinformation strategy becomes visible to the people, it loses its power.
The media is in a vicious downward spiral.  It spreads disinformation ---> Loses public trust ---> Loses readers/traffic ---> Loses money ---> Layoffs.  "Over 20,000 media jobs have been eliminated this year... The figure is also six times higher than the number of job losses in 2022 when several large media companies including Warner Bros.  "Discovery and Disney and others had undergone a series of layoffs impacting thousands of media workers." — Forbes We have big battles ahead of us. Ireland is seeking to pass legislation that would allow the police to enter people's homes and read their phones & computers.  But as long as X remains a free speech platform, free speech & democracy will prevail."
Of course, left wingers keep claiming that Elon Musk is running X into the ground

Meme - ""Twitter is dying."
X is as vibrant and busy as it's ever been."
"X All Time Organic Traffic (2012 to 2024)
*shooting up some time in 2022 and never dropping below that starting level*

Laurence Fox on X - "It’s worth noting that if @elonmusk  hadn’t bought Twatter, there would be no home of free speech anywhere in the west, and the plagiarist would be being lauded and promoted and anyone who took issue with her theft of intellectual property would be banned from the site.   What a difference a year makes."
Why the left hate Musk buying Twitter

Colin Wright on X - "Very glad that @elonmusk  is suing Media Matters (@mmfa ) for their false and slanderous accusations. Most of us don't have the resources to push back against their damaging lies.  They have been trying to destroy my reputation and ability to make a living for years by publishing articles accusing me of being an "anti-trans bigot" and "maligning and demeaning trans people," distorting my valid criticisms of the Trevor Project for secretly helping minors transition, and attempting to implicate me in data fraud via guilt by association.  They're not journalists; they're unscrupulous political attack dogs.  Thanks Elon. Give them hell."

KanekoaTheGreat on X - "🚨BREAKING: @FreeBeacon  has uncovered a confidential list revealing Media Matters' major contributors.   Brace yourself for this shocking surprise — they're all Democratic megadonors.
• Deborah J. Simon: $4,000,000
• Gill Foundation: $2,970,000
• Josh and Anita Bekenstein: $1,750,000
• Stephen M. Silberstein Foundation: $1,900,000
• Susan T. Buffett Foundation: $1,751,199
Media Matters, the brainchild of Clinton loyalist David Brock, calls itself a media watchdog but operates as a DNC front group orchestrating advertiser boycotts and suppressing free speech on social media.  In a shocking federal lawsuit, a Media Matters employee obsessively refreshed a fringe video on @rumblevideo  over 70 times until he found a Netflix ad that could be used as fodder for a public pressure campaign.  Despite being the sole viewer of that Netflix ad next to the fringe video, Media Matters falsely insinuated in an article that Netflix ads frequently accompanied fringe content on Rumble, coercing advertisers to abandon the platform.  On @X , Media Matters accessed accounts active for 30 days, bypassing ad filters for new users, and selectively followed accounts with fringe content and those owned by X's major corporate advertisers.  After repeatedly scrolling and refreshing their timeline - 13 more times than an average user - they generated screenshots of fringe content next to X's top advertisers.  Media Matters' defamation was so fabricated that IBM, Comcast, and Oracle had their ads appear next to fringe content for just one account—an employee of Media Matters—out of over 550 million active users on @X .  Media Matters conveniently left out these details in their reporting, sidestepping the fact that their reporters manipulated the platform to create fringe content next to major corporate advertisers.  Why are Democratic megadonors like @GillFoundation , @Josh_Bekenstein , and @BuffettScholars  financially supporting these clearly deceptive, malicious tactics aimed at stifling free speech on the internet?"

Collin Rugg on X - "NEW: Disney worker charged with 32 counts of child p*rn in Brooksville, Florida.  Maybe Disney should focus on their own problems instead of projecting on X.  Michael David Foster, a Disney worker, was busted in possession of child p*rn.  It’s no secret Disney has a pedoph*le problem which is deeply concerning considering their whole business model centers around children.  Earlier this year, 40-year-old Paul Viejo was arrested in Florida on child p*rn charges. He worked at Cosmic Rays Restaurant at Disney World.  Dozens of Disney employees have been arrested over the years for s*x crimes involving children.  Sickening."

Meme - Stephen King @StephenKing: "Dear Elon: Twitter. Twitter, Twitter. Twitter, Twitter, Twitter. Twitter, Twitter, Twitter, Twitter. And so on. Fuck your need to put your personal brand on everything."
greg @greg16676935420: "Says the guy who puts his name bigger than the title of the book on all his books"

Lucas Lynch | Facebook - "Elon Musk is proof that you can dedicate the golden years of your life to some of the most important progressive priorities, like renewable energy, electric cars, and the exploration of the universe, and no matter how successful you are, far-left progressives will hate you regardless."

Scott Adams on X - "After several years of watching Biden destroy America, I asked my smart Democrat friend if he had changed his views since 2016.   He advised me to read the New York Times to get real news and stop falling for all the Republican hoaxes.  You can't even talk to Democrats these days. Not enough common assumptions to even get started."
Elon Musk on X - "Recommend that they also read X. Worst case, they will have a better understanding of the so-called “hoaxes”. They don’t need to stop reading NY Times, but they probably will once they realize they’ve been had."
Scott Adams on X - "I did recommend X as the only place showing both sides. That was the main reason I messaged him. I was trying to free him from his bubble. No interest."
I Will Not Comply on X - "It's a cult... It's VERY hard to convince someone to be willing to look at new information that will force themselves to admit they were wrong... Fear of being wrong is a very powerful force..."

Ian Miles Cheong on X - "Without 𝕏, Claudine Gay would still have her job at Harvard. Most people—academics, tech leaders, etc.—would still be afraid of speaking their minds and saying all the quiet parts out loud. Free speech, provided by 𝕏, and Elon Musk, has enabled a newfound degree of freedom previously unafforded by Twitter or any other social media platform.   Now, the tide is turning against the woke regime and they’re genuinely terrified of losing their entrenched positions. They can no longer be protected from criticism as people—the public—rejects their use of -isms as a shield from the truth."

Collin Rugg on X - "NEW: Facebook's former engineering director David Erb says the pedoph*le network inside Meta platforms is "a hundred times worse" than anyone expected.  Why do advertisers have an issue with X but not this? Really makes you wonder.  In 2019, Erb resigned in protest after he became disgusted with Facebook's plan to encrypt messages which he believed would give pedoph*les more protection.  "It was a hundred times worse than any of us expected. There were millions of pedophiles targeting tens of millions of children," Erb said during an interview with the Wall Street Journal.  Once Erb discovered that Facebook was planning on encrypting messages, he threatened to resign because he was worried not enough was being done to confront Facebook's alleged pedoph*le problem.  Days later, Erb was removed and placed on leave, prompting him to resign.  Wild."

Tobi on X - "It’s time to acknowledge that 75% of Twitter’s staff were laid off and this thing is still running"
Shibetoshi Nakamoto on X - "imagine how embarrassing it would be to be a former twitter employee who very confidently stated that the app would die without them, and seeing it continue to thrive with 20% of the manpower that it used to have"

New York Post on X - "Elon Musk’s X now worth 71% less than when billionaire bought it as Twitter"
ib on X - "You are post-economic at ~50M if you don't lose your assets. You can't consume more from what's available/against others consumption. Bezos doesn't live much better than men his age with 25M. Billionaires don't even get better phones. Musk owns English-speaking opinion making"

Meme - Peter St Onge, Ph.D. @profstonge: "In the year since @elonmusk took over, traffic tripled, eclipsing Instagram. This is becoming humanity's public square"
Weird. The left keep claiming he destroyed it and no one uses it anymore

Meme *Elon Musk* "So you're not mad at those who lied to you for years. But you're mad at me for proving they lied to you?"

Collin Rugg on X - "JUST IN: Harvard historian of science Naomi Oreskes says X is an extremely toxic place and says the name scares her while speaking at the World Economic Forum.  What a clown 🀑  "It's become such a toxic place that I've concluded it's not a worthwhile place to spend time... it is exhausting."  "I have given up on X, what a scary name that even is, right?""
These are the same people who go on about "white fragility"

Meme - Mike Pesca @pescami: "If you aren't familiar with the grammar of the Times front page layout here it is: The top right story is the lead story, the top left story is the sub-lead everything else above the fold is the important news of the day. Today the New York Times says the second most important story is mounting pressure from senior congressional Dems to push Biden out of the race. The 3rd most important story is a shocking French election results upending all expectations. The MOST important story is Elon Musk's successful space launch destroying nine bird nests."

Meme - Ian Miles Cheong @stillgray: "Elon Musk has confirmed to me that there have been two separate attempts on his life within the past 8 months.   Posting this because everyone else seems to want to crop out my name from their screenshots."
Ian Miles Cheong @stillgray: "Please, please triple your protection. If they can come for Trump they will also come for you."
Elon Musk @elonmusk: "Dangerous times ahead. Two people (separate occasions) have already tried to kill me in the past 8 months. They were arrested with guns about 20 mins drive from Tesla HQ in Texas."
In the wake of the Trump assassination attempt. Left wing hatred has consequences

Meme - Gavin Newsom @GavinNewsom: "Manipulating a voice in an "ad" like this one should be illegal. I'll be signing a bill in a matter of weeks to make sure it is."
"Elon Musk retweets altered Kamala Harris campaign ad. In the video, Harris seemingly exposes herself as an incompetent candidate for president. The origin of the video isn't known yet."
Elon Musk: "I checked with renowned world authority, Professor Suggon Deeznutz, and he said parody is legal in America"

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