to think Elon Musk is shining direct sunlight on a very grubby state of affairs?

[LondonWolf]

Just staggered at what's coming out tbh. When he first bought Twitter there were several lengthy threads on here lamenting that Twitter would soon move to the Right and be full of hate. Now it appears that no one was bothering to work on child protection, child sexual abuse and exploitation routinely unaddressed, and Twitter employees were working directly with the FBI and government to censor stories some which arguably had direct impacts on how people would vote. Are there any threads on here discussing what's coming out like there were screening about how horrific it was all going to be, because I can't see any?

Jeremy Corbyn
attended a memorial ceremony for those who castrated, tortured and killed Israeli athletes at the Munich olympics
campaigned for the pardon and release of prisoners who bombed a Jewish community centre in Finchley
said that Jewish people couldn't understand 'English irony despite having lived here all [our] lives'
uniquely, united all Jewish newspapers and community organisations and denominations in literally begging our non-Jewish compatriots not to elect him
jeered and laughed at Jewish women MPs who were driven out of his party, under his watch
donated to the officially antisemitic Rev Stephen Sizer
appeared on Iranian state TV saying he saw 'the hand of Israel' in... just about everything
wrote a glowing foreword praising a book that said Jews have started all of the wars in the world
told Raeed Salah, promoter of the blood libel, that he would love to take him to tea on the terrace of the House of Commons
etc etc et bloody cetera

The Equalities and Human Rights Commission said:

Our investigation has identified serious failings in leadership and an inadequate
process for handling antisemitism complaints across the Labour Party, and we
have identified multiple failures in the systems it uses to resolve them. We have
concluded that there were unlawful acts of harassment and discrimination for
which the Labour Party is responsible.

While there have been some recent improvements in how the Labour Party deals
with antisemitism complaints, our analysis points to a culture within the Party
which, at best, did not do enough to prevent antisemitism and, at worst, could be
seen to accept it.

The issue of antisemitism within the Labour Party has been the subject of much
scrutiny, most formally with three investigations in 2016, conducted by Baroness
Chakrabarti, Baroness Royall and the Home Affairs Select Committee (HASC).
Since then, the Party has failed to implement the recommendations made in
these reports fully, or to take effective measures to stop antisemitic conduct from
taking place. It is regrettable that many of the concerns we raise here were first
raised in these reports over four years ago.

This reflects a culture that is at odds with the Labour Party’s commitment to zero
tolerance of antisemitism.The Party has shown an ability to act decisively when
it wants to, through the introduction of a bespoke process to deal with sexual
harassment complaints. Although some improvements have been made to the
process for dealing with antisemitism complaints, it is hard not to conclude that
antisemitism within the Labour Party could have been tackled more effectively if
the leadership had chosen to do so

www.equalityhumanrights.com/sites/default/files/investigation-into-antisemitism-in-the-labour-party.pdf

The Labour Party:
“Amongst the very clear changes of the Labour party that I’ve made, one is our approach on antisemitism, where I said I would tear it out by the roots. And that obviously led to the whip being removed from Jeremy Corbyn because of his response to the Equality and Human Rights Commission,” Starmer said.
“And the other is to say there is no place in the Labour party for this false equivalence between Russian aggression and Nato, which is why the chief whip wrote letters to the Labour MPs on both those issues. I couldn’t be clearer about the Labour party that I lead.”

@Dotellhimpike

"Oh I met him and he is such a luvverly man oh he's so kind and nice and luvverly it was so luvverly to talk to him, how wierd that some people think otherwise their so mean, oh no a horrible Jew is saying things to me how can I block her lol"

Yeah, hard to 'square the circle' there. [eyeroll]

Antisemitism is abhorrent and absolutely should be called loudly, often and in damning terms

This statement is the Corbyn-fan club version of 'all lives matter', especially on Twitter. As soon as someone is pulled up for antisemtic comments or belittling and mocking Jewish peoples' negative experiences this is trotted out, as sure as night follows day.

So can you point to where you have called it out? Loudly and in damning terms? Go on, try calling it out, I dare you! Of course you won't, unless it's from the Right of course. Because you're too busy claiming the antisemtism Jewish people (have dared) to speak up against is hysterics and disingenuous, and the classic - too emotive.

@Dotellhimpike Again. It doesn’t matter if you think that Twitter posts can incite violence is “nonsense” or “they’re not saying anything politicians don’t say”. All that shows is that you haven’t seen the shit we’re referring to and/or you don’t understand the impact of it on minority groups. Try listening to the people it does actually affect.

Just to clarify what I’m speaking about, stats below are from this link:
www.nytimes.com/2022/12/02/technology/twitter-hate-speech.html

Kanye West’s account was suspended due to him sharing multiple antisemitic images and dangerous tropes. At the same time, “antisemitic posts referring to Jews or Judaism soared more than 61 percent in the two weeks after Mr. Musk acquired the site.”
Can you name any politicians (aside from corbyn, the issues there have been covered so well by @BloodAndFire ) who’ve said they’re “coming for Jewish people” or use swastikas in their messaging on TV and in the media in general?

“Before Elon Musk bought Twitter, slurs against Black Americans showed up on the social media service an average of 1,282 times a day. After the billionaire became Twitter’s owner, they jumped to 3,876 times a day.”
Can you name any politicians who are openly using the n word on Twitter and in the media?

“Slurs against gay men appeared on Twitter 2,506 times a day on average before Mr. Musk took over. Afterward, their use rose to 3,964 times a day.”
Can you name any politicians who openly use homophobic slurs on Twitter and in the media?

“Accounts that Twitter used to regularly remove — such as those that identify as part of the Islamic State, which were banned after the U.S. government classified ISIS as a terror group — have come roaring back.”
Can you name any politicians who use the rhetoric of the Islamic state on Twitter and in the media?

Britain First, as we’ve already discussed, was banned from Twitter for rhetoric that incited violence against civilians. They’re now reinstated.
Can you name any politicians who openly incite violence against Muslim people on Twitter and in the media?

Because sometimes the only answer to “well, I don’t see…” is “did you even look?”

So all the people who think this takeover is a positive thing might want to ask if they’re comfortable with the stars quoted here. Remembering of course, that’s it’s perfectly possible to crack down on CSE & threats against women without opening the floodgates to racism, antisemitism and homophobia at the same time.

"20. In June 2018, Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei tweeted, “#Israel is a malignant cancerous tumor in the West Asian region that has to be removed and eradicated: it is possible and it will happen.”
Twitter neither deleted the tweet nor banned the Ayatollah."

If twitter is so sensible to inciting violence how Khamenei is still on twitter when he is openly calling for violence against Israel?

It’s so important to read this again with the context of @BloodAndFire ’s posts, and understanding the history of antisemitism in America. I don’t think anyone has said that twitter’s previous moderation was even adequate, but glossing over clear antisemitism as a “gotcha”
about who’s suspended and who isn’t gets us nowhere.

"Because sometimes the only answer to “well, I don’t see…” is “did you even look?”

I look at Twitter every day.* I don't see the stuff you're talking about. *Ah but you will say, why don't you try looking? Well I did that in the immediate aftermath of Musk taking over Twitter I was told certain racial epithets were now allowed and their use was rampant, so what did I do? I searched for the epithet in question, and what did I find? I found 99.9% of it being used was accounts complaining it was now possible to say it.

So you can gnash and wail all you like, the shit you say is happening must be happening on a different Twitter cos it sure aint in my timeline.

Oh, and by the way, best not tell me I should look at what another poster has already put in the thread, since a few posts back they made up a quote and attibuted it to me. If they are openly lying about me, why should I listen to anything else they say?

My god, this is the definition of chutzpah.

I paraphrased your post. After you had ignored every single thing I posted, refused to acknowledge any of the evidence, laughed at, taunted and mocked me, made pathetic little jabs about hiding my posts, and tried to get other posters to join in.

You didn't acknowledge or listen to a single thing I said in any of the many previous posts I addressed to you. Why the fuck are you pretending now that you did?

Your dishonesty is really blatant and really despicable.

@BewareTheLibrarians Thank you x

My second post wasn’t directed at you, @Dotellhimpike . It was to the thread in general hence me not tagging you.

And your first reply to me really proves the point I was making. You don’t see it, so it doesn’t exist. Were all those accounts saying it was now possible to say lying, in your opinion? Obviously not. Does that fact that I saw it used directly to people I follow, and saw comments openly inciting violence (due to their race) at the users of charities I follow mean nothing because you didn’t see it too? Obviously not. It’s surely very very obvious that different demographics will have different experiences of twitter. I don’t know how it would harm you to understand this, but it’s clearly something you’re not at all interested in understanding or caring about.

I’m also sad you felt it necessary to describe my post as “gnashing and wailing”, rather than take a second to understand the point, but par for the course I suppose.

This statement is the Corbyn-fan club version of 'all lives matter', especially on Twitter. As soon as someone is pulled up for antisemtic comments or belittling and mocking Jewish peoples' negative experiences this is trotted out, as sure as night follows day.

Isn't it just! They won't actually, ever, condemn any actual antisemitism (unless it's from a right-wing source who they want to condemn anyway), but just make these "all lives matter" noises while ignoring the overwhelming tsunami of evidence from a huge range of different sources that shows the horrendous antisemitism that runs through the Corbynite movement like letters through a stick of rock.

As time goes on I think it becomes clearer that antisemitism was less of an unfortunate side-effect of Corbynism and more the very heart of it. Those people who were primarily Labour supporters either ignored it (which is bad) or actively spoke out against it. Times have now moved on. The only people who are still banging on about how wonderful this person is who has now been proven incontrovertibly to be a massive racist are those people for whom the massive racism is actually the main thing.

All this thread shows is that a lot of people happily swallow the blue pill, everyday. If they don’t see it in their matrix, it isn’t happening. The prior owners of Twitter weren’t without fault. In the world we currently live you then have to look to intent. Musk is the very definition of people described in the book Sovereign Individual. He has more power and influence than ANY elected official, without any regulation or checks/balances, and yet still people will find a way to say how much better he is than others. It’s like comparing who is ‘better’ between Epstein or Saville. Sorry for the distasteful comparison but that’s how bad I think Twitter and some other SM platforms are.

He has more power and influence than ANY elected official, without any regulation or checks/balances, and yet still people will find a way to say how much better he is than others. It’s like comparing who is ‘better’ between Epstein or Saville. Sorry for the distasteful comparison but that’s how bad I think Twitter and some other SM platforms are.

I kind of agree, but this is the 'vote blue no matter who' shitlib freaking out because there sphere of influence has been shown up to what it was, twitter was a known cancer on SM and not in the real world yet was a source of opinions that they should parrot, what was once a conspiracy theory is now laid out bare. The American 'left', and I use that term loosley even though it is infecting UK political discussion actually treated Twiiter on a higher 'social justice' level as to what it was actually invented for, limited 140 shit talking/jokes, they didn't care about the drop off of bot accounts signal boosting left leaning views, that highlighted what was trending in places like Mexico/Japan/India where not political but memes/Hentai and local issues.

If people are concerned about Elon having (more power and influence than ANY elected official, without any regulation or checks/balances) then it means they accepted it previously because it aligned with there views.

What has been highlighted is that a multinational/obviously influential company on public discours (see QAnon, and thinking thinking Trump/Tories are extreme far right) should be politics free.

As the saying used to be, it is a private company and it can do what it likes, and if you don't like it feel free to create a new one...

By 'completely different version' do you mean unfounded and evidence-free conspiracy theories or something else? Because the first is all I can find.

I mean, there's often a completely different version of a rape accusation too.

@BewareTheLibrarians more than a "gotcha", this example shows how twitter was being used as a tool for internal politics in US. If you look at the tweet flood Bari Weiss shows other examples, not just this one. For further evidence on how it was being used as a tool in favor of one side and against the other side, you can inspect te tweet flood by Matt Taibbi:

twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1598822959866683394

In this thread, you'll see how Hunter Biden laptop news were censored right before the US 2020 elections. This is clearly an election interference to favor Democrats and to protect Biden. You'll see how FBI collaborated with Twitter to do that.

@BewareTheLibrarians Regarding the rise o hate speech on Twitter, we also need to clearly know what is specified as hate speech. As you might know, not using someone's preferred pronouns is considered hate speech. Tweeting something like 'covid vaccines don't prevent transmission' or talking about its side effects were considered as anti-vaccine. So it is very important to know these rules of what constitutes a hate speech rather than sharing opinion. Otherwise, it is just statistics and damn lies :)

You're also comparing now while they're still working on setting these rules. A comparison couple of months later might give a more just and better result.

What is ironic for MN, is that the posters who kept threads alive over 4 years about any indescrettion of Trump and who I have seen call people out on other threads to stop leading false right wing news have not commented on these threads..

It highlights how even CSE can be ignored if it doesn't fit a 'political' narrative..

@solisetlunae I don’t think anyone’s ever accused twitter of being a properly run, politically impartial site 😁 I wouldn’t ever agree that it’s ok to silence (normal) political views on either side of the spectrum. However, when there’s incitement to violence, racism, antisemitism etc then yes, those views deserve to be suppressed. And one viewpoint could be - if one political party is getting suppressed more than the other, is it because that political party is spreading messages that incite violence, normalise racism/antisemitism/homophobia and otherwise break the conduct rules for that particular platform? That’s a purely hypothetical point given that I don’t know what was suppressed, but things like Marjorie Taylor Greene’s “Jewish space laser” post springs to mind.

Regarding your second post, I’ve probably made it clear in my posts what I consider hate speech. The examples you’ve given do seem to depend on the choices of how that platform is moderated vs what happens in the real world. For eg, “misgendering and deadnaming” is, according to twitter policy, hateful conduct, and repeated breaching would probably cause a suspension. People may not agree with that, but that’s the terms of using the platform. So yes, I completely agree with you that people need to know the policies and terms of platforms they’re using and whether they align with their views. I like the optimism of your last paragraph and hopefully things will improve!

@BewareTheLibrarians I always find your posts so thoughtful and considered.

@AnElegantChaos that’s far too kind 😳💐 I do try to keep the screeching internal but I don’t think I’m always that successful! Your perspective and @BloodAndFire ’s one have been really important as antisemitism is still somehow glossed over by some or outright denied, when the damage it causes is huge.

@BewareTheLibrarians Yes, I used to work for an anti-racism charity and lurk about related threads more than post really, but it is notable that @BloodAndFire is incredibly adept at chewing up and spitting out any racists that come for her, yet with such patience and grace.

Hmm.

@AnElegantChaos @BewareTheLibrarians ahhh thank you both. I'm ill today and steeled myself to look at this thread after getting notifications and was very happily surprised and touched by your posts xx

So, back to Twitter and the terribly unfair hounding of former head of Trust and Safety Yoel Roth. There's his PhD, there's his complete failure to deal with CSAM on Twitter, and there's his tweet suggesting pupil/teacher realtionships may not always be a bad thing. Now we have a blog he wrote in which he describes underage girl sexting Anthony Weiner as "a fucking Saint"
No concern whatsoever for the allegations of Weiner's impropriety involving kids.

God forbid any of us make any suggestions as to Roth's character and predelictions though.

Remember, Elon is the bad guy here, Twitter was much better while people like Roth were employed there. Why now in the last few days Twitter has actually banned the hashtags paedophiles used to search for the CSAM (I will not post them here)

Bloody Musk.

warroom.org/2022/12/13/yoel-roth-defended-pedophile-anthony-weiner/

@Dotellhimpike
its a strange turn of events that people want to makes excuses for this Roth character while lambasting Musk

I’ve tried and failed to understand why people are so reactive to Musk