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?

"In the context of the rest of the thesis that's not a call for children to be made accessible to men but for social media platforms to take responsibility and ensure the safety of all users."

OK, now do the bit where he says

"Questions of physical safety become even more urgent when they're coupled with what Wendy Chun (2006) has called one of the most enduring "paranoid narratives" of digital media: the need to protect minors from the unregulated sexual wilds of the internet."

Then ask how that fits in with his tweet that we need to question whether pupil/teacher relationships are always a bad thing?

You're defending , if not an actual n*nce then one who would certainly help them out if they needed a hand.

This is so true. Unfortunately many of the most powerful people and institutions in the world dont really care about anyone but themselves. So Twitter didnt care about justice and fairness then and will not care about these two with Musk at the helm. Still it would be nice to see more moderation of hateful content. Something Musk is not that keen on

@Dotellhimpike But do you believe them when they call you far right? Or do you understand the correct definition, and that they’re being dicks?

As a reminder of what’s commonly accepted as “far right”:

”Britain First, an extreme group whose leader has spent time in jail for hate crimes against Muslims, rejoined the social media network on Friday. It had been banned in 2017 under Twitter’s hate speech rules after posting inflammatory anti-Muslim videos.”
amp.theguardian.com/politics/2022/oct/29/banned-british-far-right-figures-return-to-twitter-within-hours-of-takeover

“Anglin has publicly indicated that the goal of his operation and adherence to white nationalist ideology is to “ethnically cleanse White nations of non-Whites and establish an authoritarian government. Many people also believe that the Jews should be exterminated.” Anglin is a staunch supporter of Nazi ideology and regularly espouses Holocaust denail. In 2018, Anglin wrote that he “[hates] women. I think they deserve to be beaten, raped and locked in cages.”

“www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/elon-musk-twitter-reinstates-neo-nazi-andrew-anglin-account-1234640390/amp/“

Also this

“In recent days, the platform’s new CEO has reactivated the accounts of known neo-Nazis; shared a picture of a white supremacist who said he’d like Trump to be more like Hitler; failed to prevent users from posting videos of the Christchurch massacre; tweeted a popular alt-right meme; used a known antisemitic trope; and, inadvertently or not, shared a dogwhistle that white supremacists interpreted as praise for Hitler.”
www.vice.com/amp/en/article/n7zm9q/elon-musk-twitter-nazis-white-supremacy

I think it would be quite a stretch for anyone to deny that rhetoric like the above causes real world harm.

Without question, Anthony Fauci has made a significant contribution to medicine in his long career.

That said, as I understand it, he financed gain of function research in China that was not allowed in the US and was less than candid when questioned.

If there is a case to answer, he should answer it.

"Does that mean Twitter wasn't shit on a number of fronts before he bought it, clearly not. But that doesn't make him some kind of saviour, he's still a massive dick who's only interest is his own self-interest."

I don't disagree with a word of this but I can't get over why people are so obsessed with this one man child billionaire with his media platform when pretty much all media we consume is owned and controlled by man child billionaires with an agenda, all of it. You think Musk is worse than Murdoch? Worse than 4th Viscount Rothermere owner of the Daily Mail?

So Musk probably wants to use his platform to further his own agenda, well who woulda thunk it? A billionaire buying a media platform for his own self interests.

This is all manufactured virtue singalling shite, performative outrage for one's peer group.

"Questions of physical safety become even more urgent when they're coupled with what Wendy Chun (2006) has called one of the most enduring "paranoid narratives" of digital media: the need to protect minors from the unregulated sexual wilds of the internet."

That’s a horribly written sentence. If you take out the crap in the middle it reads:

”Questions of physical safety become even more urgent when they’re coupled with the need to protect minors from the unregulated sexual wilds of the internet.”

Which is… accurate? The use of quotation marks around “paranoid narrative” shows either that it’s a direct quote from Wendy Chun,
(but no clarity about whether he agrees with that opinion or not) or he’s disagreeing that it’s “paranoid” but honestly it’s so badly written that I can’t work that out.

But before I’m being accused of being a nonce supporting noncer, I have literally only tidied up the awful grammar and haven’t seen the context of the rest of the document. The rest may be horrific, but this extract in isolation isn’t any kind of “gotcha”, at least linguistically.

“In recent days, the platform’s new CEO has reactivated the accounts of known neo-Nazis; shared a picture of a white supremacist who said he’d like Trump to be more like Hitler; failed to prevent users from posting videos of the Christchurch massacre; tweeted a popular alt-right meme; used a known antisemitic trope; and, inadvertently or not, shared a dogwhistle that white supremacists interpreted as praise for Hitler.”
^www.vice.com/amp/en/article/n7zm9q/elon-musk-twitter-nazis-white-supremacy^

The previous owners also failed to prevent such things from being posted. What's the difference?

"I think it would be quite a stretch for anyone to deny that rhetoric like the above causes real world harm."

Sorry but I'm not having that. If it causes real world harm then contact the authorities and make a complaint so that it can be dealt with through the courts. Alowing you or anyone else to be the arbiter of what is and isn't acceptable is what was already happening, and it ended up with people stating biological facts being banned because it was claimed their rhetoric causes real world harm, while actual doxxing and threats of violence against GC women were found not to have breached the T&Cs.

"That’s a horribly written sentence. If you take out the crap in the middle it reads:"

More like you'd want it to read?

You say you don't know how he feels about the "paranoid narrative' bit that you excised from the quote but I humbly suggest his tweet in which he questions whether or not pupil/teacher realtionships are always a bad thing? gives us a decent indication of where he comes down on that and how he feels.

But yeah sure, if you take each single word and read it without the rest of the words, it doesn't seem so bad at all.

@Dotellhimpike yes, that’s exactly what I said, so can you explain why you posted that exact quotation if the words in it don’t actually mean anything bad?

No, I wouldn't accept it as scientific fact. While I am more inclined to say that you can't change biological sex I don't know enough about the subject to make an informed decision. A quick glance shows there are several thousand peer reviewed articles on the subject in the last 2 years alone, from all sides of the debate.

But either way you didn't answer my question. What is your criteria for scientific fact?

It is the issue in question, I've just asked it. You can't take one subject that you happen to be passionate about and make up rules that apply to it in isolation. If you argue that private companies should be forced to equally promote both sides of an argument then it has to extend into all other areas of life.

If people are too lazy or too stupid to look into their sources of information then that's their failing. The solution to that isn't to force private companies to entertain all views.

You've also still not answered why you deliberately didn't quote the end of my post that acknowledged the very point you accused me of willingly ignoring?

@Dotellhimpike
“Sorry but I'm not having that.”

If you believe that neo Nazis and the far right don’t (at the very least) dox and threaten people then I don’t know what to say to you.

But I get it. If I don’t toe the line that what’s happening to the GC women is the worst thing in the world then I’ll be countered at every turn.

The funny thing is, I actually agreed on this thread that the threats against GC women were abhorrent.
But as soon as I mention that other groups are also being harmed, that’s it, conversation over. If that’s the GC viewpoint then I don’t want anything to do with it. And luckily I’m off to work so you don’t have to have anything more to do with me 😁

A quick glance shows there are several thousand peer reviewed articles on the subject in the last 2 years alone, from all sides of the debate.

Can you find me a peer reviewed piece of work that asserts you can? Or a standing professional in a university that asserts it?

And that would be part of my understanding of scientific fact. Research, literature review.

There's also historical precedence. Can you give any example in all of human history of an individual who has gone from producing small gametes to large gametes or vice verse? Because that's the killer question.

No, I've not made any comment in support of the author personally or otherwise. Someone (you?) claimed the thesis championed the idea of men being able to access underage children through Grindr, I read it and came to a different conclusion and was trying to illustrate why you shouldn't just take the word of a random on the Internet without reading things yourself.

Why would I then take into consideration an unrelated tweet, that wasn't mentioned in the first place, into my assessment of that thesis?

Interesting that you're also happy to throw about accusations of supporting child abuse because someone disagrees with your interpretation of an academic paper.

No one is saying calling women "terfs" and threatening them with rape and death is the worst thing in the world. But the hateful misogyny and violent threats that were previously allowed, was disgusting.

Would you like to share your thoughts on the CSE content that, until EM took over were, at best, turned a blind eye to?

"Interesting that you're also happy to throw about accusations of supporting child abuse because someone disagrees with your interpretation of an academic paper."

It's not just my interpretation of an academic paper though, is it? It's me interpreting the academic paper in light of someone's actions (or inaction) coupled with follow up comments he made which seem to support the interpretaion of the academic paper in a specific way.

As for supporting child abuse, I did not mean to imply you did, and if my post read that way to you then I apologise.

That’s good. I remember mn coming under fire for allowing FWR and I’m glad everyone stuck it out.

We were easily heading to a situation where biological reality was silenced, tg there’s been some reversal.

@JuvenileEmu I’ve already shared my thoughts on the lack of prevention and removal of CSE content twice on this thread.

And I agree with you that the threats against women were abhorrent (which I’ve also said on this thread). I haven’t opposed anyone on any of that. I’ve just posted that allowing (more, banned) Neo Nazis to have a wider voice doesn’t end well for anyone. You wouldn’t think that was an unpopular view tbh 😁

Yup. Possibly a bit of a smear campaign going on here.

"I’ve just posted that allowing (more, banned) Neo Nazis to have a wider voice doesn’t end well for anyone"

From what I remember of the likes of Tommeh Robinson or the Britain First lot, it usually ends up with most people laughing at them and the shite they come out with. As long as they don't break the law I say let them talk shite, and let people react to that as they usually do, with laughter.

"Yup. Possibly a bit of a smear campaign going on here."

Why do you think UPenn withdrew the thesis?

@Dotellhimpike are you serious? Sorry, my kids and husband don’t have the option of “laughing” when people who identify as Neo Nazis or people who enjoy their “message” verbally and physically abuse them because of their race. Hate speech being normalised has real world consequences and you may not see them, but they exist and they are damaging. I work with refugees and asylum seekers and the effects of the normalisation of hate speech are clear, whether that’s when a migrant processing centre gets firebombed by a man whose fb was full of far right rhetoric, or crowds of men chanting racist slogans outside asylum seekers accommodation and harassing them when they leave because of lies they read and believe on social media

Are you at least consistent and believe that women should just laugh at the death threats and doxxing they get? Because I don’t.

are you serious?

Yes

"Sorry, my kids and husband don’t have the option of “laughing” when people who identify as Neo Nazis or people who enjoy their “message” verbally and physically abuse them"

And I am sorry if you or your family are subjected to any abuse but I'm talking about comments on Twitter which stay within the law.

I agree with you, and I will happily talk at length with despair about Murdoch and Rothermere et al and the impact of the self-interested ownership of the press on democracy (although I do try and dial it down at parties).

I suppose the focus on Elon Musk is because he has made many of his views very clear and has openly stated that he will run Twitter in furtherance of those views. That combined with the fact that Twitter has such a huge market share of the online discourse which has ballooned in terms of its influence might well make him worse than the other players you have mentioned, certainly, it makes him an obvious person to be concerned about because his agenda will have a huge real-world impact.

The fact that there are other individuals that enjoy similar levels of unchecked influence, but who have employed a different, perhaps more successful strategy of keeping themselves under the radar is worth a whole other thread, if you start one I will see you there🤓.

Where I don't agree is that all of the concern is "manufactured virtue signalling shite, performative outrage for one's peer group". although the cynic in me thinks that is likely to be true in some cases. The fact that there are other players potentially just as bad as EM doesn't mean we shouldn't be talking about him, negative publicity is genuinely one of the only things ways he might be influenced and even that is no guarantee.

It's not just that there are other players just as bad, I would contend that Murdoch has shaped our politics for the last forty years, and had an incredibly malign effect on our democracy, to the point we are where we are right now, and he hasn't stopped doing it.

and he hasn't stopped doing it
no-one lets go willingly once they have the reigns of power, this mad old king will keep meddling as long as he's breath in his body