United States Corrupt Twattery
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Wij
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It's such a lash, they ended up stealing free software...
www.theverge.com
Trump’s social network has 30 days to stop breaking the rules of its software license
It could face a lawsuit otherwise.
www.theverge.com
Wij
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The GOP fully intends to ‘win’ the next election no matter how many votes they get.
View: https://twitter.com/PaulaChertok/status/1454612760403185665
View: https://twitter.com/PaulaChertok/status/1454612760403185665
Embattle
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QAnon fans gather to welcome JFK Jr who ‘faked his death will run with Trump’
Supporters of baseless conspiracy falsely believe JFK Jr is alive and well
www.independent.co.uk
Wij
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I've seen Trump-Kennedy-2024 flags before. It's scientology for boomers who are a bit racist.QAnon fans gather to welcome JFK Jr who ‘faked his death will run with Trump’
Supporters of baseless conspiracy falsely believe JFK Jr is alive and well
Wij
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Wij
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Wij
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Poor black woman vs rich white boy and son of GOP bigwig.
Wij
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You can have social injustice in a democracy. However when that injustice is used against voting rights then it can become a democracy in name only. I’ve started many times that the US is falling far behind most of Continental Europe in democratic terms of democracy. Voter suppression and gerrymandering is just seen as vigorously fighting for your side.
The UK is moving in this direction. FPTP doesn’t help.
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Free speech allows people to speak the truth as much as it allows idiots to misinform. And the biggest danger (proven by history) is that government outlaws stuff it dislikes to capture control of the narrative. Misinformation has always been there - cutting our only legal protection from their bullshit off and handing them the story on a plate is not a rational reaction.Oh and rampant misinformation doesn’t help either but you seem to think that’s free speech
It would also help if our education system wasn't simply a production line for punting kids into dead-end jobs. A well-educated population is a completely necessary requirement for a functioning democracy - and the ability to spot bullshit and make rational decisions is predicated on that.
You hit the nail on the head with one thing though:
But I think you give way too much credit to European democracies. We live under full-blown technocratic rule. We've got the vote and reasonably fair voting systems - but we don't get to vote on anything important. The technocrats are the real government and sadly it's ultimately a financial technocracy. Our governments are clearly just middle management to keep the plebs in line.
Wij
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Allowing bad actors free reign to put out bullshit is a terrible threat to democracy. If people really believe that a few starving people from Central America fleeing gangs is a bigger threat to them than a global pandemic then they will vote against their own interests. Working class people voting against their own interests is the norm in the US and UK now and a lot of that is the bullshit information environment. We have had press standards before. Lots of countries do. They need to actually be enforced and similar things should be in place on large social media outlets. Otherwise the votes will go to wherever the best-funded bullshit factory can point them. It's just another way of letting the rich be in charge.
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We're approaching this from different directions. I don't think we live in a real democracy anyway, so I lack your enthusiam for the subject.
However to address your point - you cannot stop the bad actors without also providing a mechanism which can be used to stop the truth. And it's a bigger threat to our non-existent democracy to not be able to speak truth to power.
I think that's been the case long before the internet was invented - never mind social media.
Like national newspapers of ye olden days? I think the information environment has actually improved, not regressed.
It's just much much clearer that there's so much bullshit out there. It's like we had BBC1 and 2, and ITV. And then we had a billion channels. The percentage of bullshit hasn't increased IMO. It's just we can see so much of it - and it can be quite alarming.
And they failed when there were less than a hundredth of the "news" outlets than there are now. Misinformation spreads friend-to-friend now (as it ever did).
Education is the way to fix this. But we won't fix it because the system doesn't want a functioning democracy.
I really think getting youself worked up over social media is a hiding to nothing unfortunately @Wij.
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There is a difference.
Having an opinion on something is not the same as lying about something. To take a recent example, nutters that claim Bill Gates is tracking you should be banned from the internet, there is no point discussing it with them. People that don't want to be vaccinated for some misinformed ideology, should be argued against.
The trouble is, you can't have an opinion without some angry guy screaming at you, so why bother engaging with anyone?
Having an opinion on something is not the same as lying about something. To take a recent example, nutters that claim Bill Gates is tracking you should be banned from the internet, there is no point discussing it with them. People that don't want to be vaccinated for some misinformed ideology, should be argued against.
The trouble is, you can't have an opinion without some angry guy screaming at you, so why bother engaging with anyone?
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You can't ban lying. You can only educate kids that some people are liars and hope they can deal with it in day to day life.
Education is the answer.
Wij
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Not when they will brand that education as left wing propaganda. You are advocating that those with money and power should be able to buy minds by feeding them a stream of bullshit.
Wij
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I didn’t say it hadn’t. Murdoch is still around. It gets worse though the more channels they can do it through and it’s harder to expose when it happens through thousands of disposable websites and personas.
People turned up to see JFK Jr back from the dead. Millions of voters aren’t living in the real world.
Wij
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So you didn’t think Leveson was a good idea?
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So, sleepy Joe. Corrupt cunt. Just as damaging as Trump but with better PR. Do you see it now @Wij, @DaGaffer?
Nothing substantive has changed by looking at the Trumpian corruption and crying "Dems, save us! Save us from this misinformation". Nothing substantive at all.
Of course, like the tories who blame labour, you'll blame the fact that the GOP controls the senate. But Joe Biden will sign those documents. Joe Biden has already signed off on oil and gas extraction in virgin territories. Joe Biden will do this - not anyone else.
Nothing substantive has changed by looking at the Trumpian corruption and crying "Dems, save us! Save us from this misinformation". Nothing substantive at all.
Of course, like the tories who blame labour, you'll blame the fact that the GOP controls the senate. But Joe Biden will sign those documents. Joe Biden has already signed off on oil and gas extraction in virgin territories. Joe Biden will do this - not anyone else.
Wij
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I don’t think anyone expected him to solve the climate crisis so your argument makes no sense. Dropping in Sleepy Joe just makes you sound like a Fox News commentator.
Most of us expected him to not be this guy:
View: https://twitter.com/jonkarl/status/1459116740407930882
Most of us expected him to not be this guy:
View: https://twitter.com/jonkarl/status/1459116740407930882
Hawkwind
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No one expects him to fix it but fuck me doing that deal makes thing worse by a considerable margin.
Just like how sleepy Joe was not going to deal with the Saudis, he said he would hold them accountable for their human rights record etc... Just signed a multi billions dollar arms deal for A2A missiles.
He is just another lying arsehole.
Cue another look at Trump video!
Just like how sleepy Joe was not going to deal with the Saudis, he said he would hold them accountable for their human rights record etc... Just signed a multi billions dollar arms deal for A2A missiles.
He is just another lying arsehole.
Cue another look at Trump video!
Hawkwind
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They don't but likely will after the mid terms given how well it's going.
DaGaffer
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Did you actually read the article in your link before you started foaming at the mouth?
Its literally written into US Law (and has been since 1953!) that the US government has to lease off these tracts. I would certainly agree this is a classic example of US corrupt twattery, but blaming Biden because he hasn't been able to repeal a long-standing law in his first year in office is naive in the extreme (have you seen how hard the Infrastructure Plan was to get through, and that was just because of two senators from his own party).
This is a classic example of the type of American regulatory capture that's going to be the ruin of us all, but at least Biden is trying to do something about it, Trump would have sold it and then demanded it was doubled and made a few quid on the side while he was at it.
