>

How do we recover our country in a world where truth no longer exists? You read this link and republicans are evil. You read a link from a republican and democrats are evil
With no penalty for lying, and media being able to say what they want and have it automatically believed, how will things ever change?
Wait. They've been telling us the exact opposite.. >

My own personal experiences with Twitter and YouTube confrim this.
On Twitter, I followed a few stand-up comedians (they dont do overtly political material but they do lean left), some talented fan-artists, some bands so I know if they're touring or have new albums coming out, and a few museums that post interesting scientific ot historical facts.
Even before Musk bought it, I'd get random-ass right-wing pundits and heavily slanted conservative news sites with clickbait headlines.  It got exponentially worse after Musk bought it, complete with shit like Kyle Rittenhouse whining and Donald Trump Jr.'s misspelled rants against Joe Biden.
YouTube?  Music videos, anime and video game reviews, sci-fi & fantasy movie trailers, cooking and household DIY repair stuff....but then Joe Rogan, Benny Shapiro, and some random-ass Fox News clips constantly show up.
This morning I was looking for a compilation of funny scenes from an anime (a goofy comedy about a woman who has a dragon for a maid) and about every eighth one was some smug right-winger ranting about...whatever.  Note, this is even after I've blocked channels and clicked "Not interested in this type of content " constantly.
This NEVER happens the other way.  I never get some weird result that has leftist content.  In fact, I don't even get weird neutral or apolitical results that don't make sense.
I'll look up videos about Warhammer 40,000 lore and I dont get some random-ass unrelated game instead.  I don'teven get "sorta close but wrong" results like Warcraft or War Thunder....but JOE ROGAN DESTROYS WOKE CULTURE sure as fuck will show up. >

It seems we have a shared experience. I don't know that I've ever wondered why no leftist bullshit was advertised to me. But I sure as shit wondered why I was getting ads from Shapiro and Peterson on YouTube. I don't regularly watch any of their crap. Maybe a video where they get shit on for their moronic views. I think I took the time to watch a video here and there before I truly understood jsut how full of it they are, but why would I keep getting the ads months after I watched a single video?
What I use YouTube for is mostly music and late night monologues and things. Definitely not right wing stuff. Never left wing stuff. >

My favorite thing is YouTube repeatedly ignoring my “don’t show me any more from this channel” with the Joe Rogan Experience. I literally can’t escape them on YouTube. >

I blocked JRE, Tucker Carlson, B. Shapiro, etc. on my phone.
Despite being logged into the exact same YouTube account on my TV, they show up on my Smart TV's YouTube app. >

It’s nuts. It half drives me crazy trying to figure out if these guys have multiple accounts or if YT just doesn’t care. I think in the end, big business is just incentivized to coddle the right. What bothers me is that they have a misunderstanding of what makes people lean right. Liking guns, video games, gear, etc. does not automatically make someone a hateful bigot. They’re either incredibly misinformed about what makes someone right or they’re actively trying to recruit people. >

They’re actively trying to recruit. Young men are the foot soldiers of any authoritarian movement, so if you’re into any predominantly young male interest—video games, standup comedy, science fiction, wargaming, sports, bodybuilding, how to meet women, etc.—you will end up seeing their content. They use ad buys, bot nets, and astroturfing to push their content to the top of recommendation algorithms, and it becomes self-sustaining from there. More people see and engage with it, it gets more exposure, so it gets seen more. Ignoring it doesn’t stop it, because they’re actively pushing it to serve their agenda. That’s why its important to call it out and shame the people involved in it.
Political affiliation isn’t as important to them. Young people’s politics aren’t set in stone yet. Horseshoe theory is real as far as they’re concerned, and some disillusioned leftists can be pushed into serving the right-wing by indulging their “both sides are the same and you’re smarter than all of them” cynicism. >

Funny how Elon didn’t release these >

Elon is more of a dick pic kinda guy. >

Every photo of Elon is a dick pic. >

Got heem >

I find one thing interesting about the whole twitter thing. Within the last 24hrs my feed has switched to about 30-40% right wing tweets. I’m a passive twitter user who mostly scrolls for comedy and news. Before yesterday my feed was about 5-10% political, probably a little more liberal than conservative but it would mostly be tweets I’d skip. Now my feed is full of political stuff and most is right wing. Politics it’s not something I use twitter for, it’s honestly the worst medium for things that require nuance. >

Everyone else found a new platform. Twitter's APIs went down, so people who were using 3rd party stuff (many content creators) had to drop the platform. Nobody got time to go to every website they post content on. >

Yea I don’t know the details it’s just annoying.
Switching the feed to Following fixes it but I’m guessing that’s not ideal for what Twitter would want. I liked the regular feed cause I’d see stuff outside who I follow. The real annoyance for me is Twitter was the ideal platform for killing a few minutes if I needed a mental break. It doesn’t suck you in like TikTok and the feed was curated enough on its own where I didn’t have to view crap that I don’t care about like Facebook. YouTube is too long form so that’s not an option. I’m hoping this fixes itself. >

Unlikely. Twitter has been failing to pay rent on it's offices. I just saw an article this past week about how all the employees got walked out in Singapore because they were so behind on rent. >

“And while Musk (falsely) insisted that the big reveal was that Trump didn’t actually violate Twitter’s policies, that’s also a misreading of what happened. What we’ve learned is that Trump and other Republican leaders were actually given special treatment over the years, because they tended to violate policies way more often than Democrats. But, knowing that Republicans would flop to the ground and fake injury any time they were faced with even having to take the slightest bit of responsibility for violating policies, all the big social media platforms went above and beyond to better protect the high profile accounts of Republican rule breakers.”
To me Musk sounds like Barr writing his own synopsis of the Mueller Report, shady and biased. >

Every accusation by the right wing is an admission. >


Every accusation by the right wing is an admission

It's also them "working the refs" ... This part:

knowing that Republicans would flop to the ground and fake injury any time they were faced with even having to take the slightest bit of responsibility for violating policies

It's been the Republican play for the last 50 years. They screech at the top of their lungs, whenever they perceive the slightest bit of criticism or reporting on their bad behavior, that the "Leftist Mainstream Media" is unfairly targeting them. The Republicans make such a cacophony of wailing hysteria, that the MSM always back down. It's worked like a charm for half a century. >

Mike Masnick has been doing consistently good reporting on this stuff. He now has several articles up on Techdirt that expertly dismantle all of Musk's and Taibbi's idiot talking points. I highly recommend reading them, and bookmarking them. >

Matt Taibbi that used to do shit for Real Time? I thought he was super lefty, back then anyway >

He was an arrogant fuckface back then, now he’s also right wing trash. >

He did have an extremely smug smile every time he was on Bill Maher >

Working the refs.  Complain about bias so much that you actually get preferential treatment.  Republicans have perfected the tactic and all the media falls for it. >

"It would be a shame if something were to happen to your platform." -Republican Congress and the Trump administration >

This shit reminds me about how the documents case is going to end with Biden getting charged and Trump getting nothing despite the fact that...you know...Biden has classification authority and did the right thing when the documents were discovered. 
Nearly everyone in this country with power treats rightwingers with kid gloves. You moderate them using the rules everyone else has to abide by, they scream. You put them in a special moderation category where they get to violate the regular rules, they misrepresent that as being singled out for censorship. 
These people have given no indication that they care to play by any rules other than they win no matter what, and when they do get power they will crush anyone that opposes them. >

They should both be prosecuted, simple as that. >

And this is before its transition to Elon’s Toxic Playhouse. >

How long has Taibbi, the Twitter Files author, been a Conservative mouthpiece? I haven’t followed his career for a long time but I remember being subscribed to Rolling Stone in the 2000’s and recall him writing some great pieces on the financial crisis and the Bush administration. >

He turned into a con. He was being interviewed with Benny Shapiro on his high chair and said that young people aren’t libzzz anymore because libzzz aren’t funny. >

Out of all the opposite world, upside down bullshit from the conservatives, the single most ridiculous is that it’s actually the right-wingers that are funny. There isn’t even a single conservative comedian that could make a hyena laugh. >

Admittedly, there's a lot of hyena Furries who laugh at conservatives.  
So when you're reading the news, and when conservative talking heads are fear-mongering about trans people and trying to pass laws that will gut rights for LGBT folks... We can all take a little joy in the fact that trans hyena Furries are laughing about them.  
I hope they know we think they're pathetic. >

I'm guessing you have first-hand knowledge of this. >

I do! >

Hell yeah. >

Yeah of course they did.  Just like the rest of the media coddled his racist ass for 6 years.  All while Republicans cried about unfair treatment. >

Where's that stupid asshole Bari Weiss now? >

That has been their media tactic from the beginning.  Make outrageous statements to get media attention and force them to try and balance that by over covering minor issues of the other side.  Then complain that no one is talking about a story in the way they want it framed. >

“Leaned over backwards to protect trump and conservatives” just like the doj still does today. >

And keep in mind this was all before Musk bought it. >

It’s like flopping in soccer. They cry that they’re being persecuted so much that they end up getting special treatment in the end. 🙄 >

You could easily argue that all of MSM did, despite constant cries to the contrary. >

the way I see it, Twitter is and has been for half its lifetime, a tool to sanction what goes viral for whatever philosophy, ideology, or agenda its shareholder(s) deem "fair and balanced^tm . It flirted with Trump's nonsense for most of his term through the insurrection, but pretended to be judicious after it was clear that public opinion disliked violence. Now with Musk it's pretending to be a free-for-all when he really just screens out anything that challenges his power. >

Bent over forwards, I would say. >

Yeah, but whatabout Hunter’s dick pics? >

That matter will be handled internally. >

Could be why Elon bought it … >

I wonder what elon will think of this.... >

The Twitter files show that when the GQP got even more extreme, organizations like the FBI had to get in to covertly control discussion and that they remained doing so. The GQP wants to use their complaints in true projection manner to eventually subvert agencias like the FBI, CIA, and NSA into the GQP agenda, just like they did with the Supreme Court, not to fight against covert involvement and enforcement of the speech that's allowed within them. >

More treason by corporations…. >

This is so much more likely a scenario than massive censorship… >

Where are the files they are referencing in the article? Do we have access to the source communications that they appear to be referencing? The author refers to "leaked files". >

That's a reference to the "Twitter files", a series of communications and stuff Matt Taibbi has been dropping over the past few weeks. Here's the first one, and the latest >

Matt Taibbi is a fraud. >

I heard that once upon a time, he was actually legit and respected. And not by conservatives. >

Candace Owens was to how’s that going? >

How do we recover our country in a world where truth no longer exists? You read this link and republicans are evil. You read a link from a republican and democrats are evil
With no penalty for lying, and media being able to say what they want and have it automatically believed, how will things ever change? >

Well, turning US back to a democracy will require facing corporations and very powerful individuals that will resist it. 
There's some major structures that have to be made neutral in relation to the attempt at rule by the people. Start by taking money out of politicas. >

I'm shocked, SHOCKED, to find gambling is going on in here. >

The Twitter Flies >

As an ex Twitter user.
I'm so shocked.
Its jot even just Twitter that does this. >

Brainwashing is a scary thing. That's what everything boils down to. They will find an avenue for brainwashing everywhere you go. >

Are you serious right now? I’m calling fake news. There wasn’t a soul in the entire Twitter building who would risk their job to protect Trump. The minuscule few who supported Trump had to remain in the closet, lest they be publicly shamed. >

Funny half the country thinks the brainwashing is on your side of the fence. >

Less than half, statistically. >

Closer to a third, based on voting patterns. >

We've gone from cope, to seethe.. >

Disinformation. >

The people who wrote this article are confused. For example, the statement below is the opposite of a call to violence:

For example, after President Trump told the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by”’ during the first presidential debate in 2020, implicit and explicit calls for violence spread across Twitter.

EDIT: many people here posting the definition of "stand by", not noticing that it, too, undercuts the above sentence. >

that’s exactly what it states
edit: thanks for the upvotes, this is all seemingly contrived and further dividing. personally taking a few month break from politics to focus on things I can effect, all of this bs is not helping to unite our United States, and I can, in a capacity that’s not social media >

Please link to a video of someone standing "violently". I would love to see this! >

What do you think “stand by” means?  It means wait for the order. >

It means don't do anything. >

Stand by means to wait prepared. Like tv used to ask its viewers to please stand by as they interrupt this normal broadcast for whatever, breaking news.
Literal dictionary definition:
be ready to deal or assist with something.
"two battalions were on their way, and a third was standing by" >

Correct, it's not a call to violence. >

If an artillery battery is about to engage an enemy target and is told to stand by, would you agree that they would interpret that order as meaning that they should not fire, but remain ready to do so? >

Sure, but "don't fire" explicitly means "don't be violent", which is the opposite of what the authors said. Which is my point: they are confused. >

That's only the first part of the message being conveyed; to stand by in these scenarios is indeed to not be violent in the present, but the implicit second part is that one should be prepared to do violence at some point in the future. If the goal is to convey a cessation of violence as an option at any point, "stand down" seems like a better term to use. He didn't say to stand down, though. He said to stand by.
edit- explicit to implicit >

If this is an attempt to get people to not pay attention to the recent twitter files and releases, it failed. >

Yeah, nobody paid attention to those to begin with. >

God fucking dammit the Twitter files already showed this to begin with,
This sub is such a fucking joke >

Wait. They've been telling us the exact opposite.. >

My own personal experiences with Twitter and YouTube confrim this.
On Twitter, I followed a few stand-up comedians (they dont do overtly political material but they do lean left), some talented fan-artists, some bands so I know if they're touring or have new albums coming out, and a few museums that post interesting scientific ot historical facts.
Even before Musk bought it, I'd get random-ass right-wing pundits and heavily slanted conservative news sites with clickbait headlines.  It got exponentially worse after Musk bought it, complete with shit like Kyle Rittenhouse whining and Donald Trump Jr.'s misspelled rants against Joe Biden.
YouTube?  Music videos, anime and video game reviews, sci-fi & fantasy movie trailers, cooking and household DIY repair stuff....but then Joe Rogan, Benny Shapiro, and some random-ass Fox News clips constantly show up.
This morning I was looking for a compilation of funny scenes from an anime (a goofy comedy about a woman who has a dragon for a maid) and about every eighth one was some smug right-winger ranting about...whatever.  Note, this is even after I've blocked channels and clicked "Not interested in this type of content " constantly.
This NEVER happens the other way.  I never get some weird result that has leftist content.  In fact, I don't even get weird neutral or apolitical results that don't make sense.
I'll look up videos about Warhammer 40,000 lore and I dont get some random-ass unrelated game instead.  I don'teven get "sorta close but wrong" results like Warcraft or War Thunder....but JOE ROGAN DESTROYS WOKE CULTURE sure as fuck will show up. >

It seems we have a shared experience. I don't know that I've ever wondered why no leftist bullshit was advertised to me. But I sure as shit wondered why I was getting ads from Shapiro and Peterson on YouTube. I don't regularly watch any of their crap. Maybe a video where they get shit on for their moronic views. I think I took the time to watch a video here and there before I truly understood jsut how full of it they are, but why would I keep getting the ads months after I watched a single video?
What I use YouTube for is mostly music and late night monologues and things. Definitely not right wing stuff. Never left wing stuff. >

My favorite thing is YouTube repeatedly ignoring my “don’t show me any more from this channel” with the Joe Rogan Experience. I literally can’t escape them on YouTube. >

I blocked JRE, Tucker Carlson, B. Shapiro, etc. on my phone.
Despite being logged into the exact same YouTube account on my TV, they show up on my Smart TV's YouTube app. >

It’s nuts. It half drives me crazy trying to figure out if these guys have multiple accounts or if YT just doesn’t care. I think in the end, big business is just incentivized to coddle the right. What bothers me is that they have a misunderstanding of what makes people lean right. Liking guns, video games, gear, etc. does not automatically make someone a hateful bigot. They’re either incredibly misinformed about what makes someone right or they’re actively trying to recruit people. >

They’re actively trying to recruit. Young men are the foot soldiers of any authoritarian movement, so if you’re into any predominantly young male interest—video games, standup comedy, science fiction, wargaming, sports, bodybuilding, how to meet women, etc.—you will end up seeing their content. They use ad buys, bot nets, and astroturfing to push their content to the top of recommendation algorithms, and it becomes self-sustaining from there. More people see and engage with it, it gets more exposure, so it gets seen more. Ignoring it doesn’t stop it, because they’re actively pushing it to serve their agenda. That’s why its important to call it out and shame the people involved in it.
Political affiliation isn’t as important to them. Young people’s politics aren’t set in stone yet. Horseshoe theory is real as far as they’re concerned, and some disillusioned leftists can be pushed into serving the right-wing by indulging their “both sides are the same and you’re smarter than all of them” cynicism. >

Funny how Elon didn’t release these >

Elon is more of a dick pic kinda guy. >

Every photo of Elon is a dick pic. >

Got heem >

I find one thing interesting about the whole twitter thing. Within the last 24hrs my feed has switched to about 30-40% right wing tweets. I’m a passive twitter user who mostly scrolls for comedy and news. Before yesterday my feed was about 5-10% political, probably a little more liberal than conservative but it would mostly be tweets I’d skip. Now my feed is full of political stuff and most is right wing. Politics it’s not something I use twitter for, it’s honestly the worst medium for things that require nuance. >

Everyone else found a new platform. Twitter's APIs went down, so people who were using 3rd party stuff (many content creators) had to drop the platform. Nobody got time to go to every website they post content on. >

Yea I don’t know the details it’s just annoying.
Switching the feed to Following fixes it but I’m guessing that’s not ideal for what Twitter would want. I liked the regular feed cause I’d see stuff outside who I follow. The real annoyance for me is Twitter was the ideal platform for killing a few minutes if I needed a mental break. It doesn’t suck you in like TikTok and the feed was curated enough on its own where I didn’t have to view crap that I don’t care about like Facebook. YouTube is too long form so that’s not an option. I’m hoping this fixes itself. >

Unlikely. Twitter has been failing to pay rent on it's offices. I just saw an article this past week about how all the employees got walked out in Singapore because they were so behind on rent. >

“And while Musk (falsely) insisted that the big reveal was that Trump didn’t actually violate Twitter’s policies, that’s also a misreading of what happened. What we’ve learned is that Trump and other Republican leaders were actually given special treatment over the years, because they tended to violate policies way more often than Democrats. But, knowing that Republicans would flop to the ground and fake injury any time they were faced with even having to take the slightest bit of responsibility for violating policies, all the big social media platforms went above and beyond to better protect the high profile accounts of Republican rule breakers.”
To me Musk sounds like Barr writing his own synopsis of the Mueller Report, shady and biased. >

Every accusation by the right wing is an admission. >


Every accusation by the right wing is an admission

It's also them "working the refs" ... This part:

knowing that Republicans would flop to the ground and fake injury any time they were faced with even having to take the slightest bit of responsibility for violating policies

It's been the Republican play for the last 50 years. They screech at the top of their lungs, whenever they perceive the slightest bit of criticism or reporting on their bad behavior, that the "Leftist Mainstream Media" is unfairly targeting them. The Republicans make such a cacophony of wailing hysteria, that the MSM always back down. It's worked like a charm for half a century. >

Mike Masnick has been doing consistently good reporting on this stuff. He now has several articles up on Techdirt that expertly dismantle all of Musk's and Taibbi's idiot talking points. I highly recommend reading them, and bookmarking them. >

Matt Taibbi that used to do shit for Real Time? I thought he was super lefty, back then anyway >

He was an arrogant fuckface back then, now he’s also right wing trash. >

He did have an extremely smug smile every time he was on Bill Maher >

Working the refs.  Complain about bias so much that you actually get preferential treatment.  Republicans have perfected the tactic and all the media falls for it. >

"It would be a shame if something were to happen to your platform." -Republican Congress and the Trump administration >

This shit reminds me about how the documents case is going to end with Biden getting charged and Trump getting nothing despite the fact that...you know...Biden has classification authority and did the right thing when the documents were discovered. 
Nearly everyone in this country with power treats rightwingers with kid gloves. You moderate them using the rules everyone else has to abide by, they scream. You put them in a special moderation category where they get to violate the regular rules, they misrepresent that as being singled out for censorship. 
These people have given no indication that they care to play by any rules other than they win no matter what, and when they do get power they will crush anyone that opposes them. >

They should both be prosecuted, simple as that. >

And this is before its transition to Elon’s Toxic Playhouse. >

How long has Taibbi, the Twitter Files author, been a Conservative mouthpiece? I haven’t followed his career for a long time but I remember being subscribed to Rolling Stone in the 2000’s and recall him writing some great pieces on the financial crisis and the Bush administration. >

He turned into a con. He was being interviewed with Benny Shapiro on his high chair and said that young people aren’t libzzz anymore because libzzz aren’t funny. >

Out of all the opposite world, upside down bullshit from the conservatives, the single most ridiculous is that it’s actually the right-wingers that are funny. There isn’t even a single conservative comedian that could make a hyena laugh. >

Admittedly, there's a lot of hyena Furries who laugh at conservatives.  
So when you're reading the news, and when conservative talking heads are fear-mongering about trans people and trying to pass laws that will gut rights for LGBT folks... We can all take a little joy in the fact that trans hyena Furries are laughing about them.  
I hope they know we think they're pathetic. >

I'm guessing you have first-hand knowledge of this. >

I do! >

Hell yeah. >

Yeah of course they did.  Just like the rest of the media coddled his racist ass for 6 years.  All while Republicans cried about unfair treatment. >

Where's that stupid asshole Bari Weiss now? >

That has been their media tactic from the beginning.  Make outrageous statements to get media attention and force them to try and balance that by over covering minor issues of the other side.  Then complain that no one is talking about a story in the way they want it framed. >

“Leaned over backwards to protect trump and conservatives” just like the doj still does today. >

And keep in mind this was all before Musk bought it. >

It’s like flopping in soccer. They cry that they’re being persecuted so much that they end up getting special treatment in the end. 🙄 >

You could easily argue that all of MSM did, despite constant cries to the contrary. >

the way I see it, Twitter is and has been for half its lifetime, a tool to sanction what goes viral for whatever philosophy, ideology, or agenda its shareholder(s) deem "fair and balanced^tm . It flirted with Trump's nonsense for most of his term through the insurrection, but pretended to be judicious after it was clear that public opinion disliked violence. Now with Musk it's pretending to be a free-for-all when he really just screens out anything that challenges his power. >

Bent over forwards, I would say. >

Yeah, but whatabout Hunter’s dick pics? >

That matter will be handled internally. >

Could be why Elon bought it … >

I wonder what elon will think of this.... >

The Twitter files show that when the GQP got even more extreme, organizations like the FBI had to get in to covertly control discussion and that they remained doing so. The GQP wants to use their complaints in true projection manner to eventually subvert agencias like the FBI, CIA, and NSA into the GQP agenda, just like they did with the Supreme Court, not to fight against covert involvement and enforcement of the speech that's allowed within them. >

More treason by corporations…. >

This is so much more likely a scenario than massive censorship… >

Where are the files they are referencing in the article? Do we have access to the source communications that they appear to be referencing? The author refers to "leaked files". >

That's a reference to the "Twitter files", a series of communications and stuff Matt Taibbi has been dropping over the past few weeks. Here's the first one, and the latest >

Matt Taibbi is a fraud. >

I heard that once upon a time, he was actually legit and respected. And not by conservatives. >

Candace Owens was to how’s that going?