How are the Twitter Files really that insignificant?

Elon Musk has already demonstrated he doesn’t care about free speech so don’t be so stupid as to think Elon is all for free speech and that these files show just how hard done by Trump and the ultra far right white supremist were when Twitter banned them.
The files shop only what Elon wants you to see and even then all they actually show is that Twitter followed its published policies and that the twitter content moderators had a tough job.
Its not in the news because its not news.

Alternatively its an attempt by Big Tech to prevent bigoted elderly white American fascists from taking over the country by force with their private armies of gun crazed idiots.

You choose.

@Lightlyseared Except it helped big tech to install an elderly white American fascist into the office of POTUS. Be honest now…if the Twitter Files were about favoring Trump instead of Biden and about the Repubs instead of the Dems, there would be 24/7 outrage.

But they wouldn’t be would there? Because democrats and their supporters didn’t break Twitters terms of service by spreading racist hate speech.

Or do you think that’s acceptable?

They are insignificant !

Twitter is now run by a Fascist wannabe, that may have lost one third of the $44 billion he paid for it (with BIG LOANS that he may renege on) .

It is only significant to right-wingers like Proud Boys !

I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about.

^^Sore losership and lingering bitterness over Biden’s sweet victory.

@Lightlyseared Let’s take Hunter Biden’s laptop as the perfect example. Many key players were banned from Twitter for even mentioning the laptop. Per the emails released so far, the FBI was working with Twitter to ban any mention of it. They called it misinformation based on nothing other than they didn’t want to show the story. In the end it ended up being completely true, but that didn’t come out until well after the election…the election Biden would likely have lost if the story was actually covered and not suppressed.

So tell me…how is mentioning Hunter’s laptop “spreading racist hate speech”? But what you have is a government agency suppressing free speech and Big Tech is working with them. They are trying to cover up anything that would be negative to the Democrats.

Or do you think that’s acceptable? And if you do, would you feel the same if it was Trump and the Republicans doing it?

This question is about the suppression. It is about the corruption. And it is about the lack of coverage by the left-leaning “news” outlets because they are working with corrupt government agents. Do you think ANY of that is acceptable?

I’m not sure if the irony of someone so staunchly in favor of deregulation and laissez-faire capitalism is lost on you when private companies with too much power are then able to use that power influence the country in ways that may be counter to your wishes.

Ultimately Twitter is a corporation. They can choose to do what they want on their platform. If they want to edit every tweet to say “I love Biden” they are completely within their rights to do so. Unless you think government has a role to play in limiting the size of companies or in regulating how they operate, you probably shouldn’t be complaining.

What are the files? I know nothing about it.

@JLeslie Me neither. Nobody has answered that question.

@JLeslie and @Caravanfan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_Files. The fact you haven’t even heard of them speaks volumes towards making my point…that it hasn’t been covered at all by the MSM.

@seawulf575 I don’t watch any news channel. I read the newspaper. And there’s no call to be condescending. You asked a question and I asked for clarification and you referred me to a long, very badly written, wikipedia file. The fact that you can’t be bothered to actually answer the clarifying question speaks volumes.

“The lady (person) doth protest too much, methinks !

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_lady_doth_protest_too_much,_methinks

@seawulf575 I haven’t followed the whole Musk Twitter thing much. I also have not been watching politics very much, because we are passed the election, and I usually take a break between elections. I do watch some Saturday shows like Face the Nation.

I have friends who wanted to buy a Tesla who now think Musk is the worst person in the world and won’t consider buying a Tesla and cancelled their twitter accounts, and they all believe Musk will let Twitter become a free for all for white supremacists. I never thought he would let Twitter become so rampant with hateful potentially violent people.

I hear Republicans complain what they post on social media gets deleted of blocked, and what they don’t realize is it happens to liberals too. Some of it is temporary and then the video or meme is allowed through.

Basically, I am not paying attention to the social media criticism very closely, except to say I do feel social media has had some very negative effects on our society, and I used to be very free speech oriented, allow everything, and now I am more towards some needs to be curtailed, but it needs to be very specific.

@Caravanfan I apologize, I was not trying to be condescending. But the point of the question is that these files are being ignored by most of the MSM including print. When two jellies tell us they have never heard of them, it makes the point very clearly. To sum up the Twitter Files: Elon Musk started releasing internal emails, documents, etc from Twitter over the past few years. He started with the story of Hunter’s laptop, but moved on to many other aspects of the behind-the-scenes things that were going on at Twitter and with the FBI/DoJ. The example I gave of Hunter’s Laptop was a classic. The FBI/DoJ approached Twitter with a request to spike all mention of the story. Remember, at the time the FBI already had the laptop in their possession. Together Twitter executives and the FBI created a narrative to hide the entire story until after the election. Other things that went on subsequent to this included shadow banning, preferential exposure campaigns, etc. These files paint a picture of not only partisan behaviors by Twitter (which they swore wasn’t happening) to the FBI working behind the scenes to control what the people can and can’t see/hear….trying to control free speech.

@JLeslie I’m with you in believing social media has negative effects on our society. However they are a fact of life. And when the government is stepping in to try control reality…control what is allowed and not allowed to be seen/heard/discussed…that is corruption and is worthy of the worst of banana republics.

I do differ with you on the idea that free speech needs to be curtailed. When you say it is okay to curtail some, you are now opening the door for others to decide what you can and cannot say…what they consider true or untrue. If I tell you I believe the sky is orange all the time, that is a false statement. But really, does it hurt anything for me to say it? It is easily disputed and proven to be false. You wouldn’t have to believe it in any case. About the only things that should be flagged are direct threats against someone. Everything else should be allowed. Again, let’s look at Hunter’s Laptop as the perfect example. Someone decided (we now know it was agents within our own government trying to directly interfere in an election) that this was a false story…Russian disinformation. But they came to that conclusion without any investigation at all. And the story was true as we later found out. But they called it a lie so then they can hide any expression of it and punish anyone that dares to speak about it. Even if it were Russian disinformation, it would at least demand some investigation. A US citizen had the laptop because Hunter left it at his shop, called the FBI about it, got no response, called Giulliani (a US citizen working for the sitting president) who had the laptop picked up and given to the FBI, and a US newspaper got the story and ran it. How is this Russian disinformation? So the claim it is needs to be looked at. Where did the information come from? Was any of it electronically traceable to some Russian entity? If so, then it can be demonstrably shown to be false or at least partially false or suspect. But to let someone just randomly say they don’t like a story so they call it a lie and that then becomes fact is idiotic and extremely dangerous to our republic.

@seawulf575 I mean very specific things like accusing certain ethnic groups or races of evil and needing to be eliminated. Similar to Germany, they made Nazi talk ilegal. I know there are still NeoNazis there, and they get around the laws by using code words.

I’m all fine with an investigation on anyone who should be investigated regardless of party affiliation or relationships.

@JLeslie The interesting thing about what you said…accusing certain ethnic groups or races of evil and needing to be eliminated…is the interpretation. You referenced Hitler and post-Hitler Germany. No argument that the divisiveness of that speech is foolish. But we have the same thing today in the USA. The only difference is that it isn’t a race, it’s a political outlook. The Twitter Files are exposing wide-spread discrimination and suppression of conservative viewpoints. Why? Because someone wanted to make it a rally cry. They wanted to brand them as evil and needing to be eliminated. And players in the government secretly pushed for the exact same thing. So while the easy example is Neo-Nazis, we need to be aware that the attitude is the same in today’s left. Obviously not ALL on the left, but a widespread swath. Hell, look at this thread and you can see it here.

There are those that truly believe that many on the right were censored because of “racist hate speech”. I’ll assume there were some. But let me ask this: If someone starts ranting about white privilege or institutional racism, aren’t they spreading racist hate speech? I know many don’t think they are, but they are singling out one race and attributing all sorts of standards, behaviors, and viewpoints to everyone in that race. They are saying things that are not backed by facts but are very divisive and hateful. How is that really any different? And since there really is no difference, why weren’t those people censored on Twitter?

@seawulf575 There is a huge difference between differing opinions on an issue and damning an entire people for simply being born.

@JLeslie So you agree raging about white privilege and institutional racism are nothing but damning an entire people for simply being born? But let’s look at differing opinions on an issue. Let’s go back to the laptop. Many people read the Post article about the laptop and found it credible. Yet Twitter and the shadow government didn’t want that to come out so they damned anyone that dared to even mention it. How the hell did THEY get to determine who is right and wrong on that one? And let me point out that in the end, THEY were proven wrong. Yet it didn’t matter…the damage was already done. And even today there are many on the left that look at anyone that brings it up as some sort of radical pushing disinformation. Look at some of the responses in this thread for the proof of that. There are opinions that none of this is important except to radicals like the Proud Boys. There are responses that are still trying to sweep the whole thing under the rug as just sour grapes about the election. It was blatant corruption, censorship, and interference in an election…and it is only important to right wing radicals that cared about the election.

” . . . shadow government . . . .”

is that like conspiracy theory ??

@seawulf575 No, I do not agree. Talking about institutional racism is not damning an entire people for being born. Who? White people? Not all white people are Proud Boys, and not all white people are racist. Plenty of white people want to fix the inequality in the country. When the Proud Boys talk about Jews they mean all Jews, just because we are born Jewish. I can’t do anything to make a Proud Boy think that I am ok to keep around or that I am not in on a conspiracy against white people. They would be happy to rid the earth of all Jews and all Black people. At minimum they want to get us out of America. They hate me just for being born.

@Tropical_Willie A group of people simply got Biden’s Apocalyptic Laptop Derangement Syndrome
( BALDS )

@mazingerz88 You made it up . . .

@JLeslie when you talk about institutional racism, you are saying that racism is purposely put into our institutions. Racism against who? Why blacks of course. That would mean that it was some other race that was doing it. And who would that be? Why whites of course. The implications of terms like institutional racism are that whites have manipulated society so that all the rules put/keep blacks down. Actually we need to go a step further since those that claim institutional racism also use it to include anyone that is non-white like most of the illegal aliens entering this country across the southern border. Institutional Racism is really stating that whites are manipulating the system to keep all other races down. Those that use the term are not specifying which whites it is, they are just implying that “whites” are doing it. To back up now and say it isn’t “all” whites, is disingenuous.

But back to the topic. Do I care that someone shows their ignorance and says institutional racism is rampant? Not really. I can defend my viewpoints on this topic. BUT, do I care when someone is manipulating the system so that the media and the government push that narrative and nix any other opinion on the topic? Absolutely I do.

I can’t remember why institutional racism even came up on this Q.

Institutional racism was put in place many years ago. It was put in place to the advantage of the white community. The continuation of it isn’t that all white people are being sinister, it’s that the country is set up in a certain way and change is hard. It affects some parts of the country more than others. It affects minorities in varying different ways. Changes will be imperfect and need constant tweaking.

Paying for school with local property taxes is an institutional set up that disadvantages lower income areas. Minorities are disproportionately affected. Some parts of the country compensate for it better than others by spreading the taxes around, but it doesn’t change that families in the poor areas have less money to help contribute to education beyond what the school provides and less time. Republican suggestions will increase the inequity. Do I think they are all racist? No. I think they don’t understand all of the ramifications of the institutional set up. That’s just one example.

Another example, houses in Black areas generally appraise for less even when the housing is very similar. Back in the day Black people were kept out of neighborhoods and so even though that doesn’t exist today (not if people follow the law) the effects of that institutional racism persists.

That you interpret it as “all whites” is extremely telling. If you said to me in 2020 that Jewish people in NYC are still having big weddings against the covid orders, I know it’s not all Jewish people, it’s the ultra-orthodox, and probably the majority of people understand that, especially once it’s clarified. If I say Christians want to legislate their beliefs into our government, it is impossible not to not know it’s not all Christians. We see it right here on fluther some of our most devout Christians are liberal and understand their religious freedom comes with freedom of religion and the separation of church and state.

Now, I see even more clearly that you and people like you hear “Christian” and think we mean all Christians. I kind of realized it before and try to be very careful to say most or some or a few or a specific group of Christians, but I’m guessing you will always take it personally as all Christians no matter how we qualify it, more importantly I think it is telling, and I take that to mean you are probably one of those Christians who want Christianity in our government. You perceive it as an attack on the Christianity itself, because that’s probably what is being preached to you.

You will always hear all white people are the problem when people say white, because it is an attack on what you personally think is right regarding institutional set up. You are one of those white people, that’s why you take it so personally. Am I white? Is @chyna? @jca2? @Hawaii_Jake? @filmfann. Almost every jelly is white, but we don’t all agree on political issues or religious beliefs. To say everyone means “all whites” even when they clarify not all whites doesn’t make sense at all. Who exactly is white to you?

As we discussed on a different thread, “Institutional” racism implies there are rules dictating it. Those don’t exist. It implies that public services are provided differently to white people and black people by policy. None of that exists since we got rid of the Democrat’s Jim Crow laws. So to even bring it up as a real thing is nothing but a thinly veiled statement of racism…against whites. Your example of schools is likewise a racist statement. There are millions of white people that live below the poverty line. So anything that impacts “poor” people hits whites as well. So it isn’t institutional racism, it’s a fact of nature that there are some that have and others that have not. And for it to be institutional racism, it would impact everyone except whites. And Asians seem to be doing quite well despite all the institutional racism that is supposedly in place.

And the example of houses appraising for more in a white neighborhood than in a black neighborhood is likewise bogus. Here’s a thought for you…houses in some predominantly white neighborhoods appraise for less than in other predominantly white neighborhoods. It has nothing to do with skin color and only people obsessed with racism try to make it so. I disagree with how appraisals are done, but as far as I can see, it is pretty much done the same way everywhere I have ever lived. And I have lived in white neighborhoods and heavily mixed neighborhoods.

As for the “Christian” debates, you obviously are not the recipient of many attacks on “all Christians” as I am. There are many, many people that DO hate Christians…not just some, not just one denomination,....but all Christians. Go back and review some of the questions where this sort of thing comes up.

I use “White Privilege” as an attack on all whites because it is. What is the definition? Let’s review a few:

Merriam-Webster: the set of social and economic advantages that white people have by virtue of their race (see RACE entry 1 sense 1a) in a culture characterized by racial inequality

Dictionary.com: White privilege is the unearned, mostly unacknowledged social advantage white people have over other racial groups simply because they are white.

Cambridge Dictionary: the fact of people with white skin having advantages in society that other people do not have

Now tell me: where in any of those definitions does it say “some” whites or some “subset” of whites? It doesn’t. It treats ALL whites as the same. And because of that, it is a racist statement.

White people benefiting from the system isn’t the same as blaming all white people for the system.

It’s not a simple issue, it’s complicated.

People say I pass as white so any complaint I have as a minority is often dismissed. I find that frustrating believe me, but I understand why people say that. You seem to have no understanding of what minorities deal with.

You’re just wrong about people hating Christians. I don’t accept that at all. A lot of people might “hate” Christians who want to take away rights, who want to inject their religion into everyone’s lives, and Christians who either are racist or encourage racism. Some Christians are none of those things, some are one or two or all three.

Maybe your definition of Christian is different than mine. Are you including my MIL who when I just visited her over Christmas had mass on TV every day, and Jesus and Mary is on the dresser and on the walls in the room I sleep in? Who could not be more faithful or more devout in her belief in God and Jesus as her savior?

@JLeslie I don’t feel I am wrong about people blaming white people. The flow of the thought it very simple…it isn’t that complicated. Some blacks feel they are discriminated against at every turn because they look at their current situation and compare with someone that is much better off. That person that is much better off is white. They consider that people that established many of our societal structures and who hold high positions are often white. Therefore white people (all of them) are guilty of racism because they have created a system whereby they benefit and they can hold the blacks down. Of course when asked the simple question I asked…point to a law that treats blacks and whites differently…they can’t.

As for discriminating against Blacks or Whites or Latinos or Asians or Jews or Christians or really any other group, I don’t play that game. I just don’t care if you are Jewish. I don’t care that my neighbor is Black. But there are people in this world that do care and speak out endlessly against all these things and more. And this brings us right back to what started this particular branch of the conversation. You said you felt some speech needs to be curtailed. And the problem with that is the question of “Who considers what is unacceptable speech?” In the case of Twitter, they had that same belief…that some speech is harmful and needs to be curtailed. But the ones making the decision and their counterparts in the FBI/DoJ were only focusing on specific political things. They suppressed the laptop story AND banned people that even mentioned it. Yet that was a TRUE story, they just didn’t like the political implications. So to them it was “unacceptable”. So if I were a true racist running a social media outlet, I could silence anyone that didn’t share my views. See what I’m saying? The only speech I believe needs to be squelched is direct threats. Those need to be curtailed. Not speech that you want to twist into a threat…direct threats. If I say I want to go storm the homes of the SCOTUS justices, that should be squelched and investigated. If I say I disagree with the leftist Justices, that isn’t a direct threat. It isn’t a call for people to go storm their homes. It isn’t code to some fringe group. Censorship is a VERY slippery slope.

@seawulf575 ”...a law that treats blacks and whites differently”

How about the inheritance laws that allow families to pass on intergenerational wealth? How about the laws that structure how our taxes pay for schools based on local property taxes instead of a blanket every kid in the US gets the same amount of funding? Those are a good start.

@seawulf575 We are not as far apart as you might think, I don’t think stories should be squashed, I don’t mind you disagreeing with a court decision, I worry about slippery slope regarding censorship, but something has to be done to curb the violence and division we are seeing.

Some Black people do just look at whites as working against them at every turn, but plenty of them don’t. You are focusing on the subgroup that you feel offended by. I get it. I really do. Remember Kanye spouting off all of that antisemitic stuff? My first thought was he probably grew up hearing a lot of that. Blacks 40 years ago were very antisemitic when polled. That’s a generalization, so it’s not every Black person, but that was real research data. A lot of Black people just see me as white and not a minority, or maybe even the worst type of the majority. The average white Christian is likely clueless about that. Set that aside.

The path to greatness is working together as Americans, not standing in your corner being offended by those who are most vocal. You feel like you need to protect yourself I guess? That minority groups will make a system working against you. How would lowering the estate tax exemption to $5 million work against you, or against white people? Or, at least we should freeze the exemption. It keeps going up.

Talking about the system actually reinforces that it’s not all whites, but rather the system that is continuing some of the inequities. You want school vouchers, we want schools to be more equitable in the first place. You think vouchers will help improve the schools by competition, we think competition doesn’t work in the school system like it does in the free market for other businesses. We believe the voucher will benefit upper middle class white families who already send their kids to private school most, and benefit the financials of the private schools. You probably think public schools are anti-Christian and that is completely ridiculous to me. You might think public schools are teaching white children to feel guilty, I don’t think white people feel guilty, guilty about what? Even Germans don’t feel guilty, they don’t talk about the Holocaust that way, they feel a responsibility that it never happen again.

Don’t be guilty of the very thing you are accusing others of. You think Blacks think “all” whites, you are saying all Blacks think the same. It’s not true.

@gorillapaws Where in those laws does it say “for white people, this is the law” or “for black people this is how it works”? It doesn’t. What you are trying to do is start with the point that a larger percentage of blacks are poorer than whites and extrapolate backwards to certain laws you believe favor the richer people. But that is a bogus assumption since it assumes those laws are the reason the blacks are poorer…those and no others.

@JLeslie you and I are closer that you think. To start with, I don’t consider that all of any group acts/thinks/behaves a certain way, unless you pare it down to a very small group. And because I don’t think like that, I am open enough to see when others are pushing the divisiveness. I’m also able to see the inconsistencies in application of rules. With Twitter, they tried stopping “hate speech” or “racist comments”, but they ignore things like “white privilege” because it slaps at white people and apparently to them that is okay. But it is still racist. And it brings into focus the problem with censorship. Someone has to censor and that someone is going to have views and opinions of their own that are going to influence what and how they censor. In the case of Twitter, it was even worse because you have a political agenda that was being pushed. People and comments were being banned because the ones pushing the agenda didn’t like allowing anything hurtful to their political views to come out. That is Orwellian and even Hitlerian.