Social Media Political Lens

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Kurth
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by Kurth »

El Guapo wrote: Tue May 16, 2023 2:54 pmSoros is used in a similar way that people will sometimes attack "globalists". It's used all the time even in contexts when it's absurd to think that Soros himself is in any way involved. I suspect that some far right types use it because it's something that they've heard echoed a lot in right wing discussion, and so may not fully understand the background and what they're saying.
Despite hearing his name invoked by the MAGAts and the far right all the time, I honestly don't know all that much about Soros. My understanding, based on not much, is that he's a major donor to left wing and progressive causes and political candidates. Is he not the left's version of the Koch brothers?
El Guapo wrote: Tue May 16, 2023 2:54 pm But as to Musk, the fact that he compared Soros to Magneto, who in the comics is a Jewish holocaust survivor, indicates that Musk is very aware of the Jewish component to this.
This would definitely be relevant and add some credence to the antisemitism allegation, but did Musk ever mention Magneto or compare Soros to him? If so, I missed that part.
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by hepcat »

I mean….

malchior wrote: Mon May 15, 2023 10:28 pm I wonder what the connection is?


Soros reminds me of Magneto
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LordMortis
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by LordMortis »

Listening to a CNBC bit this morning with David Faber with him last night I don't get the sense that the post was antisemtitic but more just Musk's shadow government paranoia stoking. Faber didn't press him but the question was in context of "some conspiracy theories are true and worth pursuing such as Hunter Biden's laptop and suppressing the truth."
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by hepcat »

Were you expecting Musk to openly admit he was blowing the antisemitic whistle with his Soros attacks?
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by LordMortis »

Nope. I just wasn't seeing it. Absence of evidence vs evidence of absence, I guess.

I will say the more and more CNBC is focusing on The Princess Bride exchange, the more and more I see Musk as stating he is taking revenge for ??? and it's his raison d'être
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by malchior »

Can anyone explain to me how Musk can be this openly bad out on social media and I hear multiple US Senator's quoting him live this morning. What is going on here?! I'm really at the point of not trusting *anyone* in power. It's really disconcerting. Everything has decayed to levels I didn't think possible and then it somehow gets worse every day. I don't know how we recover from this moral rot.
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

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hepcat wrote: Tue May 16, 2023 9:41 pm I mean….

malchior wrote: Mon May 15, 2023 10:28 pm I wonder what the connection is?


Soros reminds me of Magneto
Thanks. I don’t follow Musk on Twitter and don’t keep track of what he’s said, unless it’s posted here. I only saw the tweet that was quoted with him responding to another tweet mentioning Magneto.
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by Kurth »

malchior wrote: Wed May 17, 2023 10:03 am Can anyone explain to me how Musk can be this openly bad out on social media and I hear multiple US Senator's quoting him live this morning. What is going on here?! I'm really at the point of not trusting *anyone* in power. It's really disconcerting. Everything has decayed to levels I didn't think possible and then it somehow gets worse every day. I don't know how we recover from this moral rot.
I did watch that interview. He came off as batshit crazy. Almost like a caricature of an insane, paranoid genius. Troubling.
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by hepcat »

Normally I'd agree with you that simply railing against someone who just happens to be Jewish isn't necessarily grounds to shout antisemitism. But Musk has a long history of trying to stir up the extreme right, white nationalists and other deplorables because he thinks it's either funny, he's pissed at someone on the left, or he thinks it might get him some views on twitter and help him justify spending so much on what is essentially a vanity project that turned into a sinking ship.

I don't think he's personally a racist or an antisemite, but I do think he'll appease ANYONE, no matter how awful they are, if it serves his purposes. He's Trump with a slightly smaller gut.
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by Holman »

hepcat wrote: Wed May 17, 2023 11:18 am Normally I'd agree with you that simply railing against someone who just happens to be Jewish isn't necessarily grounds to shout antisemitism. But Musk has a long history of trying to stir up the extreme right, white nationalists and other deplorables because he thinks it's either funny, he's pissed at someone on the left, or he thinks it might get him some views on twitter and help him justify spending so much on what is essentially a vanity project that turned into a sinking ship.

I don't think he's personally a racist or an antisemite, but I do think he'll appease ANYONE, no matter how awful they are, if it serves his purposes. He's Trump with a slightly smaller gut.
On the other hand, there's no way he doesn't know that comparing Soros to Magneto (while then going on the declare that Soros hates humanity) will be understood as an antisemitic attack by everyone everywhere. Whether or not he is antisemitic in his heart, he's waving a Nazi flag and giving the Nazis moral support.
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by malchior »

malchior wrote: Wed May 17, 2023 10:03 am Can anyone explain to me how Musk can be this openly bad out on social media and I hear multiple US Senator's quoting him live this morning. What is going on here?! I'm really at the point of not trusting *anyone* in power. It's really disconcerting. Everything has decayed to levels I didn't think possible and then it somehow gets worse every day. I don't know how we recover from this moral rot.
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by LordMortis »

This is an example of why I can both say "I don't see the connection" with his posts and still give him no benefit of the doubt. I don't know that he's dog whistling but it's pretty obvious where he's getting many of his "one in ten conspiracies might be true, I'm libertarian, I don't trust any government, but I've taken the red pill" parroting (tweetiong, my ass, more like a squawk)
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

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A fake Bloomberg account with a Verified Blue Check on Twitter posted an apparently AI-generated picture of an explosion at the Pentagon this morning.

There was no explosion at the Pentagon, but the stock market still dipped.
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by Smoove_B »

Holy crap. When virtual terrorism has the same impact as when it's real? What a time to be alive.
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by gilraen »

S&P lost half a trillion dollars in valuation before recovering. This is a new level of market manipulation.
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by LordMortis »

CNBC dares to editorialize and call Twitter a cesspool after the Pentagon post yesterday. That won't make their masters happy.
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

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Musk is literally boosting fascist propagandists.

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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by Alefroth »

Seeing the Muskheads cry about people being able to auto-block is something else.

If Musk removes the block function, or charges for it, that's definitely the last straw for me.
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by Smoove_B »

Texas will require parental consent for teens to be able to use social media starting September 1, 2023:
Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed HB 18 into law on Wednesday. It takes effect on September 1, after which platforms will be required to verify ages of all minors, secure parental consent to register the minor as a user, or else risk legal action from the state attorney general or private actions from parents who report violations.

"Online platforms have been collecting data and manipulating our children's online behavior," the Texas House Republican Caucus tweeted Thursday after the bill, sponsored by Representative Shelby Slawson (R), was signed into law. Slawson also tweeted, thanking Abbott and Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan for "prioritizing this issue."

"Texas is leading to empower parents to protect our kids online," Slawson tweeted.
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by Isgrimnur »

Good luck, Greg.
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

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Now, the most likely outcomes are either that the minors will lie, or everyone will simply ignore the law. But a part of me hopes that they implement the Pornhub/Utah solution: All of the social media sites simply IP-block Texas.
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

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Re: Social Media Political Lens

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Re: Social Media Political Lens

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So now what are we supposed to call the Straights? And why can they use 'cis' in their music?
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

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Blackhawk wrote: Thu Jun 22, 2023 10:55 am So now what are we supposed to call the Straights? And why can they use 'cis' in their music?
Hetero? Didn't we used to be heteros before they started calling us cis?
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by Holman »

Kraken wrote: Thu Jun 22, 2023 5:29 pm
Blackhawk wrote: Thu Jun 22, 2023 10:55 am So now what are we supposed to call the Straights? And why can they use 'cis' in their music?
Hetero? Didn't we used to be heteros before they started calling us cis?
Different categories.

I'm a cisgender heterosexual man. Pete Buttigieg is a cisgender homosexual man. Actor Elliot Page is a transgender man (whose sexual orientation I don't know).
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

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Yep. Cisgender is when the software matches the hardware.

cis- is the opposite of trans-. Transgender = across gender. Cisgender = this side of gender.

The comment was a joke building off of Musk's assertion that 'cis' is a slur.
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by Holman »

I assume that the standard usage now is to base hetero- and homo- labels on gender identity rather than assigned sex.

This matters personally because my youngest kid (Let's call him Adam) is dating a trans boy (let's call him Steve). Although Steve was born female and has not medically transitioned (and in fact looks to most of the world like a very cute girl), he identifies as male, so my son considers Steve his boyfriend.

A further detail is that son's first admitted crushes were on boys, so it's not mere semantics for him to call himself gay.
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

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Yeah, pretty much. A (born male) trans female, even without actual medical procedures, who dates (born females) is considered a lesbian.
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by LawBeefaroni »

Musk went off the rails again this weekend. He really appears to be a terrible person.
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by LordMortis »

LawBeefaroni wrote: Mon Jul 10, 2023 7:37 am Musk went off the rails again this weekend. He really appears to be a terrible person.
Dammit you made me look for Musk news. I get too much Musk news when I'm not looking for it.

Edit: found this at the top. LOL

https://www.reuters.com/technology/susp ... 023-07-08/
July 8 (Reuters) - Jack Sweeney, the creator of an account tracking Elon Musk's private jet in real time, has moved to Mark Zuckerberg's Twitter-rival Threads after being suspended from Twitter last year.

"ElonJet has arrived to Threads!" read Sweeney's first post on Thursday from the account handle @elonmusksjet, which had over 21,000 followers as of Saturday morning.
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by Smoove_B »

Saw some discussions over the weekend about how the usual suspects were getting angry over not being able to post and apparently Threads has clarified their position:
For starters, the company will not extend its existing fact-checking program to Threads, spokesperson Christine Pai said in an emailed statement on Thursday. This eliminates a distinguishing feature of how Meta has managed misinformation on its other apps.

Pai added that posts on Facebook or Instagram rated as false by fact-checking partners - which include a unit at Reuters - will carry their labels over if posted on Threads too.

Asked by Reuters to explain why it was taking a different approach to misinformation on Threads, Meta declined to answer.

...

Within hours of launch, Threads accounts seen by Reuters were posting about the Illuminati and "billionaire satanists," while other users compared each other to Nazis and battled over everything from gender identity to violence in the West Bank.

Conservative personalities, including the son of former U.S. President Donald Trump, complained of censorship after labels appeared warning would-be followers that they had posted false information. Another Meta spokesperson said those labels were an error.
So apparently Threads is comfortable serving the single Nazi that walks into the bar. We all know how that works out. Cool.
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

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Of course. That Nazi gold spends just fine.
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by Apollo »

It's still a step in the right direction. I'll take Erdogan over Hitler any day.
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

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If we don’t know who the Nazis are, how will they be purged?
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

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What the actual....
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by Blackhawk »

It's the Trump strategy for human interaction. Some people think trolls calling people names is the coolest thing imaginable.
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by Max Peck »

We call those people "verified Twitter chuds."
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by Alefroth »

With a viable alternative now, Twitter's fate as a very expensive Parler is probably sealed.
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by Isgrimnur »

As we lurch from one billionaire’s dome to another.
It's almost as if people are the problem.
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