More to the point, you can bet dollars to dog turds that the CIA, FBI, NSA, DoD and Lord knows what else are just as embedded in every other social media and MSM outfit worth mentioning.
Twitter just happens to be the one we have documentary proof of.
I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop and they figure out a way to screw Substacked. I think we're already beginning to see some state sponsored trolling ....
I think you’re right. They do bear certain identifiers, none definitive.
1) black and white thinking, they prefer black.
2) fierce defense of the status quo, of course the best of the best in all possible worlds.
3) tend to be one line, monosyllabic, fact-free and never a link..
4) try to warp the dialogue into it being personal, as in about you.
5) grade school namecalling except instead of “ you are too”, it’s reference to “wodka”.
6) jingoistic neologisms given with a triumphant tone, as if a single name call constituted a definitive rebuttal. e.g. whataboutery, (invented by hypocrites to defend yet other hypocrites from the consequences of their hypocrisy). Other times it’s a stock phrase modelled after what is parodied in the black population as “ yo mama” or an adaptation of the “ your mother wears army boots” from another era.
7) broad adolescent innuendo re your background , calling you Boris, or Vlad or Xi or some scatological reference to your name. Wanting to be the first off the mark they call you a troll, ignoring guidelines specially proscribing posts with no content but troll accusation.
8) they never engage in conversation, they’re told not to. Just a brief cameo, helicoptering in, dropping the one word offense and never replying to a query or a request for a link.. If you flag them, you may or may not get a sympathetic moderator. If they’re deleted, they move on.
WaPo has actually reported on US military trolling and found it to be rampant.
When you see a thousand Genes, all saying the same stupid shit under a thousand names and drowning out discourse, then you know that you have been touched by The Hand Of The Deep State.
"...You have this amazing specter of Democratic congressmen hauling in CEOs from these platforms to the Hill, and begging them to commit more censorship. But it’s because they can’t deal with the fundamental problems that have befallen the country. Their attempt instead is to banish or silence the critics who speak the truth about what’s happening. That really is, I think, what’s going on.
"As things deteriorate, and I believe they will deteriorate, that pressure, which was already pretty heavy, is going to become heavier. You know better than I, the complaints about Substack, well, which I’m sure are serious — they will find them.
"They will begin to put pressure on. In the end, Substack is a commercial operation. I mean, they don’t exist for no reason, they exist to make money. And when that is your primary goal, you are very susceptible to that kind of pressure."
Nothing to bet on. This was revealed as long ago as Vietnam - they have embedded agents in every media. Snowden revelations also confirmed it decades later, just in case no one understood how the entire planet was railroaded in to invasion of Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya.
Well, since this wasn't an election and therefore I didn't vote for Elon my conscience is clear. And if he's less shitty than the people who came before him then I won't be happy that he's still shitty, but I'll take what I can get.
Does this mean that if an evil person does one good thing, you're going to say that the good thing doesn't matter and that we were better off with the previous evil person who wouldn't even do THAT much?
I don't know how you're going to answer this. The question isn't rhetorical. But I know of OTHER people who are talking about how monstrous Elon Musk is and how it was the darkest of days when he acquired Twitter. You hear enough of this stuff and you start to wonder if maybe they preferred the old censorship regime that censored even more. If they're not even reading anything in the Twitter Files because they think "Oh, it's just PR for Musk, who is evil."
Yes, I want Twitter and the other companies to be run by people who don't censor at all. But right now we don't have that, and since it costs so much to buy one of these companies we're not likely to get it anytime soon, if ever.
You can be happy that Elon released the Twitter Files and is doing less censorship without being a stan for the guy, you know.
The liberal ideology of "net good" is another bad myth that serves to construct, enable, and selectively launder evil. We can be happy that the, er, some Twitter files have been released without affecting our judgment of the moral agent who did it. A sardonic gold star is all the moral celebration the ownership classes deserve. Frankly, it's all most of us can afford these days.
An evil person would do a good thing to cover for or divert from the bad things to go on.
I posted a link to a podcast in another comment where you can hear an example of the First Look's Omidiar. And drawing parallels to Musk, but it could be anyone in this context.
I’m not exactly sure what you mean, but I’ll take your comment literally, which is that the “role” of the billionaire character known as Elon Musk is often played by an “actor.”
I was a fan of magic shows when I was a kid, then I learned that the “beautiful assistant” introduced during the first trick is actually one of a pair of identical twins. This, of course, makes it possible to perform the trick of sawing one of the twins in half on stage only to have the other twin emerge seconds later from the rear of theater.
Also, in filmmaking, the use of a body double or stunt double is routine, and we generally just accept this practice without reservations (and many just assume the actor performed her own stunts).
If even average no-name stage magicians can afford to hire twin beautiful assistants, imagine the techniques billionaires like Musk (who brags he works with the most sophisticated AI in the world, which is no doubt capable of deep fake videos) might employ for security reasons alone, not to mention for PR or propaganda purposes.
After having been banned, Scott Ritter opened a Twitter account when Musk took over. He subsequently posted the same thing that got him banned in the first place. The day after he was once again banned. In an interview with James Corbett he said exactly that.
FAIR is an absolutely indispensable watchdog. Everyone who cares about the growing chasm between American supposed values and American duplicitous actions should subscribe.
Looking at Fair.org's website I see mostly liberal narratives being spun: Jan 6 was an insurrection which we should still be terrified about, right-wingers are terrible, never question trans-ideology, and Elon Musk is a terrible person. I don't doubt that FAIR does some actual good reporting, but they have a clear ideological bias. I think their about page even states that they are a "progressive" organization, which means far-left.
And if they were a truly unbiased publication, they would have done a better job reporting on the Twitter Files and the whole host of media corruption issues it laid bare. But on this subject of systematic government collaboration and bias in our social media to support government narratives, which is ostensibly the whole raison-de-etre of the FAIR organization, they were silent.
Last I looked Twitter is not a media outlet, and FAIR generally doesn’t report on anything that that hasn’t already been reported. Calling it biased is rich. Biased reporting is SOP in the mainstream media,and gives FAIR more subject matter than it can handle. If FAIR published a report about Twitter or Musk, it was most likely to shed light on crappy reporting about them, that brain-dead John Doe’s think is the unvarnished truth.
If Twitter is not a media outlet that FAIR concerns itself with, then why did they write a whole article about how Twitter is still state affiliated media that Caitlin Johnstone just used as her primary source? It had nothing to do with critiquing others' reporting. The title is "Under Musk, Twitter Continues to Promote US Propaganda Networks." They even briefly comment on some of the Twitter Files, before swiftly moving on to how Musk and Twitter are failing in every way.
The article could just have easily been written, "Musk's Twitter Files Uncover Extensive Collaboration Between Multiple State Agencies and Social Media Platforms." But FAIR instead decided to stick to mainstream liberal narratives by down-playing the Twitter Files and instead running character assassination on Musk and Twitter. Shameful reporting really. The FBI coerces social media platforms to censor a politically sensitive story before an election, and this is what FAIR thinks is important?
If you can't see it I think you might be beholden to the Liberal Narrative Matrix. Try poking your head outside it, like Caitlin is always suggesting, and you might discover a different way of looking at the world.
Still -- Elon Musk should receive Nobel prize for his courage !!
Russia's security concerns and explicitly stated "red lines" have been completely ignored by the US War party and its corporate (de facto, state) media stenographers. US State Dept. “didn't notice” that capitalist Russia has not been Communist for 30+ years.
Of course, the Russia-gate hoax is a huge factor – SAME lying team is in power. A solution -- any discussion on why proxy war against capitalist and democratic Russia must be totally suppressed
We do live in CONTINUUM: FBI and Edgar Hoover’s crimes and surveillance === CIA-FBI and St. Obama, Biden, Clapper, Brennan, Hayden, Mitch McConnell, Pelosi, Schumer === SAME despicable fascist anti-American monstrosities.
And -- a “puzzling and completely irrational” DNC/media/security state propaganda. BUT -- there is a VERY rational reason for that: We are dealing with BIG Lie(s) – Russia-gate immense hoax is directly connected with support for Nazi-dominated US-puppet government of Ukraine.
ANY, even a most rudimentary, public discussion would unravel the lie(s) -- total censorship and prompt defamation of perceived opponents are the ONLY choice for the immensely corrupt Deep State cabal.
A sad thing is that GOP lunatics are equally repulsive and dangerous (a la McConnell, Mark Rubio, Lindsey Graham, Mike Pompeo, Bolton -- happily grunting together while feeding at same donor troughs.
"Still -- Elon Musk should receive Nobel prize for his courage !!"
Sure, why not? The deadline for nominating someone for the 2008 peace prize was passed when Dumbo had been POTUS for 12 hours. In other words he had held a speech or two, had a few drinks and danced with Michell a little. Then the killing with drones started, Libya was bombed back to the stone age and large parts of Syria was destroyed by America's friend Al Quaida.
A month after the 9/11/1973 coup in Chile the architect for that coup came to Oslo to receive his peace prize. Heinz Kissofdeath, that is.
If that's what it takes to become a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, then Elon Musk also deserves that prize?
Re this: "• Twitter's "Topics" feature has been artificially amplifying media funded by the US and other NATO powers to manage narratives about the war in Ukraine."
I noticed the manipulation Trending Topics and Tweeted copies of some of it. Suspended account now.
The people who enforce capitalist relations online. Private property doesn't have to be tangible. Copyrights, patents, trademarks, protected geographical origins, the feels of the bureaucracy can all be bought, sold, rented, or held for collateral (as in partisan politics).
Very useful. imo a bit early to judge but you give a good baseline and indicators of how this will run.
Musk does respond to critique. Hopefully he will read this. And the opponents of free speech have made it certain that Musk will be distracted by hundreds of small directed skirmishes aimed at impeding any progress he may wish to make.
I wished someone would start to focus more on other Social Media platforms, now that we know from Twitter how much it manipulates the information it's users get to see. I have an example from personal experience from Youtube and how it silently deletes/rejects certain comments.
Try the following: go the Youtube channel of Dr John Campbell chose one of his more recent viedeos and add the following comment:
"Dear Dr Campbell, please review the following three studies:
When I added this comment, Youtube accepts it but silently drops it, so you will not be able to find it under your "Your data in Youtube". This is more insidious than to tell you that what you posted goes against any form of policy.
Oh and while you are at it, do read up on how the vaccine shots shift your immune response from IgG1 to IgG4 and how IgG4 was found to positively impact tumor growth, independent of its antigen specificity. Something that sadly surprised Dr. Michel.
I had a comment of mine deleted about a presentation John Campbell discussed about a year ago- I tried adding it again, slightly changed, a couple of times and both were deleted- I could only guess about what and whom was offended! So YouTube definitely censors- or John Campbell? I didn't know what to think.
I've been trying to post information about the work of the late Dr Gene Sharp on YouTube and every comment immediately and silently disappears.
He was a Harvard professor who spent his life studying nonviolent civil resistance. There is a documentary about him, How to Start a Revolution DVD. (It used to be available on YouTube but it was taken down. Now not even a reference to it is allowed.) He wrote several important books, beginning with From Dictatorship to Democracy. I can't mention any of this on social media.
Many people are now talking about taking our government back, or even calling for a revolution, but I can't give them any resources for looking into it.
He's a complex figure, to put it mildly, and his methods don't seem to work all that reliably against Western interests. They might not actually work on their own, except as a component of hybrid war.
Well that puts to bed any notion that this fellow was an agent of peace with justice. Justice is a word that he seemed to eschew. I previously linked his name with Gandhi and MLK, but unlike them, Sharp was almost totally disinterested in the net effect of the strategies he promoted. As this comprehensive biography makes clear, a straight line exists from his efforts to our present oligarchic reality.
Knowledge is power, and so is information. Therefore, always maintain a sceptical approach to what is offered up as knowledge and information -it's apt to be self-serving. There are no fail-safe sources. But if anyone is not aware by now that the US and West "values" are not values but cover stories, is probably also still reading Aesop fables as truth. Values are encapsulated, defined by actions, not mouthings: you are what you do, not what you say you do in theory, or would do "if only them bad guys would play fair", etc.. And according to this metric, the US and West values are - shit.
I was just having a conversation with my brother the other day about values. I said pretty much the same thing you are saying. Values are beliefs that you are willing to take action on. If your actions are not in alignment with what is coming out of your mouth, they are not really values at all but pretty words that mean nothing.
Values are a social relation, though. The pretty words are supposed to "groom" values, i.e. to brush them into alignment so that their recognition has more reach. They aren't necessarily intended as objectives to be met; unachievable ideals are especially effective at promoting action.
The late David Graeber wrote a five-volume treatise on value theory, some volumes which you might recognize as best sellers. His sum total definition of value as the importance of actions is very close to yours. Ultimately, we do social things because we think other people will recognize us for acting to realize that valued ideal. Here's the relevant chapter from _The False Coin of Our Own Dreams_, updated:
In the full book, he delves into the finer points of tokens of value, negative value, the repayment of gifts, magic, taboo, heirlooms, names as property, taxes as ritual sacrifice, and much, much more. I recommend it heartily to anyone working on the narrative plane.
While I think it is correct that Elon is getting big gov. contracts which potentially compromises him, to characterize Twitter as state media is a bit over-the-top. He sacrificed a great deal of his wealth to takeover Twitter and air out all its dirty laundry, including extensive collab with US gov. Do you think he would continue this collab. after doing so? I find that idea highly doubtful. Particularly because a lot of the examples above are not as cut-and-dried as you portray them.
A lot of the obvious accounts controlled by the US gov, like CIA and whatnot, are just posting mundane recruitment and housekeeping posts. Nothing that could be construed as trying to influence narrative. So state funding labels for those seems unnecessary and obvious.
The NED is a problem because they have a layer of plausible deniability. They get funding from the US gov and mix it with money from foundations to muddy the waters. They then claim that their board of directors is independent in how it distributes the funds. So while it is plainly obvious that this is a narrative control device of the US gov., it would be hard to prove beyond a doubt that the gov. is directing its funding. This makes labeling its grant recipients as state media problematic.
Also take a look at the article headlines published by Fair.org and you might detect some bias in their reporting. When the Twitter Files revealed extensive collaboration between the media and the government, did Fair do a story on it? Not that I can see on their website. Only a passing mention in this before beginning a partisan hack job which seems to be amplifying the same message promoted by the rest of the mainstream media. Musk is not to trusted.
Well I don't put blind trust in him either, but his actions so far lead me to believe he is not on the side of the establishment. And we should judge a person by their actions shouldn't we?
I mean just look at some of the article titles published by "Fair.org" and decide if you think this is a non-partisan "fair" outlet.
The Right Turns Anti-LGBTQ Hate Up to 11
‘There Is More Than One Solution Needed to the Problem of an Insurrection’-
Lisa Gilbert on the January 6 Report-
Pamela Paul’s Gender Agenda-
NYT Did Musk a Political Favor-
In the last month that's two anti-Musk articles, one pro-trans-don't-ask-any-damn-questions-lest-we-label-you-an-anti-trans-hate-monger article, two fearmongering articles on 1/6, one fear mongering article on the far right. All well trodden liberal mainstream media narratives. Fair indeed.
"...none of the accounts for the US Army, National Security Agency or Central Intelligence Agency are currently labeled as a state or government entity" by Twitter......:"
Well no. That would be because the leaders of the teams supposedly screening for "disinformation" at all these tech companies.......are in fact agents of the security disinformation agencies, on outplacement....from these very agencies!
That fact was revealed a long time ago. Twitter, Facebook etc are a revolving door for disinformation agents of the state. Musk or no Musk, that's the situation.
Musk himself is feeding greedily at the trough of the state, with his space cappers. Its doubtful that he is any less of a "double agent" than Omidyar proved to be at The Intercept.
Not entirely. The public-private flanking maneuver is a real force multiplier for the status quo. There are lots of academics working on the ground in this area at research institutions, think tanks, political organizations, and their own private consultancies, funded by public or private institutions, donors, or direct engagements. It's not unusual to see status quo narrative enforcement initiatives being funded in the name of LGBT+ issues, for example.
It's safe to bet they all share notes, though. Every last one of them starves if the working class goes Galt, so to speak.
The media only care about Twitter because that's where mainstream journalists/pundits are. They're very protective of their small bubble, totally oblivious to reality. And the reality is that most people don't give a sh*t about Twitter. They use other stuff - FB, Instagram, TikTok, which are much more dangerous re surveillance and manipulation.
Having said that, I enjoy Twitter. It's fun (in a twisted way) and I can have access to independent journalism and good sources of information. It's just a matter of trying not to be stupid and seeing through the obvious propaganda (I know, the herd can't do this; f**k them).
Here is not a free and fair news source from the mainstream media, all of these outlets of communication are subordinate and controlled by powerful political -economic forces that imposes biased platforms aimed to mastering human domain. Even before the Patriot Act the free press became not essential for a free society and democracy. Government control media and communication, including art, music, Hollywood, even soaps all are means used to control our minds, perceptions and influence emotions.
I would love to see these pro-war/NATO propaganda outlets labeled "US State Affiliated Media". At least I'm not disappointed in Musk--he's acting the way I assumed he would. Until Twitter (or any social media platform) becomes a public utility, we'll get all the propaganda that the owners want.
"So it's not surprising that we find ourselves with a New Twitter that's essentially the same as the old Twitter, just with more tolerance for right wingers and their culture war quagmires."
I'd say even that much is an improvement, considering how many people on the left are considered "right wingers" because they (pick as many of these as you like)...
1. Feel that Lia Thomas competing against cis female competition that she easily trounces isn't fair, along with other examples of why maybe when it comes to sports we shouldn't be treating trans and cis women as literally in the same league;
2. Thought that maybe Ivermectin could be effective against Covid;
3. Looked at the Kyle Rittenhouse case and concluded that he was not, in fact, guilty of premeditated murder since he never shot anybody who wasn't coming after him;
6. Says anything bad about the vaccines or Fauci. The same Anthony Fauci who should, in fact, be prosecuted, although I'm not holding my breath for that.
And I could go on. NGL, I find myself having way more common ground with people who see themselves as on the right than I do with people who see themselves as on the left these days.
That's because if I talk to somebody on the right, we're gonna agree that the Twitter Files are important and the furthest thing from a "nothingburger", we're gonna agree that when Tucker or Jimmy Dore or anyone else says we shouldn't be sending infinite money to Ukraine that they're speaking the truth, we're going to agree that protests such as the Freedom Convoy should not be criminalized, we're going to agree that January 6th, 2021 wasn't a coup and definitely wasn't worse than 9/11, we're going to agree that the aforementioned Fauci is a lying POS, etc.
Granted, there are people on the left who agree with most or all of that stuff too, but if you pick a random person who is at least nominally a lefty and try to talk to them about these issues, there's at least a 50/50 chance that you'll get somebody who worships Fauci, who believes that all white people are born racist and that we should spend every waking moment trying to be "less white" (whatever the fuck that means), who thinks that anybody they've been told is a white supremacist must be one and therefore should be lynched, who hates Assange for "giving us Trump", who unironically repeats Azov Battalion slogans, who wants the book thrown at the truckers because they believe all the smears against them, etc.
But, regardless of all of that, here's what I find interesting. Interesting in a sad and depressing way, but still interesting.
If Musk is, in fact, still in bed with the establishment and not in any hurry to get up, get dressed, and flee back to his own house while vowing that he'll never get that drunk again...then that means he, like Trump, is doing most of what the establishment wants him to do. He is helping the establishment out an awful lot...but no matter how much he does for the establishment, all it takes for him to be portrayed as worse than a quintillion Hitlers is for him to even *slightly* go against the establishment by saying "Yeah, I think President Trump should be allowed back on Twitter." Just like all it took for Trump to also be portrayed that way was for his rhetoric to be anti-establishment even if his actions were pro-establishment, or for him to make hawkish decisions but stop short of being as hawkish as the Deep State and MIC wanted him to be.
Also similar to how AOC didn't vote the way Pelosi wanted her to on the Iron Dome funding, and how Pelosi dressed her down on the House floor even though her vote wouldn't have made the slightest difference to the outcome. Not even purely *symbolic* opposition to the establishment is tolerated. At least not on the side that supports Democrats.
An observation of Caitlin's I agree with far more than what she says here went something like:
"Everybody saw the workers rise up and take over Russia, and for the last century they've been doing their best to prevent workers anywhere else from doing the same thing in other countries."
Unfortunately, they've done a good job. They've done it using propaganda, and they've done it using intimidation when the propaganda doesn't work. I don't like the chances of the workers coming together and rising up again in the US, Canada, or anywhere else, no matter how badly they're mistreated and screwed. I would love to be wrong but, in my usual pessimistic fashion, I'm worried that these countries have made themselves revolution-proof.
"An observation of Caitlin's I agree with far more than what she says here went something like:
Everybody saw the workers rise up and take over Russia, and for the last century they've been doing their best to prevent workers anywhere else from doing the same thing in other countries."
I have a diametrically opposing view, and with that I couldn't possibly disagree more.
The so-called October Revolution was financed with $20.000.000.- in gold from Jacob Schiff at the behest of Rothschild. Trotskiy brought the gold to Petrograd via the Norwegian America Line's D/S "Oslofjord". The rest is, as they say, history.
Then again.....
"You must understand, the leading Bolsheviks who took over Russia were not Russians. They hated Russians. They hated Christians. Driven by ethnic hatred they tortured and slaughtered millions of Russians without a shred of remorse. It cannot be overstated. Bolshevism created the greatest human slaughter of all time. The fact that most of the world is ignorant and uncaring about this crime is proof that the global media is in the hands of the perpetrator."
- Alexandr Solzhenitsyn -
On the other hand..... The killing of the 6 million people that mattered during the 30's and 40's by Germany is something we hear about constantly. Censorship and falsification of history is nothing new.
They are definitely working on it, with all the diligence one would expect of managers trying to close a window and clinch a new contract. The architecture of the Internet has evolved to separate online social labor from its conditions by encoding the distinction between producer and consumer roles into the infrastructure. For example, under the not entirely false pretext of protecting their customers' computers against exploitation and spam generation, very few residential ISPs pass traffic to a customer's web ports, or from the customer to a non-customer's mail ports. Customers must often pay extra for that privilege, if the ISP is even in a position to offer that privilege to residential subscribers. Or, one must send their traffic through intermediary machines, again subject to the ISP or other party providing them, and subject to the intermediary refusing to carry particular traffic they don't like.
It's a situation, and the task for the(ir) adversary, in this case, dissidents and particularly the technologists and culture hackers among us, is to mitigate or exploit that situation, or some other, in our favor or in their disfavor. There are countless possible strategies, but I don't think we have that many tries left before they are ready to launch the big arrow attacks against unauthorized knowing and inaugurate the Long Night.
Caitlin, thank you for this comprehensive review of the twitter files. I’m looking forward to your report on fb, google, Microsoft, et al. And check out Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi on Substack for more insights.
Of course.
More to the point, you can bet dollars to dog turds that the CIA, FBI, NSA, DoD and Lord knows what else are just as embedded in every other social media and MSM outfit worth mentioning.
Twitter just happens to be the one we have documentary proof of.
I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop and they figure out a way to screw Substacked. I think we're already beginning to see some state sponsored trolling ....
I think you’re right. They do bear certain identifiers, none definitive.
1) black and white thinking, they prefer black.
2) fierce defense of the status quo, of course the best of the best in all possible worlds.
3) tend to be one line, monosyllabic, fact-free and never a link..
4) try to warp the dialogue into it being personal, as in about you.
5) grade school namecalling except instead of “ you are too”, it’s reference to “wodka”.
6) jingoistic neologisms given with a triumphant tone, as if a single name call constituted a definitive rebuttal. e.g. whataboutery, (invented by hypocrites to defend yet other hypocrites from the consequences of their hypocrisy). Other times it’s a stock phrase modelled after what is parodied in the black population as “ yo mama” or an adaptation of the “ your mother wears army boots” from another era.
7) broad adolescent innuendo re your background , calling you Boris, or Vlad or Xi or some scatological reference to your name. Wanting to be the first off the mark they call you a troll, ignoring guidelines specially proscribing posts with no content but troll accusation.
8) they never engage in conversation, they’re told not to. Just a brief cameo, helicoptering in, dropping the one word offense and never replying to a query or a request for a link.. If you flag them, you may or may not get a sympathetic moderator. If they’re deleted, they move on.
WaPo has actually reported on US military trolling and found it to be rampant.
You will know, when they flood the board, reciting identical glib talking points.
And accusing others of reciting Faux News “ talking points” is another faux rebuttal.
People who propound any official rhetoric aka party lines aka "talking points" have no thoughts of their own worth hearing, much less rebutting.
eg. Gene the troll.
Gene isn't glib. He's just stupid.
When you see a thousand Genes, all saying the same stupid shit under a thousand names and drowning out discourse, then you know that you have been touched by The Hand Of The Deep State.
Hahahaha. True.
Whaaat? I don't read the WaPo: military trolling?
Those people have Too Much Time and Too Much Money For Their Own Good.
They need to get out and work a job 12 hours every day, preferably at Amazon.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/20/military-pentagon-fake-social-media/
https://www.voanews.com/a/meta-report-us-military-behind-online-influence-campaign-targeting-central-asia-middle-east/6848112.html
Chris Hedges said this about Substack:
"...You have this amazing specter of Democratic congressmen hauling in CEOs from these platforms to the Hill, and begging them to commit more censorship. But it’s because they can’t deal with the fundamental problems that have befallen the country. Their attempt instead is to banish or silence the critics who speak the truth about what’s happening. That really is, I think, what’s going on.
"As things deteriorate, and I believe they will deteriorate, that pressure, which was already pretty heavy, is going to become heavier. You know better than I, the complaints about Substack, well, which I’m sure are serious — they will find them.
"They will begin to put pressure on. In the end, Substack is a commercial operation. I mean, they don’t exist for no reason, they exist to make money. And when that is your primary goal, you are very susceptible to that kind of pressure."
Full interview here, albeit behind a paywall:
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/meet-the-censored-chris-hedges
Nothing to bet on. This was revealed as long ago as Vietnam - they have embedded agents in every media. Snowden revelations also confirmed it decades later, just in case no one understood how the entire planet was railroaded in to invasion of Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya.
Absolutely 100 % agree, it's best to avoid social media.
Meet the new boss...same as the old boss...
Let’s not go that far... Elon is nothing like
Yoel Roth!
Another lesser of two evils.
Well, since this wasn't an election and therefore I didn't vote for Elon my conscience is clear. And if he's less shitty than the people who came before him then I won't be happy that he's still shitty, but I'll take what I can get.
Nothing to do with any election. The attitude is what matters. It is still evil.
Does this mean that if an evil person does one good thing, you're going to say that the good thing doesn't matter and that we were better off with the previous evil person who wouldn't even do THAT much?
I don't know how you're going to answer this. The question isn't rhetorical. But I know of OTHER people who are talking about how monstrous Elon Musk is and how it was the darkest of days when he acquired Twitter. You hear enough of this stuff and you start to wonder if maybe they preferred the old censorship regime that censored even more. If they're not even reading anything in the Twitter Files because they think "Oh, it's just PR for Musk, who is evil."
Yes, I want Twitter and the other companies to be run by people who don't censor at all. But right now we don't have that, and since it costs so much to buy one of these companies we're not likely to get it anytime soon, if ever.
You can be happy that Elon released the Twitter Files and is doing less censorship without being a stan for the guy, you know.
The liberal ideology of "net good" is another bad myth that serves to construct, enable, and selectively launder evil. We can be happy that the, er, some Twitter files have been released without affecting our judgment of the moral agent who did it. A sardonic gold star is all the moral celebration the ownership classes deserve. Frankly, it's all most of us can afford these days.
An evil person would do a good thing to cover for or divert from the bad things to go on.
I posted a link to a podcast in another comment where you can hear an example of the First Look's Omidiar. And drawing parallels to Musk, but it could be anyone in this context.
Elon musk is more than one man
I’m not exactly sure what you mean, but I’ll take your comment literally, which is that the “role” of the billionaire character known as Elon Musk is often played by an “actor.”
I was a fan of magic shows when I was a kid, then I learned that the “beautiful assistant” introduced during the first trick is actually one of a pair of identical twins. This, of course, makes it possible to perform the trick of sawing one of the twins in half on stage only to have the other twin emerge seconds later from the rear of theater.
Also, in filmmaking, the use of a body double or stunt double is routine, and we generally just accept this practice without reservations (and many just assume the actor performed her own stunts).
If even average no-name stage magicians can afford to hire twin beautiful assistants, imagine the techniques billionaires like Musk (who brags he works with the most sophisticated AI in the world, which is no doubt capable of deep fake videos) might employ for security reasons alone, not to mention for PR or propaganda purposes.
After having been banned, Scott Ritter opened a Twitter account when Musk took over. He subsequently posted the same thing that got him banned in the first place. The day after he was once again banned. In an interview with James Corbett he said exactly that.
FAIR is an absolutely indispensable watchdog. Everyone who cares about the growing chasm between American supposed values and American duplicitous actions should subscribe.
Looking at Fair.org's website I see mostly liberal narratives being spun: Jan 6 was an insurrection which we should still be terrified about, right-wingers are terrible, never question trans-ideology, and Elon Musk is a terrible person. I don't doubt that FAIR does some actual good reporting, but they have a clear ideological bias. I think their about page even states that they are a "progressive" organization, which means far-left.
And if they were a truly unbiased publication, they would have done a better job reporting on the Twitter Files and the whole host of media corruption issues it laid bare. But on this subject of systematic government collaboration and bias in our social media to support government narratives, which is ostensibly the whole raison-de-etre of the FAIR organization, they were silent.
Last I looked Twitter is not a media outlet, and FAIR generally doesn’t report on anything that that hasn’t already been reported. Calling it biased is rich. Biased reporting is SOP in the mainstream media,and gives FAIR more subject matter than it can handle. If FAIR published a report about Twitter or Musk, it was most likely to shed light on crappy reporting about them, that brain-dead John Doe’s think is the unvarnished truth.
If Twitter is not a media outlet that FAIR concerns itself with, then why did they write a whole article about how Twitter is still state affiliated media that Caitlin Johnstone just used as her primary source? It had nothing to do with critiquing others' reporting. The title is "Under Musk, Twitter Continues to Promote US Propaganda Networks." They even briefly comment on some of the Twitter Files, before swiftly moving on to how Musk and Twitter are failing in every way.
The article could just have easily been written, "Musk's Twitter Files Uncover Extensive Collaboration Between Multiple State Agencies and Social Media Platforms." But FAIR instead decided to stick to mainstream liberal narratives by down-playing the Twitter Files and instead running character assassination on Musk and Twitter. Shameful reporting really. The FBI coerces social media platforms to censor a politically sensitive story before an election, and this is what FAIR thinks is important?
If you can't see it I think you might be beholden to the Liberal Narrative Matrix. Try poking your head outside it, like Caitlin is always suggesting, and you might discover a different way of looking at the world.
Link ?
And if you are looking for Twitter Files reading. This is from a liberal source.
https://jacobin.com/2022/12/twitter-files-censorship-content-moderation-intelligence-agencies-surveillance
and this is the deep end primary reporting.
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/capsule-summaries-of-all-twitter
https://fair.org/home/under-musk-twitter-continues-to-promote-us-propaganda-networks/
Still -- Elon Musk should receive Nobel prize for his courage !!
Russia's security concerns and explicitly stated "red lines" have been completely ignored by the US War party and its corporate (de facto, state) media stenographers. US State Dept. “didn't notice” that capitalist Russia has not been Communist for 30+ years.
Of course, the Russia-gate hoax is a huge factor – SAME lying team is in power. A solution -- any discussion on why proxy war against capitalist and democratic Russia must be totally suppressed
We do live in CONTINUUM: FBI and Edgar Hoover’s crimes and surveillance === CIA-FBI and St. Obama, Biden, Clapper, Brennan, Hayden, Mitch McConnell, Pelosi, Schumer === SAME despicable fascist anti-American monstrosities.
And -- a “puzzling and completely irrational” DNC/media/security state propaganda. BUT -- there is a VERY rational reason for that: We are dealing with BIG Lie(s) – Russia-gate immense hoax is directly connected with support for Nazi-dominated US-puppet government of Ukraine.
ANY, even a most rudimentary, public discussion would unravel the lie(s) -- total censorship and prompt defamation of perceived opponents are the ONLY choice for the immensely corrupt Deep State cabal.
A sad thing is that GOP lunatics are equally repulsive and dangerous (a la McConnell, Mark Rubio, Lindsey Graham, Mike Pompeo, Bolton -- happily grunting together while feeding at same donor troughs.
"Still -- Elon Musk should receive Nobel prize for his courage !!"
Sure, why not? The deadline for nominating someone for the 2008 peace prize was passed when Dumbo had been POTUS for 12 hours. In other words he had held a speech or two, had a few drinks and danced with Michell a little. Then the killing with drones started, Libya was bombed back to the stone age and large parts of Syria was destroyed by America's friend Al Quaida.
A month after the 9/11/1973 coup in Chile the architect for that coup came to Oslo to receive his peace prize. Heinz Kissofdeath, that is.
If that's what it takes to become a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, then Elon Musk also deserves that prize?
We agree !! But Elon definitely deserves it more than St. Obama ;-))
yes, much yes.
Re this: "• Twitter's "Topics" feature has been artificially amplifying media funded by the US and other NATO powers to manage narratives about the war in Ukraine."
I noticed the manipulation Trending Topics and Tweeted copies of some of it. Suspended account now.
"Tweeting is safe and legal, according to most experts"
According to what kind of experts? Online safety experts, maybe? ROFLMAO.
What the hell is an online safety expert anyway?
The people who enforce capitalist relations online. Private property doesn't have to be tangible. Copyrights, patents, trademarks, protected geographical origins, the feels of the bureaucracy can all be bought, sold, rented, or held for collateral (as in partisan politics).
Shit, sorry that happened to you.
Thanks
Very useful. imo a bit early to judge but you give a good baseline and indicators of how this will run.
Musk does respond to critique. Hopefully he will read this. And the opponents of free speech have made it certain that Musk will be distracted by hundreds of small directed skirmishes aimed at impeding any progress he may wish to make.
I wished someone would start to focus more on other Social Media platforms, now that we know from Twitter how much it manipulates the information it's users get to see. I have an example from personal experience from Youtube and how it silently deletes/rejects certain comments.
Try the following: go the Youtube channel of Dr John Campbell chose one of his more recent viedeos and add the following comment:
"Dear Dr Campbell, please review the following three studies:
Class switch towards non-inflammatory, spike-specific IgG4 antibodies after repeated SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccination (https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciimmunol.ade2798), "An immune evasion mechanism with IgG4 playing an essential role in cancer and implication for immunotherapy" (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32819973/) and "Rapid Progression of Angioimmunoblastic T Cell Lymphoma Following BNT162b2 mRNA Vaccine Booster Shot: A Case Report" (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8656165/)."
When I added this comment, Youtube accepts it but silently drops it, so you will not be able to find it under your "Your data in Youtube". This is more insidious than to tell you that what you posted goes against any form of policy.
Oh and while you are at it, do read up on how the vaccine shots shift your immune response from IgG1 to IgG4 and how IgG4 was found to positively impact tumor growth, independent of its antigen specificity. Something that sadly surprised Dr. Michel.
I had a comment of mine deleted about a presentation John Campbell discussed about a year ago- I tried adding it again, slightly changed, a couple of times and both were deleted- I could only guess about what and whom was offended! So YouTube definitely censors- or John Campbell? I didn't know what to think.
I've been trying to post information about the work of the late Dr Gene Sharp on YouTube and every comment immediately and silently disappears.
He was a Harvard professor who spent his life studying nonviolent civil resistance. There is a documentary about him, How to Start a Revolution DVD. (It used to be available on YouTube but it was taken down. Now not even a reference to it is allowed.) He wrote several important books, beginning with From Dictatorship to Democracy. I can't mention any of this on social media.
Many people are now talking about taking our government back, or even calling for a revolution, but I can't give them any resources for looking into it.
He's a complex figure, to put it mildly, and his methods don't seem to work all that reliably against Western interests. They might not actually work on their own, except as a component of hybrid war.
https://nonsite.org/change-agent-gene-sharps-neoliberal-nonviolence-part-one/
Well that puts to bed any notion that this fellow was an agent of peace with justice. Justice is a word that he seemed to eschew. I previously linked his name with Gandhi and MLK, but unlike them, Sharp was almost totally disinterested in the net effect of the strategies he promoted. As this comprehensive biography makes clear, a straight line exists from his efforts to our present oligarchic reality.
That documentary is on a streaming service. I’m not sure if it’s Prime or Showtime or perhaps AMC, but that is how U accessed it.
Shhhhhhhh!!!! Don't give "them" any ideas.
Knowledge is power, and so is information. Therefore, always maintain a sceptical approach to what is offered up as knowledge and information -it's apt to be self-serving. There are no fail-safe sources. But if anyone is not aware by now that the US and West "values" are not values but cover stories, is probably also still reading Aesop fables as truth. Values are encapsulated, defined by actions, not mouthings: you are what you do, not what you say you do in theory, or would do "if only them bad guys would play fair", etc.. And according to this metric, the US and West values are - shit.
I was just having a conversation with my brother the other day about values. I said pretty much the same thing you are saying. Values are beliefs that you are willing to take action on. If your actions are not in alignment with what is coming out of your mouth, they are not really values at all but pretty words that mean nothing.
Yeah, or pretty words on a Constitution or Accord.
Values are a social relation, though. The pretty words are supposed to "groom" values, i.e. to brush them into alignment so that their recognition has more reach. They aren't necessarily intended as objectives to be met; unachievable ideals are especially effective at promoting action.
The late David Graeber wrote a five-volume treatise on value theory, some volumes which you might recognize as best sellers. His sum total definition of value as the importance of actions is very close to yours. Ultimately, we do social things because we think other people will recognize us for acting to realize that valued ideal. Here's the relevant chapter from _The False Coin of Our Own Dreams_, updated:
https://davidgraeber.org/articles/value-as-the-importance-of-actions/
In the full book, he delves into the finer points of tokens of value, negative value, the repayment of gifts, magic, taboo, heirlooms, names as property, taxes as ritual sacrifice, and much, much more. I recommend it heartily to anyone working on the narrative plane.
While I think it is correct that Elon is getting big gov. contracts which potentially compromises him, to characterize Twitter as state media is a bit over-the-top. He sacrificed a great deal of his wealth to takeover Twitter and air out all its dirty laundry, including extensive collab with US gov. Do you think he would continue this collab. after doing so? I find that idea highly doubtful. Particularly because a lot of the examples above are not as cut-and-dried as you portray them.
A lot of the obvious accounts controlled by the US gov, like CIA and whatnot, are just posting mundane recruitment and housekeeping posts. Nothing that could be construed as trying to influence narrative. So state funding labels for those seems unnecessary and obvious.
The NED is a problem because they have a layer of plausible deniability. They get funding from the US gov and mix it with money from foundations to muddy the waters. They then claim that their board of directors is independent in how it distributes the funds. So while it is plainly obvious that this is a narrative control device of the US gov., it would be hard to prove beyond a doubt that the gov. is directing its funding. This makes labeling its grant recipients as state media problematic.
Also take a look at the article headlines published by Fair.org and you might detect some bias in their reporting. When the Twitter Files revealed extensive collaboration between the media and the government, did Fair do a story on it? Not that I can see on their website. Only a passing mention in this before beginning a partisan hack job which seems to be amplifying the same message promoted by the rest of the mainstream media. Musk is not to trusted.
Well I don't put blind trust in him either, but his actions so far lead me to believe he is not on the side of the establishment. And we should judge a person by their actions shouldn't we?
I mean just look at some of the article titles published by "Fair.org" and decide if you think this is a non-partisan "fair" outlet.
The Right Turns Anti-LGBTQ Hate Up to 11
‘There Is More Than One Solution Needed to the Problem of an Insurrection’-
Lisa Gilbert on the January 6 Report-
Pamela Paul’s Gender Agenda-
NYT Did Musk a Political Favor-
In the last month that's two anti-Musk articles, one pro-trans-don't-ask-any-damn-questions-lest-we-label-you-an-anti-trans-hate-monger article, two fearmongering articles on 1/6, one fear mongering article on the far right. All well trodden liberal mainstream media narratives. Fair indeed.
"...none of the accounts for the US Army, National Security Agency or Central Intelligence Agency are currently labeled as a state or government entity" by Twitter......:"
Well no. That would be because the leaders of the teams supposedly screening for "disinformation" at all these tech companies.......are in fact agents of the security disinformation agencies, on outplacement....from these very agencies!
That fact was revealed a long time ago. Twitter, Facebook etc are a revolving door for disinformation agents of the state. Musk or no Musk, that's the situation.
Musk himself is feeding greedily at the trough of the state, with his space cappers. Its doubtful that he is any less of a "double agent" than Omidyar proved to be at The Intercept.
Not entirely. The public-private flanking maneuver is a real force multiplier for the status quo. There are lots of academics working on the ground in this area at research institutions, think tanks, political organizations, and their own private consultancies, funded by public or private institutions, donors, or direct engagements. It's not unusual to see status quo narrative enforcement initiatives being funded in the name of LGBT+ issues, for example.
It's safe to bet they all share notes, though. Every last one of them starves if the working class goes Galt, so to speak.
The media only care about Twitter because that's where mainstream journalists/pundits are. They're very protective of their small bubble, totally oblivious to reality. And the reality is that most people don't give a sh*t about Twitter. They use other stuff - FB, Instagram, TikTok, which are much more dangerous re surveillance and manipulation.
Having said that, I enjoy Twitter. It's fun (in a twisted way) and I can have access to independent journalism and good sources of information. It's just a matter of trying not to be stupid and seeing through the obvious propaganda (I know, the herd can't do this; f**k them).
Here is not a free and fair news source from the mainstream media, all of these outlets of communication are subordinate and controlled by powerful political -economic forces that imposes biased platforms aimed to mastering human domain. Even before the Patriot Act the free press became not essential for a free society and democracy. Government control media and communication, including art, music, Hollywood, even soaps all are means used to control our minds, perceptions and influence emotions.
I would love to see these pro-war/NATO propaganda outlets labeled "US State Affiliated Media". At least I'm not disappointed in Musk--he's acting the way I assumed he would. Until Twitter (or any social media platform) becomes a public utility, we'll get all the propaganda that the owners want.
"So it's not surprising that we find ourselves with a New Twitter that's essentially the same as the old Twitter, just with more tolerance for right wingers and their culture war quagmires."
I'd say even that much is an improvement, considering how many people on the left are considered "right wingers" because they (pick as many of these as you like)...
1. Feel that Lia Thomas competing against cis female competition that she easily trounces isn't fair, along with other examples of why maybe when it comes to sports we shouldn't be treating trans and cis women as literally in the same league;
2. Thought that maybe Ivermectin could be effective against Covid;
3. Looked at the Kyle Rittenhouse case and concluded that he was not, in fact, guilty of premeditated murder since he never shot anybody who wasn't coming after him;
4. Refuses to parrot the narrative on Ukraine;
5. Refuses to accept Robin DiAngelo as a prophet full of infinite wisdom https://taibbi.substack.com/p/on-white-fragility
6. Says anything bad about the vaccines or Fauci. The same Anthony Fauci who should, in fact, be prosecuted, although I'm not holding my breath for that.
And I could go on. NGL, I find myself having way more common ground with people who see themselves as on the right than I do with people who see themselves as on the left these days.
That's because if I talk to somebody on the right, we're gonna agree that the Twitter Files are important and the furthest thing from a "nothingburger", we're gonna agree that when Tucker or Jimmy Dore or anyone else says we shouldn't be sending infinite money to Ukraine that they're speaking the truth, we're going to agree that protests such as the Freedom Convoy should not be criminalized, we're going to agree that January 6th, 2021 wasn't a coup and definitely wasn't worse than 9/11, we're going to agree that the aforementioned Fauci is a lying POS, etc.
Granted, there are people on the left who agree with most or all of that stuff too, but if you pick a random person who is at least nominally a lefty and try to talk to them about these issues, there's at least a 50/50 chance that you'll get somebody who worships Fauci, who believes that all white people are born racist and that we should spend every waking moment trying to be "less white" (whatever the fuck that means), who thinks that anybody they've been told is a white supremacist must be one and therefore should be lynched, who hates Assange for "giving us Trump", who unironically repeats Azov Battalion slogans, who wants the book thrown at the truckers because they believe all the smears against them, etc.
But, regardless of all of that, here's what I find interesting. Interesting in a sad and depressing way, but still interesting.
If Musk is, in fact, still in bed with the establishment and not in any hurry to get up, get dressed, and flee back to his own house while vowing that he'll never get that drunk again...then that means he, like Trump, is doing most of what the establishment wants him to do. He is helping the establishment out an awful lot...but no matter how much he does for the establishment, all it takes for him to be portrayed as worse than a quintillion Hitlers is for him to even *slightly* go against the establishment by saying "Yeah, I think President Trump should be allowed back on Twitter." Just like all it took for Trump to also be portrayed that way was for his rhetoric to be anti-establishment even if his actions were pro-establishment, or for him to make hawkish decisions but stop short of being as hawkish as the Deep State and MIC wanted him to be.
Also similar to how AOC didn't vote the way Pelosi wanted her to on the Iron Dome funding, and how Pelosi dressed her down on the House floor even though her vote wouldn't have made the slightest difference to the outcome. Not even purely *symbolic* opposition to the establishment is tolerated. At least not on the side that supports Democrats.
An observation of Caitlin's I agree with far more than what she says here went something like:
"Everybody saw the workers rise up and take over Russia, and for the last century they've been doing their best to prevent workers anywhere else from doing the same thing in other countries."
Unfortunately, they've done a good job. They've done it using propaganda, and they've done it using intimidation when the propaganda doesn't work. I don't like the chances of the workers coming together and rising up again in the US, Canada, or anywhere else, no matter how badly they're mistreated and screwed. I would love to be wrong but, in my usual pessimistic fashion, I'm worried that these countries have made themselves revolution-proof.
"An observation of Caitlin's I agree with far more than what she says here went something like:
Everybody saw the workers rise up and take over Russia, and for the last century they've been doing their best to prevent workers anywhere else from doing the same thing in other countries."
I have a diametrically opposing view, and with that I couldn't possibly disagree more.
The so-called October Revolution was financed with $20.000.000.- in gold from Jacob Schiff at the behest of Rothschild. Trotskiy brought the gold to Petrograd via the Norwegian America Line's D/S "Oslofjord". The rest is, as they say, history.
Then again.....
"You must understand, the leading Bolsheviks who took over Russia were not Russians. They hated Russians. They hated Christians. Driven by ethnic hatred they tortured and slaughtered millions of Russians without a shred of remorse. It cannot be overstated. Bolshevism created the greatest human slaughter of all time. The fact that most of the world is ignorant and uncaring about this crime is proof that the global media is in the hands of the perpetrator."
- Alexandr Solzhenitsyn -
On the other hand..... The killing of the 6 million people that mattered during the 30's and 40's by Germany is something we hear about constantly. Censorship and falsification of history is nothing new.
They are definitely working on it, with all the diligence one would expect of managers trying to close a window and clinch a new contract. The architecture of the Internet has evolved to separate online social labor from its conditions by encoding the distinction between producer and consumer roles into the infrastructure. For example, under the not entirely false pretext of protecting their customers' computers against exploitation and spam generation, very few residential ISPs pass traffic to a customer's web ports, or from the customer to a non-customer's mail ports. Customers must often pay extra for that privilege, if the ISP is even in a position to offer that privilege to residential subscribers. Or, one must send their traffic through intermediary machines, again subject to the ISP or other party providing them, and subject to the intermediary refusing to carry particular traffic they don't like.
It's a situation, and the task for the(ir) adversary, in this case, dissidents and particularly the technologists and culture hackers among us, is to mitigate or exploit that situation, or some other, in our favor or in their disfavor. There are countless possible strategies, but I don't think we have that many tries left before they are ready to launch the big arrow attacks against unauthorized knowing and inaugurate the Long Night.
Caitlin, thank you for this comprehensive review of the twitter files. I’m looking forward to your report on fb, google, Microsoft, et al. And check out Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi on Substack for more insights.
I disagree with Caitlin often but this time she’s spot on. Musk can’t play both sides and expect to win, and he’s too smart not to know it.