# News & Current Events > U.S. Political News >  Elon Musk buys Twitter for $44 billion

## Occam's Banana

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1514564966564651008


*Elon Musk Makes $43 Billion Unsolicited Bid to Take Twitter Private*
_Worlds richest person will offer $54.20 per share in cash_
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...ver-of-twitter
Giles Turner & Maxwell Adler (14 April 2022)

Elon Musk has made a controversial offer to buy Twitter Inc., saying the company has extraordinary potential and he is the person to unlock it. 

The worlds richest person will offer $54.20 per share in cash, valuing Twitter at about $43 billion. The social media companys shares rose just 5.3% to $48.27 at the market open in New York as investors began to assess how one of the platforms most outspoken users will succeed in his takeover attempt. 

Musk, 50, announced the potential deal in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday, after turning down a potential board seat at the company. The billionaire, who also controls Tesla Inc., first disclosed a stake of about 9% on April 4. Tesla shares fell about 1.8% on the news.

Twitter said that its board would review the proposal and any response would be in the best interests of all Twitter stockholders.

The bid is the most high-stakes clash yet between Musk and the social media platform. The executive is one of Twitters most-watched firebrands, often tweeting out memes and taunts to @elonmusks more than 80 million followers. He has been vociferous about changes hed like to consider imposing at the social media platform, and the company offered him a seat on the board following the announcement of his $3.35 billion stake.

Musk immediately began appealing to fellow users about prospective moves, from turning Twitters San Francisco headquarters into a homeless shelter and adding an edit button for tweets to granting automatic verification marks to premium users. One tweet suggested Twitter might be dying, given that several celebrities with high numbers of followers rarely tweet. 

Unsatisfied with the influence that comes with being Twitters largest investor, he has now launched a full takeover, one of the few individuals who can afford it outright. Hes currently worth about $260 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, compared with Twitters market valuation of about $37 billion.

Although Musk is the worlds richest person, how he will find $43 billion in cash has yet to be revealed.

This becomes a hostile takeover offer which is going to cost a serious amount of cash, said Neil Campling, head of TMT research at Mirabaud Equity Research. He will have to sell a decent piece of Tesla stock to fund it, or a massive loan against it.

Much of Musks ire against Twitter has been directed against what he perceives as censorship by the platform. In a letter to Twitters board alongside details regarding his offer, Musk said he believes Twitter: will neither thrive nor serve [its free speech] societal imperative in its current form. Twitter needs to be transformed as a private company

Musk, who is scheduled to speak later today at a TED conference in Vancouver, is offering a 54% premium over the Jan. 28 closing price, the date after which he began building his initial stake in Twitter. The takeover attempt is unlikely to be a drawn-out process. 

If the deal doesnt work, given that I dont have confidence in management nor do I believe I can drive the necessary change in the public market, I would need to reconsider my position as a shareholder, said Musk.

Musk informed Twitters board over the previous weekend that he thought the company should be taken private, according to todays statement.

The $54.20 per share offer is too low for shareholders or the board to accept, said Vital Knowledges Adam Crisafulli in a report, adding that the companys shares hit $70 less than a year ago.

Although Musk said his offer was best and final, it opens the gates to rivals, either to team up with or out-bid his offer. Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, also on the board of Tesla, previously attempted to buy a stake in social media platform TikTok.

Musk has hired Morgan Stanley as his adviser for the bid. The offer price also includes the number 420, widely recognized as a coded reference to marijuana. He also picked $420 as the share price for possibly taking Tesla private in 2018, a move that brought him scrutiny from the SEC.

There will be host of questions around financing, regulatory, balancing Musks time (Tesla, SpaceX) in the coming days, said Dan Ives, analyst at Wedbush. But ultimately based on this filing it is a now or never bid for Twitter to accept.



Official SEC filing: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/d...8d1_sc13da.htm

Elon Musks full letter to Twitters board:

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## Anti Globalist

What exactly is Musks aim and end goal?  I highly doubt Twitter will receive substantial change.  It'll continue to be a liberal cesspool no matter who is in charge.

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## ClaytonB

> What exactly is Musks aim and end goal?  I highly doubt Twitter will receive substantial change.  It'll continue to be a liberal cesspool no matter who is in charge.


Look at the bigger picture.

Starlink is an actually good product. It serves the people.

Teslas are actually very good cars. They are subsidized because they pander to the Left's "green" agenda but do you really think that Musk is part of that agenda, given that he never really talks about it? Or is it, rather, that Musk recognizes a lucrative opportunity to get politically irrational players to pay for your good business idea?

Space-X's stated goals are wacky but their day-to-day operations are actually pretty sane. They're one of the few players able to get payloads up into space. That's a lot like being an aircraft builder in the early days of aviation... they're ground-floor in the privatized space-race. Once again, Musk mines the enthusiasm of irrational market players to earn a steady paycheck.

Get it?

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## Occam's Banana

> What exactly is Musks aim and end goal?


He professes to be a free-speech absolutist. Presumably, he intends to put an end to things like Twitter's suppression of certain news items (like the Hunter Biden laptop story) and the suspension or banning of accounts for spreading what the corporate press deems to be "misinformation" or what the woke mob deems to be offensive. (The Babylon Bee, for example, has been suspended for a few weeks now because they refuse to delete a tweet in which they referred to Rachel Levine as a "man". And the Libs of Tik Tok account was locked yesterday for "hateful content" just for doing what they've always done  - namely, posting videos of bat$#@! insane lefties/wokesters saying bat$#@! insane things. Presumably, that sort of thing would come to an end under Musk's ownership, or at least be sharply curtailed.)




> I highly doubt Twitter will receive substantial change.


Maybe. Maybe not. We'll see.

But there are a lot of unhinged lefties & neocons, screeching wokesters, and/or blue-check corporate media hacks melting down right now because they're afraid you are wrong.

https://twitter.com/MaxBoot/status/1514570168730636290


https://twitter.com/MatthewRozsa/sta...82899651194891





> It'll continue to be a liberal cesspool no matter who is in charge.


_*shrug*_ Twitter will continue to be whatever is in one's timeline, depending on who one follows.

If you follow "liberal cesspool" accounts, then that is what you'll get.

So if your Twitter feed is a "liberal cesspool", then that's on you.

You don't need Elon Musk (or anyone else) to do anything about it - just stop following "liberal cesspool" accounts.

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## TheTexan

> He professes to be a free-speech absolutist. Presumably, he intends to put an end to things like Twitter's suppression of certain news items (like the Hunter Biden laptop story) and the suspension or banning of accounts for spreading what the corporate press deems to be "misinformation" or what the woke mob deems to be offensive.


Pretty much every twitter account that has been doing actual journalism on the Ukraine war, has been suspended or banned at some point.

They've pretty much all moved to telegram by now.

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## TheTexan

> What exactly is Musks aim and end goal?  I highly doubt Twitter will receive substantial change.  It'll continue to be a liberal cesspool no matter who is in charge.


Elon Musk wouldn't be dumping $40 billion of his own money into it, if he wasn't going to take it seriously, to fix the culture at twitter.

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## acptulsa

> Elon Musk wouldn't be dumping $40 billion of his own money into it, if he wasn't going to take it seriously, to fix the culture at twitter.


Oh, there's definitely another possible explanation.




> But there are a lot of unhinged lefties & neocons, screeching wokesters, and/or blue-check corporate media hacks melting down right now because they're afraid you are wrong.


Looks like Musk just bought himself the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.  He's got it in the bag.  No other qualifications needed.

Hell, no more attention than RNC voters pay to whether or not promises are kept, he doesn't even need to bring free speech to $#@!ter to get it.

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## Occam's Banana

https://twitter.com/justinamash/stat...33754077237253

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## TheTexan

> Oh, there's definitely another possible explanation.
> 
> 
> 
> Looks like Musk just bought himself the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.  He's got it in the bag.  No other qualifications needed.
> 
> Hell, no more attention than RNC voters pay to whether or not promises are kept, he doesn't even need to bring free speech to $#@!ter to get it.


LOL.  Well, Twitter did, in large part, get Biden elected......

so....

Elon Musk 2024!!!

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## TheTexan

> Pretty much every twitter account that has been doing actual journalism on the Ukraine war, has been suspended or banned at some point.
> 
> They've pretty much all moved to telegram by now.


Scott Ritter wrote an article yesterday, of how he got banned...

https://consortiumnews.com/2022/04/1...n-free-speech/

The TLDR: disagreeing with the official narrative, is considered "abuse and harassment"

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## Occam's Banana

https://twitter.com/rasputin4prez/st...27833703899142


https://twitter.com/RBReich/status/1514612592026681347

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## Occam's Banana

> https://twitter.com/rasputin4prez/st...27833703899142


https://twitter.com/AuronMacintyre/s...28493933490193


https://twitter.com/axios/status/1514610430194315274


https://twitter.com/jeffjarvis/statu...78609754812419

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## Occam's Banana

https://twitter.com/caroljsroth/stat...80641370701826

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## jmdrake

> What exactly is Musks aim and end goal?  I highly doubt Twitter will receive substantial change.  It'll continue to be a liberal cesspool no matter who is in charge.


If he simply stops Twitter from censoring people then there will be liberal and conservative cesspools on Twitter.  Jack Dorsey when he kinda/sorta lamented his roll in creating internet censorship talked about Usenet.  Usenet was truly a free for all.  NOBODY owned it and all attempts and censoring free speech on Usenet failed for good and for ill.  (Usenet is were the term "spam" was invented.)  What is needed is an improved version of Usenet were it's easy to block people you don't like talking to you or your community, but they can say whatever the hell they want to their community, even if it's about you.  That said....I have no idea at this point whether or not I trust Musk.  But things can't get any worse....can they?

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## Brian4Liberty

Interesting move by Musk.

He has offered a price greater than the current share price. If the Board refuses the offer and Twitter stock plummets, shareholders will be able to sue the Board for not fulfilling their fiduciary responsibility.

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## GlennwaldSnowdenAssanged

I believe the ulterior motive is not to buy twitter but to have everyone go nuts over it. Twitter stock will soar and he can unload the shares he just purchased doubling his money.

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## acptulsa

> I believe the ulterior motive is not to buy twitter but to have everyone go nuts over it. Twitter stock will soar and he can unload the shares he just purchased doubling his money.


The ultimate twitter troll.

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## GlennwaldSnowdenAssanged

> The ultimate twitter troll.


Please elaborate.

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## GlennwaldSnowdenAssanged

> Interesting move by Musk.
> 
> He has offered a price greater than the current share price. If the Board refuses the offer and Twitter stock plummets, shareholders will be able to sue the Board for not fulfilling their fiduciary responsibility.


And if it goes up he can dump his shares at a hefty profit.

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## acptulsa

> The ultimate twitter troll.





> Please elaborate.


This:




> And if it goes up he can dump his shares at a hefty profit.


All that and he becomes a right wing darling too.  Can you think of a better way to troll twitter?

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## dannno

> What exactly is Musks aim and end goal?  I highly doubt Twitter will receive substantial change.  It'll continue to be a liberal cesspool no matter who is in charge.


Bring back Alex Jones, President Trump, Babylon Bee, Laura Loomer, Milo, anybody who got banned for tweeting #LearnToCode and a multitude of others. 

Make Twitter Great Again.

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## 69360

Pump and dump?

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## Brian4Liberty

Meltdown thread:

https://twitter.com/AuronMacintyre/s...53963408318474

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## 69360

So the basic argument against Musk seems to be that twitter needs more content moderation to protect free speech.

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## GlennwaldSnowdenAssanged

I am pretty sure for less than 43 Billion he could launch his own private successful twitter competitor and put them out of business or at least be a legitimate player in the industry.

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## Brian4Liberty

Elon Musk’s Twitter Bid Proves The ‘Private Business Can Do What It Wants’ Censorship Defense Was Always Garbage
BY: ELLE REYNOLDS - APRIL 14, 2022




> The “private business” or “build your own internet” argument in defense of Big Tech censorship was always a garbage excuse to let Silicon Valley silence speech it disagrees with, and the meltdown about Elon Musk’s offer to buy Twitter (making the platform a truly private company) makes it more obvious than ever.
> 
> The Tesla and SpaceX CEO, who became Twitter’s biggest shareholder earlier this month after purchasing 9.2 percent of the company’s stock, sent a letter to Twitter Wednesday night offering to buy the rest of Twitter’s stock at $54.20 per share in cash.
> 
> When Big Tech companies like Twitter have censored users or content that challenges their agendas in the past — see, the New York Post’s Hunter Biden’s laptop bombshell, the 45th president of the United States, reporting on the crisis at the U.S. southern border, an obituary of a mother who reportedly died from Covid shot complications, members of Congress, investigative reporting on abortion, summaries of court decisions about election law, a Federalist editor who said boys and girls are different, The Babylon Bee, and the “Libs of Tik Tok” account, which exposes educators talking about their radical sex ideology, to name a few — a gaggle of censorship aficionados inevitably insist that “because the First Amendment doesn’t regulate private companies they can silence whoever the heck they want.”
> 
> As he typically does in such matters, Washington Post columnist Max Boot provides a textbook example.
> 
> After the New York Post published bombshell reporting about a compromising laptop belonging to then-presidential candidate Joe Biden’s son Hunter — a laptop which, more than a year later, The New York Times and Boot’s own employer have admitted is legit — Boot loudly defended Twitter’s “private-sector” right to censor the story.
> ...

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## Occam's Banana

> Meltdown thread:
> 
> https://twitter.com/AuronMacintyre/s...53963408318474

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## Occam's Banana

> Musk, who is scheduled to speak later today at a TED conference in Vancouver [...]


https://twitter.com/YALiberty/status...58968240590849


https://twitter.com/ColumbiaBugle/st...59066320068653

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## Occam's Banana

https://twitter.com/3YearLetterman/s...62166091153415

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## ARealConservative

> I am pretty sure for less than 43 Billion he could launch his own private successful twitter competitor and put them out of business or at least be a legitimate player in the industry.


crowdsourcing is not easy - even with massive marketing money.    This is more like highlander - there can be only one - so the quickest solution is to buy the one

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## ARealConservative

> So the basic argument against Musk seems to be that twitter needs more content moderation to protect free speech.


it would be hilarious to see someone buy twitter and start moderating progressive content.  see how they like it

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## Occam's Banana

> Originally Posted by Brian4Liberty
> 
> 
> Meltdown thread:
> 
> https://twitter.com/AuronMacintyre/s...53963408318474


https://twitter.com/BriannaWu/status...91029571239936

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## GlennwaldSnowdenAssanged

Once he owns it everybody sues him nonstop for what he allows people to say.

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## Occam's Banana

https://twitter.com/JackPosobiec/sta...06745121288192

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## Occam's Banana

> https://twitter.com/JackPosobiec/sta...06745121288192


And speaking of the Old Gray Whore - she's as un-self-aware as she is debauched ...

https://twitter.com/ShiraOvide/statu...48112492683264

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## Brian4Liberty



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## Occam's Banana

> 


Yeah, well, those are exactly the kinds of things that "controlled opposition" would say about Elon Musk.

(See how that works?)

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## acptulsa

> Yeah, well, those are exactly the kinds of things that "controlled opposition" would say about Elon Musk.
> 
> (See how that works?)


Yeah, that's definitely how that works.  If there's one thing the species has learned, it's how to blow smoke in every direction.

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## Brian4Liberty

> Prediction: Musk is serious. Tw@tter is certainly going to reject his bid and he will leverage the hoopla to launch his own alternative to Tw@tter, operating on the same non-profit pattern as OpenAI, which is a Musk alternative to DeepMind.
> 
> PS: Some folks on RPF have this idea that Tech = Evil. Tech, in itself, is not evil. We're using tech to communicate on RPF _and this is solving one of the major organizational problems that libertarians were unable to solve in the 80's, 90's, etc._ At that time, libertarians were saying, "If we only had a more effective way than monthly newsletters for libertarians to share ideas and resources, the movement will explode." Well, we have it, it's called the Internet, and the movement has exploded. The censorship on Tw@tter is no concern to me and causes me exactly zero grief for the simple reason that I don't use Tw@tter and never will. It's only a matter of time until a reasonable and widely-used alternative emerges.


It is interesting to put it in libertarian terms. More than anything, the left and establishment want to censor libertarian thought. As long as you never take a libertarian stance on anything, you are free to say whatever you want on Twitter and social media. The outrage over Musk is directly due to his reputation for supposedly being libertarian.

Libertarianism is the true opposition to their racist, collectivist, centralized, Marxist, big government, welfare-warfare mommy state.

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## ClaytonB

> Yes, that's how they slid Trump under the radar, all right.


+1 for Second Hand Lions reference.... it's been decades since I watched that.




> Doesn't matter if it's true or not, people need to believe it.  That psychological property has been the basis of every con game ever concocted.


But your analysis only pierces through the first level of truth and lies. On a real battlefield, _what the troops believe, about whether they can win or not, can actually be the deciding factor in the battle, and often is_. In his excellent book _Strategy_, BH Liddel Hart explain that the highest aim of the battlefield general is always the _demoralization of the enemy troops_. The lower-ranked battlefield officers may worry about cannons, flanks, artillery, troop movements, maneuvers, logistics, and so on, but it is the _enemy morale_ which is the #1 target of the general. His primary aim and objective is always _to convince the enemy troops that they cannot hope to win_. The *hard truth* is that the globalists have *not* won, that evil has *not* taken over the world. Nearly so? Yes. But not completely. As long as there is one millimeter of space left within my own heart and mind to resist, *the enemy has not won*. That is the real truth, and that's because of the Gospel, which is something that is truly worth believing in.




> Yes.  Decent people exist.
> 
> No.  In this day and age, not one of them is famous.  Not one.
> 
> You're trying to fit Elon Musk through the eye of a needle.


No, I'm saying that I think Elon Musk has gone down to Georgia for an infernal fiddling contest. Why is he doing it? Is it for our good? Is it to save the world? Or is it just to enrich and glorify himself? I don't know. He's not a believer (hopefully that changes) but, for as long he is not cooperating with the globalists, he is not against us and, thus, he is for us. As with anyone who is not actually committed to the cause of Christ, that could change at any time. But the Gospel is capable of pragmatism wherever someone does not make themselves an overt enemy of the name of Jesus.




> How many times do we have to learn The Lesson of Ron Paul?  I've said it until I'm blue in the face.  Good people aren't famous.  The good people Must Not Be Named.  If they're famous, and say some of the right things sometimes, they're controlled opposition.  "But they can't be ignored because they're rich" is an ignorant counter argument.  There are rich people you never heard of.  They aren't as rich as Musk, but how did he get as rich as Croesus?  By being nice?
> 
> News flash--er, history flash: Croesus was an $#@!.
> 
> That's not FUD.  It is fact.  I don't despair over the fact that the people we can rely on aren't famous.  I don't know why so many people are so shallow that they can't see that the Somebodies are nobody and the nobodies are often something special.


It's an oversimplification. The will-to-power is not always lit from the flame of hostility towards mankind. It can also come from a relatively benign narcissism and, in fact, it often has. Wherever the will-to-power is not actively hostile to the general good of mankind, it can be allied with for pragmatic purposes. Such alliances are qualified, conditional, temporary and wholly pragmatic. But they are also necessary, a point that can be deduced from the sheer existence of the wicked State within the context of Matthew 28:18, "All power in heaven and earth has been given to me." If it were not necessary to tolerate the wicked for a time, they would have already been obliterated. They are not in the seat of power. They are being baited and led into the trap. In the meantime, they are spewing enemy psyop propaganda to demoralize anyone who stands up for what is good, true and beautiful. That is why the Gospel is not a "metaphorical" war, it's a _literal_ war. It's just not fought with swords and firearms because the conquest of the Gospel is not by force, but by conscience.

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## Occam's Banana

> Yeah, that's definitely how that works. If there's one thing the species has learned, it's how to blow smoke in every direction.


Exactly. Which is why unfalsifiable accusations of "controlled opposition" are a flamethrower that can roast anyone it's pointed at.

If one wished to do so, one could make the case that Ron Paul is "controlled opposition". Hell, I wouldn't be at all surprised if someone had already done so. And then, of course, any person making such a case could in turn be accused of being "controlled opposition" - and so on and so forth. Rather than riding that endless merry-go-round, I would just break the cycle and say that if Ron Paul (or, yes, even Elon Musk) is "controlled opposition", then by God and sonny Jesus, we could do with _more_ "controlled opposition" - a _lot_ more.




> It is interesting to put it in libertarian terms. More than anything, the left and establishment want to censor libertarian thought. As long as you never take a libertarian stance on anything, you are free to say whatever you want on Twitter and social media. *The outrage over Musk is directly due to his reputation for supposedly being libertarian.*
> 
> Libertarianism is the true opposition to their racist, collectivist, centralized, Marxist, big government, welfare-warfare mommy state.


And then there's the fact that even someone with ulterior motives for insincerely advocating genuinely libertarian ideals would nevertheless still be advocating genuinely libertarian ideals. It doesn't take a Clausewitz or a Sun Tzu to realize that's not a particularly good strategy if one's objective is to suppress or thwart the expression of libertarian ideals. Quite the opposite - which is precisely why so many enemies of liberty are screeching so hysterically about Elon Musk right now (entirely regardless of whatever Musk's motives or purposes might actually be).

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## ClaytonB

> It is interesting to put it in libertarian terms. More than anything, the left and establishment want to censor libertarian thought. As long as you never take a libertarian stance on anything, you are free to say whatever you want on Twitter and social media. The outrage over Musk is directly due to his reputation for supposedly being libertarian.
> 
> Libertarianism is the true opposition to their racist, collectivist, centralized, Marxist, big government, welfare-warfare mommy state.


Agreed. And if you're in the mood for a real dressing-down, try standing for the raw, unfiltered teachings of Jesus and see what happens.

China To Christians: We’re Rewriting The Bible, And You’ll Use It Or Else (The Federalist, October 26, 2020)

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## Occam's Banana

> What I mean [when I say the corporate press is "un-self-aware"] is that they are oblivious to the fact that they are no longer the potent and powerful curators of public discourse that they once were but still imagine themselves to be. *The days when an avuncular Walter Cronkite could tell you "that's the way it is" and be taken seriously at his word are long over.* Every time they peddle some asinine bit of nonsense [...], they think they are advancing their cause, but they are actually just exposing their increasingly desperate impotence for all to see.
> 
> And see it they will. We have the Internet, social media, and "Big Tech" (despite themselves) to thank for that fact. They are being hoisted on their own petard, and they simply don't know what to do about it [...]
> 
> It's a glorious thing to behold.


Uncle Walter's nephew chimes in ...

https://twitter.com/GlenBradley/stat...31090481799170

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## acptulsa

> ...the highest aim of the battlefield general is always the _demoralization of the enemy troops_. No, I'm saying that I think Elon Musk has gone down to Georgia for an infernal fiddling contest. Why is he doing it? Is it for our good? Is it to save the world? Or is it just to enrich and glorify himself? I don't know. He's not a believer (hopefully that changes) but, for as long he is not cooperating with the globalists, he is not against us and, thus, he is for us...
> 
>  As with anyone who is not actually committed to the cause of Christ, that could change at any time...


No argument.  But what better method is there for demoralizing people than to hold someone up to fame and fortune as a savior, then beat him?  Or better still, have him betray you?  Trump, 9iu11iani's Great Investigation, etc. have all demoralized who you and I consider to be Our Troops.

Elon Musk's title should be Speaker of Truth at the Moment.  *Not* Savior.

I think that's important to say, simply, succinctly and often.




> Uncle Walter's nephew chimes in ...
> 
> https://twitter.com/GlenBradley/stat...31090481799170


Like toilet paper, legacy media is a One Time Abuse Product.

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## Occam's Banana

*Twitter adopts poison pill in bid to thwart Elon Musk takeover*
https://www.axios.com/twitter-elon-m...081557a84.html
_Jacob Knutson & Sara Fischer (15 April 2022)_

Twitter's board on Friday enacted a defensive measure meant to deter Elon Musk's $43 billion hostile takeover bid.

*Why it matters:* The "poison pill," as it's called in corporate terms, gives Twitter's existing shareholders time to purchase additional shares at a discount, thus diluting Musk's ownership stake.

*How it works:* The move is designed to make it difficult for anyone, including Musk, to build a stake worth more than 15% of the company.

A poison pill gives existing shareholders the ability to purchase additional shares in the company at a discount, which in turn dilutes the stake of the person or party seeking to buy the company.
*The big picture:* Musk disclosed a 9.2% stake in Twitter earlier this month.

He then announced he was joining the company's board of directors and began proposing several changes to the platform, including turning the company's headquarters into a homeless shelter.Musk has repeatedly said he believes Twitter is "failing to adhere to free speech principles," and even proposed creating a rival platform, on which "free speech and adhering to free speech is given top priority."He later backed out of joining the board and offered to purchase the company for $54.20 a share, though he did not specify how he planned to pay for it.
*What they're saying:* Twitter said in a statement that "its Board of Directors has unanimously adopted a limited duration shareholder rights plan. ... The Board adopted the Rights Plan following an unsolicited, non-binding proposal to acquire Twitter."

"The Rights Plan will reduce the likelihood that any entity, person or group gains control of Twitter through open market accumulation without paying all shareholders an appropriate control premium or without providing the Board sufficient time to make informed judgments and take actions that are in the best interests of shareholders," the company added.

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## ClaytonB

> No argument.  But what better method is there for demoralizing people than to hold someone up to fame and fortune as a savior, then beat him?  Or better still, have him betray you?  Trump, 9iu11iani's Great Investigation, etc. have all demoralized who you and I consider to be Our Troops.


I guess that's why I keep suggesting that we think of these people as "onramps" to the real Movement. If you show up to a MAGA/Trump rally and leave with a church pamphlet and realize you need to get serious about your spiritual life which you have left in utter neglect since your teenage years, or whatever, that's a net win. Does that mean that MAGA/Trump should receive unqualified backing/endorsement? Of course not. But as long as they are generating tailwind for the Kingdom/Gospel, I'll take it. This period of pragmatism is itself temporary... eventually, we are going to come to the left-right razor of the judgment seat... one day, everyone will have to clearly choose whether they are on the side of the good, or evil. That's what Revelation is all about. But for now, the reality is that we are in a gray zone, and we are simply fools to refuse to add pragmatism to principle.




> Elon Musk's title should be Speaker of Truth at the Moment.  *Not* Savior.


Agreed. We already have a Savior, we don't need any others.

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## CaptUSA

> *Twitter adopts poison pill in bid to thwart Elon Musk takeover*
> https://www.axios.com/twitter-elon-m...081557a84.html
> _Jacob Knutson & Sara Fischer (15 April 2022)_
> 
> Twitter's board on Friday enacted a defensive measure meant to deter Elon Musk's $43 billion hostile takeover bid.
> 
> *Why it matters:* The "poison pill," as it's called in corporate terms, gives Twitter's existing shareholders time to purchase additional shares at a discount, thus diluting Musk's ownership stake.
> 
> *How it works:* The move is designed to make it difficult for anyone, including Musk, to build a stake worth more than 15% of the company.
> ...


Doesn't this have the huge potential for backfire?  I mean, I'm sure there were plenty of shareholders that were salivating at the prospects of the big buyout.  Now, if they can purchase additional shares and give their proxies to Musk, they can make out even better.  Obviously, this takes some coordination, but in the modern era, coordination like this is increasingly feasible.

Maybe just wishful thinking?

----------


## Occam's Banana

*BREAKING: Twitter Board Utilizes ‘Poison Pill’ To Stop Elon Musk From Buying The Company*
_The plan intends to 'reduce the likelihood that any entity, person or group gains control of Twitter’_
https://timcast.com/news/breaking-tw...g-the-company/
_Michael Robison (15 April 2022)_

In a press release on Friday, Twitter announced that it was enacting a plan that would limit Elon Musk’s ability to purchase the social media giant outright.

Faced with the prospect of a hostile takeover, the Twitter Board has adopted a defensive strategy called a “shareholder rights plan.” 

Shareholder rights plans, also known as “poison pills,” are a takeover defense tool often used to avoid escalating a hostile or unsolicited offer by keeping an investor from accumulating a significant ownership stake.

Shareholder rights plans are one of the most potent and effective defenses against a hostile takeover. By capping ownership, a plan compels a bidder to negotiate directly with the Board of Directors instead of launching an unapproved tender offer or accumulating a controlling stake through open market purchases. 

Such a maneuver can level the playing field by giving the Board greater control of a process, providing more time for deliberations, and responding to aggressive negotiating tactics. 

However, a rights plan is not absolute protection. While it does prevent a third party from quickly acquiring a controlling stake in a company, hostile bidders can still wage a public campaign to pressure the Board to negotiate and complete the intended purchase.

In the press release, Twitter states the plan “will reduce the likelihood that any entity, person or group gains control of Twitter through open market accumulation” — an evident response to Musk’s attempted purchase on Thursday. 

The so-called poison pill becomes active “if an entity, person or group acquires beneficial ownership of 15% or more of Twitter’s outstanding common stock in a transaction not approved by the Board.”

If the plan becomes active, current shareholders will be entitled to a special class of shares sold at a lower-than-market price to acquire controlling equity in the company, thus ending the third party’s ability to gain controlling ownership. 

According to Twitter, the Shareholder Rights Plan will remain active until April 14, 2023 — seemingly thwarting Musk from purchasing controlling interest in the social media platform for at least one year. 

At this point, Musk’s remaining option would be to lobby current shareholders by convincing them to relinquish their shares in a sale directly to him. In most instances, someone like Musk will be forced to utilize a public campaign to compel shareholders to abandon their right to exercise the purchase options made available through the limited plan. 

It remains to be seen what next steps Musk will take in his bid to purchase Twitter.

----------


## Occam's Banana



----------


## Occam's Banana

Cue "Ride of the Valkyries"

----------


## CaptUSA



----------


## Occam's Banana

> Uncle Walter's nephew chimes in ...
> 
> https://twitter.com/GlenBradley/stat...31090481799170


https://twitter.com/JoeStrick1/statu...04766862155783


https://twitter.com/michaelmalice/st...05293784186881


https://twitter.com/michaelmalice/st...04801582514176

----------


## Occam's Banana

*Elon Musk Trolls Twitter (Spectacularly!) - A Rant*
_Boy. These bluechecks seem to think this Musk fella is untrustworthy. Good thing he isn't making the cars they drive or anything._
https://odysee.com/@RazorFist:1/elon...olls-twitter:e

----------


## ClaytonB



----------


## nobody's_hero

> Yeah, well, those are exactly the kinds of things that "controlled opposition" would say about Elon Musk.
> 
> (See how that works?)


Or maybe the things the controlled opposition would say the controlled opposition would say about him.

----------


## Occam's Banana

> Or maybe the things the controlled opposition would say the controlled opposition would say about him.


Or things the controlled opposition would say the controlled opposition would say the controlled opposition would say about him.

Maybe it's turtles controlled opposition all the way down ...

----------


## Anti Federalist

> Or things the controlled opposition would say the controlled opposition would say the controlled opposition would say about him.
> 
> Maybe it's turtles controlled opposition all the way down ...

----------


## Anti Federalist



----------


## ClaytonB

> 


"If free speech is restored to even one big social media platform, it all comes tumbling down."

That's why, despite the fact that Musk is, indeed, trolling, *this story matters*. It reminds me of the neoCON line about terrorism that was popular after 9/11: Terrorists Have to Be Lucky Once; Targets, Every Time.

The tyrants are fighting gravity, not the other way around. Never forget it!!

----------


## Anti Globalist

Who's going to tell him?

----------


## Occam's Banana

> What I mean [when I say the corporate press is "un-self-aware"] is that they are oblivious to the fact that they are no longer the potent and powerful curators of public discourse that they once were but still imagine themselves to be.


https://twitter.com/DrewHolden360/st...65971757879306

----------


## Occam's Banana

> *Elon Takes Twitter - Part Of The Problem #847*
> _On this episode of Part Of The Problem, Dave and Robbie talk about Elon Musk's attempted hostile takeover of Twitter, the importance of the platform and the corruption that has led to this. This Show Was Recorded On 4.15.22_
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5YlklWTv_4


//

----------


## Occam's Banana

> Doesn't this have the huge potential for backfire?  I mean, I'm sure there were plenty of shareholders that were salivating at the prospects of the big buyout.  Now, if they can purchase additional shares and give their proxies to Musk, they can make out even better.  Obviously, this takes some coordination, but in the modern era, coordination like this is increasingly feasible.
> 
> Maybe just wishful thinking?


https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1515405264740134918


*Investopedia: Tender Offer*

----------


## jmdrake

> What's really funny is that if you openly support Nazi's in Ukraine - that's fine.
> 
> If your tweet _criticizes_ Nazi's in Ukaine.... you get banned.


That's only true if you are from the west.  YouTube banned a popular Chinese vlogger because China was upset because his posts were seen as anti Russian.  I kid  you not.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world...ort/ar-AAVUcDY

----------


## GlennwaldSnowdenAssanged

Will Twitter bann Musk?

----------


## Brian4Liberty

Was talking to a Democrat last weekend. They proclaimed that they had deleted their Twitter account because of Elon Musk. Apparently they have also developed a hatred of Bill Maher, who they used to love. The left seems to be imploding.

----------


## DamianTV

*Elon Musk threatens Twitter board*
https://www.infowars.com/posts/elon-...twitter-board/




> *Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk has come up with a quick way to lop off some costs if he prevails in a bid to acquire Twitter: ceasing to pay the company’s board members, who have tried to block the takeover, allegedly to the detriment of the shareholders they supposedly represent.*
> 
> Musk, whose fortune is estimated at nearly $270 billion by Forbes, vowed on Monday to fire Twitter’s directors – or at least cut off their compensation – if and when his $43 billion takeover goes through. He made his comment in response to investment advisor Gary Black, who pointed out that Twitter has been paying its board members $250,000-$300,000 in cash and stock awards annually for their part-time work as outside directors.
> 
> “_Board salary will be $0 if my bid succeeds, so that’s $3 million/year saved right there,_” Musk said in a Twitter post.
> 
> Board salary will be $0 if my bid succeeds, so that’s ~$3M/year saved right there
> 
> — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 18, 2022
> ...


I am not that big of a fan of Elon Musk, but shaking things up at $#@!ter to me is just fine.  I dont hate Elon.  I dont love Elon either.  He is just 'meh'.  But shaking the tree at $#@!ter gets a thumbs up from me.

----------


## Occam's Banana

> [...] And the Libs of Tik Tok account was locked yesterday for "hateful content" just for doing what they've always done  - namely, posting videos of bat$#@! insane lefties/wokesters saying bat$#@! insane things. [...]





> What I mean [when I say the corporate press is "un-self-aware"] is that they are oblivious to the fact that they are no longer the potent and powerful curators of public discourse that they once were but still imagine themselves to be. [...] Every time they peddle some asinine bit of nonsense (such as that New York Times *Washington Post* item painting Elon Musk as some kind of wannabe Citizen-Kane-style "press baron" *doxxing anonymous Twitter users like the person behind the Libs of Tik Tok account*), they think they are advancing their cause, but they are actually just exposing their increasingly desperate impotence for all to see.
> 
> And see it they will. We have the Internet, social media, and "Big Tech" (despite themselves) to thank for that fact. They are being hoisted on their own petard, and they simply don't know what to do about it [...]
> 
> It's a glorious thing to behold.


https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/statu...74705309921283

----------


## Brian4Liberty

> https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/statu...74705309921283


That name sounds familiar. Oh yeah, the crazy reporter that was crying that people were picking on her.

File this under toxic femininity, along with Jen Psaki and Adam Kinzinger.

----------


## Occam's Banana

> Originally Posted by Occam's Banana
> 
> 
> https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/statu...74705309921283
> 
> 
> 
> That name sounds familiar. Oh yeah, the crazy reporter that was crying that people were picking on her.


*THREAD: Female Journalist DESTROYS Lives & Then Claims To Have PTSD From Mean Tweets! Taylor Lorenz Roasted!*

----------


## Occam's Banana

> https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/statu...74705309921283


*The WashPost's Doxxing of @LibsOfTikTok Reveals Who Corporate Journalists See as Their Targets*
_Trump-era corporate journalism ceased viewing real power centers as adversaries (CIA/NSA/FBI/WallSt). The real enemy are citizens with the wrong politics. Rather than confront real power centers, the largest and richest media corporations - eg, the Bezos-owned Washington Post - allied with those factions and attack citizens. 

The 2018 CNN obscenity featured in this video is most illustrative: they confronted an old lady with a tiny pro-Trump FB page on her yard. We recall when CNN threatened to dox someone who made an anti-CNN meme and when the Daily Beast published dirt and the real name of someone who published a video making Nancy Pelosi look drunk.

This is the key lesson of the latest tawdry episode with the Washington Post's Taylor Lorenz: ever since a Trump presidency became a possibility, the largest liberal media corporations - over and over - have used their vast resources to target and punish private citizens for the wrong politics._
https://rumble.com/v11n4sn-taylor-lo...alists-se.html

----------


## Occam's Banana

https://twitter.com/BowTiedRanger/st...78265655521280

----------


## Occam's Banana

*Twitter reconsiders Elon Musk's takeover bid after $46.5 billion in financing secured*
_Both sides are reportedly meeting Sunday to discuss Musk's proposal._
https://thepostmillennial.com/twitte...ancing-secured
_Hannah Nightingale (24 April 2022)_

Twitter is reportedly re-examining SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk's $43 billion offer to buy the Big Tech company after he revealed that he has now secured $46.5 billion for the potential buyout.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Twitter had been ready to reject the offer, but will take a new look at it after the business magnate revealed his filing with the SEC showing that he has lined up financing for the offer.

The financing includes $22.5 billion which will come from his own equities.

People familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal that the revelation makes it more likely for Twitter to seek to negative the offer with Musk.

"The situation is fast-moving and it is still far from guaranteed Twitter will do so," The Wall Street Journal noted.

Some of the people said that Twitter is still working on an estimate of its own value, and could also insist on sweeteners for the deal such as Musk covering breakup costs if the deal falls through.

The two sides are reportedly meeting on Sunday to discuss Musk’s offer.

The company is expected to address on the bid when it reports first-quarter earnings Thursday, if not sooner, the people said.

Their response could leave the door open to other bidders, or negotiating with Musk on terms not included in the price.

The people told The Wall Street Journal that Musk remains firm on his offer of $54.20-a-share.

The potential turnaround from Twitter comes as Musk met with several shareholders of the company privately on Friday to talk up his proposal through a series of video calls.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Musk reportedly has a few shareholders behind him following the meetings.

Lauri Brunner, who manages Thrivent Asset Management LLC’s large-cap growth fund, said. "He has an established track record at Tesla," she said. "He is the catalyst to deliver strong operating performance at Twitter."

Musk has reportedly said he is considering taking his bid directly to shareholders by launching a tender offer, but even if he was to get significant shareholder support, he would still have to work around the company’s "poison pill."

----------


## Occam's Banana

*Twitter set to accept Musk's original $43 [billion] offer*
https://www.reuters.com/technology/e...es-2022-04-25/
_Greg Roumeliotis (25 April 2022)_

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Twitter Inc. is poised to agree [to] a sale to Elon Musk for around $43 billion in cash, the price the chief executive of Tesla Inc. has called his "best and final" offer for the social media company, people familiar with the matter said.

Twitter may announce the $54.20-per-share deal later on Monday once its board has met to recommend the transaction to Twitter shareholders, the sources said. It is always possible that the deal collapses at the last minute, the sources added.

Musk, the world's richest person according to a tally by Forbes, is negotiating to buy Twitter in a personal capacity and Tesla is not involved in the deal.

Twitter has not been able to secure so far a 'go-shop' provision under its agreement with Musk that would allow it to solicit other bids once the deal is signed, the sources said. Still, Twitter would be allowed to accept an offer from another party by paying Musk a break-up fee, the sources added.

The sources requested anonymity because the matter is confidential. Twitter and Musk did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Twitter shares were up 4.5% in pre-market trading in New York on Monday at $51.15.

Musk has said Twitter needs to be taken private to grow and become a genuine platform for free speech.

The deal would come just four days after Musk unveiled a financing package to back the acquisition. This led Twitter's board to take the deal more seriously and many shareholders to ask the company not to let the opportunity for a deal to slip away, Reuters reported on Sunday.

The sale would represent an admission by Twitter that its new chief executive Parag Agrawal, who took the helm in November, is not making enough traction in making the company more profitable, despite being on track to meet ambitious financial goals the company set for 2023. Twitter's shares were trading higher than Musk's offer price as recently as November.

Musk's negotiating tactics - making one offer and sticking with it - resembles how another billionaire, Warren Buffett, negotiates acquisitions. Musk did not provide any financing details when he first disclosed his offer for Twitter, making the market skeptical about its prospects.

----------


## Occam's Banana

Talcum X has some thoughts:

https://twitter.com/shaunking/status...76839777734657

----------


## Occam's Banana

*Come laugh at this thread of Twitter blue checks crying about Elon's imminent purchase of Twitter*

----------


## Occam's Banana



----------


## Brian4Liberty

> Talcum X has some thoughts:
> 
> https://twitter.com/shaunking/status...76839777734657


Does anybody pay attention to this race-baiting, grifting fraud anymore?

He is telling half truths. It is not about Republican vs. Democrat.

It is about a global leftist totalitarian establishment vs. liberty and freedom.

He is firmly in the totalitarian establishment camp.

----------


## CaptUSA

> Talcum X has some thoughts:
> 
> https://twitter.com/shaunking/status...76839777734657


Man, this is how he treats a successful African American?!

----------


## pcosmar



----------


## CaptUSA

I imagine the document shredder at Twitter is going brrrrr right now.

----------


## Mordan



----------


## ClaytonB

> What is this meme?
> 
> I've seen it a couple times now, and other than Musk's face in some sort fiery background, all my eye is drawn to is a really nice watercolor rendition of a mid fifties vintage Merritt or Ryobovich convertible sportsfisherman.


I was going to use the original _Independence Day_ for the backdrop but then I saw this frame-grab from _Independence Day: Resurgence_ and just thought it had more of the "darkness descending from the heavens" effect. I put another version in the Best Picture Thread (Elon chasing the Twitter board).

----------


## Anti Globalist



----------


## unconsious767

why didn't they deploy the 'poison pill' bullsheit?

----------


## TheTexan

> why didn't they deploy the 'poison pill' bullsheit?


Some bull$#@! about Elon actually raising the money, or going to shareholders directly, or some $#@!.

----------


## Brian4Liberty

> why didn't they deploy the 'poison pill' bullsheit?





> Some bull$#@! about Elon actually raising the money, or going to shareholders directly, or some $#@!.


The Board and executives could be sued by shareholders for violating their fiduciary responsibilities. They can virtue signal all day long, but once their pocketbooks are threatened, they are going to fold.

----------


## Anti Federalist

> *Come laugh at this thread of Twitter blue checks crying about Elon's imminent purchase of Twitter*


What do you call a basement full of Progressives?
A whine cellar.

----------


## Brian4Liberty

Tucker Carlson on Elon Musk buying Twitter: "Tonight, the tyrants are grieving."

----------


## ClaytonB

> The Board and executives could be sued by shareholders for violating their fiduciary responsibilities. They can virtue signal all day long, but once their pocketbooks are threatened, they are going to fold.


This is the answer. In order to be able to successfully hold off Musk's bid, the Twitter board needed the Biden admin to go all-in on the SEC front against Musk. But what do they really have to offer? They don't hold shares, so they really don't have any bacon to offer the string-pullers. So the strings didn't really get pulled, and that left them facing the unbridled fury of Musk's army of lawyers, Musk himself being the largest single shareholder and, therefore, entitled to sue them. Not to mention he could have built a class-action lawsuit by offering the services of his lawyers to any other shareholders who wanted to jump on the bandwagon. It would have been the legal equivalent of a palm-strike to the nose-cartilage.

----------


## TheTexan

> Tucker Carlson on Elon Musk buying Twitter: "Tonight, the tyrants are grieving."


(4:55 - 5:20) Elon Musk - "[free speech] is extremely important to the future of civilization... I don't care about the economics at all"

+rep Elon Musk

----------


## Occam's Banana

> And I see the usual Black Pillers are here to throw cold water on a decisive win.
> 
> I've been as critical of Musk as anybody has in the past, but this is a powerful win against our oppressors, and I'm *not* going to go down the rabbit hole of infinite conspiracies and 24D chess.
> 
> Sometimes people do the right thing after carefully considering everything.


_You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Anti Federalist again._

And just to repeat something I said earlier in this thread (bold emphasis added):




> [U]nfalsifiable accusations of "controlled opposition" are a flamethrower that can roast anyone it's pointed at.
> 
> If one wished to do so, one could make the case that Ron Paul is "controlled opposition". Hell, I wouldn't be at all surprised if someone had already done so. And then, of course, any person making such a case could in turn be accused of being "controlled opposition" - and so on and so forth. Rather than riding that endless merry-go-round, I would just break the cycle and say that *if* Ron Paul (or, yes, even *Elon Musk) is "controlled opposition", then by God and sonny Jesus, we could do with more "controlled opposition" - a lot more*.
> 
> And then there's the fact that *even someone with ulterior motives for insincerely advocating genuinely libertarian ideals would nevertheless still be advocating genuinely libertarian ideals*. It doesn't take a Clausewitz or a Sun Tzu to realize that's not a particularly good strategy if one's objective is to suppress or thwart the expression of libertarian ideals. Quite the opposite - *which is precisely why so many enemies of liberty are screeching so hysterically about Elon Musk right now (entirely regardless of whatever Musk's motives or purposes might actually be)*.

----------


## Occam's Banana

> Talcum X has some thoughts:
> 
> https://twitter.com/shaunking/status...76839777734657


Updated:

https://twitter.com/shaunking/status...76839777734657




https://twitter.com/ElectionWiz/stat...72186508664832

----------


## ClaytonB

> Updated:
> 
> https://twitter.com/shaunking/status...76839777734657
> 
> 
> 
> 
> https://twitter.com/ElectionWiz/stat...72186508664832


Musk needs to make sure that Twitter indicates whether the user deactivated their own account, otherwise, the Left is going to rage-quit Twitter and then claim that Musk had them all banned. They are absolutely _shameless_ liars.

----------


## ClaytonB

> And I see the usual Black Pillers are here to throw cold water on a decisive win.
> 
> I've been as critical of Musk as anybody has in the past, but this is a powerful win against our oppressors, and I'm *not* going to go down the rabbit hole of infinite conspiracies and 24D chess.
> 
> Sometimes people do the right thing after carefully considering everything.

----------


## dannno



----------


## TheTexan

> 


That's some good trolling right there.  Elon would be proud

----------


## acptulsa



----------


## Anti Federalist

>

----------


## acptulsa



----------


## Invisible Man

What's Musk's real agenda here?

It's not just to transform Twitter into platform for more diverse views out of some kind of altruistic commitment to free speech.

That may be the effect this has, and a legitimate secondary reason. And more power to him for it. If nothing else, it illustrates how capitalism can redirect selfish motives into reasons to serve the interests of others.

But still, underneath all that, I think Musk has to have selfish motives. What are they?

Is it that he sees a legitimate opportunity to make a lot of money by paying more for Twitter than it's worth? Possibly. That probably is the simplest explanation.

I still wonder though. In decades past (and to some extent still today). Wealthy oligarchs would buy major newspapers and media outlets, not so much for their profitability as for the opportunity to leverage their influence in ways that they saw as advantageous for their other business and political endeavors. I think Musk may see potential for something like that in Twitter. There may be a superficial ideal of it being an uncontrolled venue. But I'm sure that an intelligent and creative leader like Musk can see ways to steer the messaging that Twitter broadcasts in ways that look more hands off than they really are.

----------


## ClaytonB

> Twitter already does that:
> 
> https://twitter.com/shaunking
> 
> 
> https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump


OK cool

----------


## Snowball

> No doubt and there is some indication of that already in his tweet.

----------


## ClaytonB

> Sorta wondering when Elon Musk, DARPA deepstate front-man, lover of massive government subsidies and Agenda 2030 carbon credits, became a hero to right-wing conservatives?  Just because he may be involved in taking Twitter private and tweets a few words about free speech?     
> 
> Seems scripted by the usual "If we tell the right that the left hates this person, the right will reflexively embrace this person" propaganda operations.  It's a bit too obvious of a tactic used these days to get the right to embrace people as standard-bearers that they should not embrace.  I guess it still works though since few actually look into the backgrounds of people like Musk.

----------


## devil21

> 


Of course he is.  Don't be an idiot....again.

----------


## Occam's Banana

> Sorta wondering when Elon Musk, DARPA deepstate front-man, lover of massive government subsidies and Agenda 2030 carbon credits, became a hero to right-wing conservatives?  Just because he may be involved in taking Twitter private and tweets a few words about free speech?     
> 
> Seems scripted by the usual "If we tell the right that the left hates this person, the right will reflexively embrace this person" propaganda operations.  It's a bit too obvious of a tactic used these days to get the right to embrace people as standard-bearers that they should not embrace.  I guess it still works though since few actually look into the backgrounds of people like Musk.


_*yawn*_ Yeah, yeah, yeah, we get it, already. Elon Musk is "controlled opposition" - and the rest of us are just a bunch of blind fools and idiotic suckers being hopelessly and haplessly manipulated by the omni-competent and all-encompassing script-masters because we happen to like something about a rich and influential guy who otherwise has some self-interested opinions and policy positions we disagree with.

Sorry, but I'm gonna need an exhaustive analysis of the numerological significance of the number of "likes" received for tweets that were posted by Elon Musk on certain augural dates before I am entirely convinced of his utter and irredeemable perfidiousness.

----------


## Occam's Banana

> 


_You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to ClaytonB again._

----------


## Brian4Liberty

> ...
> But until now, Musks criticisms do not appear to have been personal or targeted at individual Twitter employees. His responses to the tweets from Enjeti and online influencer Mike Cernovich also reveal the chaos  and potential harm  that can ensue when the incoming owner of a company amplifies criticism of workers there.
> ...


If I could ask Musk one question right now, I would ask how he will decide who to fire. It is a difficult question. 

My recommendation would be to wipe out upper management entirely, anyone not doing real work. And eliminate any diversity or inclusion BS positions. Best to do it right up front.

----------


## devil21

> _*yawn*_ Yeah, yeah, yeah, we get it, already. Elon Musk is "controlled opposition" - and the rest of us are just a bunch of blind fools and idiotic suckers being hopelessly and haplessly manipulated by the omni-competent and all-encompassing script-masters because we happen to like something about a rich and influential guy who otherwise has some self-interested opinions and policy positions we disagree with.
> 
> Sorry, but I'm gonna need an exhaustive analysis of the numerological significance of the number of "likes" received for tweets that were posted by Elon Musk on certain augural dates before I am entirely convinced of his utter and irredeemable perfidiousness.


I notice you didn't refute anything I wrote, just personal ad hominem.  You're above that.  Or at least you used to be.

----------


## Occam's Banana

> If I could ask Musk one question right now, I would ask how he will decide who to fire. It is a difficult question. 
> 
> My recommendation would be to wipe out upper management entirely, anyone not doing real work. And eliminate any diversity or inclusion BS positions. Best to do it right up front.


Even if he makes a sincere and genuine attempt to institute significant changes, he will certainly be resisted and undermined from within.

Depending on how "hands on" he is willing to get, there may not be much he can do about it.

HR departments have far greater control over a company's "culture" than CEOs or owners do.

----------


## TheTexan

> Even if he makes a sincere and genuine attempt to institute significant changes, he will certainly be resisted and undermined from within.
> 
> Depending on how "hands on" he is willing to get, there may not be much he can do about it.
> 
> HR departments have far greater control over a company's "culture" than CEOs or owners do.


My guess is that most "changes" will happen on a case by case basis, as people bring specific things to elon's attention... via twitter.

----------


## TheTexan

> My guess is that most "changes" will happen on a case by case basis, as people bring specific things to elon's attention... via twitter.


At least until Elon gets swarmed with this stuff and figures out its unsustainable, then in a knee jerk reaction he fires entire executive staff

----------


## Occam's Banana

> I notice you didn't refute anything I wrote, just personal ad hominem.  You're above that.  Or at least you used to be.


I didn't waste time trying to refute anything you wrote because what you wrote cannot be refuted.

As I noted earlier in this very thread, that is precisely the problem inherent in all "controlled opposition" narratives:




> [U]nfalsifiable accusations of "controlled opposition" are a flamethrower that can roast anyone it's pointed at.
> 
> If one wished to do so, one could make the case that Ron Paul is "controlled opposition". Hell, I wouldn't be at all surprised if someone had already done so. And then, of course, any person making such a case could in turn be accused of being "controlled opposition" - and so on and so forth. Rather than riding that endless merry-go-round, I would just break the cycle and say that if Ron Paul (or, yes, even Elon Musk) is "controlled opposition", then by God and sonny Jesus, we could do with _more_ "controlled opposition" - a _lot_ more.
> 
> And then there's the fact that even someone with ulterior motives for insincerely advocating genuinely libertarian ideals would nevertheless still be advocating genuinely libertarian ideals. It doesn't take a Clausewitz or a Sun Tzu to realize that that is not a particularly good strategy if one's objective is to suppress or thwart the expression of libertarian ideals. Quite the opposite - which is precisely why so many enemies of liberty are screeching so hysterically about Elon Musk right now (entirely regardless of whatever Musk's motives or purposes might actually be).


I could accuse you of being "controlled opposition" who is deliberately trying to undermine and disparage what appears to be a positive development in the "information wars" - and there is nothing you or anyone else could do to disprove or refute it that I could not in turn dismiss as just being more evidence of you being "controlled oppostion" (perhaps for no other reason than merely _because_ you tried to disprove or refute it).

And then you could accuse me of being "controlled opposition" who is just trying to confuse the matter even further ... (and so on and so on ...)




> Originally Posted by nobody's_hero
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>  Originally Posted by Occam's Banana
> ...


There are things for which Elon Musk can (and should) be reasonably criticized.

There are likewise things for which he can (and should) be reasonably praised.

Dismissing or sneering at the latter things in order to preserve or protect the former things as uncontroverted proof of "controlled oppostion" is just an elaborately unproductive exercise in confirmation bias. It is intellectually sterile - it explains everything, and in so doing, it explains nothing. It is the ultimate self-justifying black pill.

----------


## ClaytonB

> Of course he is.  Don't be an idiot....again.


It's hilarious to me how the people who scoff at the 3,000-hyper-dimensional Trump/Qanon chess are the ones baiting 15-million-hyper-dimensional Elone Moosk chess.

----------


## Occam's Banana

More whinging from _The Washington Post_:

****** SPOILER ALERT / TL;DR :* It's just awful that the feds (and the Democrats in particular) aren't doing or can't do nearly enough to control & regulate speech. *******

*Bidens tech agenda gets a reality check as Elon Musk buys Twitter*
_Washingtons hands are largely tied as the worlds richest person acquires an influential social network, an impact of the regulatory void around social media companies_
https://www.washingtonpost.com/techn...ion-biden-musk
_Cat Zakrzewski & Craig Timberg  (27 April 2022)_

The Biden administration arrived in Washington with an ambitious agenda for taming Big Tech, which it portrayed as concentrating too much power in the hands of a few billionaires  the moguls of a new, digital Gilded Age.

Elon Musks $44 billion deal to buy Twitter has put that critique into sharp relief, underscoring how badly Bidens tech agenda has stalled in the 15 months since taking the White House.

The worlds richest person has bought one of its most influential social media platforms  and Washingtons hands are largely tied.

Musk, notorious for flouting regulators and running afoul of the Securities and Exchange Commission, will wield enormous discretion over thorny decisions about what content stays on and off the social network, and how the company handles the data privacy of its millions of users. By taking the company private, Musk will be subject to even less scrutiny than powerful executives of other publicly traded companies, such as Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Lawmakers now find themselves stymied, after failing for years to implement guardrails on social media companies that might force greater accountability of Musk. The deal does not present obvious antitrust conflicts, exposing the limits of Congresss recent focus on regulating the largest tech platforms

Weve been asleep at the wheel, said Rep. Ro Khanna, a Democrat who represents Silicon Valley and has advocated greater regulation of the tech industry. Its unsettling that a change in ownership can create that kind of change in public discourse.

Activists, academics and lawmakers who once pinned their hopes on a more assertive federal government now are increasingly looking abroad  mainly to Europe  in the hopes that foreign regulators might have the clout to curb Silicon Valleys worst abuses. European policymakers appeared eager to take up that mantle, responding with a warning for Musk.

Be it cars or social media, any company operating in Europe needs to comply with our rules  regardless of their shareholding, tweeted Thierry Breton, the European commissioner for the internal market. Mr. Musk knows this well. He is familiar with European rules on automotive, and will quickly adapt to the Digital Services Act.

The rhetoric across the Atlantic stood in contrast to the White House, where press secretary Jen Psaki declined to comment on the deal. She said that President Biden has long been concerned about the power of large social media platforms.

Musk has sought to portray himself as a free speech absolutist, saying in a Tuesday tweet that he is against censorship that goes far beyond the law.

If people want less free speech, they will ask government to pass laws to that effect, he wrote.

But despite the majority of Americans supporting greater regulation of tech companies, Washington has not passed comprehensive legislation on the tech industry in decades.

The Biden administration and Democrats promised an unprecedented regulatory assault on Silicon Valley when they regained power in Washington in 2021. Motivated by the role they said Facebook, Twitter and other social networks played in spreading falsehoods during the 2020 election and inflaming extremism, they proposed changes to an Internet liability law known as Section 230, privacy protections and new competition rules. Biden named prominent tech industry critics to key antitrust enforcement roles. Following revelations from Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen later last year, they expanded their vision  promising childrens safety legislation and greater transparency around the black box algorithms that power major tech platforms.

Yet as the midterm elections approach, many Democrats are fearful their party will lose control of the House and possibly the Senate  closing their window to pass significant tech legislation.

The partys ambitions have collided with the realities of governing in a deeply polarized Washington. Lawmakers in the United States are more constrained than their European peers in regulating social media, because of First Amendment protections that limit government regulation of speech. Tech regulation has also taken a back seat to pressing policy dilemmas as the pandemic stretched into its third year, inflation rose and war broke out in Europe. And with a fragile majority broken only by Vice President Harriss tiebreaking vote in the Senate, Democrats have struggled to achieve even basic tech policy goals  such as breaking the 2-to-2 deadlock at the Federal Trade Commission, the regulatory agency tasked with overseeing competition and privacy issues in Silicon Valley.

I havent seen much of anything from the Biden administration, said Katie Harbath, a former Facebook public policy director and CEO of consultancy Anchor Change. Europes eating the United States lunch on this.

The legislation that has the most momentum in the Senate are bills that would regulate app stores and prevent large tech platforms from boosting their own products and services over those of their rivals. But neither would apply to Twitter, which has a significantly smaller footprint than Facebook, Apple, Google or Amazon. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)

Theyve done nothing to date except talk about it, said William E. Kovacic, a former Republican chair of the FTC. If they want to effectuate basic change, they have to change the law.

Musk will be required to report his purchase of Twitter to the FTC and the Justice Department, which could slow down the deal by requesting detailed information about the transaction, Kovacic said. But Kovacic said he didnt see a competitive link to Musks other businesses, making it unlikely the agencies would block it.

Tech regulation is at times presented as a bipartisan policy issue, with Republicans and Democrats alike bashing the industry. But despite a flurry of bills and dozens of hearings, the parties are fundamentally at odds over how they believe social networks should be regulated, with Democrats pushing companies to address misinformation, while Republicans critique these limits.

This split-screen reality was on display in the fallout of the Musk deal. The same Republicans who had once criticized former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey for wielding too much power over Twitter celebrated Musk taking the company into private hands, suggesting that it was a victory for free speech. Meanwhile, Democrats criticized the deal as a sign that billionaires have too much influence over the economy, calling for greater tech regulation and wealth taxes.

Republicans are claiming Musk as their digital Paul Revere, that hes going to save them and give them a voice again, and the Democrats are expressing concerns about that, said Jeffrey Chester, the executive director of the digital rights advocacy group Center for Digital Democracy. It reflected all the deep divisions that our country is enmeshed in.

In the absence of legislation, lawmakers have largely used congressional hearings and their media megaphones to keep pressure on tech moguls, hauling in Zuckerberg, Dorsey, Bezos and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai. Khanna said Congress should have a hearing with Musk to press him on his plans for Twitter, especially how the companys corporate governance would be structured.

Policy experts largely expect such a hearing with Musk, who is known for his brusque criticism of lawmakers, would devolve into a media frenzy. Musk has bashed Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) as Sen. Karen during a Twitter feud about tax policy, and vulgarly suggested that the profile picture of Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) looks like he just had an orgasm.

Im sure it will make great TV, but not good, substantive conversation, said Evelyn Douek, a senior research fellow at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University.

Musk appeared to acknowledge the likelihood that he would be called to Capitol Hill, tweeting a smiling emoji in response to Box chief executive Aaron Levie, who tweeted that Musk would like to be the only human that can be called to congress for up to 63 different topics.

The challenge of regulating Silicon Valley is compounded because the most controversial developments around social media  such as the Musk deal or social networks kicking off Donald Trump  get the lions share of public attention. But areas where there is more consensus, such as passing privacy legislation or transparency requirements for tech platforms, dont get as much traction.

We get distracted by these shiny, fantastical, movie-like storylines, while the fundamental, boring systemic issues that need fixing just chug along, Douek said. It would be great if we could pick up some of the low-hanging fruit.

Some policy experts say the challenges in regulating social media companies are indicative of the broader ineptitude in Washington, where Bidens efforts to pass a signature social spending initiative have been stalled for more than a year.

We are paralyzed in many, many ways right now, said Ethan Zuckerman, an associate professor of public policy, information and communication at University of Massachusetts Amherst.

----------


## Occam's Banana

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1519378158008651778

----------


## Occam's Banana

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1519377424437243904

----------


## Occam's Banana



----------


## Occam's Banana

*Elon Musk Conquers Twitter, and France*
https://mtracey.substack.com/p/elon-...ter-and-france
_Michael Tracey (26 April 2022)_

[...]

Ill always maintain that the single thing which most enabled Donald Trump to win the Republican presidential nomination in 2016 was his mastery of Twitter, through which he completely dominated the media and bypassed the pundits, operatives, and experts who would otherwise exert outsized influence on the nominating process. Then of course Twitter became his primary communications mechanism during his presidency, before being seized from him in an act of unparalleled corporate usurpation and censorship.

And that doesnt even begin to scratch the surface of Twitters wider cultural influence: all the time now, people get book and movie deals directly through Twitter. The stories one hears are crazy. I dont know how you can have lived through the past 10 years with any cognizance of Twitters impact and still dismiss it as a silly distraction. If anything, you should be ever-more appreciative of its power!

That power, I would guess, is at least part of why Elon Musk paid the premium. Maybe he has other motives. But if you go by what he publicly states, his intention is to restore free speech as the platforms paramount ethos, impose more transparency on its algorithmic inner-workings, and introduce some kind authentication process that gets rid of bots. I know  sounds horrifying!

All the media/activists who are so infuriated by this cant seem to specify how exactly they foresee their Twitter user experience being changed under Musks ownership. Presumably, theyll still be able to follow or not follow whomever they choose, block and mute at will, etc. So whats the problem? Well, the problem should be obvious, and almost doesnt even need articulating: they will no longer be able to coerce Twitters management to accede to their demands. Since roughly 2016, theyve progressively shifted the platform away from what Jack Dorsey had once declared to be its mission  Twitter stands for freedom of expression  and instead gotten it to stand for whatever the most shrill activists and journalists wanted. Which was not free expression  but to wield their cultural and political leverage to mold Twitter policy in accordance with their own niche worldview.

This meant constant frenzied hectoring that Twitter moderators needed to more aggressively intervene on the platform to protect adults from harmful content. And it meant demanding that Twitter monitor/regulate speech more and more stringently, on the ground that doing so was necessary to fight some nefarious combination of Trump, Russia, and the scary right-wing white nationalist anti-vax whatever whatever disinformation network. To achieve their desired disciplinary measures, they concocted concepts of harassment that were never really about harassment _per se_, but whether the harassment victim in question checked the right cultural/political boxes.

Now, it seems, the presumption that theyll be able to emotionally blackmail Twitter into guaranteed capitulation seems no longer operative. Im personally most curious if Musk plans to continue allowing Twitter to be used as a vehicle of the US national security state to counter official enemies like Russia and China. That to me seems like the real test of his claimed commitment to maximalist free speech  and Musk does have a bunch of lucrative Pentagon contracts. So well have to see. Either way, enjoy the meltdown.

----------


## Occam's Banana

> This meant constant frenzied hectoring that Twitter moderators needed to more aggressively intervene on the platform to protect adults from harmful content. And it meant demanding that Twitter monitor/regulate speech more and more stringently, on the ground that doing so was necessary to fight some nefarious combination of Trump, Russia, and the scary right-wing white nationalist anti-vax whatever whatever disinformation network. To achieve their desired disciplinary measures, *they concocted concepts of harassment that were never really about harassment per se, but whether the harassment victim in question checked the right cultural/political boxes.*


And here is a perfect case in point:




> In an article oozing with impotent butt-hurt, _The Washington Post_ [...] characterizes Musk's statement in that tweet as being a "personal attack" that was "targeted" at Gadde, resulting in "racist" harassment of her. (As proof of this, they cite a single unidentified Twitter user who said Gadde would go down in history as an appalling person". That's it. That's the sum total of the evidence they could muster to support their claim of "racist" harassment.)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 			
> 				Elon Musk on Tuesday used his powerful Twitter account to bolster right-wing users who sharply criticized two company executives, exposing them to the online masses who joined in the attacks.
> 
> ...

----------


## Brian4Liberty

> Even if he makes a sincere and genuine attempt to institute significant changes, he will certainly be resisted and undermined from within.
> 
> Depending on how "hands on" he is willing to get, there may not be much he can do about it.
> 
> HR departments have far greater control over a company's "culture" than CEOs or owners do.





> My guess is that most "changes" will happen on a case by case basis, as people bring specific things to elon's attention... via twitter.





> At least until Elon gets swarmed with this stuff and figures out its unsustainable, then in a knee jerk reaction he fires entire executive staff


One lesson that could have been learned from the Trump Administration is don't fu*k around. Don't try to figure out who to keep, who to get rid of, who to hire based upon recommendations from the same people who destroyed the organization. Clean house, all in one fell swoop. There will be much whining and gnashing of teeth. The tears will flow, leftist politicians will scream and threaten. 

But all of that will happen upon each and every firing of an executive at Twitter anyway. Get it all over at once. Bring in new people you have past experience with and you trust.

I've never read Sun Tzu or anything like that, but I suppose this strategy already has a name.

----------


## Occam's Banana

I've already seen talk of getting Twitter barred from "app stores" (Google, Apple) and web services (Amazon).

Remember Parler?

https://twitter.com/naval/status/1518629257622163456


And don't exclude the international level:




> Activists, academics and lawmakers who once pinned their hopes on a more assertive federal government now are increasingly looking abroad  mainly to Europe  in the hopes that foreign regulators might have the clout to curb Silicon Valleys worst abuses. European policymakers appeared eager to take up that mantle, responding with a warning for Musk.
> 
> Be it cars or social media, any company operating in Europe needs to comply with our rules  regardless of their shareholding, tweeted Thierry Breton, the European commissioner for the internal market. Mr. Musk knows this well. He is familiar with European rules on automotive, and will quickly adapt to the Digital Services Act.
> 
> [...]
> 
> The partys ambitions have collided with the realities of governing in a deeply polarized Washington. Lawmakers in the United States are more constrained than their European peers in regulating social media, because of First Amendment protections that limit government regulation of speech. Tech regulation has also taken a back seat to pressing policy dilemmas as the pandemic stretched into its third year, inflation rose and war broke out in Europe. And with a fragile majority broken only by Vice President Harriss tiebreaking vote in the Senate, Democrats have struggled to achieve even basic tech policy goals  such as breaking the 2-to-2 deadlock at the Federal Trade Commission, the regulatory agency tasked with overseeing competition and privacy issues in Silicon Valley.
> 
> I havent seen much of anything from the Biden administration, said Katie Harbath, a former Facebook public policy director and CEO of consultancy Anchor Change. Europes eating the United States lunch on this.


https://twitter.com/arstechnica/stat...03221625802754

----------


## Occam's Banana

*Twitter workers freaking out over Elon Musk in internal Slack messages*
https://nypost.com/2022/04/27/twitte...lack-messages/
_Andy Ngô (27 April 2022)_

Leaked internal communications by Twitter employees reveal woke employees are overtaken by despair and anger about Elon Musks month-long effort to acquire Twitter.

Musk announced he would purchase the company for $44 billion on Monday. The deal concludes a month-long saga that began with Musk first tweeting out polls and his thoughts about the decline of free speech on Twitter.

On the business communication platform Slack, some Twitter employees vented against the new owner, leaked messages reveal.

Physically cringy watching Elon talk about free speech, a site reliability engineer who identifies as a nonbinary transgender and plural person wrote.

Were all going through the five stages of grief in cycles and everyones nerves are frazzled, wrote a senior staff software engineer who called Musk an a**hole, and tried to console his colleagues. Were all spinning our wheels, and coming up with worst case scenarios (Trump returns! No more moderation!). The fact is that [Musk] has not talked about what hes planning on doing in any detail outside of broad sweeping statements that could be easily seen as hyperbolic showboating.

A senior staff video engineer announced he would be quitting, Not the place to say it perhaps, but I will not work for this company after the takeover.

Following the back-and-forth among multiple employees angry about the news, some warned that their communications on Slack could be searched. The employees then moved their conversations onto their personal devices using the encrypted chat application Signal.

Twitters leadership appeared to predict an internal backlash and possible sabotage when it locked down the ability of its employees to make changes to the platform through Friday.

Leading up to Mondays deal, Twitter employees had already been venting for weeks on Slack about Musk and defending the platforms moderation enforcement.

A reliability engineering manager said Musks views on free speech is cover for I want to not be held accountable for saying or amplifying harmful things.

Another engineer wrote that self-reported censorship is sometimes just horrible people fking around and then find[ing] out. A senior content strategist responded, and it doesnt happen often enough.

That senior content strategist, who worked as a left-wing political operative outside of Twitter, led many of the conversations that were heavily critical of Musk.

Sometimes I think it cant be as bad as Im imagining itll be. Then I see something like this and Im all nope itll be even worse,  she wrote responding to a Musk tweet last week.

But not all employees kept their views within internal business chats. Some of the strongest comments against Musk were made publicly on employees Twitter accounts.

Addison Howenstine, a software engineer, tweeted: You asked me why El*n M*sk buying 9.2% of Tw*tter and getting a board seat is bad and Im explaining why this was clearly not his end goal and things will certainly get worse and potentially be dangerous for democracy and global affairs.

Jay Holler, an engineering manager, broke down in multiple tweets earlier in the month when it was announced that Musk could take on a leadership role. The problem with @elonmusk is that he has demonstrated a pattern of harmful behavior consistently that disproportionately impacts marginalized people, so maybe lets not give him any more power than he already stole? Holler later tweeted, Im radicalized now.

Connor Campbell, a nonbinary front-end engineer, responded directly to Musk on Tuesday defending Twitters censorship of the Post for its reporting on Hunter Bidens laptop shortly before the 2020 presidential election.

Twitter had a policy about hacked documents. We applied this policy equally, Campbell claimed. The contents of the laptop were not hacked, as The Washington Post and The Times both acknowledged.  Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said it was a total mistake at a congressional hearing last year.

Laura Gomez, who used to lead localization for Twitter, tweeted: A M*sk-owned Twitter is one of the greatest threats to the 2022 and 2024 elections. We are f*cked if this happens.

A M*sk-owned Twitter is one of the greatest threats to the 2022 and 2024 elections. We are f*cked if this happens. https://t.co/ozWltJ3IwG
 laura i. gómez (@laura) April 25, 2022
Separately on Slack, multiple Twitter employees disparaged this journalist repeatedly for posting screenshots of their colleagues publicly available tweets. They discussed ways they thought his tweets could be a violation of Twitters policies.

How is this [Ngo] ahole verified? asked a senior staff software engineer. Multiple employees used insults to refer to this journalist before conceding that the tweets didnt violate their rules. They suggested to one another to remove mentions of Twitter employment in their Twitter biographies.

Though many of the internal Slack comments were personally critical of Musk and his views, a few employees werent as outraged and some actively pushed back.

I dont know much about him, I dont really care. I would just love free speech to be [the] highest priority. I dont care who leads that. Especially for minorities like myself, I had no rights at all in my home country, said a woman in the design department.

Another software engineer wrote, I do think its obvious that our policies are biased (everyone has a bias) and I would personally like to see more balance. IDK if Musk is the right person to do that but the idea of someone who might be less biased towards the things we are already biased on is something that I like.

----------


## Occam's Banana

> I've already seen talk of getting Twitter barred from "app stores" (Google, Apple) and web services (Amazon).
> 
> Remember Parler?
> 
> https://twitter.com/naval/status/1518629257622163456


For whatever it may be worth:

https://twitter.com/ConceptualJames/...64465753526272

----------


## Occam's Banana

https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/statu...45597463076867

----------


## TheTexan

> I've already seen talk of getting Twitter barred from "app stores" (Google, Apple) and web services (Amazon).
> 
> Remember Parler?


Good point.  I had forgotten about that.  That is almost a certainty at some point.

I'm just gonna go short twitter real quick.....

----------


## Occam's Banana

> Good point.  I had forgotten about that.  That is almost a certainty at some point.
> 
> I'm just gonna go short twitter real quick.....


Parler was nipped in the bud before it could get a solid toehold. Twitter is already well-established and will be harder to dislodge.

I won't be surprised if they try, though. Like James Lindsay, I almost hope they do.

Unlike Parler, there would be blowback, even (or especially) from "normies" who wouldn't otherwise care about any of this.

----------


## Occam's Banana

https://twitter.com/wokal_distance/s...33039183417345


Additional tweet images hidden to save space:

* *

----------


## Occam's Banana

https://twitter.com/Timcast/status/1519338949419884544


https://twitter.com/TRHLofficial/sta...54881907679234


*Twitter Accused Of Conspiracy As Conservatives Mysteriously Start Gaining THOUSANDS Of Followers*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8KKVneoJck

----------


## 69360

> Parler was nipped in the bud before it could get a solid toehold. Twitter is already well-established and will be harder to dislodge.
> 
> I won't be surprised if they try, though. Like James Lindsay, I almost hope they do.
> 
> Unlike Parler, there would be blowback, even (or especially) from "normies" who wouldn't otherwise care about any of this.


What will happen is that twitter will get banned from the app stores, liberals will quit it. Then some tech liberal will "invent" a new platform with a clever name like Libber or something. Twitter will go the way of myspace and Musk will be the bagholder. Prove me wrong.

----------


## TheTexan

> What will happen is that twitter will get banned from the app stores, liberals will quit it. Then some tech liberal will "invent" a new platform with a clever name like Libber or something. Twitter will go the way of myspace and Musk will be the bagholder. Prove me wrong.


Best case, is Twitter survives but becomes the communication portal for the right wing.

The biggest risk is if Twitter's hosting providers ban them... it could take possibly months to move to a new provider.  Which would end any hope of Twitter surviving.

----------


## Anti Globalist



----------


## Anti Federalist

> _Washington’s hands are largely tied as the world’s richest person acquires an influential social network, an impact of the regulatory void around social media companies_


My God, just when you think the level of self awareness could not sink any lower.

Double think for real.

----------


## Occam's Banana

> What will happen is that twitter will get banned from the app stores, liberals will quit it. Then some tech liberal will "invent" a new platform with a clever name like Libber or something.


Twitter has over 200+ million users, most of whom don't give a damn about "liberal" this or "conservative" that, and a great many of whom will pitch a fit if Apple, _et al._ try to cut them off from one of their favorite and most-used apps. Any new politically-motivated platforms erected by left-wingers will end up being just as much of a relative "ghost town" compared to Twitter as all the right-wing ones. And liberals are not going to quit Twitter _en masse_ any more than they were ever going to move to Canada.




> Twitter will go the way of myspace and Musk will be the bagholder.


MySpace didn't fail because of liberal exodus. It failed because Facebook offered a much more attractive (general-purpose and non-political) venue. Twitter already has that going for it - hence, its 200+ million users. Liberals, conservatives, libertarians, etc. may care a lot about Twitter as a venue for politics and ideology, but the majority of its users do not.

Twitter may fail, but if so, it won't merely be because of petulant leftist angst. (Any attempts by Elon Musk to reform it are another matter, however - one in which petulant leftist angst may indeed play a role, especially internally.)




> Prove me wrong.


_*shrug*_ "A thing will happen at some unspecified time in the future. Prove me wrong."

----------


## Occam's Banana

> The biggest risk is if Twitter's hosting providers ban them... it could take possibly months to move to a new provider.  Which would end any hope of Twitter surviving.


I suspect that Elon Musk can afford quite a bit more servers than Parler could (not to mention that existing in-house server capacity for Starlink is probably not insubstantial).

And as for time, I doubt that Musk is likely to be caught quite as flat-footed as Parler was ...

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1433108018413981698

----------


## ClaytonB

> https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1433108018413981698

----------


## TheTexan

> I suspect that Elon Musk can afford quite a bit more servers than Parler could (not to mention that existing in-house server capacity for Starlink is probably not insubstantial).


It's not about server capacity.  It's more about the degree they are using cloud services (AWS, GCP, Azure) vs bare metal.  In this case, bare metal reduces the risk greatly.

Twitter signed a contract with AWS in 2020.  If they are relying heavily on AWS at this point and AWS shuts them down, it could indeed take 1-2 months to get it migrated to another provider.  There is a great deal of lock-in when using cloud services, even when trying to minimize lock-in.

----------


## TheTexan

If Elon is reading this... message me and I will help you migrate to bare metal.  Before AWS shuts you down.

----------


## Occam's Banana

> It's not about server capacity.  It's more about the degree they are using cloud services (AWS, GCP, Azure) vs bare metal.  In this case, bare metal reduces the risk greatly.
> 
> Twitter signed a contract with AWS in 2020.  If they are relying heavily on AWS at this point and AWS shuts them down, it could indeed take 1-2 months to get it migrated to another provider.  There is a great deal of lock-in when using cloud services, even when trying to minimize lock-in.


I'll take your word for it, as cloud architecture stuff is outside my roundhouse.

But I still don't think Musk is nearly as unprepared or as incapable of adapting quickly as others such as Parler were or would be.

----------


## Occam's Banana

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1519409148215111681

----------


## TheTexan

> I'll take yous word for it, as cloud architecture stuff is outside my roundhouse.
> 
> But I still don't think Musk is nearly as unprepared or as incapable of adapting quickly as others such as Parler were or would be.


Another move would be for him to bootstrap his own cloud service company.    And then migrate Twitter to it.

This is basically how AWS got started.

And we will need a "free speech" cloud service company eventually.  Might as well have Elon do it now.

And do it the right way... (existing cloud services suck huge ass)

----------


## GlennwaldSnowdenAssanged

> It's not about server capacity.  It's more about the degree they are using cloud services (AWS, GCP, Azure) vs bare metal.  In this case, bare metal reduces the risk greatly.
> 
> Twitter signed a contract with AWS in 2020.  If they are relying heavily on AWS at this point and AWS shuts them down, it could indeed take 1-2 months to get it migrated to another provider.  There is a great deal of lock-in when using cloud services, even when trying to minimize lock-in.


Haven't you heard? Elon is above the cloud. He is in space.

----------


## GlennwaldSnowdenAssanged

> Good point.  I had forgotten about that.  That is almost a certainty at some point.
> 
> I'm just gonna go short twitter real quick.....


Be prepared for the rollout of the Muskown. That is a smartphone developed and sold for free speech. Costs a fraction of Apple and the service is supplied via satellite totally eliminating the middle pronouns. Smartphones for a fraction of the cost. No huge monthly payments. Okay maybe not the "Muskown" maybe the Twitter phone. Why not? Twitter goes telecommunications.

----------


## ClaytonB

> Be prepared for the rollout of the Muskown. That is a smartphone developed and sold for free speech. Costs a fraction of Apple and the service is supplied via satellite totally eliminating the middle pronouns. Smartphones for a fraction of the cost. No huge monthly payments. Okay maybe not the "Muskown" maybe the Twitter phone. Why not? Twitter goes telecommunications.


Hmm, actually, Twitter could do a phone. Twitter phone over Starlink. Maybe Musk has more plans than just buying Twitter as a billionaire ego play...

----------


## acptulsa



----------


## CaptUSA



----------


## Occam's Banana

> You know that's not what's going to happen, right?


_*shrug*_ Maybe it won't. That's why I said "if". 

If it doesn't happen, then we'll be no worse off than we would have been anyway, and more people will have been exposed to the fact that most of the left are a bunch of hysterical authoritarians.




> Internet ID is a required component of social credit scoring.  What does it matter if you're using a VPN, which does still provide privacy and anonymity generally, if you have to register all access accounts with an ID and displays your name?


It doesn't matter if you're using a VPN. This was my point:




> When it comes to *anything involving the Internet*, I have no concern at all over the "loss of a little more privacy and anonymity", because I have never been so naive or foolish as to imagine that there was ever any to lose in the first place. I already just assume that my identity (and everything I say or do) on *any network-connected computer/phone/etc.* is or will be known to whomever is sufficiently determined to discover it.


When I said "anything involving the Internet" and "any network-connected computer/phone/etc.", that's _exactly_ what I meant - _including_ VPNs.




> Man, some of y'all sure can't look two steps ahead....


Man, we've been over this before ...




> Everyone except you is an easily-manipulated idiot.
> 
> It's just a burden you'll have to learn to bear.

----------


## devil21

> Manufactured populism?  Are you suggesting there is an evil cabal carefully crafting Elon's tweets, and _they_ are the ones who keep violating the SEC?
> 
> Because his tweets are a main source of his right wing popularity.


No, Elon is well initiated into how to build a cult following on the back of structured, supporting propaganda operations.  What you're saying is like suggesting that Trump single-handedly engineered his campaign and election merely by speaking at rallies.  I didn't think "Manufactured Consent" would be such a foreign topic to long-time RPFers?!!

----------


## ClaytonB

> No, Elon is well initiated into how to build a cult following on the back of structured, supporting propaganda operations.  What you're saying is like suggesting that Trump single-handedly engineered his campaign and election merely by speaking at rallies.  I didn't think "Manufactured Consent" would be such a foreign topic to long-time RPFers?!!


There's nothing he can't do, he's a _billionaire_!!

----------


## GlennwaldSnowdenAssanged

> There's nothing he can't do, he's a _billionaire_!!


Could he be a Natural Born citizen of the USA and become POTUS?

----------


## Occam's Banana

> (Hi, NSA!  Hey there, HyperMegaGloboCorp!  How you guys doin' today?)


Can't forget the FBI. Hello! 

(Congress ain't gonna do $#@!, BTW. The executive plantation reigns supreme, and Congressional "oversight" is a pathetic farce.)

https://twitter.com/Heminator/status...97923534671874

----------


## GlennwaldSnowdenAssanged

> Can't forget the FBI. Hello! 
> 
> (Congress ain't gonna do $#@!, BTW. The executive plantation reigns supreme, and Congressional "oversight" is a pathetic farce.)
> 
> https://twitter.com/Heminator/status...97923534671874


And when Congressman Ron Paul said if they could spy on us they would spy on us he was classified a Conspiracy theorist.

----------


## nobody's_hero

> There are things for which Elon Musk can (and should) be reasonably criticized.
> 
> There are likewise things for which he can (and should) be reasonably praised.
> 
> Dismissing or sneering at the latter things in order to preserve or protect the former things as uncontroverted proof of "controlled oppostion" is just an elaborately unproductive exercise in confirmation bias. It is intellectually sterile - it explains everything, and in so doing, it explains nothing. It is the ultimate self-justifying black pill.


I've pretty much given up ever thinking there's going to be a genuinely organic return to a state of blissful liberty. 

Nearly every instance in which people were led out of bondage, there was usually some ulterior motive just beneath the surface. Sometimes nefarious, or sometimes just self-serving and relatively benign.

Having said that, I do well enough to 'get while the getting's good.' Because that's pretty much all I'm left with. We're beyond battening down the hatches at this point.

So if Musk tears down this whole woke censorship culture, only to turn it all back over in the end, maybe it's just the best I can hope for. The alternative here, is that Musk is a sneaky little snake, and I *STILL* have this giant Orwellian apparatus to contend with, in which case I haven't really lost anything, but might have gained at least something in the meantime, however fleeting.

I still don't know what to think about Musk. Maybe at best, I think he just another tech-nerd who will undoubtedly usher in another phase of big brother surveillance tools even if that isn't his intent. "Throw it in the woods" and all that. 

But, he's a platform. And he's got a message that people need to hear. Because we're about one generation away from people having to check an old hard-cover encyclopedia to find out what 'free speech' means. -- That is, if they haven't burned the books.

----------


## Occam's Banana

> I've pretty much given up ever thinking there's going to be a genuinely organic return to a state of blissful liberty. 
> 
> Nearly every instance in which people were led out of bondage, there was usually some ulterior motive just beneath the surface. Sometimes nefarious, or sometimes just self-serving and relatively benign.
> 
> Having said that, I do well enough to 'get while the getting's good.' Because that's pretty much all I'm left with. We're beyond battening down the hatches at this point.
> 
> So if Musk tears down this whole woke censorship culture, only to turn it all back over in the end, maybe it's just the best I can hope for. The alternative here, is that Musk is a sneaky little snake, and I *STILL* have this giant Orwellian apparatus to contend with, in which case I haven't really lost anything, but might have gained at least something in the meantime, however fleeting.
> 
> I still don't know what to think about Musk. Maybe at best, I think he just another tech-nerd who will undoubtedly usher in another phase of big brother surveillance tools even if that isn't his intent. "Throw it in the woods" and all that. 
> ...


_You cannot give Reputation to the same post twice._

No one is coming to save us.

Musk could live up to his every promise regarding Twitter, and by itself, that wouldn't change a thing.

----------


## Occam's Banana

https://twitter.com/AnarchoCanadian/...56600400588800

----------


## TheTexan

> No, Elon is well initiated into how to build a cult following on the back of structured, supporting propaganda operations.  What you're saying is like suggesting that Trump single-handedly engineered his campaign and election merely by speaking at rallies.  I didn't think "Manufactured Consent" would be such a foreign topic to long-time RPFers?!!


So... you're accusing Elon of posting memes that he thinks people will like?

He is certainly guilty of that I agree.

----------


## TheTexan

> _You cannot give Reputation to the same post twice._
> 
> No one is coming to save us.
> 
> Musk could live up to his every promise regarding Twitter, and by itself, that wouldn't change a thing.


There is no way to "save" us.  The only way up is down.

We need things to get a lot worse before things will get better.

And while Elon taking over Twitter may seem like a good thing, it is as the Russians like to say, a "provocation".

The left will retaliate, and escalate this culture war further.

Which is exactly what we need them to do.

----------


## dannno

> There is no way to "save" us.  The only way up is down.
> 
> We need things to get a lot worse before things will get better.
> 
> And while Elon taking over Twitter may seem like a good thing, it is as the Russians like to say, a "provocation".
> 
> The left will retaliate, and escalate this culture war further.
> 
> Which is exactly what we need them to do.


Not looking forward to the next major false flag.

----------


## Occam's Banana

> There is no way to "save" us.  The only way up is down.
> 
> We need things to get a lot worse before things will get better.
> 
> And while Elon taking over Twitter may seem like a good thing, it is as the Russians like to say, a "provocation".
> 
> The left will retaliate, and escalate this culture war further.
> 
> Which is exactly what we need them to do.


Yes.

I doubt the timing of the announcement of a new "Disinformation Governance Board" was entirely coincidental.

----------


## CaptUSA

If he can pull this off, how long until he gets a Nobel peace prize??

----------


## Occam's Banana

https://twitter.com/lockoutdays/stat...02129017577472

----------


## Anti Globalist

> Could he be a Natural Born citizen of the USA and become POTUS?


Musk was born in South Africa and his mother was born in Canada.  No idea where his father was born.

----------


## Occam's Banana

> Originally Posted by GlennwaldSnowdenAssanged
> 
> 
> Could he be a Natural Born citizen of the USA and become POTUS?
> 
> 
> Musk was born in South Africa and his mother was born in Canada.  No idea where his father was born.

----------


## TheTexan

Elon should buy the US and then elect himself Pres

----------


## kahless

> But 'sploding libtard heads, according to the twittersphere, makes it all worth it, right?  What's a lil more tracking and loss of privacy and anonymity as long as we believe some libs heads are 'sploding?   (Man, the controllers really have this down to a science....)
> 
> -------------------------------------------------------
> Ugh, sorry Capt but this is what I mean by people not looking into Musk's background.  I don't know about the SpaceX claim (screams DARPA though) but the Paypal and Tesla claims are flat out 100% inaccurate.  He didn't found either of them and in the case of Tesla he bought a stake in the already founded and in-progress company and then forced the original founders out, with pay-offs and NDAs.  Somehow that morphed into him "founding" Tesla, thanks to the media repeating the lie enough that people now believe it.  It's memes like that which only reinforce his flat out false history.





> So a moderator of RPF, proclaimed libertarian, is a fan of boiling the frog now eh?  Drinkin' a bit too much of your own Kool-aid lately, I fear.  Post up memes of the same tired 2016 election reactions and a handful of twittersphere pundits and watch everyone embrace their loss of a little more privacy and anonymity.  Then after everyone is required to have the "Verified Internet ID" just to use email, we'll wonder "How did we get here???"    
> 
> Not everyone but most.  Who cares about accuracy and truth while we're led down the pretty garden path to absolute control....





> The same man who heads up a company devoted to installing mind-reading and mind-control devices into people's brains is most certainly a strong advocate of individual thought and free speech 
> 
> Clown World exists everywhere, apparently even on RPF.





> Sorta wondering when Elon Musk, DARPA deepstate front-man, lover of massive government subsidies and Agenda 2030 carbon credits, became a hero to right-wing conservatives?  Just because he may be involved in taking Twitter private and tweets a few words about free speech?     
> 
> Seems scripted by the usual "If we tell the right that the left hates this person, the right will reflexively embrace this person" propaganda operations.  It's a bit too obvious of a tactic used these days to get the right to embrace people as standard-bearers that they should not embrace.  I guess it still works though since few actually look into the backgrounds of people like Musk.





> For real.  I was just looking for an "Oh the drama!" meme to post but meh why bother.  Rich people drama seems to entertain the sheep while they're being looted and they seem to enjoy it.
> 
> Actually, most of the deal is backed by loans, with Musk's Tesla stock as collateral.  Musk isn't paying much out-of-pocket according to the reported deal terms.  Plus, Twitter is 82% institutionally owned by Vanguard, Blackrock, etc (94% of float) so the money goes to the usual suspects, which they will use to buy up more houses in your neighborhood.


Re-quoted for truth.  This site has come along way since 2007.  Sadly RPF seems mostly onboard in believing the fake magic show provided by the elites wholly own propaganda arms as well as their nationally known pundits-podcasters, their friends and the chorus from countless useful idiots that believe it all. 

Before anyone says that is snobbish again, well, I have been a useful idiot as well in my life including here. No one is immune to it from time to time.

----------


## nobody's_hero

> Re-quoted for truth.  This site has come along way since 2007.  Sadly RPF seems mostly onboard in believing the fake magic show provided by the elites wholly own propaganda arms as well as their nationally known pundits-podcasters, their friends and the chorus from countless useful idiots that believe it all. 
> 
> Before anyone says that is snobbish again, well, I have been a useful idiot as well in my life including here. No one is immune to it from time to time.


Maybe we don't really believe it. Maybe we're just trying to get in, and get a slice, and dip back out before it all falls down. 

Maybe it's like a card game, you know? 

You can say the game is rigged. You can throw a fit. Flip the card table over. Swear on your life you'll never be back. You've got it figured out and you won't be a party to it. 

But same time next weekend, they're playing cards again. _With or without you._ What actually makes it worse is that the card game involves all of us whether we want it to or not (whether we think it does or not). [Even the agorists aren't safe, sorry guys] 

Maybe a few others join you in boycotting card night, but it's never enough to stop it from continuing. Not even close.

Then one day someone goes back to the game and says, 'you know what, hell with it! I might actually win.' They probably won't. It's _very likely_ they won't. But they might. Their odds of winning are still higher than the guys who flipped over the card table and left, who aren't even playing at all (so they think). —So are their odds of losing but, they don't care anymore. They've been losing anyway. They're literally losing so much that they won't know the difference.

Are they really 'duped' if they go into it not expecting much? Isn't that what_ really_ makes all the difference? 

I think you and devil (and probably others) seem to think this is just a lapse in judgement, and it is—*if people take it too seriously. And I guess it gives you the opportunity to run around admonishing everyone for their transgressions. I'm out of feathers, or I'd give you one for your cap.

But things _have_ changed since 2007. At least for me, I don't see much benefit in wasting around with all this empirical knowledge about the inner-workings of the machine, ruminating into some dusty corner for all my thought's echos to hear. 

It simply no longer becomes important for me to know what they're up to. I no longer need to know the details of who deals with who behind closed doors, because I approach it with the standard assumption that it is probably not what it seems, and no amount of further analyzation is going to reveal any true surprises. (and there again, even if it was revealed, what _exactly_ would you have me do with this knowledge? Most people don't seem to care. And if I brought it here to RPF, I can guarantee there would be someone who flipped it around and deconstructed it in some attempt to enlighten me that I've been swindled and bamboozled, and it's actually the opposite of what I interpreted . . . and we're back to square one.)

But trying to get _what I can get_, _when I can get it_, _while I can get it_, I don't think meets the threshold of useful idiotry. That actually seems pretty smart at this point.

----------


## devil21

> Yes.
> 
> I doubt the timing of the announcement of a new "Disinformation Governance Board" was entirely coincidental.


Psaki claims that it's part of new Trump era (2018) DHS agency:     CISA
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybers...ecurity_Agency

Dunno if true but believable.

----------


## GlennwaldSnowdenAssanged

> Maybe we don't really believe it. Maybe we're just trying to get in, and get a slice, and dip back out before it all falls down. 
> 
> Maybe it's like a card game, you know? 
> 
> You can say the game is rigged. You can throw a fit. Flip the card table over. Swear on your life you'll never be back. You've got it figured out and you won't be a party to it. 
> 
> But same time next weekend, they're playing cards again. _With or without you._ What actually makes it worse is that the card game involves all of us whether we want it to or not (whether we think it does or not). [Even the agorists aren't safe, sorry guys] 
> 
> Maybe a few others join you in boycotting card night, but it's never enough to stop it from continuing. Not even close.
> ...


Years ago I went fishing with a son. He had quit fishing long before I did. At one point I reeled in and there was no bait on the hook. My son mocked me saying, "you aren't going to catch anything with that." My response was, "my bare hook in the water has a better chance of catching a fish than your empty hook out of the water."

----------


## GlennwaldSnowdenAssanged

> Elon should buy the US and then elect himself Pres


Hunter might be able to arrange that.

----------


## nobody's_hero

> Years ago I went fishing with a son. He had quit fishing long before I did. At one point I reeled in and there was no bait on the hook. My son mocked me saying, "you aren't going to catch anything with that." My response was, "my bare hook in the water has a better chance of catching a fish than your empty hook out of the water."


A more succinct parable. +rep for you

Although I think we're not even well off enough to have a hook and a reel, and a probably down to using our bare hands.

----------


## Firestarter

> So a moderator of RPF, proclaimed libertarian, is a fan of boiling the frog now eh?  Drinkin' a bit too much of your own Kool-aid lately, I fear.  Post up memes of the same tired 2016 election reactions and a handful of twittersphere pundits and watch everyone embrace their loss of a little more privacy and anonymity.  Then after everyone is required to have the "Verified Internet ID" just to use email, we'll wonder "How did we get here???"


I once saw a thread on Ronpaulforums.com about the husband of a granddaughter of Ron Paul being prosecuted for his corrupt dealings, even though he had been pardoned by president Donald at the request of Rand Paul...

I sometimes think that Donald Trump is intentionally used for a decoy.
In the whole thread no connection to the Paul family was mentioned, but Trump was mentioned over and over and over again...

----------


## ClaytonB

> *It simply no longer becomes important for me to know what they're up to. I no longer need to know the details of who deals with who behind closed doors*, because I approach it with the standard assumption that it is probably not what it seems, and no amount of further analyzation is going to reveal any true surprises. (and there again, even if it was revealed, what _exactly_ would you have me do with this knowledge? Most people don't seem to care. And if I brought it here to RPF, I can guarantee there would be someone who flipped it around and deconstructed it in some attempt to enlighten me that I've been swindled and bamboozled, and it's actually the opposite of what I interpreted . . . and we're back to square one.)


Emphasis added... Very well said!!

----------


## vita3

Musk has worked well with Pentagon 

You know its a free site when Assange tweets are green lighted

----------


## Brian4Liberty



----------


## Brian4Liberty



----------


## pcosmar



----------


## devil21

> Do you have any quotes of Elon Musk supporting "Verified Internet ID"?
> 
> I know about the Tweet about "verifying humans", but that was vague, and in the context of battling bots.


Fwiw, I have received 100% confirmation for myself that Musk is indeed being engineered into a cult figure for the right, a la Donald.  Obviously there would be a reason for that and Musk's tweet about verifying all humans gives it away, since they must make the truth/intention known for karmic reasons (see:  Donald's snake story at rally right before election).  Basis of my 100% confirmation wouldn't mean anything to you so don't bother asking me for further evidence or explanation.  We will see soon enough...

----------


## dannno



----------


## ClaytonB

>

----------


## CaptUSA

https://www.the-sun.com/tech/5261566...-fee-to-tweet/

Seems like a decent idea to me.  I'm sure it'll get into questions about where to draw the line, but if corporations and governments want to enter the "town square" to spread their corporate/government message, it seems reasonable to have them pay for the privilege.

----------


## Brian4Liberty



----------


## Firestarter

> Work dried up because Snitching on your "Johns" is bad for business.


She only started "snitching" AFTER her work "dried up".

A smart deal?!?
$250,000 is worth more than a horse, and more a flight attendant that also gives massages would make...

----------


## pcosmar

> She only started "snitching" AFTER her work "dried up".
> 
> A smart deal?!?
> $250,000 is worth more than a horse, and more a flight attendant that also gives massages would make...


Depends on the Horse/Whore.

----------


## dannno



----------


## devil21

> Meanwhile, as Musk piddles around "negotiating"...


It's from 2019, just fyi.  But yeah same shenanigans can and probably will continue unabated while Musk sucks all the twitter search engine result air out of the room.

----------


## ClaytonB

How to build a 4chan bot... this is very eye-opening...

----------


## Anti Globalist



----------


## Swordsmyth

Twitter May Lose To Elon Musk Because Of Slavery

https://www.thefinancialtrends.com/2...se-of-slavery/

----------


## Swordsmyth

Musk Responds To Twitter’s Suit, Claims Bots Twice As Many As Twitter Claims

https://www.thefinancialtrends.com/2...witter-claims/

----------


## GlennwaldSnowdenAssanged

> Musk Responds To Twitter’s Suit, Claims Bots Twice As Many As Twitter Claims
> 
> https://www.thefinancialtrends.com/2...witter-claims/


I didn't read the article so I am commenting on the headline. The problem with the headline is it puts Musk into a corner. It says "Claims Bots *Twice* as many as Twitter Claims." What happens if it isn't twice as many? He should have been less specific. Way more than claimed or simply more than previously stated. What happens is the narrative goes from twitter to simply Musk was wrong there wasn't twice as many......

----------


## Swordsmyth

> I didn't read the article so I am commenting on the headline. The problem with the headline is it puts Musk into a corner. It says "Claims Bots *Twice* as many as Twitter Claims." What happens if it isn't twice as many? He should have been less specific. Way more than claimed or simply more than previously stated. What happens is the narrative goes from twitter to simply Musk was wrong there wasn't twice as many......


Read the article.
It can only be worse for Twitter.

----------


## Swordsmyth

Elon Musk Sells $6.9 Billion In Tesla Stock

https://www.thefinancialtrends.com/2...n-tesla-stock/

----------


## Swordsmyth

Elon Musk Says Twitter Is Hiding Witnesses

https://www.thefinancialtrends.com/2...ing-witnesses/

----------


## Swordsmyth

Musk Only Granted One Witness From Twitter, But It Is A Fired Employee

https://www.thefinancialtrends.com/2...ired-employee/

----------


## Swordsmyth

Elon Musk’s Twitter Data Requests Rejected As “Absurdly Broad”

https://www.thefinancialtrends.com/2...bsurdly-broad/

----------


## GlennwaldSnowdenAssanged

I know nothing about the legal system but I wonder why such a long time between the concept of purchasing twitter to the reality of owning it. Could twitter have ended the deal? Should a person be forced to purchase something they don't want? If twitter is worth far less today than it was months ago what is its true value? If damages are justified that shouldn't equate to mandating Musk purchase twitter. If things were simpler and Musk offered to buy twitter for xyz billion and it was agreed and he paid all in short order, he would own twitter. In most instances when I sign a large commitment contract there is a waiting period before the transaction is solidified. I think that period of time is called right of recession. People back out of deals all the time. It would be great if the US government would back out of many deals. It seems to me if the transaction has not yet be completed it shouldn't be forced to be completed. As stated earlier had it happened quickly it would already be done.

----------


## Swordsmyth

Judge Criticizes Musk For Failure To Surrender All Relevant Texts In Twitter Case

https://www.thefinancialtrends.com/2...-twitter-case/

----------


## Swordsmyth

Elon Musk Says Whistleblower Payoff Violates Terms Of Twitter Deal

https://www.thefinancialtrends.com/2...-twitter-deal/

----------


## kahless

> I know nothing about the legal system but I wonder why such a long time between the concept of purchasing twitter to the reality of owning it. Could twitter have ended the deal? Should a person be forced to purchase something they don't want? If twitter is worth far less today than it was months ago what is its true value? If damages are justified that shouldn't equate to mandating Musk purchase twitter. If things were simpler and Musk offered to buy twitter for xyz billion and it was agreed and he paid all in short order, he would own twitter. In most instances when I sign a large commitment contract there is a waiting period before the transaction is solidified. I think that period of time is called right of recession. People back out of deals all the time. It would be great if the US government would back out of many deals. It seems to me if the transaction has not yet be completed it shouldn't be forced to be completed. As stated earlier had it happened quickly it would already be done.


Because we live in a clown world where there is no sense of reason or logic, everything is the opposite of obvious right or wrong, nothing makes any sense.

----------


## Occam's Banana

https://twitter.com/EpochTimes/statu...59728100163585

----------


## Swordsmyth

> https://twitter.com/EpochTimes/statu...59728100163585


More info at this article:

Twitter Shareholders Vote Again To Sell To Elon Musk
https://www.thefinancialtrends.com/2...-to-elon-musk/

----------


## Occam's Banana

*Musk Revives $44 Billion Twitter Bid, Aiming to Avoid Trial*
_Legal team for Musk sensed judge would not rule in favor_
_Proposal likely eliminates need for court trial this month_
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...-54-20-a-share[archive linkl: https://archive.ph/wip/r3gcI]_Jef Feeley, Ed Hammond, & Kurt Wagner (04 October 2022)_

Elon Musk revived a bid to buy for Twitter Inc. at the original price of $54.20 a share, backtracking on his effort to quit the deal and potentially avoiding a contentious courtroom fight.

Musk made the proposal in a letter to Twitter on Monday, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that confirmed a Bloomberg report. Shares of Twitter climbed 22% to $52 at the close in New York. San Francisco-based Twitter said it received the letter and intends to close the deal at the agreed-upon price, without commenting specifically on how it will respond to Musk.

For Twitter, proceeding with Musks plan augurs a future under a mercurial billionaire who has spent months publicly criticizing its management, questioning its value and changing his mind. It also means that his contested claims -- that Twitter was lying about which percentage of users were bots, for instance -- are not likely to be scrutinized in a court of law.

Musk had been trying for months to end his contract to acquire Twitter, signed in April. The billionaire began showing signs of buyers remorse shortly after the deal was announced, alleging that Twitter had misled him about the size of its user base and the prevalence of automated accounts known as bots.

Musk formally quit the accord in July and Twitter sued him in Delaware Chancery Court to force him to go forward with the purchase. A trial had been scheduled to begin Oct. 17. The judge in Delaware on Tuesday asked both sides to come back to her with a proposal on how the case can now proceed. The options include having Twitter seek to dismiss the case or have her continue to retain jurisdiction until the deal closes, said a person familiar with the matter.

In the letter, Musks attorneys wrote that he and his supporters intend to proceed to closing of the transaction contemplated by the April 25, 2022, merger agreement, on the terms and subject to the conditions set forth therein. The plan is also contingent on him lining up the necessary debt financing and the court issuing an immediate stay of the action. Its a tough time for banks to sell debt. With yields at multiyear highs, banks led by Morgan Stanley could be on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars of losses on the unsecured portion alone, should they attempt to unload it to investors.

In the run-up to the planned Delaware proceedings, lawyers for both sides have fired cannonades of subpoenas at each other aimed at teasing out testimony and evidence. Musks side needed to demonstrate that Twitter violated the terms of the deal. Twitter alleged that Musk used the bots issue as a pretext for backing out a deal he no longer found economically sound.

Musks legal team was getting the sense that the case was not going well, as Judge Kathaleen St. J. McCormick sided repeatedly with Twitter in pretrial rulings, according to one person familiar. Even with the late emergence of a Twitter whistleblower who alleged executives werent forthcoming on security and bot issues, there were concerns Musks side would not be able to prove a material adverse effect, the legal standard required to exit the contract.

Inside Twitter on Tuesday, many employees were sitting through 2023 planning presentations when the news first started to circulate, according to multiple sources. Presenters did not acknowledge the news, which staffers saw spreading on their own social network. Many employees have opposed the idea of working for Musk, who has been openly mocked and criticized on internal Slack channels since the deal was signed.

In an internal memo Tuesday to Twitter staff, viewed by Bloomberg News, General Counsel Sean Edgett thanked workers for their patience as the company works through the legal issues. I will continue to keep you posted on significant updates, he wrote. Trading of Twitter shares was halted after the news broke and didnt resume until after the company confirmed receipt of Musks letter.

Twitter shareholders voted Sept. 13 to accept the buyout offer as Musk submitted it. The company said at the time that 98.6% of the votes cast were in favor of the deal. Musk, Twitters largest shareholder, didnt vote at all, according to two people familiar with his decision. Musk owned almost 10% of Twitter -- more than 73 million shares -- when he agreed to acquire the company.

Musk was scheduled to answer questions about the deal in Austin, Texas, on Oct. 6-7, according to a court filing Tuesday. Twitter Chief Executive Officer Parag Agrawal was scheduled to sit down for his deposition Monday.  

The case is Twitter v. Musk, 22-0613, Delaware Chancery Court (Wilmington).

----------


## Occam's Banana

Ben Collins (senior reporter @ NBC) whinging and FUDing about Musk buying Twitter:
https://twitter.com/oneunderscore__/...43289216405506

* *








Christopher Rufo's rebuttal to Collins:
https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/st...61445188431872

* *








Glenn Greenwald's (absolutely savage) rebuttal to Collins:
https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/statu...54192360030210

* *

----------


## Swordsmyth

As Musk Takes Over Twitter, It Could Affect Elections
https://www.thefinancialtrends.com/2...ect-elections/

----------


## acptulsa

> As Musk Takes Over Twitter, It Could Affect Elections
> https://www.thefinancialtrends.com/2...ect-elections/





> In May, at a Financial Times Event, Musk had referred to the banning of the former President after the January 6th riots as “morally wrong,” promising to reverse the ban when he took over the company. In addition, in Musk’s text messages with CEO Parag Agrawal, which were revealed in Twitter’s lawsuit, Musk indicated he intended to reinstate all non-spam accounts which had been permanently banned, with the exception of any accounts which, “explicitly advocate violence.” Analysts note, this could have profound effects on both, the upcoming midterms, as well as the 2024 Presidential election.


Why are you posting links to communist propaganda on the forum again?

And why does this person apply commas with a salt shaker?

----------


## PAF

> *Why are you posting links to communist propaganda on the forum again?*
> 
> And why does this person apply commas with a salt shaker?


I think I know. Because anything containing T***p needs to be regurgitated.

----------


## Brian4Liberty

> Ben Collins (senior reporter @ NBC) whinging and FUDing about Musk buying Twitter:
> https://twitter.com/oneunderscore__/...43289216405506
> 
> * *
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Projection. I’ve found that it is a common human trait for people to assume that all others behave the same way they do. Thus criminals believe that everyone else is also a criminal. And these totalitarian leftists believe that everyone else is a totalitarian that just doesn’t have the power yet that they have to implement totalitarianism.

They are correct in that there are other criminals, but they use that as an excuse to silence all opposition.

----------


## Occam's Banana

https://twitter.com/tomselliott/stat...07781326233608

----------


## devil21

As I predicted, Musk will go ahead with the purchase and has already said he wants to turn Twitter into a Chinese style super-app.  No doubt it will include the "ID-all-humans on the internet" digital initiative and incorporate the social credit score component, along with a "Green Pass/Vax Passport" component and a digital-only CBDC payment system.  I wonder what Orwellian name they'll rebrand the app once it's ready for launch?





> Why are you posting links to communist propaganda on the forum again?
> 
> And why does this person apply commas with a salt shaker?


I thought we figured out long ago that Swordy is a communist larping as a conservative.  That handle has followed the Alinsky playbook to a tee ever since the handle showed up on RPF.

If you drill down from that piece into the background of Black(sic) Masters, advocated as being Musk's new Twitter policy enforcement head after takeover is complete, you find this gem on his Senate campaign page:




> Abroad, we see the menace of authoritarian countries like China. Blake has an unrivaled understanding of how China uses technology to not only control and terrorize its own citizens, but also to steal our intellectual property and wage digital warfare against America.


If you read that a certain way, it says he's also very, very qualified to implement such policies for Musk's Chinese style super-app.

----------


## acptulsa

> If you read that a certain way, it says he's also very, very qualified to implement such policies for Musk's Chinese style super-app.


Can't possibly be!  Libtards are too dumb to know what's being done to them, who's their friend, and who's their foe.  Even so, if libtard heads are sploding over something, it couldn't possibly be bad!  Even if someone's fooling them, it just has to be good!!

----------


## Occam's Banana

> If you read that a certain way, it says he's also very, very qualified to implement such policies for Musk's Chinese style super-app.


“If you read that a certain way *make stuff up because it suits your preferred narrative*, it says he's also very, very qualified to implement such policies for Musk's Chinese style super-app *stuff that suits your preferred narrative*.”

LOL. Fixed.

----------


## devil21

> LOL. Fixed.


How so?  Musk plainly stated he wants to model his revamped Twitter after Chinese super-apps, which incorporate a social credit system, digital yuan payments, monitored communication, censorship, etc.  If an expert on such Chinese apps is appointed to head up policy of Musk's new Chinese super app, wouldn't it stand to reason that such expert would also know intimately how to mimic one?

----------


## Swordsmyth

Musk Says He Is Excited About Twitter Buyout, Though He Overpaid

https://www.thefinancialtrends.com/2...h-he-overpaid/

----------


## Swordsmyth

Elon Musk To Cut 75% Of Twitter’s Workforce

https://www.thefinancialtrends.com/2...ers-workforce/

----------


## pcosmar

> Elon Musk To Cut 75% Of Twitter’s Workforce
> 
> https://www.thefinancialtrends.com/2...ers-workforce/


Most of those are robots anyway.. Good on him.

----------


## ClaytonB



----------


## Occam's Banana

*US Weighs Security Reviews for Musk Deals, Including Twitter Buy*
_Concerns over Musks stance on Russia, threat to cut Starlink_
_Discussions at early stage as officials consider legal options_
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...ng-twitter-buy
[archive link: https://archive.ph/Lsrif]_Jennifer Jacobs & Saleha Mohsin (21 October 2022)_

Biden administration officials are discussing whether the US should subject some of Elon Musks ventures to national security reviews, including the deal for Twitter Inc. and SpaceXs Starlink satellite network, according to people familiar with the matter.

US officials have grown uncomfortable over Musks recent threat to stop supplying the Starlink satellite service to Ukraine -- he said it had cost him $80 million so far -- and what they see as his increasingly Russia-friendly stance following a series of tweets that outlined peace proposals favorable to President Vladimir Putin. They are also concerned by his plans to buy Twitter with a group of foreign investors.

The discussions are still at an early stage, the people familiar said on condition of anonymity. Officials in the US government and intelligence community are weighing what tools, if any, are available that would allow the federal government to review Musks ventures.

One possibility is through the law governing the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States to review Musks deals and operations for national security risks, they said.

The interagency panel, known as CFIUS, reviews acquisitions of US businesses by foreign buyers. It is not clear if a CFIUS review -- which would involve assessments by the Departments of State, Defense, and Homeland Security, among others -- would offer the government a legal way to conduct a review, the people said.

One element of the $44 billion Twitter deal that could trigger a CFIUS review is the presence of foreign investors in Musks consortium. The group includes Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia, Binance Holdings Ltd. -- a digital-asset exchange founded and run by a Chinese native -- and Qatars sovereign wealth fund.

The panel operates behind closed doors and rarely confirms when it is conducting reviews. CFIUS also holds the power to review deals that have already been consummated.

A US Treasury Department spokesperson said CFIUS does not publicly comment on any transactions that may or may not be under review.

Musk, the worlds richest person, has taken to Twitter in recent weeks to announce proposals to end Russias war and threaten to cut financial support for Starlink internet in Ukraine. His tweets and public comments have frustrated officials in the US and Europe and drawn praise from Americas rivals.

Musk later backed down from his threat to stop deploying Starlink and said he would continue to bear the costs of the service. Starlink has become an essential tool for communications in Ukraine during the Russian invasion. Musk has been providing the service for free but has said SpaceX loses $20 million a month providing it to Ukraine and he cannot be responsible for that cost indefinitely.

The US government would also use Starlink in the event of a telecommunications outage, according to people familiar with the matter.

Musk did not immediately respond to multiple e-mailed requests for comment.

He tweeted in reply to a fellow readers reaction to the Bloomberg article. It would be hysterical if the government stopped Elon from over paying for Twitter , the reader tweeted. , Musk replied.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1583264626053042176

Widely known as the chief executive officer of electric automaker Tesla Inc., Musk is no stranger to Washington, where he is a major player in government contracts.

Musk forced his way into the business of military and intelligence satellite launches after lobbying vigorously in Congress and suing the US Air Force for the right to compete with a longstanding joint venture of defense giants Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp.

In 2019, the Pentagon said it was reviewing Musks federal security clearance after he smoked marijuana on a podcast, though the results of that investigation are unclear. A SpaceX official at the time, who asked not to be identified, said the review had not had an impact on the company.

SpaceX flies astronauts to the International Space Station as part of a long-standing partnership with NASA and launches top secret satellites for the Pentagon. The US Agency for International Development, or USAID, has also paid for some of SpaceXs Starlink satellites that have made their way to Ukraine.

----------


## Occam's Banana

> *US Weighs Security Reviews for Musk Deals, Including Twitter Buy*
> _Concerns over Musk’s stance on Russia, threat to cut Starlink_
> _Discussions at early stage as officials consider legal options_
> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...ng-twitter-buy[archive link: https://archive.ph/Lsrif]
> [...]


*The US Government Sees Silicon Valley As Part Of Its Propaganda Machine*
https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.co...silicon-valley
_Caitlin  Johnstone (21 October 2022)_

The Biden administration is reportedly considering opening a national security review of Elon Musk's business ventures which could see the plutocrat's purchase of Twitter blocked by the White House, in part because Musk is perceived as having an "increasingly Russia-friendly stance."

Bloomberg reports:
Biden administration officials are discussing whether the US should subject some of Elon Musk’s ventures to national security reviews, including the deal for Twitter Inc. and SpaceX’s Starlink satellite network, according to people familiar with the matter.

US officials have grown uncomfortable over Musk’s recent threat to stop supplying the Starlink satellite service to Ukraine -- he said it had cost him $80 million so far -- and what they see as his increasingly Russia-friendly stance following a series of tweets that outlined peace proposals favorable to President Vladimir Putin. They are also concerned by his plans to buy Twitter with a group of foreign investors.
The "group of foreign investors" the Biden administration is reportedly worried about oddly includes Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia, who has already been a massive Twitter shareholder for years. The White House certainly never had a problem with foreign investors there before.
https://twitter.com/JenniferJJacobs/...58922475204608

"Officials in the US government and intelligence community are weighing what tools, if any, are available that would allow the federal government to review Musk’s ventures," Bloomberg writes. "One possibility is through the law governing the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States [CFIUS] to review Musk’s deals and operations for national security risks, they said."

"Musk, the world’s richest person, has taken to Twitter in recent weeks to announce proposals to end Russia’s war and threaten to cut financial support for Starlink internet in Ukraine," says Bloomberg. "His tweets and public comments have frustrated officials in the US and Europe and drawn praise from America’s rivals."

"If the Twitter acquisition was to be reviewed by CFIUS for national security reasons, the agency could recommend to President Biden that he nix the deal — something Musk himself has tried and failed to do in recent months," writes Business Insider's Kate Duffy on the Bloomberg scoop.

Indeed Musk has already indicated that he'd find it funny if the Biden administration blocked his purchase of Twitter, a $44 billion buy that the Tesla executive has made every legal effort to back out of. But how revealing is it that someone could be forbidden by the White House from purchasing a giant social media company on the grounds that they're not sufficiently hostile toward Moscow?

Neither Bloomberg nor any other mainstream members of the imperial commentariat appear to take any interest in the jarring notion that the US government could end up banning the purchase of an online platform because it views the purchaser as having an unacceptably "Russia-friendly stance." Not only is it uncritically accepted that the US government mustn't allow the purchase of a social media company if the would-be buyer isn't deemed adequately hostile to US enemies, many mainstream liberals are actively cheering for this outcome:

https://twitter.com/duty2warn/status...25927622852608


This just says so much about how the US government views the function of Silicon Valley megacorporations, and why it has been exerting more and more pressure on them to collaborate with the empire to greater and greater degrees of intimacy. As far as the US empire is concerned, Silicon Valley is just an arm of the imperial propaganda machine. And empire apologists believe that's as it should be.

None of this will come as a surprise to anyone who's been paying attention to things like the drastic escalations in online censorship since the war in Ukraine began, including on Twitter, or the ongoing expansion of internet censorship protocols that were already well underway before this war started. It will also come as no surprise to people whose ears pricked up when the White House summoned top social media influencers to a briefing in which they were instructed how to talk about the Ukraine war. It will also come as no surprise to those who paid attention to the public outcry when it was discovered that the Biden administration was assembling a "disinformation governance board" to function as an official Ministry of Truth for online content, or when the White House admitted to flagging "problematic posts" for Facebook to take down, or when Mark Zuckerberg admitted that the censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop October surprise in the last presidential race was done in conjunction with the FBI.

It is abundantly clear to anyone paying attention that Silicon Valley tech companies are a major part of the imperial narrative control system. The US empire has invested in soft power to an exponentially greater degree than any other empire in history, and has refined the science of mass-scale psychological manipulation to produce the mightiest propaganda machine since the dawn of civilization. Silicon Valley is being used to manipulate the way people think about world events via algorithm manipulation, censorship, and sophisticated information ops like Wikipedia in an entirely unprecedented way that is becoming more and more important to imperial control as the old media give way to the new.

Narrative control centers like Silicon Valley, the news media and Hollywood are just as crucial for US imperial domination as the military. That the US government is weighing intervention to stop the purchase of an online platform, because it lacks confidence that the would-be owner would reliably advance US information interests, is just the latest glimpse behind the veil at the imperial agenda to control human understanding and perception.

----------


## GlennwaldSnowdenAssanged

> *The US Government Sees Silicon Valley As Part Of Its Propaganda Machine*
> https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.co...silicon-valley
> _Caitlin  Johnstone (21 October 2022)_
> 
> The Biden administration is reportedly considering opening a national security review of Elon Musk's business ventures which could see the plutocrat's purchase of Twitter blocked by the White House, in part because Musk is perceived as having an "increasingly Russia-friendly stance."
> 
> Bloomberg reports:
> Biden administration officials are discussing whether the US should subject some of Elon Musk’s ventures to national security reviews, including the deal for Twitter Inc. and SpaceX’s Starlink satellite network, according to people familiar with the matter.
> 
> ...


Imagine that. A couple months ago Musk wanted out of the deal and was going to be forced to purchase. Now he agrees to purchase and they want to stop the deal. Seems like a win for Musk. Shareholders will be left with a failing worthless company. I guess it is possible it was all prescripted.

----------


## GlennwaldSnowdenAssanged

Pro Ukraine=Godly & Sainthood. Pro Russia = Satan & Demonic.

----------


## Occam's Banana

> Imagine that. A couple months ago Musk wanted out of the deal and was going to be forced to purchase. Now he agrees to purchase and they want to stop the deal. Seems like a win for Musk. Shareholders will be left with a failing worthless company. I guess it is possible it was all prescripted.


If Musk _does_ end up buying Twitter, then "it was all prescripted".

And if Musk does _not_ end up buying Twitter, then "it was all prescripted".

Everything is always "prescripted".

----------


## Occam's Banana

> *US Weighs Security Reviews for Musk Deals, Including Twitter Buy*
> _Concerns over Musk’s stance on Russia, threat to cut Starlink_
> _Discussions at early stage as officials consider legal options_
> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...ng-twitter-buy[archive link: https://archive.ph/Lsrif]
> [...]


https://twitter.com/AmFirebrand/stat...19717709066240

----------


## acptulsa

> Wow...fascism must really be appealing to so many people for them to be tricked into it by allowing free speech.


It seems that way to the people who are fighting against it by unwittingly embracing it.

----------


## ClaytonB

> Sure it will. For you it might be a different story and it won't age well if all your faith is in the fake news cycle listening to your favorite controlled opposition frauds that are continually posted here that you believe are the real deal.  They will not be censored because the illusion must go on.  Whistle blowers and nobodies on the other hand calling out elites, that will no doubt be censored.


Our hope is not in whistle-blowing and finger-pointing. Salvation cannot be obtained in this way and those who keep urging us to believe it's the only way this world can be fixed are, whether knowingly or not, participating in the very evil that is preventing the world from healing.




> Already he is dialing it back.
> 
> Posted 6 hours ago
> 
> Elon Musk: Twitter won't become a "free-for-all hellscape"
> https://www.axios.com/2022/10/27/elo...ch-advertisers


 There is such a thing as a free-for-all hellscape. I've never frequented the dark web, not because I have any legal or moral objection to it, but because fully-unmoderated platforms are, just as Elon put it... hellscapes. Have you ever tried posting on 4Chan or similar boards? It's the literal definition of a waste-of-time. Sure, some people have absolutely zero life and persist in the madness for reasons known only to them. But anyone within a hundred miles of being capable of basic social interactions prefers content moderation, whether on Twitter or anywhere else. Free speech means the government can't interfere with citizens publicly expressing their views (including through sneaky methods, such as biasing Twitter content/moderation), but it doesn't mean zero-content-moderation. If that's what you want, the dark web is the literal free-for-all you're looking for. Nobody's stopping you from starting your own Dark Web Tw@tter where you can spew any sort of verbal filth you want...

----------


## Occam's Banana

> [... I]t won't age well if all your faith is in the fake news cycle listening to your favorite controlled opposition frauds that are continually posted here that you believe are the real deal. [...]
> 
> Already he is dialing it back.
> 
> Posted 6 hours ago
> 
> Elon Musk: Twitter won't become a "free-for-all hellscape"
> https://www.axios.com/2022/10/27/elo...ch-advertisers


Whoa, there!

Please try to be a little more gentle with your transitions from lecturing others about "listening to [their] favorite controlled opposition frauds" to citing corporate-media stories (such as from Axios) that you think support your preferred narrative.

You're gonna end up giving people a case of severe whiplash!

----------


## ClaytonB

Added a little more pop to it:

----------


## kahless

> Our hope is not in whistle-blowing and finger-pointing. Salvation cannot be obtained in this way and those who keep urging us to believe it's the only way this world can be fixed are, whether knowingly or not, participating in the very evil that is preventing the world from healing.


So good people that open their mouths about the wrong doing of elites and the evil acts they commit against others should be quiet because that does not allow us to heal and if we do we lose salvation effectively going to hell.  Are you $#@!ing kidding me or have I misunderstood what you are saying here?




> There is such a thing as a free-for-all hellscape. I've never frequented the dark web, not because I have any legal or moral objection to it, but because fully-unmoderated platforms are, just as Elon put it... hellscapes. Have you ever tried posting on 4Chan or similar boards? It's the literal definition of a waste-of-time. Sure, some people have absolutely zero life and persist in the madness for reasons known only to them. But anyone within a hundred miles of being capable of basic social interactions prefers content moderation, whether on Twitter or anywhere else. Free speech means the government can't interfere with citizens publicly expressing their views (including through sneaky methods, such as biasing Twitter content/moderation), but it doesn't mean zero-content-moderation. If that's what you want, the dark web is the literal free-for-all you're looking for. Nobody's stopping you from starting your own Dark Web Tw@tter where you can spew any sort of verbal filth you want...


So here is another, he is has come around, and we should trust the plan.  You are going full blown trust Elon Musk mode. This reminds of the years since this forum started of people saying this one or that one had come around.  Every single time it turned out the defenders got burned. Here we go again, with this blind faith in these elites.

----------


## ClaytonB

> So good people that open their mouths about the wrong doing of elites and the evil acts they commit against others should be quiet because that does not allow us to heal and if we do we lose salvation effectively going to hell.  Are you $#@!ing kidding me?
> 
> So here is another, he is has come around, and we should trust the plan.  You are going full blown trust Elon Musk mode. This reminds of the years since this forum started of people saying this one or that one had come around.  Every single time it turned out the defenders got burned. Here we go again, with this blind faith in these elites.




(a) I don't trust anyone in this place besides Jesus. *NO ONE*

(b) I said nothing about hell. The point is that the devil's network of evil is fueled by accusations -- the name "Satan" literally means "Accuser". So, no, accusations and "exposure" in evil human courts, arrests by evil human police, etc. is not going to solve anything. If it could solve anything, it would have done so centuries ago. What is needed is a real change in people's hearts.

(c) My understanding of Elon Musk's business strategy is that he is a consummate opportunist. If he spots a profit-opportunity, he takes it. Most of the biggest profit-opportunities are created by political agendas, because the decision-makers behind those agendas do not bear the costs/risks of their agenda. Necessarily, this creates opportunities for sufficiently well-funded capitalists. Every one of Musk's businesses is of this nature. Tesla wins no matter what. Either it becomes profitable outright, or it gets propped up with free subsidies from the government (or maybe both). Musk profits either way. And so on and so forth.

(d) There's no need to guess about what will happen to Twitter, Elon has fully explained what he will do once he's in charge.

----------


## kahless

> Whoa, there!
> 
> Please try to be a little more gentle with your transitions from lecturing others about "listening to [their] favorite controlled opposition frauds" to citing corporate-media stories (such as from Axios) that you think support your preferred narrative.
> 
> You're gonna end up giving people a case of severe whiplash!


Sorry if I hit a little too close to home about your friends. You know allot more than you say here in this forum but I understand you won't say more since you make a living off getting your material exposed on a national level by them and would not want to burn those bridges. Besides, as someone who knows what it is like to piss them off, I am sure you do not want to go through what I went through by speaking forbidden truths.

So you are about as credible as Axios and in this case Axios happens to be correct. The MSM sometimes does identify the issues at hand correctly. No one says you or these people or controlled opposition do not correctly identify the problems that exist.  It is all about their intentions which leads to deceitful actions or in-action when they have the power to take action.

----------


## ClaytonB

Timestamp 8:58:




This is a big deal, folks. The changes are already being felt. Twitter is not what you probably think...

----------


## kahless

> (b) I said nothing about hell. The point is that the devil's network of evil is fueled by accusations -- the name "Satan" literally means "Accuser". So, no, accusations and "exposure" in evil human courts, arrests by evil human police, etc. is not going to solve anything. If it could solve anything, it would have done so centuries ago. What is needed is a real change in people's hearts.


Good people must speak out against their evil otherwise one will not be changing what is in people's hearts.  You stay quiet, evil will grow in numbers.




> (c) My understanding of Elon Musk's business strategy is that he is a consummate opportunist. If he spots a profit-opportunity, he takes it. Most of the biggest profit-opportunities are created by political agendas, because the decision-makers behind those agendas do not bear the costs/risks of their agenda. Necessarily, this creates opportunities for sufficiently well-funded capitalists. Every one of Musk's businesses is of this nature. Tesla wins no matter what. Either it becomes profitable outright, or it gets propped up with free subsidies from the government (or maybe both). Musk profits either way. And so on and so forth.
> 
> (d) There's no need to guess about what will happen to Twitter, Elon has fully explained what he will do once he's in charge.


To put it another way, one should not have blind faith in his word to follow through in what he stated.

I think it will probably end up like Trump's social media outlet.  Normies censored while select people that can continue the curated agenda allowed free speech.

----------


## acptulsa

> Timestamp 8:58:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> This is a big deal, folks. The changes are already being felt. Twitter is not what you probably think...


Left normies with sploding heads bore me.  What does that accomplish?  Hell, even this guy doesn't care if his follower count is accurate.  I certainly don't.




> To put it another way, one should not have blind faith in his word to follow through in what he stated.
> 
> I think it will probably end up like Trump's social media outlet.  Normies censored while select people that can continue the curated agenda allowed free speech.


Or, to put it simply, controlled opposition.  Want to kvetch about trannies?  Fine.  Want to explain the Fed?  Cone of Silence.

Divisions will be amplified.  But will hearts and minds be changed?

----------


## ClaytonB

> Good people must speak out against their evil otherwise one will not be changing what is in people's hearts.  You stay quiet, evil will grow in numbers.


Well, yes, we need to point out when something evil is happening, but we need to be specific (not hand-waving over the bullhorn, like AJ) and we need to trust God to see it through, rather than imagining that our red-faced ranting is what is going to save the world, because it never has and never will. The devil is perfectly happen to have us all up on bullhorns, red-faced ranting like a bunch of Alex Jones's so he can point his propaganda-news cameras at us and make fools of us. Spiritual warfare is real warfare; this is not an abstraction or a metaphor.




> To put it another way, one should not have blind faith in his word to follow through in what he stated.


Elon is a pretty predictable businessman -- predictability is good for business and he knows that. It's possible he might throw a curveball, I don't "believe in" Elon Musk. But I doubt he will do that, because it doesn't benefit him in any way.

----------


## Occam's Banana

> Sorry if I hit a little too close to home about your friends. You know allot more than you say here in this forum but I understand you won't say more since you make a living off getting your material exposed on a national level by them and would not want to burn those bridges. Besides, as someone who knows what it is like to piss them off, I am sure you do not want to go through what I went through by speaking forbidden truths.


I appreciate your discretion. Thanks! 




> So you are about as credible as Axios and in this case Axios happens to be correct.


Alright, wait ... so ... I am "as credible as Axios" ... and "Axios happens to be correct" ... so that would mean ... _hmmmmmm_






> The MSM sometimes does identify the issues at hand correctly. No one says you or these people or controlled opposition do not correctly identify the problems that exist.  It is all about their intentions which leads to deceitful actions or in-action when they have the power to take action.


IOW: When "they" are NOT correct about "the issues at hand", then that just proves their nefarious "intentions" and "deceitful actions or in-action". But when "they" ARE correct about "the issues at hand", then that ALSO proves their nefarious "intentions" and "deceitful actions or in-action".

This is a perfect illustration of the essential vacuity of "controlled opposition" narratives.

----------


## ClaytonB

> Left normies with sploding heads bore me.  What does that accomplish?  Hell, even this guy doesn't care if his follower count is accurate.  I certainly don't.


It's not about this guy alone, obviously. The point is "consensus building" or "movement building". People are more likely to believe Z is good if all their neighbors believe Z is good. Or bad. Twitter is, as Musk has stated, the new modern "public square". Like it or not, that is what it is. Twitter in the hands of whatever shadowy agency has been running it until now could only reflect the consensus-opinions that served the globalist/Marxist agenda. Freeing Twitter from control by shadowy forces won't give you an automatic Red Wave, or something, but it will take a real weapon out of the hands of the shadow-network. Death by a thousand papercuts may not be as glorious as halving the enemy with a katana, but it's still death.




> Or, to put it simply, controlled opposition.  Want to kvetch about trannies?  Fine.  Want to explain the Fed?  Cone of Silence.


Will it be a cone of silence though? The Mises Institute is the single most powerful anti-Fed force in existence... here's their Twitter feed. You're proposing that Musk's going to shut it down? Why? How does he benefit from that??




> Divisions will be amplified.  But will hearts and minds be changed?


Will bookmark this and try to remember to come back to it next year. I don't think your prediction is going to age well...

----------


## Occam's Banana



----------


## Occam's Banana

https://twitter.com/michaelmalice/st...78490410151941

----------


## acptulsa

> People are more likely to believe Z is good if all their neighbors believe Z is good. Or bad. Twitter is, as Musk has stated, the new modern "public square". Like it or not, that is what it is. Twitter in the hands of whatever shadowy agency has been running it until now could only reflect the consensus-opinions that served the globalist/Marxist agenda.


And yet, this account already exists:




> Will it be a cone of silence though? The Mises Institute is the single most powerful anti-Fed force in existence... here's their Twitter feed. You're proposing that Musk's going to shut it down? Why? How does he benefit from that??


No, I'm not.  If it isn't already shut down, it certainly won't be going forward.  That would merely call attention to it.

Which, I notice, is something "conservative" "businessman" Musk has never once done, to the best of my knowledge.




> Will bookmark this and try to remember to come back to it next year. I don't think your prediction is going to age well...


What prediction?  That the divisions will be amplified?  Fine.  Since they already are by all this hoopla, that suits me.

So, Elon Musk undoes some of the higher-profile things that Twitter did, and restores people's faith in it.  Then it shows a tad more restraint, perhaps, because it doesn't matter.  Will Trump return?  No.  He has his own platform to promote.  So, other than the possibility of appealing to the herd instinct of certain malleable users, what will change?  A great deal?  Precious little?  It remains to be seen.  The only fearless prediction I have for you is this: Shills will still be present and accounted for.

The government hand feeds him far too much.  He won't bite it.

This isn't about keeping either "side" permanently "trampled".  The pendulum must appear to swing.  This is about giving the two "sides" enough to fight about that people won't hold out for the things we really need.  You know.  Like peace and prosperity.  So long as they can define the "sides", neither "side" will be about those.

----------


## ClaytonB

> Which, I notice, is something "conservative" "businessman" Musk has never once done, to the best of my knowledge.


I wish I could understand the weird straitjacket that you feel compelled to think within. I don't have to believe that somebody has "come around" in order to believe that their actions are _incidentally beneficial_ for freedom. I don't think that Musk is an ideological libertarian. He has described himself as a "free speech absolutist" but I highly doubt that's true. And there's nothing particularly conservative about his social, political or even economic views. This is all obvious and public record. Nevertheless, I reject the idea -- which seems to be popular on RPF -- that everyone above $X net worth is an inducted member of the Illuminati or whoever-it-is-that-rules-the-world.




> What prediction?  That the divisions will be amplified?  Fine.  Since they already are by all this hoopla, that suits me.







> what will change?


They're already switching off their bot-nets and I'm sure we haven't seen the last of that. It's like the ending of _They Live!_ where the main transmitter gets shut off -- the moment the transmissions stop, people will start asking "Why does the Emperor have no clothes?" The only way to stop that question is with a constant stream of propaganda. They are literally fighting gravity and Twitter was their single most powerful tool for consensus-building and brigading.




> This isn't about keeping either "side" permanently "trampled".  The pendulum must appear to swing.  This is about giving the two "sides" enough to fight about that people won't hold out for the things we really need.  You know.  Like peace and prosperity.


Yeah, I get it, you're black-pilled. Your choice. I choose hope. They lose, whether sooner or later. I prefer sooner, but I'll take later if that's what it has to be...

----------


## acptulsa

My only point is, Razor's followers suddenly jumped but the Mises Institute's didn't.  Not bad.  Also not enough.  You say I'm black-pilled, but I know as well as you do that they lose in the end.  So I don't know where you get that.

This is the U.S.  It used to get a new emperor every eight years, but they've stepped that up to every four.  The new breed of clown-emperor so obviously has no clothes that the opposition know it right away, and even those loyal to his "side" figure it out within four years.  Anyone who doesn't go along with this game is "black-pilled" and anyone who does is "white-pilled"?  Whatever, dude.  Both pills sound racist, and I'm bored with racism.  Have fun.

The things I'm trying to teach, both sides need to hear, and both sides can hear.  I just wish there was a little less ambient noise, but I know there won't be.

----------


## Occam's Banana

> https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1519073003933515776
> 
> 
> Elon should have her walked out the door tomorrow.


Done.

*Elon Musk FIRES top Twitter execs as he takes charge*
_Musk entered the San Francisco headquarters ahead of the $44 billion deal closing, and was faced with skeptical employees worried for their jobs and the company culture._
https://thepostmillennial.com/breaki...e-takes-charge
_Libby Emmons (27 October 2022)_

David Faber of CNBC reported Thursday night that Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal and CFO Ned Segal have left Twitter as Elon Musk officially takes over the company. A later report noted that these execs, along with Vijaya Gadde, had been fired by the new owner.

"CEO Parag Agrawal, chief financial officer Ned Segal, and Vijaya Gadde, head of legal policy, trust, and safety, were all fired, according to the people. Sean Edgett , the company’s general counsel, was also pushed out, one of the people said," the Washington Post reports.
https://twitter.com/TPostMillennial/...98519775969288

----------


## Occam's Banana

https://twitter.com/Occams_Banana/st...98740414365708

----------


## Occam's Banana

https://twitter.com/notBilly/status/1586086596108959744

----------


## osan

> "Good and bad, don’t get distracted by that. It will just confuse you. Good men do bad things [...and] bad men do things believing it’s for the good of all mankind." -- Anderson Dawes, _The Expanse_



A fair point, though I was being somewhat rhetorical.  I really don't care whether he's Hitler reborn; all that matters are the results of his labors.  Space-X appears to be a good one, at least thus far.  That question will predicate as travel becomes more common in time and we make that stab toward Mars.

I'm greatly less impressed with Tesla.Some of the innovations, especially in motor design, have been substantial.  But as I've quipped elsewhere, our practical knowledge of energy systems leaves much to be desired.

----------


## osan

> 


He's a chump using big words that mean nothing substantial.  "Algorithmicist".  For Pete's sake, is nobody an actual computer scientist anymore?  I ask in all earnestness because everyone I've met in the last decade who's called themself a computer scientist was nothing of the sort.  They didn't even know what assembly language is, but they were computer science majors.  GTFO.

Using big, made-up, bull$#@! terms in order to feel important or special or "edgy"† is not the way... not if success at something worth the succeeding is on your agenda.

† The "edgy" thing gets my cruel up.  "oooOOOOoooo... everybody look at meeeEEEeee... I'm so _edgy_...  Stupid of that caliber deserves a backhand impulse strike into low earth orbit.  Jeff  Dahmer was edgy, so unless one is prepared to kidnap/lure, incapacitate, murder, butcher, cook, consume, and dispose of fellow humans, he is decidedly not edgy, but a mere punk.

----------


## TheCount

> He's a chump using big words that mean nothing substantial.  "Algorithmicist".  For Pete's sake, is nobody an actual computer scientist anymore?  I ask in all earnestness because everyone I've met in the last decade who's called themself a computer scientist was nothing of the sort.  They didn't even know what assembly language is, but they were computer science majors.  GTFO.
> 
> Using big, made-up, bull$#@! terms in order to feel important or special or "edgy" is not the way... not if success at something worth the succeeding is on your agenda.
> 
>  The "edgy" thing gets my cruel up.  "oooOOOOoooo... everybody look at meeeEEEeee... I'm so _edgy_...  Stupid of that caliber deserves a backhand impulse strike into low earth orbit.  Jeff  Dahmer was edgy, so unless one is prepared to kidnap/lure, incapacitate, murder, butcher, cook, consume, and dispose of fellow humans, he is decidedly not edgy, but a mere punk.


It's satire.

----------


## pcosmar

> But as I've quipped elsewhere, our practical knowledge of energy systems leaves much to be desired.


Bull$#@!.. Fuel Cells were a Proven Reality in 1960.. with 97% Efficiency..

Battery Tech was suppressed,, until Cell Phones Laptops and other Devices Required it.

A Fuel Cell will charge on the Fly,, and an "engineer" should KNOW that.

----------


## SpiritOf1776_J4

Nope, nothing has changed.  After using hate speech against all Republicans, inciting political violence by making up things out of thin air, again.  

Hillary Clinton was also the author of the russia russia disinformatuon campaign, and even the "vast right wing conspiracy" and other claims 25 years ago. 

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hillary...er-funded-now/

https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/20/polit...fbi/index.html
(note I'm referencing CNN).

https://nypost.com/2021/09/16/fresh-...nton-campaign/

You could say that Hillary's funding of media matters / shareblue and anti-free speech advocacy of the last 30 years is the direct cause of the current widespread censorship and media control.  Thirty years of continued pushing, funding, and justification of it in democrat circles, both in the white house, and two times as a presidential candidate.

----------


## SpiritOf1776_J4

Hmm.

BREAKING: Viva Frei locked out of Twitter after raising questions about Pelosi attack (?)
https://twitter.com/JackPosobiec/sta...Q7yJua-BxujwiA

Looks like twitter's "we haven't changed any rules yet" May mean we still censor you, unless you're a...
Admittedly. most people who aren't bird brains have justified reasons to be skeptical that twitter has just changed- and they should be.  There's no justification for any of the ways twitter is set up but to censor.

----------


## Intrepid

> It's satire.


Or a good, old-fashioned troll.

----------


## Swordsmyth

Musk To Charge For Twitter Verification

https://www.thefinancialtrends.com/2...-verification/

----------


## osan

> Bull$#@!.. Fuel Cells were a Proven Reality in 1960.. with 97% Efficiency..


Don't know what you're reading, but talking about bull pellets...

Consider the EPA site, which talks vaguely about cell-fueled vehicles:

"Some FCVs can get over 300 miles on one tank of hydrogen fuel   greater than the distance from St. Louis to Chicago  and fuel economy close to 70 MPGe (miles per gasoline gallon equivalent)."
This is a mite vague, but the implication is a tank in the area of 4 gallons, a volume reflective of the inherent dangers of tootling down the highway at 70 mph with a rather unstable bomb strapped to your butt cheeks.  Ever see the footage of Hindenburg going up?  4 gallons of H is a lot of violence.

Then there's the "70 MPGe".  The hybrids in Europe (not available in America, of course, heaven forbid) that are diesel fueled are getting far better economy than 70 MPG.  And do recall that vehicle VW designed: 240 MPG.  Why did they not produce it for the market?  Because it would cost $140K apiece, this going back maybe a decade - I don't quite recall at the moment, but I'm sure you can look it up.  That high a tag is simply not economically viable for 99.9% of the market.  Or would you support forced purchase?  Didn't think so.  So here we stand, same boat as before.




> Battery Tech was suppressed,, until Cell Phones Laptops and other Devices Required it.


"Suppress[ion]" implies a positive will to keep something from the market.  While it may be true, there are other possibilities.  If there is no overt need for the tech, a company is not likely to invest countless millions (lots of money in the stone age before cell phones and laptops and other devices) on providing tech that people are not likely to buy.  It would have been more costly for everyone, with no compelling need.  When one can get D-cells for, say, a dime apiece or less, why am I paying $3 for a flashlight battery?  

Even if rechargeable batteries would have been desirable, and I question the notion as valid in the 1960s, there are the associated cost of chargers, to produce and to purchase.  One might have been able to market Lions and chargers, were the shelf lives of the components in question, say, twenty years or more.  But they aren't.  So if D-cells are a dime, and will last for one year on average, then $3 represents, cost-wise, 30 years worth of battery purchases.  Add, say $5 for a charger (I'm thinking ca. 1960 just arbitrarily.  Do register your complaint with this, if you have one).  That is another 50 years worth of purchases for a total of 80 years.  Now cut that by 75% just to be extra safe in our assumptions and in favor of Lions: still twenty years worth of batteries.

Personally, I'd want AT LEAST 10 years worth of good service life from rechargeable fare, considering the lost ten years of the twenty, above, as the premium I pay for convenience and for "green" (which isn't even really there, given the reality of mining lithium).   I would also point out that in 1960 the tech apparently did not exist to charge a Lion battery such that it would have lasted very long... unless that, too, was suppressed., including all the digital tech we use now.

So your tone that _seems_ to convey a sense of conspiracy, may be misplaced, or at least over-stated.




> A Fuel Cell will charge on the Fly,, and an "engineer" should KNOW that.


What do you mean by "charge on the fly"?  One has to fill a tank with hydrogen to fuel such a vehicles.  Now, if you are speaking of regenerative braking action, then you would have to have a water tank filled with very pure water in order to take braking energy and use is to regen hydrogen fuel, which would then have to be recompressed into liquid phase and pumped into the cell.  That capability requires more mechanism and therefore provides more potential failure points in the system.  Where hydrogen is concerned, one wants as few failure nodes as possible because it is nothing like gasoline or diesel.  Regen energy could be sent to a battery, but then you're back to batteries and the problems associated with them from production to disposal, albeit a reduced volume of such troubles.

As for hydrogen cells in general, they are about 60% efficient, overall.  That is what the people who are in the biz are saying, anyhow.  I'm not in the biz, so I am constrained to take the words of those who are.

The complexities of a "hydrogen economy" appear unappreciated by the average bear.  Claiming 97% efficiency without context is not even remotely credible.  Consider at least 20% loss in the process of electroysis.  Breaking the bonds in H2O will not happen at break-even energies, or anything even remotely close.  Consider this, from an article on physics.org:

"Water electrolysis has not yet established itself as a method for the production of hydrogen. Too much energy is lost in the process."
To be fair, researchers are improving this efficiency, but it's still not sufficient for economic viability.  Then there are several other considerations to be taken into account.

Consider the losses in compressing the gas into liquid, generally around 10%.  Consider the costs of storage in refrigerated facilities, not to mention the same requirement for transport.  Consider costs to design, produce, maintain, and retire such facilities.  ALL pressure vessels have service lives.  Consider the heat losses during combustion.  Consider the costs of producing cells that don't blow up.  Consider the costs of maintaining such cells so they don't degrade and blow up.  Consider the risks of a cell blowing up, or far worse, a transport tanker with, say even just a mere 500 gallons of liquid hydrogen.  And to be clear, 500 gallons isn't a whole lot of product.  Viable transport probably calls for thousands of gallons at a time.  in the case of hydrogen, that is a whole lot of potential danger - FAR more than that found with gasoline.

One needs sufficient circumspection when considering the proposition of hydrogen as a prime mover, because failure there spells very serious trouble.  In comparison, gasoline and diesel are as nothing in safety terms.

And finally, what's up with what seems the attempted impugning of myself as an engineer?  Putting the term in quotes as you have, implies a question of veracity, or quality.  I see no need for such measures, certainly not yet since we've not quite yet exhausted discussions of truth WRT the actualities of living with hydrogen-fueled vehicles.

Can we please keep this friendly?

----------


## osan

> Musk To Charge For Twitter Verification
> 
> https://www.thefinancialtrends.com/2...-verification/


OK, let me make sure I have this right.  Twitter, a mostly useless service wherein the vast and overwhelming majority of transactions amount to one raft of idiots doing what they might to insult and offend the other raft of idiots, is going to charge users to verify their identities on a platform where huge swaths of the user population prefer anonymity, or simply don't care about "verification"?  Have I got that?

I am assuming that this "twitter blue" is some premium service?  No thanks.  Paying $20/month to invite into my life the torrents of soul-withering bull$#@! that screeches across the screen, polluting one's mind and world view?  I must be missing something truly significant, because what I'm seeing leaves me wondering whether Musk has had a stroke.

Twitter is mostly cancer.  I acknowledge its potential utility for the dissemination of good information, worldwide, but the general usage tendencies seem to drown it all out in vast and violent oceans of noise.

----------


## osan

> It's satire.


That may be so, but considering that the content there is effectively no different from the earnestly offered communications of billions of people, how is one to tell?  Seriously, there is nothing in the words, as strung together here, that would indicate satire, or at another offered, a troll.

The Stupid sits upon the throne of humanity, and its subjects mostly kowtow with obsequious devotion.  Those who don't, get banned.

----------


## osan

> Bull$#@!.. Fuel Cells were a Proven Reality in 1960.. with 97% Efficiency.


One other thought - 

In 1960 the only use for such tech that I can see offhand would have been the space program.  I can see the reaction area of such a unit built of Peltier devices, which would capture the heat of combustion and convert it, partially, into electrical energy.  Used this way†, they are typically less than 10% efficient, but ten percent is better than nothing in an environment where every watt counts.

There are several factors that determine the performance of a thermoelectric device.  I can imagine that studious design would result in optimal efficiencies, but they are still quite low, leaving your claim of 97% in some question.

†Thermoelectric devices can be used to produce heat, cool, or generate current.

----------


## pcosmar

Not My Claim.. It was the claim of Allis Chalmers 60 years ago.




and the only applications have been Military and Space.

Until Now. Hydrogen Fuel Cells will haul Freight.

----------


## ClaytonB

-deleted-

----------


## pcosmar

@osan
Suppressed Tech could have kept us from a Few  Wars.

but it has only been used for war,,
 "Fuel Cell Drones"  do a search.

----------


## Swordsmyth

> OK, let me make sure I have this right.  Twitter, a mostly useless service wherein the vast and overwhelming majority of transactions amount to one raft of idiots doing what they might to insult and offend the other raft of idiots, is going to charge users to verify their identities on a platform where huge swaths of the user population prefer anonymity, or simply don't care about "verification"?  Have I got that?
> 
> I am assuming that this "twitter blue" is some premium service?  No thanks.  Paying $20/month to invite into my life the torrents of soul-withering bull$#@! that screeches across the screen, polluting one's mind and world view?  I must be missing something truly significant, because what I'm seeing leaves me wondering whether Musk has had a stroke.
> 
> Twitter is mostly cancer.  I acknowledge its potential utility for the dissemination of good information, worldwide, but the general usage tendencies seem to drown it all out in vast and violent oceans of noise.


You have it right.
With any luck the place will collapse and Msuk will not get his "everything app".

----------


## pcosmar

I don't want a Model 3.. but the entire production run was SOLD OUT
I like the Aptera,, designed on Efficiency

there are several options.. ans unknown possibilities..

----------


## Occam's Banana

> Originally Posted by Occam's Banana
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>  Originally Posted by osan
> ...


Just so.




> There are things for which Elon Musk can (and should) be reasonably criticized.
> 
> There are likewise things for which he can (and should) be reasonably praised.


Deciding whether the balance of those things ultimately makes him a "good" guy or a "bad" guy is way above my pay grade.

There are others (such as the aforementioned Hitler) upon whose status as "good" or "bad" people I might dare presume to opine.

But whatever Elon's faults may be, I doubt they are sufficient to induce me to so audaciously consign him to the warmer side of the Pearly Gates.

----------


## Occam's Banana

*Twitter Limits Content-Enforcement Work as US Election Looms*
_Musks social network freezes some access to moderation tools_
_Workers cite concerns about misinformation ahead of midterms_
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...election-looms
_Kurt  Wagner, et al. (01  November 2022)_

Twitter Inc., the social network being overhauled by new owner Elon Musk, has frozen some employee access to internal tools used for content moderation and other policy enforcement, curbing the staffs ability to clamp down on misinformation ahead of a major US election.

Most people who work in Twitters Trust and Safety organization are currently unable to alter or penalize accounts that break rules around misleading information, offensive posts and hate speech, except for the most high-impact violations that would involve real-world harm, according to people familiar with the matter. Those posts were prioritized for manual enforcement, they said.

People who were on call to enforce Twitters policies during Brazils presidential election did get access to the internal tools on Sunday, but in a limited capacity, according to two of the people. The company is still utilizing automated enforcement technology, and third-party contractors, according to one person, though the highest-profile violations are typically reviewed by Twitter employees.

San Francisco-based Twitter declined to comment on new limits placed on its content-moderation tools.

In response to this story, Yoel Roth, the head of safety and integrity at Twitter, tweeted: This is exactly what we (or any company) should be doing in the midst of a corporate transition to reduce opportunities for insider risk. Were still enforcing our Twitter rules at scale.

Twitter staff use dashboards, known as agent tools, to carry out actions like banning or suspending an account that is deemed to have breached policy. Detection of policy breaches can either be flagged by other Twitter users or detected automatically, but taking action on them requires human input and access to the dashboard tools. Those tools have been suspended since last week, the people said.

This restriction is part of a broader plan to freeze Twitters software code to keep employees from pushing changes to the app during the transition to new ownership. Typically this level of access is given to a group of people numbering in the hundreds, and that was initially reduced to about 15 people last week, according to two of the people, who asked not to be named discussing internal decisions. Musk completed his $44 billion deal to take the company private on Oct. 27.

The scaled-back content moderation has raised concerns among employees on Twitters Trust and Safety team, who believe the company will be short-handed in enforcing policies in the run-up to the US midterm election on Nov. 8. Trust and Safety employees are often tasked with enforcing Twitters misinformation and civic integrity policies -- many of the same policies that former President Donald Trump routinely violated before and after the 2020 elections, the company said at the time.

Other employees said they were worried about Twitter rolling back its data access for researchers and academics, and about how it would deal with foreign influence operations under Musks leadership.

On Friday and Saturday, Bloomberg reported a surge in hate speech on Twitter. That included a 1,700% spike in the use of a racist slur on the platform, which at its peak appeared 215 times every five minutes, according to data from Dataminr, an official Twitter partner that has access to the entire platform. The Trust and Safety team did not have access to enforce Twitters moderation policies during this time, two people said.

Roth posted a series of Tweets on Monday addressing the increase in offensive posts, saying that very few people see the content in question. Since Saturday, weve been focused on addressing the surge in hateful conduct on Twitter. Weve made measurable progress, removing more than 1500 accounts and reducing impressions on this content to nearly zero, Roth wrote. Were primarily dealing with a focused, short-term trolling campaign.

Musk tweeted last week that he hadnt made any changes to Twitters content moderation policies so far, though he has also said publicly that he believes the companys rules are too restrictive, and has called himself a free-speech absolutist.

Internally, employees say, Musk has raised questions about a number of the policies, and has zeroed in on a few specific rules that he wants the team to review. The first is Twitters general misinformation policy, which penalizes posts that include falsehoods about topics like election outcomes and Covid-19. Musk wants the policy to be more specific, according to people familiar with the matter.

Musk has also asked the team to review Twitters hateful conduct policy, according to the people, specifically a section that says users can be penalized for targeted misgendering or deadnaming of transgender individuals.

In both cases it is unclear if Musk wants the policies to be rewritten or the restrictions removed entirely.

----------


## Swordsmyth

Elon Musk Dismisses Twitter Board, Buys Back Bonds

https://www.thefinancialtrends.com/2...ys-back-bonds/

----------


## acptulsa

> But whatever Elon's faults may be, I doubt they are sufficient to induce me to so audaciously consign him to the warmer side of the Pearly Gates.


He might be disappointed...

----------


## osan

> @osan
> Suppressed Tech could have kept us from a Few  Wars.
> 
> but it has only been used for war,,
>  "Fuel Cell Drones"  do a search.


You claim suppression, but what is the evidence?  I've shown why markets might ignore the tech in question, but you have yet to show that they have actively suppressed it.  My mind is open, and I'm not saying you are mistaken.  I'd just like to see the evidence and reasoning as to why batteries would be actively denied to the world.

----------


## osan

> He might be disappointed...


While certainly something upon which to keep an eye, I would equally warn against reading into things that which is not there.

It would be interesting to see Musk's answers to queries regarding this getup, though.  He's a smart guy, no doubt, but one must at least consider the possibility that he chose this suit because it "looked cool".  Not saying that this was the case, but you never know.  

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

----------


## pcosmar

> I'd just like to see the evidence and reasoning as to why batteries would be actively denied to the world.


Greed..
Oil Profits..

$5+ a gal,,and Record Profits.  They will ride their Gravy Train till it derails. and kill any in the way.

----------


## devil21

That didn't take long....

Musk lays out ideas for Twitter's new (human identity) verification system
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/01/elon...on-system.html





> He might be disappointed...


Good find.  It signifies that he considers himself of the modern Knights Templar (City of London and Vatican foot soldier).  Big clue there.  He very well knows exactly what he is wearing and why.  It is worth noting that Baphomet doesn't really symbolize Satanism, historically, but rather is a depiction of natural balance.  Like many symbols, they can be and often are "repurposed" over time to mean something different than the original meaning.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baphomet

----------


## acptulsa



----------


## osan

> Greed..
> Oil Profits..
> 
> $5+ a gal,,and Record Profits.  They will ride their Gravy Train till it derails. and kill any in the way.


These are blind assertions.  Not saying you're wrong, but just that you've made a non-argument.

As for killing anything in the way, that becomes a bit of a stretch... that is, unless you can cite recent acquisitions of little fish by bigguns' and a subsequent disappearance of potential competition thereafter.

Clearly, such predation occurs, but to assert that it happens at a rate equal to that of the appearance of competitors requires more than mere assertions.  I'm all over conspiracy theories - there is a million and one out there, but I can't take something of this magnitude on faith.

----------


## osan

> 


Yeah, _right_.

Could you picture that smug snatch doing an honest day's labor, much less one that required skill beyond mere bullshitting, _a la lefty_?

Never happen.  If nobody in her circle picks her up out of pity, her next step is an ebit card.  I say so mainly because I see no way she has enough ambition and work ethic... or skill, to skull$#@! for money.  Besides, I would not touch that if my life depended on it.  Some fates are worse than death.  Far worse, and you're looking at one, right there.  YEESH...

----------


## pcosmar

> These are blind assertions.  Not saying you're wrong, but just that you've made a non-argument.


A lot more Logic and reason than Judging someone over a Halloween Costume.

----------


## Swordsmyth

> That didn't take long....
> 
> Musk lays out ideas for Twitter's new (human identity) verification system
> https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/01/elon...on-system.html
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Good find.  It signifies that he considers himself of the modern Knights Templar (City of London and Vatican foot soldier).  Big clue there.  He very well knows exactly what he is wearing and why.  It is worth noting that Baphomet doesn't really symbolize Satanism, historically, but rather is a depiction of natural balance.  Like many symbols, they can be and often are "repurposed" over time to mean something different than the original meaning.
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baphomet


Why am I not surprised to see sympathy for the Devil from devil21?

----------


## osan

> A lot more Logic and reason than Judging someone over a Halloween Costume.


You're treading water here, it seems.

----------


## Swordsmyth

Twitter’s Investors Revealed In Regulatory Filings

https://www.thefinancialtrends.com/2...atory-filings/


Elon Musk Defends Trump-Hating Pro-Censorship Demagogue Leading ‘Safety and Integrity’ at Twitter

https://bigleaguepolitics.com/elon-m...ty-at-twitter/

----------


## osan

> That didn't take long....


Nor did it surprise very much... Or at least, it shouldn't have.




> Musk lays out ideas for Twitter's new (human identity) verification system
> https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/01/elon...on-system.html


"Musk said he will give “power to the people” by offering verification through Twitter Blue for $8 a month. He said participants will get priority in mentions, replies and search, receive half as many ads and will be able to tweet long videos and audio."
This quote could be taken to indicate any of several things.  If true, however, it would seem that he acknowledges that ads constitute a form of taxation, which is to say, "punishment", "torment", "victimization", etc.  I mostly find ads intrusive and ignore them, but would rather not see them at all.  The world is better without internet ads, IMO, but people being what they are will ruin a good thing in these ways with irritating predictability.

Regardless, for someone who appears to be so keen on returning power to the people, he sure does not seem in any way reluctant to take the ad money, which leaves me once again wondering what he is really about.  Not saying this makes him a bad guy - after all, operations need to be paid, but once again there seems not to be quite enough for coming to a firmer conclusion about the man.  This may just be the nature of things.  I'm too ignorant to know, so I'll just go soak my head now.





> [Musk] very well knows exactly what he is wearing and why.


Most likely.  People who make their ways as apparently did he, as distinguished from the likes of those in Hollywood, founders of BLM, etc., often seem careful in their choices, whereas the latter choose such things because they "look cool".  Tattoos are a grand example of this: nitwits inking up their bodies because they think it's cool and, once more, _edgy_.  Oops, there go my eyeballs once more.




> It is worth noting that Baphomet doesn't really symbolize Satanism, historically, but rather is a depiction of natural balance.  Like many symbols, they can be and often are "repurposed" over time to mean something different than the original meaning.
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baphomet


The problem with all symbols, particularly in a world where humans are so routinely dishonest and ignorant, is that the true meanings behind any given usage can be difficult to trust.  People are conniving little pricks, regardless of how "nice" they may outwardly seem, and language is a devilishly slippery creature, even in the hands of the best of us.

Between ignorant usage and that of intentional malice or other chicanery, it can be risky business to assume anything in terms of actual meaning or intent.

As for expropriation, this is what humans do.  Then there are examples of the Roman church, one of the apparently great evils of human contrivance, which has used its powers to defame all manner of symbols from non-Christian sources.  This "everything not Christian is of the devil" phenomenon seems to be the precise brand of evil against which it complains, constituting an apparently great raft of grand examples of the brands of projection of which the left is so fond.  Note "apparent", because at the end of the day and barring some sort of confession, we cannot even say for certain the intentions behind such assessments.  This is why IMO every man needs to reinvent the wheel for himself, because it is the best path to knowing with some reasonable confidence that what has been learned isn't bull$#@!.

It is this great Gordian Knot that leaves me questioning God's purpose.  No really, it does.  Humor is one thing, but sheesh...

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## osan

> Elon Musk Defends Trump-Hating Pro-Censorship Demagogue Leading ‘Safety and Integrity’ at Twitter
> 
> https://bigleaguepolitics.com/elon-m...ty-at-twitter/


Loathe as I am to make predictions, if this twitter thing turns out rotten and Musk with a peg-leg, let nobody be surprised.  Ventures this big often have something very stinky behind them.  The fact that Musk took "government" money says nothing good about him.  OTOH, if someone is throwing billions of dollars at me, I can but wonder whether I would have the nerve to say no.  It will never happen, so I will never know.

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## Occam's Banana

https://twitter.com/Timcast/status/1587776560324804608

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## dannno



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## acptulsa



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## acptulsa



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## ClaytonB

> 


This is a travesty of justice. Next thing you know, excessively obese people will have to buy two seats on airplanes. Outrageous.

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## Occam's Banana

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1589427115157778433

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## ClaytonB

> https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1589427115157778433

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## Occam's Banana

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1589450155723722752

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## Occam's Banana

> https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1589450155723722752


https://twitter.com/SaludosLiberta/s...00847473717250

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## Swordsmyth

Elon Musk cut Twitter’s staff in half, but didn’t remove the corporate cancer

https://voxday.net/2022/11/06/the-problem-remains/

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## vita3

is LeBron & Lakers in last place because of Twitter takeover ??

Has to mess with Lebrons mind that his power to start riots based on spur of moment & tweets has gone up in smoke

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## acptulsa



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## acptulsa



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## Occam's Banana

https://twitter.com/AmoneyResists/st...27142378307584

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## Occam's Banana

> https://twitter.com/SenMarkey/status...27463583453190


https://twitter.com/NM17OH/status/1591880053377601536


https://twitter.com/redsteeze/status...50031921102849

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## Swordsmyth

Elon Musk Says With Twitter Purchase He Has Too Much On His Plate

https://www.thefinancialtrends.com/2...-on-his-plate/

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## dannno



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## TheTexan

> Is that how knit hat boy, that deviant Rogan or your boy Trump are selling it these days?  So if someone says something that does not fit the current news cycle narrative that we are supposed to lap up and echo back to everyone here, then I am believing "fake news" and should be shadow banned? I guess I should I go back and watch your dopey shows ot watch a Trump rally before posting here so I can get the elites curated talking points in order to respout here.  LOL.

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## pcosmar

> Lolwut


And apparently,, was watching the Bots Attack during the Vote..

said they were quite impressive.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/...cMXelLpiIwDEUg

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## Occam's Banana

> There was more than one government colluding with Twitter.


Of that I have no doubt - but pretending the US fedgov isn't by far the chiefest and most egregious among them is fatuous. Any American politician who expresses concern about the influence of  "foreign power[s]" over Twitter who doesn't also express much greater and more immediate concern about the influence of the US government over Twitter is simply not being serious.

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## Occam's Banana

* Antifa extremists stage plans to burn down Tesla outlets following Twitter bans*
_'As revenge for [Elon Musk] suspending violent extremist accounts on Twitter, [Antifa] in Portland are organizing arson attacks on [Tesla] locations tonight,' reported Ngo, who provided screenshots of the calls to action._
https://www.rebelnews.com/antifa_pla...g_twitter_bans
_Ian Miles Cheong (25 November 2022)_

Following his takeover of Twitter, Chief Twit Elon Musk has quickly begun to address many of the platforms problems. Musk, who intends for Twitter to be a platform for legal free speech, has moved to crack down on terrorists and violent far-left extremists who have for many years been a fixture on Twitter and used it to organize riots.

Now Tesla, which Musk owns, has become the target of violent retaliation by far-left militants angered by the suspension of their accounts.

This week, Musk moved to ban a pro-Palestinian resistance group called Jisr Collective, which promoted and celebrated terrorist acts against Israeli civilians.
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1595595654159429632

In a separate thread, Musk called for members of the public to report violations of the sites terms of service against child sexual exploitation and far-left extremist violence.

Numerous self-identified Antifa militants including several prominent organizers have been banned for calling for violence against Chaya Raichik, who operates the popular Libs of TikTok account, and _Daily Wire_ host Matt Walsh.

Incitement to violence will result in account suspension, said Musk in response to journalist Andy Ngo, who explained that a large number of Antifa accounts operate on the website to promote riots and provide tips to each other on how to identify targets and commit violence.
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1596054261292728322

Ngo detailed how following his reporting on members of the loosely-knit far-left militant organization, he was chased down and beaten up, forcing him to seek refuge at a Portland hotel in 2021.

Antifa used Twitter to direct comrades to swarm me after I ran into a hotel following a violent street beating, wrote Ngo.

That is a disturbing story and very concerning that Twitter took no action, despite clear violation of ToS. Report in this thread for now, replied Musk, prompting numerous users to provide him with clear examples of militants in violation of the sites rules against threats and intimidation.

[matter hidden to save space]

* *




https://twitter.com/stillgray/status...74770193604609


[images hidden to save space]

* *











https://twitter.com/MrAndyNgo/status...87310042296320


[images hidden to save space]

* *














https://twitter.com/LeftismForU/stat...77427868196864


[image hidden to save space]

* *










Many of the users reported on the thread were banned several hours after being reported to Musk, suggesting that he took direct action to shut down their accounts.

Hours after the bans, Antifa militants took to the social media platform to organize arson attacks on Tesla locations around the United States, posting the addresses of Tesla service centers and dealerships.

As revenge for [Elon Musk] suspending violent extremist accounts on Twitter, [Antifa] in Portland are organizing arson attacks on [Tesla] locations tonight, reported Ngo, who provided screenshots of the calls to action.

This is just a drop in the ocean of years of violent organizing on Twitter, he added.
https://twitter.com/MrAndyNgo/status...46737186082818


[images hidden to save space]

* *

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## Swordsmyth

Twitter Is Now Hiring, But Tesla Is Being Hit Hard

https://www.thefinancialtrends.com/2...eing-hit-hard/

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## Occam's Banana

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1597336812732575744

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## Occam's Banana

> * Antifa extremists stage plans to burn down Tesla outlets following Twitter bans*
> _'As revenge for [Elon Musk] suspending violent extremist accounts on Twitter, [Antifa] in Portland are organizing arson attacks on [Tesla] locations tonight,' reported Ngo, who provided screenshots of the calls to action._
> https://www.rebelnews.com/antifa_pla...g_twitter_bans
> 
> [...]


https://twitter.com/MrAndyNgo/status...63605121011712


Meanwhile:

https://twitter.com/tomselliott/stat...32783197724672

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## ClaytonB

> lol the left is unhinged

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## CaptUSA



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## AngryCanadian

> 


seriously?

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## AngryCanadian

>

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## AngryCanadian

> *Twitter Permanently Suspends OANN Reporter For Reporting On Rep. Buddy Carter’s Fair Tax Act Which Will ABOLISH The IRS*https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/202...l-abolish-irs/


Why would twitter do that?

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## Swordsmyth

> Why would twitter do that?


They haven't gotten rid of all the commie moles yet.
Musk reinstated the account eventually.

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## devil21

> They haven't gotten rid of all the commie moles yet.
> Musk reinstated the account eventually.


Is Elon still hanging around with Arianna Huffington, Tony Blair and Saule'?  He must be purging the deep state!

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...=1#post7106297

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