Elon Musk. Twitter. Babylon Bee.

[Josh]

I thought we were talking about tweets. They get posted here all the time.

Matt Taibbi has written articles on his substack and posted sections to his Twitter account.

And it was a story exclusively released to Twitter. The story is indeed copyrighted.

But anyone can go and read it for free.

[barnhart]

The New York Times is reports that Twitter is considering selling user names.

[Robert]

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1613 ... 9739.html

1.THREAD: Twitter Files #14
THE RUSSIAGATE LIES
One: The Fake Tale of Russian Bots and the #ReleaseTheMemo Hashtag

2.At a crucial moment in a years-long furor, Democrats denounced a report about flaws in the Trump-Russia investigation, saying it was boosted by Russian “bots” and “trolls.”

3.Twitter officials were aghast, finding no evidence of Russian influence:

“We are feeding congressional trolls.”
“Not any…significant activity connected to Russia.”
“Putting the cart before the horse assuming this is propaganda/bots.”

4.Twitter warned politicians and media the not only lacked evidence, but had evidence the accounts weren’t Russian – and were roundly ignored.

5.On January 18th, 2018, Republican Devin Nunes submitted a classified memo to the House Intel Committee detailing abuses by the FBI in obtaining FISA surveillance authority against Trump-connected figures, including the crucial role played by the infamous “Steele Dossier”:

[Ken]

The New York Times is reports that Twitter is considering selling user names.

Who is going to buy the MennoNet name?

You think it will be a hot ticket on the resale market?

[barnhart]

The New York Times is reports that Twitter is considering selling user names.

Who is going to buy the MennoNet name?

You think it will be a hot ticket on the resale market?

The article is paywalled, but I imagine the usernames are valuable for marketing purposes.

[Ken]

Looks like Elon Musk isn't as big of a believer in free speech and resisting government interference in Twitter as he claimed he was: https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/cu ... 234667887/

Elon Musk Buckles Under Pressure From India to Remove BBC Doc Criticizing Modi

TWITTER AND YOUTUBE took down a BBC documentary critical of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s role in a genocidal 2002 massacre in the Indian state of Gujarat, The Intercept reports. The censorship was in coordination with the government of India, as officials called for the social media platforms to take action against what they considered a “propaganda piece.”

Kanchan Gupta, senior adviser at the Indian government’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, condemned the BBC documentary in a series of Twitter posts on Jan. 21, calling the film “hostile propaganda and anti-India garbage, disguised as ‘documentary’.” He said that Twitter and YouTube links sharing the documentary had been “blocked under India’s sovereign laws and rules.”

Twitter users in India claimed that links they shared to the documentary were later removed and replaced with a legal noticed at the time of Gupta’s statements, according to the report.

“The government has sent hundreds of requests to different social media platforms, especially YouTube and Twitter, to take down the posts that share snippets or links to the documentary,” Indian journalist Raqib Hameed Naik said to The Intercept. “And shamefully, the companies are complying with their demands and have taken down numerous videos and posts.”

Sounds like Matt Taibbi needs to get back to work.

[Josh]

India doesn’t have free speech laws or a free speech constitution and can order anything taken down that they want.

They will hold Indian employees hostage / charge them if the company doesn’t comply with their takedowns. A rather key difference here is that Twitter (and other companies, too) are rather upfront about what’s happening and do the takedowns under protest.

The FBI’s censorship was silent, and those who suspected it were mocked as right wing conspiracy theorists.

[Ken]

India doesn’t have free speech laws or a free speech constitution and can order anything taken down that they want.

They will hold Indian employees hostage / charge them if the company doesn’t comply with their takedowns. A rather key difference here is that Twitter (and other companies, too) are rather upfront about what’s happening and do the takedowns under protest.

The FBI’s censorship was silent, and those who suspected it were mocked as right wing conspiracy theorists.

No, the real difference is that the FBI didn't actually censor anything. They just did their job and provided Twitter and other tech companies with information about foreign disinformation.

And you are wrong, India does indeed have free speech laws and a free speech provisions within its constitution the same as in the US. Look up Article 19 of the Indian Constitution. Twitter just chose to cave and not challenge this censorship in Indian courts because Elon Musk wants to sell Teslas in India. It is craven.

[Robert]

They just did their job and provided Twitter and other tech companies with information about foreign disinformation.

They lied about it or was so wrong they should be disbanded.

[mike]

Tesla stock down another 15% today. Not a good way to start the new year. It is now at $105. A year ago it was over $400/share so has bled about 3/4th of its value. Seems like Elon needs to stop messing around with Twitter and get back to his core business which is whiffing on its production targets.

We’re in a severe global recession, the worst of my life, which affects how much people can buy expensive, high end vehicles.

I just noticed that around the beginning of the year, Tesla stock reversed its decline and has recovered most of its losses that occurred since the Twitter acquisition.