The News

Topic

Discuss anything Huey Lewis related in this thread.

Replies

njerry wrote:

And we all know that, if his appeal fails, Jones will immediately declare bankruptcy and only pay a tiny fraction of the judgment, if anything.

Yup. Hopefully this will mean that he’ll never be able to earn money again though on account of owing these huge debts, which would be pretty much a ban on him broadcasting.

I watched some news shows reacting to the Alex Jones stuff on youtube and one of them had Bill Kristol on to comment on it. Bill fucking Kristol.

 

Really laying on the insanity a bit thick guys.

Locally, this has been a huge story. Amanda Todd took her own life after being bullied by a sexual predator.
Horrible and heartbreaking.

This guy was found (Dutch), found guilty of multiple crimes in Netherlands court (and currently serving time).
Extradited to Canada, and found guilty here. Prosecution asks for 12 years.
Defence asks for 6 years, but lower that to 2 years because he’s currently serving time (?).

Nice when a judge listens ands acts reasonably. Today is a good day.

Judge sentences B.C. teen Amanda Todd’s online tormentor (Aydin Coban) to 13 years in prison – Global News

While Amanda is not here today, I have heard her words.”

With those words, a B.C. Supreme Court sentenced the Dutch man convicted of harassing and extorting B.C. teen Amanda Todd to 13 years in prison — more than prosecutors had asked for.

Justice Martha Devlin took the unusual step of handing down a longer sentence than what Crown counsel had argued for in the case of Aydin Coban, who is already serving a nearly 11-year term in the Netherlands for similar crimes.

“Ruining Amanda’s life was Mr. Coban’s expressly stated goal and was sadly one that he achieved,” Devlin said in delivering her reasons from her New Westminster courtroom.

“Mr. Coban engaged in a prolonged pattern of sextortion targeting Amanda Todd, a child in her early to mid-teens,” she added.

“Mr. Coban, relying on a high level of technological sophistication, obfuscated his identity, location and activities, gained information about Amanda valuable to his criminal scheme, and emotionally manipulated Amanda with both friendly inducements and distressing threats. On several occasions, Mr. Coban made good on these threats.”

Devlin laid out a series of aggravating factors in the case, including the abuse’s contribution to Amanda’s suicide, her young age, the sophistication and premeditation of Coban’s sexual blackmail scheme and how widely he distributed pornographic images and video of the teen.

The sentence must send a message to other would-be online predators, Devlin said while keeping children safe from Coban — who she said is not currently capable of rehabilitation and has shown no signs of remorse.

Quoting extensively from the viral YouTube video that made Amanda’s case famous, along with victim impact statements made by her father Norm, mother Carol and brother Cristopher, Devlin noted the devastating ripple effects of the crimes.

Coban “enjoyed his victims’ escalating distress,” Devlin said, describing conduct that was “relentless, enduring, and purposely destructive.”

Prosecutors had sought a 12-year prison term, arguing Coban remained “unrepentant” and a high risk to children.

The 44-year-old’s lawyers, meanwhile, argued his crimes were worth a six-year sentence, which should be further reduced to two years to take into account the 11 years he’s already serving overseas.

Friday’s sentence is to be served at the conclusion of Coban’s Dutch sentence, which is up in August 2024. It remains unclear how the Dutch system will interpret his Canadian sentence when he is returned to the Netherlands.

‘Justice for Amanda’
Outside the courthouse, holding a photo of her daughter, Carol Todd hailed the stiff sentence.

“That was amazing. That was amazing because it was justice for Amanda and justice for all,” she said.

“This will make a difference in the world for the kids, and I have to hope Amanda is watching from somewhere to see what her voice did for everyone.”

Todd says she’s anxiously watching to see how the Dutch criminal justice system will convert his sentence, which exceeds the maximum sentence in that country.

“Will they accept that? I don’t know. Will they go less? They might. Could he walk out? I sure hope not, because there had been talk about a conversion so low that he would be free,” she said.

Amanda’s father Norm Todd, said he was pleased with how much weight the judge had given the family’s victim impact statements.

“I was really excited. I was hoping and praying we got a high sentence, and we did — but our expectations were lower. Everybody pulled together and we got through to the judge. We set a really high precedent, which is really nice, I am really happy about that,” he said.

“I just miss her, and I hope she sees we got her some justice.”

A 12-member jury found Coban guilty of criminal harassment, extortion, child luring, and possession and distribution of child pornography in August.

During the nearly two-month trial, the court heard that Coban used nearly two dozen online accounts on four platforms to mount what prosecutors called a “persistent campaign of sextortion” against Todd when she was age 12 to age 15.

He obtained a topless video clip of the girl, then used it as leverage to try to force her to perform webcam sex “shows.” When she resisted, he followed through on his threats to send the material to her family, friends and school community three times, the court heard.

Coban sent nearly 700 messages, some from accounts meant to befriend and gain information on the teen or to trick her into further exposing herself, while others were threatening and abusive, promising to “f— up” her life and pursue her as she changed schools amid real-world bullying, the court heard.

The sentencing hearing began this week, almost exactly 10 years after Todd took her own life in 2012.

Just weeks before her death, she created a YouTube video where she silently held up cue cards documenting the torment she suffered and its effect on her life. The video went viral and became a symbol in the fight against online harassment.

Coban was arrested at a bungalow in the Netherlands in January 2014, where police seized a variety of computer equipment including hard drives with Todd’s name and fragments of chat logs with her.

He was convicted by a Dutch court in 2017 of dozens of similar offences involving other victims, and sentenced to a nearly 11-year prison term, with credit for time served.

In 2020, he was extradited to Canada to face trial in the Todd case.

Now, he goes back to the Netherlands, and it’s up to them how to interpret this.
Hope we aren’t in an argument with them about this.
Scum like that need to do their time for each and every victim.
Really hoping this sends a message.

3 users thanked author for this post.

lorcan_nagle, Todd, njerry

It’s crazy how the internet enables someone to ruin the life of some complete stranger they’ve never met and never will. Yeah, he certainly does deserve those years.

What is so unsatisfying is… there were so many people who treated her like shit, people without whom he never could have made her life hell like he did. What about those people?

4 users thanked author for this post.

lorcan_nagle, Todd, Sean Robinson

Christian wrote:

What is so unsatisfying is… there were so many people who treated her like shit, people without whom he never could have made her life hell like he did. What about those people?

True – the thing is that children are far more likely to be extorted, abused and tormented by people they know in real life rather than online. It’s just that online there is a trail of evidence that can be submitted.

2 users thanked author for this post.

lorcan_nagle, Todd

Christian wrote:

It’s crazy how the internet enables someone to ruin the life of some complete stranger they’ve never met and never will. Yeah, he certainly does deserve those years.

There’s a very interesting 6 part podcast series the Guardian recently released. It’s called ‘Can I Tell You a Secret?’ about a guy who spent a decade from early Facebook to Instagram creating fake accounts and ruining lives from his bedroom.

I won’t go into the details as it’s worth listening to but it struck me there should be some measure where some people can just be banned from internet access. We do that with driving regularly, you can’t be trusted with the equipment and not cause harm or danger so we take it away.

4 users thanked author for this post.

Sean Robinson, Todd, lorcan_nagle, Ben

Anonymous wrote:

True – the thing is that children are far more likely to be extorted, abused and tormented by people they know in real life rather than online. It’s just that online there is a trail of evidence that can be submitted.

That’s a good point, you can stay anonymous on the net for a long time, but not once law enforcement is onto you. Then every shitty thing you did can be pulled up and documented.

garjones wrote:

I won’t go into the details as it’s worth listening to but it struck me there should be some measure where some people can just be banned from internet access. We do that with driving regularly, you can’t be trusted with the equipment and not cause harm or danger so we take it away.

That’s an interesting point. You probably couldn’t completely ban somebody from the net because a lot of official stuff is going to be online more and more in the coming years, but you could restrict access to only those official sites and fine people if they evade this rule. It’d be a bit difficult to enforce, but it’d probably be worth a try to use that as a punitive measure for internet crime.

I think they do internet bans sometimes, for some child predators who use the net to look for vulnerable children, that type of thing. But I’m not sure if that still doable, with many government services, and things like taxes, banking etc working online these days.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Todd

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

I think they do internet bans sometimes, for some child predators who use the net to look for vulnerable children, that type of thing. But I’m not sure if that still doable, with many government services, and things like taxes, banking etc working online these days.

I would think certain site monitors could be put on the predator’s devices that would notify authorities if they tried to access certain areas of the internet.

Unfortunately, that person could use an unrestricted device with software to hide their identity. Granted if they were caught with it, that could violate the terms of their release and they could wind up back in prison.

You could presumably give them some kind of locked down browser without an address bar that can only go to a certain set of websites (backed up by some kind of address filtering/blocking).

1 user thanked author for this post.

Todd

Ex-Black Panther asks for fresh trial amid new evidence

Mumia Abu-Jamal has been trying to get a new trial for years. I’m hoping he gets it, and I’m hoping he finally gets exonerated.

2 users thanked author for this post.

lorcan_nagle, Todd

JRCarter wrote:

Ex-Black Panther asks for fresh trial amid new evidence

Mumia Abu-Jamal has been trying to get a new trial for years. I’m hoping he gets it, and I’m hoping he finally gets exonerated.

My cousin Donal’s second movie was a documentary about Northern Ireland, and one scene focused on a road that was covered in political signs and murals. One was in solidarity with Mumia Abu-Jamal and I had to explain who he is to my mum when we saw it. I remember reading about his case after Rage Against the Machine championed his cause back in the day.

3 users thanked author for this post.

Todd, JRCarter, Al-x

Looks like Musk is going to get twitter. Not sure what this means but I don’t like him. He had a little exchange with Medvedev in twitter recently where he seemed to make fun of the war.

That’s interesting…if your money can be taken away so easily, are you really a billionaire? Or are you only allowed to play billionaire as long as you behave?

Al-x wrote:

I don’t think he ever was one. That was probably all hyped-up bullshit.

It is my understanding that Jay-Z owns most of his library and supposedly Kim Kardashian owns some businesses that he sold to her for cash.

He’s a low-end millionaire at best.

Mexico scraps daylight savings time except along border – ABC News

Mexico’s Senate has approved a bill to eliminate daylight saving time, putting an end to the practice of changing clocks twice a year

MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s Senate approved a bill Wednesday to eliminate daylight saving time, putting an end to the practice of changing clocks twice a year.

Some cities and towns along the U.S. border can retain daylight saving time, presumably because they are so linked to U.S. cities.

The Senate approved the measure on a 59-25 vote, with 12 abstentions. Those who opposed the measure said that less daylight in the afternoon could affect opportunities for children and adults to get exercise.

The bill already passed the lower house of Congress and now goes President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to be signed into law.

The law would go into effect Sunday, when Mexico is scheduled to turn clocks back for the last time.

Previously, Health Secretary Jorge Alcocer had said Mexico should return to “God’s clock,” or standard time, arguing that setting clocks back or forward damages people’s health.

The measure would mean darkness falling an hour earlier on summer afternoons.

Economists argue that, while the energy savings are minimal, going back to standard time might cause trouble for financial markets in Mexico by putting U.S. East Coast markets so far ahead.

And businesses like restaurants that have become accustomed to staying open later may have to close earlier as many crime-wary Mexicans often try to be off the streets after dark.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Todd

Todd wrote:

I don’t think he ever was one.

He was according to those who keep track of such things like Forbes, etc.

He had holdings in this and that… Now it is going away as everyone wants
to (and are already) distancing themselves from him.

Al-x wrote:

Forbes

They have been called into question on many things so I would take what they say with a large grain of salt.

Todd wrote:

Al-x wrote:

Forbes

They have been called into question on many things so I would take what they say with a large grain of salt.

Not just Forbes.

The way that wealth and net worth are measured these days. Most likely he was technically worth a billion on paper.

But anyway, he was always a loose cannon and now that his MAGA stuff with that woman Candace Owens (serious trauma if you Google her life), and now Kanye takes aim at Jews… Forget it.

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

Looks like Musk is going to get twitter. Not sure what this means but I don’t like him. He had a little exchange with Medvedev in twitter recently where he seemed to make fun of the war.

To me Musk is just a more successful version of Donald Trump. He’s a self-obsessed child who has built up a cult of personality by making snarky, adolescent tweets. And he believes his monetary success means he’s way smarter than everyone else about everything in existence. Part of me hopes Twitter dies a quick death under him because he’s a guy who deserves massive public failure. But, of course, he’s the kind of guy who always manages to fail up so it probably wouldn’t cost him much of anything.

4 users thanked author for this post.

Todd, garjones, Al-x, lorcan_nagle

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

That’s interesting…if your money can be taken away so easily, are you really a billionaire? Or are you only allowed to play billionaire as long as you behave?

Wealth at that level is always volatile as it’s rarely sitting in your savings account but tied up in investments (which as the ads tell us can go up as well as down).

Zuckerberg has lost $70bn in wealth this year because Meta stocks are crashing.

..and yes all the things like the Forbes and FT rich lists are broad estimates, they aren’t just making numbers up though as public companies have to publish who owns what stock and what dividends are paid. Land registry records tell you what property someone owns and we know generally what the selling price should be.

So when the press say Rishi Sunak is worth $730m it is most likely not the absolute right number but it’s in the ballpark, they know how much his wife owns of Infosys and how much those shares can be sold for and the same for his houses.

2 users thanked author for this post.

Todd, lorcan_nagle

Chris D wrote:

Part of me hopes Twitter dies a quick death under him because he’s a guy who deserves massive public failure. But, of course, he’s the kind of guy who always manages to fail up so it probably wouldn’t cost him much of anything.

I suspect the reality may be somewhere in the middle. If he takes Twitter into a libertarian free for all, letting the likes of Ye post antisemitism at will, a lot of people will leave, I might. That’s not going to be a good investment even if it’s just 10% that bugger off.

In truth the demographic that loves that approach tends to skirt both ends, the hyper rich and disaffected poor. Liberals tend to be urban, middle class, well educated and have more value for advertisers. It may not derail his fortunes but I find it hard to see any profit coming from it, the investment is massive and at current profit rates it’ll take him roughly 15 years to make his money back, we basically have no evidence of a social media platform remaining popular for that long. Facebook comes close but is now declining in revenue and has very few young users.

5 users thanked author for this post.

DavidM, Chris D, Todd, Ben, lorcan_nagle

It’s hard to think of any social media acquisition (by a non-social media company) that’s gone well. Friends Reunited was bought for loads by ITV and then pretty much collapsed. News Corp bought MySpace just in time to see it decline. AOL bought Bebo at the same point in its trajectory.

Facebook buying WhatsApp and IG are the only ones that seem to have gone well.

2 users thanked author for this post.

garjones, Todd

Martin Smith wrote:

Facebook buying WhatsApp and IG are the only ones that seem to have gone well.

Yeah I think the trick there was buying them on the way up rather than at their peak like the other examples. Twitter’s growth is like 1-2% a quarter since 2017 (and a lot of them are probably bots) so it’s likely peaked. It’s very heavily US/UK supported, so I guess they would have scope to expand globally but haven’t yet and by past trends probably won’t now, there’s no history of big expansions after a decade.

[Al-x]

So Musk took over and immediately gave the ax to a lot of top execs.

As said here, Twitter is on the way down. No one is really jumping ship right now, but it figures that some will stay a little, then some of the contingents like Black Twitter, Hispanic, LGBTQ subsection,and others will most likely migrate to another platform. If that happens, Musk and everyone else will find out what really carried Twitter. (Almost reminds of that Montgomery bus situation when people found out from the boycott what really supported the bus system.)

What remains of Twitter after they leave who knows.
Musk might not get a return on his 44B move…

• This reply was modified 2 years, 1 month ago by Al-x.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Daniel R

Also the more Musk goes for a free for all environment the more government regulation he encourages.  The EU has already fired warning shots in this respect.

I suspect he’s going to want to sell it far faster than he planned

https://nltimes.nl/2022/10/27/video-activists-attack-girl-pearl-earring-hague-museum-3-arrested

I understand the demand for attention to a very serious cause but I don’t think attacking random bits of art is that helpful to their cause. I mean the soup thrown over Van Goch’s Sunflowers was symbolic because it was behind glass, nothing was actually damaged, but I think there are cleverer targets that don’t annoy a part of the public that is likely sympathetic already.

The stop oil gang should continue direct action because otherwise we’re all going to die from this fossil fuel shit but I’d use better targets.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Todd

The Vermeer painting was also behind glass.

 

Isn’t the Just Stop Oil group a continuation of Insulate Britain? There are some real wacko people in that group.

 

 

I don’t think they are whacko at all with the cause. Insulate Britain is the most common sense idea you’ll ever see, even a major nuclear scientist in the UK said that if you insulated all the houses you’d not need the energy of the nuclear power stations that cost hundreds of billions to build and decommission. If they’d done what they asked 10 years ago we’d have no energy bill issues.

I think we have an issue more that they have a flawed plan in getting attention and a media heavily reliant on energy advertisers or a government lobbied to support them.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Ben

Chris D wrote:

To me Musk is just a more successful version of Donald Trump. He’s a self-obsessed child who has built up a cult of personality by making snarky, adolescent tweets. And he believes his monetary success means he’s way smarter than everyone else about everything in existence.

At least he actually is successful at his business ventures though. And you have to give it to him – Tesla catapulted e-mobility forward in a way that nobody else had managed to do. And Starlink, however problematic it is, is also a fantastically successful business idea already.

Um, I guess my point is that being a more successful version of Trump takes away the worst aspect of Trump, which is that he is just a huge fucking con-man. Being a childish, grandstanding narcissist is still annoying when you’re successful, but… at least he has something to show for his grandstanding. Like us all, I wish he’d stay out of politics and away from social media, but at least he isn’t a complete fraud like Trump.

garjones wrote:

I don’t think they are whacko at all with the cause. Insulate Britain is the most common sense idea you’ll ever see, even a major nuclear scientist in the UK said that if you insulated all the houses you’d not need the energy of the nuclear power stations that cost hundreds of billions to build and decommission. If they’d done what they asked 10 years ago we’d have no energy bill issues.

I think we have an issue more that they have a flawed plan in getting attention and a media heavily reliant on energy advertisers or a government lobbied to support them.

Faire nough, their cause is commonsensical. I just read a bit about one of the leaders who had written an odd manifesto foreshadowing some apocalyptic war with lots of rape for some reason.

 

But I guess I shouldn’t judge the movement by a few outliers. Still, if they actually start destroying art, I can’t support them.

Christian wrote:

Chris D wrote:

To me Musk is just a more successful version of Donald Trump. He’s a self-obsessed child who has built up a cult of personality by making snarky, adolescent tweets. And he believes his monetary success means he’s way smarter than everyone else about everything in existence.

At least he actually is successful at his business ventures though. And you have to give it to him – Tesla catapulted e-mobility forward in a way that nobody else had managed to do. And Starlink, however problematic it is, is also a fantastically successful business idea already.

Um, I guess my point is that being a more successful version of Trump takes away the worst aspect of Trump, which is that he is just a huge fucking con-man. Being a childish, grandstanding narcissist is still annoying when you’re successful, but… at least he has something to show for his grandstanding. Like us all, I wish he’d stay out of politics and away from social media, but at least he isn’t a complete fraud like Trump.

Musk gives me bad vibes. I don’t think he is a good person. I wonder how close he is with his old paypal partner Peter Thiel.

 

Thiel has a great influence in a lot of the right wing movement, could be bad news if Musk subscribes to some of his ideas. Musk playing as a mouthpiece for Putin lately is disturbing in that regard.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Chris D

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

I wonder how close he is with his old paypal partner Peter Thiel.

Probably fairly close. The issue is these tech guys love the idea of a libertarian society, everything will be fine if you have no rules. Say what you want, pay what you want, it’s the same ideology that Liz Truss had in ‘freeing’ the economy a couple of weeks back that ended in disaster.

In truth though it is as unworkable as pure Communism. Jim used to argue on here if you have crap wages then you can study more and move, which to be fair works on an individual basis, all of us could probably have done more that way. My life has actually been very similar. It falls apart though when you look at society at large, if everyone is a tech entrepreneur who is cleaning the toilets or serving you a Subway sandwich?

Nobody.

2 users thanked author for this post.

Daniel R, Chris D

The Guardian does a daily podcast called Today in Focus that takes a deeper look at various things in the news, sometimes political sometimes not. Their Friday show was about a case in Australia where the most decorated living soldier, awarded a Victoria Cross for bravery, has been exposed in the press as conducting extra judicial killings in Afghanistan and domestic violence against his mistress in an affair.

He’s now launched a defamation case against 3 newspapers to try and clear his name, the interesting bit I spotted is one of the journalists on the defence side is Chris Masters, Tim’s dad, who’s a very respected investigative journalist with lots of awards .

5 users thanked author for this post.

Ben, njerry, Todd, Christian, Martin Smith

garjones wrote:

I understand the demand for attention to a very serious cause but I don’t think attacking random bits of art is that helpful to their cause. I mean the soup thrown over Van Goch’s Sunflowers was symbolic because it was behind glass, nothing was actually damaged, but I think there are cleverer targets that don’t annoy a part of the public that is likely sympathetic already.

Well, Van Gogh did use oil paints, so he’s part of the problem

 

1 user thanked author for this post.

Todd

If they just keep attacking Dutchies like Van Gogh and Vermeer I’m going to conclude they’re just Dutchophobes.

3 users thanked author for this post.

Christian, DavidM, Todd

Regarding Twitter:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/celebrities/2022/10/31/toni-braxton-shonda-rhimes-twitter-elon/10655539002/

It figures that more big names will disconnect, go elsewhere and take their huge following with them.

Now the stories about Musk, his past controversies, even his parents and upbringing are to the fore.

Just where is the next platform that will take all this Twitter exodus?

Al-x wrote:

Regarding Twitter:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/celebrities/2022/10/31/toni-braxton-shonda-rhimes-twitter-elon/10655539002/

It figures that more big names will disconnect, go elsewhere and take their huge following with them.

Now the stories about Musk, his past controversies, even his parents and upbringing are to the fore.

Just where is the next platform that will take all this Twitter exodus?

Well apparently Jack Dorsey is hard at work on a new social media platform, but until then people will just do TikTok.

But seriously, Musk’s plans for Twitter sound awful. $8 a month for a check mark sure makes Netflix look a lot better. Plus, Elon says it will help boost post visibility and reduce spam and scam content…which is either the dumbest or the most naive thing I’ve ever heard (or just a straight lie). Because who’s most likely to pay the fee to boost their profile if not spammers, scammers, and misinformation accounts? Twitter is going to quickly become exponentially more toxic with moves like this, especially considering that Musk doesn’t seem all the interested in having a clear moderation plan outside of “charge money”.

3 users thanked author for this post.

lorcan_nagle, Al-x, Todd

Like many leveraged buyouts, Twitter is left with a large amount of the debt from Musk’s loans to buy them. Prior to the buyout their debt repayments were about 50 million per year, and now it’s going to be a billion per year. Twitter’s annual income is about 700 million. At $8 per month, he needs to get 9,895,334 people to subscribe just to cover the loans. Now, it’s estimated that if a website adds a pay option, or people who have tip jars or patreons and other systems to allow voluntary payment you’ll get about 5% of your audience use it. With an estimated 400,000,000 users that’s around 20,000,000 people so it’s possible that he’ll get that many rubes subscribers but the subscription service has to provide some sort of added value and “you see half as many ads” doesn’t spark joy when Adblock Plus is free and means you see no ads.

5 users thanked author for this post.

Martin Smith, Chris D, Ben, DavidM, Todd

Oh, and that assumes that the ad, Twitter Blue and other revenue stays the same. And, well… GM has suspended their ads on the site. And one of the biggest names in the ad industry has advised their clients to do the same.

3 users thanked author for this post.

Chris D, Todd, Ben

Al-x wrote:

Just where is the next platform that will take all this Twitter exodus?

Mastodon, apparently. But I don’t know what that means.

David Icke was supposed to appear at a gathering in the Netherlands on Nov 6th, but he has been denied entry to the country.

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

David Icke was supposed to appear at a gathering in the Netherlands on Nov 6th, but he has been denied entry to the country.

The wrong decision in my opinion, as it means we’re still fucking stuck with having him here.

4 users thanked author for this post.

Christian, lorcan_nagle, Todd, Ben

I saw David Icke speak when I was in uni, the first half of his talk was logical and relevant. For example the obvious conflict that the billionaire owner of the Daily Mail doesn’t pay a penny of tax in the UK.

Then in the second half of it he went into him being the son of God and the world being controlled by lizard people. Which lost most of the crowd.

I and the rest of the people there were happy to both agree and disagree and take the piss.

I think the main issue with him being granted open forum overseas is part of the latter argument has expanded to quite open antisemitism. Which is a sensitive issue in Western Europe post 1933 or so.

3 users thanked author for this post.

lorcan_nagle, Ben, Todd

garjones wrote:

I think the main issue with him being granted open forum overseas is part of the latter argument has expanded to quite open antisemitism.

I think the Lizard people thing has always been code for that to be honest.

4 users thanked author for this post.

Christian, garjones, Todd, lorcan_nagle

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

David Icke was supposed to appear at a gathering in the Netherlands on Nov 6th, but he has been denied entry to the country.

Interesting. Are there, like criminal charges against him in the Netherlands? Feels like it would/should be hard to refuse his entering the country otherwise.

News of Mr Icke’s two-year travel ban was first reported on his own website, where he said the Dutch authorities sent him a letter saying his presence in the country could cause tensions between different groups and disrupt public order.

Mr Icke says the ban extends to the EU’s visa-free Schengen area, meaning he is also banned from 25 other countries.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/conspiracist-david-icke-banned-from-the-netherlands/ar-AA13JaCo

I think it’s actually relatively easy if a country believes a speaker may inflame tensions. I have seen US speakers denied entry to the UK before on that basis since nobody has an inherent right to enter a country (well within Shengen you probably do but the UK has never been a member, even before Brexit).

Hm. Well, that seems easier than it should be, then. I mean, I know David Irving was denied entry into Germany, but denying the holocaust goes explicitly against German laws. I don’t know of any cases in which sprouting controversial nonsense has led to not being allowed into Germany. (I may just be blanking on that though.)

Yeah, it’s an authoritarian move, but I would guess most countries give themselves the right to ban certain foreign people they don’t like. Australia also banned Icke I think, and some alt right types. The Netherlands also stopped a Turkish minister from coming here and doing a speech some years ago.

 

It’s also a political thing, there are currently worries about  growing antisemitism in the Netherlands. One political party has been throwing around antisemitic dog whistles. Baudet even talked about “lizards in charge”. Although I think the effect is mostly symbolic. Stopping Icke from coming here obviously won’t stop antisemitism, it’s more about sending a signal. There is currently also a law being prepared to make Holocaust denial illegal.

[Al-x]

If Dorsey can get it done, he’ll get a windfall. Practically an automatic migration of all the “cool” content from Twitter. Then Musk will find out the hard way what really made up the site.

As for TikTok, it’s still cool, even past the dancing girls. I was into the content section of this “woke” social injustice stuff, then it became all repetitive.

Now this politician wants it banned because he said it is giving a lot of info to China. Could be or some of the content raises people’s consciousness and awareness. Or both…

In short, if Dorsey can make a cool site to absorb all the cool stuff from Twitter AND TikTok…

• This reply was modified 2 years, 1 month ago by Al-x.

I don’t get what attracts people to TikTok. I’m being spammed with ads for it at the moment showing me “hilarious” examples of what I can see, and… well, I know humour is subjective, but I have not even smiled once.

 

[Al-x]

As Todd said… Its partly about the “algorithm”.
Everyone flocked to TikTok (instead of Snapchat or Vine), then came the controversies…

Now the other sites like YouTube and Instagram Reels got their own “young girls teasing” section.

Slippery slope: Next you want to find out the name, look her up in other sites.. Only Fans subscription. An addiction and a form of control.😂

(Gareth posted a small pic of the YT content showing up on his screen. 🤣)

Forget it. Take a clean break and save yourself hours. 🤣

• This reply was modified 2 years, 1 month ago by Al-x.
• This reply was modified 2 years, 1 month ago by Al-x.

[Al-x]

Al-x wrote:

As Todd said… Its partly about the “algorithm”.
Everyone flocked to TikTok (instead of Snapchat or Vine), then came the controversies…

Now the other sites like YouTube and Instagram Reels got their own “young girls teasing” section.

Slippery slope: Next you want to find out the name, look her up in other sites.. Only Fans subscription. An addiction and a form of control.😂

(Gareth posted a small pic of the YT content showing up on his screen. 🤣)

Forget it. Take a clean break and save yourself hours. 🤣

• This reply was modified 2 years, 1 month ago by Al-x.
• This reply was modified 2 years, 1 month ago by Al-x.

Everyone flocked to TikTok over Vine because Vine was long dead when TikTok launched.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Todd

[Al-x]

Martin Smith wrote:

Al-x wrote:

As Todd said… Its partly about the “algorithm”.
Everyone flocked to TikTok (instead of Snapchat or Vine), then came the controversies…

Now the other sites like YouTube and Instagram Reels got their own “young girls teasing” section.

Slippery slope: Next you want to find out the name, look her up in other sites.. Only Fans subscription. An addiction and a form of control.😂

(Gareth posted a small pic of the YT content showing up on his screen. 🤣)

Forget it. Take a clean break and save yourself hours. 🤣

• This reply was modified 2 years, 1 month ago by Al-x.
• This reply was modified 2 years, 1 month ago by Al-x.

Everyone flocked to TikTok over Vine because Vine was long dead when TikTok launched.

I saw something where Musk is talking about reviving Vine.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Al-x

So today, Twitter started contacting many of the employees they fired on Friday asking them to come back. I saw someone liken this to an episode of Always Sunny, and yeah. Musk is somehow all of the Gang distilled into one person.

5 users thanked author for this post.

Todd, Chris D, Ben, Martin Smith, garjones

lorcan_nagle wrote:

So today, Twitter started contacting many of the employees they fired on Friday asking them to come back. I saw someone liken this to an episode of Always Sunny, and yeah. Musk is somehow all of the Gang distilled into one person.

Elon is such a Dennis.

2 users thanked author for this post.

Arjan Dirkse, lorcan_nagle

If I’m honest about it, since Musk took over Twitter my personal experience has not changed at all apart from the addition of quite a few funny jokes and memes at his expense.

6 users thanked author for this post.

DavidM, Todd, Dave, lorcan_nagle, Martin Smith, Ben

I dunno…if Musk keeps deleting high-profile people for making fun of him, twitter could end up like another 4chan with only edgy nazis remaining on the site.

garjones wrote:

If I’m honest about it, since Musk took over Twitter my personal experience has not changed at all apart from the addition of quite a few funny jokes and memes at his expense.

In all honesty, it’ll take a while for the behind the scenes chaos to have a real effect on Twitter as a platform. So Musk has some time to turn it around. I think the big thing will be the changes to the blue checkmark when and if they’re implemented. If they promote blue checkmark responses to tweets and bury non-subscriber ones, and the most likely people to pay in are Musk’s fans then you wind up with the top replies to any major tweet being… shall we say of a low signal to noise ratio. That will drive people away as the conversation is just nonsense.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Todd

I have a very low profile Twitter account, use it more for info harvesting than anything.

The most high profile tweets I’ve done was in trying to give Liam Sharp a boost on Starhenge.

I’ll be honest, the only thing I care about on Twitter is the guy who photoshops Paddington Bear into TV and movie scenes. He is the best thing there.

Tweets by jaythechou

5 users thanked author for this post.

Christian, garjones, Ian Smith, DavidM, lorcan_nagle

The way they match the art style for animation and stuff is amazing.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Todd

lorcan_nagle wrote:

In all honesty, it’ll take a while for the behind the scenes chaos to have a real effect on Twitter as a platform.

Yes very true, he has the scope yet to mess it up. I was reacting really to the ‘I’m leaving now – it’s gone crazy’ or “Twitter is dead’ crew. No it’s pretty much the same so far.

I agree demoting every user that isn’t verified (be it from fame or $8 a month) would likely ruin it for me. A good chunk of my favourite posters there are not celebs, blue tick accounts have a tendency to be bland and press releases rather than conversations.

1 user thanked author for this post.

lorcan_nagle

Todd wrote:

I’ll be honest, the only thing I care about on Twitter is the guy who photoshops Paddington Bear into TV and movie scenes. He is the best thing there.

Hah! That’s fucking awesome!

1 user thanked author for this post.

Todd

The only difference I’ve noticed on Twitter so far is that the app keeps inserting “load more tweets” buffers when there’s literally only one, sometimes zero, tweets it’s replacing.

1 user thanked author for this post.

lorcan_nagle

That’s what happens when you sack all the coders.

3 users thanked author for this post.

Todd, DavidM, lorcan_nagle

Indeed, here’s an article with some quotes from current and former Twitter engineers that details the kind of problems you’ll see thanks to a decline in headcount and reduction in IT budget

https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/11/08/1062886/heres-how-a-twitter-engineer-says-it-will-break-in-the-coming-weeks/

2 users thanked author for this post.

Ben, Todd

Twitter, the gift that keeps on giving:

Lol: Twitter sent an HR email to every laid off employee acknowledging it's late getting people their separation agreements and release of claims. But the company messed up the BCC and it has become a reply-all catastrophe.

— Zoë Schiffer (@ZoeSchiffer) November 11, 2022

2 users thanked author for this post.

Todd, lorcan_nagle

I can’t stop reading about it. It’s like Sideshow Bob stepping on rakes over and over and over.

3 users thanked author for this post.

Todd, Dave, Ben

lorcan_nagle wrote:

I can’t stop reading about it. It’s like Sideshow Bob stepping on rakes over and over and over.

Only the rake is an NFT that costs $8, and Sideshow Bob is someone called @Sideshow_Bobbins who paid for a blue tick.

2 users thanked author for this post.

Todd, lorcan_nagle

No, no, no Dave, you’re not up to date – there is no $8 a month blue tick programme anymore.

More seriously, one good tip I saw was to sever any connected apps, as Twitter now has no security team.

3 users thanked author for this post.

Todd, Dave, lorcan_nagle

I believe the $8 program is still up for people who have already paid in or have paid in to it or to Twitter Blue in the past, but they’re not accepting new members. Because who could have seen this coming.

4 users thanked author for this post.

garjones, Todd, Ben, Dave

Ben wrote:

No, no, no Dave, you’re not up to date – there is no $8 a month blue tick programme anymore.

Well, at least it had a long run.

3 users thanked author for this post.

garjones, Todd, lorcan_nagle

A US pharma company had $20 billion (supposedly – I’m not sure of the figure personally) wiped off its share value today when someone using Twitter Blue posed as them and declared that insulin would now be free. They then had to refute this which has highlighted the fact they’re charging for insulin, which was given away free with no patent by its inventor (or is discoverer a more accurate term?).

So they can presumably sue Twitter for damages over this.

4 users thanked author for this post.

Christian, DavidM, Todd, lorcan_nagle

Yeah, but have you seen what those bastards actually do charge for insulin? They deserve the kicking.

6 users thanked author for this post.

Chris D, garjones, DavidM, Todd, lorcan_nagle, Rocket

Martin Smith wrote:

A US pharma company had $20 billion (supposedly – I’m not sure of the figure personally) wiped off its share value today when someone using Twitter Blue posed as them and declared that insulin would now be free. They then had to refute this which has highlighted the fact they’re charging for insulin, which was given away free with no patent by its inventor (or is discoverer a more accurate term?).

So they can presumably sue Twitter for damages over this.

Slight correction: three pharma companies lost value yesterday as a result of that one tweet.

4 users thanked author for this post.

Christian, njerry, Martin Smith, Todd

There’s a whole thread (possibly now deleted) collecting tweets by “verified” big name companies making ludicrous statements, because all it costs to pretend to be them is $8 and that’s peanuts in exchange for the opportunity to be Lockheed Martin trashing American military policy, or Donald Trump trashing… Donald Trump.

It’s almost as if the people running Twitter don’t understand what Twitter is.

 

4 users thanked author for this post.

Todd, Ben, njerry, lorcan_nagle

It’s going to hurt an awful lot of people but maybe the fall of both Musk and Zuckerberg will kill off the tech genius business idiocy that’s been around too long.  Problem is they’ll make damn sure to screw over as many people as they can on their way down.

3 users thanked author for this post.

lorcan_nagle, garjones, Todd

If nothing else, this Twitter mess is certainly boosting my liking for modded message boards:

People saying it doesn’t matter which Mastodon instance you join are being misleading:
1. Each one has different moderation policies
2. Not every one allows you to formally “move” there
3. Who is on that instance and who they follow determines your federated timeline content

— Chanda Prescod-Weinstein (@IBJIYONGI) November 7, 2022

1 user thanked author for this post.

lorcan_nagle

Ben wrote:

If nothing else, this Twitter mess is certainly boosting my liking for modded message boards

You won’t be saying that when Gar rolls out Carrier Blue.

4 users thanked author for this post.

Todd, garjones, lorcan_nagle, DavidM

That’ll be the rebranded Patreon page.

3 users thanked author for this post.

Todd, Dave, lorcan_nagle

Everyone can be a moderator for $8 a month!

5 users thanked author for this post.

Todd, njerry, DavidM, lorcan_nagle, Dave

These online graphs on the decline of Twitter. Then there are these celebs going out of their way to announce that they are deleting their account.

There is social media outrage on Twitter, Facebook, and a lot of people are complaining about the TikTok algorithm being unfair.

If someone can come up with a happening site that can absorb all this jumping ship and mass exodus…

I’m not sure there is.  Either with the capacity or data security or both.

In a way it does show how good message boards are.

1 user thanked author for this post.

lorcan_nagle

Hurray for messageboards. I hope they come back in a big way.

3 users thanked author for this post.

Todd, DavidM, Ben

Latest scheme from Musk is that anyone who wants to use a they/them pronoun has to pay $16 because there’s obviously more than one of them.

That was in a tweet with a blue tick, so I’m sure it’s legit.

 

3 users thanked author for this post.

Todd, Chris D, lorcan_nagle

So a day or two after announcing everyone in Twitter had to work in the office and refusal to do so would be considered a resignation, Twitter just sent a message to all staff saying the offices were locked until Monday. Apparently Musk and his team have no idea who’s swipes need to be blocked and he’s terrified somebody will commit sabotage

2 users thanked author for this post.

Todd, garjones

Yup looks like mass resignations in response to his demand for ‘extreme’ working conditions. Good on them.

Elon Musk’s ‘extremely hardcore’ ultimatum to twitter staff seems to have backfired

A LOT of twitter staff just quit —View the tweets here on this hashtag 😮 #LoveWhereYouWorked

— Matt Navarra (@MattNavarra) November 17, 2022

2 users thanked author for this post.

Todd, lorcan_nagle

lorcan_nagle wrote:

So a day or two after announcing everyone in Twitter had to work in the office and refusal to do so would be considered a resignation, Twitter just sent a message to all staff saying the offices were locked until Monday. Apparently Musk and his team have no idea who’s swipes need to be blocked and he’s terrified somebody will commit sabotage

In the twist EVERYBODY saw coming, it turns out that Musk was the saboteur all along.

2 users thanked author for this post.

Chris D, lorcan_nagle

So how vulnerable is Twitter right now to a major cyber attack? With Elon firing half the staff basically on day one and then telling them to commit to “hardcore” work or being terminated…it seems like they’re probably pretty vulnerable now. I guess I’m just glad I never had an account to begin with because this could turn into a bigger shit show than it already is.

2 users thanked author for this post.

Todd, lorcan_nagle

So right now Twitter is mostly chugging along, but at this point apparently entire engineering teams are gone, who knows if anyone is left in security. I’ve heard of glitches in trending, locative services, messages being repeated in threads, and this is all indicative of a massive database not being maintained properly. There’s probably services that need to be restarted, logs that need to be cleared down, drives filling up on vital servers, and yes, security patches not being applied. When something breaks, it’ll probably bring the whole site crashing down and it’s a question of whether there’ll be a vulnerability that exposes user data in that timeframe.

2 users thanked author for this post.

Todd, garjones

Chris D wrote:

So how vulnerable is Twitter right now to a major cyber attack?

A lot more than before, bear in mind too that Twitter’s heaviest traffic loads are during World Cups.

When is the next one? Oh that’s right – this weekend.

2 users thanked author for this post.

Todd, lorcan_nagle

And the fans in the stadium aren’t going to have beer to occupy them either.

2 users thanked author for this post.

Todd, lorcan_nagle

A website has been set up to track the latest Twitter insanity

https://twitterisgoinggreat.com

2 users thanked author for this post.

Al-x, Todd

https://www.nst.com.my/sports/football/2022/11/854116/maskless-world-cup-scenes-spark-anger-zero-covid-china

A quarter of China’s population are under lockdown rules at the moment. It’s hard really to understand this approach, unless someone can develop an almost zero transmission vaccine (as with smallpox) Covid will be with us for a very long time. It’s doing a lot of damage to China’s economy, factory shut downs harming supply chains have seen firms moving out to other locations.

2 users thanked author for this post.

Todd, njerry

I think the chinese approach had a lot of supporters here. With the kind of purity spiral people were in it’s hard to argue against it. We have to save every life possible, don’t want to kill granny do you etc If you follow that to an extreme basically you have to stay quarantined, wrapped in plastic for the rest of your life

 

China bet on that approach, tough measures, control of all of society, and it’s hard to back out of because basically it’s admitting they were wrong. And of course increasing control is only good from the point of view of the form of government China has. I’ve seen many here advocate even stronger measures than China has taken.

 

(Here meaning western media in general)

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

If you follow that to an extreme basically you have to stay quarantined, wrapped in plastic for the rest of your life

Good thing nobody actually suggested that

3 users thanked author for this post.

Al-x, Todd, Ben

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

I think the chinese approach had a lot of supporters here.

I don’t really Arjan. While I understand arguments against lockdown responses we have adjusted with events (we being the west and in fact everywhere now outside China). The initial ones were in reaction to Italy and then later New York having to open emergency morgues and wards as the virus overwhelmed their system.

I think now in retrospect we can see some moves were too harsh and also some too lax. The ‘loosest’ countries socially like the UK and US saw much heavier death tolls.

However since we’ve got a better grip on the risk and got vaccines as I said all along the moves were temporary, lockdowns have ended. Even in New Zealand who also pursued a zero Covid policy for a long time. China now is alone, they had police stopping protesters at Foxconn yesterday all dressed in full PPE almost hazmat suits.

I doubt you will find any commentary in western media (or eastern or African for that matter) now asking for that.

3 users thanked author for this post.

Todd, Ben, lorcan_nagle