The Drawing Up of the Sides

01 Saturday Jun 2019

Posted by perrinlovett in News and Notes

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2033, hmmm, social media, Vox Day

People are making lists. Almost like something is getting ready to happen. VD explains:

Everyone to the right of Mao

Embrace your extremists or you will become the extremist:

WHITE NATIONALISTS ON TWITTER

Though these accounts are easily discoverable on Twitter, publishing their names could bring them more attention. For that reason, HuffPost is only publishing their user IDs, not the @ “handles” most commonly associated with Twitter accounts.

Since we began assembling this list last month, four of the 62 accounts have been suspended. Two were not suspended but appear to have self-deleted to evade oversight. We are leaving these accounts on the list because Twitter permitted the suspended users to repeatedly post extremist content before taking action and seemingly took no action against users that deactivated their accounts.

This list is far from comprehensive. We are excluding prominent anonymous white nationalists, who can have thousands of followers and go through dozens of accounts, and propagandists such as Cernovich and Jack Posobiec, who work with white nationalists. Nor are we including Islamophobes like Mekelburg and Pamela Geller, who do not identify as white nationalists but whose views often align with the ideology. The same holds for mainstream Republican pundits such as Ann Coulter and Tucker Carlson.

In the photos below, many white nationalists wear “Make America Great Again” caps or express support for Trump. During the 2016 election, white nationalists rallied around Trump en masse, accurately viewing the racist authoritarian as a means to seize a greater share of mainstream political power. Twitter was Trump’s medium of choice. So it was the medium of choice for far-right extremists. While their bigotry and propaganda is now echoed by much of the Republican base, several prominent white nationalists have since rejected Trump. He has done too much neoconservative saber-rattling for their taste or failed to deliver on issues like the border wall. Grotesquely, some now shun him for having too many close connections to Jews. But the damage these extremists ― and Twitter (and Trump) ― have done by spreading a message of hate and radicalization will linger for years.

By the Huffington Post standard, every single Founding Father was a white nationalist and right-wing extremist. Now they’re even after hard-core radicals such as Mike Cernovich and Steve Sailer!

Get off Twitter and get off Facebook now. Because the goalposts are going to move until you’re a Nazi too.

And isn’t it informative that not a single neocon is identified?

Seriously, get off the socials or be prepared to be listed or worse.

Laura Loomer Upset Over Social Bans

09 Thursday May 2019

Posted by perrinlovett in News and Notes

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Alt-Right, banning, deplatforming, Laura Loomer, social media

She’s very upset about being kicked off Twitter, Faceberg, and Instachirp for being a normal person.

Laura Loomer was first banned from Twitter for exposing Democrat Ilhan Omar as an anti-Semite. Laura was correct, as we all know today, but she got banned anyway. Laura seeks out and confronts Democrats on the topics of the day. She was banned for this.

On Wednesday Laura Loomer broke down in tears during a live TV interview.

Laura Loomer made an emotional plea for Republicans to take action against social media censorship.

Loomer appeared on the ‘Alex Jones Show’ to call on Republicans in Congress and President Trump to take legal action against the far-left tech companies censorship of conservatives and Trump supporters:

I confronted Congress when Jack Dorsey was testifying in September, and I begged President Trump, I begged him to do something before it was too late. [Republicans] mocked me and called me crazy, but what are they doing? I wanna know what people are actually going to do!

Loomer added that her life has been completely “ruined” because she has been banned from nearly every social media platform:

My life is ruined! Does anybody understand how ruined my life is?! I’m sick of it! I don’t want to listen to people tell me that I’m a conspiracy theorist. They don’t know what it’s like to be me! And I’m sick of it. I’m fighting harder than most conservatives. I’m fighting harder than anybody and I’m being destroyed and they mock me. These people don’t understand like my life is unlivable at this point in time. Like what is the point?

Facebook and Instagram recently banned Laura Loomer and several other prominent conservatives.

Still, Republicans in Congress and President Trump have not taken any legal action to stop social media censorship.

The anger and distress is understandable, for her. Still, I’d take these bans gladly and run with them. The social giants have done her a favor. But, let’s look at some of what she said:

“...but what are they doing? I wanna know what people are actually going to do!”

Nothing. They’re doing now all that they will. The testimony sessions are all shams. These people (Zuck and Co.) are pushing regulation – as I’ve explained before – so they can control it. The idiotic, greedy, and useless pols will oblige for a price. They care nothing about Laura or any other (non-donating) natural person.

“I’m fighting harder than most conservatives.”

As do most unborn babies. Conservative conserve nothing. Get used to it and get over them.

Luckily, for Laura, there are a growing number of alternative platforms. She’s now free to use them. So are we.

Social Media is Not Your Friend

20 Saturday Apr 2019

Posted by perrinlovett in News and Notes

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Facebook, idiots, Instagram, privacy, social media

Just last weekend, someone told me that I really, really, really need to get on the Gram, Instagram. I never entertained the thought, even before I found out that Facebook owns Insta. And, surprise! they’re pulling the usual Farceberg tricks on the Gram too.

Given the terrible run of form it’s been on over the last year, it probably shouldn’t be that surprising that Facebook waited until the highly anticipated report on Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election to deliver some bad news.

While just about every reporter was poring over the document, Facebook updated a blog post from March indicating that passwords had been exposed, stored as readable text (as opposed to securely encrypted), for hundreds of millions of Facebook users and thousands of Instagram users. It added a new paragraph to the middle of the post today indicating that a lot more Instagram users were affected than it originally thought:

(Update on April 18, 2019 at 7AM PT: Since this post was published, we discovered additional logs of Instagram passwords being stored in a readable format. We now estimate that this issue impacted millions of Instagram users. We will be notifying these users as we did the others. Our investigation has determined that these stored passwords were not internally abused or improperly accessed).

Just a small update from “thousands” to “millions,” then.

Facebook said it would notify the impacted users and that there’s no evidence that anyone within or outside Facebook had access to the passwords. But still, those users, and perhaps anyone else, might want to change their password or enable two-factor authenticationjust to make sure. That’s never a bad idea anyway.

Now that I know what Instagram is and who runs it, there is no way in hell I’d have anything to do with it. If you’re okay with all of this, and most users are, then enjoy your post-literate pictures and videos and the loss of even the pretense of privacy.

Investigate Facebook and Zuck for Theft

19 Friday Apr 2019

Posted by perrinlovett in Legal/Political Columns, News and Notes

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Facebook, idiocy, social media, theft

Inadvertent? Right. Here’s the Farceberg outrage of the ~~day~~ minute: 1.5 million accounts robbed of email contacts.

Facebook harvested the email contacts of 1.5 million users without their knowledge or consent when they opened their accounts.

Since May 2016, the social-networking company has collected the contact lists of 1.5 million users new to the social network, Business Insider can reveal. The Silicon Valley company said the contact data was “unintentionally uploaded to Facebook,” and it is now deleting them.

The revelation comes after pseudononymous security researcher e-sushi noticed that Facebook was asking some users to enter their email passwords when they signed up for new accounts to verify their identities, a move widely condemned by security experts. Business Insider then discovered that if you entered your email password, a message popped up saying it was “importing” your contacts without asking for permission first.

At the time, it wasn’t clear what was happening – but on Wednesday, Facebook disclosed to Business Insider that 1.5 million people’s contacts were collected this way and fed into Facebook’s systems, where they were used to improve Facebook’s ad targeting, build Facebook’s web of social connections, and recommend friends to add.

Why do the police always take Zuck’s word about these “inadvertent” mistakes? Smells kind of like theft to me. 1.5 million consecutive 1-year prisons sentences should do as punishment.

Anyhow, I’ll bet it was more than 1.5 million and it was more than just email contacts. If, for some strange, low-IQ reason, you’re still on FB, do at least check your “secret” file to find out exactly what they admit they have on you.

Strike that… If you’re still on the Zuckbook, then just keep looking at those pics and “reading” all those worthy Russian trolling attempts. You don’t need privacy nor need you be worried about anyone invading it; small minds aren’t worth reading.

Moral Duty and The Great Charter

08 Monday Apr 2019

Posted by perrinlovett in Legal/Political Columns, News and Notes

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censorship, England, Facebook, social media, tyranny

In this sense, they don’t go together.

‘MORAL DUTY’

Last week, Mr Zuckerberg told politicians in Ireland that the company would work with governments to establish new policies in a bid to regulate social media.

The Home Secretary, Sajid Javid added that tech firms had a “moral duty” to protect the young people they “profit from”.

“Despite our repeated calls to action, harmful and illegal content – including child abuse and terrorism – is still too readily available online,” he said.

“That is why we are forcing these firms to clean up their act once and for all. I made it my mission to protect our young people – and we are now delivering on that promise.”

A 12-week consultation of the proposals will now take place before the Government will publish its final proposals for legislation.

The Government said the proposed regulator would have a legal duty to pay due regard to innovation, as well as to protect users’ rights online.

Social networks have failed to prioritise children’s safety and left them exposed to grooming, abuse, and harmful content

Peter Wanless, NSPCC

Peter Wanless, chief executive of children’s charity the NSPCC – which publicly backed the idea regulation in February, said the proposals would make the UK a “world pioneer” in protecting children online.

“For too long social networks have failed to prioritise children’s safety and left them exposed to grooming, abuse, and harmful content,” he said.

“So it’s high time they were forced to act through this legally binding duty to protect children, backed up with hefty punishments if they fail to do so.

“We are pleased that the Government has listened to the NSPCC’s detailed proposals and we are grateful to all those who supported our campaign.”

However, former culture secretary John Whittingdale warned minister risked dragging people into a “draconian censorship regime” in their attempts to regulate internet firms.

Writing in the Mail on Sunday, he said he feared the plans could “give succour to Britain’s enemies”, giving them an excuse to further censor their own people.

“Countries such as China, Russia and North Korea, which allow no political dissent and deny their people freedom of speech, are also keen to impose censorship online, just as they already do on traditional media,” he said.

“This mooted new UK regulator must not give the despots an excuse to claim that they are simply following an example set by Britain, where civil liberties were first entrenched in Magna Carta 800 years ago,” he said.

FB outrage of the day (again, told ya so) and woe unto GB.

Americans Are Addicted to Social Idiocy

07 Sunday Apr 2019

Posted by perrinlovett in News and Notes

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addiction, Americans, dumb, social media, survey

A new poll indicates that Farcebook, Twitbook, and other social media operations are every bit as hypnotic and mind-altering and dangerous as television. People know there’s a problem but they can’t break the habit.

The American public holds negative views of social-media giants like Facebook and Twitter, with sizable majorities saying these sites do more to divide the country than unite it and spread falsehoods rather than news, according to results from the latest national NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.

What’s more, six in 10 Americans say they don’t trust Facebook at all to protect their personal information, the poll finds.

There’s more.

According to the poll, 57 percent of Americans say they agree with the statement that social media sites like Facebook and Twitter do more to divide the country, while 35 percent think they do more to bring the nation together.

Fifty-five percent believe social media does more to spread lies and falsehoods, versus 31 percent who say it does more to spread news and information.

Sixty-one percent think social media does more to spread unfair attacks and rumors against public figures and corporations, compared with 32 percent who say it does more to hold those public figures and corporations accountable.

And a whopping 82 percent say social media sites do more to waste people’s time, versus 15 percent who say they do more to use Americans’ time well.

Wait for it.

But those numbers also come as nearly seven in 10 Americans — 69 percent — say they use social media at least once a day.

They don’t trust it. They know it’s not good for them. But they use it anyway. I can quit anytime I want! There’s more still.

The NBC/WSJ poll also finds Americans are down on Facebook, with 60 percent saying they don’t trust the company at all to protect personal information.

…

By contrast, the percentage of Americans not trusting companies or institutions with their personal information is lower for Amazon (28 percent), Google (37 percent) and the federal government (35 percent).

And by a 74 percent-to-23 percent margin, respondents say that social media companies collecting users’ personal data to allow advertisers to target them is not an acceptable tradeoff for free or lower-cost services.

Overall, 36 percent of adults view Facebook positively, while 33 percent see it negatively. And Twitter’s rating is 24 percent positive, 27 percent negative.

The people are twice as trusting of government as they are of Faceberg, while still taking copious advantage of the “benefits” of both. A slight majority say there’s no need to trust-bust the social tech monopolies. One frequent argument against that drastic action is that the socials are private companies ergo, leave them alone (to be evil).

Dear Libertarians, Whig Partiers, Tide Pod-eaters, and others: Farcebook is a corporation. Corporations are government-sanctified entities or fake persons. Government, on the other hand, is Faceberg with a gun.

And. What’s the great benefit to all the gibberish and stupidity of the socials? Does everyone search daily for long-form articles to read? No. Do they make use of the astounding research capabilities of the digital age? No. Self-improvement? No. It’s all cat videos, memes, pictures (of your kids…), echo chambering, cat videos, porn, gambling, and triviality. A giant, all-seeing, privacy-risking, literally mind-numbing (I mean literally a digital narcotic) waste of time.

Delete the accounts.

A suggestion for the neurological sciences-minded or professionals: conduct a brain scan study to map the effects, live or long-term, of social media usage. Maybe try t track who is and who isn’t more susceptible to harm. Write a paper. Win a prize. Give me credit. We’ll Tweet about it.