Closing the Comments

30 Monday Dec 2019

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blog, comments, no guest posts, perrinlovett.me, social media, spam

A few changes are in effect for 2020 (the remained of 2019 too).

First and most prominently, I have closed the comments for all new posts. I think I have sealed off older entries also. The post(s) of the current day still display “leave a comment;” however, ALL go to moderation without automatically appearing in sequence. Why? Well, anymore there aren’t that many comments in the first place. But you simply would not believe the garbage that the filters catch – spam, attacks, and walls of idiotic text. I’m done with that. I do apologize to the very few long-time readers who still leave thoughtful comments. Most of you know how to get ahold of me if there’s something that has to be added via a quoted update. And, should I find one of your comments before it flys off to the land of moderation, I’ll happily let it through. The “like” feature remains.

Second, I have removed all links to various (anti) social media. I have no interest in entertaining or confusing the 95 IQ denizens of Farcebook or Twitland. I almost left the WP “press” button and considered adding “print” or “email,” but, why? This is a ban on direct links; if it’s pressing, then you can always cut and paste a link address to the social or other function of your choice. As noted, the “like” feature is still here along with the “reblog” button. No apologies.

Third, the policy going forward is that this blog does not accept guest submissions. Nor will I answer inquiries regarding the same. The exception to this new rule would only apply to people whom I know and/or trust. Ironically, almost all of them have their own platforms. If you have a genuine interest in spreading some idea to the www, then please visit WP, Blogger, Wix, or some other development program and start your own forum. The rest of you, phish somewhere else.

As always, I reserve the right to make (or threaten to make) other changes. The foregoing is made in response to continuous activities here, noted and otherwise. And, there is a new direction on the internet of which I am becoming extremely dubious. I was not kidding, a while back, about the manual typewriter and electricity.

It’s going to be an exciting year. Please stay tuned and thank you for your support.

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.

Social Media is Terrible for All Generations

16 Thursday May 2019

Posted by perrinlovett in Other Columns

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celebrities, social media

Selena Gomez, whom I’m not familiar with – beyond her rather cute appearance, spoke honestly about all the Insta-Face-Tweeting the kiddos are into.

The singer and actor, who with more than 150 million followers is one of the world’s most popular figures on Instagram, said at a press conference for her new zombie comedy The Dead Don’t Die that it had become “impossible at this point” to make social media platforms safe for users, and called on young people to take a break from social media if they were feeling overwhelmed.

“For my generation specifically, social media has been terrible,” Gomez said. “I understand that it’s amazing to use as a platform but it does scare me when you see how exposed these young girls and boys are. I think it’s dangerous for sure.”

When asked whether as one of the most prominent social media figures she had a responsibility in making platforms safer, the 26-year-old said that it was “impossible to make it safe at this point. I’m grateful I have a platform. I don’t do a lot of pointless pictures. For me, I like to be intentional with it. I see these young girls … I’ll meet them at meet-and-greets, and they’re just devastated by bullying and not having a voice.

“Impossible to make it safe.” I agree. Delete the accounts, kids of all ages. Except for the Boomers, of course. They need the platforms to communicate, nursing home to nursing home, talking ’bout their g-g-generation.

Some other celebrity idiots, present at some film “festival,” babbled on about climate warming and 110-year-old women on Farcebook. Or something. One of them suggested a corporate boycott. I agree; I’m boycotting the film and social media industries.

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.