Automated updates: 2021-10-08
This commit is contained in:
John Colagioia
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@ -8,13 +8,14 @@ summary: The inevitability of for-profit social media making you angry and why a
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thumbnail: /blog/assets/Radio_News_Sep_1928_Cover.png
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offset: -18%
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recommend: The problems with social media
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proofed: true
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---
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Last August, news broke that Twitter's CEO [may have personally kept Alex Jones on the network](https://www.wsj.com/articles/inside-twitters-long-slow-struggle-to-police-bad-actors-1535972402?mod=e2tw), overruling the company's own moderation rules. The most surprising thing about the story is that...people were surprised. It _should_ have been more surprising that any of the so-called social media sites (Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, et al) banned him, because, well, hate speech is good for their bottom lines.
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Last August, news broke that Twitter's CEO [may have personally kept Alex Jones on the network](https://www.wsj.com/articles/inside-twitters-long-slow-struggle-to-police-bad-actors-1535972402?mod=e2tw), overruling the company's own moderation rules. The most surprising thing about the story is that...people were surprised. It _should_ have been more surprising that any of the so-called social media sites (Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and so forth) banned him at all, because, well, hate speech is good for their bottom lines.
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More recently, all of the major social media companies have scrambled to craft rules for political advertising while not actually doing anything useful. Twitter is unilaterally banning political ads while [not actually defining them](https://qz.com/1740533/three-ways-twitters-political-ad-ban-could-help-bad-actors/) and [include biased exceptions](https://www.cnet.com/news/twitters-political-ads-ban-has-exceptions/). Facebook [is A-OK with lying](https://www.theverge.com/interface/2019/10/15/20913906/facebook-political-ads-lies-zuckerberg-warren-profits) while [Zuckerberg admitted wanting specific election outcomes](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/oct/01/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-elizabeth-warren-big-tech). Google [claims some limitations](https://blog.google/technology/ads/update-our-political-ads-policy/), but is still setting themselves as arbiters of what constitutes a *political* position. The other networks all [have their own rules](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-advertising-factbox-idUSKBN1XV071), with all of them relying on some level of honesty from advertisers and carving out arbitrary exceptions.
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More recently, all the major social media companies have scrambled to craft rules for political advertising while not actually doing anything useful. Twitter is unilaterally banning political ads while [not actually defining them](https://qz.com/1740533/three-ways-twitters-political-ad-ban-could-help-bad-actors/) and [include biased exceptions](https://www.cnet.com/news/twitters-political-ads-ban-has-exceptions/). Facebook [is A-OK with lying](https://www.theverge.com/interface/2019/10/15/20913906/facebook-political-ads-lies-zuckerberg-warren-profits) while [Zuckerberg admitted wanting specific election outcomes](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/oct/01/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-elizabeth-warren-big-tech). Google [claims some limitations](https://blog.google/technology/ads/update-our-political-ads-policy/), but is still setting themselves as arbiters of what constitutes a *political* position. The other networks all [have their own rules](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-advertising-factbox-idUSKBN1XV071), with all of them relying on some level of honesty from advertisers and carving out arbitrary exceptions.
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**Please note**: I have no objection to any of those companies choosing who or what to allow or disallow. The infrastructure, names, and reach are theirs to do with as they please (even though I *definitely* think there are monopoly problems to be solved), and removing their editorial control would be a dangerous attack on freedom of expression. This is about how their choices effect users and what to do about it.
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@ -32,7 +33,7 @@ Yet, considering that advertising accounts for the majority of non-subscription
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{% pull ...content is only important to the extent that it keeps you sufficiently emotionally engaged that you'll pay attention to the commercials. %}
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Critically for this discussion, when you understand that commercials pay the bills, you understand that the primary goal of a _lot_ of television is to keep an audience engaged long enough to watch those commercials. That is, as far as the broadcaster is concerned, content is only important to the extent that it keeps you sufficiently emotionally engaged that you'll pay attention to the commercials. After all, if you tune out, the network loses money and would rather broadcast something cheaper to produce, more popular, or more compelling to a niche audience in the slot on the schedule. This, for example, is why channels founded to privatize educational, intellectual, and cultural programming (the Discovery Channel, the Arts & Entertainment Network, the Learning Channel, Bravo, the History Channel, and others, in just the United States) invariably replace their intended programming with reality shows and documentaries that are less incisive and programming so much as dubiously sourced and sensationalized. An opera and a documentary about spontaneous human combustion probably have roughly the same size audience on the small screen, for example, but the opera is expensive to produce and a viewers who accept assertions that spontaneous human combustion is real are _also_ likely to believe that the mail order herbal supplements being sold during the commercials will make them strong and virile.
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Critically for this discussion, when you understand that commercials pay the bills, you understand that the primary goal of a _lot_ of television is to keep an audience engaged long enough to watch those commercials. That is, as far as the broadcaster is concerned, content is only important to the extent that it keeps you sufficiently emotionally engaged that you'll pay attention to the commercials. After all, if you tune out, the network loses money and would rather broadcast something cheaper to produce, more popular, or more compelling to a niche audience in the slot on the schedule. This, for example, is why channels founded to privatize educational, intellectual, and cultural programming (the Discovery Channel, the Arts & Entertainment Network, the Learning Channel, Bravo, the History Channel, and others, in just the United States) invariably replace their intended programming with reality shows and documentaries that are less incisive and programming so much as dubiously sourced and sensationalized. A hypothetical opera and a hypothetical documentary about spontaneous human combustion probably have roughly the same size audience on the small screen, for example, but the opera is expensive to produce and viewers who might accept assertions that spontaneous human combustion is real are _also_ likely to believe that the mail order herbal supplements being sold during the commercials will make them strong and virile.
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This explains the structure of most shows, too. While separating a theatrical work into multiple acts has been standard procedure for thousands of years, a play doesn't generally need to worry about you coming back after or sitting through a commercial, nor is the time generally segmented into three or five acts. This results in a structure that doesn't quite conform to traditional theatrical act structure on one hand, but more importantly works to increase the viewer's emotional engagement up to a twist at every act break. TV Tropes has an excellent set of examples of what they call the [Commercial Break Cliffhanger](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CommercialBreakCliffhanger).
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@ -40,7 +41,7 @@ This explains the structure of most shows, too. While separating a theatrical w
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In the previous paragraph, "_emotional_ engagement" is the key phrase. And, when you're dealing with an audience you don't know, it's generally easier to provoke emotional engagement through stress (anger, fear, grief, and maybe jealousy) than other kinds of highs. A joke can fall flat and a character being rewarded might not be well-liked, but we all have that same ["lizard brain"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amygdala) making us respond to a jump scare, and you can amplify those feelings easily with a change in lighting or the soundtrack.
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Public television (such as PBS, in the United States) is, of course, a prime example of what television can look like without (direct) advertising. Even after nearly fifty years, they're still able to regularly bring fine arts ([Great Performances](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Performances)), science ([Nova](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nova_(TV_series))), investigative journalism ([Frontline](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontline_(U.S._TV_series))), and just about everything else the private industry tried and failed to outdo in the '80s and '90s and more. The shows also don't give you any of those clumsy emotional shoves, either.
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Public television (such as PBS, in the United States) is, of course, a prime example of what television can look like without (direct) advertising. Even after nearly fifty years, they're still able to regularly bring fine arts like [Great Performances](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Performances), science like [Nova](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nova_%28TV_series%29), investigative journalism like [Frontline](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontline_%28U.S._TV_series%29), and just about everything else that corporate-run, advertising-driven media tried and failed to outdo in the '80s and '90s and more. The shows also don't give you any of those clumsy emotional shoves, either.
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## B-but...Internet!
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@ -54,7 +55,7 @@ Right.
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{% pull ...self-selection criteria in the form of poor grammar and shoddy stories that the less-gullible will just ignore. %}
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It turns out that the medium doesn't really make a difference. The same process at work here can be seen to greater or lesser degrees in print print media, where a sentence might be cut to be continued on some deep interior page (with a lot of advertisements), only to find out that you were near the end of the article, anyway. You can see this at work with spam, where the low cost of sending e-mail only requires a handful of respondents to be profitable, leading to [self-selection criteria](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/why-do-nigerian-scammers-say-they-are-from-nigeria/) in the form of poor grammar and shoddy stories that the less-gullible will just ignore.
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It turns out that the medium doesn't really make a difference. The same process at work here can be seen to greater or lesser degrees in print media, where a sentence might be cut to be continued on some deep interior page (with a lot of advertisements), only to find out that you were near the end of the article, anyway. You can see this at work with spam, where the low cost of sending e-mail only requires a handful of respondents to be profitable, leading to [self-selection criteria](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/why-do-nigerian-scammers-say-they-are-from-nigeria/) in the form of poor grammar and shoddy stories that the less-gullible will just ignore.
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And, of course, you can see this in social media. Specifically, we know that:
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@ -63,7 +64,7 @@ And, of course, you can see this in social media. Specifically, we know that:
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* Facebook, at least, has [experimented with manipulating user emotion](https://www.forbes.com/sites/gregorymcneal/2014/06/30/controversy-over-facebook-emotional-manipulation-study-grows-as-timeline-becomes-more-clear/#6c10af0e9caa) in violation of [ethical standards](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_review_board).
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* When Eli Pariser famously spoke about [filter bubbles](https://www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_bubbles), Mark Zuckerberg (among others) wanted to make sure social media [had a commitment to "diversity of viewpoints"](https://marketingland.com/zuckerbergs-manifesto-well-connect-world-beat-fake-news-pop-filter-bubble-207126) and Jack Dorsey [was right behind him](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/08/opinion/sunday/twitter-political-polarization.html), even though [ideological diversity](https://theintercept.com/2018/04/10/kevin-williamson-atlantic-ideological-diversity/) is a sham, we know [it just makes things worse](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/08/opinion/sunday/twitter-political-polarization.html), and **not** what we really mean when we worry about bubbles: Trying to not "...only see posts from folks who are like you" doesn't mean worrying about whether you've seen enough unsourced conspiracy theories or Social Darwinist propaganda. Of course, what Facebook claims to want and what it works for [might be very different](https://www.fastcompany.com/3046111/why-scientists-are-upset-over-the-facebook-filter-bubble-study).
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Of course, there are two possible reasons of significance that these companies have such consistently weak vetting of advertisers, obsessions with "ideological diversity" over _actual_ diversity (which [is beneficial](https://qz.com/570732/diversity-actually-makes-us-smarter/), and ensure that your racist uncle's posts (or posts from professional hate-spewing trolls) are in your face all the time. The first possibility is that these companies are part of a right-wing movement. But thanks to the incompetent conservatives whining about not being sufficiently well-liked once they admit to being sexist and racist (to wit, James Damore and Brian Amerige), we know that's not the case. That leaves us the second option, that this is manipulation to work you up enough to pay attention to the ads.
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Of course, there are two possible reasons of significance that these companies have such consistently weak vetting of advertisers, obsessions with "ideological diversity" over _actual_ diversity (which [is beneficial](https://qz.com/570732/diversity-actually-makes-us-smarter/), and ensure that your racist uncle's posts (or posts from professional hate-spewing trolls) are in your face all the time. The first possibility is that these companies are part of a right-wing movement. But thanks to the incompetent conservatives whining about not being sufficiently well-liked once they admit to being sexist and racist (I'm looking at *you*, James Damore and Brian Amerige), we know that's not the case. That leaves us the second option, that this is manipulation to work you up enough to pay attention to the ads.
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By the way, the right-wing's obsession with being _respected and liked_ after denigrating huge swaths of the population and consistently supporting policies everybody can see are failures is, itself, almost certainly another discussion for another time...
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@ -77,11 +78,11 @@ In other words, hate speech is profitable for them, because it makes you angry.
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{% pull ...corporations are still uniquely and almost entirely fascist and feudal institutions... %}
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Or, rather, maybe _serf_ is accurate. After all, despite all the amazing social and technical progress we've made in the outside world in a couple of centuries, with all society (plus or minus an occasional well-funded speed bump) trending towards democracy, corporations are still uniquely and almost entirely fascist and feudal institutions, with a "strong-man" leader whose whim is absolute law and "residents" (whether employees or customers) have as few rights as the management can manage, whether through [violence, as in the past](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-union_violence), or combinations of [non-compete](https://www.forbes.com/sites/omribenshahar/2016/10/27/california-got-it-right-ban-the-non-compete-agreements/#4af25e893538), [nondisparagement](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/21/technology/silicon-valley-sexual-harassment-non-disparagement-agreements.html), [forced arbitration](https://gizmodo.com/silicon-valley-needs-to-ban-forced-arbitration-agreemen-1822313732), [lack of privacy](https://thetechpanda.com/2013/06/25/how-silicon-valley-makes-money-by-snooping-on-your-information/), and other contractual clauses with few alternatives to agreeing to the contracts.
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Or, rather, maybe _serf_ is accurate. After all, despite all the amazing social and technical progress we've made in the outside world in a couple of centuries, with all society (plus or minus an occasional well-funded speed bump) trending towards democracy, corporations are still uniquely and almost entirely fascist and feudal institutions, with a "strong-man" leader whose whim is absolute law and "residents" (whether employees or customers) have as few rights as the management can manage, whether through [violence, as in the past](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-union_violence), or combinations of [non-compete](https://www.forbes.com/sites/omribenshahar/2016/10/27/california-got-it-right-ban-the-non-compete-agreements/#4af25e893538), [non-disparagement](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/21/technology/silicon-valley-sexual-harassment-non-disparagement-agreements.html), [forced arbitration](https://gizmodo.com/silicon-valley-needs-to-ban-forced-arbitration-agreemen-1822313732), [lack of privacy](https://thetechpanda.com/2013/06/25/how-silicon-valley-makes-money-by-snooping-on-your-information/), and other contractual clauses with few alternatives to agreeing to the contracts.
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But, as they say...I digress.
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However, as they say...I digress.
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Back to the topic, yes, you're being manipulated no matter what the end results. The pathologically-skeptical (if they've read this far) might also want to review [how the tobacco industry operated for decades](http://www.who.int/tobacco/media/en/TobaccoExplained.pdf) to see if any parallels jump out, since we already know how that story ends.
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Back to the topic, yes, you're being manipulated no matter what the end results. The pathologically skeptical (if they've read this far) might also want to review [how the tobacco industry operated for decades](http://www.who.int/tobacco/media/en/TobaccoExplained.pdf) to see if any parallels jump out, since we already know how that story ends.
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Another situation that's analogous in a different way: [Technocracy Inc.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/silicon-valleys-attempts-to-self-police-are-anti-democratic-theyre-also-not-new/2018/08/17/cd44fb22-9b1d-11e8-843b-36e177f3081c_story.html) in the wake of World War II, where industrialist experts insisted that ceding authority to unaccountable rich people would produce a utopia. It's the aforementioned corporate fascism/feudalism weirdly fused with the socialist implications of Edward Bellamy's [**Looking Backward From 2000 to 1887**](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Looking_Backward_From_2000_to_1887). Technocracy Inc. also, inexplicably, still exists, with an ["elevator pitch"](http://www.technocracyinc.org/technocracy-in-a-nutshell/) literally dismissing the will of the people in allocating resources. Yes, there's also a _claim_ of ignoring profit as well, but the track record of the private sector in solving public sector problems altruistically isn't exactly great.
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@ -115,17 +116,17 @@ That said, here's how I look at the landscape. Take it with a grain of salt and
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**First**, and probably the most straightforward, _turn off push notifications_ if you have any. You don't need to know every single time somebody thought to interact with you and the information will still be there in a few hours. The Internet works on your schedule, not the other way around.
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{% pull ...be aware of the of the business models in effect... %}
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{% pull ...be aware of the business models in effect... %}
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**Second**, _be aware_ of the of the business models in effect on corporate-run social media. If you ignore the motivations behind a system, you can't reasonably deal with the system on your own terms. Especially keep this in mind when you're about to react to what someone has posted. Are you...
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**Second**, _be aware_ of the business models in effect on corporate-run social media. If you ignore the motivations behind a system, you can't reasonably deal with the system on your own terms. Especially keep this in mind when you're about to react to what someone has posted. Are you...
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* Participating in a real relationship with the person you're talking to?
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* Making a clarifying statement for the bystanders who might not have formed an opinion?
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* Stoking the community drama?
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Those may benefit you as a user to different degrees and they rev the site's engines in different ways by prodding more people and giving a wider platform to the problematic statements and propagating the reactions. But you can't make an informed decision unless you're actually informed.
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Those may benefit you as a user to different degrees, and they rev the site's engines in different ways by prodding more people and giving a wider platform to the problematic statements and propagating the reactions. But you can't make an informed decision unless you're actually informed.
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**Third**, always go in with a goal and then get out. Treat social media as a chore to get specific things done and to groom specific relationships, rather than a space to passively consume. This hopefully reinforces your awareness of the structure and limits the time spent feeding the machines. The infinite-scrolling page is compelling you for a reason, and you're allowed to ignore it.
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**Third**, always go in with a goal and then get out. Treat social media as a chore to get specific things done and to groom specific relationships, rather than a space to passively consume. This helps to reinforce your awareness of the structure and limits the time spent feeding the machines. The infinite-scrolling page is compelling you for a reason, and you're allowed to ignore it.
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Most of my Twitter posts are set up over the weekend to post during the week, for example. And then I check networks for activity daily (Twitter), weekly (LinkedIn), or every few weeks (Facebook), based on how often real people try to connect with me directly and how stressful the experience is.
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@ -137,7 +138,7 @@ Most of my Twitter posts are set up over the weekend to post during the week, fo
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* [Mastodon](https://joinmastodon.org/) (and [ActivityPub](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ActivityPub)-based systems, more generally), which is mostly presented as a Twitter clone without the trademarks, but has a much broader utility.
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* [Scuttlebutt](https://www.scuttlebutt.nz/), which stores your information on your network on your computer for access offline.
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Granted, your friends probably aren't there, yet, and each setup has its own quirks and communities (I may post about those soon, as I continue to explore), but just seeing how this can work without being driven by advertising can change your outlook on the systems you do use. Specifically, you can see how much more relaxed the conversation feels, even when a large number of people posting on some of the networks are _exactly_ the sorts of people getting banned for being too abusive on the mainstream sites.
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Granted, your friends probably aren't there, yet, and each setup has its own quirks and communities (I may post about those soon, as I continue to explore), but just seeing how this can work without being driven by advertising can change your outlook on the systems you do use. Specifically, you can see how much more relaxed the conversation feels, even when a significant percentage of the people posting on these networks are _exactly_ the sorts of people getting banned for being too abusive on the mainstream sites.
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**Fifth** and finally, don't forget about the _original_ online social network, the web and e-mail, or phones and visits, if you prefer. Don't be afraid to just reach out to your friends and family directly to share with them. Or, if you want to share with the world, run your own website to do that. You can do all of this on _your_ terms, without many obstructions or parasites involving themselves.
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@ -8,6 +8,7 @@ summary: An attempt to understand why right-wing social media fails
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thumbnail: /blog/assets/136733958_d19086fe20_o.png
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offset: -22%
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update: 2019-12-20-social-media.md
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proofed: true
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---
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@ -20,7 +21,7 @@ The year 2021 has brought a different question to attention, though: What happe
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If you're coming to this post much later or from some alien planet, fascist Americans [pushed their way](https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/01/06/pictures-pro-trump-mob-storms-us-capitol-building) into the United States Capitol after it was suggested by Donald Trump. Many of them wore t-shirts about the civil war they thought they were sparking, and many had weapons and restraints that prove they were planning to take hostages and at least threaten to kill people.
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As a result, after four years of saying that Donald Trump is such a special case that his platform to undermine democracy and incite violence couldn't be muted or else we'd lose those tweets from the historical record, Facebook finally grew a spine and [suspended him](https://www.voanews.com/usa/facebook-suspends-trumps-account-wake-us-capitol-violence), followed by [Twitter](https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/01/08/after-inciting-deadly-invasion-us-capitol-twitter-permanently-suspends). Those actions---only semi-reasonable when taken *after* the damage had been done and they've been warned forever---cascaded into bans of violent rhetoric and the people who spew it across most major social media platforms.
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As a result, after four years of saying that Donald Trump is such a special case that his platform to undermine democracy and incite violence couldn't be muted or else we'd lose those tweets from the historical record, Facebook finally grew a spine and [suspended him](https://www.voanews.com/usa/facebook-suspends-trumps-account-wake-us-capitol-violence), followed by [Twitter](https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/01/08/after-inciting-deadly-invasion-us-capitol-twitter-permanently-suspends). Those actions---only semi-reasonable when taken *after* the damage had been done, and they've been warned forever---cascaded into bans of violent rhetoric and the people who spew it across most major social media platforms.
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That cascade more or less ended with Amazon realizing that [hosting Parler was a huge liability](https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20210111/09253546032/slope-gets-more-slippery-as-you-expect-content-moderation-to-happen-infrastructure-layer.shtml) and kicking them off their cloud computing platform.
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There's an added twist, this time around, that progressives are *also* lining up to [complain about tech companies de-platforming Donald Trump](https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/01/13/kicking-trump-social-media-wont-save-democracy-say-antitrust-experts), arguing that it's unfair to leave the call to remove him down to human judgment. But strangely, none of the people framing it this way complained that he was *not* removed the first time he said something that violated their terms of service as would (and does) happen to any powerless user and none of them are interested to connecting this to times when ordinary, non-authoritarian people have been harmed in the past, as cited above.
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<iframe
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src="https://www.voanews.com/media/2929201/embed"
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src="https://archive.org/embed/after-the-capitol-riot-social-media-wrestle-with-the-aftermath-of-blocking-president-trump-source"
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frameborder="0"
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scrolling="no"
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allowfullscreen
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>
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</iframe>
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I mean, I agree that we shouldn't be relying on authoritarian dictatorships---which, at heart, is what a corporation is, unless it's specifically engineered *not* to be---but this isn't the context where that argument is useful, because [it's a necessary step](https://theconversation.com/does-deplatforming-work-to-curb-hate-speech-and-calls-for-violence-3-experts-in-online-communications-weigh-in-153177) to stopping the violence. When you remove an online meeting place for bad people, only the most dedicated people search out the new meeting place, giving an opportunity to "de-program" the people conned into the cult. But the fact that de-platforming doesn't de-program doesn't make de-platforming bad.
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I mean, I agree that we shouldn't be relying on authoritarian dictatorships---which, at heart, is what a corporation is, unless it's specifically engineered *not* to be---but this isn't the context where that argument is useful, because [it's a necessary step](https://theconversation.com/does-deplatforming-work-to-curb-hate-speech-and-calls-for-violence-3-experts-in-online-communications-weigh-in-153177) to stopping the violence. When you remove an online meeting place for bad people, only the most dedicated people search out the new meeting place, giving an opportunity to "deprogram" the people conned into the cult. But the fact that de-platforming doesn't deprogram by itself doesn't make de-platforming bad.
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So nobody really learns anything, I guess.
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Other than *that*, though, we've seen this most of this entire cycle with Gab, [Minds]({% post_url 2020-02-01-minds %}), Voat, 8Chan, [ZeroNet](2020-02-22-zeronet %}), and others, and none of the sites have been relevant after their figurative fifteen minutes of fame. All of the "Twitter-killers" are basically irrelevant to most people, except as evidence to arrest people for planning terrorist attacks.
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Other than *that*, though, we've seen this most of this entire cycle with Gab, [Minds]({% post_url 2020-02-01-minds %}), Voat, 8Chan, [ZeroNet]({% post_url 2020-02-22-zeronet %}), and others, and none of the sites have been relevant after their figurative fifteen minutes of fame. All the "Twitter-killers" that we've seen are basically irrelevant to most people, except as evidence to arrest people for planning terrorist attacks.
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## But Wait, There's More...
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@ -0,0 +1,120 @@
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---
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layout: post
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title: Tweets from 10/04 to 10/08
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date: 2021-10-08 16:18:18-0400
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categories: media
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tags: [twitter, week, socialmedia, linkdump]
|
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summary: Tweets for the Week of October 04th, 2021
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thumbnail: /blog/assets/CLM_14456_71r_detail.png
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proofed: true
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---
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As [discussed previously]({% post_url 2019-12-31-new-year %}), this is my weekly Twitter roundup. Note that tweets of articles generally include header images from the articles, which are not included here unless they *happen* to be available under a free license. Most are not. But I now add most of my commentary here, where I'm not restricted by the message length.
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I also don't generally attach pictures to posts with quotations.
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## 9:04 -- Mon 04 October 2021
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|
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[<i class="fab fa-twitter-square"></i>](https://twitter.com/jcolag/status/1445011823468552192) [You cannot have AI ethics without ethics](https://montrealethics.ai/you-cannot-have-ai-ethics-without-ethics/) from the Montreal AI Ethics Institute
|
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|
||||
> In Facebook’s case, they control what is allowed on their platform but do not have legal responsibility for the content that’s eventually put on there.
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This is a bit obvious, but still good analysis.
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## 12:03 -- Mon 04 October 2021
|
||||
|
||||
[<i class="fab fa-twitter-square"></i>](https://twitter.com/jcolag/status/1445056870075576325)
|
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|
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> If we are only organizing for elections, we are not going to win the world that we need...No one politician is the answer. No one president is the answer. You are the answer, mass movements are the answer.
|
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|
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{% cite Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez %}
|
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|
||||
As much as I hate editorializing on the quotes, I can't *not* back her on this. I see this throughout the media personalities in progressive media. They didn't get their person in the White House, so they're suddenly more than happy to repeat right-wing talking points, because it makes the winner look bad. The lady has it right: The fight doesn't begin *or* end with elections; they're only one means to an end.
|
||||
|
||||
## 9:02 -- Tue 05 October 2021
|
||||
|
||||
[<i class="fab fa-twitter-square"></i>](https://twitter.com/jcolag/status/1445373707677941762) [R. Kelly was aided by a network of complicity — common in workplace abuse — that enabled crimes to go on for decades](https://theconversation.com/r-kelly-was-aided-by-a-network-of-complicity-common-in-workplace-abuse-that-enabled-crimes-to-go-on-for-decades-168809) from The Conversation
|
||||
|
||||
> Members of the network of complicity fall victim to such storytelling and myth-building.
|
||||
|
||||
This, of course, goes well beyond a musician who abuses individuals. It's part of companies and political campaigns, where people want to "prove their commitments" to charismatic leaders.
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## 12:02 -- Tue 05 October 2021
|
||||
|
||||
[<i class="fab fa-twitter-square"></i>](https://twitter.com/jcolag/status/1445419006370869250)
|
||||
|
||||
> The air was soon full of flying shot, shell and canister--and a groan here and there attested their affect. ...the roar of musketry and the crashing, pounding noise of guns and bursting shells was deafening...
|
||||
|
||||
{% cite Adolfo Fernandez Cavada %}
|
||||
|
||||
## 9:05 -- Wed 06 October 2021
|
||||
|
||||
[<i class="fab fa-twitter-square"></i>](https://twitter.com/jcolag/status/1445736850639970306) [Anita Hill: What It Was Like for Me to Watch Christine Blasey Ford’s Testimony](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/09/anita-hill-watched-kavanaugh-hearing-christine-blasey-ford/620149/) from The Atlantic
|
||||
|
||||
> Like then-Senator Arlen Specter, who had interrogated me, Mitchell was a prosecutor, and she questioned Ford as if Ford were on trial.
|
||||
|
||||
It's almost a shame that we're only reading this now, but I still can't help but appreciate Hill's take on those hearings.
|
||||
|
||||
## 12:04 -- Wed 06 October 2021
|
||||
|
||||
[<i class="fab fa-twitter-square"></i>](https://twitter.com/jcolag/status/1445781897515188226)
|
||||
|
||||
> It was a beautiful country through which we had just passed, but it had presented no charms to weary eyes that were compelled to view it through a line of hostile bayonets.
|
||||
|
||||
{% cite Federico Fernández Cavada %}
|
||||
|
||||
Another comment on someone else's quote, but I can't help noticing that this is the comment of a Latino man in the American South. Cavada had been captured by the Confederacy, in this case...
|
||||
|
||||
## 9:03 -- Thu 07 October 2021
|
||||
|
||||
[<i class="fab fa-twitter-square"></i>](https://twitter.com/jcolag/status/1446098735101104132) [To Save Jobs and Fund Infrastructure, Close This Loophole](https://otherwords.org/to-save-jobs-and-fund-infrastructure-close-this-loophole/) from OtherWords
|
||||
|
||||
> This allows wealthy private equity, real estate, and hedge fund managers to claim the fees they receive for their services as capital gains, which are taxed at a rate of just 23.8 percent, instead of the top marginal income tax rate of 37 percent.
|
||||
|
||||
An important aspect of this scam, which probably isn't mentioned in the article because it was considered too obvious, is that the managers are charging companies *that they own* for advice on how best to provide the owners with a quick buck.
|
||||
|
||||
## 12:05 -- Thu 07 October 2021
|
||||
|
||||
[<i class="fab fa-twitter-square"></i>](https://twitter.com/jcolag/status/1446144537022193666)
|
||||
|
||||
> If man were to be deprived of the faculty with which he makes his first mistakes, he would undoubtedly be deprived of that which later produces great deeds.
|
||||
|
||||
{% cite José Antonio Páez %}
|
||||
|
||||
## 9:01 -- Fri 08 October 2021
|
||||
|
||||
[<i class="fab fa-twitter-square"></i>](https://twitter.com/jcolag/status/1446460620002377738) ["Are you calling me a racist?"](https://pluralistic.net/2021/09/29/jubilance/#tolerable-racism) from Pluralistic
|
||||
|
||||
> Of all the brain-worms that prey upon the conservative mind, none are quite so powerful as the "no tax" pathology.
|
||||
|
||||
Again, probably unspoken because it's considered obvious, but the idea that paying taxes is bad is *central* to right-wing views. It's the justification for openly racist policies ("I shouldn't need to pay for you") and the "gateway drug" that hooks young people struggling to get by, paycheck to paycheck. The problem, they're told, isn't that companies emboldened by a lack of labor organizing are underpaying them; instead, the problem is that the government charges money to access an economy that's only strong because rules are enforced. But the goal is to eliminate those rules, period.
|
||||
|
||||
## 12:01 -- Fri 08 October 2021
|
||||
|
||||
[<i class="fab fa-twitter-square"></i>](https://twitter.com/jcolag/status/1446505918615617536)
|
||||
|
||||
> Of all the tough decisions in life, choosing between the job you need and the family you love should not be one of them.
|
||||
|
||||
{% cite Tom Perez %}
|
||||
|
||||
## Bonus
|
||||
|
||||
Because it accidentally became a tradition early on in the life of the blog, here are any additional articles that didn't fit into the week, but too weird or important to not mention.
|
||||
|
||||
<i class="fas fa-square"></i> [Afghanistan’s Impoverished People Live Amid Enormous Riches](https://citizentruth.org/afghanistans-impoverished-people-live-amid-enormous-riches/) from Citizen Truth
|
||||
|
||||
> Hanif’s home province of Badakhshan---and its neighboring areas---suffer from great poverty, the rates upwards of 60 percent. When he talks about failure, Hanif has his home province in mind.
|
||||
|
||||
One of the big lessons in geopolitics appears to consistently be that nobody is poor because of circumstances. People are poor because wealthy people hoard the country's wealth. People go hungry, because the wealthy divert food supply chains.
|
||||
|
||||
<i class="fas fa-square"></i> [Utilities Took $1.25 Billion in Pandemic Aid Then Shut Off Power to Households Nearly 1 Million Times: Report](https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/09/30/utilities-took-125-billion-pandemic-aid-then-shut-power-households-nearly-1-million) from Common Dreams
|
||||
|
||||
> For what taxpayers spent bailing them out, 15 companies... could have forgiven all unpaid accounts---hundreds of times over in some cases.
|
||||
|
||||
This shouldn't be surprising. After all, the Trump administration removed as many conditions on the aid as they could think to justify. So, of course utilities took the money and treated it as a gift to management.
|
||||
|
||||
* * *
|
||||
|
||||
**Credits**: Header image is [Circular diagrams showing the division of the day and of the week](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:CLM_14456_71r_detail.jpg) from a manuscript drafted during the Carolingian Dynasty.
|
||||
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Reference in New Issue