Barx

@Barx@hexbear.net

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Toxic X users sabotage Community Notes that could derail disinfo, report says⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  This article is about one study, by CCDH, who did not publish much of anything about their methodology. CCDH’s CEO was an anti-Corbynite that fed into the false accusations of antisemitism against the left for having solidarity with Palestinians and CCDH continues to prominently focus on antisemitism and trying to blur the line between antisemitism and antizionism. The faction that he supported is currently in power in Labour and are supporters of Israel during this genocide.

  I would not trust them to make good calls on what is an accurate community note vs. not. Community notes are all over the place but on average depict a bazinga liberal position, which is not actually the most accurate one. Having looked at their “study” paper, their first and most promindnt criterion for accuracy was whether community note aligned with fact-checking websites. Fact-checking websites are, to put it bluntly, bullshit, and really just reflect the author’s opinion.

  For example, one of the things they claim is election misinformation is the claim that voting systems are unreliable. They are saying this is an inaccurate or misleading claim. In the US, it is accurate to say that it’s voting systems are unreliable. They are frequently run using voting machines from private companies, black boxes with no real way to verify their results that are actually implemented in most places, and polling stations often only gave 1 or 2, so when they break people are disenfranchised. Every computer security expert audit says you should not trust these systems and should use paper ballots with manual observable recounts. The allegation of misinformation is really about what is perceived to be voter suppression, of people feeling like they shouldn’t vote because it won’t count anyways. This is not actually misinformation, though: the voting machines are unreliable, that is the actual problem in this situation, not the use of repeating a fact in your favor.

  It is salient that at no point do they highlight the naked propaganda for Zionism that has been rampant on social media, including about elections. This was presumably filtered out early on by their selection of what counts as a topic of interest for their analysis.

  Finally, the clear purpose of CCDH is to lobby for having more oversight on social media, including large, centralized moderation teams that have historically been cozy with liberal governments.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨OpenAI CEO: We may have AI superintelligence in “a few thousand days”⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  lmao okay buddy

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Telegram repeatedly refused to join child protection schemes⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Governments have frequently laundered the surveillance state as “child protection” laws, pushing for a cozy relationship between companies with data and cops et al. They want the ability to snoop more or less whenever they want and will push in that direction. This kind of relationship is not just for cops, though. The same companies also gladly work with and hire people from intelligence agencies to craft narratives and manipulate sentiment. When a company doesn’t play that role as well as feds want, the hammer comes down (TikTok, Telegram).

  Though really, the actual question is why they are writing this article and why now. The answer is that Durov has been arrested and the author is attempting to justify it by piling on “Telegram is bad” claims while avoiding discussing the actual legal basis and evidence around his arrest. You will also note the sources used in this article are entirely government officials and NGOs in the constellation of NGOs that work directly with the government - or are unsourced stipulations. No academics were cited, nor free speech advocacy groups, or even lawyers.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Helixx wants to bring fast-food economics and Netflix pricing to EVs⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Capitalists love to rent-seek

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Dell said return to the office or else—nearly half of workers chose “or else”⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  More honest headline: Dell created intolerable working conditions so that they could engage in constructive dismissal and avoid paying for unemployment for their massive layoffs.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨T-Mobile users thought they had a lifetime price lock—guess what happened next⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Monopoly capitalists did the most monopoly capitalist thing ever, journalists are surprised.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Israel Secretly Targets U.S. Lawmakers With Influence Campaign on Gaza War⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Yes that’s correct. The empire is not consistent. Its stated principles are empty propaganda intended to build national myths for their populations to believe in support of the actual material goals of that empire. They want you to hate Russia so that when they create policies that marginalize Russia you think, “yeah, serves them right” not, “is that fair? Don’t we do the same things or worse and get away with it?” Same for attempts to marginalize China. They’re coming up with words the public has never even heard of (productive overcapacity) to justify their new tariffs and if the public were told “this just makes your stuff more expensive in an attempt to hurt China” they’d throw a fit if the propaganda apparatus hadn’t already taught the public that China is the enemy always doing evil things.

  The real driving force is always a deepee material interest. Who can fund the propaganda narrative, what is the intended national or corporate interest.