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Elon Musk's Twitter Files   The Newsy You: News of Today

Started 8/8/22 by WALTER784; 7274 views.
Msg 95 of 143 to WALTER784WALTER784 
In reply toRe: msg 89
$1,661.87 in cats (ROCKETMAN_S)

From: $1,661.87 in cats (ROCKETMAN_S)

Jan-7

WALTER784 said:

Any bank that automatically connects your account to Zelle without your knowledge should be taken to court for misuse of your private account without your knowledge!

Exactly. Run, don't walk from that kind of bank. There are local credit unions that don't do such crooked shenanigans.

 
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Msg 96 of 143 to Showtalkshowtalk 
In reply toRe: msg 90
$1,661.87 in cats (ROCKETMAN_S)

From: $1,661.87 in cats (ROCKETMAN_S)

Jan-7

Clark, Claire, or whichever - still the best advice is, take your money and run if your bank signs you up for anything without your consent.

 
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Msg 97 of 143 to $1,661.87 in cats (ROCKETMAN_S)ROCKETMAN_S 
In reply toRe: msg 95
WALTER784
Staff

From: WALTER784

Jan-7

$1,661.87 in cats (ROCKETMAN_S) said...

Exactly. Run, don't walk from that kind of bank. There are local credit unions that don't do such crooked shenanigans.

Yep... closing your account with banks that practice that is the quickest way to ensure you're de-linked from Zelle!!! (* CHUCKLE *)

No hassle, no muss, no fuss, just close your account and move it elsewhere!

FWIW

 
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Msg 98 of 143 to WALTER784WALTER784 
In reply toRe: msg 97
$1,661.87 in cats (ROCKETMAN_S)

From: $1,661.87 in cats (ROCKETMAN_S)

Jan-8

WALTER784 said:

Yep... closing your account with banks that practice that is the quickest way to ensure you're de-linked from Zelle!!! (* CHUCKLE *)

That's what a friend of mine had to do in the late 80s or early 90s to get rid of CompuServe for good. They refused to actually cancel. Kept billing / auto-drafting from the account. He closed the account when the bank refused to help pull the plug on CompuServe.

Next month, Compuserve's charges came through again. Bank re-opened (unauthorized) the closed account to let the charges through, which put him into overdraft. They then started tacking on all sorts of overdraft fees and threatened legal action.

They picked the wrong person to f*** with. At the time he was doing some computer consulting work for the local DA's office, and there was an active fraud case he was doing some forensic stuff. So he just forwarded the whole sordid mess to probably the one person in the state who could seriously strike terror into a bank's bureaucracy.

Pretty much the bank got a cease and desist letter , cc'ed to CompuServe, citing some state and federal wire fraud statutes and casually mentioning how many years incarceration and some upper 6 figure fines per violation that were possible.

Evidently the CEO of the bank himself apologized and all the charges were reversed, and CompuServe closed the account and stopped billing. But it actually took the threat of not only civil damages but a "do your job and fix this or someone's going to prison" to finally get results.

 
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Msg 99 of 143 to $1,661.87 in cats (ROCKETMAN_S)ROCKETMAN_S 
In reply toRe: msg 98
WALTER784
Staff

From: WALTER784

Jan-8

I've heard a lot of bad stories of people trying but failing to rid themselves of Compuserve.

I used Compuserve back in the days, but it wasn't a direct account.

In Japan, they had a Niftyserve setup which was a sort of sister to Compuserve. But it was never riddled with the problems the US had, but did allow access to US's Compuserve network.

After the internet came about, I stopped my Niftyserve account, but never was billed by Compuserve directly and Niftyserve immediately allowed me to close my account without any penalties!

FWIW

 
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Msg 100 of 143
In reply toRe: msg 99
WALTER784
Staff

From: WALTER784

Jan-9

Elon Musk claims ‘Google frequently makes links disappear’

December 28, 2022
Tom Tillison

Perhaps, the greater fear over the ongoing Twitter Files dump is that the transparency campaign Elon Musk pursues not only draws in federal agencies but other Big Tech corporations as well.
 
And that is precisely what took place when independent journalist Matt Taibbi shared his latest installment of the Twitter Files just before Christmas — an effort that would get a hearty boost by Musk a few days later.
 
“The government was in constant contact not just with Twitter but with virtually every major tech firm,” Taibbi said in a series of tweets on Christmas Eve. “These included Facebook, Microsoft, Verizon, Reddit, even Pinterest, and many others. Industry players also held regular meetings without government.”
 
17. These included Facebook, Microsoft, Verizon, Reddit, even Pinterest, and many others. Industry players also held regular meetings without government.
 
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 24, 2022
 
Keep in mind that this reported collaboration comes after it was revealed that Twitter was, as widely suspected, censoring and shadow banning conservatives. As for Taibbi, he found himself under attack for a second time by the left for reporting on what was going on behind the scenes at Twitter
 
“For the crime of reporting that the US Security State agencies are heavily involved in Big Tech’s censorship regime, and for confessing that he found this deeply disturbing, liberals have spent a full week saying that @mtaibbi has mental health problems and needs therapy,” fellow independent journalist Glen Greenwald tweeted on Tuesday.
 
This prompted the new Twitter CEO to weigh in, dropping a damning allegation about Google along the way.
 
“Most people don’t appreciate the significance of the point Matt was making: *Every* social media company is engaged in heavy censorship, with significant involvement of and, at times, explicit direction of the government,” Musk tweeted. “Google frequently makes links disappear, for example.”
 
Most people don’t appreciate the significance of the point Matt was making:
 
*Every* social media company is engaged in heavy censorship, with significant involvement of and, at times, explicit direction of the government.
 
Google frequently makes links disappear, for example.
 
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 27, 2022
 
Google, which owns YouTube, has long been accused of manipulating search results to steer away from more conservative links, and YouTube has it’s own track record of censoring content.
 
In linking to a Substack article he penned on the topic, Greenwald tweeted: “When Dems controlled both houses of Congress and the WH (and Exec Branch), they repeatedly summoned Big Tech CEOs and openly and explicitly threatened them: if you don’t *censor more*, you will be punished. And DHS/FBI/CIA applied immense pressure.”
 
Musk concurred: “Exactly!”
 
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 27, 2022
 
In effect, the “tech bros” were being steered and manipulated by the Democratic Party and the various government agencies that seem to function as extensions of the party’s campaign arm. Then again, as we’ve learned, former intelligence officials permeate the ranks at social media companies so the deck was stacked against them by their own doing.
 
This is the story of our times, yet much of the media, beginning with the New York Times, can’t be bothered by what may prove to be the greatest danger our “democracy” faces.
 
Here’s a quick sampling of responses to the story from Twitter:
 
Both Google & Facebook Trust & Safety departments are managed by ex-CIA officers.
 
They don’t even hide it. All publicly sourced details https://t.co/524sTfkils
 
— Name Redacted (@NameRedacted247) December 28, 2022
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Msg 101 of 143 to $1,661.87 in cats (ROCKETMAN_S)ROCKETMAN_S 
In reply toRe: msg 98
Showtalk
Host

From: Showtalk

Jan-9

I never used it so I’m not familiar with their shenanigans.  That is why I am very careful of anything, including “free trials.”
 

 
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Msg 102 of 143 to WALTER784WALTER784 
In reply toRe: msg 99
$1,661.87 in cats (ROCKETMAN_S)

From: $1,661.87 in cats (ROCKETMAN_S)

Jan-10

Fortunately when I had Compuserve circa 1981 / 82, I also moved several times, switched banks, etc. and as a result was able to shake them loose as technology advanced. Thus by 1983 they no longer had a working address or phone number, and they had not ever gotten any banking information as that wasn't a big thing back then.

So it was far easier to tell them to go pound sand and walk away from them than it was when my friend got ensnared in their web.

Of course then there were those 3 inch floppies that had "2 hours free" for AOL.

Or as local ISPs became available, we called them A Oh, Hell.

 
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Msg 103 of 143
In reply toRe: msg 101
WALTER784
Staff

From: WALTER784

Jan-10

BREAKING: Another Twitter Files Drop: How Twitter Rigged the COVID Debate

By Cristina Laila
Published December 26, 2022 at 12:20pm

Elon Musk on Monday released another Twitter files drop: How Twitter rigged the Covid debate:
1. THE TWITTER FILES: HOW TWITTER RIGGED THE COVID DEBATE
 
– By censoring info that was true but inconvenient to U.S. govt. policy
– By discrediting doctors and other experts who disagreed
– By suppressing ordinary users, including some sharing the CDC’s *own data*
 
2. So far the Twitter Files have focused on evidence of Twitter’s secret blacklists; how the company functioned as a kind of subsidiary of the FBI; and how execs rewrote the platform’s rules to accommodate their own political desires.
 
3. What we have yet to cover is Covid. This reporting, for The Free Press, @thefp, is one piece of that important story.
 
4. The United States government pressured Twitter and other social media platforms to elevate certain content and suppress other content about Covid-19.
 
5. Internal files at Twitter that I viewed while on assignment for @thefp showed that both the Trump and Biden administrations directly pressed Twitter executives to moderate the platform’s pandemic content according to their wishes.
 
6. At the onset of the pandemic, according to meeting notes, the Trump admin was especially concerned about panic buying. They came looking for “help from the tech companies to combat misinformation” about “runs on grocery stores.” But . . . there were runs on grocery stores.
 
7. It wasn’t just Twitter. The meetings with the Trump White House were also attended by Google, Facebook, Microsoft and others.
 
8. When the Biden admin took over, one of their first meeting requests with Twitter executives was on Covid. The focus was on “anti-vaxxer accounts.” Especially Alex Berenson:
 
9. In the summer of 2021, president Biden said social media companies were “killing people” for allowing vaccine misinformation. Berenson was suspended hours after Biden’s comments, and kicked off the platform the following month.
 
10. Berenson sued (and then settled with) Twitter. In the legal process Twitter was compelled to release certain internal communications, which showed direct White House pressure on the company to take action on Berenson.
 
11. A December 2022 summary of meetings with the White House by Lauren Culbertson, Twitter’s Head of U.S. Public Policy, adds new evidence of the White House’s pressure campaign, and cements that it repeatedly attempted to directly influence the platform.
 
12. Culbertson wrote that the Biden team was “very angry” that Twitter had not been more aggressive in deplatforming multiple accounts. They wanted Twitter to do more.
 
13. Twitter executives did not fully capitulate to the Biden team’s wishes. An extensive review of internal communications at the company revealed employees often debating moderation cases in great detail, and with more care than was shown by the government toward free speech.
 
14. But Twitter did suppress views—many from doctors and scientific experts—that conflicted with the official positions of the White House. As a result, legitimate findings and questions that would have expanded the public debate went missing.
 
15. There were three serious problems with Twitter’s process:
 
First, much of the content moderation was conducted by bots, trained on machine learning and AI – impressive in their engineering, yet still too crude for such nuanced work.
 
16. Second, contractors, in places like the Philippines, also moderated content. They were given decision trees to aid in the process, but tasking non experts to adjudicate tweets on complex topics like myocarditis and mask efficacy data was destined for a significant error rate
 
17. Third, most importantly, the buck stopped with higher level employees at Twitter who chose the inputs for the bots and decision trees, and subjectively decided escalated cases and suspensions. As it is with all people and institutions, there was individual and collective bias
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Msg 104 of 143
In reply toRe: msg 103
WALTER784
Staff

From: WALTER784

Jan-11

Twitter’s COVID-19 Censorship Led to Loss of Life, Says Former White House Adviser Dr. Scott Atlas

By Katie Spence
December 29, 2022 Updated: December 30, 2022

When discussing censorship, there are often “vague implications” on the effects of that restriction. But by censoring medical science and health policy, “you are killing people,” Dr. Scott Atlas firmly stated in an interview that aired on Newsmakers by NTD and The Epoch Times on Dec. 28.
 
“Censorship of the correct science and medical information, during this pandemic, absolutely killed people. It prevented people from making intelligent decisions. It prevented people from making the appropriate use of caution,” Atlas alleged of Twitter censoring doctors such as himself.
 
Furthermore, Atlas charged, Twitter’s censorship was particularly “harmful” and “shocking” because the United States was founded on freedom.
 
“This kind of censorship was, in my view, unheard of in the United States,” Atlas stated. “It’s reminiscent of everything that we, as a free society and democracy, abhor about countries that are authoritarian, like China, the former USSR and now Russia, North Korea.
 
“This is the kind of censorship that occurs in those countries. And now it’s occurring in our country.”
 
Censorship Kills
 
According to Atlas, censorship at the government’s behest isn’t limited to social media and is far more insidious than first imagined.
 
“It’s not simply blocking information. It’s also—being less overt about it—it’s limiting the public’s access to information. It’s impugning people who are speaking correct information,” Atlas said.
 
In Atlas’s view, there was only one acceptable COVID-19 narrative at the height of the pandemic, and that was the one put forward by those in authority, specifically Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx.
 
Epoch Times Photo
 
Dr. Anthony Fauci testifies in front of the U.S. Senate on Sept. 14. The director of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who became the face of the government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, announces on Aug. 22 that he plans to retire at the end of the year. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
 
Consequently, when other health authority figures, such as Atlas, advanced conflicting information, the above authorities enlisted help from the media to squash that dissent.
 
“Dr. Fauci, Dr. Birx, etc., went to their friends in the media and undermined people like me. Who, in fact, were saying what was correct, what has been validated as being correct this entire time.
 
“But the reality is, yes, the censorship of science kills people. And it killed people during this pandemic. There’s no doubt about that,” Atlas stated.
 
Calls for Accountability
 
According to the latest Rasmussen Reports, 63 percent of “Likely U.S. Voters” want Congress to investigate the FBI’s involvement with social media companies like Twitter.
 
Unfortunately, Atlas stated, he’s skeptical about any investigation “led by government officials.” Moreover, he doesn’t think a Congressional investigation is enough to fully uncover the collaboration between Big Tech and the government.
 
“Government investigations are usually political in nature. And even if they aren’t political, they will be perceived as having been political. And once something is perceived as political, you’ve lost a significant percentage of the public in terms of credibility,” Atlas explained.
 
Epoch Times Photo
 
The U.S. Capitol in Washington, in a file photo. (Richie Lomba/Dreamstime via TNS)
 
Still, while Atlas doesn’t believe a Congressional investigation is enough, he thinks investigations are necessary to bring the truth about the government working with social media to light.
 
Plus, Atlas asserted that censorship and collusion would continue unchecked without an investigation.
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