#Former Twitter safety Head

[trendingkhabar]

Former Twitter honcho Yoel Roth recalls death threats "inspired" by Elon Musk and advice for new X CEO

Former Twitter Trust and Safety Head, Yoel Roth, who resigned last year after a run-in with billionaire owner Elon Musk, has issued a stark warning to X (formerly Twitter) about its precarious position concerning the European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA) as well as its safety policies. Speaking at the recent Code Conference 2023, Roth, was interviewed by Kara Swisher. Roth highlighted X’s…

[foone]

Annoying edge case for lycanthropy: a dragon who is also a werewolf.

(A short story I wrote back in 2022 for twitter. I've slightly re-edited it, but it's still "twittery" in how it uses linebreaks (because there used to be post-boundaries there). Sorry! )

So on the full moon, they uncontrollably turn into… A much smaller and squishier humanoid. They can't wait to get their scales and fire breath and wingspan back. They're so vulnerable in their werewolf form!

No one at the werewolf support meetings is sympathetic.

They're all humans or nearly, so one of them is like "it's just so scary. I'm huge, and inhuman, and I feel like I'm made of weapons, with my claws. Everyone fears me, and I fear myself sometimes, never knowing what I might do, if I lose control and just let the rage out…" And the werewolf-dragon is like "and then you turn into a werewolf! It's so annoying, I agree"

Everyone else just turns to look at them, slowly

They do take some tips about werewolf safety. They just do it backwards, because instead of making sure they can't get out and cause death and destruction, it's more about making sure no one can get in and attack them in their merely nigh-invulnerable werewolf form. When you're a dragon, turning into a nearly unkillable rage monster of claws and fangs is a major downgrade. It's a real moment of weakness, and who knows if your ancient enemies or some upstart knight is going to try to take advantage of that moment of weakness?

They get infinitely more annoyed when they finally find a witch who can do the right ceremony and lift the curse of lycanthropy. "there… With the burning of this silver candle, you are finally free. You're human in all moonphases, now." "WAIT A FUCKING SECOND, HUMAN?!"

They got turned into the humanized version of their werewolf form. Permanently.

Always read the fine print before asking a witch to do a complicated magical ritual on you.

"also, question: how the hell did you burn a silver candle? Isn't the melting point of silver…" "one thousand eight hundred degrees, yes. It wasn't easy. Look. "

She pulls back a curtain and points. There's a complicated bellows system being vigorously pumped by a bunch of little black cats, each wearing a tiny witch's hat. They're sweating with exertion and the heat.

"we're done, my lovelies. You can stop now" The kitties hop down off the bellows and lie down at her feet, or wander off looking for food. The witch looks down at the former dragon, now barely 5 feet tall. "why do you think I asked for my fee in cat food?"

"but it was ALL cat food. Don't you need to-" The former dragon pauses mid-sentence, as the witch pulls off her traditional witchy headwear to reveal two pointy feline ears. "you were saying?"

"nevermind. Thanks, I guess." The dragon walks to the door, then turns around. "hey, I need to find out how to be a human, would you happen to know anything or anyone I can ask?" The witch looks up from sitting on the floor with a leg behind her head, licking the inside of her thigh "wouldn't have a clue, sorry love", she says with a smile.

The witch has to show up later and bail the former dragon out of jail. Apparently they accosted a city guard after being told "you can't just wander around the city naked". The dragon told them to contact the catwitch because it's not like they know any other humanoids.

The guard wasn't physically hurt, but getting jumped by a small naked human after merely pointing out you need to wear trousers or a dress or something in public is the kind of thing that leaves mental scars that'll take a while to fade.

Even if your tiny nude opponent was mainly trying to scratch or bite you with claws or fangs they no longer have

The former dragon ends up living with the catwitch. She could use some help with the bellows, and even if the dragon can no longer provide her own fire, they still know a lot about it.

And even if they're now a short little weakling who has to be reminded to wear clothes, they are a bit better at pumping the bellows than a pack of kittens.

Plus they can help with making potions and such in ways the cats can't, what with having thumbs.

They live together for a while, until the grumpy now-human finds out that another dragon has taken up residence in their former hoard.

And that will just not do!

So the dragon convinces the catwitch to come with them on an adventure to raid their own hoard and defeat (or at least evict) the dragon.

So they set out, the former dragon having to figure out the weaknesses in their own defenses and how to navigate a space built for dragons, not tiny humanoids. They're wearing the minimum in clothing they can get away with, and wielding a sword almost bigger than they are.

And following, the catwitch with a broom and a big sack of magical devices and reagents, and a little procession of kittens in their hats.

(the former dragon uses they/them pronouns. Their human body does have a sex, but when gender was explained to them they called it a "foolish human thing" and never bothered with it, just like their opinions on silverware and public indecency laws)

As far as anyone can tell, dragons have only one gender, and it's dragon.

Anyone who has asked further questions about dragon gender, sex, or reproduction has ended up crispy and good with ketchup.

They manage to evict the squatting dragon, and the witch is like "well, I guess you got nearly everything you want now. I'll take my cats back to the city…" And the ex-dragon is like "WAIT… I was thinking, maybe you could… Use my hoard as a new shop? There's plenty of room"

"are you asking me to stay?" "n-no… I mean, yes? Shut up. It's just because it would be a good place for you. After all, your shop has that leaky roof, and you were running out of storage space, and the mayor always wanted you kicked out…"

"oh I see, so it's just for me? How kind. You don't care either way, right?" "right! I don't care! I don't need or want you around! I don't care about silly human things" "human?" she asks with a smile, wiggling her ears on the top of her head. "shut up you know what I mean"

"so you don't want me to stay around you? You don't have a reason why you want to be near me, to be with me?" she says "with" with a certain slant on it, as she rests her arm on the shoulder of the former dragon, having to lean over her to reach. "n-n-n…"

The witch switches to cupping the former dragon's face in her palms. "and your face is so warm, little one. Are you trying to breathe fire? You're turning red, so maybe you are…"

"stop it! I… I just…" "yes?" the witch lets go, but her tail curls around the waist of the former dragon, like they are walking hand in hand down a beach.

"I like you, alright? I want you to stay. I want to be with you! Is that so wrong?"

"nope!" says the witch, happily pulling them into a kiss.

We zoom out, past a pile of gold coins and goblets and scepters, as little black kittens in adorable hats play in the hoard, ambushing each other in play-fights from the high ground of a treasure chest.

[221loislane]

An Account of the Current OTW/AO3 Allegations

You may have seen talk flying around about drama going down with OTW (the Organization for Transformative Works) and AO3. There isn't a clear write-up of the situation on Tumblr, and since the allegations in this case are serious and OTW Board elections are coming up, I thought there should be a resource for people to get some basic understanding about the events.

This account is a burner, because the topics here are deeply charged, and I don't want to become a character in what's happening. I am not a member of or volunteer for OTW; I am not affiliated with End OTW Racism; I am not affiliated with Dreamwidth; I do not personally know any of the people involved in these events, or have personal knowledge of the events themselves. I am only compiling the publicly available events, allegations, and discussion into a convenient format for Tumblr. I will be heavily referencing the the similar compilation put together by Dreamwidth user Synonymous, but I am not Synonymous, nor do I know who they are. I am not, however, completely without bias; for one thing, I am writing this with the clear understanding that I believe OTW's treatment of its volunteers and policies on content moderation are both deeply troubling. If I did not believe that, I wouldn't have bothered writing this post.

This write-up includes events relating both to allegations about volunteer abuse and improper handling of CSEM moderation by the OTW, and to arguments made about the OTW's handling of racist conduct and about End OTW Racism's ties to the writer known as Stitch. I am including both of these threads because they are deeply related both causally and in the arguments of many of the people involved, and because volunteer abuse, CSEM, and racist harassment are all deeply serious problems.

This situation has not resolved, and therefore you can likely expect more to occur, probably relating to all of those topics. I have not yet decided whether I will continue updating this timeline, but it should at least give you a grounding in what's happening.

Heavy Content Warning for discussions of child sexual abuse material; abuse, harassment, and stalking; and interpersonal and systemic racism. All language in this write-up is non-graphic and high-level, but some links include more detailed descriptions.

The Events

June 24, 2020: In the wake of George Floyd's murder and in response to pressure from people including Black writer Stitch (of the blog Stitch Media Mix and Teen Vogue) and fan studies academic Dr. Rukmini Pande, the OTW makes a statement promising to review their policies and procedures and take steps to protect users from racist harassment. The specific promises they make are:

Giving creators more control over the comments on their works.

Improving collection searching and filtering.

Improving admin tools for responding to Policy & Abuse reports.

Reviewing the Terms of Service to potentially allow Policy & Abuse to respond to more kinds of reports.

Reassess the required Archive Warnings and consider adding more.

Continue working on user muting and blocking.

They also say that they are considering "reaching out to an external contractor or partnering with an advocacy group," i.e., a diversity consultant, to help with reforms.

August 8, 2021: As part of their July newsletter, the OTW announces that it is creating a new officer role in the organization to research options for diversity consultants.

May 7, 2022: The OTW makes a public statement on their website that an unknown attacker has sent CSAM (child sexual abuse material) to some of their volunteers' email addresses, that they are working with authorities to find the attacker, and that response times may be slower than usual, as they have "shut down a number of internal tools" in order to protect their volunteers and the investigation.

May 8, 2022: Dreamwidth cofounder and former head of LiveJournal Trust & Safety Denise (rahaeli on Twitter, synecdochic on Dreamwidth) posts a Twitter thread urging any current or former OTW/AO3 volunteer who has provided the organization with their real-life name ("wallet name") to contact their local police department and let them know that they are at an elevated risk of swatting. She also provides advice on disabling image auto-loading in emails and dealing with trauma and anxiety from being exposed to CSAM, and mentions that she has contacted AO3 to offer help.

June 16, 2022: As part of their April newsletter (delayed several months due to the CSAM attack), the OTW announces that a Diversity Consultant Research Officer has been appointed.

May 10, 2023: The Tumblr account end-otw-racism publishes its first post, End OTW Racism: A Call to Action. In it, the anonymous authors call on the OTW to implement the changes that they promised in 2020, especially:

Hiring a diversity consultant within the next 3-6 months.

Updating their harassment policies and protocols to address on-site and off-site coordinated harassment.

Creating a content policy for content that is abusive in a racist manner.

As part of their background establishing the problem of racist abuse and harassment in fandom, they link to several articles written by Stitch on their commentary blog, as well as a couple of posts from other fans. In their FAQs and other posts, the organizers of EOR clarify that they are not calling for the removal of any racist fic, but fic that is written specifically with the intention of perpetrating racist harassment or abuse. They also urge supporters not to berate or harass anyone for disagreeing with or failing to support their campaign.

May 17, 2023: An anonymous user asks about the End OTW Racism protest on the anon-meme Dreamwidth community Fail Fandom_Anon (FFA). As part of a tangent in that discussion, an anonymous former volunteer member of the OTW's Policy & Abuse Committee (PAC) mentions that they handled CSEM (child sexual exploitation material) tickets as part of their work, and that the OTW did not provide sufficient resources or expertise in dealing with them either emotionally or logistically. They describe themselves as being traumatized, burned out, and overworked during their time in PAC. They also mention that there was an earlier CSAM attack, targeted only at PAC volunteers, prior to the one that the OTW announced; that they were the volunteer who handled reporting to law enforcement; that the PAC chairs urged Legal and the Board to prepare for more attacks, but that nothing was done; and that the OTW did not provide any mental health resources for volunteers after the CSAM attack. (Here is a link to the user's top-level comment; read down the thread for more.)

May 20, 2023: Dreamwidth user chestnut_pod posts an entry called Be More Democratic, Be More Autocratic, OTW. The thesis of their post is that the OTW fails to adequately respond to racism on AO3 because of structural problems within the organization that amplify biases and make change difficult to achieve, and that in order to address racism and other problems more effectively, the organization should create a clear and straightforward command structure. They also advocate for creating some paid roles within the organization. The comments of the post become a kind of referendum on OTW's organizational policies, and some former volunteers show up to say that chestnut_pod's description of the problems with the org's structure tally with their experience.

May 23, 2023:

An anonymous user links to chestnut_pod's post on FFA. In response, the same former OTW volunteer describes various details of how the Policy & Abuse Committee (PAC) made decisions during her time there. (The description covers a lot of comments, so with one exception I'm linking to Synonymous's overview rather than the individual comments, but you can find all of them either through Synonymous's links or by reading down the FFA thread.) The upshot is that PAC often found it difficult to address racism, abuse, and harassment due to roadblocks and micromanagement from OTW's Legal Committee. In particular, the user mentions that they wanted to remove photo manipulations of real-life minors engaging in sex, as well as ambiguously-sourced explicit gifs from underage fics, and were told that they could not by Legal. (I have described the user's objections at as a high a level as possible, but the language used at the link is much more detailed and explicit.) A subsequent, current OTW volunteer says that since the first user left, the policy has changed to allow PAC to remove similar gifs.

Denise leaves a series of comments on chestnut_pod's post saying that the PAC policies described there run counter to industry best practices for Trust & Safety. In response to a commenter asking whether she could advise OTW, Denise says that she has offered several times, and only heard back from the organization once: after she posted her Twitter thread in response to the CSAM attacks, "at which point it immediately became extremely clear the person in question was more interested in protecting the external reputation of the organization than in listening to any advice I had to give and the only reason they'd contacted me was to pressure me to remove my Twitter thread."

In response to Denise's story, Dreamwidth user azarias reveals herself to be the anonymous former PAC volunteer on FFA. In a series of comments on chestnut_pod's post and FFA (bulk of the information in this comment, but see Synonymous's compilation or read up and down the thread for more), she relays the following story: On May 6, 2022, shortly after the CSAM attack, azarias was kicked out of the OTW volunteer Slack with no notice and no communication. When she realized several days later that this was not an organization-wide shut down, she emailed the OTW Board, Legal, and the PAC chairs asking about the situation, and whether she was a suspect in the attack. The chair of Legal, Betsy Rosenblatt, responded, apologizing for the lack of communication and saying that the shut-out was at Legal's request because they thought azarias' account may have been compromised, but she was not a suspect. On July 22, 2022, having heard nothing further from the OTW, azarias emailed again asking about reinstatement, and Betsy responded that they had just that day started that process. (EDIT: Azarias clarifies that her original stated date of July 22 was an error; she checked on her status July 4, and Betsy responded July 6.) All of azarias's accounts had been deleted, so she returned to the OTW with new accounts, and was informed by her PAC chairs that they were not consulted or informed about her suspension until it happened, were not told why she had been suspended, and were ordered not to speak to or about her during the suspension. Due to awkwardness, trauma, and burn-out, azarias quit volunteering soon after.

May 30, 2023:

On FFA, an anonymous OTW volunteer (not azarias) comments that the OTW Board has posted an update to Slack addressing azarias's story (though she is never named in the update). The update confirms that Legal made the decision to suspend azarias, and says that the Board was not consulted on or informed about the decision to either suspend or reinstate her. A statement from Legal is also attached. The statement does not in any way dispute azarias's timeline of events, and outwardly apologizes to her for the distressed caused, but it also contains several strong insinuations that the letter-writer believes that azarias was responsible for the CSAM attack.

In response to this letter, Denise posts a statement on Dreamwidth and Twitter recommending that any person currently volunteering for the OTW should resign for their own personal safety.

June 3, 2023: Azarias (now posting under her real account, which FFA allows people who are players in the events being discussed to do) comments on FFA that she has consulted a lawyer regarding Legal's insinuation, and has been advised that she doesn't have anything to worry about, legally. She explains some more of the details behind the situation, and discusses some of her guesses about the current situation at the OTW. (For clarification, the Heidi she's referring to is Heidi Tandy, a longtime member of OTW Legal. During the heights of Harry Potter fandom, Fandom Wank coined the term "Heidipology" to describe what they believed to be Heidi's pattern of making insincere, backhanded apologies.) In the comments, anonymous users discuss the fact that OTW's Legal team is made up entirely of IP lawyers, and not lawyers who have expertise in criminal law, nonprofit governance, or Trust & Safety. (Link goes to Synonymous's compilation.)

June 12, 2023: The OTW publishes a statement addressing the End OTW Racism protest. They thank the organizers for holding them accountable, list the steps they've already taken in addressing racism (mostly muting/blocking abilities and similar), and reiterate that they are working on hiring a diversity consultant and reviewing PAC policies. They also say they will improve transparency and communication.

In the comments, azarias (and several others) push the OTW for a retraction of Legal's letter. Azarias also pushes the OTW to make real progress on racist abuse, rather than paying it "lip service." Azarias reveals that she was the Board's original pick for the Diversity Consultant Research Officer, but dropped out. (Further comments later and earlier at FFA clarify that she dropped out due to the OTW's one name policy, which requires that all work that a volunteer does for the OTW be done under a single name; officers are required to serve under their wallet names, and azarias wanted to do her PAC work under her fandom name and not link that to her wallet name, and when OTW didn't let her, she resigned. Link to Synonymous's more thorough compilation of this story here.)

Also in the comments, several users respond to the OTW's statement by posting racist abuse and racial slurs. The OTW leaves the comments up for several days before finally screening them.

June 15, 2023: Denise posts a thread on Twitter, shortly after compiled on her Dreamwidth, laying out what she consider's the OTW's "absolute failure" at Trust & Safety. Among other things, she claims that:

Photomanips of minors in sexual situations, "however terrible or obvious the Photoshop job is, qualifies under the third definition of 'child pornography' as given in 18 USC §2256(8)(C)."

She believes that the OTW may not be in compliance with legal obligations to preserve information about reported CSEM, due to its policy of deleting author information about orphaned works.

In this post, Denise also elaborates on the story she told in the comments of chestnut_pod's post. She says that in May 2022, before the OTW made its statement about the CSAM attack, several volunteers reached out to her for advice, and she learned that the attack emails included threats to expose identifying volunteer information to, among other places, Kiwi Farms, a site whose users have previously swatted many people. In response to this, after the OTW's statement, she published her Twitter thread advising volunteers to alert their local law enforcement, and also reached out to the OTW to offer resources, contacts, and advice. In response, OTW Legal member Rebecca Tushnet called her and spent half an hour pressuring her to remove her Twitter thread.

At the end of the post, Denise briefly touches on the End OTW Racism action that began this conversation, saying that she appreciates their work, but believes that their proposed solutions will not be effective, both because the OTW's organizational dysfunction makes it impossible for them to moderate racist content, and because PAC must moderate "conduct, not content." She says that she "firmly disagree[s] with the foundational work their campaign was built on."

June 16, 2023:

In response to several people asking for clarification on her statements about End OTW Racism, Denise posts a follow-up Twitter thread (which has not at this time been crossposted to Dreamwidth). She says that a diversity consultant will not effectively address abuse because the current OTW culture is resistant to change, and that reviewing TOS policies will not be effective, because the current TOS already allows for moderation of abusive conduct, but PAC has not been empowered to enforce it. Instead, she claims that progress on moderation of racist abuse can only truly be made once the organization's systemic issues have been addressed. She also believes that End OTW Racism's messaging is counterproductive, "because of its repeated failure to differentiate between content and conduct." In particular, she argues that, "by citing so heavily to the foundational background work by people who *have* repeatedly called for bans on work that 'reflects racist and bigoted stereotypes', and by failing to differentiate the two except in passing, the campaign has positioned itself in such a way that it will be, and I'm certain has already been, dismissed by the OTW." She does not mention Stitch by name, but it is clear by context that it is the citations of Stitch's work that she is referring to.

After someone DMs her to request she take down her clarifying statements about End OTW Racism, and various people supportive of EOR on Twitter denounce the statements, Denise posts a follow-up statement to Dreamwidth and to Twitter. She says that she has been contacted several times over the past few weeks by Black fans who have been harassed and abused by Stitch in racist and racialized ways, and who showed her screenshots of these interactions, which Stitch has since deleted. She says that because these fans are afraid to speak up for fear of further harassment, she offered to relay their concerns about a campaign based heavily on Stitch's writing. She does not provide the screenshots, in order to prevent the fans from being identified. She reiterates that she agrees with Stitch and with EOR that the OTW is failing to respond to racist abuse and harassment, but that she disagrees with their approach and proposals. (For what it's worth, as I said up front, I am not personally acquainted with either Stitch or Denise, and have no personal knowledge of events, but Denise is not the first person to accuse Stitch of racist harassment. There has been a great deal of discussion on FFA, both well-sourced and not so much, detailing Stitch's past behavior. I am linking to this round-up so that people can find it, but with the exception of those that directly link to the evidence, and one or two that reference Stitch's public writing, I do not know the accuracy of any of the claims, and I do not know the source of some of them. The allegations listed also vary wildly in their degree of seriousness, ranging from "actually harassed someone" to "said something distasteful," to "is friends with a known serial stalker and harasser.")

The OTW posts a newspost addressing Denise's original (June 15) thread and allegations. The say that they are in legal compliance with CSEM reporting procedures, that they provided resources to volunteers following the CSAM attacks, and that "the Legal Committee has always worked closely and cooperatively with the Policy & Abuse Committee, and continues to do so." They do not reference azalias's accusations or Denise's claim to have been pressured by Rebecca Tushnet. In the comments, azarias, Denise, and many other users, both anonymous and signed, express outrage at the OTW, and push for answers, apologies, retractions, and in some cases the resignation of Legal and/or the Board.

End OTW Racism posts a statement acknowledging the OTW's acknowledgment, and calling for supporters to donate to the OTW so that they can vote in the upcoming Board elections.

June 16-18, 2023: A group of people on Twitter, Tumblr, and Dreamwidth post individually and in conversation about Denise's comments on Stitch and End OTW Racism, defending Stitch and arguing that Denise's claims about them and disagreement with their and EOR's work are racist, unfounded or overblown, and a derailment from EOR's mission. Some of these are the same people who are in the comments of the OTW's response to Denise, pushing for the OTW to respond to azarias's allegations. (These are not inherently contradictory positions; I just want to note that both the personal and ideological stances here do not necessarily line up neatly into, say, pro-OTW and anti-OTW.) See, for instance, naye's Dreamwidth post, fiercynn's Dreamwidth post, or pearwaldorf's Tumblr post.

June 18, 2023: Denise posts a Twitter thread going into much greater detail about the number of fans of color who reported to her that Stitch had harassed them ("a number greater than five and less than fifteen"), and the severity of their claims ("Several of them said the harassment they experienced was so severe and pervasive that it caused them to change screen names, leave fandom, or otherwise restrict their conduct online.") She also gives a detailed, step-by-step outline of how she went about verifying their claims to her own satisfaction. She continues not to give out identifying details to prevent further harassment.

[Updated June 19, 2023 to correct language around the attack on OTW, which was a CSAM attack, not a CSEM attack.]

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Christopher Shields

* * * *

On Thursday, Lucy once again pulled the football away from Charlie Brown at the last moment--to no one’s surprise. Republicans dropped all pretense of helping the “little guy” whose support Trump courted during the election. Instead, Republicans made clear that the working class, unions, retirees, veterans, and disabled Americans will be roadkill in the headlong rush to extend Trump's 2017 tax cut for millionaires and big corporations.

Before looking at the details, I urge readers to maintain a clear distinction between two closely related sets of facts:

Despite the bravado and tough talk of Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Speaker-In-Name-Only Mike Johnson, it is highly unlikely that Republicans will succeed in cutting Social Security, Medicare, Veterans healthcare, and a variety of other safety net programs and federal agencies. See Business Insider, Trump's former chief of staff says Elon Musk will have an easier time getting to Mars than making proposed DOGE cuts.

Notwithstanding the remote prospects of implementing the cuts, Democrats must treat those efforts as a frontal assault on the working class, unions, veterans, retirees, and disabled Americans, converting the proposals into an albatross around the necks of House Republicans going into the 2026 midterms.

So, we must hold firm to two thoughts: (1) Do not panic over every pronouncement from court jesters Musk and Ramaswamy, but (2) raise the alarm about their reckless pronouncements at every opportunity.

The shocking proposed cuts to social programs discussed by Musk and Ramaswamy on Thursday must be treated as the opening salvo of the 2026 midterms.

What happened on Thursday?

Musk and Ramaswamy held a closed-door meeting with the GOP congressional caucus to discuss cutting $2 trillion from a $6.5 trillion annual budget. Other than “tough guy” talking points, Musk and Ramaswamy offered no concrete solutions. See The Independent, Elon Musk came to DC to lots of fanfare. But he said surprisingly little of substance.

After the meetings, Republican lawmakers avoided any discussion of cuts to specific programs—except to say that Musk and Ramaswamy want to “cut waste.” Well, there’s a shocker! Who doesn’t want to “eliminate waste”?

Although Trump has repeatedly promised that he will not cut Social Security, Musk has been amplifying calls on Twitter by Republican Senator Mike Lee to cut Social Security. It is always a bad idea to contradict a president-elect about proposed policies; doing so with Trump is usually the shortest path to a breakup. See MSNBC, Opinion by Ryan Teague Beckwith | Republicans are suddenly interested in cutting Social Security.

As of Thursday evening, Fox News is reporting that cuts to “Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are on the table.”

But the Musk-Ramaswamy proposals don’t stop there. Per Steve Ratner on BlueSky (@steverattner.bsky.social), the bulk of additional savings will come from proposed cuts to

· VA Healthcare - $516 billion (100% reduction) · National Institutes of Health - $47 billion (eliminate NIH) · Pell Grants - $22 billion (80% reduction) · Head Start - $12 billion (100% reduction) · FBI -$11 billion (out of $11.3 billion budget) · Federal Prisons -$8 billion (100% reduction) · SEC - $2 billion (out of $2.1 billion current budget)

A careful review of the above proposed cuts reveals that the Musk cuts will effectively eliminate the following agencies and programs: VA healthcare, NIH, Head Start, FBI, Federal Prisons, and the SEC.

The cuts are nonsensical—which is why you should not lie awake at night worrying about them. But because they are nonsensical, we must begin hammering on those proposals as our opening salvo in the 2026 midterms.

And I dearly hope that all the pundits who have been (wrongly) castigating Democrats for “ignoring” the working class will condemn Republicans with equal zeal for the cuts proposed by Musk and Ramaswamy.

The proposed cuts show that Trump was lying to the working class, using them as pawns to pay for the extension of the 2017 tax cuts for millionaires and corporations. Disgusting! That betrayal must be in the opening paragraph of every op-ed, mailer, TikTok, Substack, and speech given by Democrats between now and Election Day 2026.

[Robert B. Hubbell]

[maybeelse]

Untitled Story about Sororicide

Is this the most fucked up thing I've ever written? Of course not. But it's a solid attempt. I originally posted it on my twitter alt. '22 was a weird year.

2.3k words of incestuous rot and oozing decay and squirmy conflicted feelings. Enjoy.

Your sister died with your knife through her neck, out by the drainage ditch with only the distant cry of cicadas and the reek of half-smoked weed to comfort her passing, and your parents buried her in ground far holier than anything like her could ever deserve, but that didn't stop her from visiting you every night.

At first her body was cold and hard against you as she slipped beneath the covers and held your mouth shut to stop you from screaming. Her fingers were clumsy and jerky as they probed between your legs, and her always-husky voice was a jumbled nightmare. You didn't sleep well on those chilly autumn nights, nor the cold winter that followed, when your sister trekked fresh snow inside every night—and oh, how your parents screamed at you for ruining the carpet! They couldn't understand why you always woke in a soggy bed reeking of dirt and meat, why your body couldn't manage to keep its blood inside—

After a while they stopped caring (about your room, about the smell, about you—about anything but first their pills and then those strange shining powders, medicines no doctor ever prescribed them), and after a while the spring's thaw began to change your sister. She warmed up, though no flowers blossomed from her breasts and no birds played in her hair's tangled branches—her warmth was a softer thing, a squishy oozing thing that bloomed in all the colors of forgotten roadkill and dripped with well-fed maggots and burst in little clouds which ticked your nose with a smell as sweet as her drugs ever had.

That was when her voice came back.

Through it all, through every night when you lay awake against her, through that long autumn when she taught you not to struggle against her in death just as she had taught you not to struggle against her in life and that winter where you struggled to sleep as her cold seeped into your bones and your grades went from troubled to worse and you started to wonder whether your parent's drugs would taste as sweet as their neglect never had, her turgid cock went unused. Sometimes it would press against your ass or dip between your thighs, but never with the hungry intentionality with which she used it in life: it was simply there, forgotten, a relic of a former age—and perhaps you thought that was a mercy, in a way. You certainly didn't let yourself miss it.

That changed too, though not until the very end.

On that hot spring night when she let her voice dribble out into your ears again, a night when you didn't even bother trying to close the windows, desperate for any trace of breeze and any chance that her stink wouldn't cling too badly to you the next day, she didn't crawl into your bed to pin you down and make you feel things you desperately wanted to forget.

She stood just outside the window.

“Hey, little sis,” she said, “there's something you need to see.”

You shook your head beneath sheets that lost their safety long before her body's fluids filled them with holes, a futile denial in the face of someone (something) that had never cared for your consent.

“What, are you scared to sneak out? It'll be fine, sis, mom and dad won't bother us.”

Her voice was soft and wet, oozing like honey and thrumming like a wasp's wings; it should have been mocking, should have been that horrible husky drawl that she always affected in life, but it wasn't.

And then she decided she was tired of waiting and dragged you out by your hair.

Just as she said, just as you knew, your shriek didn't stir your parents one bit—and then she shoved her rotting, stinking hand into your mouth as she threw you over her shoulder, and that shut you up for long enough.

After a while she let you down, let you walk alongside her (with your hand gripped in hers, feeling impossibly pristine and so very tiny alongside her rotting bulk), and the dew-damp soil was soft beneath your feet. Half-grown plants tickled your ankles and grass squished between your toes and for a fleeting moment the world seemed beautiful—just two sisters going on a midnight walk, drifting through the humid spring night as if you hadn't killed her and she hadn't made you.

Just for a moment, though.

Then the two of you were there, standing by the side of an empty highway—vast and dark, a trench drawn across the world and filled with screaming ghosts. One of the places killing your home, sucking away the life to fill distant cities and leaving nothing but mouldering decay in its wake—

Decay like your destination, a sad little mound of flesh heaped beside the highway's margin.

Perhaps once a racoon, or perhaps something larger, a heaped mass of tubes and fur and shattered bones, framed by a bloody stain stretching away across the asphalt. A few flies buzzed around it; a night-flying crow eyed the two of you from its perch on a moon-drenched tree.

“See, sis?”

She squatted down next to it, her tattered dress falling in a way that left nothing to your imagination; immodest and disgusting. At least the air was nice.

Her flesh squished like soft cheese as she plunged her hands into the pile, feeling around for something. You couldn't help but gag at the sound—somehow this fresh dead meat felt more real than her steadily advancing rot, this innocent animal's death more meaningful than the moldy gash that opened in her throat every time she moved her head.

In the distance an owl hooted and a dog cried and you tried to occupy yourself with them, tried to fill your mind with thoughts wholly disconnected from the monster beside you.

“Ah! There it is ...”

You shivered as she spoke. The feeling of her words seeping into you was worse than the sad little mound of flesh she wrapped your hands around, a rancid honey-slick pressure that the blood still oozing from the roadkill's heart could never compare to—and, worst of all, the way your body flushed as she loomed over you, suddenly burning with bloody heat.

“Look!”

She pulled you back into her, her cock pressing wetly against your back, and reached for the heart in your hands—

It spasmed at her touch, a bloody beat covering your fast and chest with little red splotches, and her laughter answered your startled shriek.

“Little scaredy-cat ...”

She stroked the heart again as it pushed the last of its blood out onto your filthy hands, and then it just sat there wheezing with futile effort—

It was almost beautiful, really, once you focused on it.

Such a tiny thing, yet such an important one. Once it must have pulsed frantically as its former owner ran and jumped and struggled to survive; and there it was in your hands, the muscle pulsing in time with its twin in your chest, a fuzzy coat of mold only just beginning to rise across it.

How long did you stand there before your big sister spoke, her rotting voice pulling you from your trance? You couldn't say.

“I knew you'd understand, sis,” she said, her voice full of something between satisfaction and pride, “now let's get you back home. You need your sleep.”

The walk back was quiet and gentle. She even carried you for the last half of it, as your exhausted body struggled to stay upright. Noxious liquids seeped from her rotten flesh to ruin your clothes and stain your skin, but you couldn't bring yourself to care until the next morning, when you spent far too long in the shower trying and failing to scrub the thick smell of rot off your skin.

She didn't join you in your bed that night, nor for several nights after.

Your body, so used to her presence and her unwelcome touches, didn't let you sleep in more than fitful bursts; and that pent-up place between your legs drew your attention more and more as her absence denied you the release that she had so often forced upon you.

It was so fucking embarrassing, really!

The deepening summer heat saw her absences grow more common, and her presences more baffling. Instead of leaving your aching body smeared with putrid ooze and your own fluids, she led you to deaths far removed from the private guilt that bound you together: to roadkill, to the half-eaten corpses of coyote's prey, to poisoned cattle and the toxic fullness of a runoff-filled pond and, once, to a forgotten human corpse's splattered brain and discarded shotgun.

Everywhere there was death, and everywhere there was sprouting decay, and everywhere her touch breathed new motion into these ruined things: flesh remembered itself in the blossoming of decay, maggot-eaten eyes blinked up at you through lacy lids, and flies swarmed angrily as their meals began to move.

It was wrong. It was impossible. It was, as you gradually came to realize, beautiful.

You found yourself longing for her nighttime visits with a fresh convert's fervid joy, counting the days between each time you saw her—this strange new person growing from your big sister's rotting corpse as she slowly replaced her liquifying flesh with carved wood and sculpted mycelia, with turtle-shell panels and woven bone. What she did on her nights without you was as much of a mystery as what she did during the days, when she always used to fade away from your bed like a bad dream, but each time she returned to you changed.

You wandered too, through those long sticky summer days when sweat soaked your clothing no matter how little you moved and hungry insects attended your every motion, returning to the corpses that your sister had shown you and searching for fresh ones, for places where vibrant decay might blossom unnoticed—the gaping mouths of empty stripmalls and slowly collapsing farmhouses, the acidifying rivers and struggling junkyards.

Everywhere you looked you found it, woven through the world like mycelial threads spreading through a ripening corpse; you learned where to look, and you learned how to draw it out when you arrived too early. For a time you and your trusty knife even played at being an angel of mercy.

Some nights you even led your big sister to a particularly fine specimen yourself. Her approval felt better than her touch ever did.

When she came to you at summer's peak, slipping in through the window on feet that had long since rotted and grown anew, you were all aflutter—you'd found not one but two corpses! Human ones! A pair who died together, victims of the same ever-more-tainted drugs that would surely claim your parents before too long, bodies still fresh but fast going to seed. You couldn't wait to show them to her.

But as she slumped down onto your bed you could tell that something was different.

“Hey, little sis,” her voice ran into your ears an oil-slick spreading across a virgin beach, “mind if I just, if I just ...”

She slumped down onto your bed, still, a pile of disparate parts, and you stood there watching in your stained sneakers and cute little dress.

After a while you crawled in beside her.

In the heat the room filled with your smell and hers, sticky and sweet and metallic, shot through with the strange tones of the things she's found, the things she's added to herself, all the additions that completed her as her flesh dripped away and her decay grew—

Her body was so hot against your back, full of all of summer's heat: the heat of all the processes advancing within her, of refuse breaking down into fresh soil and corpses dissolving in bacterial flame as the their decay advances into its final stages. A febrile heat that, you knew then and know now, would leave nothing alive when it finally faded.

“Little sis, hey, I ...”

She moved in a fumbling rush, just as she used to when she was newly dead and when the winter's chill curled in her bones like a thousand icy chains, rolling you onto your back with hands far bonier than you had ever known hers to be. She was beautiful there, crouched over you as her body burned itself out: beautiful like a shooting star, like a burning house.

“I, I'm not going to be around much longer, sis.” Something squirmed regretfully in her empty eye sockets; you started to speak and she shushed you. “I can't be, you know that by now. But there's something I want to leave you with.”

You stared up into those empty eyes, and something that was not her tongue flicked out to paint her lips in moist greens and purples and a smear of noxious black, and she descended you couldn't help but shift your body to welcome her, to press against all the ways her body was squishy and hard, to feel her inside you one last time, flesh pressing against flesh with all the sickening rightness of maggots squirming out of bursting eyes and the breath leaving a body for the very last time—

You moaned as she filled you, already dripping and falling away to nothing inside you, a rush of flesh thrusting into you as it broke away from her, and she caught your moan with her lips and that thing which was hardly pretended to be a tongue, stinking like baking roadkill and as sweet as her praise ever was, burning with all the heat of her body melting onto yours—

“Taste me, little sis,” she whispered through the putrid kiss, tongue pressing through your lips' futile resistance and into a mouth already spasming with revulsion at the taste of it, your body's disgust that your mind could neither share nor suppress. “Taste me and I'll always be with you.”

[misfitwashere]

Musk’s dangerous bullying

ROBERT REICH

DEC 2

Friends,

No one better illustrates the sinister consequences of great wealth turned into unaccountable power than Elon Musk. 

Musk, the richest person in the world, is not only claiming presidential authority to fire federal workers, but he’s posting the identities of those whose jobs he wants to eliminate ��� with the clear intention that his followers harass and threaten them so they quit. 

Musk is utterly unaccountable. He has never been elected to anything, but he spent $120 million helping Trump become the president-elect and is now acting as if he’s Trump’s co-president, calling himself Trump’s “First Buddy.”

After buying Twitter for $44 billion, Musk turned it into a cesspool of disinformation and conspiracy theories and manipulated its algorithm to give himself 205 million followers, to whom he is now distributing treacherous lies. 

In recent days, Musk boosted posts on his website singling out the names and job titles of four federal employees working in climate policy and regulation who have done nothing other than hold titles Musk dislikes. All four targets are women. 

In one instance, Musk quote-tweeted a post highlighting the role of 37-year-old Ashley Thomas, a little-known director of climate diversification at the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation. 

Musk’s repost — “So many fake jobs” — garnered 32 million views, triggering a tsunami of taunts against Thomas, such as, “Sorry Ashley Thomas Gravy Train is Over” and “A tough way for Ashley Thomas to find out she’s losing her job.”

Musk apparently took the word “diversification” in Thomas’s title to mean the “D” in “DEI,” which Musk considers “woke.” 

Thomas (who holds degrees in engineering, business, and water science from Oxford and MIT) is focused on climate diversification to protect agriculture and infrastructure from extreme weather events.

Following Musk’s tweet, Thomas shut down several of her social media accounts. 

In another repost, Musk mocked Alexis Pelosi, a relative of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who works as a senior adviser to climate change at the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

“Nancy Pelosi’s niece should not be paid $181,648.00 by the U.S. Taxpayer to be the ‘Climate Advisor’ at HUD,” the original account wrote. “But maybe her advice is amazing 🤣🤣” Musk snarked. 

Musk also singled out the chief climate officer in the Department of Energy’s loan programs office and shared the name of an employee serving as senior adviser on environmental justice and climate change at the Department of Health and Human Services.

IMHO, Musk’s targets should sue him for defamation. 

This is hardly the first time Musk has targeted specific people, and he obviously knows how dangerous such targeting can be. 

After taking over Twitter in 2022, Musk targeted Yoel Roth, the platform’s former head of trust and safety, who had recently left the company. Musk tweeted, incorrectly, that it looked like Roth had argued “in favor of children being able to access adult Internet services.” Some platform users interpreted this as Musk calling Roth a pedophile, and they posted calls for Roth’s death. 

Roth moved out of his house because of the threats. 

Musk has also singled out specific civil servants. In 2021, he targeted Missy Cummings, a former fighter pilot and senior adviser at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, whom Musk claimed was “extremely biased against Tesla” because she questioned the safety of Tesla’s advanced driver-assistance system. 

Cummings said she received death threats and was forced to leave her home as a result of Musk’s posts.

Musk’s current targeting is even more dangerous because he has the apparent authority of the president-elect. Although the so-called “Department of Government Efficiency” that Musk is co-heading (with Vivek Ramaswamy) isn’t a real department and has not been authorized by Congress, Musk is acting as if it’s real. 

Cummings says Musk’s personal intimidation is already leading some longtime federal employees to leave their jobs: “He intended for them, for people just like this, to be intimidated and just go ahead and quit so he didn’t have to fire them. So his plan, to some extent, is working.”

**

I worked in the federal government between 1974 and 1980, first at the Federal Trade Commission and then at the Justice Department, and from 1993 to 1997 I served as secretary of labor. 

Most of the federal employees I came to know cared deeply about the common good. The vast majority did their work carefully and thoughtfully. We owe them a huge debt of gratitude. 

But ever since Richard Nixon attacked “unelected bureaucrats” as America’s enemy and Ronald Reagan blamed “liberal bureaucrats” for government’s failings, government employees have been scapegoated. And now Trump is preparing to attack the so-called “deep state.”

In fact, America spends less each year on the federal government’s civilian workforce (roughly $200 billion) than we spend annually on federal contractors ($750 billion). 

Much of the “fat” is found in these private, for-profit contractors, who aren’t accountable to anyone except the office that draws up the contracts. 

The biggest waste is in the Defense Department, where many contractors have avoided competitive bidding because they have a monopoly over critical technologies. 

Which brings me back to Musk, whose businesses are fast becoming among the government’s largest contract monopolists. According to USASpending.gov (the government database that tracks federal spending), Musk’s SpaceX and his Starlink satellite division have signed contracts totaling nearly $20 billion. 

I don’t know how much waste and inefficiency are to be found in Musk’s government contracts because I haven’t been able to find any reports on them — which is precisely the problem. 

While Musk seeks to intimidate federal civil servants whose job titles he dislikes, forcing some to leave government because his postings have elicited threats to their lives, Musk is distracting attention from himself and his own profitable dips into the taxpayer trough. 

I invite any of you with an inclination to root out waste and inefficiency to find out what you can about any likely abuses in Musk’s government contracts, and let us know what you come up with.

[odinsblog]

Twitter will help spread misinformation: As we head into an election year, Elon Musk has turned off all of Twitter’s filters for stopping propaganda and genocidal hate speech. Because “free speech”

Dmitry Medvedev, a leading government official and former president of Russia, took to Twitter earlier this month to denigrate Ukraine in a post using language reminiscent of genocidal regimes.

And Twitter didn't stop him.

In his 645-word tweet titled, "WHY WILL UKRAINE DISAPPEAR? BECAUSE NOBODY NEEDS IT," Medvedev called Ukraine a "Nazi regime," "blood-sucking parasites" and "a threadbare quilt, torn, shaggy, and greasy."

The post garnered more than 7,000 retweets and 11,000 likes.

One response, though, asked Twitter CEO Elon Musk why he allowed Russian officials to broadcast tweets like this, especially when they used language often associated with genocide.

"All news is to some degree propaganda," Musk responded. "Let people decide for themselves."

Twitter applies "visibility filtering rules" to certain accounts to make sure less eyeballs see those accounts' tweets.

In the past, the company's Trust and Safety Team has used them for Russian government accounts and state-affiliated media accounts from countries "that limit access to free information." Medvedev's account was included in that cohort, according to the former employee.

Without visibility filtering, these accounts can now be more easily amplified and reach a much wider global audience. The implications could mean an increase of pro-government propaganda across Twitter and lead to real-life consequences for people who disagree with the authorities.

Taking the restraints off state-affiliated media accounts could also lead to more general disinformation on Twitter, said Sarah Cook, a senior advisor at the nonprofit Freedom House who researches China, Hong Kong and Taiwan and authored the report Beijing's Global Megaphone.

"It's not just about making the Chinese Communist Party look good. It's not just about making activists or Hong Kong-ers look bad," Cook said. "In some cases, it's also about spreading disinformation about COVID or sowing divisions within Taiwan or the United States."

👉🏿 https://www.kuow.org/stories/twitter-once-muzzled-russian-and-chinese-state-propaganda-that-s-over-now

[mariacallous]

During the US elections, centibillionaire and X owner Elon Musk became a central figure in right-wing and Republican politics, helping to propel former president Donald Trump back into the White House. But now it seems like he’s just getting started. In the months since Trump’s victory, Musk has begun to wade into politics in Europe, starting firestorms in the UK and announcing that he’ll be hosting an X Spaces discussion with Alice Weidel, the head of the German right-wing party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), ahead of Germany’s elections in February.

“We should understand Musk as a sort of international far-right leader,” says João Vieira Magalhaes, assistant professor of media, politics, and democracy at the University of Groningen. “He is an articulator of a truly international far-right movement, which of course, already exists, but in a way that's way more fragmented.”

Through X, and his own larger-than-life celebrity presence, Musk is bringing together and boosting the far right across the globe.

During the US elections, Musk emerged as one of Trump’s most important allies. Not only did he help support and fund Trump’s campaign via the America PAC and appear on the campaign trail with the former president, he also used his ownership of X to elevate the campaign’s talking points. After gutting Twitter’s trust and safety teams and allowing previously banned figures back on the platform, research indicated that engagement on X with posts from Musk and other conservative voices were boosted after after Musk publicly endorsed Trump to favor conservative voices and deprioritize critics—what Magalhaes calls “illiberal content moderation.” “He is signaling to whoever wants to listen that this is the space for this kind of political actor,” he says.

In December, the German government accused Musk of trying to meddle in the country’s elections after he authored an op-ed in which he endorsed the AfD. The AfD rose to power in the wake of the 2015 refugee crisis, which saw millions of people, particularly from Syria and other parts of the Middle East, flee to Europe, and has a staunchly anti-immigrant stance. Last year, it was revealed that members of the AfD had met with German and Austrian leaders associated with the far right and neo-Nazis to discuss plans for mass deportation if AfD gains more political power, and members of the party have been monitored by the country’s intelligence agencies. The AfD has also been particularly adept at using social media to garner support, including running anti-immigrant ads on Meta’s platforms that appeared to violate the company’s policies at the time.

In response to Musk’s op-ed, Weidel posted a video in which she thanked Musk “so much for your note,” and wished Trump and Musk “all the best for the upcoming tenure.”

Germany isn’t the only country Musk is weighing in on on behalf of the far right. Since the close of the US election, Musk has taken aim at politics in the UK, attacking British prime minister Keir Starmer, a member of the left-of-center Labor Party, and even calling for his imprisonment. Starmer’s government “is one of the very few governments in rich countries or especially important countries that is leaning left,” says Magalhaes. “And [Musk] has been especially resolute in how he attacks the administration.”

Most recently, Musk spread conspiracy theories about Muslim “grooming gangs” in the UK, and called for Tommy Robinson, a far-right activist, to be released from prison. Musk’s support for Robinson, who has a history of posting racist and Islamophobic content, initially saw Reform UK leader Nigel Farage push back against the X owner. But in a TV show he hosts on the right-wing GB News station this week, Farage appeared to bend the knee to Musk.

“I don’t think [Robinson’s] wrong in everything he says,” Farage told his viewers. “I do question why he’s in prison, and being kept in solitary confinement.” (Robinson is in prison after being found in contempt of court for repeating lies about a Syrian refugee.)

Last year, Musk spent months antagonizing Brazilian supreme court justice Alexandre de Moraes after the court issued orders for X to remove a handful of accounts and content that, it said, had violated the law by undermining faith in the integrity of the country’s elections. After Brazil’s right-wing president Jair Bolsonaro lost his reelection bid in 2022, his supporters stormed the country’s legislature on January 8, 2023, claiming that the election had been stolen (it hadn’t), in an echo of the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol. Moraes was a staunch opponent of Bolsonaro. X spent months refusing to obey the order, even turning over sealed court orders to the US Congress’ Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, led by right-wing congressman Jim Jordan, which then released them publicly.

At the time, many in Brazil felt that Musk’s actions, as well as the release of the orders, were a move to undermine the country’s democracy and sovereignty. The Brazilian court eventually issued an order to block X in the country for noncompliance and issued a fine against Musk-owned Starlink, after which X complied with the orders.

He also fiercely attacked Nicolas Maduro, president of Venezuela, during the country’s elections (which many in the international community believe to have been rigged).

“He has established himself as a powerful connection hub between different groups of people across many countries,” says Christian Katzenbach, professor of media and communication at the University of Bremen. Those groups include people in the tech industry, moderate conservatives, advocates of economic liberalism, and right-wing movements. “These groups did not have many connections in the past, but increasingly align on opposing modern mid/left governments.” By amplifying a variety of voices, he says, Musk is actively bringing right-wing perspectives into mainstream debates and opening up new population groups as voters for right-wing parties.

Even outside of elections, Musk appears to be building alliances with like-minded leaders. In April, Musk met with Argentina’s right-wing president Javier Milei. Milei’s government has slashed spending in ways that Musk said in an X post “will be a helpful model for the rest of the world.” Argentina’s poverty rate under Milei’s government has risen to over 50 percent.

And while Musk certainly seems to be motivated by particular political ideologies, Katzenbach notes that Musk’s involvement in European politics could benefit his business interests, particularly by rolling back social media regulations in the bloc or opening new avenues for his companies. The EU is currently probing X for breaching the Digital Services Act (DSA), which could result in fines. In Italy, Musk is exploring a deal with the right-wing government led by Giorgia Meloni for a deal to launch satellite communications through Starlink to the tune of $1.5 billion, which would compete with a European satellite initiative.

“Internationally his motives are surely a mixed bag,” says Katzenbach. But either way, Musk seems determined to be a political force beyond any national border.

[dianaladrislovebot]

hi :D I'm completely on board with this au, very excited to see what you do. don't suppose you want to share more about your ocs? /nf

YES GOD I WOULD LOVE TO THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ASKING i’ve never had an excuse to talk about them before so ill lump my other ones in here too for good measure. obviously these will be in the context of the actual book series but they will be adapted to fit the twitter au just like everyone else :)

WITHOUT FURTHER ADO, my babies

victoria ‘tori’ weismann

victoria, who goes by tori, is coates resident goth kid in the grade below caine, drake etc, complete w drawing on her shoes, decorating her uniform w safety pins and being generally creepy. most of coates thinks she’s a witch of some kind and she does nothing to refute said rumours. she doesn’t talk much, and when she does it’s very soft spoken and very cryptic. she has an off putting vibe and many unsettling things to say but despite how calm and stoic she portrays herself, she’s actually quite mischievous and enjoys freaking people out. she has the power to see ghosts, due to her affinity for death and her obsession of it pre-fayz, which is why she’s at coates. it starts to deteriorate her mental state during the fayz however as nobody believes her or understands what she’s talking about and she realises death isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, so she lives alone in the apartment buildings where everyone is content to leave her alone, except quinn of course, because he’s quinn. he attempts to encourage her to get out of shell, accidentally forming a friendship (and later a relationship) in the process (which he is more than happy about while tori remains hesitant)

charlotte ‘lottie’ mcdaniels

in all of her surfer girl glory, lottie is the best friend of sam and quinn that completes their little trio (bc those boys NEED a girl around desperately they’re completely hopeless). a perdido beach native, she’s the one who introduces both sam and quinn to the water, something none of them ever grew out of. come the fayz, her friendly exterior, complete w her curly golden locks, freckles and warm inviting brown eyes, starts to harden when the climate begins to shift, and when she gets fatally shot during the grocery store heist, her outlook is affected forever. she becomes much more shut off, preferring not to engage w people and when she does, what she has to say usually isn’t nice. she keeps a low profile for most of the fayz due to her injury and the need to recover (in which she moves in to clifftop w lana, wherein they become close which is 👀 a whole other story), but after the big split stays in town to make sure her best friends evil twin doesn’t further destroy the town she grew up in. this inadvertently creates a bond between her and my favourite random background character, frederico, who has come back to work for his former king.

caroline baxter

quite the book nerd, caroline is often underestimated by majority of the people around her due to how soft and girlish she appears, but you are mistaken if you think she’s incapable of holding her own. this is something dekka learns, when they migrate to the lake and she runs into her by chance. dekkas still attempting to get over brianna after confessing to her while on the brush of death, and caroline is more than happy to be of assistance. the two grow close, eventually beginning a relationship in secret much like edilio and roger. caroline has a very large book collection, she enjoys pink and being girly and has a large collection of jewellery, shoes and perfumes. despite being perceived as ditzy, she’s much smarter than she looks, which comes in handy when they realise they don’t have much help now that astrid is gone.

arabella ‘ari’ soren

if the name sounds familiar, it’s because it is. the cousin of everyone’s favourite monarch, arabella, who will only respond to ari, is the daughter (biological, wink) of caine soren’s uncle (in my head their family is ari’s dad as the oldest, grace, the coates headmistress as the middle child and caine’s father as the youngest), and is a very confusing individual. on the outside, she seems very hyper and outgoing and friendly, which isn’t always a good thing when you attend coates academy, but on the inside she’s much more gruff. having been sent to the aforementioned boarding school due to her affinity for mechanics and robotics, which her family doesn’t see as an appropriate hobby for a girl and is hoping to ‘straighten her out’, she serves as caine’s ‘building man’, much like jack is his tech man. despite her estranged relationship w her cousin in which they both pretend isn’t there, she goes w him down to perdido at the beginning of the fayz, but soon defects from him after watching him attempt to fatally harm sam. fearing her life in drakes hands now due to her disloyalty, she joins sam on their journey to find astrid and is nearly plastered alongside them. she spends the rest of the fayz quite close to sam, bc despite having no blood related family ties, the two still feel like they have a connection through caine.

i’ve been sitting on these for quite a while now and have had nothing to do w them and no reason to talk about them but i’d love to do so more if anyone would like me to !!!

[sapphire-weapon]

Do you have a problem with Luis stealing Ada's scenes? I noticed it's a bit of a hot button topic on twitter. I think that it kinda sucks for various reasons (less screentime for Ada, AKA less screentime for one of the only girl characters), but Ada still gets her chance to save Leon once and Luis REALLY needed to do something more in the plot. I think if we do end up getting Separate Ways it'll probably smooth everything over, but really: do you think the Krauser scene would've been better with Ada? Should they have made up a new scene for Luis to be a big damn hero in?

Luis didn't "steal" Ada's anything.

This is the whole problem with RE fandom in general and the discourse that goes on here. Everyone looks at these characters like they're in competition with each other for the prize of Leon's dick, and they're fucking not.

Ada's role in the story changed -- as did Krauser's. That's what happened. The point of Ada saving Leon in OG RE4 wasn't because "omg teh ship" -- it was because it was Ada's signal to both Krauser and Leon that she's intending on betraying Wesker. That's why her line of dialogue is "Looks like we have the upper hand here" instead of something more concerned with Leon's safety.

THAT'S NOT A THING IN RE4MAKE ANYMORE.

Ada does not intend to betray Wesker at all until after Saddler is dead. And, even if that wasn't the case, Capcom seems to want to keep Wesker's involvement in the story way more of a secret this time around. We don't know if Krauser's even still working for him in this version, and Leon doesn't seem to know about him at all -- so what's the point of Ada saving Leon, really, other than ship fodder?

So, with that in mind, Capcom had one of two choices: have Krauser give up and fuck off from the fight as his own independent choice, or have someone else save Leon. The former is a really bad idea from a characterization perspective, and the only viable candidate for the latter would've been Luis.

Like. That's it. That's all there is to it. It's not that deep.

Like, sure, Ada has less screen time in the main campaign now, but she's also getting an entire DLC dedicated to her that, according to leaks, is more akin to an expansion pack than a DLC and is the biggest undertaking for post-launch story content that Capcom has ever done for RE. So anyone trying to pull a sexism card is either ignorant of Separate Ways existing, or they're trolling.

This whole discourse is so goddamn disingenuous and divorced from the reality of how writing works that it's honestly mind-boggling.

RE4's story does not begin and end with Leon's affections. This fandom really needs to pull their heads out of each other's asses every once in a while.

[feminismisstillahatemovement]

At yesterday's House Oversight Committee hearing, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) grilled Yoel Roth, the former Global Head of Trust & Safety at Twitter, over their collusion with the Democrat Party to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop story.

I don't know if this will actually end in any of these treasonous crooks being given jail time somewhere down the line, but they very much deserve it.

[panicinthestudio]

Yoel Roth warns new X CEO about Elon and company status, September 28, 2023

At Code 2023, Yoel Roth, former Head of Trust and Safety at Twitter joined Kara Swisher as a surprise guest an hour before Linda Yaccarino, current X CEO, took the stage. Roth recounted the death threats he received because of Elon Musk, X’s declining users and advertisers, and shared some advice for the platform’s new leaders. The two interviews back to back made for a meta-conversation about Twitter’s past and X’s future. The Verge

[paulgadzikowski]

Twitter insiders have told the BBC that the company is no longer able to protect users from trolling, state-co-ordinated disinformation and child sexual exploitation, following lay-offs and changes under owner Elon Musk.

Exclusive academic data plus testimony from Twitter users backs up their allegations, suggesting hate is thriving under Mr Musk's leadership, with trolls emboldened, harassment intensifying and a spike in accounts following misogynistic and abusive profiles.

Current and former employees of the company tell BBC Panorama that features intended to protect Twitter users from trolling and harassment are proving difficult to maintain, amid what they describe as a chaotic working environment in which Mr Musk is shadowed by bodyguards at all times. I've spoken to dozens, with several going on the record for the first time.

The former head of content design says everyone on her team - which created safety measures such as nudge buttons - has been sacked. She later resigned. Internal research by Twitter suggests those safety measures reduced trolling by 60%. An engineer working for Twitter told me "nobody's taking care" of this type of work now, likening the platform to a building that seems fine from the outside, but inside is "on fire".

Twitter has not replied to the BBC's request for comment.

[et103]

Ooh ooh I have a silly to share about this!

So this list is fucking insane, no doubt about it. Just looking up the word futa will give you some true golden entries. But a very particular entry I find incredibly amusing.

You couldn't know this before, but Limbus Company USED TO be red on this list. Main reason being some weird drama stirred up last year that led to jack shit (if Molar association and bodysuits bring back memories of Twitter shit then you know what I'm talking about and I'm very sorry). Very long and meaningless story short, weirdos called it radfem and the list followed through. Why did it bounce back, even after prominent community members had a whole month of events for PRIDE? Most likely the main target of the harassment stepping down for her own safety and media covering it like she was fired, but it gives a very particular insight to how deep their effort goes.

Because two particular characters in this game are DEFINITELY what these idiots would consider "woke" and their sneaking out of detection is still fucking hilarious. (this post ended up pretty long whoops)

Enter stage right, Dante!

This lil amnesiac is the Narrative First Person for this game and has a unique personality as far as gacha games go in that he isn't a self insert. No dialogue options, you're seeing this personification of a practically newborn supernatural baby adult navigate waking up with a clock for a head and with 12 lives at his whim with no prior experience as far as one can be aware.

They also go by he/they pronouns.

No clue if it's a translation oversight or the writers being based but each character either addresses them by name, as male or as nb. He's nowhere near high status or powerful enough for people to use the polite they, in fact he is part of a fledgling company and he himself is barely treated as a manager for several chapters of the story and Dante themself has not addressed this whatsoever. Love it.

Enter stage left, Don Quixote!

Before you look up anything or continue scrolling this post, I would like for you to make an assumption. What is this person? Called Don Quixote by the knight of the same name, clad in armor, bright eyed as can be, certified 160cm gremlin with a haircut that looks like a light bulb.

With this impression, what pronouns hit your head first? Ignore the part that calls them bad, I want you to become dumb for a half minute and judge on first impression.

You got it? Cool.

She/her lmao

Look at all the merch on that fucking nerd-

Yeah, she's sinner #3 of our ensemble of outcasts and the one with the highest chance to act upon her unbreakable sense of justice (much to the grief of her companions)! A veritable knight!!! Holding the Fixers of her City to the highest standard of honor!!!!!

You know. 🥚

Project Moon has a tendency for gender non-conformity with their character designs in every single game they've made and the community eats that shit up always.

And it's such a community bit that... yeah.

So why do I find their revision in this list hilarious?

Because it clues me in on how little these bigots interact with games when they appear in the public eye as well as how much literary analysis they lack to even make a valid point about media in general.

They NEED to form an opinion and feed it to the public, it's a social mandate in their eyes. Whether this will be a hand-crafted machiavelian piece of psychological mastery or genuinely thoughtless, devoid of any neuron activity slop... the latter keeps being proven as the case a whole lot more than the former.

[mariacallous]

X appears to be working with a well-known Republican consulting group, seemingly to handle the messaging around the social media platform’s suspension in Brazil.

When WIRED emailed X for comment about the rapidly evolving situation in Brazil, a reply came from Michael Abboud, the managing director of the conservative consulting and public relations firm Targeted Victory. According to his LinkedIn, Abboud worked for the State Department in the last year of the Trump administration and as press secretary for former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s campaign.

Targeted Victory has had contracts with several Republican campaigns and political action committees (PACs) this election season to the tune of more than $75 million, according to OpenSecrets. The group’s largest client is the Republican National Committee, which spent $11,128,739 on the firm between January 2023 and May 2024.

In his emailed reply, Abboud referred WIRED to a company statement from X about the suspension of the platform in Brazil, and said to reach out with further questions.

Elon Musk, X’s owner, has become more overt about his personal political views in recent months. In July, shortly following the assassination attempt on former president Donald Trump, Musk said he would be backing his candidacy for president. He then said he’d establish a PAC to support Trump to the tune of $45 million per month (he later backpedaled on the exact amount).

WIRED reached out to Targeted Victory and Abboud directly, and neither immediately responded to a request for comment.

X would not be the first tech company to work with the group. In 2022, reporting from The Washington Post found that Meta had hired Targeted Victory to run a campaign to sour public opinion on TikTok. The messaging campaign focused on framing TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, as a threat to Americans’ privacy and to the mental health of teens and children.

An emailed response from Targeted Victory on behalf of X is particularly notable; when journalists contact the press team at X, they rarely receive a reply. When Musk took over Twitter in 2022, one of his first moves as CEO was to lay off a substantial number of the company’s 6,000 employees. That move included not only the vast majority of the platform’s trust and safety team—the people who keep hate speech and disinformation off the platform—but also the company’s communications team.

For nearly a year, the auto-response to the press email returned the poop emoji. More recently, the auto-response says “Busy now, please check back later.”

But X and Musk have been having an unusually rough time in the public eye over the past few weeks. After X violated an April court order from the Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court, which had required the company to remove certain accounts and content that the court said spread disinformation about the integrity of the country’s elections, Judge Alexandre de Moraes ordered access to the platform blocked in Brazil. The country is X’s third largest market, and for months Musk has railed against Moraes online, calling him a dictator, accusing the court of censorship, and even comparing him to the Harry Potter villain Lord Voldemort.

Meanwhile, Nick Pickles, the company’s head of global affairs, announced on Thursday that he was resigning, and investors are saying their investments in the company are performing substantially worse than any had predicted.