#twitter flooded by candids

[thetarttfuldickhead]

Okay but like, Roy and Jamie weren’t exactly subtle about loathing each other, were they? They fought each other on the pitch and badmouthed each other on TV, none of that keep it quiet for the sake of the team shit for these extra boys, yeah? My point is, anyone who knows anything about English football knows that Roy Kent and Jamie Tartt used to hate each other, right?

So obviously, at some point, during some press conference or post game interview, someone needs to bring this fact up. Maybe it’s as early as after the 2x06 match, because Ted might well have insisted Roy and Jamie be the ones to front that, both because it was them that won that game and because he figures it’ll promote ~their bond~ or some such. Could be later too, after the headbutt/hug thing, or later still, once the pictures of Jamie and Roy’s early morning excursions start doing the rounds on social media.

Doesn’t matter much when, really, only that someone – maybe from the tabloids because they��re a vicious lot – would ask: “Roy, just weeks before you joined the Richmond coaching staff you said, and I quote, ‘Jamie Tartt is a muppet and I hope he dies of the incurable condition of being a little bitch’. Today you described him as the most important player on the field. What has changed?”

And maybe the room goes a bit quiet at that, oooh he fucking went there, and what the hell is going to happen now, but Jamie only cocks his head to the side, making a face but looking at Roy all amused like. “You said that about me? That hurts me feelings, Coach.”

And Roy rolls his eyes, exasperated but in too good a mood after the win to be really annoyed. “Yeah, well, as it turns out the condition was only mostly incurable, wasn’t it?”

And Jamie goes aaaw and the press goes um okay and it doesn’t really explain anything, only adds to the ever-evolving legend of what the fuck is up with Roy Kent and Jamie Tartt.

[hemmingsleclerc]

Reaction┃Charles Leclerc

summary: Charles finds out about Emma's interview on DTS

pt 2!!

The racing season had come to an end and Charles was enjoying some well-deserved time off at home with his wife and young daughter.

One lazy afternoon, they decided to catch up on a recently released movie. They settled into the double bed that he shared with his wife, turned on the TV and were ready to spend an afternoon of relaxation.

As the movie started, Charles scrolled through his phone and casually checked social media. Suddenly, the familiar sound of his phone ringing interrupted the quiet afternoon. Confused, he picked it up and saw numerous notifications flooding in. Curiosity piqued, he opened Twitter and found himself tagged in a video from the latest episode of "Drive to Survive."

He clicked on the video and his confusion grew as the scene unfolded. The camera focused on a familiar face, but it wasn't Charles. It was his daughter, Emma Jules, standing in front of the camera with a small microphone and a huge smile.

Charles leaned forward and his eyes widened in surprise. The interviewer began to ask Emma about her father and what he was like outside the track. Innocent but revealing answers came out of Emma's mouth.

"My daddy is the best here," she began saying, her eyes shining with sincerity.''Sometimes he sings very loud in the car or in the shower. But you know what? He's not very good at it!"

''"He likes to dance while he's cooking with mommy, and he snores really loud when he's asleep. It's funny!"

Charles watched in horror as Emma talked about his private quirks and habits.

''He also cries a lot at Disney or animal movies, or is more interested in playing with my toys than I am. ''

Charles exchanged a bewildered glance with Y/N, who grinned, clearly finding the situation amusing. Emma continued, unaware of her father's growing embarrassment.

''Please tell me I'm dreaming, that Emma didn't actually just say that'' Charles said.

''Sometimes we tell mommy that we are going to grand-mére's house but in reality he takes me to buy new dolls or ice cream.''

''!Wait, what did she just say?'' Y/N asked with a frown.

''Nothing mon-amour, you know how children are, they invent everything'' Charles laughed nervously, trying to avoid his wife's accusatory gaze.

''So that's what they did on the weekends, huh?''

''I have no idea what she's talking about, I swear''

''He also likes to help me make friendship bracelets for my friend and also lets me do his hair and makeup with my princess makeup set that santa gave me for Christmas, he always says that he looks very cute.''

''Jesus Christ, this is not happening, I'm gonna die''

By this point, Y/N couldn't contain her laughter and Charles's face turned several shades of red as he tried to comprehend what had just happened. He didn't expect his daughter to become the star of "Drive to Survive" in such an unexpected way.

The camera then panned slightly, revealing Charles in the background, completely unaware that he was being featured in his daughter's candid interview.

"Looks like you've been exposed, my love."

''!Emma Jules Leclerc, come here right now! You're grounded for life!''

@barcelonaloverf1life

@llando4norris

[bitchiswild]

Us Against The World

Rosé x F! Reader Word Count:887 Warnings:none A/n:i need more music from Blackpink Requested

You and Rosie have been in a relationship for over two years now. Both of you are former members of the immensely popular girl groups Blackpink and Twice. Lately, fans have started to piece things together and are slowly realizing the depth of your connection, wondering if you're more than just close friends but actual lovers.

The suspicions among fans began to arise due to the amount of time you and Rosie spent together. Whether it's days spent in each other's company or those instances when one of you goes live on social media, the other always seems to be present in the background, fueling conspiracies and speculations.

"Here we go again," you remarked to your girlfriend as you scrolled through Twitter, encountering numerous posts speculating about your relationship. Chaeyoung glanced over, leaning in closer to take a look. "Should we just tell them?" she pondered.

You shook your head. "Nah, I think it's kind of amusing. Let's see if they can piece it together. Besides, we're not exactly hiding our relationship; they just can't figure out if we're friends or lovers," you said with a chuckle.

Chaeyoung chuckled along with you. "You're right. Let's post another picture on Instagram, something similar, and use similar captions. That'll definitely stir up some commotion," she said with a mischievous smile, reaching for her phone to find the perfect photo.

After exchanging mischievous grins, you and Chaeyoung decided on the perfect photo and crafted matching captions for your Instagram posts. The images were almost identical, capturing a candid moment of the two of you laughing together, bathed in golden sunlight. The captions were cryptic yet playful, leaving fans guessing about the true nature of your relationship.

Within moments of posting, your notifications exploded with activity. Fans immediately began dissecting every detail of the photos and captions, drawing comparisons and analyzing potential hidden meanings. The comments section quickly filled with a mix of excitement, confusion, and wild speculation.

"OMG, are they hinting at something?!" one fan exclaimed, while another wrote, "They're definitely more than just friends, look at the way they're looking at each other!" The similarities between your posts only fueled the frenzy, with fans sharing screenshots side by side, pointing out every tiny similarity and difference.

As the posts gained traction, your Instagram feeds became flooded with reactions from fans across the globe. Some were convinced that you and Chaeyoung were indeed a couple, while others argued that you were simply close friends and nothing more. The debate raged on, intensifying with each new comment and share.

Through it all, you and Chaeyoung watched the chaos unfold with amusement, thoroughly enjoying the spectacle you had created. It was a testament to the power of social media and the fervent dedication of your fans, whose imaginations ran wild as they tried to unravel the mystery of your relationship.

The day your relationship was inadvertently exposed was one for the books, filled with unexpected twists and turns that left you and Rosie both amused and slightly stunned. It happened in the picturesque city of Paris, where you were attending a prestigious fashion show as ambassadors for YSL.

What started as a quiet, romantic date that Rosie had planned turned into a whirlwind of events when an eagle-eyed fan spotted the two of you together. They followed discreetly, capturing candid moments on camera, but things took a surprising turn when they caught you and Rosie stealing a sweet kiss amidst the Parisian charm.

The fan wasted no time in sharing the incriminating evidence on Twitter, setting off a chain reaction that sent shockwaves through social media and beyond. The photos and videos quickly went viral, sparking a frenzy of speculation and discussion among fans and even grabbing the attention of local news outlets.

In the midst of the swirling emotions and intense scrutiny that followed the exposure of your relationship, you and Rosie found solace in each other's presence. As you retreated to the privacy of your shared space, the weight of the world seemed to lift off your shoulders, replaced by a sense of calm and reassurance.

"I can't believe how crazy things have gotten," Rosie remarked, her voice tinged with disbelief as she scrolled through the endless stream of comments on her phone.

You nodded in agreement, wrapping your arms around her in a comforting embrace. "I know, it's overwhelming. But we'll get through this together," you reassured her, pressing a gentle kiss to her forehead.

Despite the mixed reactions from fans and the media, you and Rosie remained steadfast in your commitment to each other. As you navigated the tumultuous waters of public scrutiny, you found strength in each other's unwavering support and love.

"It's like a rollercoaster ride," Rosie mused, a hint of amusement in her voice as she leaned into your embrace.

You chuckled softly, brushing a stray lock of hair away from her face. "Yeah, but at least we're in it together," you replied, smiling warmly at her.

In the face of adversity, your bond with Rosie only grew stronger, a beacon of light guiding you through the darkest of times. And as you weathered the storm of mixed emotions together, you knew that no matter what challenges lay ahead, you would always have each other's backs. It was the two of you against the world.

[eyneyke]

A Calm to my Storm

Pairing: Max Verstappen x PewDiePie!sibling Summary: What if Felix had a genius brother who works as a RedBull's engineer and is also secretly dating Max Masterlist

The Internet Does It's Thing

Once Sam had appeared on Felix’s livestream, the internet hadn’t stopped buzzing about him. Sure, the initial hype had quieted down a bit, but Twitter remained relentless, trying to figure out more about this mysterious, handsome brother of PewDiePie.

"Who is Sam?!" one user tweeted, accompanied by screenshots from the livestream.

"Why did Felix never tell us he had a hot brother??? 😭" another added, sparking a thread of speculation.

It wasn’t long before a random user pieced together a potential clue that sent the fandom into a frenzy. One F1 fan stumbled across a photo from a recent Red Bull Racing victory celebration, featuring Max Verstappen and the team in high spirits after another win.

The user posted: "Wait… is that Sam???" alongside a zoomed-in image of a man with red hair in an overgrown mullet, standing amongst the Red Bull engineers. He was casually laughing with a few teammates, wearing a Red Bull shirt with sleeves pushed up, showing off his slightly muscular arms.

Within minutes, the tweet exploded.

Twitterer29: "OMG THAT IS SAM!"

Twitterer30:"He’s working with Red Bull?? NO WAY."

Twitterer31: "FELIX’S BROTHER IS A RED BULL ENGINEER??? THIS IS THE CROSSOVER I DIDN’T KNOW I NEEDED."

Twitter fans were relentless, digging deeper. It wasn’t long before the conversation spilled over to Reddit, where dedicated threads were made, dissecting every piece of new information about Sam. F1 fans and PewDiePie’s community suddenly merged in the most unexpected crossover.

One of the top posts on the F1 subreddit read: “Sam Kjellberg – PewDiePie's Brother and Max Verstappen's Engineer? What We Know So Far”. The thread was full of photos fans had found of Sam working on Max's car. Some were candid shots of him in the Red Bull garage, focused as he worked on the car’s intricate parts, others were from race weekends, him with a headset on, talking to the team.

Reddit went into full detective mode:

"Confirmed: Sam’s a mechanical engineer for Red Bull Racing!" one user posted, linking to various articles about the Red Bull team that mentioned a "Sam" in passing, though never linking him to Felix until now.

"He’s one of the main engineers for Max's car," another user wrote, quoting an F1 article about Verstappen’s engineering team. “This guy isn’t just some random – he’s one of the brains behind Max’s success.”

The thirst was real and relentless:

Random_Comment32: "Not only is Sam Kjellberg hot, but he also helps make Max’s car go vroom-vroom super fast?? This man has everything."

Random_Comment34: "Okay but Sam with a mullet and muscles and he works in F1? I’m literally in love."

As more people scoured the internet for photos of Red Bull’s team members, it wasn’t long before they found more shots of Sam in action. In one, he was leaning over Max’s car during practice, his shirt stretching slightly against his biceps. In another, he was caught mid-laugh with other engineers during a downtime moment in the garage. Each new photo sparked a flood of comments:

Random_Comment35: "This man can fix cars, computers, and probably my heart 😍."

Random_Comment36: "PewDiePie was hiding his hot, talented brother this whole time."

The F1 fandom started embracing Sam as part of their world, with a mix of awe at his technical skills and lighthearted thirst. Some of the memes started pouring in:

Random_Comment37: "Max Verstappen’s true secret weapon: Sam Kjellberg’s arms."

Random_Comment38: "F1 is just a side gig for Sam, his real talent is breaking the internet with his looks."

Even Max fans were getting in on the action, half-joking that Sam should be credited for the driver’s victories:

Random_Comment39: "Max wins because Sam fixes his car and probably intimidates the competition with those muscles."

Meanwhile, back on Twitter, someone summarised the entire internet’s reaction perfectly: "This is the weirdest timeline. Felix Kjellberg’s brother is both an engineer for the world’s biggest F1 team and the internet’s new crush."

As more people jumped into the investigation, the photos kept coming, with each new image of Sam in the Red Bull garage only adding to the legend. What started as a casual appearance in Felix’s livestream had spiralled into a full-blown internet obsession.

The thirst was real, and as one Redditor aptly put it: "Sam might just be the only person who could unite PewDiePie fans and F1 fans in one massive, thirsty fandom."

[hero-israel]

Hi, if you don't mind answering, I have a question regarding Israel. I figured any Jewish person in Israel or not probably knows better than I could guess after occasionally reading Tumblr for a couple of months. What do you think is right/wrong about the Israel government, what should it be like and what should it do now? I would be thankful if you could answer.

Some context, if it makes any difference why I'm asking: I'm Ukrainian, and I was surprised first time I saw people comparing Israel with russia. It felt wrong to me from the start, cause it made more sense to compare terrorists with terrorists instead. Western leftists seem ignorant and delusional to argue with them, but I also saw this opinion from some Ukrainians on twitter, so I got interested to learn a bit more to get proper arguments against this comparison. Then I learned that quite a lot of Jewish people here are against current actions of the Israel government in Gaza, which at first looked strange to me cause it's a very different situation from what we have in Ukraine. I figured that Jewish people are the best source to learn "what's wrong with Israel government" without being flooded by conspiracy theories. I support Israel, but I don't want to support things that most of you guys actually disagree with. And another thing, personally I don't see how it's possible to get rid of hamas without harming civilians in Gaza, but I saw here Jewish people arguing that both Palestinian and Israeli civilians shouldn't be harmed. That's why I asked a few people on Tumblr what they think Israel should do to get some opinions, though perhaps my question among attacks was seen as an attack too. So this time I add this long clarification, sorry about that 😅

Thank you for the insight - I particularly appreciate hearing what this sounds like from Ukrainians as they face their own crisis.

I support actions that protect Jewish lives and Jewish rights, everywhere in the world, including in Israel. I want governments moral enough and strong enough to do that, everywhere, including in Israel. Sadly, Israel is really fucking it up for the last year.

No one should be happy with what is happening in Gaza. It is an appalling humanitarian disaster, exactly as Hamas planned it would be. Once they were able to stage their attack, Israel had no choice but to invade; to have done anything other than invade would have sent a message to all their enemies that they would just lie back and take it, and that is a message they cannot afford to send.

The current Israeli government is one of the most ultra-right-wing, revolting, criminal, and incompetent out of any democratic nation in the world. Their stupidity made the Hamas attack possible. Benjamin Netanyahu has been PM forever and kept winning elections because despite his ugly, crooked personality, he was good at the job, good from economic and diplomatic perspectives, and avoided major change with the Palestinians. As he stayed in office longer and got more crooked with age, his scandals and campaign crimes piled up until it really looked like he could face prison for it. For a cruelly, tantalizingly brief period, the more forward-thinking elements of Israeli society were able to oust the far-right parties, but eventually that fell apart for the dumbest and most aggravating reason ever and Netanyahu was able to come back. This time he boosted up fringe ultra-right-wing candidates who were too extreme to function in a "real" government but who promised to help him change laws so he wouldn't go to jail. The actual process of changing those laws - transparently to end the investigations of the MULTIPLE indicted or convicted criminals in this government - tore Israeli society apart. People were warning for MONTHS that military readiness was plummeting. The Hamas attack plan had been known since around 2015 and an even more detailed version surfaced last year. They were all just too busy working to legalize crime and settle old scores than on watching the border where the genocidal fascist militia lives.

I don't know what the proper plan at this point is. After 3 months, I'm still very much emotionally stuck on "what you are supposed to do is PREVENT THIS, YOU IDIOTS, THAT IS YOUR JOB, AND NOT A HARD ONE." I don't think I will ever get past that, it was so obvious and I had been losing sleep all year fully expecting something like this to happen. Within the first few weeks after the attack, I saw a message from former PM Naftali Bennett about how it would be relatively quick and easy to flood all the Gaza tunnels with seawater and that would solve the problem; kill off Hamas troops, destroy their weapons, collapse their bases. Clearly they haven't done that yet. Does that mean it can't be done? If it can be done, then I lean towards thinking the current campaign should go on until it is done. If it can't be done, then I'd like to hear exactly what the goal of this incursion is and how long they expect it to last. Are they going to kill 30,000 people in the course of disarming and expelling Hamas? Or are they going to kill 30,000 people and Hamas will still be a recognizable threat anyway? If it's the latter, why kill all those people, why not stop now? When do they stop? Those are fair questions.

Basically all Jews "support Israel," insofar as they want it to keep existing as a Jewish state. Basically all Jews who support Israel also truly have no ill will toward Palestinians. They see Palestinians' problems as being less severe than the problems Jews have faced, historically and recently, and not worth the risks to Jews if an Israel did not exist. They believe in peace and want there to be a two-state solution, either because they really want a better life for Palestinians or because they want to stop feeling vaguely guilty about the occupation, or a mix of both.

I hope this was in any way helpful and regret that I couldn't be more precise about what the future plan should be.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Vittoria Elliott at Wired:

Ahead of the US elections, Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X, has used the platform as his own personal political bullhorn. On July 26, Musk posted a video of vice president and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris in which a deepfake of her voice appears to make her say that she is the “ultimate DEI hire” and a “deep-state puppet.” The post now bears a community note indicating that it is a parody. But many alleged that, shared without appropriate context, the video could have violated X’s policies on synthetic, or AI-altered, media. This was the culmination of Musk’s recent political rhetoric. Over the past month, Musk, after officially endorsing former president Donald Trump, has also boosted baseless conspiracies of a “coup” following Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential race, and insinuated that the Trump assassination attempt might have been the result of an intentional failure on the part of the Secret Service. After endorsing Trump, Musk announced that he was starting a pro-Trump political action committee (PAC), and initially committed to donate $45 million a month, before backtracking.

Former Twitter trust and safety employees say that Musk’s increasingly partisan behavior around the US elections and other major events is a sign that he is doing exactly what he accused the company’s former leadership of doing: playing politics. “It’s staggering hypocrisy,” says one former Twitter employee. “Musk is smart enough to know social media is media, and it’s a way to control the narrative.”

Three former employees, who spoke to WIRED on condition of anonymity due to fear of retaliation, expressed concern that Musk presents a new kind of actor—someone who seeks to actively use a platform to reshape politics in both the US and abroad, and is willing to endure regulatory fines and declining advertising revenue to do so. “He is consolidating power and has systematically dismantled all markers of credibility at the company,” the former employee says. “However, I think it takes on additional significance when the person he is targeting is a presidential candidate.” Authorities appear to agree. Earlier this week, secretaries of state from Minnesota, Washington, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and New Mexico sent a letter to X demanding changes to Grok, the platform’s generative AI search tool, after it returned false information claiming Harris had missed the deadline to be on the presidential ballot in nine states.

Musk and X did not respond to a request for comment. Musk has been ramping up to this moment for years. When he purchased Twitter in 2022, he promised free-speech absolutism. After taking over, Musk immediately fired the majority of the company’s policy and trust and safety staff, who were responsible for keeping hateful and misinformative content off the platform. This included those responsible for guiding the platform through contentious elections. As the former employees noted, there is now no one at the company to deal with a flood of election-related misinformation, let alone what Musk himself might spread. “There’s almost no one left,” the former employee says. Disinformation and hate speech on X have ballooned on the site, and a recent Pew Research study found that X has taken on a partisan tilt. Since Musk’s takeover, it’s become more popular with Republican users and less popular with Democrats, who are less likely than Republicans to say their views are welcomed at the site.

Ever since Elon Musk gotten ahold of X (formerly Twitter), he has turned it into a playground for far-right extremism.

[mariacallous]

Ahead of the US elections, Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X, has used the platform as his own personal political bullhorn.

On July 26, Musk posted a video of vice president and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris in which a deepfake of her voice appears to make her say that she is the “ultimate DEI hire” and a “deep-state puppet.” The post now bears a community note indicating that it is a parody. But many alleged that, shared without appropriate context, the video could have violated X’s policies on synthetic, or AI-altered, media.

This was the culmination of Musk’s recent political rhetoric. Over the past month, Musk, after officially endorsing former president Donald Trump, has also boosted baseless conspiracies of a “coup” following Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential race, and insinuated that the Trump assassination attempt might have been the result of an intentional failure on the part of the Secret Service. After endorsing Trump, Musk announced that he was starting a pro-Trump political action committee (PAC), and initially committed to donate $45 million a month, before backtracking.

Former Twitter trust and safety employees say that Musk’s increasingly partisan behavior around the US elections and other major events is a sign that he is doing exactly what he accused the company’s former leadership of doing: playing politics.

“It’s staggering hypocrisy,” says one former Twitter employee. “Musk is smart enough to know social media is media, and it’s a way to control the narrative.”

Three former employees, who spoke to WIRED on condition of anonymity due to fear of retaliation, expressed concern that Musk presents a new kind of actor—someone who seeks to actively use a platform to reshape politics in both the US and abroad, and is willing to endure regulatory fines and declining advertising revenue to do so.

“He is consolidating power and has systematically dismantled all markers of credibility at the company,” the former employee says. “However, I think it takes on additional significance when the person he is targeting is a presidential candidate.”

Authorities appear to agree. Earlier this week, secretaries of state from Minnesota, Washington, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and New Mexico sent a letter to X demanding changes to Grok, the platform’s generative AI search tool, after it returned false information claiming Harris had missed the deadline to be on the presidential ballot in nine states.

Musk and X did not respond to a request for comment.

Musk has been ramping up to this moment for years. When he purchased Twitter in 2022, he promised free-speech absolutism. After taking over, Musk immediately fired the majority of the company’s policy and trust and safety staff, who were responsible for keeping hateful and misinformative content off the platform. This included those responsible for guiding the platform through contentious elections. As the former employees noted, there is now no one at the company to deal with a flood of election-related misinformation, let alone what Musk himself might spread.

“There’s almost no one left,” the former employee says.

Disinformation and hate speech on X have ballooned on the site, and a recent Pew Research study found that X has taken on a partisan tilt. Since Musk’s takeover, it’s become more popular with Republican users and less popular with Democrats, who are less likely than Republicans to say their views are welcomed at the site.

The actual composition of the site’s user base has changed, with people who had been kicked off the platform for violating Twitter’s community standards being let back on under Musk. Trump himself was famously unbanned, but a wide array of avowed white supremacists, conspiracists, and neo-Nazis also flooded back onto the platform, including far-right pundit Nick Fuentes, QAnon proponent Liz Crokin, conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, and election denier Mike Lindell.

The platform’s new blue check system, which allows anyone willing to purchase a subscription to get a marker that previously confirmed they were who they claimed to be next to their name, has also contributed to the growing misinformation problem. While the system used to be free and reserved for verified public figures, politicians, and journalists, anonymous accounts like @Sprinter99800 and @ShadowofEzra are now able to use the algorithmic boost offered by the subscription model to spread misinformation about the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, respectively. Blue check accounts are, further, incentivized to spread outrageous claims because they can be paid based on how much engagement their posts get.

“He has a very obvious political agenda,” says one former member of Twitter’s policy team. Looking back at the last few years, they referred to Musk’s release of what he dubbed the “Twitter Files,” a cache of internal documents. The documents, according to Musk, revealed the political biases of the platform’s previous leaders—according to others, they showed mundane interactions with researchers and government employees—but also led to the doxing and harassment of former trust and safety employees and misinformation researchers.

Musk has also used the platform to put his thumb on the scale of politics outside the United States.

Last year, after Brazil’s far-right president Jair Bolsonaro lost his bid for reelection, his supporters stormed the country’s legislature, in an echo of January 6, 2021. In April, Musk defied an order from Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court to remove the accounts of far-right actors who, the court said, violated the country’s laws by undermining confidence in the country’s electoral processes. X then released the court’s confidential orders to the Congressional Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, which then made them public. Experts and government officials at the time said the move was a deliberate attempt by a foreign billionaire to undermine the country’s democratic institutions.

While Musk has repeatedly asserted that he took over Twitter to preserve its commitment to free speech, the company has complied with censorship from right-leaning governments. Last year, the company complied with an order from Turkey’s authoritarian government to censor content ahead of the country’s elections and blocked a BBC documentary about India’s right-wing Hindu nationalist prime minister Narendra Modi.

Instances like this, the first former employee tells WIRED, show that Musk is an entirely different actor than other tech CEOs, unbothered by the kinds of laws or norms that could be used to reign in another company. Musk doesn’t appear to be cowed by penalties like fines for spreading misinformation that are meant to keep billionaires and companies in check to protect the public interest.

“Regulation is not written for overtly malicious actors,” says the first former employee. “We don't have good regulation anywhere in the world that thinks about corporate entities like that … and it’s certainly not how we are used to treating a man who owns multiple companies.”

Because Musk’s own politics and priorities appear so clear, even decisions made seemingly without a political agenda can be interpreted as part of one. Last week, the X account for White Dudes for Harris was booted from the platform, causing many supporters of the vice president to wonder if this was Musk’s own political preferences playing out on X in real time. But a third former Twitter trust and safety employee who spoke with WIRED says it appears to be a pretty standard suspension that can happen when someone who has been banned from the platform in the past makes a new account. “Whoever set up the account most likely had an email address, IP address, or phone number that matched an account that had previously been banned on the platform. That would automatically be a penalty.”

The former employee says that the fact that people could not be sure if it was the result of Musk’s politics, or just a good old-fashioned moderation snafu is the real problem: “The fact that we have to ask those questions just shows the trust is gone. The misinformation has won.”

In an interview with the Atlantic, Musk said he would accept the results of the election should Harris win. But whether that will hold true in November is still cause for concern. Last week, after the Venezuelan elections wrapped in what experts said appeared to be a stolen victory for the country’s current president Nicolás Maduro, Musk railed against Maduro on X, even challenging him to a physical fight.

“What does it look like if this same sort of advocacy happens come November or December, in which he really believes that the election has been stolen or the vote counts aren't there?” the former employee says. It’s the same type of question that the former trust and safety teams were asking themselves about Trump during the 2020 presidential election. “It's very eerily kind of the same situation, except it’s the CEO and owner of the platform making those decisions, who also has the final say in content moderation decisions.”

[qqueenofhades]

I can't tell if part of the reason people don't recognize Biden's accomplishments is because society is so shallow and easily swayed by loudness over depth, or because Biden is just too quiet and prone to focusing on the idea that his actions speak louder than his words.

Like yeah, the latter thing is important, but we live in a REALLY shallow society; maybe a bit more bragging about your substantial achievements would be helpful here.

I get what you're saying here, but this kind of thing always seems to hinge on "the Democrats need to be doing more/Biden needs to be saying more/the Democrats are not doing it right/etc," and I just don't think that's the actual problem. Yes, in the past the Democrats have relied on the tactic of just doing good things and hoping that people will notice enough to vote for them, but that TORPEDOED them in 2010 (they didn't aggressively defend/market the Affordable Care Act, the Tea Party crazies got to set the narrative about GOVERNMENT OVERREACH, and they got shellacked so badly that they didn't control the House again for the rest of Obama's time in office). Fortunately, they have awoken to the fact that we live in a corporate noise machine owned and operated by cartoonishly villainous billionaire oligarchs who don't care if the country is pushed into fascism as long as they get their tax breaks, and where the average voter is well conditioned by said media to accept the BOTH SIDES BAD narrative without question.

Whether it's true or not is beside the point; if you flood the zone with enough BS, people act as if it is. See all those polls about how people think the Democrats are "too liberal" more than they think the GOP is "too conservative," even though only one of those parties is actively trying to end democracy. See the people who think Trump and Biden are equally ethically compromised. Etc. etc. Biden has already been considerably vocal about his accomplishments, has given several major speeches about the danger to democracy (which he did just the other day), but it is already so filtered and twisted in a radioactively toxic media atmosphere that just talking more or trying to trumpet more isn't going to help.

The DC media is full of a bunch of narcissists who like to make false equivalences and also openly hanker for Trump to be back in office because it makes them more relevant; they get to break juicy exposes and shocking headlines and whatever else, that gets more clicks, they get more exposure, etc. Biden is (as noted) boring, as in he's not on Twitter every day saying something ludicrous (and if he said even ONE ludicrous thing, far less the nonstop stream of BS that Trump constantly spews and which somehow still makes the media yell about how BIDEN should be the one to step aside, he'd be toast), and just does the job. That's not very Sexy and Marketable. When he talks about how he's doing the job and what he plans to do next, the media is too busy commissioning a dozen bullshit Horserace!!! polls and talking about how, in case we haven't noticed, he is 80 and that is somehow, implicitly, a more disqualifying fact than Trump's 91 goddamn serious treason-level felonies, including for literally trying to overthrow the government. Our politics and civic society have been so irreparably poisoned that actual competence is completely beside the point and makes a normal president less appealing than one who's just insane all the time. Everything's just a game show! Everyone's opinions are equal! Live in all the alternate universes you want! Who cares if we accidentally end democracy? Just another headline!

This is likewise not helped by the fact that in this relentlessly commodified social-media universe, Republicans are constantly on message and united behind their candidates, no matter how openly fucking awful they are, while leftists/liberals/Democrats (and people who claim to be) are constantly tearing into and criticizing their candidates in a way that makes Joe and Jane Low Information Voter even more susceptible to believing the "Both Sides" narrative -- after all, if the Democrats are attacking the Democrats, they really must be bad! Yes, we are not in a cult and therefore are able to have an actual discussion about things, but this falls into the "We're Just Holding Them Accountable!!" line that is just an excuse for ripping the Democrats even more than any of those people ever criticize or actively oppose the Republicans.

Hence all these braindead takes about how Biden should step aside, Biden should drop Harris, Biden should do X Y and Z and this is all his fault, instead of anyone remotely trying to come to grips with the extreme polarization and fascism of the other side. I keep yelling about it, and a lot of other people I respect keep yelling about it, because yet again, we've learned fucking nothing from 2016 and we're teetering on a repeat of it. See how all these Online Leftists want to scream and yell about Biden ending the train strike, and then somehow never seem to have heard that he kept working with the unions for months afterward and got their sick days. Even the people who, in a remotely more functional political landscape and/or if they possessed one (1) working brain cell, would vote for the Democrats get their endless jollies and moral holier-than-thous by absolutely incinerating them. Who needs the Republicans, when these guys will do it for you?

Anyway. Because America is a land of morons manipulated by billionaire corporate interests, just doing the right thing and hoping people notice enough to vote for you is not enough. That's why, indeed, the Democrats have learned that you have to talk about it and push back and argue for what you've done. But when it still exists in this environment that will twist and taint and misrepresent and grind it into tiny pieces, because said billionaire corporate interests are genuinely afraid that the Democrats' current policy plans could dismantle their hegemony if allowed to continue, that's only a very small part of the problem, and we have to recognize that.

[eretzyisrael]

by Corey Walker

In the hours following Bowman’s loss, left-wing commentators immediately shifted blame toward AIPAC, the foremost pro-Israel lobbying organization in the US, attributing the election results solely to the group’s financial resources. 

Olayemi Olurin, a leftist pundit and fierce critic of Israel, floated the idea that AIPAC engineered a smear campaign against Bowman by inundating voters with misleading campaign ads. 

“It’s not a leftist conspiracy theory that AIPAC quite literally spent more money than ever before to unseat Jamaal Bowman for his stance on Israel,” Olurin posted on X/Twitter. “New Yorkers were drowned in ads smearing Bowman — that coupled with the redistricting of his district cost him the seat.”

Bowman appeared on Olurin’s YouTube channel earlier this month to discuss the state of the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. During the interview, the congressman compared Israel unfavorably to the United States, claiming that both countries were built upon a foundation of “white supremacy.” He also suggested that the Jewish state was responsible for the Hamas terrorist group’s Oct. 7 attacks, which resulted in the biggest single-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.

Cynthia Nixon, a former New York City mayoral candidate and progressive commentator, accused AIPAC of being operated by “far-right Republicans” and blamed the group for flooding the primary race with millions of dollars in an attempt to remove Bowman from office. Similarly, Bowman has denounced AIPAC as being an alleged tool of “racist” Republicans and allies of former US President Donald Trump. 

“Bowman is the last Congress person of color in a NY district not wholly in NYC. And let’s be clear — the record $20 mill spent against him did not come from Dems in this Dem primary but from anti-abortion, anti-climate justice, anti-worker far-right Republicans. You do the math,” Nixon posted on X/Twitter.

Blaming the Jews is standard operating position. EY

[legendary-69420]

Chapter 4: The PR Game

(Racing Hearts : VOLUME 2)

It was only a few weeks since the announcement of Mark joining Red Bull, and already the buzz around him and Max as a team was louder than anyone expected. With Mark and Charles’ on-track rivalry now intensifying, the fans were eating it up, especially online.

The first PR stunt was a friendly interview together, one that the team had set up. The two sat side by side, both in their Red Bull and Ferrari gear, laughing for the cameras and feeding the media with sound bites.

“I’m just warning you,” Mark grinned at Charles, “I’ve got a lot more jokes lined up for this season. It’s gonna be unbearable.”

Charles rolled his eyes, but there was a smirk tugging at his lips. “Oh, I’ve been preparing. Mentally and emotionally. Don’t worry.”

The interviewer chuckled, glancing at the fan-submitted questions on their cue cards. “The fans are really excited to see the two of you on the grid together again. They’ve been… very active online.”

Mark glanced at Charles, and they both knew what “active” meant — the ship comments, the fan theories, and the endless jokes flooding social media.

“Oh, yeah?” Mark leaned in, flashing a smirk at the camera. “Anything juicy?”

The interviewer laughed, flipping through the cards. “Well, one fan wrote, ‘Charles and Mark, who’s better at handling the media attention?’”

“I think it’s obvious,” Mark started, but Charles cut in smoothly.

“Definitely me,” Charles teased, his grin widening. “Mark’s terrible at it.”

“Hey!” Mark feigned offense, poking Charles’ arm. “I’m great with the media! I give the people what they want.”

Charles raised an eyebrow. “By singing Material Girl in a club?”

The whole crew burst into laughter, and the comments on social media were already going viral.

Instagram Live Comments:

@speedy_girl1987: “CHARLES CALLING OUT MARK LIKE THAT, I'M DYING”

@MarkSpencerFans: “OMG THEY’RE LIKE AN OLD MARRIED COUPLE ALREADY!!”

@Charles_Leclercx_Fan: “Mark, we all LOVED the Material Girl performance, ignore him 😂 #BestNightEver”

@queenf1_fan: “PR stunt? More like PR flirting. You two better KISS on camera, I’m begging.”

@F1Rumor_HQ: “Everyone in the room seeing that sexual tension is palpable 👀👀”

The interview moved on to the next fan question.

“Alright, next one: ‘If you had to pick one teammate to be stuck on a deserted island with, who would you choose?’”

Charles laughed, already shaking his head. “Don’t make me choose.”

Mark shot a look at him, mockingly clutching his chest. “Wow, I’m right here.”

“No, I mean—” Charles backtracked, clearly trying to navigate the question. “Well, Mark would be good at keeping things entertaining, but Max… Max might actually help me survive.”

“Okay, I see how it is,” Mark said, rolling his eyes dramatically. “Charles doesn’t appreciate my survival skills. Noted.”

Twitter Fan Reactions:

@RedBull_Racing_Fan: “Mark really out here acting like a drama queen and Charles is just DONE with him. They’re comedy gold, I swear.”

@ferrari_forever: “CHARLES SAYING MAX WOULD HELP HIM SURVIVE. MARK I’M SORRY, BUT YOU’RE JUST HERE FOR VIBES 😂”

@Fan_fiction_HQ: “Get them on a deserted island ASAP and let’s see how long before they really appreciate each other…”

@Formula_1_Memes: “This interview is like a sitcom with the way Mark and Charles banter back and forth.”

After the interview, they moved on to the photoshoot part of the PR day. The team had organized some promotional shots, but the candid moments between Charles and Mark were the ones that stole the show. They’d laugh between takes, Mark trying to make Charles break his serious face while posing.

During one moment, the photographer caught Mark casually slinging an arm around Charles’ shoulder, pulling him close in a friendly hug.

“Oh, we’ll break the internet with this one,” Mark said, grinning at the camera.

Charles, smiling faintly, shook his head. “You’re going to be insufferable this season, aren’t you?”

“You love it.”

Behind-the-scenes footage later posted on Instagram:

Mark messing with Charles’ hair during the shoot.

Charles trying to stay composed while Mark makes funny faces behind him.

Mark pretending to "model" in exaggerated poses until Charles pushes him off-screen, both of them laughing.

Instagram Comments:

@MarkSpencerFans: “Okay but the way they’re so comfortable with each other now??? This is what we LIVE FOR”

@F1_PR_teams: “These two make the best PR team ever! The energy is unreal.”

@Ferrari_Nation: “I think Charles was actually smiling the whole time for once! WHAT IS THIS SORCERY, MARK?!”

@ThirstyF1Fans: “Mark. Stop. Touching. Charles. I can’t HANDLE THIS.” ---

By the end of the day, Mark and Charles had wrapped up their PR obligations, but their chemistry and ease with each other were undeniable. The internet buzz was louder than ever, their interactions fueling both shippers and die-hard fans alike.

As they walked off set, Charles nudged Mark. “You’re really enjoying this, huh?”

Mark laughed. “Can’t help it. You’re just so much fun to mess with.”

Charles shook his head, but he couldn’t hide the smirk on his face. “You better bring this energy to the track, Spencer.”

“Trust me,” Mark replied with a wink, “I’ve got plenty more where that came from.”

---

[originalleftist]

The US is Israel's greatest ally. It contains about a third of the Jewish people in the world, a close second to Israel itself.

In that country, in 2023, an ally and dinner guest of a former President/major Presidential candidate*, by some polls the front-runner, can openly call for the extermination of Jews, amid a spree of attacks and threats against Jews that reportedly included some 200 swattings and bomb threats to Jewish buildings in ONE DAY, and its barely a blip in the news cycle.

This is happening at the same time that the owner of X (formerly Twitter), one of the richest and most powerful men in the world, has just declared that Jews are spreading "hatred against whites" and flooding Western countries with non-white immigrants- the same "Replacement Theory" that has been cited in the manifestos of multiple mass shooters. And it is happening less than a century after two thirds of Europes' Jews were exterminated in countries they once called home- an atrocity that many still deny or downplay.

Does anyone, ANYONE still question why many Jews might feel that they require their own homeland in order to be safe? Or that defending that homeland at all costs is a matter of survival for them as a people?

None of this justifies the atrocities in Gaza, or the criminality of the Netanyahu regime (something which many Jews both inside and outside of Israel also oppose).

But when seeing the power disparity between Israel and Palestinians, and its horrific effects on Palestinian civilians, it is often forgotten (or deliberately ignored) that in the larger, worldwide picture, Jews are still a small, marginalized, and vulnerable group- perhaps more so now than at any time since the Holocaust (and to state what should be obvious, the existence of some individual wealthy and powerful Jews does not negate this either, any more than Obama's election as president ended anti-Black racism).

So fuck ANYONE who tries, even a little, to downplay or justify antiSemitism, for ANY reason. Or who simply labels Israelis as colonial oppressors while ignoring the long and ongoing history of genocidal persecution against the Jewish people in pretty much every other place that they have tried to call home. And especially fuck those who try to present antiSemitism, and agreeing with Adolf fucking Hitler, as the anti-colonialist, anti-racist position.

*If anyone is questioning Trump's or Republicans' antiSemitism because of their closeness to certain Right-wing Jewish figures or stated support for Israel, it must be understood that the American Right accepting Jews of European ancestry as white is a pretty recent development, and one that, like most of their supposed principles, they have adopted only when it is convenient to them. The Klan is an anti-Jewish (and anti-Catholic) organization as well as an anti-Black one, and the support from evangelical Christians for Israel is founded in a combination of hatred for Arabs/Palestinians/Muslims, geopolitical strategic maneuvering, and a belief that Israel needs to exist to fulfill their apocalypse prophecies so that Jesus can send all the Jews to Hell. It is not based in any sincere sympathy for Jewish people, nor a desire for anything for them but eternal damnation in Hellfire, preceded by slaughter here on Earth.

[dosesofcommonsense]

Accurate summation from #TruthHammer Telegram

From Anon: 40_head

Summarizing the past 48 hours:

1 of 2

https://x.com/thereal40_head/status/1815647586721911275?s=46

BREAKING: According to multiple sources, the following message is circulating the internet.

"A verified source has informed the Global Press team that Joe Biden is currently in hospice care and is unlikely to survive the night."

Never forget, 1 week ago an assassination attempt was made against Donald Trump. The Secret Service was complicit, the FBI was complicit, and as Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle said in the Congressional investigation today, Sheila Jackson Lee was heavily involved in controlling the Secret Service. Jackson Lee suddenly died days after the failed attempt on Trump.

For months, Biden was adamant about continuing his presidency and refusing to drop out of the 2024 election. Then, staunch liberal democrat Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and several other high profile liberals proclaimed yesterday that Obama's shadow presidency and elites in the democrat party are mounting a massive coup against Joe Biden. Some in the media repeated these claims. Shortly afterwards, we hear that Biden has COVID-19 and has been isolated in his home and all future appointments are cancelled.

Then, on ordinary white paper, with no presidential, white house, or campaign letterhead or seals, an apparent resignation alleging to be from Biden, says he is resigning from the 2024 campaign, appears on Biden's social media page on X. His sole support for Kamala Harris to take over the campaign also appears in this letter on Joe Biden's Twitter (X) page. There is nothing in the letter about the current presidential administration.

What's even more shocking is, not one single Biden staffer, including his own chief of staff, was aware of Biden's intentions to drop out of the race. They collectively flood social media in shock saying they had no idea Biden was going to drop out and they only found out with this letter on Biden's social media account. What's more is, Biden's signature on the letter has been compared to his actual signature and it has publicly been called a forgery. It's a bad forgery at that. Multiple media personalities and politicians have said they don't believe the letter is real and are demanding proof of life from Joe Biden before they accept this alleged resignation from the 2024 campaign.

There is one main point noticed in the following hours. Many democrats fall in line to support Harris. However, Obama DOES NOT support a Harris campaign and publicly states THEY will decide who the candidate for the democrats will be for the upcoming election.

Then, a video surfaces showing someone that looks like Joe Biden but has several distinct differences, claiming he is stepping down from the 2024 election campaign. It is obviously pre-recorded as it does not address several key questions about the legal process to turn over a heavily funded campaign for Joe Biden to Kamala Harris that were raised immediately after the letter appeared on his X account. And Kamala is hundreds of miles away, already on her own campaign trail, when she gets an alleged phone call from what sounds like Joe Biden. It is aired at the campaign event for the audience to hear.

In that call the conversation doesn't quite match up, there appears to be friendly banter between Harris and Biden but then the truth comes out in a slip from Harris. She says she knows Joe is still there in the "recording"...then catches herself halfway through the word and says "the call". She acts all lovey dovey but they talk over each other for a moment then the "call" ends. The audience goes nuts and they believe Joe has given his blessing to Kamala.

But...another incident occurred yesterday that set all of this up. We found out yesterday morning, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) had received paperwork from Kamala Harris during the last few days changing the 2024 Biden Presidential campaign to the 2024 Harris Presidential campaign. The entire $46 million in Biden's campaign funds were taken over by Harris and her campaign.

Summarizing the past 48 hours:

2 of 2

https://x.com/thereal40_head/status/1815647586721911275?s=46

Biden's 2024 campaign account on Twitter was changed to being a Harris campaign. Elon Musk immediately suspended the account, apparently because no legal documentation was presented to show the right to change the account.

All this time, with all of this activity, there has not been one personal appearance of Joe Biden. Then, just hours after the alleged phone call to Harris' campaign event, Biden's doctor announces Joe is just fine, healthy as ever, and only self-isolating as a precaution. Meanwhile, nobody is in charge of the country. Nobody is in the oval office. And then, just an hour later, reports emerge that Biden has been placed on hospice care and is so ill that he is not expected to make it through the night.

Somebody or a lot of somebody's, are flat out lying. Joe Biden is either dead or close to it according to numerous staff rumors. Harris takes over the campaign but it's not legal because donations were being made to Biden, not to Harris. If Biden drops out the funds are either supposed to be returned to the donors or taken into a Democrat party fund. They are not allowed to just immediately go to Harris. And, there appears to be an internal power struggle between Harris' group and the Obama shadow presidency. No matter how you look at it...

...there is currently a coup in place to take over the office of the president of the United States by elites in the democrat party. I doubt we'll see the actual Joe Biden again. What's more is, there's been no talk of any emergency sessions of the House or the Senate to decide on the 25th amendment proceedings, no talk of swearing in Kamala and again...nobody is in charge at this very moment.

There's multiple other issues going on. All air space over Delaware was temporarily closed. Communications from Deleware have been restricted and certain cell phone communications in the area were temporarily cut off. And then there's the surfacing of a 2022 presidential executive order apparently signed by Biden that is now circulating that shows Joe Biden delegated numerous aspects and authorities invested solely in the President, to members of his cabinet and chief of staff which would effectively prevent anybody from taking over if something actually happened to Biden. Top it all off with the fact that Hillary Clinton is being seen as the most likely candidate that the Obamas will appoint to take over the democrat bid for president.

Kamala is illegally using democrat party funding to campaign with right now and has illegally taken control of the FEC filing for the Biden campaign. No democrat party meeting and decision has been made by the party to grant Harris the right to use the money donated to Biden, nor have they given Harris permission to take over the resources that were set aside for the Biden campaign.

It's a huge mess folks. The democrat party is imploding. At least one very real coup is in taking place as I write this post. And Americans are not being told the truth by anybody at this point. It's only been by leaked information and by people just like you and me, searching the FEC database and looking at the act being played out by Kamala's team and Obama's team. And the whole time, Joe Biden is completely absent with word that he is not expected to live through the night which also means he will not be able to inform the American people about what's true and what's not, who will be running in 2024 and more importantly, who is actually in control of the country right now.

Is that really what you approve of? Is that what you really voted for? Are you ok with your party plotting coups against its own? Are you ok with democrats hiding the president of the united states from public view and presenting pre-recorded and even faked AI videos and pre-recorded faked phone calls?

When is enough going to be enough?

[uboat53]

As of a week ago, FiveThirtyEight's polling averages included 19 polls that were conducted entirely in October. Of those 11 were from right-wing firms and news outlets, 7 were from non-ideological pollsters, and 1 was from a Brazilian pollster that's not well known. One of the right-wing pollsters included in that average, Quantus Insights, responded "you're welcome" on Twitter when a MAGA influencer celebrated the 538 polling average shifting to a slight Trump lead.

You may not have noticed, but tons of right-wing polls have come out in the last month or so, way more of them, in fact, than non-ideological polls, and they've got Trump performing significantly better than non-right-wing polls, Harris leads by about 1.7% in the average of non-ideological polls while Trump leads by 1% in the right-wing polls. We've actually seen this before, in 2022 when a huge raft of right-wing polls came out in October, just before the election, and showed GOP Senate and House candidates doing much better than other polling and, in fact, much better than they actually did when the votes were counted.

Now, poll aggregators like FiveThirtyEight will tell you that they're able to weight for the kind of thing and that it doesn't make a huge deal in their models, but that really depends on what you consider a "huge deal". FiveThirtyEight, for example, calculates that the right-wing polls shift their average by between 0.1% and 0.8%, almost entirely toward Republicans and, look, I get it, from a data perspective, you'd always rather have more data than less. Even if it's bad data, weighting and adjusting can allow you to still get some reasonable value out of it. From a statistical analysis perspective that's pretty much negligible, but most people reading these polling aggregators, even other journalists, aren't all that educated in statistical analysis.

Still, we have to acknowledge what it does at the most basic level. That 0.8% shift was in Pennsylvania where 538 currently has Trump ahead by 0.3%. In other words, without the flood of right-wing polls, they would instead have Harris ahead by 0.5%. And look, again, I get it, from a statistical point of view, both of those results are toss-ups, well within the margin of error, and you can't make any solid conclusions about the state of the race from either of those results except that we don't know who's going to win. But look at the media coverage.

Even reputable news outlets are writing stories about Trump being ahead in the swing states and right-wing news media is all but crowing it from the rooftops. Whether they like it or not, poll aggregators are now driving news coverage that completely ignores what their results actually mean.

The long-story-short here is that it appears likely that polling averages are being manipulated by a flood of right-wing polls that look far better for Trump than non-ideological polls do. Whether this is to drive favorable news coverage or to provide an excuse to later challenge unfavorable election results is unclear, but what is clear is that this isn't just data that's bad because someone did some shoddy work, it's deliberately bad and it's designed to throw off the aggregate data.

If that's not a good enough reason to question whether it should be part of the aggregate data and to question the results of aggregate data that includes it, I don't know what is.

Hat tip to The New Republic whose story I got most of this data from.

[odinsblog]

These two stories are not unrelated.

Under the misleadership of Elon Musk, Twitter has officially declared itself as a major platform of disinformation, misinformation, and irresponsibility, with no responsibility or desire to reign in lies, hate speech or Nazism.

And he has turned Twitter into a haven for hate speech, Nazis and crackpot conspiracy theorists.

Musk has repeatedly subtweeted and retweeted known white supremacists, so let’s dispense with the flimsy excuses that his latest retweet of pedophile and known neo-Nazi, Kevin Alfred Strom, was somehow an “accident.”

We have an election coming up next year, and Musk has abandoned any semblance of truth and is intentionally sabotaging one of the biggest social media platforms on earth. How many more times does Elon get to “accidentally” retweet racists and Nazis before people stop calling it an honest mistake??

The wealthy white nationalist from South Africa is purchasing GOP legislators in Florida, and using Twitter to back a racist Republican candidate for president, while constantly retweeting & signal boosting white nationalists from around the globe.

And Musk has been using Twitter to dabble in the elections of other countries - on the side of authoritarians. (source)

I’ve also seen “Nazis in Ukraine” and various pro-Russian, anti-NATO hashtags trend at least three times this week alone. I refuse to believe that Musk isn’t manipulating the algorithm to boost those anti-Ukrainian trends, which again, always seem to “coincidentally” favor authoritarians. Musk has been caught manipulating the algorithms to boost his own tweets before (not to mention, he’s also used Twitter to manipulate financial markets), and the U.S. presidential candidate he is supporting has flatly said he would stop helping Ukraine should he become president.

SN: Look, I may or may not be the most up to date person on authoritarians and elections in other countries, but when Elon Musk, Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis and the GOP all seem to prefer Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Vladimir Putin, that pretty much tells me practically everything I need to know about which side is the wrong side. Twitter is being flooded with homophobic, pro-authoritarian troll bots & racist right wing spammers - you cannot convince me that this isn’t happening without Musk’s explicit blessings.

Didn’t we already see what happens in 2016 when Robert Mercer used Facebook algorithms to mess with elections in the U.K. and in the U.S.??

What are they waiting for?

What are we waiting for?

Brexit 2.0??

The next Trump?

The only real question remaining is, how long will it take before governments and media outlets begin calling out Musk’s thinly veiled dog whistles for what they are? When will journalists call a white nationalist a white nationalist?

Musk is, objectively speaking, a very bad person, and definitely not a “free speech” altruist. Musk is a megalomaniac with the ability to continually force his narrative onto key media markets, and with a virtually unlimited supply of capital. Rupert Murdoch ain’t got nothing on Musk.

Elon Musk isn’t simply a racist and a white nationalist—with his vast wealth, political influence and control of a global social media platform, he is an unelected unaccountable existential threat to global democracy.

He needs to be called out every single time, and ultimately he needs to be held accountable.

[bllsbailey]

HOT TAKES: People Notice Something Peculiar About a Staged Kamala Harris 'Briefed by FEMA' Photo

Hurricane Helene wreaked absolute havoc in parts of some southeastern states including Florida, Georgia, and Tennessee.

The western part of North Carolina was particularly hard hit by what was left of Helene late Thursday going into Friday, with so many roads and highways being flooded, washed out, and in some cases partially collapsed and inaccessible that state officials are urging people not to travel at all to that part of the state unless they are part of rescue/relief crews.

SEE ALSO:Massive Smoke Plume From Georgia Chemical Plant Forces Evacuations, Highway Closures

In the midst of what some have called "apocalyptic" devastation in the NC mountains, where at least 30 people are confirmed dead, as much as 30" of rain was recorded in some spots, and houses and vehicles were seen floating down massively flooded streets, there has been growing criticism that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have been nowhere to be found.

Indeed, Biden was vacationing (again) at Rehoboth Beach this weekend while Harris was wining and dining at left coast campaign fundraisers. In fairness, Biden had already done the official things presidents typically do when clearing the way for federal assistance. But the insensitivity of him relaxing beachside and Harris clinking glasses at megadonor fundraisers, while Katrina-like destruction was unfolding elsewhere, wasn't lost on their critics.

It is perhaps with that in mind that Harris (or her handlers) posted a photo to the Twitter machine late Sunday night showing her with her cell phone in front of her, a pen in her hand, and wearing her earbuds, looking like she was doing official work:

"I was just briefed by @FEMA_Deanne Criswell on the latest developments about the ongoing impacts of Hurricane Helene. We also discussed our Administration's continued actions to support emergency response and recovery. I also spoke with @NC_Governor Cooper about the ongoing rescue and recovery efforts in North Carolina. Our Administration will continue to stay in constant contact with state and local officials to ensure communities have the support and resources they need. Doug and my thoughts are with all those who lost loved ones and those whose homes, businesses, and communities were damaged or destroyed during this disaster."

The covering of the "vice" part of the vice presidential seal was an interesting touch, too.

If one isn't looking closely at the photo, though, they might miss something: the fact that it doesn't look like her earbuds are plugged into her phone:

Why aren’t your headphones plugged into your phone? https://t.co/lkPykBzwdD pic.twitter.com/EHrXJuPE6E— Still Boneless (@still_boneless) September 30, 2024

Others thought that maybe even the piece of paper she was "writing" on might have been blank, but it's hard to tell:

There are a couple of things that I find super-annoying about the photo. First, if she indeed really wasn't on the phone (and FWIW she's been known to play games with her earbuds before), it's just more fakery on top of fakery from a candidate and team who try reinventing her as a "great leader" just about every single day.

The other thing and more importantly is that not one person in this country who is heartbroken and praying for western North Carolina families should be impressed with the photo and caption considering it was posted two days after the region got hammered by Helene and after Harris had other priorities that didn't include expressing anything beyond the bare minimum concern for the hundreds of thousands who have been negatively impacted in my state.

Whether the headphones are plugged in or not, that staged photo and caption do say a lot about Kamala Harris, with none of it being good.

RELATED:How One Crafty Reporter Is Exposing 'Empty Shell' Kamala Harris One Day at a Time

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Erin Reed at Erin In The Morning:

In 2022, Republicans in Michigan made a major mistake: They spent more money on anti-transgender ads than on reinforcing economic messaging. As a result, Democrats won a trifecta in the state for the first time in 40 years. Now, there are signs Republicans may be repeating the same error. A new set of polls in the crucial "blue wall" swing states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania shows that Harris is matching Trump on the economy. This is happening as Trump spends more money on anti-trans advertising than immigration, housing, and the economy combined. According to the well-respected Marist poll, Harris is nearly tying Trump on the economy in Pennsylvania and Michigan and has come within five points in Wisconsin. She leads Trump in all three states, polling at plus two in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and plus three in Michigan. The numbers were highlighted by James Singer, rapid response advisor to the Harris campaign, who noted that she had closed the gap on the economy, and shifted independent voters by 19 points in the state of Pennsylvania.

“This has been the long story of the Harris paid media campaign — just grinding on this economic message (anti-price gouging, Medicare covering home care, etc) for months as different shiny objects hit the news cycle,” said political analyst David Weigel on Twitter. Harris's late-campaign surge comes as Trump has flooded the airwaves with anti-trans advertisements during major sporting events. Meanwhile, Republican Senate candidates have also received tens of millions of dollars in support from groups like the Senate Leadership Fund, which has blanketed these swing states with ads about transgender bathroom usage, sports, and health care. Spending on transgender issues dwarfs all others; according to national political reporter Marc Caputo, the Trump campaign has spent more money on anti-trans advertisements than on any other issue, surpassing topics like the economy and immigration.

“I will never understand the Trump strategy of spending the entire month of october ignoring the economy and instead running ads exclusively on trans people existing and immigrant caravans,” posted Andrew Lawrence, deputy director of rapid response for Media Matters.

Lawrence has good reason to be stumped; Republicans have attempted this same playbook in Michigan and many other states before. In 2022, Republicans spent $50 million on anti-trans advertising. One of the primary focuses of that spending was Michigan, where they used the ads to target Democrats as well as Issue 3, an abortion rights amendment. This is similar to how Republicans are targeting abortion rights amendments today by saying reproductive freedom will codify "transgender healthcare" into law. These ads failed; Issue 3 passed, and Democrats took the trifecta in the state for the first time in 40 years. They faced similar losses in every other swing state where similar ads were deployed.

[...] The movement towards Harris on the economy is notable and not limited to the recently released Marist poll. A Time Magazine analysis of polls found similar results, and a Fox News poll released on Wednesday found Harris “nearly even” on the economy, down only two points in Michigan, whereas Trump was up 11 earlier in the year.

As Donald Trump continues to push inflammatory anti-trans attacks in his ads, Kamala Harris has been chipping away at Trump’s advantage on the economy in polls, thus putting her roughly neck-and-neck with him on the topic.