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Daniel Friedman Profile picture
@DanFriedman81
Oct 7, 2023 • 8 tweets • 2 min read • Read on X
It's worth noting that the way the terrorist attacks on Israel are being covered and viewed today, and likely the international response to what is happening, would be significantly different if Elon Musk had not bought Twitter.
Prior to Musk's acquisition of the platform, fewer than 500,000 people had blue-check status. Blue checks get their tweets positioned first under a tweet when they reply to something, what they're tweeting about gets greater weight in determining trends, and their tweets are positioned first in trending topics.
The pre-Musk blue-checks were granted to accounts deemed notable by progressive Twitter staff, and they were overwhelmingly given to progressive figures in media, politics and activism.
There were significant disparities to who was able to get them based on political views. A freelancer who contributed to The Mary Sue or The Daily Beast could get one, but a freelancer who contributed to The National Review or Commentary could not. Staffers in AOC's office had them. Staffers in Ted Cruz's office did not.
The blue-checks are a lot more hostile to Israel and supportive of Palestinian terror groups than Americans at large. Because their fringe viewpoint was allowed to dominate this platform, they shifted the Overton window on Israel within media and academia over the past few years.
Additionally, Twitter before Musk had editors who removed or deprioritized tweets deemed inflammatory, edited and curated the trending topics and helped shape and control the narrative according to their values.
If Musk hadn't fired Twitters editors and moderators, you would not be seeing Palestinian terrorists taking selfies with the corpses of murdered women this morning, because Twitter's staff would be running crisis PR for Hamas and shaping the narrative on its behalf.
I don't agree with everything Musk has done. I think he doesn't keep people around who tell him when he's wrong, and I think his staff cuts have been too deep on the product and UX teams. But him wresting this platform from the progressive monoculture has been a huge win for truth.

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More from @DanFriedman81

Daniel Friedman Profile picture
Dec 10
You should be outraged that a “Top 50” list of dangerous homeless people exists. Every person on that list has been arrested dozens of times. Every one of them has attacked strangers. And the city leaves them on the street for you to deal with instead of locking them up. Image
Neely was on that list because he beat a 67 year old woman — a complete stranger he attacked for no reason — and broke several bones in her face.

They didn’t want to put him in jail, so they sent him to a residential treatment center. He walked out after two weeks. Image
The city knows who all these people are. They’ve been arrested over and over, for serious offenses, and they keep turning them loose. Officials know they are dangerous. And they won’t put them in jail; they let them ride the train with you and your kids.
Read 5 tweets
Daniel Friedman Profile picture
Oct 20
The US and Europe operate under a legal regime governing conduct in war loosely described as "International Law." It is a relic of the Cold War order that makes no sense in modern conflicts and is unsustainable in a conflict where significant interests are on the line. 🧵
Most wars between 1950 and 1995 were proxy battles between the US and the USSR. The main concern of both sides as they fought these wars -- the US in Vietnam and the Soviets in Afghanistan -- was not to escalate the proxy conflicts into open war between the two superpowers.
The US preferred to walk away from its objectives in Vietnam -- to lose the war -- rather than escalate into a conflict with the USSR which could potentially be a nuclear conflict.

The USSR didn't want that war either, so both sides followed these rules.
Read 17 tweets
Daniel Friedman Profile picture
Oct 12
This really changed everything for the Israelis. There used to be a very active Israeli pro-peace left. During the Oslo process, Gazans freely crossed the border to work in Israel and Israelis shopped in Palestinian markets. There were a lot of people for whom peace and coexistence were core values.

And after October 7, most of those former leftists don’t even see the Palestinians as human anymore.
It seems very clear that the rules of engagement for this war are different from campaigns Israel has conducted in the past. There is a lot less consideration for civilian suffering. Israel’s definition of what is proportional has changed.

And that’s because of these images.
Israel is not out to capture hearts and minds. Israel is not conducting this war with the expectation that these people will be partners for peace in the near future. Hamas is not some guys in Gaza — Hamas is Gaza, and this is a war on Gaza.
Read 5 tweets
Daniel Friedman Profile picture
Sep 20
An incredible story coming out of the world of Sci-Fi/Fantasy: GenCon, the annual Dungeons and Dragons and tabletop gaming convention has fired the organizing committee for its writers’ symposium and possibly cancelled the event for 2025 after a woke meltdown. Here’s what happened. 🧵
First of all, the source for this is a run-down of Erik Scott de Bie, who seems to have rounded up the facts, but has a very different take on it than I do. You can read his account here: erikscottdebie.com/2024/09/12/the…
Gen Con is an enormous sci-fi and fantasy convention, originally founded by Dungeons and Dragons creator Gary Gygax.

It has been running annually since 1968 and it had attendance of 71,000 in 2024. It’s a big event.
Read 10 tweets
Daniel Friedman Profile picture
Sep 10
@asymmetricinfo Eating livestock or hunting with a license in the woods is very different than going to the pond in an urban park and strangling the ducks that the children feed there.

There is no argument that this is normal or tolerable.
@asymmetricinfo Springfield, Ohio had 40,000 residents in 2020 and then Joe Biden brought in 20,000 Haitians. In those numbers, the Haitians will not assimilate and become Americans. What happens is that Springfield becomes Haiti.
@asymmetricinfo The traffic in Springfield is now like traffic in Haiti. The Haitians ignore stop signs, school zones and all traffic laws. This is, of course, after the nationwide scaling back of traffic enforcement in the wake of the George Floyd incident.
Read 6 tweets
Daniel Friedman Profile picture
Jun 30
The biggest lie told at the debate was Biden’s claim that the Republicans kept the border open by refusing to support Biden’s border bill. Trump pushed back but wasn’t coherent enough to decisively refute this common Democratic claim.
Border security and detention policy is in the hands of executive agencies. The policies these agencies utilize have a huge impact on the number of people who try to cross the border. Trump’s policies were very different from Biden’s.
The bulk of people crossing the border are currently exploiting a loophole in our immigration laws: We allow people who face persecution in their home countries to come here as refugees. The problem is that we entitle every individual who claims to be a refugee to a hearing to consider their status. When there are millions of such people, the backlog for a hearing stretches out for years. What do we do with the asylum-seekers in the meantime.
Read 10 tweets

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