Here's apparently what got @donie and @atrupar (two really top tier journalists) suspended You can follow the ElonJet bot on Instagram: instagram.com/elonmusksjet?i…

This is core to the right-wing "groomer" discourse: Introducing the concept of Queer people is indoctrinating children; therefore it's sexualizing; therefore it's pedophilia. This is a fundamentally extreme position that has been mainstreamed thanks to some very couched language.

https://twitter.com/reportbywilson/status/1602829690405900288

There is nothing new to this argument. There is nothing interesting about it. There is no valid point to be made, or new data to be pointed to.

This argument only works by trading in unhinged paranoia and fear.

We probably don't talk enough about just how prevalent the QAnon ideology is in Germany. dw.com/en/german-poli… This really fascinating study does a great job of quantifying the popularity of QAnon in the German-speaking world, as well as the reach of some of its most influential channels and narratives.
cemas.io/en/publication… (PDF)

After the much-hyped Twitter Files failed to prove that the FBI had any role in suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story, the pro-Trump crowd obsessed over ex-FBI counsel James Baker's role at Twitter.

His crime? Urging caution.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1600237095364096000

Musk is doing shit designed to elicit fervor and traffic on Twitter and alternative social media platforms, then directly responding to it.

This is business by conspiracy theory.

Alex Jones has gotten a lot of attention recently for looking reasonable next to Ye's Hitler fandom.

And yet...

"Here's a bunch of leftist academics and Hollywood people, a lot of them Jews, literally trying to teach...[that] white people, except Jews are all bad people." Jones has been on this kick for *a long time.* In the early 2000s, Jones ranted that "90%+ of the time, the vast majority of the time" Nazi and Klan rallies are run by "feds" and those Nazis: "You can look at them and tell, but it turns out they're Jewish."

This is an absolutely atrocious take. Mass surveillance and data capture is *always* abused. Giving people control of their data — and the freedom to commoditize or keep private that asset — needs to be a fundamental principle going forward. thehill.com/opinion/techno… Put another way: Enabling mass surveillance, even for altruistic purposes, actually robs people of their autonomy and power. If you want to eliminate disparities in the market: *Give people more control over their data.*

We're back at day two of the Halifax International Security Forum. Follow this thread for some interesting things. #HFX2022 twitter.com/i/web/status/1… The Forum opened this morning with a fiery conversation on democracy in Iran with @AlinejadMasih. "My goal is to bring the regime down," she said.

"We the people of Iran can run the country better than these backwards mullahs."

✊

I'm at the Halifax International Security Forum this weekend. Expect some livetweeting in this thread.

I'll be posting a few dispatches on bugeyedandshameless.com and putting some longer threads on Mastodon @justinling@mastodon.online #HFX2022

(pic: @HFXforum) Petro Poroshenko, former Preisdent of Ukraine, is speaking to CBC in the press room. He's slamming this week's bombardment of Ukraine's energy infrastructure.

"We don't trade freedom for electricity."

so i'm staying on twitter til the bitter end bc i'm looking forward to the Live Orchestra Karaoke

but i'm on Mastodon: mastodon.online/@justinling1

and my substack has a friendly little commenter community growing. we're going to do chats! come join bugeyedandshameless.com hey who knows, maybe twitter's abandonware phase will be super fun

but everyone download your archives just to be sure

uh oh trump he lyin

Whatever your feelings about this union, or this labour action: This is a fundamental erosion of not just labour rights, but most fundamental rights. If you don't stand to object now, why should anyone stand for you when your rights are revoked for political expediency?

https://twitter.com/RichardCityNews/status/1588304161057431552

François Legault has proved that the notwithstanding clause can be used to remove our right to freedom of religion. Doug Ford is showing it can be used to eviscerated our right to freedom of association. It's not hard to come up with examples of what might come next.

I remember years ago, when folks tried to write off the pernicious problem of the Islamic State's online radicalization. Some people, predominately on the left, pointed to mental illness as *the* problem, downplaying ISIS' radicalizing influence.

This is a direct parallel.

https://twitter.com/ShellenbergerMD/status/1586372835844333568

Clearly, right-wing politics in America is not a 1:1 comparison to ISIS. I am very much not saying that.

And yes, mental illness is a significant factor when it comes to radicalized violence. But it isn't the only one, to the exclusion of all others.

About eight hours ago, Ukraine launched "the most massive since the beginning of the special operation," per the Russian governor of occupied Sevastopol. Russian sources initially boasted they had repelled the UAV attack. The governor came out to announce that all the city's CCTV cameras would be shut off and anyone caught uploading videos showing "the work of the air defences" will be dealt with by the state security services. 🤨

Over the past few months, I've had the privilege of contributing to @CBCTheNational, on Russia's war against Ukraine. While there will probably be more to come, I just wanted to do a brief recap — because it was so cool to be able to do this kind of long-form TV reporting. In April, we went to Washington to chase down the emerging conspiracy theory — peddled by QAnon, Tucker Carlson, and the Kremlin — that Ukraine was preparing a bioweapon in a series of U.S-funded "biolabs."

Moscow is still pressing this case at the U.N.

"nooooo you can't fire our beloved twitter executives," says twitter user who regularly calls the social media platform a "miserable hellscape enabled by morons who can't even give us an edit button" If I'm being honest, I think Musk stealing some userbase from Gab, Parler, and Truth Social is good.

Bad for Twitter users, sure, but maybe good for society.

We thought, I think quite rightly, creating rules for the (barf) "digital public square" would encourage good behaviour.

Kari Lake, Marjorie Taylor-Greene, and Doug Mastriano have explicit ties to antisemites — they could, or already do, actually hold power.

Everyone, Kanye included, could probably benefit from shifting accountability to those who need it more acutely.

https://twitter.com/KarenAttiah/status/1585393506407034880

[Mastriano] has repeatedly lashed Mr. Shapiro for attending and sending his children to what Mr. Mastriano calls a “privileged, exclusive, elite” school, suggesting to one audience that it evinced Mr. Shapiro’s “disdain for people like us.” nytimes.com/2022/10/10/us/…

This time — this time!!! — they're finally gonna prove that COVID-19 was the product of gain-of-function research. They swear! economist.com/science-and-te…

Let's talk about the newest round of COVID-came-from-a-lab-leak claims: First off, I'm not an expert.

But these people are, and they are offering a bit of a real-time peer-review, as we wait for the paper to be actually peer reviewed.

https://twitter.com/flodebarre/status/1583731928015831040

So Pierre Poilievre is leader of the Conservative Party of Canada. A couple of thoughts: Poilievre decided to run a campaign that, yes, spoke about affordability, but which also traded in bug-eyed conspiracy theories about the World Economic Forum, attacked the central bank, and identified with the anti-vaccine movement.

The speed of the Ukrainian counter-offensive is awe-inspiring.

Zelensky says the Ukrainian Armed Forces have now recaptured 2,000 square km of their territory. Just in the last hour, Ukrainian Telegram channels (seemingly backed up by some Russian ones) announced the liberation of towns east of Kharkiv, about 30km from Russia itself.

"The enemy was pushed back to the state border," one account announced.

So this story has been percolating for awhile. CSIS has been trying to cover it up for seven years, and — unfortunately — they have been extremely successful.

More details in thread:

https://twitter.com/DougSaunders/status/1564715564848844801

In 2015, the Daily Sabah reported that "a Canadian national" and "a member of Canada's intelligence agency" assisted the three girls in escaping to the Islamic State.
dailysabah.com/investigations…

I don't know what point these folks think they're making, but knock it off.

Monkeypox is not airborne. It is not an STD. It is spread through close contact (and *maybe* through fluids, TBD.) It is predominately affecting men who have sex with men, but not exclusively.

https://twitter.com/migold/status/1554480121842655244

This messaging isn't that hard! If you're at risk, get a vaccine.