Heh.
Analysis: True
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Category Archives: Main Stream Social Media
Quote of the Day
Those who prefer their English sloppy have only themselves to thank if the advertisement writer uses his mastery of the vocabulary and syntax to mislead their weak minds.
—Dorothy L. Sayers
Fact Checking and Satire
Last week Snopes was caught publishing a misleading “fact check” of a satirical piece by The Babylon Bee. The brouhaha led BuzzFeed to do a story claiming that the Bee‘s reaction to Snopes‘ continuing train of false “fact checks” is some sort of conspiracy theory or something. David French has a post over at NRO debunking the BuzzFeed article.
Here’s what actually happened this week. Snopes launched an unfair attack on the Bee and got caught. Now it’s getting criticized. Oh, and the Bee is right to be concerned since a previous misbegotten Snopes fact check had threatened its business. That’s it. That’s the story. There is no conspiracy theory, only troubling facts that are worth criticizing. But somehow BuzzFeed managed to make the story primarily about Snopes’s critics, not about the fact that Snopes persistently (and sometimes misleadingly) fact-checks obvious conservative humor and satire.
Read the whole thing.
Exit question: Is BuzzFeed still relevant enough that anyone should bother fact checking it?
The Twitter Gulag
The @AaronWorthing Twitter account has been sentenced to a week in the Twitter gulag. During an exchange with someone using bigoted language, Aaron criticized him for his bigotry. One of Aaron’s tweets contained a hypothetical insult as an example. Twitter is punishing Aaron for opposing hateful speech. (Let me interrupt here to make a distinction between hateful speech, speech which intentionally expresses hatred, and hate speech, speech which doesn’t fit The Narrative.)
Aaron appealed, and Twitter denied his appeal. Twitter has also declined to reveal what it is about Aaron’s tweet that violates their Rules. Logically, it can’t be the use of the word “fag,” because that appears in multiple tweets every day. OTOH, the connection between Twitter’s enforcement of its Rules and logic sometimes seems rather tenuous. BTW, I strongly suggest that the Gentle Reader avoid doing a word search for “fag” on Twitter. The results for such a search are downright appalling.
I had a similar experience when I was permanently banned. Twitter was unresponsive to all appeals and requests for information. In my case, it took a series of wins in court against the third party who had initiated the false claim against me to get Twitter to do the right thing and restore my account.
Aaron is now prohibited from posting tweets. This means that he can no longer tweet to @RealDonaldTrump; he’s effectively blocked. Given the recent ruling by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals concerning blocking access to politician’s accounts, is Twitter’s action legal? Maybe. Maybe not. Perhaps someone should bring the question before a court.
I Told You They Wouldn’t Like The New Rules
Remember Al Franken? He lost his job as a senator because a picture surfaced of his groping a woman while she slept. The #MeToo campaign spun up out of the feminists’ victory in taking down a senator.
The New Rules regarding sexual misconduct now have been in force for long enough to begin catching too many of the wrong people. That doesn’t fit The Narrative. It’s starting to hit too close to certain homes.
So we see the crowd that tried to peddle all sorts of unsubstantiated fables about Brett Kavanaugh begin a project to rehabilitate Al Franken, to sort of airbrush him back in.
The next thing you know, they’ll be telling us we have always been at war with Eastasia.
They’re Not Going to Like Their New Rules
Axios reports that She Guevara (aka ¡Ocasio-Cortez!) is being sued by Twitter users for blocking their accounts based on their political beliefs. The suits were filed after the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled that Donald Trump may not block Twitter users for their political beliefs, even on his personal account.
Punching Back—Legally
Andy Ngo’s lawyer says that she plans to sue “everybody” related to the assault on her client that occurred last Saturday. Ace has an excellent summary this angle of the story thus far.
The AntiFa thugs who assaulted and robbed Ngo need to be brought to justice as an example to their comrades (I use that term on purpose). Given the failure of law and order in Portland, a civil suit for damages may be the only way to hold them accountable.
IANAL, but it seems to me that Ngo may also have a viable federal civil rights claim against Portland and several of its public officials.
He may also have valid claims for defamation against a wide range of people and organizations who may have been operating with a reckless disregard for the facts.
