LOL! Hey! We’re talking here!

danielravennest

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Jolene Benoir

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"Is the power that is being wielded by Big Tech more dangerous than the hate and vitriol of certain places on the Internet?" he asked. "We took the position that big technology's overreach, this unchecked power, is equally frightening."
No. I've learned to pick up on certain terms used by the right. Big Tech is one. It came up constantly when I was arguing with my sister, who has been fed a heavy diet of right wing news.

Yes, one should be concerned about overreach by large technology companies, but if anything they have allowed hate speech to grow and be amplified. I see their current actions as a correction.

No, big tech overreach isn't equally frightening to a hate site/app like Parler. Not even close, at least at this time. Yes, we will have to be vigilant to prevent unlimited power over our lives and speech, but this? No.
 

Jolene Benoir

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A bit more from that article:

Following Amazon's decision, Parler's former chief executive said he tried to set a stricter policy that would ban material from domestic terrorists and the pro-Trump conspiracy theory QAnon. John Matze contends his stance ended up costing him his job. Republican megadonor Rebekah Mercer, a co-founder and financier of Parler, stripped the former executive of his entire stake in the company in pushing him out the door, a source close to the matter told NPR earlier this month.

Parler's updated rules expressly ban only posts that break the law.

"Parler will not knowingly allow itself to be used as a tool for crime, civil torts, or other unlawful acts," its new policy says.

Otherwise, Parler said it will do only the "absolute minimum" when it comes to removing users or the content they post.
So the CEO wanted to clamp down on hate speech a bit, but money-woman Mercer steps in and has him removed. mm..hmm. She wants to foment violence with her money. I guess she got pretty heady with her Cambridge Analytica success, but it's still not enough. She won't be happy until we're chucking knives at each other over the last loaf of bread at the store. Her views are a dog-eat-dog world, but only for us peasants.
 

Kamilah Hauptmann

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She won't be happy until we're chucking knives at each other over the last loaf of bread at the store. Her views are a dog-eat-dog world, but only for us peasants.
The only thing oligarchs fear are work stoppages and violence. Failure to general strike just delays the violence. See also: COVID IS FAKE GET BACK TO WORK THE ECONOMY.
 

Jolene Benoir

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The only thing oligarchs fear are work stoppages and violence. Failure to general strike just delays the violence. See also: COVID IS FAKE GET BACK TO WORK THE ECONOMY.
I am very interested in your "failure to strike only delays the violence" comment.

Do you think that is feasible in an economy where people are getting by day-to-day and are so taken up basic subsistence levels of living that they would go for that?

I don't see any indication of a mass uprising in that form. Quite the opposite. People seem content to bring home what they can for their families. They don't dare ask questions or look at a larger picture of how they are being held back.

ETA: The very people, who by all rights, would be first in line to revolt are watching Fox News. If anything, they are cheering on the people keeping them down. The rest of us, also deserving of revolt, are watching liberal media and there isn't much love across the aisle.
 
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Kamilah Hauptmann

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I am very interested in your "failure to strike only delays the violence" comment.
I'm thinking of Latin American countries that turned into kleptocracies. Take Venezuela, for all the shrieks from the right VENEZUELA SOCIALISM LOLOL. No, Venezuela is a kleptocracy. The country has such a huge proportion of dirt poor, like, no plumbing poor, that running things like electricity up into the slums buys a lot of votes. Cheap. And yes, it's an improvement for those people. Fantastic, more of that please. But then the Chavez family and allies just pillaged the place for their own benefit. And for more industrialized nations, Russia, Belarus.

Oligarchs and kleptocracies, they blow up and implode eventually, America just has more fat to skim and is, for now, the global reserve currency backed by a lot of military hardware. I believe the violence is coming if those oligarchs can't be kneecapped.

They know it's coming too: How tech's richest plan to save themselves after the apocalypse But being tech guys they're drama queens about it.

I'll just keep adding shit:
 

Jolene Benoir

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Figured this was as good a place as any to place this:


Collecting all unpaid income tax from the top 1% would boost revenue to the U.S. Treasury by $175 billion a year.

“We stress that our estimates are likely to be conservative with regard to the overall amount of evasion at the top,” the authors wrote.
 
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Jolene Benoir

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Dark money targeting SC and other nominees. Federalist Society rears its head to the tune of $250 million. Perhaps if these *donors* were paying their taxes, they'd have less to use to undermine our political and judicial system. Just a thought. They would still likely have much to work with.


The dark-money network has won an avalanche of victories for its donors. There are 80 partisan, 5-4 Supreme Court decisions that limit workers’ rights and access to reproductive health care, erode environmental protections, block commonsense gun safety laws, undermine civil rights, and protect corporations from courtrooms. It is an astounding 80-0 rout for big right-wing donors.
 
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Jolene Benoir

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More on Parler and Mercer. Just happened upon it in my newsfeed.


The co-founder and former CEO of Parler has sued the conservative social media platform over his firing this year. John Matze claims Parler's leadership took away his 40% stake in the company in an "arrogant theft," intimidated and bullied him in an ouster he says was illegal and left him owed millions of dollars.
Matze lost his job after quarreling with Rebekah Mercer, the conservative megadonor who bankrolled Parler. He says Mercer resisted developing policies to crack down on posts about the QAnon conspiracy theory, neo-Nazism, violence and domestic terrorism. Mercer is named as a defendant in the suit.

"Parler was now being hijacked to advance the personal political interests and personal advantages of the Defendants rather than serve as the free expression platform as originally conceived," Matze's suit says.
After the Jan. 6 attack, Mercer "sought to co-opt [Parler] as a symbol or as the 'tip of the spear' for her brand of conservatism, and plotted to force Matze out," the suit alleges.
Mercer's stake in Parler initially was listed under a holding company called NDMASCENDANT LLC. That was done to keep her investment secret, according to the suit.
 

Kamilah Hauptmann

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Matze lost his job after quarreling with Rebekah Mercer, the conservative megadonor who bankrolled Parler. He says Mercer resisted developing policies to crack down on posts about the QAnon conspiracy theory, neo-Nazism, violence and domestic terrorism. Mercer is named as a defendant in the suit.

"Parler was now being hijacked to advance the personal political interests and personal advantages of the Defendants rather than serve as the free expression platform as originally conceived," Matze's suit says.
When Matze discovered he's just a pawn in a game played by titans.
 

Jolene Benoir

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When Matze discovered he's just a pawn in a game played by titans.
Yes, he was happy to take the money in secret, then learned that she had always intended to hold the strings and wield the power.

NDMASCENDANT, LLC really, really makes me wonder what the NDM stands for.
 
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Jolene Benoir

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Puzzle piece:

Ah, the web grows. The best thing that can happen with Matze's lawsuit, imo, is this all becomes very, very public knowledge. Of course, it will not be covered by certain networks.
 
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