Social Media and the state

[Essence Lumin]

I think a lot more people around the world speak English than Spanish... Europeans, Indians, and Asians are all more likely to know English. And Brazil and Canada are not small!

I'm not sure what to make of that. Portuguese is the primary language of Brazil. English is the primary language of Canada outside of Quebec.

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

I'm not sure what to make of that. Portuguese is the primary language of Brazil. English is the primary language of Canada outside of Quebec.

I agree. I was responding to WeFlossDaily's comment.

 

[Soen Eber]

I'm not sure what to make of that. Portuguese is the primary language of Brazil. English is the primary language of Canada outside of Quebec.

It's because of white people drawing lines on a map. Again.

 

[Free]

What a shit show. (I mean this thread.)

 

[Noodles]

I've studied languages on and off for much of my life.... I learn some, then forget it all from lack of use. Languages are a very perishable skill, and I think it's very common to learn some then forget it with lack of use.

I do think there is some value in learning new tongues just because it teaches you to rethink why your native one is the way it is, but for many of us, there isn't really any practical reason to learn any other language that well.

On the first. And my, first hand experience. Its perishable, but there is a good chance its "still there" if you needed it. In high school, I had 4 years of Japanese. Some, 25+ years ago (god when did Inget old). I didn't remeber any of it really, except "Midori no tomago to hamu oh tabemasen" from when we translated Green Eggs in Ham one day.

But when I started doing it in Duolingo last year, a LOT just sort of, came back. I breezed right through the katakana and hiragana and wasn't even using the phonetic option that duolingo has.

On the second point there, I just wanted to agree. I have always found languaged interesting, but only in recent years started actually studying them. It really gives a lot of appreciation for the structure, and interesting alternative ways to structure sentences, even in English.

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

What a shit show. (I mean this thread.)

It's not THAT bad. We've had much, MUCH bigger shit shows here... It just meandered a bit. I'll take meandering over a big flame war....

 

[WeFlossDaily]

I don't think it was that bad. I can agree to disagree.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

I'm honestly not seeing the sort of content your talking about overflowing in massive piles of hatred in such a way that it needs more laws to constantly ensure that anything we disagree with is promptly removed. And since much of it is already illegal, or at the very least, against the ToS of the social media services you're concerned about applying external regulation to from Britain, then I do not see a need for implementing overreaching British laws that I believe would ultimately lead to an decrease of free speech throughout the world. But then igen, I'm a centrist and largely A-political on a lot of issues that other people constantly lose their minds about, so it is always possible that some of what you consider harmful content, I don't even notice or care about. But, like how far is the British government prepared to take this? For example, do they plan on censoring the flat-earthers out of existence? The ideology behind it is arguable harmful, as it makes those who begin to think their might be something to it much stupider than they'd be otherwise and creates a harmful cycle of nonsense that could be argued is quite damaging to society. Of course this is a sort of joke example. There are all kinds of religious and political ideologies that could be censored. Hell, we could wipe out entire languages while we're at it. I'd love to see the russian language go into decline. How do I declare that everything written in russian is hate-speech and convince the British government to force Twitter to remove. Perhaps there is a special form or something that I can fill out.

What do you make of this stream of antisemitic hatred and, since X's moderation is clearly unwilling to deal with it, how do you think it should be dealt with?

Adam Schwarz (@adamjschwarz.bsky.social)

Over on X, I'm receiving antisemitic death threats and being told they don't break the platform's rules. To British MPs that follow me, this is a brazen violation of the Online Safety Act. Please ensure the rule of law is enforced against Elon Musk and X. No business should be above the law.

bsky.app

 

[WeFlossDaily]

What do you make of this stream of antisemitic hatred

I stand with Israel, although it's difficult the justify their actions at this point. I've been called worse.

and, since X's moderation is clearly unwilling to deal with it, how do you think it should be dealt with?

But is it a crime? I'm being serious. It certainly looks ugly and nasty and I don't like the looks of it.

I looked at the guy's profile. It says:

Writer & Political Commentator | Monitoring threats to democracy from authoritarianism and tech oligarchy.

Doesn't sound extremely fascist to me at all, lol. I did some scrolling . . .

I don't like him or his politics. I don't like Elon, either. Yet that common dislike for Elon is not enough to make me like this reporter. In this case, I think ppl are trolling him because they don't like his political viewpoint (which comes across as very much one-sided and not at all objective to me), and he is trying to counter by playing the role of the victim, which is only feeding into it more likely. Like, why do all of these people even know that he is Jewish? Who put that out there? Him? Or them? But what to do about it? I don't know what you want to do about it? I mean I do. But want you want in this instance isn't possible. Twitter appears to be fine with both allowing a British journalist to use their platform to criticism them and sees no issue with allowing people to give him push back, even if it is politically incorrect. This seems fine to me. Yes, the push-back is a bit offensive, because it isn't politically correct, but just being politically incorrect is not necessarily a crime. This isn't hatred, this is just trolling. Dude is literally advocating for laws to be passed to make it illegal for people to be mean to him on the internet. It's kind of a wet blanket thing to do.

 

[Katheryne Helendale]

On the first. And my, first hand experience. Its perishable, but there is a good chance its "still there" if you needed it. In high school, I had 4 years of Japanese. Some, 25+ years ago (god when did Inget old). I didn't remeber any of it really, except "Midori no tomago to hamu oh tabemasen" from when we translated Green Eggs in Ham one day.

But when I started doing it in Duolingo last year, a LOT just sort of, came back. I breezed right through the katakana and hiragana and wasn't even using the phonetic option that duolingo has.

I really, really want to learn Japanese. I was able to learn a few phrases when I was stationed there, but that was over 22 years ago. I don't know what I would ever use it for, but it would be fun to learn. I'd probably be able to speak it better than being able to read it. The Hiragana and Katakana I could handle, but I don't think I'd be alive long enough to learn even half of the Kanji.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

I stand with Israel, although it's difficult the justify their actions at this point. I've been called worse.

But is it a crime? I'm being serious. It certainly looks ugly and nasty and I don't like the looks of it.

I looked at the guy's profile. It says:

Doesn't sound extremely fascist to me at all, lol. I did some scrolling . . .

I don't like him or his politics. I don't like Elon, either. Yet that common dislike for Elon is not enough to make me like this reporter. In this case, I think ppl are trolling him because they don't like his political viewpoint (which comes across as very much one-sided and not at all objective to me), and he is trying to counter by playing the role of the victim, which is only feeding into it more likely. Like, why do all of these people even know that he is Jewish? Who put that out there? Him? Or them? But what to do about it? I don't know what you want to do about it? I mean I do. But want you want in this instance isn't possible. Twitter appears to be fine with both allowing a British journalist to use their platform to criticism them and sees no issue with allowing people to give him push back, even if it is politically incorrect. This seems fine to me. Yes, the push-back is a bit offensive, because it isn't politically correct, but just being politically incorrect is not necessarily a crime. This isn't hatred, this is just trolling. Dude is literally advocating for laws to be passed to make it illegal for people to be mean to him on the internet. It's kind of a wet blanket thing to do.

If you can't see what's wrong with attacking someone for being Jewish (or Black or Asian or whatever) rather than because of what he's said (in this case, calling attention to what he sees as the Reform Party's double standards) I don't really don't know what to say to you.

 

[Beebo Brink]

My sentiments entirely. Except... The reason why I'd never actually support or advocate this is that such a power given to the State makes the State extremely vulnerable to being abused by a nascent tyrant.

My country has just been handed over to right-wing extremists because we DID NOT suppress outright lies, misinformation and blatant hatred.

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

My country has just been handed over to right-wing extremists because we DID NOT suppress outright lies, misinformation and blatant hatred.

Fuckery: 1
Principled stands: 0

 

[WeFlossDaily]

If you can't see

Hold on. Sidestepping what somebody said and then making a personal attack is an extremely weak argument. I also don't care for what you are trying to insinuate and reject it in full.

But to address the what you said in full, which is something you just completely failed to do in reguard to my response to your example:

If you can't see what's wrong with attacking someone for being Jewish (or Black or Asian or whatever) rather than because of what he's said (in this case, calling attention to what he sees as the Reform Party's double standards)

I'll reiterate: I don't think they are attacking him because he's Jewish. I think they are trying to piss him off by insulting him in a politically incorrect manner by trying to be as intentionally offensive as they possibly can. I also think they are primarily attacking him because he is fucking stupid. This doesn't mean I don't understand discrimination, it just means I think he is fucking stupid.

I don't really don't know what to say to you.

Due to what you tried to insinuate about me, I've got a few choice words for you: Британский военный корабль, иди нахуй.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Hold on. Sidestepping what somebody said and then making a personal attack is an extremely weak argument. I also don't care for what you are trying to insinuate and reject it in full.

But to address the what you said in full, which is something you just completely failed to do in reguard to my response to your example:


I'll reiterate: I don't think they are attacking him because he's Jewish. I think they are trying to piss him off by insulting him in a politically incorrect manner by trying to be as intentionally offensive as they possibly can. I also think they are primarily attacking him because he is fucking stupid. This doesn't mean I don't understand discrimination, it just means I think he is fucking stupid.


Due to what you tried to insinuate about me, I've got a few choice words for you: Британский военный корабль, иди нахуй.

I'm afraid the distinction you make between someone hurling racist abuse at someone because they're racist and someone hurling racist abuse at someone not because they're racist but because they want to piss him off is beyond me, and I don't think I'd tell the recipient of such abuse that he was fucking stupid for not seeing the difference, either.

I really don't have anything more to say to you.

 

[WeFlossDaily]

I'm afraid the distinction you make between someone hurling racist abuse at someone because they're racist and someone hurling racist abuse at someone not because they're racist but because they want to piss him off is beyond me,

It's just what I think is going on there.

and I don't think I'd tell the recipient of such abuse that he was fucking stupid for not seeing the difference, either.

His stupidity goes much deeper than that. In fact, I'd say it knows no bounds. He's arguing a hostile viewpoint toward a platform while using the platform he's criticizing to criticize it. It gets dumber, though. His argument is basically that he wants to make it illegal for people to disagree with him by restricting anything they say by turning it into something else, much like how you tried to counter my response to your example by insinuating that I must not understand discrimination. Additionally, he doesn't want to argue using fair debate tactics. He instead wants to turn it into a weird game in which he is the victim. His politics are also far too one-sided for me to take seriously. Go to far from center to one side or the other and I'm just going to assume somebody is a brain-dead puppet regurgitating whatever talking points their political party places in front of them and lacks any sort of critical thinking skills.

I really don't have anything more to say to you.

Narcissists love to try to control the conversation. Try is the keyword here. I could be a total bitch about how you tried to insinuate that I don't understand discrimination and rub your nose in it over the course of the next few pages and make it into a real shit-show, but I'm also perfectly content with having the last word in this case. Or, if that's too far beyond your ability to understand: if you don't want me to reply to you, then shut up.

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Narcissists love to try to control the conversation.

Fucking lol.

 

[WeFlossDaily]

Fucking lol.

Too much? I struggle with striking just the right tone of bitchiness sometimes.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Oh dear

China ‘in secret talks to sell TikTok to Elon Musk’

A US ban on the app is due to take force one day before Donald Trump takes office — and Musk is close to both the president-elect and the Chinese Communist Party

www.thetimes.com

Evernote Link

 

[Noodles]

Oh dear

China ‘in secret talks to sell TikTok to Elon Musk’

A US ban on the app is due to take force one day before Donald Trump takes office — and Musk is close to both the president-elect and the Chinese Communist Party

www.thetimes.com

Evernote Link

First Vine, next TikTok, for video short platforms that Twitter kills.