The Council of Truth and Wide Diversity

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LEGAL BRIEF By Max Stul Oppenheimer, Esq. Elon Musk now owns Twitter and has announced that it will return to being a platform for free speech. With e
[See the full post at: The Council of Truth and Wide Diversity]

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Perq, JohnW, lmacri, ibe98765, oldfry, Norio, DLivesInTexas, rc primak, Alex5723

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“There is a finite number of brain cells in the universe. As population increases, the number of brain cells per person must drop — it’s simple math”

What’s that?

• dark humor? not fun
• a rule or a consequence of the Eugenics of the ultra-rich? shocking

You lost me at this point, the rest of your speech went completely white on white: unreadable

_________
Y-Phil

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rc primak

As population increases, the number of brain cells per person must drop”

SURELY YOU JEST!

But I must admit it sure is a clever line and quite appealing to those of us over 80 and still functioning. I will try to remember this one when chatting with my grandkids.

 

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rc primak

If we all agreed on what is true and what isn’t, we’d also all agree on what is possible and what isn’t. Where’s the fun in that?

In the case of COVID-19, masks and vaccination, part of that “fun” is an agonizing death from a preventable respiratory infection. In the case of Climate Change and related required actions, it’s a slow, agonizing death for a large swath of life on this planet. Probably the death of civilization for us humans. And wars which will make Ukraine look like a picnic in the park. Just saying…

Oh yeah, Elon Musk will be on Mars by the time all of this plays out. So I guess you’re right — there is no need for determining what is or is not disinformation.

I’m not sure I understand how one drowns darkness…

Me neither. Disinformation, if not labeled and otherwise moderated, tends to be much louder and more persistent than real information. this is possibly due to the prevalence of bots on social media. (See one of Brian Livingston’s recent Public Defender columns for details.) The “light” of real information seldom “drowns out” the “darkness” of disinformation, especially if Musk fails to deliver on his promise to ferret out the bot accounts on Twitter and end them. He has failed to do so so far. In fact, he has banned more real accounts than his predecessor ever did. This has caused an exodus of users and a crash in Twitter’s shareholder value. Good for Mastodon however.

Both of these points make it clear that social media moderation is in a dilemma. If they don’t moderate at all, they could be held liable for harm to the public good or worse. If they do moderate, they could lose their protections from being labeled publishers instead of platforms. And they can lose (or deliberately shed) users. Sort of condemned if you do, condemned if you don’t. And injecting obvious political or social class bias into the equation muddies the waters even further.

Musk isn’t helping any of this. But he didn’t start the fire.

-- rc primak

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Perq, Sky

Thank you for another excellent, thought-provoking article!

Information censorship is antithetical to critical thinking, especially when those influencing the censorship are associated with an entity that desires to be viewed as a standard for information accuracy.  Why would any information authority – be it a government or the media – so fear the introduction of conflicting information that they would be willing to censor it?

Critical thinking is hard: it requires that you constantly ask questions and seek alternate explanations for information that you receive.  I was taught in my late teens to always question “authority” – “they” aren’t always right and often have motives that are not in “our” best interests.  “Why?” is one of the most important questions when searching for the truth.

Your high regard for the FDA is insightful, but the analogy was understood.

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Norio

I’m going to presume this went out before the stuff that went on this past week. (Yeah, it’s just been a week.) Musk has made it very clear that freedom of speech is not something he is remotely interested in on Twitter. The only changes to policy have been to add more limits on what you can say.

But, even if so, I would ask that maybe this isn’t the best topic for a tech column. Sure, commenting on what is happening at Twitter is tech stuff. But pushing your personal opinion about how freedom of speech should he handled? That seems more political than tech. And avoiding the massive dumpster fire of Twitter right now comes across as extremely biased towards Musk (which is why I presume this was written before all that).

Please try to keep the AskWoody Newsletter tech focused, not ideology focused. I know I don’t need to be taught about the basics of freedom of speech, about how preventing falsehoods is a competing interest, yet one that has value. It’s not like US law doesn’t have some exceptions for falsehoods: defamation and false advertising. And we have a ministry of truth (our court system) to determine when those are violated.

It’s always there. It’s not interesting to tell us that the two can’t be realized 100%, and you’re going to anger a lot of people if you keep defending those who killed our relatives by convincing them of medical conspiracies.

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Sky

The above post is by me. I wasn’t logged in, and didn’t realize it.

I want to make it clear I do get the Plus Newsletter. My dissatisfaction is that this guy seems more interested in political/cultural stuff instead of tech. I didn’t sign up for the letter to get the same polemics I get from libertarians online. I signed up to get the old style tech newsletter.

And I don’t really think it works to have this one exception to the general no-politics rule on this forum, either. This encourages those sorts of fights, making it seem like AskWoody is a place to have these conversations. And I would say it very much is not.

Talk about what has happened, not what possibly should happen. Report it like tech news, not punditry, please.

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Sky

Max always brings tech and law and insightful comments.  Don’t worry I will be keeping a close eye to ensure that it’s not political and the buck on what gets posted stops with me to ensure we have civil discourse.

As you point out this was put to bed before the Friday layoffs.  What’s been interesting to me to see is how much the ‘fake’ identities have blown up over the weekend as well as many of the folks I follow in security moving over to mastadon.  It will be interesting to see what happens no matter what.

I’m also a firm believer of what my Mom would always say… think it…don’t say it.  Or in this case, think it, don’t tweet it.

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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rc primak, wavy, JohnW, oldfry

so this is the motivation why OscarCP has been sentenced to silence in the forget pit; keeping the buck as universal cultural principle?

* _ the metaverse is poisonous _ *

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Sky, cyberSAR

Turkeypedal makes a good point; this newsletter article is clearly political and can’t be viewed in any other way – the article is based around big statements such as “free speech can’t be reconciled with truth” and “misinformation is good” and then goes on to expand on them, and these are political issues, not legal ones.

I’d say that banning one of the most prolific contributors to this site for making vaguely political posts while publishing political articles in the newsletter is rather hypocritical. Maybe it’s a case of the user’s political posts being left wing and the newsletter posts being right wing, I don’t know, but that would be even worse if true.

Why not ignore what you don’t like?

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SueW, wavy, cyberSAR

Ding Ding Ding! Winner post!

Never Say Never

Thanks Max for another interesting post!

Talking about everything revolving around the Earth, here is a little piece I put together back when I involved in a discussion of what is considered science amid the Covid pandemic:

Science is rarely cut in stone.

Using the Wayback machine, Peabody’s Improbable History “follows the science” as we revisit the time of Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) and his claim that the Earth revolved around the Sun.

Here are some relevant Twitter postings from back then claiming this to obviously be misinformation:
———–
– Heresy!
– Preposterous!
– Copernicus is a liar!
– The Science has clearly proven that the Earth is the center of the known universe and that the Sun revolves around the Earth!!!
– Where are the authorities to stop this misinformation?
– Copernicus should be burned at the stake!
– He must be blind!

Sky wrote:

the article is based around big statements such as “free speech can’t be reconciled with truth” and “misinformation is good” and then goes on to expand on them, and these are political issues, not legal ones.

You do realize that law and politics are closely intertwined? So are modern tech and law, except that law has not caught up with modern tech yet, and so society is caught in the gap. Many laws were already on the books before the internet age, and new ones haven’t been written yet to cover all aspects of the brave new world. There is a lot to be worked out, and it doesn’t appear that it will be easy!

I believe this topic can be discussed from a rational, polite point of view that remains non-partisan.

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Perq, rc primak, SueW, Sky, ibe98765, cyberSAR, oldfry

As for modern tech and law being closely intertwined, there most certainly are, yes, which is why Mr Oppenheimer’s articles are valuable and, as someone involved in tech, something that I look forward to reading each week.

I do appreciate that law and politics are closely intertwined, and your point about society being caught in the gap is an astute one; however, if this forum is to be politics-free, then if newsletter articles absolutely have to venture in to politics when discussing law then I would expect them to touch on the range of differing political viewpoints rather than advocating for specific political opinions, as this week’s article does.

I agree with Fred.  I miss OscarCP.  He was a prolific contributor.  While I do not know exactly what provoked his being banned from this site, my impression was that he was a thoughtful and knowledgeable contributor.

OscarCP — if you are listening — you may be gone but you are not forgotten.  It’s not the same without you.

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rc primak, Fred, wavy, Sky, Alice, JohnW, cyberSAR

Sure didn’t agree with Oscar always BUT valued his opinion. If he bugged me I’d just ignore him 🙂

Never Say Never

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rc primak, Sky, Fred, Alice, JohnW

[Fred]

cyberSAR wrote:

Sure didn’t agree with Oscar always BUT valued his opinion. If he bugged me I’d just ignore him 🙂

Sure. Let’s hope that the good Spirits will pull him out of the forgetpitts.  It seems to be all policy-political these days. Like the treatment of Snowden or Assange to name some publishers.

* _ the metaverse is poisonous _ *

• This reply was modified 10 months, 2 weeks ago by Fred.

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cyberSAR, Sky

Sky wrote:

if newsletter articles absolutely have to venture in to politics when discussing law then I would expect them to touch on the range of differing political viewpoints rather than advocating for specific political opinions, as this week’s article does.

Max is a law professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law. I suppose you might receive the same viewpoint if you sat in on one of his lectures. I don’t see a particular political slant in the article.

However, you are free to disagree…

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rc primak

The difference, I would say, between a lecture at the University of Baltimore School of Law and a newsletter article on AskWoody, is that I don’t suppose that the University of Baltimore School of Law expels its students for discussing politics on campus.

As for the article having a political slant, Mr Oppenheimer admits in the article itself that the proposition he is putting forward (and arguing for) is “provocative”. It wouldn’t be provocative if it was politically agreed upon.

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Alice

Twitter never had any appeal to me, and I never started a Twitter account.  It has even less appeal now.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We were all once "Average Users". We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems, we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

Computer Specs

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rc primak

Gale Green wrote:

I agree with Fred.  I miss OscarCP.  He was a prolific contributor.  While I do not know exactly what provoked his being banned from this site, my impression was that he was a thoughtful and knowledgeable contributor.

OscarCP — if you are listening — you may be gone but you are not forgotten.  It’s not the same without you.

Gale Green: It looks like the buck has turned into a cent, a depression everywhere.

* _ the metaverse is poisonous _ *

I have followed this thread from the very beginning (including all the postings that were removed) and have kept quiet about what I observed. The constant postings about OscarCP being “unfairly” blocked must have been made by those that did not read the postings I read from OscarCP. His postings were a direct attack at another poster who asked for documentation to back up another poster’s wild claim that there were specific laws to govern certain actions. The question was not directed to OscarCP and OscarCP’s response included extreme language as well as much bold typing (which appeared as screaming). After I read the post I wondered how long before management would try to stop such posts. I commend Susan as she tried to get OscarCP to calm his “tone” (not what his view point was) and even tried to resolve things “offline” and I fully believe that Susan gave OscarCP the opportunity calm down and not be blocked. In my opinion OscarCP was banned (blocked) not for his “political views” but for the way he pushed his view point. Freedom of speech does NOT mean freedom to be rude, offensive, and attacking. Nearly all forums (and Congress) have rules about how we can and cannot express our view point. Actually I think this forum is very liberal in allowing posters to express their view point and even allows non tech postings.

I too will miss OscarCP’s input, but it was his decision not to abide by the rules of the forum and to express his view point in more calm ways.

HTH, Dana:))

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rc primak, SueW, access-mdb, NaNoNyMouse, JohnW

I did not find any info for that on line (maybe some posts were deleted?), just a statement from SB that Oscar was NOT blocked. Maybe some links to support what you have said would be appreciated by more than me.

🍻

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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Fred

I posted my comments in this thread since this thread has all the comments about OscarCP being blocked (look at the profile for OscarCP and it is labeled “Blocked”).

The thread with OscarCP’s attack on b the manager is in the following thread which was about another Max’s articles.  It also appears that none of the posting had been deleted.

https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/space-flight-is-impossible/

I’m not privy to any information other than the postings I read, but in my opinion those postings by OscarCP were way out of line and unacceptable.  You can draw your own opinion.

HTH, Dana:))

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rc primak

wavy wrote:

I did not find any info for that on line (maybe some posts were deleted?), just a statement from SB that Oscar was NOT blocked. Maybe some links to support what you have said would be appreciated by more than me.

Links will be fine. But the statement that OscarCP is “not” blocked is very different that this website says, how liberal Drcard:)) looks at it.

But for one throwing a dollar, this is just my 2cts fwiw

Screenshot is from just some minutes ago.

 

 

* _ the metaverse is poisonous _ *

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rc primak

“Liberal”  willing to respect or accept behavior or opinions different from one’s own; open to new ideas:

Fred, I’m assuming you are merely acknowledging that Dr. Card has an open mind. If you intended for it to be name calling, we keep a respectful place around here.

This thread is now drifting and is closed.

The buck stops with me.

 

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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rc primak

We all have our bad days!

Never Say Never

Fred wrote:

how liberal Drcard:)) looks at it

Ding! Ding! Ding! Now that is a political comment regarding your opinion about an AskWoody user, probably something a bit out of bounds around here.

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rc primak