Open Letter to Twitter’s Head of Trust & Safety (and Censorship)
CJ Hopkins
The following is an open letter to Ella G. Irwin, Head of Twitter Trust and Safety, and Elon Musk, CEO of Twitter, and anyone else at Twitter, Inc. who is responsible for censoring political speech and defaming people with fake “advisory” labels, among other such “visibility-filtering” tactics.
I am publishing it as an open letter, not to bore everyone to death with my personal problems, but because the censorship and defamation I have suffered at the hands of Twitter for at least two years is an example of how the decentralized network of global corporations, Intelligence agencies, governments, non-governmental governing entities, “anti-disinformation” outfits, and other parties that together comprise what Michael Shellenberger and Matt Taibbi have dubbed the “Censorship Industrial Complex” are evolving into an Orwellian Ministry-of-Truth-type apparatus “with the power to control the information environment in ways that determine what people believe to be true and what is false.”
Twitter, Inc. has been censoring my political commentary and maliciously defaming me (i.e., damaging my reputation and income as an author) for approximately two years. Twitter has been doing this by concealing the Tweets of my “Consent Factory” account with fake “age-restricted adult content” labels, deceiving Twitter users into believing I have been tweeting content depicting “adult nudity and sexual behavior,” or “excessively gory content, sexual violence and/or assault, bestiality or necrophilia.” Twitter’s actions have damaged both my book sales and my reputation, globally. Defamation is a tort. I could sue the corporation for damages in several jurisdictions.
I have no interest in doing that, currently. What I do want, however, is a real explanation of why and exactly how Twitter, Inc. censored and defamed me for approximately two years. I want this explanation — a real explanation with documentation, not self-serving corporate-speak — not for personal reasons, primarily, but because I believe people need to be able to understand how powerful corporations like Twitter (and Facebook, and Google, and all the other entities and parties I mentioned above) are “visibility filtering” our collective reality.
The fact that these powerful corporations (and other entities) are doing this, not just on the macro level, but also on the micro level, to writers like me, who, let’s face it, are not exactly world-famous “influencers,” and to “non-public persons” who are basically just using social media to talk to their friends, does not bode well for the future of our societies. This kind of micro-perception-manipulation, this “visibility filtering” of our collective reality, goes way beyond traditional censorship. It is a hallmark of all totalitarian systems, which attempt to control, not only what people say, but what they think, how they think, how they perceive events, and facts, and each other.
Totalitarian systems do not spring into being fully formed. They develop slowly, gradually, unrecognized at first, and then ignored, usually until it is too late. We do not recognize the formation of new totalitarian systems because we are forever looking backwards instead of forwards, preparing for the storm that has passed, expecting history to repeat, rather than rhyme. Blinded by hindsight, we do not recognize the monster that is taking shape right in front of us. We glimpse a claw here, a tooth there, the flash of a pitiless blue eye, but fail to assemble the bits into an image of the beast entire, until it is inexorably upon us.
Anyway, here’s my open letter … one more bit, for the record.
* * *
To: Ella G. Irwin, Head of Trust and Safety, Twitter, Inc.
cc: Elon Musk
Dear Ms. Irwin,
This open letter is further to our brief correspondence on May 3, 2023 (on Twitter) regarding Twitter’s censorship and defamation of my @consent_factory Twitter account with fake “age-restricted adult content” labels for approximately two years.
First, thank you for taking action to cease and desist from further censorship and defamation. From what I can tell, it appears that Twitter is removing or has removed the fake, defamatory “adult content” labels from the @consent_factory Twitter account’s Tweets (or at least going back to late 2021).
I trust that these fake “age-restricted adult content” labels will be removed from all of the account’s Tweets in due course, and I appreciate your prompt attention to this matter. Please accept my apology for claiming that you had lied about taking action on this. I admit, after two years of being censored and defamed, and having my complaints ignored by Twitter, I have become rather skeptical regarding your company’s behavior and statements.
That said, it is clear now that you were not lying, and that you have taken action to have the fake, defamatory labels in question removed, and I apologize for publicly claiming otherwise.
Assuming the process is eventually completed and all of the fake, defamatory “adult content” labels that Twitter has been censoring the @consent_factory Twitter account with are in fact removed, I would appreciate substantive answers to the following questions:
1) Why and exactly how did Twitter start censoring and defaming my Consent Factory account with these fake, defamatory “adult content” labels?
When I asked you to explain that in our correspondence, you replied:
Clearly, the account did not “post multiple tweets containing sensitive content (nazi imagery) that resulted in the sensitive content label being applied,” because Twitter has now removed the fake, defamatory “adult content” labels from those Tweets, which contain the same “Nazi imagery” they originally contained.
As I am sure you have noted, the so-called “Nazi imagery” contained in those Tweets was simply historical photos of the Nazi Germany era, which were used to illustrate critical points I was making in opposition to totalitarianism, and not at all any type of celebration or approval of totalitarianism or fascism. Any rational adult, seeing those Tweets, could not possibly mistake the anti-fascist/totalitarian intent behind them.
Also, the fact that the fake, defamatory “adult content” labels are being removed gradually, in stages, rather than all at once, suggests that the application of the fake labels (or “interstitials”) in question was not the result of a blanket algorithm applied to the account. Additionally, not every Tweet (or every Tweet containing an image) by this account was censored with a fake “interstitial,” which suggests that something other than a blanket algorithm was at work.
In any event, having been censored and defamed for two years by Twitter, Inc., I think I am entitled to an actual explanation of how this started, including documentation of any intra-company discussions or “log” notes in connection with the decision to begin censoring and defaming the account. Your substantive response to this request will demonstrate that the “new” Twitter is, in fact, committed to transparency, and free speech, and not just another element of the “Censorship Industrial Complex,” as Michael Shellenberger and Matt Taibbi dubbed it, before Mr. Musk cut off access to the “Twitter Files.”
2) What, if any, other restrictions/visibility filtering tactics have been applied to my @consent_factory Twitter account from 2020 to the present?
Again, I would appreciate documentation of any such “visibility filtering” or other “restrictions” and/or the removal thereof. Having been censored and maliciously defamed by Twitter for years, I believe I am entitled to know how my “visibility” is being and/or has been “filtered.”
3) What steps is Twitter, Inc. now taking to cease and desist from the type of malicious defamation the company has been engaging in to suppress political speech and damage the reputation and income of writers, like me, and independent media outlets, like, for example, OffGuardian?
Twitter blocks links to all OffGuardian articles with a different fake, defamatory “interstitial” warning:
There is nothing “unsafe” about OffGuardian, or any content published on the website that could possibly “lead to real-world harm.” It is a small, independent news and commentary outlet. Twitter, Inc. is using the fake “interstitial” warning above to discourage users from visiting the site, and thus damaging OffGuardian’s reputation and income. This is just one further example (i.e., in addition to my case). Twitter’s continued use of fake, defamatory, “interstitial” labels to suppress political views is relatively widespread, as far as I can tell.
Moreover, recent updates to Twitter’s Platform Use Guidelines make it clear that Twitter intends to continue using these “interstitials,” which is worrying, given the fact that the company has been using them to deceive people, and to suppress political speech, and to damage the reputations and incomes of small businesses and sole proprietors.
That’s it for my questions, for now.
Again, thank you for finally putting an end to the defamation that Twitter, Inc. has been subjecting me to, for the last two years. I must say, it is a bit disappointing that it took a happenstance encounter on Twitter to connect with someone with the power to do that.
Frankly, given Mr. Musk’s initial and ongoing publicity campaign to portray himself as a champion of free speech, and a stalwart opponent of censorship, and Twitter under his leadership as the antipode of “old, bad, censorship-happy Twitter,” I had expected that immediate steps would be taken to … you know, stop deceiving people, and maliciously defaming people, and manipulating the “visibility” of political views according to some unarticulated ideological schema, but I guess these things take time.
I look forward to your substantive response to the above questions.
Very truly yours,
C. J. Hopkins
PS. Should you happen to run into Mr. Musk there at Twitter HQ, you might also want to suggest that he resume providing access to the “Twitter Files” to reporters like Matt and Michael Shellenberger, and Alex Gutentag (if I can put a word in for her). Doing so would demonstrate that the “Twitter Files” thing was not just a limited hangout, and a PR stunt designed to whitewash the company and kill public interest in the nefarious activities of Twitter, Inc., and other powerful global corporations, and their partners at the FBI, DHS, whatever that CIS or CISA acronym stands for, and … well, you know, “other agencies.”
CJ Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and political satirist based in Berlin. His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing and Broadway Play Publishing, Inc. His dystopian novel, Zone 23, is published by Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant. Volumes I and II of his Consent Factory Essays are published by Consent Factory Publishing, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Amalgamated Content, Inc. He can be reached at cjhopkins.com or consentfactory.org.
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Y’all have to quit the social media, as the perpetual belly-aching reminds me of spoiled 12 year olds.
The shitheads cannot make money if the product is refused.
Just read yesterday that Elon’s CEO plan for Twitter is a product of the WEF. Open your eyes Tucker Carlson. You may want to rethink your new platform. Build it and they will come. Rumble may be a better option.
Who do you think runs Twitter?
Jan 2022: Musk-worship, space dust and innovative dead ends: society goes Pfiz
https://moneycircus.substack.com/p/its-all-over-bar-the-tyranny
I don’t use Twitter but there is blatant censorship across the mainstream media now too. Whatever their in-house ‘rules’ say, I know first-hand that The Guardian is rejecting readers’ comments for political reasons, ie because the comments don’t support their various political positions, not because there is even any ‘conspiracy theory’ element. You can’t even criticise the strikers in the UK – which surely is a basic political debate. Corbyn is virtually ‘verboten’, as is any support of the Tory immigration plans.
I have great empathy with CJ Hopkins, having experienced the same censorship myself. I am the author of a free ebook The Pattern of history. (https://patternofhistory.wordpress.com/ ). The book argues that humanity is on the brink of another world war, following a pattern in which every empire in history has eventually faced the war it was trying to avoid – its own destruction. And unless that is realized there is no possibility of avoiding nuclear Armageddon.
My views are not well shared, yet considered dangerous to twitter, from which I have been banned (presumably by an algorithm, initially at least). I was informed by the Twitter message that the decision was taken after “careful consideration”, and my appeal got nowhere. If they can silence small people like me they can silence everyone. I wish Mr Hopkins well in his own campaign. And I ask people out there to share the above link anywhere they can – in the name of freedom.
My appeal to Twitter is quoted below:
Dear Twitter Support Team,
I wish to appeal your suspension of my account for allegedly breaching Twitter Rules on Platform Manipulation and Spam. If you check you will see the level of traffic could not ‘artificially amplify or suppress information’. Nor would that be my intention. Nor would I have any ability (or intention) to manipulate or disrupt ‘people’s experience of Twitter’.
There is no commercial element to my activity, but to share my ideas (and contribute to debate). To this purpose people can download my free e-book. If they wish to read on Kindle there is a nominal charge of $.0.99 required by Amazon. If someone wants a hard copy there is a charge of $10.99 to cover printing, post and packaging.
I am sure you will reverse the decision on consideration.
Many thanks,
Peter McLoughlin
You’d have to change the format to a more fictional story, am I correct in any event those born ’40 who progessed to university levels would discuss such things in London pubs. A lad my age called it a writer’s cramp., ironic seeing he used a typewriter.
‘Dear Twitter
As your owner/publisher is worth countless billions, I could actually sue him into the next galaxy, short of him proving to the world that he will buy bent judges, tell the CIA to harass the US DoJ to assign a bent judge to my case etc etc.
But as that would prove me to be just as grasping, just as malign and just as vindictive as all the psychos that think that power makes them important people, I’ll park that for as long as you decide to engage constructively and openly about matters of concern to me.
But never forget that I will sue you all into the next galaxy if it’s the only way of restoring my dignity and that of the countless other victims of the false ‘adult-content’ scam of the past three years.
I didn’t get where I am today without Twitter marking me down as a threat to totalitarian tyranny, did I?
Yours currently peacefully
ABC’
The CIA is investing in several tech companies that focus on social media data mining and surveillance.The companies, which provide unique tools to mine data on Instagram and Twitter, are receiving funds through the CIA’s venture capital firm, In-Q-Tel.
‘birds of a feather’
https://qz.com/1145669/googles-true-origin-partly-lies-in-cia-and-nsa-research-grants-for-mass-surveillance
Silicon Valley is heavily infiltrated by Unit 8200 and spying Israeli startups. Ghislaine Maxwell’s sister blackmailed Gates into funding a lot of these companies, which have never made a profit. Peddling virus ridden spyware has long been a Maxwell family business, coupled with the Epstein operation.
It’s possible that CJ is being a little bit hard on the Censorship/ Disinformation Industrial Complex.
After all, it is our only growth industry now.
And where would Marianna Spring and Nina Jankowicz be without the CDIC?
They’d probably be totally unemployable, on the dole or on the game.
It does at least keep them off the streets.
That’s what you have to bear in mind.
We have to find something for these women to do.
And there are only so many jobs for road sweepers and brussels sprout pickers.
The more “inequality” (poverty) spreads, the easier it is to get most people to do the most criminal or degrading work.
Indeed, it’s the rationale behind all organized crime – not just the mafia, but also Congress, Senate, Supreme Court, Ministry of Finance, etc.
Still having some diffiulty uttering the c-word, I see.
The problem is capitalism itself, not the wrong kind of it. -Caitlin Johnstone, 2020
Thsankfully, never joined Twitter. Mu gut instincts said, NO!
I get you completely on that.
Still, Tweety Pie has its uses for genuinely creative people, since there is no need to regard it exclusively as a platform for political protest.
I’m not a spokesman, or even an enthusiastic user, but Tw. can certainly help spread the word for people who are doing good things.
Big Brother’s bearing down on us and all that’s left to do is rattle the bars of one’s digital cage?
You wanna see censored??
malvernthenovel.com
From the third link in the article.
“Around the world, politicians have either just passed or are on the cusp of passing sweeping new laws, which would allow governments to censor ordinary citizens on social media and other Internet platforms.”
Hmm. Politicians. People that other people vote for to do what the quote says they do. I wonder how we can stop those darn politicians.
The meaning we commonly attach to the word “representative” is this: someone elected to do what the citizens of the nation want, so that it is expected from a representative to do all the good things they promised to their constituency in their campaign such as less taxes, new jobs, affordable housing, better and affordable healthcare, and so on.
However, the sense in which the word “representative” is officially and legally used and which is taken as the basis for action in the real world is: someone who is implicitly acknowledged – through voting – to be the bearer of the person of each citizen in the nation, so that whatever action that the representative makes is implicitly assumed to be made by every citizen, which then bears the responsibility of the consequences, not the representative.
This is why the representatives are never worried about what they do, can sleep at night and live carefree: they are legally unaccountable, because they legally did nothing; they just impersonate us. We did everything and are legally accountable.
You can find more on this in Hobbes’ Leviathan. It’s an eye opener.
There are other important aspets to the scam of representative democracy. E.g., party discipline and working towards re-election. See articles by Larry Romanoff.
Thanks. I’ll look it up.
Isn’t it strange how they’re all doing exactly the same thing at the same time all over the world? It almost makes you think there’s a small group of people controlling everything. I wonder who they could be? No, I’m sure that’s just a figment of my imagination, some conspiracy theory. Probably just pure coincidence.
this to me equates to all those who have been ‘onside’ for the last 3 years only forsaking all, getting their photo ID and going to vote/deface their voting cards at the local elections in the UK last week – they are all hypocrites, full of ego and really do need to get a LIFE
Worse yet is shadowbanning on Facebook that just does not forward posts. I have over 500 friends yet a mere rotating constantly shifting window of about a dozen ever see my posts. Meanwhile others with same political but less investigative and positive actions views get posts with hundreds of interactions. It’s a Stasi and until we bust this wide open, it’s their kitchen cooking up dopes.
That’s why I left. I had 3,000 F. friends & so many wouldn’t receive the articles I posted, or comments received on my page.
This doesn;t just happen with political comments. Even innocuous posts, such as posting wildlife pics, are shadow-banned from most of your friends. Just saying. Can’t figure out why that is – serves no purpose.
It normalises the control of expression, and promotes the omnipotence of GloboCap.
Just reminding us who’s in control.
They don’t need a reason.
Endorsing RFK jr and now open letters to Santa clause.
Diagnoses = Psychosis. 😂
You’re on drugs CJ.
To be honest, I think the tone of the letter is too soft. It’s somewhere between, not really realising how psychotic these individuals actually are, and, please, please I’d really like to be a twitter club member again, please let me in.
some folk may find what is contained in a short video embedded here of interest:
https://hiddeninthecrag.org/2022/11/28/the-yanukas-spirit/
Any site that allows FREE EXPRESSION is going to be put into the naughty list / database that is distributed by TPTB. Counter arguments and questioning of the official narrative cannot be tolerated.
While attempting to get Twitter to acknowledge their hypocrisy is noble, also an utter and complete waste of time, IMHO.
The links at the top of CJ’s piece are very important and link to articles by Michael Shellenberger and Jacob Siegel. While to a certain extent these revelations are Limited Hangouts, these journalists (including Taibbi) have exposed a vast new government Leviathan of a censorship/disinformation industrial complex. It’s not MSM that is controlling this, it’s the deep state. This vast new apparatus for censorship and indeed mind control, is a hallmark of a totalitarian system. We need to wrap our heads around this. Read the links.
Lol an open letter? that will do it. These opposing dialectic posts are getting tedious.
Well, don’t say that our Overlords do not occasionally warn us. Such as the name of this deep state media, Twitter. Probably should have named it Fecal Transplant. Be a twit and use it. (It is impossible to avoid it in most news reports. I simply rapidly scroll past all such inserts. It is obviously part of the NewSpeak agenda.)
NewSpeak agenda = dumbing down. Definitely an agenda behind that.
Situation I. In a bookstore:
A. – Good afternoon, I’d like to buy this book; how much is it, please?
B. – Yes of course, that’s $30.
A. – I only have $29 and no credit card; but it’s only $1 short; can I have it, please?
B. – I’m sorry sir, but that $30, not a penny less.
A. – I understand. May I have it now and give you $1 tomorrow.
B. – I’m extremely sorry sir but we don’t do these sort of transactions.
A. But I have to have the book; it’s…
B. – (Talking through his handy) Come over security, we seem to have trouble here!
C. – Sorry sir; I must ask you to leave now.
A. – But I only…
(At this point C abruptly grabs A and drags him outside the store.)
Situation II. Online communication with Twitter.
A. – Good afternoon, I’d like to open an account that allows me to use your digital servers, please.
B. – Of course; here are the requirements and Terms of Service. I must tell you that our terms are updated and republished regularly. Read carefully please, there is time.
A. – (Rapidly skimming though the papers because he is anxious to start posting) Yes, fine. I agree.
B. – Sign here please….Your account has been habilitated sir. You may start posting.
A. – Thanks.
(A few days laters.)
A. – Hello, I’d like to know why this post of mine has not been published?
B. – Let me see … Yes, because it infringes this and this clause of the TOS. I did urge you to read carefully the contract sir.
A. – But I didn’t write anything out of the ordinary…
B. – If you care to read this clause sir, it says the company reserves the right no to publish a content if it infringes any of the preceding clauses or otherwise if the content is deemed contrary to the company’s interest or business with its partners, and your post was deemed by our analysts contrary to the company’s interests. We are not obligated to justify our actions vis-à-vis our users sir, that’s in the TOS too. Sorry sir and good afternoon.
You’ll find that most people will justify the action taken against A in situation I but will find that he was unjustly censored in situation II, even if the two actions are based on the same basic principle of self-interest – making profit – that commands capitalist investments.
There is a fix for all of that. Every consumer should have his/her very own Terms of Service which ANY entity wishing to deal with him/her must sign and agree to.
Neither a store nor an online entity would ever agree to such an insult to them as a Consumer Terms of Service. Yet consumers are supposed to ignore the insult and just move on.
Of course, the bigger problem is consumers insist on consuming, be it goods or services.
One thing is certain: it’s just a matter of time and totalitarian creep before we the people will be required to sign a Terms of Service for living.
We already have a terms of service that’s one sided and doesn’t display all the hidden clauses. It’s called a BIRTH CERTIFICATE. So too, any government ID, SS or a drivers license.
We are all held hostage through our citizenship (slavery within admiralty law) and every human’s forced reliance on fiat money which is a privately owned cartel that controls the entire world, through all the unlawful, non democratic governments I will refer to as – The State.
What the hell do you think taxes are? Laws? Fines? Fees? Social Security? Jobs? That’s our forced terms of service where there’s no opt out. And where all the clauses are hidden so almost nobody understands that the Constitutions of all Governments aren’t legal, binding or lawful. They only apply to the original signatories within any contract or agreement. And all of the taxes and laws of THE STATE are unlawful and forced at the barrel of a gun.
We literally pay (through forced labor, taxes and simply existing) for staying alive every single day. Even then, THEY (governments and their real owners) attempt to kill us off using poison injections, lethal medicines, illegal drugs, alcohol, violent imagery, economic warfare, militaries, poisoned water, poisoned air, tainted food, and carcinogens, mutagens and endocrine disrupters in all products and housing. Why? Because The State allows THEM (the cartel who actually own The State through incorporation and shell companies) to make more money from our early deaths, than letting us die of natural causes. Governments make VAST SUMS OF MONEY FROM THOSE WHO DIE EARLY through vaccine generated cancers and especially from those who die without wills.
Do you live in a house? Drive a car, ride a bike or public transport? Eat food and drink water? Use a bank account? Wear shoes and clothing? Brush your teeth? Wash yourself? Have utilities? Running water, electricity and sewer? Or do you walk around naked, dirty, shoeless, and pee in your yard, and sh*t in the street?
Have you ever paid for a repair person? A plumber? An electrician? Used a server or cook when you ate out? Had Insurance? Used a lawyer or accountant? Had a haircut? Received or sent mail or a package? Used a manned checkout at a grocery or drug store? Spoken to customer service on the phone or in person? Purchased an item online? Bought shares? Had an IRA or a pension? Had any education?
We have no choice but to consume a certain amount to simply stay alive and carry on within the confines of The State, society and minimum standards of hygiene.
But you don’t clarify that a certain amount of consumption within families, groups and by individuals is necessary. It’s all a part of life and the life cycle of the earth. Instead you tacitly imply it’s evil and wrong for humans to simply exist.
Very few humans live an agrarian lifestyle. The State has PURPOSEFULLY driven most people off the land and rural communities and into the prisons they call cities. It’s the same in every country. The property taxes are so high in North America, it’s almost impossible to exist without a supplemental income.
If you want to discuss EXCESS CONSUMPTION then choose your words more carefully.
I would bet you don’t practise zero waste, don’t grow your own food, don’t homestead, and don’t use water from a well you dug and pumped yourself.
Your hypocrisy and misanthropy is glaring. You are truly worse than the controllers because instead of taking personal responsibility and accountability for The State you never expose but instead endorse (and probably work/ed for), you obfuscate and attempt to blame the clueless, brainwashed, victims of The State.
A plethora of words doesn’t necessarily make a point stronger or more compelling.
Regardless, a Consumer Terms of Service is a damn good idea. I stand by it.
(FWIW, your argument fell apart with the mention of a Birth Certificate. Since the person inscribed therein cannot possibly have given or in any sense meant it as their consent, a Birth Certificate cannot legally be considered the newborn’s agreement to exist as a slave of the State.)
I fear we would all starve if we didn’t fulfil their Terms of Service for buying a loaf of bread.
The small print in their ToS expressly forbids the use of our ToS…
The irony regarding the loaf of bread is that any ToS associated with it would be promulgated by the Store selling the bread rather than the manufacturer. It’s always the damn middleman that has the most say in any transaction.
Howard, you highlighted well the contrast existing between the passive acceptance of the current ToS and sure rejection of an eventual CToS by businesses as humiliating. Why the ToS exists and not the CToS is IMO because businesses offer their products/services to the public, not the other way around so that the only CToS we can think of is one that rationalises consumption, as you indicated. Clauses like: “products and services offered must be strictly necessary”, “products and services must be repairable and parts thereof made available” (specially for electronic devices), “products and services must be made with such materials as to maximise lifetime and reduce or eliminate obsolescence”, “no more than one version shall exist for the following products/services”, “If more than one version of the same product/service is offered, it must be shown that any two versions are necessary and significantly different and suited for the purpose they are made for”, and so on. That would be the death of Capitalism. Persistent unfavorable conditions for business, low rates of profit, in short recessions can bring about a CToS.
“Of course, the bigger problem is consumers insist on consuming, be it goods or services”: put within the context of the issue at hand, it is clear that you mean overconsumption, but black-and-white thinking is quick to appeal to the bankrupt tranquillity, confidence and cocksureness that formal, either/or classifications brings.
To be fair, it is worth investigating the use the State makes of these birth certificates in terms grounded in economic reality. Some say these certificates are used as warehouse receipts, certifying (Merriam-Webster: authoritatively attesting; authoritatively? Hobbes comes to mind) the ownership of stored commodities, that is value. These receipts are used for future contracts, futures in financial jargon. The commodity would of course be the newborn and the date of the future contracts is any time after he or she becomes of age, assuming he or she survives. That human beings, even newly born, are used as present or future commodities is nothing new from the perspective of the Communist critique of Capital, whose compulsion is to conceive and extract new forms of value however, whenever and wherever it can. The future value of these contracts is of course the amount of labour power they shall be able to deliver at the moment the contract is due. These receipts in general may be used as collateral in the case of contracting debt and if the debtor becomes financially insolvable when they are due to pay, these receipts are executed. So, the question is whether it is possible the State or any other company are making use of birth certificates of human beings as collateral under the concept of warehouse receipts. It sounds fantastic but Finance is a fantastic world, “a funny business”, as the character of Peggy Mount put it in Ladies Who Do (1963), where, “ten minutes ago, we had 15,000 pigs; now we haven’t got a ham sandwich between us.”
The bottom line is that the consumer drives the entire retail and service economy. So while the service provider provides his service, it is nearly always for a fee of some sort. It is this economic reality which puts the consumer – not the service or product provider – in the driver’s seat. Yet it is the consumer – who makes the whole thing work – who must agree to the provider’s terms.
It’s ass backwards.
False. Nothing of the sort.
Situation 1/ Company advertises a product as a free gift when you purchase a specific $$$ amount and use their points card, but first you must sign up with an email address, carry around their card, and purchase products. Then when you are at the checkout ready to claim your free product, card in hand, they declare they ran out of the advertised free product. You didn’t unfortunately check “the fine print” on the terms of service when you signed up. But the company already made money from you by selling your info and purchasing habits as data collated.
2/ a) Social media sites initially offer free membership and non-censorship, with long winded terms of service where users have their information stolen and used for profit without their knowledge or understanding. After a while when users have become reliant on a free platform, the governments/corps pull the rug out from under the users by forcing them to view commercials, and by changing the platform’s functionality until unrecognizable and have none of the positive attributes previously upon sign up.
The governments/corps then take these platforms public and make billions through listing them on the stock exchange by selling ads and merchandising and manipulating their users. The platforms build files on individuals and groups, using algorithms and data collection, then run collusive govt-corps psychological warfare campaigns (eg; masks, vaccines, hand sanitizer, tests) to drive agendas, such as vaccines, digital IDs, digital dollars, social credit, financial crises, faux pandemics, faux wars etc.
b) The last rug pull is by censoring those who threaten to expose the tyranny and collusion of these social media platforms with the governments and corporations who are actively trying to poison, steal from, coerce, traumatize, manipulate, nudge, maim and kill a majority of users.
It’s called bait and switch.
That’s what Twitter has done. YouTube. Search engines. All previously free online platforms have morphed into subscription/paid platforms or ad-infested, censored garbage, monitored, censored and controlled by militaries. Just as they were intended.
Also as Eugene Debbs stated, temporary concessions the government makes in the face of protests. This may be for a new charge, e.g., ATM fee after reducing counter service, or toll on highway built at public cost
Situation I. It’s an every day situation. You go with cash to buy a book whose price is $30. If you’ve only $29, you can’t get the book. Not even if you had $29.5 you can’t get it. This inflexibility is generally approved by the public.
Situation II. You’ve gone further into the detail of how social media carry on their business and how they collude with the State. Fine; but you didn’t refute what I described which is for you just the initial steps, which do happen as described. Point is, through the TOS, the users contribution are submitted to same inflexible dictat of business, more so in this case for the lack of any known set of criteria. In this case however, the public condemns this – to them – “arbitrary” and inflexible behaviour, which is not arbitrary from the POV of a business looking constantly to further its interests even if these are not known by the public, which may make the business decisions regarding publication/non-publication of content seem arbitrary.
The point, made IMO, is the same inflexibility shown in carrying business under Capital which stems from the same compulsion to make profit and stay in business (businesses make long term plans and stick inflexibly with them, so one might not see the meaning of a specific decision) is justified in one case and condemned in the other.
Scale of action, kind of business, mean nothing, small businesses becoming big and influential, just a matter of time. The French have a saying which conveys this idea of what matters is the the motive for action, not its scale: “Qui vole un oeuf vole un bœuf.”
Better make it: what matters is the motive for action, not its scale, or kind.
No 1 never happens in my world, the first world. I have never seen or heard of anyone ask to pay less than the advertised price in any bookstore, grocery store or big box chain store, or department store.
In any case, asking for a discount and not receiving one from a vendor doesn’t compare to this situation of censorship of some subjects and some users, being subjected to various censorship algorithms after years previous of relative freedom of speech.
There’s been a policy of bait and switch with all the social media platforms. Lately, after the censorship was enacted I’ve also noticed there has been a move towards videos and video clips (instead of static images) in all media forms. This too is a deliberate policy from governments/military/industry to turn the public away from reading and books in general and instead distract them, grab their attention, using the concept of mimicry, within the psychological warfare model to create greater compliance and obeisance through unconscious mind control and self censorship.
What’s happening right now, is a blatant attempt to turn the entire online experience and realm into a passive tv-like, dumbed, down, infantile faux world of trite sound bites and vapid memes, rather than an environment where users are active seekers of information, individuality and truth.
In other words, an attempt to take the humanity itself out of all individuals en masse and replace that with self-censoring automatons who obey every arbitrary or harmful command from a hand held screen.
To repeatedly deny the obvious is pointless.
Stop using the military-intelligence run products that utilize your data to update your digital-twin re-presentation in simulations such as SWS.
Interesting paper. Thanks.
Off-G is censored too. No freedom of speech here. Submit a comment the admins don’t like…and whoooosh! It’s gone.
I’m not too fond of your comment.
And yet here we are.
You’re aware of what a moderator is, presumably. We weed out the rubbish. 99.9% of posts are posted. If using my discernment for that pesky .1% is robbing spammers, advertisers and provocateurs (oh my!) of their freedom of speech… then all I can do is let everything through, consequences be damned!
Although that Rather defeats the point of hiring a moderator.
I can’t help but notice that every single one of your comments has been published, however. So I’m perplexed by your indignation.
Unless you’re the one who keeps advertising ‘sexy singles in my area’?
Will
Gosh, an Admin 3.
Damn straight.
There’s probably a team of lawyers out there just waiting for something truly slanderous to find its way onto sites like OffG.
I’ve noticed that a comment naming a specific person is almost always put in “Pending.” That makes perfect sense.
But perhaps you place Free Speech higher than existence? OffG should publish anything and everything – and its continued existence be damned?
Perhaps not the best strategy.
Sound? Check.
Fury? Check.
Signifying nothing? Double check.
Yup. I’ve heard this tale before.
No amount of belligerent whining is going to stop comments pending if you:
a) post multiple times in quick succession
b) are overtly abusive
c) are posting spam.
And that is not unreasonable.
Yeah?
What might d) be?
And e), f), and g)?
d) Smarminess. The same for e, f and g.
It’s a miracle your comment got through! And mine, for that matter.
When I say something makes perfect sense, I mean just that. How that translates as a complaint against “Pending” escapes me.
I have no problem with a comment “Pending” if there’s something in it that could conceivably be considered libelous.
A lot of commenters in this forum make a lot of accusations against a lot of people (I’m not one of them BTW). I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t check them out before giving them OffG’s imprimatur.
Apologies, Howard, it was a study on Brent, not you!
I should have made that clearer,
Will
Pls note I am also one of the nice guys who never ever never ever would make any accusations against other people, but always send apples to the moderator.
Its the other guys who comes from social disabled families and dont know how to behave.
The “Online Safety Bill” (now in committee stage) will ensure that the majority of posters here will be carted off to an Internment Camp – and kept under lock and key for years (as per Julian Assange and thousands of others yet to be identified) …
It’s a drill already being played by authoritarian regimes around the world – although a (relatively) new drill to the “west” (USA and NATO) who represent only 15% of the world population …
The 1.5 billion people living in China are required to adjust to a loss of some freedoms in return for security and growing prosperity. People in the “west” are not as cooperative – although in reality they have little choice (other than hyperthermia and starvation).
The world is a wicked place, and one look at our “leaders” should spell that out quite clearly! Suck it up!
East or West, only the ultra-rich have freedom, security and prosperity.
The irony of you bloggers and theses freedumb fighting websites..
You people ban! You censor! and you close threads!.
Very bitter from an American who has consistently compared the German authorities to the Nazis which I am informed they don’t like.
I was permanently banned from Twitter for being very rude about the Scottish National Party. It might be a local moderation thing. Despite that and being a professional complainer Hopkins moaning just annoys me and I have followed him since he was on Counterpunch.
I am not a Musk fanboy, he’s a very imperfect hero but I respect him a lot more than Greenwald, Taibbi and Shellenberger.
Twitter is for morons. Do yourself a favour. Stay off it.
I don’t like Twitter either–never even had an account myself. But CJ is a professional writer who has to promote himself at least somewhat, so he has little choice but to use social media.
But the only people who’ll see what he promotes on Twitter are morons. Maybe he doen’t care.
Simple, you have to be a nut in the first place. If you can’t eat it explain what’s it do?
Er….”I….er…I’am stumped, anyone else?
Brilliant. Everyone who isn’t a moron should leave Twitter and then complain how Twitter is just for morons. 👍👍👍👍👍👍
Good luck with this CJ.
You realise of course that you’re attempting to communicate with ‘aliens’
They are completely alien to Truth, justice, equality and empathy.
They worship at the altar of Mammon and are afflicted with anti humanity syndrome.
As far as I know Twitter is a private something, they can do whatever they want.
What did you expect, Hopkins?
Corporations can’t have it both ways. They can’t claim to have human rights as a “corporate personhood” AND enjoy unfettered freedom to “do whatever they like”. As long as they have corporate personhood, they must abide by the First Amendment (in the US). The whole unfettered capital thing was never a good idea to begin with as it always leads to tyranny.
As Charles Reich pointed out more than thirty years ago.
Nothing’s changed.
Let’s make it a little less blunt: At the risk of stating the obvious, Twitter offers a seemingly free digital space for users to submit content. There is a positive feedback in the fact of people expressing themselves, regardless of it being directly or through a medium, since we are social beings.
Now don’t delude ourselves, we live in a capitalist economy so your contact with Twitter as a company – or with any other company – is through a contract, a ‘Terms of Service’ (TOS) wherein our use of their service/product is subject to certain clauses (no company can function within Capitalism without a minimum of organisation and rules). In most cases, and certainly in the case of Twitter, the TOS makes any content submitted as good as theirs as per what the user has to agree with in the TOS to use the service.
So, what’s gag if submitting content is free, even with limitations? Only that it’s not one user but billions whose profiles information (demographics, consuming habits, browsing/product preferences,…) are gathered and sold to other companies to set up their marketing strategies; this, the users agreed with of course in the TOS. Yes, because it’s billions of profiles, and marketing is one department in which companies throw in the money it takes for it has shown its efficiency in delivering results. Well, we can put that in relative terms of course because people are no longer easily enticed by advertising – for economic reasons – but it still delivers.
And Twitter gets handsomely paid for the sale. That’s the gag.
Bottom line: our contributions to Twitter make it and other companies richer.
By the way, when Twitter or any other medium doesn’t publish a user’s content, it is not infringing the first amendment (in the case of the US) for the US Constitution addresses directly Americans as human beings capable of voicing directly their opinion, no through mediums offered by third parties and subject to contracts.
And what if turns out someday that the whole world is ‘private’ — that is, owned by the globalist élites. What are you going to do then? We have to start fighting this some time.
Musk has done more for the truth (the FBI control of Twitter) than the entire alternative media combined.
Musk is the elite.
He’s not Tony Stark, he’s a face of ‘resistance’ that globalists deem acceptable.
In my humble opinion anyway.
Will
No it isn’t acceptable to the globalists.
Musk bought Twitter and unveiled the FBI censorship because no one could stop him. The liberal establishment and their acolytes now despise him at near Trump levels.
They hate Tesla too.
I think you’d be surprised what seemingly juxtaposing motivations ‘they’ find acceptable.
I doubt those in high seats of power truly hate anything, they merely get frustrated at not being able to USE some things. And believe me, there’s plenty of ways that Musk, and indeed Tesla, can be used.
Will
The liberal establishment and their vast horde of acolytes expressed great fury at Musk for buying Twitter and saying he was no longer a supporter of the Democrats and that he would vote Republican .
“There’s plenty of ways that Musk, and indeed Tesla, can be used”
Please explain.
So you think your enemies are the Democrats?
And Musk has ‘seen the light’ because now he’ll vote Republican?
Thus my point. You’ve been suckered by the left-wing/right-wing dichotomy, not realising that it’s all an illusion and that they are the same corrupt bird.
People like Musk are how they keep that illusion going.
Will
“So you think your enemies are the Democrats?”
No. You assumed I was a mindless cretin. I’m not even an American. I’m British and have never voted once in my entire life.
I was a member of the Labour Party for three years. Never voted for them. I was a fifth column anarchist sending inside information to a hilarious anarchist newspaper.
1981 (A word with the doctor)
https://archive.org/details/PaisleyGutterPress/page/n3/mode/2up?view=theater
I was Wolfie Smith incarnate.
Oh right.
Well done, mate!
The epitome of bourgeois facetious sitcom fodder?
I’m sorry, but anyone who thinks Twitter wasn’t censoring at all is simply not paying attention. A limited hangout is when we all know what the real deal is, but suddenly the “authorities” start admitting that what we already knew was true, although they usually add their own spin to make is seem like the latest revelation is really that. It’s kinda like Sy Hersh “revealing” that the US at the very least had a hand in destroying Nordstream – we all knew good and damned well the US at the very least had a hand in that, if it didn’t do it outright all by itself. Or think of Tucker Carlson suddenly revealing that the CIA had a part in the JFK assassination – hardly a shock to anyone who’d read anything or paid one bit of attention to details, but that too is lauded as fighting the deep state.
These types of revelations are meant to distract, to make people think they really are new revelations and now nothing more needs to be done, the big secret has been revealed. People then go about their merry way thinking someone out there is really fighting the good fight, when that could not be further from the truth. And THAT is acceptable to the globalists. As long as we’re all singing the praises of the latest “reveal” from a dangerous “dissident” from the main line propaganda, we’re not paying attention to what the globalists are really up to behind all that spin. And that is a tried and true tactic they’ve used for generations to get us where we are today.
Twitter? Why not tackle Facebook here? Much wider reach and much heavier censored.
Thanks. I’m sure you’re right about Facebook but Musk bought Twitter. He appears to have been annoyed that the Babylon Bee was banned.
Because no one under 70 uses Facebook any more pal.
So I’m wondering – whose side are you on? What are you here for pal? You don’t like this website, you don’t like this guy who’s just a writer trying to get some justice, you defend Twitter censorship and over on another thread you’re a big pal of Putin. What’s your philosophy exactly? It seems a bit muddled.
Has Mr Y disturbed your perfectly arranged black-and-white world? If so, bravo to him.
> “… you defend Twitter censorship …”
Absolutely not.
Meanwhile in the U.K. the tyranny continues to be enforced with further legislation. Last week new laws were signed by the king just in time for the coronation that the king didn’t pay for. These laws effectively silence protesters who are not singing the official narratives. So you can protest about anything you want…..so long as it’s approved first. To further tighten the noose, the so called Online Safety Bill is now at the Committee stage in the House of Lords. This nasty piece of legislation has the sole objective of shutting down alternative speech and its media.
We all need to be kept safe – but by people who have our interests at heart and not by those whose role is the further enrichment of the establishment.
Ah, but it only applies to dangerous terrorists who want to hold up placards and say Down With The King, Matt. Luckily the Goon Squad was on hand to round up these dangerous people in good time.