16 Comments
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Peta Seel's avatar

"This is going to sound a little bit crazy, but I think the free speech debate is a complete distraction right now. I think the real debate should be about free will.’ Obviously, Patrick Fagan and I could not agree more. Free speech is worth nothing if you don’t know how to think for yourself."

Spot on. The problem here though, is that ironically the move away from "learning by rote", so popular with modern educationalists, has merely opened up empty minds to be filled with whatever the educationalists choose to fill them with. Instead of giving the young a solid foundation of facts upon which to build their critical thinking abilities - multiplication tables, spelling, rules of grammar, historical dates, basic biology, periodic tables etc. - the vacuum is filled with propaganda. The young, and the not-so-young, are being deliberately deprived of the ability to think for themselves.

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Discrete Music's avatar

Nobody needs to deprive people of the ability to think for themselves; all anyone needs to do is fail to encourage them. Cognitive laziness is the human default. Give them "entertainment" and they will smile at the television, smile at the game console, smile at the smartphone, smile at the virtual world in their goggles as they insensibly void bladder in their pants.

O Brave New World.

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Freedom Fox's avatar

The Ed Snowden saga told us this was already happening in the US/UK over a decade ago. The UK Guardian published version and even the movie version of his whistleblowing the extent of PsyOps directed at domestic and foreign audiences - that was allowed to be told to general audiences - was damning. And told us this was happening. Even finding our "pressure points" to be mass manipulated.

The response of lawmakers, public hearings, lots of angry headlines and a bill passed to prohibit it was all just theatrics. Laws passed in 2015 to prevent overreach were violated before the ink was dry. "Crossfire Hurricane" targeting candidate Trump used the same state deception that was prohibited and we now see is used against us all.

Snowden's saga and exposure told us explicitly this was and is happening, laws against it or not. There's always clever loopholes they give themselves. And do so full of the same self-righteous justification that the character playing Snowden's benefactor explained in the movie. "We can't handle the truth!" to blend another movie line into Snowden.

So what do we do when we know those doing this are a law unto themselves? Unaccountable. Protecting our minds, as Dorsey said, is paramount. I believe it involves knowledge and faith in God - true faith, not the going through the motions faith displays. To strengthen the gift of discernment he gives all of us.

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richard leppington's avatar

All very alarming

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Roger's avatar

Was going to write a bit more but during the editing process I accidentally hit the send it button. Oh well never mind. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. The Who. Won’t get fooled again. Probly will be.

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Roger's avatar

Well, in for a penny in for a pound. The conclusion that manipulation of things like twitter/X is nothing but propaganda It’s just up to date propaganda, that’s all.

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Discrete Music's avatar

"The discovery of this campaign is fanning the flames of anti-Israel, anti-Zionist and antisemitic feeling."

This is where I stopped reading.

Israel is a country, not a religion or a race. The country murders people to steal their land. To oppose this larceny and murder is not bigotry, it is clean morality.

Israel is predominantly populated by moral and kind people but its government is under the control of a verminous rabble of unobservant settlers who are some of the most awful people in our world.

My great-grandparents were machine-gunned in Lithuania by the Nazis in 1943 but I am against the "state of Israel" and its genocidal government.

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Laura Dodsworth's avatar

And this where I stopped reading:

“ This is where I stopped reading.”

Don’t bother commenting if you can’t be bothered reading.

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Discrete Music's avatar

Oh don't be silly. You read to the end, as did I. "I stopped reading" is a rhetorical device like "drop dead" that only fools take literally.

If I want to read facile charges of "antisemitism!!!" I can read the Twitter bots or watch Netanyahu videos.

MOST Jews are innocent of the genocide of the Palestinians but the insistence that Israel = Jews = Israel = Jews is reviving disgust with innocent and guilty alike. Way to go.

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Laura Dodsworth's avatar

Blocked for being a boring agitator.

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Chris Fox's avatar

Sounds like Discrete Music got blocked for disagreeing with the author about Israel.

I don't make a habit of paying a monthly stipend for a forum where I have to tread delicately. You see, I have issues with Israel too. Maimed children make me queasy.

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Laura Dodsworth's avatar

He was blocked because he replied to everyone on the post so far, like an agitator, and called me 'silly' and a 'fool'. It's just rude to do that. He should have engaged politely and decently. After years of these kinds of reactions, my fuse is a little shorter than it used to be. Disagreement is fine, pejoratives aren't, nor is hogging the board.

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Alan Richards's avatar

Detection and removal of bots is big business for software companies like Mimecast

https://www.mimecast.com/blog/botnet-detection-and-removal/

Elon Musk promised to rid Twitter of bots but hasn’t done so. Do you have any views on why he hasn’t?

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Discrete Music's avatar

Track down any interview with Musk, even the Carlson time-waste, and you can answer this for yourself.

Anyone who thinks Musk is intelligent ... isn't.

Not only did Musk buy the cesspool that is Twitter for fifty freaking billion dollars, but he then neglected his real businesses to obsess over his image among the knucklewalkers who swim the cesspool.

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norstadt's avatar

Bots and social media influence are worth a lot more than their prevention.

It's like asking: why are there more ads for washing machine detergents then unbiased reviews of their performance?

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Marc Johnston's avatar

I’m scratching my head trying to work out the why the bots all had NFTs in their bio!? There must be a reason.

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