559 Comments
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Jrod's avatar

So Zuckerberg can read which way the political winds blow. Big deal. Does anybody honestly think he'd be making these adjustments to his sails if Kamala would have won the WH? I mean yeah it's better than him not doing it, but he didn't all of the sudden find a treasure chest full of principles. Verdict: yawn, and Facebook still sucks.

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Charlie Kilpatrick's avatar

People who are unprincipled like Zuckerberg will always make decisions for the wrong reasons. You can definitely call them out and hold it against them, but it's a fundamental and immutable character flaw. Still, I'd rather Zuckerberg be on the right side of the free speech debate regardless of his reason.

Edit: Ken Klippenstein made the point that Facebook/Meta's content moderation policies could still be used to censor anything from the Russia laptop story (stolen info) to recent reporting on Syria (violent non-state actors) to sympathetic reporting on J6 defendants (glorification of dangerous individuals), so maybe I spoke too soon on Zuck's position on the free speech debate. See:

https://transparency.meta.com/policies/community-standards/dangerous-individuals-organizations/

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Nobody's avatar

It's great that his heart grew three sizes the day Trump was elected, but he'll go back to his old ways as soon as it is convenient to do so. At least we can enjoy the next 4 years.

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WW's avatar

two years. If history serves as precedent, Dem's will take over at least one house of Congress in 2026.

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Ed Nuhfer's avatar

And if recent history serves as a precedent, our ratings among national freedom of press, safest countries, most peaceful countries, healthiest countries, and happiest countries will continue to plummet further, just as they have done under both cartel parties. We won't have national health care, but we will have increased corruption, increased shootings by police and will continue to wage undeclared wars...all ruled by an oligarchy without actual democracy or real consent of the governed.

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Paul Harper's avatar

You could be right. All unhappy outcomes are more likely if Trump supporters play to type as goo-goo dolls. He needs constant scrutiny and supervision, like all those in power. Dems will be happy to see things turn to crap.

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Mike R.'s avatar

Fine tuning personal subscriptions to include journalism's actual truth speakers, creating a grounded truth/fact based national conversation and departing the psyop is a first step forward. ATW/Monday night livestream conversations are beginning to acknowledge and dissect the manipulation/lie that has subsumed the American national conversation. I hope they continue to do so.

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Nobody's avatar

After thinking about this a little more, and I don't believe the censorship complex will go back to fact checkers. The public trust is gone, and that trick won't work anymore. Zuck probably had to change course anyways as facebook's relevance is slipping. Who still uses that site in this day and age?

Instead they will probably game community notes with fake accounts and/or AI to manufacture the illusion of truth. Musk will probably do the same if he hasn't already.

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George the Zeroth's avatar

> "Who still uses that site in this day and age?"

What, are you fucking kidding?

The answer is in the billions. (But not me; I'm pure of heart.)

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Lightwing's avatar

🤭

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Glitterpuppy's avatar

Something about leopards never changing their spots.?

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Christopher Gaskins's avatar

Oh my goodness this is SO offensive. Everyone knows that leopards can identify as tigers and anybody who points out that the leopards' spots are not in fact stripes are Leopardists who have to be censored and cancelled! Have you not learned anything from the last decade of neoMarxist indoctrination? Expect an FBI swat team to arrive on your doorstep any minute now... 😂

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Ed Nuhfer's avatar

LOL!

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Taras's avatar

Nobody — I have no doubts about Zuckerberg’s sincerity.

Firing the factcheckers and crowdsourcing community notes will save him money.

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Franklin O'Kanu's avatar

I’m just hoping he removes all the censorship on topics like Chemtrails that Americans are seeing all across the skies. If he does, then maybe we can have a chance to have some clean skies again:

https://unorthodoxy.substack.com/p/there-is-no-greater-threat-than-chemtrails

https://unorthodoxy.substack.com/p/a-cleanourskies-campaign

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Halsey Burks's avatar

As a former military/current airline pilot, I can assure there is no “chemtrail” switch in any cockpit other than maybe a crop duster…seriously people…🙄

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George the Zeroth's avatar

Thank you for a believable professional confirmation.

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Paul Harper's avatar

Facts and direct knowledge have no place here. You get that, right?

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Charles Newlin's avatar

Jet exhaust would have the same sort of nasties in it as auto exhaust - just a little different, because jet fuel is different - and I gather they're even less efficient.

The contrails, as such, are just water vapor, like clouds, and even reflect some sunlight back to space. I believe the theory is that they're being used to dispose of noxious chemicals by dispersal. Unfortunately, this has a certain plausibility based on typical industrial behavior, and it wouldn't mean a control in the cockpit. However, it should be detectable by any competent lab, so I don't consider it credible.

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Noam Deplume, Jr. (look,at,me)'s avatar

Noxious chemicals are dumped in the local river by the mob. Saves money on airplanes.

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George the Zeroth's avatar

Puleeze; keep your chemtrails and your tinfoil hat out of this discussion.

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Franklin O'Kanu's avatar

George, you should read the article — plenty of people are on this issue — even Trump and RFK Jr

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Don Reed's avatar

Agreed. I know nothing about the issue itself, but for someone to toss that tired old 2016-"tin-foil-hat" canard as an insult instantly tells me that George the Zero, having ventured out of the intellectual cobwebs of his ideological museum, has nothing new or valid to say.

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George the Zeroth's avatar

I don't toss that epithet out carelessly, having "looked into" chemtrails and found them to be totally without merit.

Tell me, would you have the same reaction if I replied similarly to someone who claimed the Earth was flat?

Not all claims that people make are worthy of further examination.

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George the Zeroth's avatar

No. Just no. First of all, neither of those endorsements impresses me in the least. Trump is an idiot and RFK Jr. is a nutjob.

And chemtrails are just ... a tinfoil-hat masturbatory fantasy. Like "Jewish space lasers", etc.

No thanks.

BTW, in case there's any question, in light of what this discussion here is really about, if it were up to me as the owner or moderator or whatever of an online forum, I would never, ever censor statements the likes of yours here, no matter how meshuggah they may be. Free speech foreva!

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Bobby Lime's avatar

"...Trump is an idiot..."

How constructive. Thoughtful, too, because it takes the kind of extraordinary perceptiveness you so obviously have to have realized that any mediocrity with no previous political experience can get elected President of the United States.

"...and RFK is a nutjob." I'm willing to believe it, but I have been intrigued that the nutjob lead the successful effort to clean up the Hudson, which as an act of citizenship which rises to the level of statesmanship may not have been as important as Hoover's leading the relief of Belgian starvation after World War I., but is maybe one division lower. The nutjob has also managed to gather around him extremely impressive people who believe, as so many of us do, that corporate agriculture and the medical/death complex in the United States should be challenged.

Please continue to grace us with your carefully expressed thoughts.

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Daily Growler's avatar

If you have visual access to the sky wherever you are, you may want to look up at the sky occasionally and take note of all the criss-crossing parallel lines of chemtrails created by small aircraft spraying whatever it is they spray. It's happening all over Texas, and I suspect it's also happening in places with less big sky.

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Taras's avatar

George — You make me think of the proverbial foreign visitor to Yankee Stadium in 1927, who comments that the fat guy jogging around the bases can’t be a good athlete. “Fat guy?” “Yes, the fat guy with the numeral 3 on his back!”

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Paul Harper's avatar

Congrats on the second thought. Zuck revealed his true colors with the founding of FB. Insecure geek, now with billions. He's the SOB we see, but there are plenty of others with lower public profiles. Plenty of 'educated' folks believe the lower orders are by definition worth less than their betters - and are keen to treat us accordingly.

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Ollo Gorog's avatar

I'm no fan of Facebook, but there is the issue of the section 230 exemption, and it plays big in which way the politcal winds blow. Zuckerberg and others literally exist by the government's good graces. I don't think people understand that all it takes is a quiet decision, by the gov, not to protect Facebook from massive lawsuits and that's it. The end. And the legal action wouldn't just start from day one, lawyers would mine Facebook for any and all possible claims. I believe it would be a feeding frenzy fueled by huge opportunity.

Social media is violating a legal standard that exists in the US so it can continue to operate. The gov is saying to social media, "We know that you are violating the law in a way that would get you sued, but we're going to protect you from that litigation, for now, so you can make money, but you best stay in our good graces or we'll pull the rug out from under you."

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Skenny's avatar

Purely from a perspective of ignorance a a desire to know, what legal standard is being violated by social media?

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Ollo Gorog's avatar

You're probably like most people. I've done some reading on this, and I still only get the basics, and I may be a little off the mark in some areas, but here's the deal: entities that publish other people's words for public viewing using the public "airwaves", can be held legally liable for those words. Facebook could be considered a publisher, just like the NY Times publishes editorials. If someone liables or victimizes another person and the Times publishes it, the law allows the Times to be sued along with the writer. But Facebook gets a pass (Section 230 exemption), so people are able to post death threats, rape threats, horrible lies, whatever, and because the gov holds sway for the pass, they got full use for propaganda, misinformation, etc, by using veiled threats to rescind the section 230 exemption. Also, I believe the social media companies believed the government when it made those veiled threats. I think they feared the gov.

It's really a huge friggin mess that must be cleaned up internally and by those that use it. I doubt that'll ever happen as long as it's paid for by ads, but who knows.

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Chris's avatar

I'd only add that the exemption protects social media because they claim they don't have the same editorial influence/control as a newspaper does. I.E., they should not be held liable for what someone else says using their service. They can remove posts that violate their "standards" or are obscene. The way they have silenced some voices but not others violates the "in good faith" clause the legislation intended.

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Ollo Gorog's avatar

True, and the claim that they do not have the same control as a newspaper is a valid one. However, I think the objective was that they should develop that control. Exemptions to law are considered temporary. One could say that the social media companies violated the good faith first and opened the door for what happened by sitting on their collective butts and doing nothing but gettin' rich.

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Skenny's avatar

It seems that social media posts are no different than a "letter to the editor" or paid ad in a newspaper. Don't the newspapers "disclaim" that content?

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@CLJ3's avatar

Agree/well said.

At least he read the tea leaves and (it appears) is course correcting. Others did not and it did not work out well.

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Bianca Kennedy's avatar

Well said!

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Don Reed's avatar

01/07/25: "... places like the New York Times (“Meta Says Fact-Checkers Were the Problem. Fact-Checkers Rule That False”) ..."

Note that the corrupt NY Times automatically assumes the validity and honesty, the integrity of the "fact-checkers," who by now even the dumbest cluck knows were paid --- often surreptitiously by the U.S. government --- political Stalinist censors.

Biden is dead. What we are about find out will sicken millions. Those responsible will be on the run.

Which brings us to Zuckerberg, the mouse-louse.

If he had had the courage to say the above two years ago, OK. Today? Too late. Really, who does he think he's fooling? And he's probably dense enough to think that he'll be able to bribe his way into the Trump White House (to wit, his contemptible $1M check made out to the January 20th inauguration committee).

Zuckerberg floats out to sea in 2025. Too bad.

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DarkSkyBest's avatar

Exactly, but . . . Let's ride this pony while we can.

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Paul Harper's avatar

Precisely. We'd all be Hitler and Zuck would have his head so far up the new president's keester, he'd pop out of her mouth. He's trying to that now with Trump but even with his billions Zuck has to take his turn.

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John Sweeney's avatar

Actually, he makes sense. All the actions he points out are real and he's realized that he can be part of that corruption or call for action against it.

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Stephen Obisanya's avatar

My take on this exactly. I have a piece that goes up on this particular topic from this perspective later today at 12pm. Read here at that time if you’re interested: https://stephenobisanya.substack.com

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Jan's avatar

No.

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RAO's avatar

Good points.

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JesterColin's avatar

I forgave Mark after he told Rogan about the FBI and Hunter’s Laptop. I think since then he’s been trying to be a force for good.

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Yuri Bezmenov's avatar

Free speech support is correlated with testosterone levels. For years, Zuck has been training in jiu-jitsu and only eats animals that he personally slaughters. Most of all, he just wants to be cool. Elon and Trump are showing him the way. Dana White joining Meta's board will help, but I'll believe it when I see it. BlueAnons will melt down on BlueSky.

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michele burns's avatar

Out with Sheryl Sandberg; in with Dana White. Wow quite a shift. I’m staying tuned to see if they (hopefully) deliver on the promise.

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Pacificus's avatar

I guess Sheryl "leaned out." Good riddance.

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DarkSkyBest's avatar

Dana White wanted to be Secy of Something. Instead, he is gifted Board of Meta. What a coincidence.

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Tricia's avatar

Free speech support is correlated with testosterone levels? Who knew? I am a total first and second amendment supporter. Maybe that’s why my husband tells me I have more testosterone than many men he knows (I’m female; yes, a real one).

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Jake's avatar

Hahaha, "...yes, a real one" You know. Old school. XX

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Chuck's avatar

It’s not an insult to you in any way to say your husband is likely right

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MG's avatar

Is anyone here on Blue Sky? So tempted to take a peek....

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Tara's avatar

If you’re on X there are two accounts that take screenshots from BS and post them. One is called Libs of Bluesky and one is called Bluesky Libs. Pretty funny accounts to follow.

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Timothy G McKenna's avatar

LOVE the abbreviation of BlueSky!!!!!

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Mike Stone's avatar

BS u do ...

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New Humanity's avatar

Haha !

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Lightwing's avatar

Thanks for this. I checked it out. Funny stuff.

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Jake's avatar

Or as Walter calls it: The Middle of Nowhere.

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Tardigrade's avatar

That's a little more generous than I'm willing to be, but still, no matter how cynical his motivations, it's going in the right direction.

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Jake's avatar

I'm not willing to be generous at all. This guy was paid to work in a clandestine manner to censor people and violate literally millions of Americans' 1st Amendment rights. I don't want to see him skinned alive or anything, but Jesus. Everyone hopping on his sack because of short memories is a bit much for me.

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Tardigrade's avatar

Don't care about his motives, he's going in the right direction.

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Jake's avatar

I would agree he's going in the right direction. But he can eat shit nevertheless.

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steven t koenig's avatar

Agree. He's a snake, forked tongue and beady eyes

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cgg's avatar

I heard some commentary this AM that there is a certain expectation that we are supposed to cheer this. Uh, no. That's what should gave happened all along. It's not a cookie.

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DarkSkyBest's avatar

I'm with Jake.

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DarkSkyBest's avatar

"Like."

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Jake's avatar

I got some Iraqi AKs I wanna sell you. Never been fired and only dropped once.

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ska.one's avatar

Easy, Pvt. Cowboy.

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Jake's avatar

Heh, a fellow Kubrick fan. Love it! Thanks for catching it ;-)

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Frank Paynter's avatar

Nah, those were French

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Jake's avatar

Ah, my geology sucks. Thanks for the correction.

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steven t koenig's avatar

You definitely got caught between a rock and a continent on that one

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Jake's avatar

***snort***

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lhw's avatar

I think he had righteous indignation that the WH/FBI lied to him about it and used him as a patsy. I'm glad to see him fight back since that admission.

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Don Reed's avatar

01/07/25: If Zuckerberg was foolish enough to assume that a Biden White House / corrupt FBI could / WOULD possibly tell anyone the truth about anything, then his coming fate as a national joke ("Patsy") will be well deserved.

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Mforti's avatar

I'd say he was a willing patsy.

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lhw's avatar
Jan 8Edited

I totally agree with you - he was 100% on board for Biden during the 2020 election and was happy to suppress the laptop story. However, I think he believed the FBI when they suggested to him that the laptop was from Russia and not really Hunter's.

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Mike Stone's avatar

If he believed that he is a TOTAL IDIOT. I think the reality is he didn't:t care if it was true or not.

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Mike Stone's avatar

He wasn't a Patsy. He was a principal co-conspirator and architect of censorship.

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Mike Stone's avatar

FB, Twitter, WaPo, NYT, etc., not only did the DNC, DOJ, FBI, CIA, etc., bidding they all conspired/arranged with and plotted to have the government "pressure" them to do what they desperately wanted to do anyway. They just wanted "cover" for their TOTALITARIAN policies. Zuckerberg IS a snake ... as are almost all Commiecratz.

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Lawyers Guns & Money's avatar

He will NEVER be a force for good. It’s only a matter of doing a lot of damage or more than that.

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George the Zeroth's avatar

OK, I've had it: how much longer are you going to spam this discussion with this link?

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Don Reed's avatar

01/08/25: ATTENTION EVERYONE, George The Zero has HAD IT.

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DarkSkyBest's avatar

Why forgive? When did he tell Rogan about the stuff your are interested in?

Force for good. What about, Campaign 2020, Zuck Bucks.

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Glitterpuppy's avatar

You must have a high fever…..

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Judith Cohen's avatar

I’m inclined to be somewhat optimistic about Zuckerberg ‘s statement but it wouldn’t have happened if Trump hadn’t won

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Annette Huenke's avatar

Children's Health Defense just dropped this:

"Less than 24 hours after Children’s Health Defense asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear our censorship lawsuit against Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg announced Facebook will end its third-party “fact-checking” program . . . to "restore free expression" across Facebook, Instagram and Meta platforms.

In his announcement, Zuckerberg admitted Facebook had “gone too far” with its “fact-checking.”

No kidding. In court documents in our lawsuit, Facebook admitted to censoring posts the company knew to be truthful and factually accurate.

And it admits that it often did so under pressure from the U.S. government!

Most of that censorship had to do with COVID-related posts — posts about vaccine injuries, alternate treatments like ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, competing theories about whether COVID originated in nature or leaked from a lab in Wuhan, China.

Facebook silenced the debates. It shut down the “free expression” and exchange of information.

And it did it by kicking CHD — and many of you! — off Facebook and Instagram. To keep us from raising questions and sharing facts.

Today, we’re still banished from those social media platforms!

We’re glad Facebook says it is shutting down its censorship apparatus … and there’s no question CHD’s lawsuit likely triggered Zuckerberg’s decision to end the fact-checking.

But it ain’t over yet.

The medical free speech battle won’t be won until CHD and everyone else who was unjustly kicked off and demonetized by Facebook and Instagram are reinstated to those platforms.

That’s why we took our case against Facebook — dismissed by the lower courts — all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court."

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Jane Tracy's avatar

Amen

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Ryan Gardner's avatar

Very well said. Truth

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I am not your Other's avatar

Just think of the people who died for lack of knowledge about IVM and HCQ and vitamin D and black seed oil, etc.

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Maenad's avatar

The timing is very revealing of a self-serving motive. Gov’t censorship is treason, and because a perpetrator stops being party to this crime that caused untold harm does not excuse. There is demand for a reckoning.

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SimulationCommander's avatar

If he was real, he'd contact you and have you drop the Facebook Files.

We know they're out there.

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Brian Katz's avatar

Or has Zuck deleted those ?

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SimulationCommander's avatar

If he did, that's proof positive of his real stance.

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Matt Taibbi's avatar

There was already an extensive fight with Jordan’s committee. I doubt more is coming

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SimulationCommander's avatar

I doubt it, too - which means I still don't trust Zuck any farther than I can throw him.

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Tardigrade's avatar

Me neither. But that doesn't mean this new statement isn't welcome.

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SimulationCommander's avatar

It's better than nothing, but it's sort of like Chris Cuomo talking about the horrors of media malfeasance during covid.

MFer THAT WAS YOU!

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J. Lincoln's avatar

How far would you like to throw him?

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Liz LaSorte's avatar

The arguments against free speech have been going on since John Adams signed the Sedition Act in 1798 and started locking up his political opponents. Of course, those in power don’t want free speech against them so defining the LIMITS of free speech is an unAmerican idea. And there are lots of US supreme court cases about free speech, but the solution is more speech, ALWAYS, not banned speech.

Justice Louis D. Brandeis in his classic concurring opinion in Whitney v. California (1927), wrote: “If there be time to expose through discussion, the falsehoods and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.”

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michele burns's avatar

How could so many well educated and presumably intelligent people lose sight of that basic fact? So many advocates of reducing free speech, including so many elected and unelected government officials and their msm handmaidens, need to give a full, detailed accounting of their logic so we can completely blast that idea into outer space where it belongs. It’s ridiculous that any thinking person supports reductions in freedom of speech unless they support totalitarianism.

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Clever Pseudonym's avatar

"It’s ridiculous that any thinking person supports reductions in freedom of speech..."

I think it was a very "frog in boiling water" process.

First, you establish that certain things should be banned from platforms, say, direct threats of violence and ugly slurs; then, maybe most importantly, you import one of the illiberal products of our postmodern academy: the idea that certain forms of speech can be considered "violence" (depending upon the Oppressed/Oppressor status of the speaker and their target); then you use all of our algorithm-based propaganda tools to blast people's amygdalas with fear and panic: Russian disinfo! Nazi hate speech! Threats to democracy! etc etc...And all this is processed by various (mostly) liberal brains that have already been molded by Social Justice morality, which replaces all other primary values with the new prime value of always centering the Marginalized and making sure their feelings are protected...

and voila! an entire generation of writers, artists, journalists, profs etc has now been gradually conditioned to believe that free speech is a danger that must be sacrificed in the name of political goals and the new Soc Just morality/etiquette.

Free speech always needs to be fought for, as it seems to be a value people cherish when they have limited power, but then abandon once they get the chance to silence their opponents. It took a few years for our liberal classes to be turned against it, we shall see how long it takes for them to be de-programmed (assuming it's possible).

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Lightwing's avatar

Why doesn't their conscience rebel? Mine did. I could never tolerate the belief systems they fell into (or embraced by turn). It goes against the grain.

Then again, my college CV is rather thin. Perhaps I wasn't brainwashed enough.

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carton's avatar

I don't agree with censorship, but it's not ridiculous.

The current situation, where institutions lack credibility, people are filter-bubbled into confidently believing insane fads, and there is no agreement on basic facts, is not workable. AI-assisted persuasion, or simply the advances in propaganda techniques covered on this substack, makes me think this is set to get worse before it gets better. Censorship looks like one path out.

In my opinion, it's a path we tried, and it failed. But it could be debated, because "the answer to wrong speech is more speech," seems less true now than it used to be.

I'm still for free speech, but I think there are more charitable reasons the consensus has crumbled than motivated reasoning. That's part of it, though.

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michele burns's avatar

“ The current situation, where institutions lack credibility, people are filter-bubbled into confidently believing insane fads, and there is no agreement on basic facts, is not workable.”

Provocative argument, but I just want to say that the scientific method depends on the notion that truth is never really known. The idea being that researchers investigate something, form a thesis, then devise experiments to gather new evidence to further test the thesis. The cycle never ends, with other researchers forming new theses, creating new experiments and gathering more data…ad infinitum. The cycle never ends and the “truth” is always out of reach.

I understand this is not satisfying to politicians and marketers, who need to sell “truth” but the scientific method and the elusive nature of “truth” is the only true “fact” we have.

This seems to argue strongly in favor of complete freedom of speech.

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Lightwing's avatar

Curiosity and its cousin, inquiry, both require it. Without it, we cannot move forward as a species.

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Glitterpuppy's avatar

I think you just said, “ free speech is ok, but maybe not the do all and end all. I think?

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Bradley Lacke's avatar

It is rather mind-boggling, isn't it. The current neoliberal consensus that "free speech" has disqualified itself, doesn't work, and is exclusively the domain of the radical right who just want to get away with being hateful wouldn't be able to survive a philosophy 101 class or trip to the library. People way smarter than myself or anyone on Twitter did all the grappling for us like 400 years ago. I haven't seen any challenges they didn't already sort out. Memes about Nazis don't count.

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Lawrence Libby's avatar

It was Trump who broke their brains and sent them in to a panic.

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Maenad's avatar

He didn’t do it. He was an ingredient to induce panic that clouds brains. Remember he was a pal and a donor to all the people who claimed he was Hitler after he hurt Hilary’s tender feelings.

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MSP's avatar

❤️👏👏👏👏

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j juniper's avatar

I would argue that today's free speech issues ans the Alien and Sedition Acts are like comparing apples to oranges. The era is NOTHING like today.

If inclined for a quick read, "John Adams" and "1776" by David McCullough sums it up pretty well.

The big caveat is the Acts had a sunset clause and those in government at that time had honor and allowed them to expire.

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Liz LaSorte's avatar

I would argue that it is the same issue and that Thomas Jefferson would agree. Get in the Ring, Alexander Hamilton: https://open.substack.com/pub/lizlasorte/p/get-in-the-ring-thomas-jefferson?r=76q58&utm_medium=ios

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George the Zeroth's avatar

The late great Molly Ivins said basically the same thing, that the only remedy to any problems with free speech is ... more free speech.

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Badger10f's avatar

He can be an oddball, opportunist, asshole or all of the above and still be right . Let's get out of the good guy/bad guy business. That's what wokeism was all about. Humans are complicated and often incomprehensible animals and just as likely to be venal as noble, usually on the same day. I'd wager not a soul on this thread has ever met Zuck.

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Bradley Lacke's avatar

Fucking amen. We need to be trafficking in ideas and their results and consequences. Whether someone is nice to waitstaff or not would be relevant for considering a relationship. Bringing it into polis talk is for gossipers and tabloids.

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Ryan Gardner's avatar

Good advice for sure

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George the Zeroth's avatar

My "like" button don't work*, so "Like".

* Nothing conspiratorial about that, as many here seem to think: just a basic HTML/browser-incompatibility fuckup.

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Pat Robinson's avatar

Once again, for all his faults, imagine the discussion today (if any allowed) if Musk had not bought Twitter and set all this in motion.

Would Biden's head in a blue jug still be president?

Its no wonder the insane left hates musk, they thought he was one of them and no religion hates anyone more than an apostate.

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Bill Smith III's avatar

He really did save us all..

Finally someone put their money where their mouth was..

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Tardigrade's avatar

Excellent comment.

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TJ Curt's avatar

Interesting that you reference your Rescue the Republic speech since promotion of that event was completely silenced on Instagram.

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Bianca Kennedy's avatar

Sorry, he is FOS and in CYA mode since conservatives are coming back into power. I will never forgive him for actively censoring COVID info that could have saved millions of lives, that perpetuated the greatest scam and democide in our country, and for tampering in the 2020 federal presidential election - a federal crime - and then censoring those who spoke out about it with legitimate questions. Not to mention suppressing accurate reports on J6. A lot of things I could forgive, but not these heinous actions. Everyone engaged in the massive crimes of the last several years must be held accountable.

Also, fact checkers were not the problem. They were a manifestation of the problem. The people who paid them were the problem. The people who wanted to control the flow of information are the problem.

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David Cashion's avatar

I would love it if Trump had him charged. But it's gna be fun watching Trump treat him like a rented mule.

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Paul Harper's avatar

We can hope.

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Glitterpuppy's avatar

Got to agree on all points.

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Paul Harper's avatar

Nailed it.

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Butt Actually's avatar

This post sucks. It explains nothing about why Zuckerberg adopted the Greatest American Hero’s hairstyle.

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Butt Actually's avatar

Believe it or not

Zuck isn’t censoring anymore

He really wants us to be so free

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Sam Horton's avatar

Substack needs cool reaction buttons. Like Yes, What, Are you kidding me, and in this case I spit my coffee out.

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Glitterpuppy's avatar

For sure. You can tell his sincerity by his clown wig and hippie medallion necklace.

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Jane Tracy's avatar

I’m glad that someone else noticed that!!

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Bob Nixon's avatar

I’m walking on air

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Butt Actually's avatar

George isn’t home

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Doctor Mist's avatar

<Snort> Took me a minute.

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Clever Pseudonym's avatar

i heard that in tune w the theme song...

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Kevin Schilling's avatar

I think his new hairdo is more along the lines of him wanting to look a bit more like a young Bob Dylan and catch the current wave of that fascination

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Jane Tracy's avatar

Sincerely, I thought that he was in the midst of transitioning to female..

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Kevin Schilling's avatar

you may be right, after all

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Lightwing's avatar

Wave? I've never stopped being fascinated by Dylan. I guess what's old is new again.

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Kevin Schilling's avatar

you and me both

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Ryan Gardner's avatar

Lolol

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Elmore's avatar

Any port in a storm. The NYT helpfully points out that being a strong advocate of free speech is a conservative position.

My socialist grandfather was something of a big deal in the old ACLU--the one that fiercely defended free speech. And there were members of every political stripe--liberal, moderate, conservative, Democrat, Republican, independent.

The commenters on the Times story mostly said free speech was a Trump plot.

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George the Zeroth's avatar

The ACLU was at its absolutely most brave and stalwart in defense of, well, civil liberties when it defended the Nazis who planned on marching through Skokie, Ill. Defended Nazis!

Don't think they'll ever reach that high point again.

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Emmanuel Goldstein's avatar

Regardless of whether or not Zuck is "sincere" in his recent stance, it's one more indication of the degree to which the wind has shifted. And it's a very good sign.

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Rare Earth's avatar

Many here are saying that Zuckerberg is just fickle. That if Kamala Harris had won, he would have continued doing what he did under P. Biden. Now that Trump has won, he wants to be more in line with free speech principles. I think he is telling the truth, which is to say, he is as much as admitting that he is fickle, but even more that he is a bit of a coward and was a afraid to buck the Whitehouse. Why? Because of his perception of the power that they wielded. What he has seen now is Musk show strength - always and everywhere, worldwide with X- and it has probably surprised him that Musk is able to do this. Zuckerberg did not have the guts to do it. He knuckled under, which was shameful, and he is admitting it. In the end it comes down to his personality and character versus those of Musk. Musk has real courage and character, but, Zuckerberg although successful in his arena, not so much. He is fearful, and not quite sure of himself, hence the need to do combat sports to compensate and to try to acquire courage. He may not have guts, but he is not stupid; he is watching Musk and learning. I say let's take this as a win for now, (because it is a defeat for the Left) and move on. In four more years, he may have gotten brave enough to fight for his principles, or he may shrink back to his old self. Matt is right - either way - this is significant.

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Glitterpuppy's avatar

But first, he must establish the principles you speak of. He has none that I have seen.

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George Q Tyrebyter's avatar

Well, just yesterday, I stated on FB that "Trans is a psychotic delusion", which is a complete truth. For this, I was put on 30 day restrictions. Luckily, I have 2 FB accounts. If you cannot make a flat-out true statement, free speech is not found on FB. Other true statements that have led to problems: 1) Blacks are more likely to be criminals than whites 2) Jew-hatred came to Europe when the Muslim invaders came to Europe 3) Muslims are not peaceful, but are murdering thugs 4) there is a crime wave due to the illegals that flooded into the US starting in 2020.

We will see if the normal conservative statements are considered to be non-hate speech, but just opinion.

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Bradley Lacke's avatar

homie those aren't facts

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michele burns's avatar

Regardless people are entitled to state their opinion.

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Bradley Lacke's avatar

I absolutely agree with you there. That's why Imho the project to argue over who's in possession of facts and who isn't just wastes everyone's time and changes zero minds. Look at where all the "fact-checking" got us.

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George Q Tyrebyter's avatar

Actually they are, every single one. They are just not Woke-facts (tm).

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LaVerne Karras's avatar

Actually they aren't, not a single one, blacks are more likely to be suspected and charged while non-blacks walk free or aren't even investigated, Jews were hated 'because they killed the mythical Jesus' as early as the 2nd century, Muslims that are doing what you call terrorism are fighting back against the US, generally speaking, waging a war OF terror' against them, between 4.5 and 6 million deaths in the Middle East alone, and 'The offending rates of undocumented immigrants were consistently lower than both U.S.-born citizens and documented immigrants for assault, sexual assault, robbery, burglary, theft, and arson.' ~ National Institute of Justice.

Congratulations, you are wrong on everything

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Burt's avatar

I'm pretty sure that

1) I'm non-black

2) I am not going to walk free after committing a crime

3) there are more white men in jail than blacks. How did they get there?

The rest of you rant is actually not bad, but you submarine your credibility completely in your second statement.

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Alan Collinge's avatar

Um. I think #3 is wrong. IF (and only if) this quick Google search is factual" The ethnic breakdown of incarcerated people in the US are:

Race: 32% Black, 31% White, 23% Hispanic, 10% multiracial or some other race, 2% American Indian or Alaska Native, 1% Asian, Native Hawaiian, or Other Pacific Islander

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Burt's avatar

Wow.

But the problem is State prisons / Fed prisons, are those both included here?

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Charles Newlin's avatar

Blacks are about a tenth of the population, whites the majority. Hence, there are more whites than blacks in prison, or poor, or whatever. You have to consider the proportions: blacks in prison are far more than their share.

And yes, that's partly because they're also more likely to commit crimes, if only because they're excluded from society and see crime as their only chance to succeed. When you mistreat people, you're morally responsible for the results.

But there's no reason to think the prosecution/imprisonment numbers reflect real crime rates. For one thing, the police just aren't that effective.

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Burt's avatar

"But here's no reason to think the prosecution/imprisonment numbers reflect real crime rates."

No reason?

I don't pretend that is a perfect correlation at all, and many agree, which is why they go immediately to murder statistics because those are more often reported due to the dead body, death cert. & etc.

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George the Zeroth's avatar

You say "You have to consider the proportions: blacks in prison are far more than their share."

OK; so if you're correct here (and I really don't even know if you are), what's the upshot of that?

Are you insinuating that those damn niggers are just no good and we should just get rid of them?

Hey, man, don't mince words: let us know what you really think!

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Alan Collinge's avatar

Myeahhh...there are facts in there, but there are subjective qualifiers in there too, which muddy the waters.

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Sam Horton's avatar

(2) might be false - see: 1492 los Reyes Catholicos unless you believe the Moors caused it to begin with.

What you might not know is that Muslims believe everyone alive is a Muslim, which is why they’re ok killing (or just raping, maybe taxing) all heretics.

It is also why they think Israel is theirs. All lands are theirs everywhere.

Should’ve destroyed them entirely when the Ottoman Empire fell in after WW1.

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CC's avatar

Re: blacks creating more crime- it applies in the UK as well. Blacks are 4% of the UK population but cause 10% of the crime. Pakistanis the same.

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LaVerne Karras's avatar

Have you ever considered the situation they are in, poor job opportunities and if they get the job, lower wages and less opportunities for advancement, and yes, that situation IS real.

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Skenny's avatar

With all due respect, he is and was relatively young, and a computer geek first and foremost. He was out of his element, swimming with the Deep State sharks. It wouldn't be unreasonable to think he's learned a few things, some the hard way, especially about politics, government, and business.

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