Should TAN ban X?

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I know it’s not personal. I used the word “underhanded”, though to be fair, I didn’t really mean it, as I know it is not precisly meant as an attack on my person in any form or way.
It’s just that it’s very demoralising to to point where I cannot be bothered to post updates, when the same people who claim to appreciate them, at the same time wants to ban my sources.
I have two options for sources. Telegram and Twitter. Bluesky doesn’t function, it doesn’t contain enough of the specialised information I seek, because the sources I use, only a few of them have turned to Bluesky to make a dual account there. Twitter is dying, but it’s not dead and before it is dead, it is still a primary source.
The alternative is Telegram, but it’s a hassle, I have to translate everything from Russian or Ukrainian. That is a lot of work. Time I don’t have. And the people who want to ban Twitter due to the danger of Musk and Musk’s anti democratic crusade (as well as the fact that it is a free for all there now with the Ultra Nationalists and more vulgar idiots). But the information there still remains. The same accounts I have used, are still there, with only a very few academics dropping out. From the war, it’s simply either Twitter or Telegram. As you said, the war is not covered in MSM in any sort of even broad detail.
And Telegram, is owned by a Russian jet billionaire who is loyal to the Kremlin. While it is not censored (at all, Twitter is even now, far more sanitised than Telegram), which I like, I don’t feel comfortable posting from it much and using it much. I sometimes use it for videos that are not released on Twitter, but I prefer to have a silent account and post nothing there. It’s an ugly place, far uglier than Twitter in any form or way. But you get raw footage there , from various units as well as some analysis, but the text I must translate and it’s time consuming. And again, the reasons for anyone want to ban Twitter counts double for Telegram…

I am just exasperated. Not disappointed with the likes of Cynicaloldgit or anyone else who doesn’t read that thread, it just feels rather…bad…to have the same people who claim to want to be informed be in favour of a ban. It is mentally taxing seeing what I view as hypocracy and stupidity. Because obviously, if it’s banned, I can’t post anything there. So I must then assume they want it banned more than they want to be informed. Demoralising of course, so I end up not bothering with updates and perhaps indeed, I end up a with a bit bitterness and a bit snappyness.

Sorry.

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594

Also, I still love you, you fucking crank of a troll!

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595

Crank? Yes.

Troll? Nope. Unless you mean the type from mythology.

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596

Fair. Curmudgeon forest troll then.

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597

Spending hundreds of hours on X can’t be good for you. No one is asking you to do it, so your meltdown seems a bit ridiculous.

Also, multiple X posts are a pain in the arse as it makes the thread jump around and it’s hard to find any discussion/opinion, which is what forums are for.

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Yes, thank you for your valuable input. Very informative.

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Some light hearted amusement for all you Twitter haters.
You’re welcome

https://x.com/extinguiendonos/status/1890491939436314781?t=Yz_T1WNYcL_7Da5FzqIWpg&s=03

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this is often wheeled out as if it was fact…not for debate…

freedom of speech is important…but i would have said the corner stones would be made up of empathy and community…

if you get them two right, freedom of speech is less relevant, becuase you automatically have it…

people bang on and on about ‘freedom of speech’ in such an agressive and combatitive manner (in my opinion only)

surely the correct framing around freedom of speech should be

person 1 to person 2 ’ whats your opinion on the matter, its important we are all heard’

not

person 1 to person 2 ‘its my opinion and i have a fucking right to it, and if you dont like the fact i can have one, then you dont belong in this society’

if you know what i mean

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Today, freedom of speech is always use with the caveat “unless you don’t agree with me”.

And this doesn’t change whether you are in power or not. If you are in power, you’re just in a better position to censor and drive the mainstream media a bit more.

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The problem with the free speech absolutist argument is that it doesn’t take into account that the medium for transmitting that message has undergone a massive shift in the last twenty years.

In the old days everyone had free speech, and everyone could say whatever the fuck they wanted. The safeguard to that was that in order to get to a point where people actually listened to you, you would need to build a reputation and develop an expertise to make the media give you a platform. It was a self correcting system. The act of becoming an expert in something generally meant the cranks fell by the wayside.

Now thanks to social media, not only can any fucking crank shout about whatever they want, it’s also very easy to find an audience of similar minded cranks and then have your message amplified to the mainstream.

So I think that we have to rethink the idea of free speech. It’s nice to think everyone can say whatever they want, but increasingly as a society we are finding it very hard to agree on simple facts. Should free speech include knowingly spreading untruths? I don’t think so, but the genie is out of the bottle so fuck knows how we get it back in again.

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We don’t, this is the post-truth society now. The issue with policing speech is that it’s always guaranteed to be 100% biased. Most humans are too stupid to tell the difference between truth and sensationalist lies anymore. Even when the truth is being told, it’s wrapped in someone’s warped agenda.

Social Media is a complete cancer, all of the platforms should be destroyed for the good of humanity, but it won’t happen because there’s too much money to be made. Lately I’ve come to the conclusion that as long as you have enough to feed, clothe, and house yourself and your family then it probably doesn’t matter what else is going on tbh.

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605

I have to say, I take a very different view on this. Growing up, I viewed organisations like the BBC as trusted sources of truth, ethical in their reporting and grounded in facts. Over time, though, that perception has eroded significantly.

Living abroad and witnessing events like COVID-19 and how they were covered by the BBC, I saw how the network tailored its reports to fit a political UK narrative, rather than simply reflecting the reality of the situation. The BBC’s role during Brexit, for example, was questionable at best. They failed to hold the government accountable and often gave far too much airtime to Nigel Farage in the name of “balance.” This was a top-tier institution (trusted by the nation), not some fringe publication owned by a foreign tycoon or political extremist.

This is significant because, in the absence of alternatives, what people are told becomes the narrative. We tend to default to what we see and hear from these outlets. While there’s plenty of criticism of social media, let’s not pretend we’re living in a world where the likes of Fox News are the norm. The reality is that traditional media failed us, not only Liverpool FC, but this city as a whole.

Take Hillsborough, for example. The media (TV, radio, newspapers) blamed us, the fans, for what happened. They misrepresented the events, shifted the blame onto innocent people, and were complicit in the cover-up. This caused long-term damage to our reputation, and it still affects how we’re viewed today.

Compare that to 2022, when the police in Paris wrongly blamed our fans for the chaos outside the Champions League final. Fans, using social media, immediately shared their firsthand accounts, creating a real-time narrative that countered the lies being spread. It was the backlash on social media that forced the French government to launch an investigation. Without that, we’d have been painted as hooligans once again, and the media/police/government would have gotten away with it.

The difference between younger and older generations in understanding events like the Israel-Palestine conflict is clear it’s about the access to alternative perspectives. Social media gives people a platform to hear firsthand accounts and see what political leaders themselves are saying.

Yes, there’s a lot of misinformation on social media, but it also amplifies voices that need to be heard especially those of marginalised groups. And let’s be real: traditional media is hardly unbiased. When some of the UK’s biggest newspapers are owned by former KGB officers, I’d much rather rely on direct accounts from the people involved than trust their often questionable interpretations.

Twitter is the main outlet for the official club account, it’s where many players also post, it’s the main outlet for millions of fans.

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Okay explanation accepted.

Until next week.

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But this is only true as long as the users consent to it. If users move somewhere else, it will cease to have that position. Users of MySpace moved to Facebook, users of Facebook moved to Instagram und Twitter and so on.

In my opinion, Musk is an existential threat to Democracy and, as such, I can’t support anything with which he is associated. Of course, we all have to compromise. Living in a NeoLiberal Capitalist world forces that on us, but, in this case, it’s such a small sacrifice.

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Get a grip

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When a group of self-proclaimed murderers abandon the platform, you know things are bad.

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Clearly not been hanging around the app lately, not even for 5 minutes.
Must’ve thought it was sleazy.
Obviously decided that something better change, so chose to walk on by

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On the subject of twitter links etc. Not naming anyone, but if people put multiple links in a single post, it can be difficult to decide how to react to the post because you might like half of the links and hate the other half.
Just saying.

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I thought the Stranglers were a band which Stuart Pearce is harping about.

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Also takes a shit load of time to load.

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