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Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

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Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#541

Post by bialpio »

triceratops wrote: post #393
bialpio wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In my opinion, this is pretty clear cut. If you don’t like Twitter’s policies, don’t use their website. On one hand yes, but on the other, does that also apply to other services? Can I open a shop only for people only and claim that if you don't like it, go somewhere else? How about other categories, protected or otherwise? As a society, we already agree that there are some freedoms that private businesses are deni…

> Can I open a shop only for people only and claim that if you don't like it, go somewhere else? How about other categories, protected or otherwise? You're missing the fine distinction between protected and non-protected categories. Discrimination based on what you are is banned - those constitute the protected categories. Sex, gender, national origin, race, family status, veteran status, religion, and sexual orienta…

So can I be banned from a social media platform if it so happens that I am a member of a church that forbids something and it so happens that I am vocal about it?

> But by and large, if you do or say something on my premises that I dislike, I can kick you out.

It cannot be a fuzzy "I dislike what you do", as it is prone to selective enforcement (and I can still discriminate based on what you are, but maintaining plausible deniability).

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#542

Post by CapricornNoble »

crocodiletears wrote: post #364
skinkestek wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that a Chinese billionaire had slipped Juliani a hard drive containing information that might be incriminating to Biden's Questions: why would the Chinese do that? Or do you mean a Chinese billionaire did it without the involvement of the government? Or do you think their recommendation of Biden is a calculated move to get people to vote for Trump?

My understanding is that he was a billionaire on the outs w/Xi's administration, however I only recall that much because it seemed like an interesting assertion at the time, but didn't look into it, nor did I bother remembering the source, because it was while I was skimming a bunch of articles and posts at once trying to keep abreast of the Burisma controversy. So I would take it with a significant grain of salt. Wh…

Billionaire Miles Guo is an anti-CCP dissident. His website Gnews.org, is the only site I've come across with elicit Hunter Biden footage. I have no idea how/why he has that material, but I think if he sees an opportunity to undermine the CCP's public image by linking them to a corrupt drugged-out American "Princeling", he would capitalize on it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guo_Wengui#GNews

It's also the only site where I've seen the "BGY Program" mentioned. https://gnews.org/51672/

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#543

Post by jjeaff »

ben509 wrote: post #333
ketamine__ wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The NY Post doesn't own the copyright to the photos it is publishing. Imagine if someone stole your laptop and published all your photos. I hope someone can step in and do to the Post what Peter Thiel did to Gawker.

Hunter Biden left his laptop at the repair shop and never paid for the repairs. After waiting the legally required 90 days, the repair shop became the rightful owner of the laptop and its contents. Once they owned those photos, they had every right to publish them or do whatever they wanted. The least the press could ask VP Biden would be, "will you pledge that your son will not be involved in any sensitive discussio…

That's not how copyright works.

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#544

Post by comex »

pseudo0 wrote: post #406
comex wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your article [2] doesn't actually say anything about Bobulinski claiming laptop emails were authentic, though perhaps he did somewhere in the full statement. Even if the emails themselves are authentic, the New York Post article which revealed them (the article that was suppressed) is misinformation in that it mischaracterized them. Their alleged provenance is also probably not authentic.

Thanks for pointing that out, I've changed the link to a different article that has Bobulinski's full statement. He verifies the authenticity of the contentious email referring to a "10% cut for the big guy" in the first paragraph of the full statement. What exactly did the New York Post mischaracterize? I read the article and my general impression was that it was a bit sensationalized, but that's rather typical when…

> If their digital forensic experts haven't found evidence of foul play

We only know the FBI subpoenaed the laptop because it was leaked to Fox News. The leak itself is presumably accurate, but we have no information about what the FBI did or did not find on the laptop – except for a letter that they have "nothing to add at this time" to an appearance by DNI John Ratcliffe on Fox Business.

In that appearance, Ratcliffe (a highly partisan official) did claim that the laptop was not part of a disinformation campaign, but also said that "I know so little about those emails and what is apparently on Hunter Biden's laptop". So it seems like he was referring to a lack of information about the laptop from the intelligence community rather than inside information from the FBI.

Admittedly, the FBI generally can share information with the intelligence community, and apparently in this case it has not. That does suggest that they probably don't have e.g. evidence that a specific foreign actor was behind things. But we don't know whether they've found evidence that foul play in general occurred or might have occurred. Heck, it's even possible that they found evidence of foul play by a specific entity, but didn't send it to the intelligence community because that entity is American – though I wouldn't say that's likely.

As for the lawyer, the closest we have to hard evidence is a screenshot of an email apparently showing that a lawyer for Hunter Biden spoke with the repair shop owner after Hunter was presumably asked for comment by the Post; it doesn't show any specific claims made by the lawyer. Beyond that we just have Adam Housley and Rudy Giuliani relaying the claims of the repair shop owner. Leaving aside those sources' lack of trustworthiness, Housley himself claimed that the attorney had the wrong year for when Hunter dropped off the laptop and "didn't even know when he left em there" [1]. If anything, that suggests that Hunter doesn't know the provenance, though it's hard to say without more information.

[1] https://twitter.com/adamhousley/status/1317319606126604288

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#545

Post by sieabahlpark »

CamTin wrote: post #339
dlp211 wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would be a valid criticism if these companies didn't hire top tier operatives from both parties and donate substantial amounts via their PACs to both.

It's not clear why this would be the case. Why should we care which "party" somebody is from when then issue at hand is a revolving door between DC and the Valley? The military-industrial complex has done fine under a two-party system and so presumably will the private-public corporate surveillance state. Everybody in power in the US has to pick one of two letters to put after their name, but they're all part of the…

It's because he naively believes one party is the bad version of government and the other is good. Instead of reasonably believing that all government is bad when unchecked, regardless of who.

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#546

Post by whamlastxmas »

nl wrote: post #288
sparky_z wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that technically true, though? I thought Swartz joined them later, months after they had already launched the site.

Yes, this is true. Aaron always seemed to regard it as a sore point, but he was never listed as a Reddit founder. I'm aware that PG has called him a founder, but seemingly the Reddit guys never thought of him as one.

Aaron's contract with the reddit founders explicitly gave him a "founder" title. To say he was never "listed" as a founder is misleading - listed where? He definitely was entitled to call himself as much and in most startup contexts it would be hard to claim he wasn't.

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#547

Post by comex »

cm2187 wrote: post #486
comex wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The email didn't say "thanks for the meeting with your father"; it thanked Hunter for "inviting me to DC and giving an opportunity to meet your father", wording that leaves it ambiguous whether the meeting had already occurred or was in the future. This is important because, even if it is authentic, it does not necessarily contradict Biden's claim that (according to his schedules) no such meeting occurred.

Biden's claim is that there is no trace of the meeting in the diary, but they did mention that the meeting could have happened informally. So they didn't claim no such meeting occurred. I am a bit puzzled that there wouldn't be a log of who comes in and out of government buildings. It should be easy to prove whether the said executives were at least in the building over that period or not.

I believe you're referring to what the Biden campaign said to Politico, that Biden could have had (in Politico's words) "some kind of informal interaction with Pozharskyi" but "any encounter would have been cursory". [1] The Washington Post notes that Hunter Biden did arrange for a different business partner to shake hands with Joe Biden at an existing public event, and speculates that he could have done something similar for Pozharskyi. [2] While it's only speculation, that does amount to another possible scenario where the email is accurate. But I wouldn't call such an interaction a "meeting" exactly, and it would scarcely be evidence of corruption.

[1] https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/14/biden-campaign-lash...

[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/10/14/hunter-bi...

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#548

Post by Consultant32452 »

zimpenfish wrote: post #534
Consultant32452 wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The constitution as it was written allows for amendments. The 13th and 19th Amendments outlawed slavery and gave women the right to vote, respectively.

But those amendments didn't exist when it "was written" - if you're an Originalist claiming to interpret the Constitution "as it was written", that excludes amendments. If you change it to "as it is written", sure, that includes them but you lose the claim to be an Originalist given the timestamps on everything after the 12th Amendment since that's 76 years later and I'm reasonably sure none of the framers were alive…

The 19th Amendment was ratified in 1920. It was written then. The fact that other parts were ratified at different times doesn't stop you from interpreting each part "as it was written." But you know that.

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#549

Post by java_script »

chkaloon wrote: post #525

GYOFP - Get Your Own F'ing Platform. That's what so-called non-mainstream ideas have used for decades/centuries. Used to be pamphlets. Recently it was local weeklys. Now it's social media. That's what the First Amendment is all about. Amazing how this is getting twisted inside-out. This is all just so much whining by folks whose ox happened to be gored. GYOFP for cripe's sake.

I’d rather these ride-or-die Joe Biden-heads splinter off onto their own network instead. They could make it so whenever you start to even type “Hunt-“ you get a modal that says “Did You Know: Actually Energy Expert Hunter Biden added way more than $50,000/mo worth of value to Burisma.”

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#550

Post by nearbuy »

scoot_718 wrote: post #521
nearbuy wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter's objection was that the New York Post article contained hacked or illegally obtained material (personal intimate photos, etc.). Publishing those materials is a legal grey area.

Except it was faked and not hacked or illegally obtained.

I don't think anyone is sure what it is yet. A common tactic in misinformation campaigns is to mix authentic (possibly hacked) photos with forged material. The authentic material is added to make the leak seem more believable.
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