Twitter Court Filing Cites Alarming FTC Conduct Pressuring Consent Decree Arbiter to Target Elon Musk and Company
Prior to Elon Musk taking control of Twitter, the social media company entered a consent decree with the Federal Trade Commission putting a neutral arbiter from Ernst & Young in an oversight position for the company’s privacy, data collection and information security protocols. Given what we know about DHS and FBI control and influence over Twitter content, there is a certain irony in the prior position of the FTC regarding user privacy.
That said, Twitter’s new parent company X Corp filed a court motion Thursday [PDF HERE] asking a federal court overseeing the settlement to either throw out the consent decree entirely, or put it on hold until the FTC turns over documents to Twitter showing historic bias against the company. Twitter is also seeking to bar the FTC from deposing CEO Elon Musk over issues that preceded his arrival.
Within the filing, Twitter presents some alarming information as shared by Ernst and Young about the FTC pressure applied to them.
Musk’s Tweet-Limiting Move Is To Prevent The Completion Of The “AI-Censorship-Death-Star”
Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock this weekend, you will know that Twitter CEO Elon Musk said Saturday that the social media platform will limit how many tweets users can read due to “extreme” levels of system manipulation and data scraping.
Claiming the sudden change is being implemented to combat “extreme levels of data scraping and system manipulation,” Musk said the daily restrictions would eventually be raised to 8,000 posts for verified users, 800 for unverified accounts, and 400 for new unverified users.
Immediately, the socials came alive with claims of ‘free speech’ suppression etc…
So they want ‘more’ twitter not less? But we thought it was a cesspool of nazi porn?
Musk said at the time that hundreds of organizations or more were scraping Twitter data “extremely aggressively,” with a negative impact on user experience.
However, there may be more to this than ‘user experience’ deterioration, or an effort by Musk force more monetization.
Musk hinted at the ‘other’ reason in April, when he threatened to sue Microsoft, which has invested billions into OpenAI, after accusing the company of using Twitter data for training.
“They trained illegally using Twitter data. Lawsuit time,” Musk wrote on Twitter on April 19.
Which brings us to Mike Benz’s excellent discussion this morning of what may really be going on behind the scenes, that yet again – the world’s richest man could be the only one uncancellable enough to battle.
Benz begins his trek with the statement: “AI censorship is where all of the magic happens.”
He points out, the Twitter Files showed how The FBI might come in and get 22 tweets censored, but AI is how IEP (and other 3rd-party censorship groups) were able to get 22 million tweets censored.”
Before 2016, Benz explains, you could not ‘control’ the internet; but since then, there has been an “AI Censorship Deathstar” under construction, which “relies on massive scraping of Twitter data to track trending narratives, to systemically surveil, to build intelligence dossiers, and to track and turn down – all at one – communities online.”
Twitter is the best social network of all for this massive data scraping (and training) since all consumers of information are also creators.
This explicitly makes scraping data there far more important for early narrative detection and countering ‘wrongthink’ via fact-checking, Google Ad suppression, political pressure (possibly enforcing hate speech laws like Michigan just passed), or mainstream media propaganda focus.
Also, on the other side, while Musk appears to have got the ‘Trust & Safety’ censors/bannner/throttlers out of the loop, this massive data scrape allows any establishment-favored narratives to be amplified.
And it appears to be working as ChatGPT admitted it was unable to access real-time tweets this morning…
So – is this just another money-making scheme for Twitter; or is Musk really the world’s last best hope for ‘freedom’ of speech.
“You are going to see the censorship industry howl over this,” Benz concludes, and “whether Musk knows it or not, he has stepped on a rattlesnake.”
While the censorship-industry will “in a wierd way, while the boot [of Musk’s tweet-read-limit] may be cutting off some amount of openness of Twitter, it may also represent in some way, the boot of freedom.”
We reported previously on this powerful video montage posted by Grabien’s Tom Elliott of a slew of the media and politicians demonizing the unvaccinated.
As my colleague Bob Hoge explained, they attacked Americans who were unvaccinated as “lunatics” who are “not to be trusted,” who are “killing people,” and who should be denied hospital beds. Chief among them was Joe Biden. “We’ve been patient,” he said, “but our patience is running thin.”
That sure as heck sounds like an outright threat that he will use the full force of the government of the United States government against anyone who dares defy his will. “This is not about freedom or personal choice,” he added. Yes, it was about exactly those two things, Joe.
“Screw your freedom,” said actor and alleged Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger in a staggering display of anti-American rhetoric.
This was a great line and so on target from Hoge, “The viciousness and self-righteousness displayed by so many ‘leaders’ during the pandemic will go down as one of the darker periods in American history.” Indeed, and they were wrong about so much while trying to impose their will on everyone. COVID let loose a darkness that I think many didn’t think we had within our country, with the incredible authoritarian effort to control everything. Yet, it was just the opening salvo in a battle for control that continues.
But this wasn’t only the demonizing of Americans; it cost many of the unvaccinated their jobs if they didn’t comply with mandates. Biden pushed policies requiring millions of federal employees and federal contractors to be fully vaccinated. According to the AP, at one point, mandates proposed by Biden would have covered more than 100 million people. He even wanted to impose it on large private companies with over 100 employees, requiring vaccination or regular testing, but that got stopped in the courts.
Twitter owner Elon Musk wasn’t shy about pointing this out in response to the video. His response has now more than 52 million views.
“Until the Supreme Court struck down Biden’s vaccination decree, he tried to demand that we fire all unvaccinated personnel – some of our finest people,” Musk said. Biden’s mandates certainly did cause the firing of many people who would not comply. Not to mention that you could get banned on Twitter for saying the “wrong thing” about COVID. How much has changed, since Musk took over, and how that has helped to bring more truth back into the public square. But we should not forget how many people this authoritarian regime hurt with these moves.
And guess who thought he could take on Musk? Alexander Vindman, who seemed to be begging for a Twitter Community Note. He seems to think we’ve all forgotten about the mandates.
“Liar, Conspiracist. Conspirator,” Vindman ranted. None of those terms apply to Musk’s remarks, and I’m not sure who he thinks Musk is supposed to be “conspiring” with. But it’s truly funny. He can’t dispute that people were fired as a result of the Biden mandates, as many people pointed out to him. But hey, why let that truth stand in the way of his remarks, right? He doesn’t seem to give a darn about all the Americans who lost their jobs because of the mandates. It doesn’t fit the liberal narrative. I think it’s fair to say that Vindman got ratioed into next week by the number of folks telling him how wrong he was. Some were kinder than others; some called labels he was throwing at Musk “projection.”
Project Veritas Catches Vicious Twitter Executive Dismissing Free Speech and Mocking People with Asperger’s, Elon Musk Reacts
May 17, 2022 |
It did not take Elon Musk long to react to the second explosive undercover video of Twitter executives disparaging free speech and even mocking Musk for Asperger’s. This will not end well for Mr. Alex Martinez, Lead Client Partner for Twitter advertising.
[NEW YORK – May 17, 2022] Project Veritas has published the second part of their series on Twitter. This story features undercover footage of Lead Client Partner, Alex Martinez, an employee for the tech giant, who sometimes speaks on behalf of the company at events. This footage shows a very candid Martinez speaking about how the company’s “ideology” led them to be less “profitable,” among other incendiary comments.
[…] Martinez even made distasteful comments about Musk having Asperger’s. “He has Asperger’s,” Martinez says at one point adding, “so, he’s special.” Going further, Martinez later says, “We all know that and that’s fine. So here, no one’s going to say some f**king crazy sh*t because he’s special.” (read more)
Twitter executive calling Elon Musk mentally handicapped, "special" and saying he has "aspergers."
This Twitter exec goes on to say that Twitter is "not here to give people free speech" @elonmusk is going to want to see this one too…pic.twitter.com/dQZamaLiC8
Texas man offers Elon Musk 100 acres of free land to move Twitter’s headquarters
An Austin-area man is offering Elon Musk free land to use for Twitter’s headquarters should the billionaire choose to relocate his newly purchased company from San Francisco to Texas. Twitter accepted Musk’s deal to buy the social media platform for $44 billion on Monday, which prompted Gov. Greg Abbott to invite the richest man in the world to move its headquarters to the Lone Star State and join three of Musk’s other companies.
Now Jim Schwertner, president and CEO of Schwertner Farms, is making his own offer to Musk. “Elon Musk, Move Twitter to Schwertner, TX. 38 Miles North of Austin in Williamson County, and we will give you 100 Acres for FREE,” Schwertner wrote on Twitter Tuesday.
Schwertner oversees farming and ranching on 20,000 acres of land just north of Georgetown, according to Austonia’s Andrea Guzmán. He said that the move would be a “win-win for everybody,” adding that a business like Twitter would bring a lot of jobs and boost the economy.
“We think it’s a good idea, especially when you’ve got Samsung coming to Taylor,” Schwertner told Austonia. “I mean, this area is exploding and we want to be part of this explosive growth.”
Other social media giants with headquarters in Central Texas include Meta and TikTok. Musk’s companies Tesla, SpaceX and the Boring Company are also headquartered in the Lone Star State.
“I just think with all the stuff he’s done, he evidently likes Texas, right or he wouldn’t have moved from California,” Schwertner said about Musk. “And I want to be part of his plan if he’ll come visit with us.”
Schwertner reiterated his offer on Twitter Wednesday in an effort to gain Musk’s attention. He told Austonia his offer is a “serious gesture to help the citizens around Williamson County.”
