Not sure why this is flagged? One of the largest social media platforms in the industry changed ownership, its user base is noticing an unexplained change in functionality? Surely that warrants a discussion among tech people?
these topics are controversial for people who support the current US government, they don't want to see it on their tech-news website (even though it's called hacker news, the spirit of the hacker manifesto is not alive here).
Funnily enough, these flagged topics seem to spark a lot of conversation, and the voices of the government supporters are not heard here...So they just flag and move on, not even trying to defend their position
It only takes 4 HN users in support of something to silence opposition to it
That's the acutal number, 4 flags from users allowed to flag with a full weight? Where did you learn that?
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> the voices of the government supporters are not heard here
This is sad to me because I really want to hear the other perspective, and there is no place that exists (that I know of) for people who disagree with each other to have a real conversation. Nothing left but echo chambers.
But I think HN falls into this trap because the down vote button is used when people disagree with the other person, which imo is a misappropriation and what prevents people from sharing unpopular opinions.
The solution if you really want to hear from the other side is to visit their echo chamber.
But most people who talk politics aren't really interested in changing their perspective. That's why these echo chambers exist.
> The solution if you really want to hear from the other side is to visit their echo chamber.
That's not a solution at all, the point isn't to hear unopposed, highly selective talking points, we know all that already, the media is full of it. The point is to see them defend their positions against fairly simple criticism which they block and the mainstream media doesn't address.
Patriots.win if you want to see what they really think
it would be interesting to see up and down levels rather than just a net effect. That lets a user see this is 50/50 split issue or like 70/30 split maybe it has more substance
Respectfully, I think it’s impossible to have “real conversation” on a site where users are (essentially) anonymous, discussions are threaded, and comments are boosted or hidden based on their upvotes. For deep, nuanced discussions where people can actually change their minds, you want a discussion board — but it’s a paradigm that’s difficult to scale, and so isn’t compatible with the modern notion of social media.
I'd replace "real conversation" with "community". And I think communities don't prohibit anonymity. I think the impossibility is really having a community with a very large active userbase. A macro version of Dunbar's number.
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...replying to my self to point out that ironically my post is being downvoted.
I guess wanting to hear the other side's perspective is not looked upon favorably here, just like everywhere else.
Be careful though. It's easy to think you know why you are being downvoted (BTW, it looks like the pendulum has swung the other way—you don't look downvoted to me).
When you have a handful of sentences in your post, it may well be the one you're not expecting that triggered the downvotes.
I think the downvote on comments is; it's the flagging that's the problem because it essentially hides the post from the HN community (which is why I now always go to /active instead of the home page).
This will sound crazy but this is why I still use 4chan. Everyone is anonymous, there is no voting, and the only moderation is to remove illegal things or flagrant rule breaking. It's 99% dogshit (and worse), but if you go into it knowing that, you can find some good stuff sometimes. Not good as in morally good, just sometimes someone will post a link to a video or an article that will actually make me think.
Here, and on reddit, and anywhere with voting or people caring about the number next to their username, it's the most popular opinions at the top and everything else at the bottom or flagged. I genuinely don't understand what people get out of that.
And I guess I should specify that this is also why political topics get flagged. Sure, it probably has a lot to do with people flagging stuff that goes against their beliefs. But I also think that political threads here offer absolutely nothing aside from reaffirming existing beliefs. No one is trying to change anyone's minds, everyone is just yelling at each other. Threads about actual tech stuff can be very interesting and I do learn things from them sometimes. But political threads here are worthless.
edit: I do not mean /pol/, no one should ever go there
> This will sound crazy but this is why I still use 4chan. Everyone is anonymous, there is no voting, and the only moderation is to remove illegal things or flagrant rule breaking.
What you see is a mirage.
The problem with 4chan is that the loudest voices are the ones that have no lives, and can flood the board with their bullshit. You could be having a conversation with someone in one thread, meanwhile they're busy posting about the same damn thing in 3-4 other threads at the same time.
And that's assuming the person on the other end is real. These days, there are bot armies of paid shills or AI to worry about, flooding the zone with their narrative to the point where your voice gets drowned out.
You cannot have a decent social space without some form of active moderation and some protection against sockpuppeting. Not every place with both of those gets it right, but without both you're guaranteed to fail, and 4chan has neither.
Most original "hacker" (1980s, 1990s) and open source people are quietly right wing anyway.
Left vs right distinction is not accurate nor does help us to reflect the reality of our current world any more.
Fascism and authoritarianism can come in both left, right, color, sizes, sex and age.
like who?
"Cool? It's commie bullshit." -Hackers.
Maybe, but the fundamental ideas of sharing knowledge/software and preventing corporate control of technology is far more left wing than right wing.
> voices of the government supporters are not heard here...So they just flag and move on, not even trying to defend their position
Why are you're assuming flagging indicates support of the government?
Maybe they're flagging because it's a topic that will generate much more heat than light. It doesn't have to be deeper than that.
There's a clear pattern of stories that paint oligarchs in a bad light being flagged. Even simple tech-based articles about Tesla get flagged if they highlight a negative about the company or cars.
> not even trying to defend their position
Hard to do when your position is essentially indefensible.
It is defensible.
First, there is no evidence that they were censored because of keywords. Crazily enough, they may have been censored by god (or simply datacenter issues).
Second, if there were such censorship features, then it shows that the US was right to buy TikTok. Imagine if National Socialists or those who are against liberty and justice had access to such features.
Third, we are in a time of great danger, thus requiring great actions. What is the danger? It cannot be explained. What is the solution? To re-use the past. In early 1000s, the Germans were both holy and roman and justly created living space in the East. Hundreds of years later, we started Manifest Destiny. Similar to 南进 of the Vietnamese, we should recognize the job has not been finished. This requires rewriting history. While China existed for 5000 years, the US has existed for 6000. The Jewish, Christian, and American spirits merged together, and people of 100s of different dialects were pulled into the area, and the wave of freedom moved back abroad. This was the formation of the American language, a true melting pot. While many Americans have genetic ties to Europe, they have one difference, a spirit that is free and mobile. Unlike the Europeans who stay in one place and look down at the wandering Roma, the Americans are inherently mobile, experiencing new ways at life. This is the Spirit and what allows for Americans to manifest the destiny of the world from East to West.
My problem with these type of posts in HN is that the discussion doesn't offer ANYTHING constructive.
I comment a lot about these matters on Reddit, and I'm very much against all that's happening in the USA.
But the reality is that the discourse i see here in these types of political posts is the same as on Reddit and the like. (Whether For or against )
It would be great if somehow the discussion added something different. Like the post about Iran censorship and the suggestions on technology to bypass it (I learned about Snowflake) .
But the problem with US related politics is that HN people are very emotionally invested (being Americans most of them) and that makes the discussion become very visceral.
> My problem with these type of posts in HN is that the discussion doesn't offer ANYTHING constructive.
They offer a chance for awareness, which is literally step one. Americans are some of the most propagandized people on Earth, and most don't even know it.
It's crucial that the tech community develops more awareness around censorship - no small share of the responsibility is with us.
Censoring stories about censorship, on a premier tech community and investment forum, just because the discussion gets 'visceral' is simply capitulation to any entity willing to try and make a discussion toxic. We need to do a lot better than that.
I was talking to my uncle last September who is a chaplain in the US Army, and I was shocked by the disparity between what he understood was going on in the US and what I understood. That's not to say that I'm not influenced in certain ways either, but it really cemented my understanding that people in the US (and here in Canada and I'm sure other countries too) are operating within two entirely different realities.
He's not even what I would call MAGA, but it still seemed like a gulf that is impossible to bridge.
> people in the US (and here in Canada and I'm sure other countries too) are operating within two entirely different realities
They're not entirely different though. The similarities are critical to understand; the parts where both parties differ wildly from reality in the exact same way.
For example: 98.15% of 2024 voters didn't hold openly arming genocide as a red line for their vote. I don't believe you can blame the 2 party system for that, not entirely - every adult human has an extremely clear moral and legal duty not to be voting for anyone arming genocide.
Speaking to Americans about this will furnish extremely consistent and predictable responses; none of which hold the smallest amount of weight. There is no rationale for genocide, ever. There is never a good reason to enable the mass slaughter of children, the bombing of an entire healthcare system, the mass targeting of journalists and their families, the poisoning of wells, etc etc etc.
Yet no matter how predictable the responses, there's still no getting through. We all know how delusional the MAGA crowd can be - but Biden repeated lies about 40 beheaded babies long after they were debunked to virtually zero pushback. That lie, and the one about mass rape, was used to 'justify' genocide. Millions of people still believe it. No one was ever held responsible for those lies, not so much as a slap on the wrist.
Biden vetoed 4 UN ceasefires against a genocide that had been already called out by virtually every relevant human rights org. And even after those vetoes, people like AOC - the supposed left wing of the supposed left wing party - told us he was "working tirelessly for a ceasefire". The entire political and media class chose to overlook this, and instead get worked up about, Idk, the 8 trans people competing in professional sports instead.
A party that can inspire such loyalty that it's members overlook participation in genocide can only be described as a cult. The blue cultists says the red cult are in a cult, and the red cultists say the blue cultists are in a cult.
And then there's the other third of the voting population - the faction who intensely dislike both parties, but can't be bothered to vote for a third option even against the most documented genocide in history. Absolutely astounding propaganda work.
And that's just regular people. Imagine how much worse it is for people in the military, where only Murdoch media is permitted and you can get jailed for reading things like Wikileaks. Imagine growing up in a 'privileged' elite bubble, where poverty is "necessary" and "deserved", where every billionaire "earned" their wealth, where some families with generational wealth are simply genetically "superior". Ugh.
So yes, many people live in wildly different realities - but the parts where the blue cult and the red cult have the exact same opinions, and so do even the "independents" (again, things like the 'necessity' of tolerating genocide from your leaders, or the socialist evils of feeding hungry children)... Wow. Truly, there is a vast, almost unimaginable gulf between America and the rest of the world.
... And they think they're free. They think the US is hated for its freedoms. It's fascinating, and terrifying - and the tech community has played no small part in every aspect of things getting this way, for decades.
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I don't go to Reddit or other forums that discuss politics. HN is the only forum I visit, and it's important to be aware, and talk about, these issues that involve large tech companies but also have to do with politics, because of the widespread implications. The comments are sometimes informative of what similar things may be happening elsewhere, or technical-oriented perspectives on the matter, which aren't going to come up in a NYT or similar article.
There is another post about this exact topic on the front page: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46779809
So I can only assume this one is flagged because the source is pride.com
Make of that what you will.
your link was posted a few hours after this post was flagged
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It's flagged because so much of the HN userbase are aligned with the SV oligarchs that took over TikTok-US, and don't want them criticized in public.
There is a certain proto-fascist contingent here that sees it to their duty to stifle all discussion critical of the regime.
And there are people who own and run this website with extremely aligned interests.
Altman and Thiel have long had YC connections (obv); and for the last year or so Garry Tan and PG have been full-throatedly cheerleading Musk and DOGE on their Twitter pages.
Then there's the many connections between YC and the 'defense' industry; you know, the one making billions of dollars from wars that people speak out about on social media.
It's very easy to explain why posts get flagged here. It's a lot harder to digest why they don't get unflagged. Especially when all the posts about it are quickly removed, every single one.
Cue the usual dang copypasta how there is no evidence of flag brigading, and how they "moderate less", and so on.
To be fair, dang's position has consistently been (and he posted as such yesterday[1]) that the flag brigading comes from two distinct groups: 1. Users who don't want to see "politics" and 2. Users who are partisan and want to hide politics they don't like.
My view is that these are essentially the same group. "Not wanting to see politics" is itself just a partisan view in favor of whatever the Status Quo currently is. So if you're going through and flagging articles describing wrongdoing or calling for change, because they are "political," then you're just operating in the service of whoever is currently in power.
> My view is that these are essentially the same group. "Not wanting to see politics" is itself just a partisan view in favor of whatever the Status Quo currently is. So if you're going through and flagging articles describing wrongdoing or calling for change, because they are "political," then you're just operating in the service of whoever is currently in power.
But some people do that regardless who is currently in power, what do you call that? I'd call that "not wanting to see politics" and not being partisan.
Agreed.
Given the consistency and speed of flags though, I don't think #2 is just "organic" flagging.
> Given the consistency and speed of flags though, I don't think #2 is just "organic" flagging.
Thousands of people view these very quickly once they hit the frontpage, its enough 0.1% of those are willing to flag to see consistent near instant flagging.
Yep.
Followed by the usual sycophantic support: "You're doing a great job dang, we all love you so don't worry about these cranks", and "Well I'VE never noticed any censorship so it obviously doesn't exist" (Yeah dude that's how it works lol).
Can’t make a man understand something when his paycheck depends on him not understanding it.
Dan sold out his moral compass.
By now it’s confirmed full-blown fascism. Nothing proto about it.
fascists are going to fascist. Dang et al will just look away and say. "we don't have any power over what our users do. Email us to let us know." Because apparently the mods don't visit their own website? They'll just keep their heads buried in the sand. Everything is fine as long as that sweet ycombinator check keeps getting cashed.
Minihands's fans tend to flag anything unfavourable to Dear Leader.
This is quite out of character for a lawn mower; lawn mowers shouldn't care.
for those curious about the lawn mower: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc&t=2312s
More context: the video speaks about Oracle and TikTok has been bought by an investor group headed by Oracle's Larry Ellison (which the article also references).
Is the lawn mower already in control of TikTok?
As of a few days ago, yes: https://newsroom.tiktok.com/announcement-from-the-new-tiktok...
Only TikTok in the U.S., though; everywhere else it's Bytedance still.
I guess ICE's videos are going to be much harder to find from now on.
Not if censoring was part of the deal, then its just a payment.
it does not care. it just want to make more money.
Why does everything ICE related gets flagged on HN?
Pro-Regime enforcers exist in the digital world as well.
21st century brownshirts, if you will.
Is the country falling apart? So many extreme events is happening over there.
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Doesn’t more and more countries fall into the enemies category as Trump is ruining international relationships?
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What did he get out of the Greenland deal that the US didn’t have Jan 19, 2025?
I am not the NATO chief.
Then tell us what powers does the Dutch NATO chief has to make a deal in name of Greenland and Denmark.
Trump got empty hands, he got totally played by the nice words of Rutte.
Edit: Your conversation is really mind boggling:
"Trump got a great deal on Greenland!"
"What deal?"
"How would I know?!?!?!"
It is not mind boggling if you don't manipulate quotes to fit for your narrative.
Nice way of avoiding the main question: What deal? There is no new deal between Greenland/Denmark and US.
It is mind boggling how you keep trying to deflect away given your narrative.
> Trump got a standing ovation at Davos and got a deal for Greenland
And you don't know what is the deal, at all, so how can you base your entire argument in something you simply do not know? You don't know, you simply do not know.
I'm confident to go a step further and say there is no deal.
Greenland and Denmark weren't present to make a deal.
And to quote Trump: "Well, the deal is going to be put out pretty soon and we'll see. It's right now a little bit in progress, but pretty far along." (from https://www.youtube.com/shorts/W_UE7h3nTmQ)
The deal that is "now a little bit in progress", sounds to me like there is no deal.
We have.... concepts of a deal.
> He is incredibly good at manipulating public perception to change opinions and get what he wants
Sorry but you are suffering from some kind of delusion here. He's not manipulating public perception in any way that is beneficial to him or the US. He's crashing his own public perception (which was already in the gutter to all but the sycophants and blind loyalists) and taking the US' reputation with him
This is the one thing you shouldn't deny especially if you don't like Trump.
“There is no greater danger than underestimating your opponent.” ― Lao Tzu
Oh I don't underestimate him. It's been obvious he's dangerous from day 1. But being dangerous does not preclude being (seen to be) a fool.
I think you are heavily underestimating the level of contempt he has built towards Americans and the US in the last month or two. I don't think Europeans, certainly not Scandinavians, will forget this for decades. This isn't like some random normal boycott-type movement that goes viral, I legitimately think Americans are teetering on being persona non grata as a people unless they prove they've divorced themselves from the mess at home.
It might be manipulating people at home, but you're closer (still not close, obviously) to Russia than Sweden as far as a trustworthy business partner or ally now. We're suddenly not making any long term plans that rely on America or American companies where it's avoidable, I don't know if you understand how big of a shift that is.
He is not good at manipulating the public, almost everyone knows what he actually is (there is not much to know at this point anyway). They are not applauding him, they do it because they need US economy to keep things afloat they smile and shake hands because of that. He could be just saying random words or saying only profanities from start to finish, the outcome would be the same, they would still give a standing ovation with eyes rolling.
Wait, everything ELSE was a "performance" but a (claimed) standing ovation was the real deal...?
You can just watch the event.
Edit: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cm24vjvy3n1o
"I was in the room when President Donald Trump entered and it's fair to say he got a good welcome from the crowd, certainly at the beginning. A standing ovation."
The issue isn't whether or not there was a "standing ovation" - the issue is that you are framing anything you think of as vaguely negative as fake and anything that you think is vaguely positive as genuine.
Because everyone knows how easy it is to play Trump, do a standing ovation and his ego is satisfied so it's easier to deal with him.
Exactly like you'd do with a toddler :)
> Trump got a standing ovation at Davos
Let's run the clap-o-meter.
- Trump: https://www.youtube.com/live/qo2-q4AFh_g?si=1dLbyqmpVH39KtY1...
- Carney: https://youtu.be/CQOr9FcSf-M?si=vb4Z9fSOewRyV_7S&t=1130
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And all the people that died because of him, is that intended?
Who are all the people? Unfortunately for Trump, he doesn't control every trigger that gets pulled but now we are seeing de-escalation.
How about these people? https://hsph.harvard.edu/news/usaid-shutdown-has-led-to-hund...
After the previous public execution by ICE, Stephen Miller said they have federal immunity (which is a lie), and it led us to where we are now.
Trump is responsible for hiring these idiots.
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Trump did not got standing ovation, Carney got ovation. Trumps entourage tried to invoke standing ovation, but failed.
People were leaving and stopped paying attention during Trump speech. It was just ... bad.
I really love this clip: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/W_UE7h3nTmQ
When the reporter asks: "Does it still include US having ownership of Greenland?"
Trump: "Um....eh...."
All this posturing and he ended up with nothing.
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Makes sense since Oracle now has complete control of it.
Celebrities need to stop giving their sht to these SM companies and used Federated social media. So they can own their product and not have to worry about being censored for being anti-government.
Which is hilarious sentence now because this government so pro free speech!!! sarcasm*
But seriously this is something that if my main gig was to create music or some art form, I wouldn't want to be on a corp run platform. I would want to own it myself and the all that data.
You expect Billie Eilish fans to be on Mastodon?
Celebrities should consider maybe not using social media things controlled by the regime? Like, other social media is available.
This specific social media was not controlled by the regime, and they are taking every step necessary to correct that.
They will follow wherever the network effect goes, the same way that more influencers are posting to Bluesky in addition to Twitter now, and some of them are making the move entirely.
They're celebrities. The network will follow where they go.
> Like, other social media is available.
Social media that actually have a large audience and that cannot be easily pressured by the US government?
This isn't very compelling. It's 2 anecdotes and a pretty damning final paragraph. Is there any more reliable data?
Data? No. None of these companies are making their data freely available for analysis or being transparent about how their algorithms work. People have complained for a while that Twitter / X seems to suppress the visibility and reach of profiles or posts that disagree with Musk’s views. The recent open sourcing of their algorithm is meaningless since there’s no evidence of what they actually have in production or what data / configuration is used with it.
So the best we can do is anecdotal examples. And it’s also obvious that Trump avoided banning TikTok for months, illegally, because he wanted to have another platform serve as a mouthpiece. He now has that by forcing a sale of TikTok to his friend, Larry Ellison.
The fact that social media companies aren't mandated by law to provide transparency into reach / visibility is a travesty.
It should be fucking table stakes for being able to run a business with that much power and influence.
I believe the headline is missing a “mistakenly”. Very strange article given the headline.
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Anecdata is strong, I have multiple cases myself just from browsing this morning.
But I'm leaning towards incompetence. Some US generated stuff was most likely moved to Oracle shitboxes, causing encoding issues and unreliable streaming.
...or it's malice and they're scanning the data and intentionally throttling traffic for unwanted content.
Would the incompetence include deleting messages that used the word "Epstein"?
https://i.redd.it/2stz13v1bsfg1.jpeg
There are quite a few reports on Reddit of users having any dm using that word being deleted.
https://old.reddit.com/r/TikTok/comments/1qnxxgi/were_being_...
Well, shit. It really was malice, they're just trying to claim incompetence: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46779809
That’s not a very convincing article. One person leaving TikTok claiming she was silenced, and another where a claim of silencing is made but, within 24 hours, the ‘silenced’ video "has more than 220,000 views and over 70,000 likes”. Perhaps there is some silencing going on, but it doesn’t appear that there is much evidence of it in this particular article.
I have a bit of experience with video platforms.
It’s really hard to say which video will work or not. What people react to and what not.
All I’m saying is that this could also potentially be explained by "The Algorithm" per se.
There’s lots of myths in social media, some weeks ago I kept seeing people on TikTok claiming that if you put some keyword in you profile(I think it was “Oracle”) or some of your post you will start seeing the protest again because the algorithm will “reset”. I assumed that someone was trying to farm accounts interested in politics or maybe indeed the algorithm steers by the introduction of the new for the account word.
Anyway, considering that the purchase of the American TikTok was done with a purpose and there is documented collusion between the involved tech Billionaires and the political class behind the street executions in American cities that drive those protests, I wouldn’t be surprised that they are actually throttling this time.
Support for ICE is in minority (although a large one). I don't think algorithm would suppress negative opinions on it, especially among viewership of celebrities that don't appeal to the right side of political spectrum.
Well, you're wrong. This article has more info but is login- or paywalled.
https://www.theverge.com/news/867625/tiktok-down-weekend-bro...
I didn't say it's the effect of the censorship. I just said it's unlikely to be the effect of normal operation of their algorithm. If the actual explanation was the accidental outage then I was right.
You should qualify your statement with "amongst the few people I talk to and the narrow spectrum of media I consume."
Also, do you mean minority of the total US population or minority of the voting population?
For one reference point I fully support ICE. And I think it's wild you have local and state politicians encouraging actions against federal agents who are enforcing federal law.
More Americans support than oppose abolishing ICE.
The Gestapo, too, was federal agents enforcing federal law.
https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/53939-more-americ...
In this case can you honestly say federal law is wrong?
Enforcing federal law by shooting a fleeing woman in the head and a restrained nurse in the back? Boy, what fair and just law.
You watch those videos at all? Fleeing woman tries to run over federal agent.
Polling seems to suggest you're wrong.
The whole point of the forced sale of TikTok was for the American-Israeli hegemony to exert control over the narrative of the platform. And now it is doing exactly that. Color me surprised.
No no no no no, it was because TikTok was owned by the CCP and was literally and directly controlling the minds of millions of people and indoctrinating them with communist propaganda, turning them against the United States.
You may have gone onto the platform and seen nothing but the same sort of vapid memes as anywhere else, but you see that's just how insidious and clever those Chinese are.
We're not exerting control over the narrative, we're protecting the truth from foreign influence.
There is no genocide in ba sing se.
This is so American.
They raise alarms because they have low TikTok view counters. But mass killings of Iranian protesters is Iran's own business.
> according to TechCrunch, this language has been included in the privacy policy since Aug. 2024, and wasn’t changed in response to the Trump administration’s latest escalation of immigration enforcement, and is “primarily there to comply with state privacy laws like California’s Consumer Privacy Act.”
This is the problem with any kind of censoring media. The initial intentions of those policies might have been good, but these kind of policies can so easily be abused for malign intentions.
In transparency will do this.
No one can know what TikTok censors or penalizes in its algorithms. All other social media platforms are equally intransparent, what is new is that TikTok is not American.
TikTok is now owned by an American company. As soon as that change happened, the censorship began.
https://www.theverge.com/news/867625/tiktok-down-weekend-bro...
In this particular case the censoring of anti-ICE post is most likely because TikTok is getting American (read: Trump allied) handlers.
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Get used to it. Both TikTok and X(twitter) have been used and will be used to manipulate the public opinion in favour of Trump. I'm aware that I can't prove it; however, this explains how Trump won, and how he will win again - manipulating the zombies.
There are studies on it but the conclusions are pretty thin right now because data collection is hard, but I'd say youre right
hasn't this been pretty clear since Cambridge Analytica?
I'd agree clear, verifiable much harder. As long as the issue remains hard to prove Im not sure what we can do to fix it.
Seems like there's a pattern:
https://www.npr.org/2026/01/27/nx-s1-5689104/tiktok-epstein-...
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Current administration have plenty of time, 3 years to be exact, to turn USA into another Iran.
it's almost like it's better to have an external owner of social media companies
pretty impressive how quickly Ellisons managed to make this whole situation suck and reek badly. they'll turn down the heat & stuff the frog back in the pot, then crank the heat up a bit slower this time, but there is just going to be such endless utterly preposterous censorship and algorithmic biasing for the right wing & ultra capitalist agenda, on and on now.
incredible beyond words that this was a unanimous decision by the supreme court. letting the us government set up whatever arraigned marriage it felt like for buying a social network is some wild meddling with businesses. and here we are, with the ultra capitalists doing exactly what they want to with one of the most popular social networks.
excellent write up for this absolute madness of a court decision, TikTok v. Garland and the First Amendment Anticanon by Evelyn Douek, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=6118706
Capitalism is when bad things happen. And the more badder they are the more capitalism it is!
This was the logic the West used throughout the life of the Soviet Union but for [Cc]ommunism.
Arguably people still do this with 'socialism'. Calling everything communism is now a bit _too_ cliche.
No, calling things/people/ideas communist is still 100% in play by the Republican party. McCarthy-ism is in full swing, and they've even added "antisemite" as another hot label they can throw on people to tarnish them. They have called the people protesting "raging commies" and other, similar phrases. Trump has called judges that act against him communist as well [1]
[1] https://www.milwaukeeindependent.com/featured/calling-commun...
I don't think the parent said it was. This is clearly closer to mercantilism, given the degree of government involvement.
They've claimed this is the result of or at the behest of 'ultra capitalism'. I don't even mind hyperbole--call it fascism if you want--but at least use the dimensionally-correct terms. This is like when people call everything 'neoliberal'.
Isn't neoliberal just Friedman and the Chicago boyz' liberalism? So policies enacted by Reagan, Pinochet and Thatchers?
Sort of and to varying degrees. Neoliberal is a funny one because it's used as a thoughtless pejorative by both the left and right.
I've heard people say housing policy has failed because it's too neoliberal meaning too free market, and then other people say it's failed because it's too neoliberal i.e. too much government intervention.
Neoliberalism is basically just markets-by-default and evidence-based alternatives when they fail.
> Neoliberalism is basically just markets-by-default and evidence-based alternatives when they fail.
That's not though. I think the name is from the 'New classical school', oppose Keynesian economics. I think the meaning drifted to mean supply-side economics (direct inheritor from the Chicago school and the new classical school).
Neoliberalism can't be 'evidence-based' when it rejects basic observation (like those from MMT. You can reject MMT 'solutions', that's fine, I do too. Don't reject evidence though).
Let's be honest, even being an MM theorist is a form of self selection that enables another kind of discussion. Neoliberal disagreement with MMT is categorically different from e.g. its disagreements with neocons or socdems in general. The latter are often just moral beliefs or running with first principles in a way that niche economic frameworks are not.
I think your criticism of it as not being 'evidence based' because it 'rejects basic observation' is emotive but fundamentally it's still a technical criticism, not a moral one. Neocon criticisms of neoliberalism (even if they misidentify what that means) revolve around the decay of traditional values, for example. Socdems around inequality (which to them is ipso facto bad).
I think i disagree? Socdems are mostly weird keynesians, and think of the economy from the demand side. For them, inequality is fundamentally bad because it reduce aggregate demand. You know the legend about Ford paying its employee more so they could afford cars (it was not, competent auto/metallurgy workers were rare and took time to train, he paid them more because he had to to keep them working for him)? That's basically a socdem wet dream (that's why some socdems accepted trickle-down economics like neolibs (i.e without any shred of evidence), because it conform with the theory).
But that's true that a lot of socdems don't really understand economic theory and so some criticism seems empty, because they repeat a criticism they did not understood. And that's ok, because macroeconomics is the less scientific of all social science field (for good reason), and who would want to bother with it (unless you're an idiot who took that in college because it seemed to pair well with math :/)
I recently saw an interesting explanation. The point was, that capitalism is not (just) an economical system. It's a system of power in which capital can (and almost always does) overrule everything else. If you take this stance, capitalism is to blame for all the good and bad things that happen in the capitalist country. Democracy is just the way how capital rules.
> It's a system of power in which capital can (and almost always does) overrule everything else. ... Democracy is just the way how capital rules.
That’s a contradiction.
“It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see..."
"You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?"
"No," said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, "nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people."
"Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy."
"I did," said Ford. "It is."
"So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't people get rid of the lizards?"
"It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want."
"You mean they actually vote for the lizards?"
"Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course."
"But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?"
"Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in. Got any gin?"
- Douglas Adams, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Perfect drivel.
Depends on how you understand democracy.
It's a contradiction only if you understand democracy as a theoretical ideal. Practical democracies, as implemented in western countries, in recent decades proven themselves to be completely controllable by capital, both the democratic elites and democratic masses.
I think we should rather go with practical outcome not the stated theoretical ideas. It's also a good way of evaluating communism and probably other systems.
I see we are going with the definition of democracy where it is one in the headlines and stops being one if you go into the text or interrogate it.
Aren't all country-scale (economic, governance, etc.) systems also 'systems of power'? It's not like the most powerful people of the USSR didn't leverage that system.
Whatever the rules are, people end up adapting to and gaming them to entrench and grow their own position, typically at the expense of everyone else.
I’m reading “ultra-capitalists” here as “those that control an extreme proportion of capital” rather than “those who believe really strongly in capitalism as a system”, though tbf that venn diagram may well be a donut…
Technically, Venn Diagrams don't show _degree_ of overlap :)
Although re your actual point: the current admin only gifts things like this to a chosen few; a small subset of those with extreme capital. So it seems much more appropriate to call it cronyism, or some such thing, rather than capitalism in the sense of merely controlling capital.
Crony capitalism is a well-established term for a reason.
Right, to distinguish it from regular capitalism. Specifically to denote it as not-really-capitalism. _Crony_ is really the operative term.
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Wait until you try to criticise Israel.
Happening because TikTok is under US laws. Use https://www.douyin.com/ then.
And if they wouldn’t, they would be blocked or prevented of doing business in the US.
US laws, hmm.
Wasn't there something about an amendment to their constitution? I believe it might've even been the first? Something about freedom of speech?
Maybe I'm just misremembering, but I could've sworn conservatives kept harping on about it.
The Constitution is silent on the matter of the cutting room floor and Ellison lawnmowers.
It only restricts the Federal government (later extended to state governments IIRC?)
This is one of many reasons Federal government is now partnered with private business.
Did you have the same concerns when Biden's DoJ was colluding with social media to censor narratives they didn't like politically?
https://judiciary.house.gov/media/press-releases/google-admi...
You mean "politely asking social media to censor narratives, with the implied force of the federal government if they choose not to comply." Which every administration has done since social media became a thing.
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Generally speaking, threats and calls to violence are legal. Only a subset are illegal.
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Possibly the police will come bother you, but you're not being convicted.
You should use Google and try to understand what the person you’re replying to is saying. Because they’re correct and there’s a nuance to it under the law.
Laws? Rules based order.
Rules of DJT, SV, FAANG.
Ellison’s Murdoch killer flexing its muscles for a mild warmup.
They got Paramount and CBS and TikTok, are allied with Twitter, and still have a chance of grabbing Warner.
I don’t think American billionaires ever particularly liked Murdoch, an Australian, controlling so much of the media environment in their country. Maybe they’ll make an offer for Fox News that the Murdoch heirs can’t refuse.
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those who were OK with malinformation being suppressed by every platform for two years (from 2020-02 to 2022-02) should be OK with this as well.
That a handful of private companies (of which, Ellison has big investments in several) have cornered the market on NAND and DRAM -- with some sources saying that these reservations extend into 2029 -- should be far more concerning. They're sprinting toward super-intelligence, while potential competitors can't even buy equipment. Both pro-immigrant and anti-immigrant arguments will seem fatuous when we are all slaves.
Maybe no-one is interested in celebrities virtual signalling any more?
Finneas (Billie Eilish's brother) isn't one for virtue signaling from what I've seen over the years from his posts. He keeps it very real and down to earth as far as celebrities go.
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When the person's Wikipedia page says that they "have won 10 Grammy Awards" then yes, I think it's fair to say that they are a public figure.
I mean, both are signals of celebrity - the presence of a Wikipedia page, and the awards.
Since when is speaking out against fascism virtue signalling? Like, how bad does it have to get before it's just speaking out against the attrocities happening around us and not virtue signalling? Or are celebrities just flat out not allowed to do it?
- [deleted]
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> Because if it were actual fascism, like the Hitler/Mussolini kind, you'd be arrest/dead the moment you spoke anything against it.
It looks like you have paramilitaries roaming your streets - not wearing ID or proper uniforms, covering their faces to avoid identification, not answering to usual democratic controls - executing protestors.
In the latest incident, they seemed to be beating and spraying a woman with a chemical agent for filming them, and then executing a bystander who tried to help her. The regime then tried to deny reality and falsely claim that they'd attacked said paramilitary operatives.
In any Western democracy (and I'm not sure if the US is currently part of that category) there would be a public investigation, but they seem to have been squirrelled away and the politicians who have spoken out about it have been threatened.
This all seems to be fascistic by any reasonable standard.
>not wearing ID or proper uniforms
Really? Is that why they have vests with labels that say "POLICE FEDERAL AGENT" front and back? Maybe literacy is an issue.
> covering their faces to avoid identification
Same reason SWAT and special forces covering their faces. Because just like them, ICE arrests and deports violent criminals, cartel members, human traffickers, etc. Dangerous people that could identify their faces and then track down and kill their families in retaliation, exactly what lib-dem ANTIFA & co anarchists would love to do to them if they could see their faces.
And also then, why are the "protesters" assaulting them covering their faces as well if the good guys are supposed to show their faces and only bad guys cover their faces according to your logic?
>In any Western democracy (and I'm not sure if the US is currently part of that category) there would be a public investigation
Public investigations are meaningless now in this specific partisan case since the people have already made up their mind on who's guilty. So if the officer would be publicly investigated and then cleared, them dems would just say it was all rigged anyway.
> Really? That's why they have vests that say "POLICE FEDERAL AGENT" front and back ?
The paramilitaries that executed Pretti are all wearing street clothing, and all wearing different clothing. They look like a mob.
> Dangerous people that could identify their faces and kill their families in retaliation.
Well that's convenient, because it also allows them to kill protestors or their families without any consequence.
> Why are the protesters assaulting them covering their faces
Pretti didn't assault them, and wasn't covering his face. He got executed anyway.
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> On top of which they have matching ICE issued vest with inscriptions.
It's a fascist theme to have paramilitaries not wearing uniforms. See for example the mukhabarat in Syria. It makes them more intimidating, because they look undisciplined, and adds confusion to protestors as to whether they are dealing with someone who is part of the legal system. Why on earth would they not be issued with uniforms?
> Yes, accidents like this will happen when you shove law enforcement officers with a gun on you.
Pretti did not shove any "law enforcement officers". The first physical contact is a shove on Pretti by one of them.
BBC did a frame by frame analysis: the first shove happens at approx 1:00 in this video. https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/l0057wmt/bbc-verify-an...
If you disagree, please provide a source.
The first time they seem to be aware that he has a firearm is when they disarm him, and the execution happens after that, so I don't see how that is relevant.
>they disarm him, and the execution happens after that,
You're leaving the part out where a gunshot is heard right before they "execute" him. The officers with their fingers on the trigger pointed at him during detainment, got scared of that gunshot and jumped on the trigger by accident. It's an unfortunate accident but not an execution. Read up the legal definition of execution. This is not it.
He was shot eleven times to the back of his head.
>eleven times to the back of his head
Please stop making up stuff.
Are you arguing about the number of shots or the location?
https://news.sky.com/story/10-shots-in-5-seconds-how-did-the...
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/01/24/us/minneapoli...
Feel free to look at the timeline here.
Can't see anything about 11 bullets in the back of the head.
You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.
BEcause the water is poisoned ;)
I have literally never met anyone as delusional as you on HN. Your comments are just on the absolute edge of sanity, and the only hope I have is that you are an actual russian troll trying to sow discontent and not an actual real human that holds these beliefs earnestly.
It just leaves me wondering - how do you look yourself in the mirror each day? I guess it must be super easy if you just look at what happened there and think shooting a guy 11 times from close distance is an "accident".
>I have literally never met anyone as delusional as you on HN.
Pot calling the kettle black.
>the only hope I have is that you are an actual russian troll
Yes, you are not the minority opinion, you are 100% correct and everyone disagreeing with you is a russian troll.
You know what, I was thinking about it for the last few hours since I replied to you.
And I think - if I lived in 1930s Germany, I would also want to believe that my country isn't turning into a place where the rule of law isn't respected and where citizens are executed on the street without due process. After all, people are posting criticism of the government in the papers still, so it can't be that bad. That family next door that disappeared - they probably did something wrong. And the dude that got shot by the Gestapo on the street - he probably did something wrong too. Or maybe the officer made a mistake - it's just an accident after all. Nothing to worry about.
I think it's in our nature to gaslight ourselves, because otherwise we have to confront the horror of the world and also who we have become. You have become a person who goes on the internet and tells people that the shooting of Alex Pretti was an unfortunate accident. I hope that there is a day - maybe in 10 maybe in 20 maybe in 30 years - where you look back at yourself and think "damn why didn't I see what was going on".
>> everyone disagreeing with you is a russian troll.
You have your coping mechanism which is clearly just lying to yourself and others on the internet - every single comment asking you for evidence, proof, or in return - giving you those when you asked - you have ignored, because clearly you aren't actually interested in what is happening, you just want to stick to your point of view, something which you accuse others of doing.
For me, the only method of not going insane reading internet forums nowadays is assuming that either people like you are bots, or are doing this on purpose to elicit a reaction(kids call it ragebaiting nowadays?). If you really hold these views....then what I said above applies.
>>There's etiquette when dealing with police that people seem to have forgotten.
You are literally insane if you think this is a matter of "etiquette" or that it was an accident.
Essex police haven't fired a single bullet in the last 10 years, and they are able to provide effective policing anyway. But in US a bunch of gestapo officers have a man pinned to the ground, with his gun taken away, and then they shoot him?
At least the real gestapo had the decency to ask you to stand against the wall looking away before they executed you.
As I asked you in another comment - do you want to live in a Judge Dredd universe where officers can just execute someone like this? And I repeat, it's not an accident. If it was, they would have shot him once.
>Essex police haven't fired a single bullet in the last 10 years, and they are able to provide effective policing anyway.
Only if you misreport crime, ignore grooming gangs and arrest people for Tweets as "effective policing" in the UK.
>And I repeat, it's not an accident. If it was, they would have shot him once.
Police are trained to always fire multiple shots, as learned from firefight reports, people are left in capacity to fire back even when they have several rounds in them.
> people are left in capacity to fire back even when they have several rounds in them.
And when there are 8 people on top of them, they're facedown on the ground, their hands are stuck in front of their face with no way to get at the waistband in which they had a legally concealed firearm, which one ICE officer removes while another waits for him to be out of the way before another executes them?
You're assuming officers have the time to rationalize all this thought process in the split second when another officer shouts "GUN!" and then one starts shooting leading to everyone shooting out of inertia.
People got shot from police mistakes like these all the time. It's an accident, a bad one, but not an execution, as everyone on the left calls it.
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>Fuck off.
Thanks, good to see great mental clarity and debate skills.
> includes "following unlawful orders."
Except the judge decides if the order was unlawful, not you.
You don't get to decide on the spot that the order you received was unlawful and can just resist arrest if you feel like it.
You cooperate with the orders, and then your lawyer will seek justice and compensation on your behalf is the way the officer handled himself was unlawful. That's the way it works.
>>covering their faces to avoid identification
Covering their faces to avoid doxing and being attacked at their homes.
Weird how normal police (or almost any other actual LEO) doesn't have to do this, especially considering how bad their reputation in the US is.
SWAT also covers their face.
> Because if it were actual fascism, like the Hitler/Mussolini kind, you'd be arrest/dead the moment you spoke anything against it.
This is... a pretty confused view of history, really. Hitler became Chancellor in 1933, and consolidated power over the next year. At this point there was a lot of criticism of the regime, both internal and external. Things got rapidly worse after, of course, but there certainly was a period where the Nazis were in power but that there was public criticism.
Even as late as 1938, there was significant public discontent RE Kristallnacht in particular.
>but that there was public criticism
Every political party had public criticism before they could gain absolute power to silence that criticism.
Exactly. You're disproving your own argument now.
How so? When I said "every political party" meaning including the ones under the liberal democratic umbrella.
Yes, but also the ones on the way to authoritarianism, as was argued the Trump regime is.
Thus, currently allowing some criticism is not enough to disprove the alleged march towards fascism. People with that viewpoint would argue that it's only allowed because power isn't consolidated enough yet.
>Yes, but also the ones on the way to authoritarianism, as was argued the Trump regime is.
Democrats/leftists/ANTIFA don't hate authoritarianism, They hate that they're not the ones in charge of dealing the authoritarianism on their opposition, as shown by the masked mob gestapo they set up in Minnesota doing "papers please, you're either with us or against us" on civilians passing by to confirm they hate ICE.
If Kamala-Walz would have won the election, they would have done the same to Trump and friends in republican states, and you would have called it "justice for Nazis", not fascism ,which is the justification ANTIFA use when they beat up innocent people.
> as shown by the masked mob gestapo they set up in Minnesota doing "papers please, you're either with us or against us" on civilians passing by to confirm they hate ICE.
[citation needed]
Also even if true, there's a vast difference between a rando on the street asking those questions vs a government agent. That's assuming the government agent isn't too much of a pussy to identify himself instead of hiding behind a mask.
>[citation needed]
If I show you camera footage on X of this happening will you accept it in good faith or nitpick it on why it's not valid?
>Also even if true, there's a vast difference between a rando on the street asking those questions vs a government agent.
Ah classic, so even if it's happening, it's not a bad thing because an unelected unaccountable mob is doing it, just like in third world countries.
If you show me the evidence, I will examine it. That may include examining the surrounding context if it's not blatantly obvious.
Antifa doesn't beat up innocent people, it does society a service by beating up fascists.
It's in the name, antifascists. They rose from the fascism of the 20th century and have a proud history of fighting the original Nazis.
God bless them for carrying on the good fight!
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Not if you label me as fascist, if I were to fit the definition of fascist.
Umberto Ecos Ur-Fascism might be worth a read.
Fascism isn't just "things I don't like". It's specific behavioral patterns that lead to the worst crimes in modern history and that must be stomped out at any cost. Words have meanings.
> Words have meanings
Not to Fascists.
> Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert.
Jean-Paul Sartre
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7870768-never-believe-that-...
I'll leave it to you to conclude if it's worth giving this mamba good faith replies.
Hitler had absolute power by 1934. Public dissent wasn't really entirely quashed until the war.
Fascism takes hold in stages; Nazi Germany didn't go from 0 to 100 in one day. You have to nip it in the bud before it grows up.
Right now, ICE goes out of their way to beat and arrest protestors and steal their cameras. They're not yet mowing them down but by that time it would be a little late to do something about their conduct. Remember that the current US president admires how the CCP crushed the student protestors in Tiananmen square with tanks and guns.
>You have to nip it in the bud before it grows up.
Sure, but if you use fascist tactics to fight fascism, are you not a fascist yourself?
And people conveniently focus only on the symptoms(rise of fascism) but not on the main cause that leads to it.
Like Hitler didn't just randomly get to power one day out of nowhere because the average German citizen was living such a good life. He was just one of the symptoms to a major problem that the Weimar republic didn't address and instead used fascist tactics to get rid of Hitler before he could gain power, and then guess what happened.
Similarly, Trump is also only but a symptom to a larger issue. Using fascist tactics to get him out of power, only makes the counter response greeter, and not make the core problem go away.
What fascist tactics did they use to get rid of Hitler? If you're referring to his time in prison, he was put there because he staged a putsch.
Beyond that, much of the establishment and industry tried to work with him using a softly, softly approach. They thought they could steer him, temper him, leverage his popularity for their own ends. Of course, that didn't work out for them
>What fascist tactics did they use to get rid of Hitler?
November 1921 (Munich): During a speech at an NSDAP rally in a beer hall, an unknown assailant fired shots at Hitler from the crowd amid a melee, but he escaped unharmed. 1923 (Thuringia): An unidentified person attempted to shoot Hitler during a rally, but Nazi supporters outnumbered opponents, forcing the attacker to flee. 1923 (Memmingen): Another unknown individual tried to assassinate Hitler with a rifle but retreated when confronted by his followers. July 15, 1932 (Munich): An assailant fired shots at Hitler and SA leader Ernst Röhm while they dined at Cafe Heck, but both were unhurt. 1932 (Nuremberg): A bomb was planted in the lobby of Hitler's hotel, but it was discovered and removed before detonation. 1932 (Berlin and Munich): Two additional attempts occurred, one involving potential poisoning at the Hotel Kaiserhof in Berlin (where Hitler and staff fell ill after a meal, suspected to be deliberate contamination), though details are limited and perpetrators unidentified.Attempted assassinations by unidentified lone wolves, spread out over decades, are not "fascist" tactics. Obviously they are very bad for a political climate, but I think that's stretching the definition beyond any use.
You originally implied the Weimar Republic itself used fascistic tactics. But your examples show nothing of the sort (and are obviously just an LLM dump, which disinclines me to continue this conversation)
>unidentified lone wolves
Yes, I'm sure they were lone wolves who happen to have massive resources for political assassinations, and not backed by hitler's political opposition. Please, let's end the conversation here since it's clearly not going anywhere.
You listed a handful of failed attempts that didn't come anywhere near to being successful. Where are the massive resources? What's the evidence for massive resources? And where's the evidence that these attempts were organised by political opponents at state level?
at what point do you start to question your worldview, when you are actively complaining about the "fascist tactics" used by people who tried to kill Hitler himself?
I wasn't, but thanks for proving my point: If everyone calls their opposition fascists in order to justify killing them, who's the fascist then?
As per history proves, the ones who lose the battle are the fascist, since both the allies and soviets were guilty of the same atrocities in their colonies that they accused the nazis of.
The fascist is the ultranationalist, authoritarian, and xenophobic side that operates under the rule of one strongman leader. That's all. These days the idea that "Liberals are the real fascists" runs rampant, or even more "Antifa is fascist". It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words.
> As per history proves, the ones who lose the battle are.
What are you trying to say? Mussolini called himself a fascist. Hitler modeled his nazi party on Mussolini's fascist party, he openly admitted that and admired him. Fascism is not some word that was invented post-hoc to describe very bad people.
Like Alex Pretti?
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Maybe we shouldn’t have a system where these happen.
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You think the appropriate punishment for interfering with a simple administrative act is gunshots to the back of the head? Are you even reading what you're saying???
Police have the right to defend themselves if they fear for their lives. It was terrible accident indeed that could have been voided if he'd not physically interfere or have a gun on him.
Defend themselves from the already pinned down person that never drew a gun by shooting him to the back of the head?
Think about what you're saying. You're trying to defend the indefensible.
Police heard a gunshot and pulled the trigger by accident. Hence unfortunate accident.
Pulled the trigger by accident eleven times???
Come on man, don't debase yourself like this.
Yes, police are trained to always fire multiple shots at threats.
Again, not police. Armed goons.
They don't stop being police just because you want it to be so. You can tell yourself that, but the government disagrees with you.
Shooting somebody that is already constrained is an execution, not an accident.
It's what fascist regimes do to anyone they deem noncompliant.
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Nobody assaulted anyone. Shooting somebody that is already on the ground in the back of their head is not self defence. ICE is not law enforcement.
Impressively, you managed to misrepresent a fact with every single word in your sentence.
* * *
You have government-backed thugs with guns running around murdering people who take photos of them.
You have something that looks worryingly like the Ceaușescu's Securitate "disappearing" citizens - including a little 5-year-old boy - off the streets.
Justify that.
Justify kidnapping a terrified little boy who should be at school with his friends, and locking him up in prison.
Go on, justify those actions. Let's see if you can.
ICE looked after the 5 year old boy after his father ran off and left him.
His father didn't "run off", he was chased off by violent thugs who had already murdered people.
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Thing is, his dad is not a criminal and did not run off, but was chased away by armed thugs, and his mum did not refuse to take him but was prevented from taking him by armed thugs.
You have armed thugs abducting and murdering people on the streets of American cities.
I mean, there is a victim of false propaganda here, but I think that's you, especially given your other comments.
"Stenvik said another adult living in the home was outside during the encounter and had pleaded to take care of Liam so the boy could avoid detention, but was denied. Liam’s older brother, a middle schooler, came home 20 minutes later to find his father and brother missing, Stenvik said. Two school principals from the district also arrived at the home to offer support."
" An agent had taken Liam out of the car, led the boy to his front door and directed him to knock on the door asking to be let in, “in order to see if anyone else was home – essentially using a five-year-old as bait”, the superintendent said in a statement."
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/21/ice-arrests-...
Again, how do you look yourself in the mirror every morning?
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Poor celebrities. Having their voice stifled by foreign governments on a platform they helped promote.
It's their own government, at least for US citizens since TikTok was forced to sell their business in the US.
You're missing the point, celebrities just happen to have a huge reach and noticed the reach being cut.
This probably means everyone else is also getting their reach crippled.
Remember that even with clear video evidence, the administration lies about the events and tries to spin it as domestic terrorism.
So imagine what they are doing, and will do, without video evidence.
This is probably one of the darkest times in America... You have an administration that normalizes lying and violence, and a tens of millions of Americans that are choosing to close their eyes and suspend their morals because they're scared and confused.
First, they’re screaming OH, THE HUMANITY! over censorship before their favorite puppets take the wheel. Then, they’re the first ones ridiculing anyone else for complaining about the exact same thing.
voice stifled by oracle inc you mean?
It's being stifled by their own government. US TikTok has been taken over by a government-linked oligarch.
- [deleted]
