If the mods close it, they close it, but we need this thread. I watched Stewart’s opening in YouTube, and it was pretty lame. I felt it was a swing and a miss. If we ever get to have a functioning democracy, we Americans need to think about many things. One of them, what is free speech in the internet age? At its beginning, the internet democratized discourse. But looking at the power of a small handful of people (Sulzberger, Bezos, Musk, Zuckerberg pretty much covers it) to decide what is permitted and what isn’t is alarming.
This was published just before the Kirk murder, but it is pretty good on how social media+AI is going to cause serious problems with discourse. How We Became Captives Of Social Media One useful passage In a 2022 academic paper on social media use, University of Kansas researcher Jeffrey Hall described the ways in which social media apps like Facebook, X and Instagram were no longer as interested in facilitating personal relationships. “Very soon, algorithms, rather than user-selected social networks, will determine what we see on social media,” he wrote. It was a prescient encapsulation for how these platforms operate today, and when I spoke to Hall, he was unequivocal in his assessment of the changing role these sites play in our daily lives. “It’s over,” he said, in reference to the era of genuine social networking. “The content we see now is predominantly either advertising content, content being pushed by Meta or Google, or it’s content developed by semi-professional and professional content creators.” In his paper, he referred to this phenomenon as the “twilight of the social networking era.” Zuckerberg himself acknowledged this swerve when he took the stand in federal court in April, in the early stages of the Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust trial against Meta. The CEO told the court that Facebook, Meta’s flagship platform, had recently drifted more toward “the general idea of entertainment.” To emphasize the point, the corporation’s legal team presented internal data showing how users were spending increasingly less time interacting with friends on Facebook, along with screenshots illustrating, they claimed, how indistinguishable Facebook had become from its competitors. (One source I spoke with casually mentioned having “five versions of TikTok” on his smartphone.) As The New Yorker’s Kyle Chayka put it, Meta’s defense team’s arguments demonstrate “how stultifying the entire online ecosystem has become.”
Damon Lindelof (Lost, the Watchmen) says he will not work with Disney until Kimmel is back on the air. It’ll be interesting if others follow his example.
At the same time, we also need to consider the problems with media consolidation. Both CBS and ABC have censored their late night hosts because of potential mergers by the parent company. On top of that, WaPo fired a reporter for posting/tweeting something Kirk had said, saying that it "threatened" other reporters.
Methinks Donnie's on his way out soon. And he's so vain he wants to tamp down the possible world celebrations by making people "pay" & think twice about goofing on Charlie getting aerated. Don't forget how oatmeal-y his mind is at this point.
I gotta sit down later today or tomorrow and cancel my ESPN+ subscription. Gonna miss the Bundesliga, but it's the only way I can send any sort of message to ABC. Sucks because I share it with my adult son and he uses it to watch La Liga & UFC and I hate to give up something we bond over.
I've seen a fair amount of NWSL supporters start canceling Paramount+ and such. And there are lots of suggestions to just use NWSL+ with a VPN to get all the matches.
I'm reminded of the interview Vogue did with Asma al-Assad. That story has been scrubbed from the web. This is a story about the interview by the author. https://www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle/people/arid-41532899.html
Here's a new one. "A modern day St. Paul" Cardinal Timothy Dolan on Fox & Friends on Charlie Kirk: "This guy is a modern day St Paul. He was a missionary, he's an evangelist, he's a hero. He's one I think that knows what Jesus meant when he said 'the truth will set you free.'" https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3lz6v2yuj272v
Ted Cruz likes being on TV so he called out the FCC chair for threatening ABC and its affiliates. I guess it’s better than nothing. But it’s still kinda weird that the fascists got very little pushback for all kinds of fascist crap, but going after Kimmel is the straw breaking a few camel backs. I wrote this before Josh wrote this https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/the-age-of-monsters
https://www.news9.com/story/68cc65f...roduces-legislation-in-memory-of-charlie-kirk Some proposed laws filed in Oklahoma in the wake of the murder. One is for every school in their higher education system have a Charlie Kirk Free Speech Plaza.
The memes and online footprint of Charlie Kirk shooting suspect Tyler Robinson don’t place him neatly in a box, though many are still trying. Humanity loves to put things in boxes. Why do you think Beloved Leader insisted Pluto was a planet?
It's usually these types of bets which are lost. Watch him live to 102 just on account of "suck it, libs. Suck my YUUUUUUGE fat one most bigly".
I know we all have limited time and attention. But I can't encourage you enough to listen to this show about the limits of free speech and how we, as a society, handle those limits. The Obituary
No ties yet No evidence' found yet of ties between Charlie Kirk's shooting and left-wing groups, federal officials say Three people familiar with the federal probe into Kirk’s assassination told NBC News that investigators have yet to find a link between the alleged shooter and left-wing groups. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/ju...lie-kirk-shooting-left-wing-groups-rcna232513