October 14, 2020

The notion that Twitter's the place to go to see what's happening — destroyed by Twitter.

UPDATED: "Twitter CEO admits handling of blocked Post article was ‘unacceptable’" (NY Post).
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said it was “unacceptable” that the social media giant blocked users from sharing a Post exposé about Hunter Biden’s emails without providing a clear message as to why it was taking the action. Dorsey released his statement in a tweet Wednesday night — hours after a number of high-profile Republicans, including Sen. Josh Hawley, blasted the social media giant for blocking the stories from being shared on the platform. 
“Our communication around our actions on the @nypost article was not great. And blocking URL sharing via tweet or DM with zero context as to why we’re blocking: unacceptable,” Dorsey wrote in the tweet. Twitter blocked users from sharing an article that indicated Hunter Biden introduced his father Joe to a Ukranian businessman — charging that “hacked materials” were used in the story. 
The company also locked the Post’s main Twitter account, which is still inactive, hours after it went dark Wednesday afternoon. Social media giant Facebook also said it would limit the spread of the article, pending a review by independent fact checkers. Incensed by the move, Sen. Hawley sent letters to both companies, demanding answers as to why the platforms “censored” the stories.

ALSO: This is more than a "Streisand Effect" situation, which is that something that was hidden is now getting seen by many more people. What Streisand hid — the view of her house — was something that felt private to her, but was just a house, and we knew she had a house. This is news that has been put off limits by the media giants — Facebook and Twitter — and you have to make an extra effort to get to it, and that effort you make reinforces the experience, making it feel more important, more memorable. You had to transgress their limitations to get to it, so you have a bit of a sense that you're a hero and line-crosser. That might predispose you to thinking what you get to has special value.

134 comments:

Michael K said...

Streisand Effect will win over the lefty censors.

d-day said...

Twitter locked the White House press secretary out of her account.

MadTownGuy said...

Twitter CEO: "Oops!"

MadisonMan said...

This has even prompted me to tweet from my moribund account! (I am not supportive of Twitter's censorship).

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

How is it disinformation?

It's information. We already know, and Hunter himself admitted to hauling in mega bucks and not having any experience with energy. He also admitted that he would never have had access to those highly paid board positions without the help of his father.

The big lie (and it's laughable lie) is that Joe and Hunter never talked about it.
That Joe had nothing to do with it!
uh huh. riiiiight.

Do recall that Trump was impeached for asking about Biden's obvious crimes. It's almost as if the dems and the media already knew old Joe was going to be at the top of the ticket.

The media and the democrat party revealed their connection then, too.

frighting what is happening. The tech oligarchs and in bed with one political party.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

The left are all about speech crime, thought crime, mind crime,

It's a freaking crime to call out leftwing criminals.

MayBee said...

And now they've shown themselves to be monitoring people's DMs, too. They stopped people from being able to DM the link. What else are they doing with your DMs, people?

wendybar said...

They are the fascists they pretend everybody else are.

Sprezzatura said...

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/10/giuliani-and-the-new-york-post-are-pushing-russian-disinformation-its-a-big-test-for-the-media/

The deep feelings (and BS hyping) that that cons have re this v the deep feeling of minorities who have encountered various forms of racism = thoughts (though not feelings) re me.

IMHO.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Twitter leftist oligarch says "oops" but doesn't fix.



Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

after shutting down the spokesperson of the leader of the 'free' world

...POTUS will be next.

Gypsy Jenni said...

House Judiciary GOP @JudiciaryGOP has the New York Post's story on Hunter Biden, pinned tweet.

Amadeus 48 said...

Tell me again what these "Twitter" and "Facebook" things are? I do just fine without using either of them.

It is pretty funny that these geniuses have called non-stop attention to this story for a full day by trying to block it in their feeds. Any non-genius can go to the NY Post website and read it. They have publicized it to the max by doing this. I don't understand why any business would do this, to wit: they are demonstrating that they are useless as a clearing house for information because they want to censor it. Why bother?

I read Mollie Hemingway's twitter feed for the same reason I read Althouse's blog: I think she is well-informed, and she has an interesting take on things. But if they start censoring her, I'll totally ignore Twitter. Facebook is certainly useful as a group bulletin board, but I mostly stay signed out.

This is really one of the great self-destructive moves of the decade. Why bother with Twitter?

The blogosphere forever!

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

These same D-Oligarch tech platforms have no problem platforming Rachel Maddow's lies, and the left's endless lies about Russia hacking our elections and stealing the election from the rightful owner - any democrat.

MayBee said...

There was, about an hour ago, a WaPo "fact check" being highlighted by Twitter that the WaPo had confirmed Biden did not push out the prosecutor. They pushed this "fact check" out before they started explaining themselves.

Susan said...

This is backfiring big time. My low information MIL who is still a true believer in the Russia hoax knows about this now. She is very upset. She already voted for Biden in early voting.

She wouldn't have voted for either candidate because she hates Trump with a passion and now she finds out that Joe is a crook too!!!

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Liberal Reporter: What Twitter and Facebook Did on Biden Story Is 'Creepy and Authoritarian'

OldManRick said...

It takes a lot of self delusion to overlook the continuing corruption of the democratic party abetted by the left leaning press and the left leaning social media.

Whether it's Hillary's wiped emails, the Steele dossier indirectly financed by Hillary, Biden's enriching his relatives, Bill Clinton's $500k speech before Hillary ok'ed the Uranium One sale, or now a real smoking gun showing the reason the Ukraine prosecutor was fired, the evidence that the democratic élite are up to their necks in corruption is obvious. If any of Trump's family did anything close to this, you would never hear the end of it.

The fact that Trump was impeached for even suggesting that this should be investigated shows that the democrats knew what was happening. If you believe in the rule of law rather than the rule of men, you need to help stop the democratic party now. If you believe in the rule of law rather than the rule of men, you need to help stop the left leaning press now. If you believe in the rule of law rather than the rule of men, you need to help stop the left leaning social media now.

A vote for Biden is a vote for corruption - plain and simple.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

FAcebook and twitter call the news about Biden's corruption "Unsafe"

Freaking unreal.

todd galle said...

I somehow doubt either platform will be happy with the coming oversight and Section 230 designations regarding publishers. Republicans have threatened and cleared their throats loudly, but I really think that Twitter and Facebook both stepped on their dicks, then a rake, then fell into the ditch beside the road here. Solely due to inappropriate hires and lack of adult supervision. Going to have to check my mutual funds, as I think their stock value might have some volatility and I'm close to retiring.

DavidUW said...

Totally false, I mean, the guy who got kicked out of the Navy for cocaine use and just had determined he is the father of a Arkansas' stripper's child would never, uh, smoke crack? Take illicit cash? I'm struggling with what Hunter wouldn't do or what is inconsistent between his proven behavior and these photos & info.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Michael Tracey
@mtracey
Never forget that it was JOURNALISTS who badgered and berated the tech companies to seize greater censorship powers. In the past, journalists loathed censorship as antithetical to their entire profession. Today, they demand it.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

After Hillary lost, the crank came down. Media matters. Remember?
-
The press all knew they would never say a negative word about a democrat, ever again. No matter how big the crime or scandal.

The Godfather said...

It seems that what Twitter is "admitting" it did wrong was not that it blocked the information, but that it didn't provide an explanation why it did so.

“Our communication around our actions on the @nypost article was not great. And blocking URL sharing via tweet or DM with zero context as to why we’re blocking: unacceptable,” Dorsey wrote in the tweet.

So the obvious solution is that in all similar cases, when Twitter blocks information, it should post a statement that "We have blocked this information because it reflects badly on Joe Biden, whom we support for President." Happy now?

The Godfather said...

It seems that what Twitter is "admitting" it did wrong was not that it blocked the information, but that it didn't provide an explanation why it did so.

“Our communication around our actions on the @nypost article was not great. And blocking URL sharing via tweet or DM with zero context as to why we’re blocking: unacceptable,” Dorsey wrote in the tweet.

So the obvious solution is that in all similar cases, when Twitter blocks information, it should post a statement that "We have blocked this information because it reflects badly on Joe Biden, whom we support for President." Happy now?

David-2 said...

Nota bene: Dorsey didn't say that Twitter's blocking the article was unacceptable. He said their "handling of it" - specifically, their explaining why they blocked it - was unacceptable.

They'll keep doing it for this news, and for any other news that helps Trump and hurts Biden, whenever they want.

But they'll try to provide a better excuse.

Nonapod said...

The problem for our Minitrue-wannabe silicon valley overlords attempting to stop the flow of information in our modern age is that they have to have absolute control over all information outlets in order to do so. While they do indeed have a great deal of control, it's far from absolute. They're not yet like the Chinese government managing their citizens (and even the Chicoms can't completely stem the tide). And I certainly hope they never achieve that level of information control.

They can't completely clamp down on a negative story that hurts their prefered candidate, but they try anyway, and that very action actually has the opposite effect (Streisand Effect) of drawing even more attention to the story itself. I hope this opens the eyes of a lot of voters and regular citizens about the potential dangers of a true information monopoly.

Wa St Blogger said...

“Our communication around our actions on the @nypost article was not great. And blocking URL sharing via tweet or DM with zero context as to why we’re blocking: unacceptable,”

I read this as Dorsey not saying "oops." He is saying "our mistake was not making up a good justification for an in-kind contribution to the Biden campaign."

My only hope is that this will be the catalyst that will propel either the tech giants to accept the liability of publishers or to forgo any adjudication of content. I would prefer they are fined as exceeding the limits of political contributions, and maybe broken up so that other platforms have as much access to the public space.

I am getting so angry at how information is controlled and the risk it is to our republic.

Ken B said...

People forget two truths.

1 Everyone believes a few carefully chosen deaths would make the world a better place. (There is disagreement about which deaths, but I disbelieve anyone who claims they don’t think this.)
2 Almost no-one acts on this belief.

You cannot change Truth 1. You can change Truth 2, and a lot of people seem intent on risking just that. It's very dangerous, because a Truth 1 applies to *everyone*.

Yancey Ward said...

Notice what Dorsey didn't write- he didn't write that Twitter made an outright mistake and that he was ordering the restoration of the blocked accounts and lifting the Twitter embargo on retweeting it.

He had better get his act together- for his own personal safety and for that of his employees- you start behaving like the adjunct to political tyranny by actively supressing news stories form the fucking NYPost, you draw a big fat target on your own back. When people start to feel politically powerless to speak along with approved political content, they start to resort to violence instead, and they will start with the tech companies themselves. You can't enter the political realm this way and not abide by free speech norms- you do that, you get yourself shot in the head, especially in a country with a billion+ guns.

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

"Vinny The Chin" ploy---

Joe's "failing memory" is going to come in handy real soon!

Ample, documented, public displays--

HOW CAN YOU INDICT THIS POOR IMPAIRED OLD MAN YOU RIGHT-WING MEANIES!!

and you-know-who has been waiting patiently in the wings

...she's coiled and ready to strike

Guildofcannonballs said...

The only entity with power here is Trump.

For reasons, I'll declaim "largely" unexamined by Althouse in that reality was always playing second fiddle to prog power politics.

PubliusFlavius said...

Censoring Commie Politico's

Time for tech tyranny's apogee of influence to be eradicated.

Amadeus 48 said...

You know, you read that lame excretion by Jack Dorsey, and it just makes you mad. It isn't that Twitter failed to explain to to give context; it is that they tried to cripple and squelch the flow of information about Biden (maybe false) when they opened the floodgates of false information about Trump for years and years. Don't these people have any perspective on themselves? As Althouse says in her title, they destroyed their own reason for existence.

I just looked at their corporate explanation--it was the pictures in the article! No one would believe that. That is a Tommy Flanagan explanation. These idiots routinely let right-wingers get doxxed on their facility, but Hunter's using the old man (who just happened to be VP and in charge of Ukraine policy) to get rich can't be shared if there are identifiable email addresses, which are publicly available anyway.

SHEESH. They are stupid, but they think we are really stupid.

Vance said...

Orwellian. Leftists who are responding to this story have essentially said "Great! We must be vigiliant in censoring anything that helps Trump!"

They aren't even pretending to think speech should be free.

Remember the Atlantic story about how Trump supposedly called soldiers stupid for dying? It was immediately refuted by something like 17 people who went on the record, including John Bolton as an enemy of Trump, to say it didn't happen.

Yet Twitter and Facebook never censored that story, despite its blatant falsehood. But something to hurt Biden? Out come the big guns.

Static Ping said...

The kicker is Twitter is now pushing a Washington Post story "debunking" this story, except what WaPo is "debunking" is something that Biden admitted to and bragged about in public on video that is readily available.

etbass said...

WaPo has an "explainer" article on line that gives their version of what really happened.

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

Whoa !! Now hold on here !!--

That's not the same !!! THE PEE-PEE TAPES WERE REAL !!

Greg The Class Traitor said...

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said it was “unacceptable” that the social media giant blocked users from sharing a Post exposé about Hunter Biden’s emails without providing a clear message as to why it was taking the action.

Wrong, Jack

What's unacceptable is that you blocked people from sharing the article.

Full stop.

You have no legitimate grounds for deciding what people should know

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Must watch Tucker

chuck said...

"Our communication around our actions on the @nypost article was not great."

Translation: we did the right thing, we just messed up explaining it to you morons. It's your fault.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

More from Greenwald:

https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1316426185631584264

"If I were Facebook, and I wanted to announce the systemic suppression of a questionable news story that reflected poorly on the Democratic presidential nominee, I probably wouldn't have a life-long Democratic Party operative make the announcement on my behalf:"

Referring to Andy Stone.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Glenn Greenwald
@ggreenwald
·
9h
Replying to
@ggreenwald
The power of Facebook -- due to its sheer size, integration and gobbling up of competitors -- was already way larger than any democracy should tolerate.

Now that they're actively controlling the news and discourse, it's beyond just a menace. It's a terrifying threat.

DeepRunner said...

Absolutely 1984 is with us. This control of the flow of information is incredibly hostile to free thought and open expression as it seeks to tag people as doubleplusungood.

Ghoulish Jack Dorsey and Automaton Mark Zuckerberg and their minions are trying to control the terms of discourse, at the bidding of the "enlightened woke." They are the flip-side of the Alex Jones coin.

buwaya said...

As so many have said, if the Democrats win, the Internet companies (and all common carriers, financial systems, etc) no longer need to fear an executive hammer, any media or even organizational financing means will be denied to your political opposition. Ok, there will be a "licensed" opposition, probably.

Consider the implications of that.

Goldenpause said...

Another example of our so-called elites demonstrating both their arrogance and their incompetence. Section 230 protections have made Dorsey and his ilk filthy rich and they have abused the trust this law placed in them. The statute need to amended or repealed.

Original Mike said...

"UPDATED: "Twitter CEO admits handling of blocked Post article was ‘unacceptable’" (NY Post)."

That's a funny way to spell 'backfired'.

Rory said...

"I somehow doubt either platform will be happy with the coming oversight and Section 230 designations regarding publishers."

It's the same as the bureaucracy in the last election: if they win, they have nothing to fear."

Bay Area Guy said...

Twitter & FB suck - they are run by leftists who hate Trump, and wanna push their decrepit old figurehead past the finish line.

Ain't gonna happen.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

WaPO is asking everyone to ignore the footage of Joe Biden telling Urkanian officials to fire the prosecutor or "you don't get the billion dollars." Joe had six hours to flight time ... ... "well some of a bitch!"

WaPo is as corrupt as guy who runs twitter and the facebook democrats.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Trump's taxes were obtained illegally.

Twitter and facebook had no problem with that.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Hunter dropped off his computers and never went back to pick them up. That's not hacking.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Sean Davis
@seanmdav

By falsely claiming the records were hacked, rather than the legal property of the repair shop following payment default by Hunter Biden, Twitter is itself deliberately spreading false information to justify its illegal election interference.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

twitter censorship goes in one direction

https://twitter.com/ChuckRossDC/status/1316460585891123201

gilbar said...

now, be Fair people!
i know you don't like Jo Biden; but he deserves the same protections President Trump received
remember back in 2016? When people were 'claiming' that they'd 'heard about' anonymous, unsubstantiated rumors; that sounded bad about President Trump?

And Twitter
And Facebook
And MSNBC
And CNN
And The Washington Post
And The New York Times
ALL said: We're Not going to publish that trash, it's just hearsay, and pretty damn implausible
right?
Didn't they?
I mean, didn't they?

MayBee said...

The WaPo explainer that Twitter is pushing is completely bizarre.

"However, according to The Washington Post, then-Vice President Biden played no role in pressuring Ukraine officials into firing the prosecutor, "

This is 100% untrue. It's known Biden did this. Biden is on film saying he did this. This is how Twitter explains why they NYPost article can't be discussed on Twitter? With a lie from the Washington Post?

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

oh riiiight. But only when it happens to /your guys/

@TwitterSafety

The policy, established in 2018, prohibits the use of our service to distribute content obtained without authorization. We don’t want to incentivize hacking by allowing Twitter to be used as distribution for possibly illegally obtained materials.
https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2018/an-update-on-our-elections-integrity-work.html

iowan2 said...

I know its a different story, but Hunter scoring $1.5 BILLION from the Chinese govt to "manage" is off the charts crooked. If a "money manager" took a paltry 1/2% brokerage fee, that would be $7,500,000 per year income.

Just ask if President Trump's family is cleared to do what the leftist are defending the Bidens for?

StoughtonSconnie said...

To borrow an observation seen earlier on Twitter:
Trump was impeached for something Biden did . . .
Trump was persecuted for 3 1/2 years for something Hillary did. . .

John henry said...

Is tomorrow the day PDJT and everyone in the executive branch moves their Tweeting to Parler? Or Gab? Or Mastodon?

If he/they do, it will put the kibosh on Twitter for good.

I've been saying for some time that PDJT should do this. If not exclusively, he should at least cross-post there.

Now he has the perfect excuse. Especially since the CEO admitted that he screwed up.

Just do it, Donald

John Henry

John henry said...

A lot of people here complain about1984.

Yet I wonder how many of you have the rebranded, updated and supercharged telescreen in your hous?

I mean Siri/Alexa/Echo

If you do, unless someone forced it on you at gunpoint, if you have it because you went out and paid actual money for it, you should just STFU about 1984. You have bought into it hook line and sinker.

Regarding the ubiquity of these systems, I had to buy a new TV 2 weeks ago. I wanted a 50-55" Samsung. Or other brand.

Every. Single. TV. that I could find came with Alexa or one of the other systems installed with no way to physically disable it. Every. Single. One.

I settled for a 42 incher, plenty big enough anyway by some off brand that I never heard of. It does not seem to have a camera. It does have a microphone which I have turned off. Not that I believe that it is really turned off. I have a power outlet rigged on a switch and am trying to teach my wife to kill the power when she is not actually watching.

So yeah, 1984 and all that. But we need to resist when we can.

And if you use Google for search? STFU about 1984 too.

John Henry

Francisco D said...

It's going to be A Brave New World, baby. A brave new world.

Leora said...

Merriam Webster adjusting the definition of "preference" already had me think that I didn't want to live in the world from 1984. If I have to live in a dystopia, I'd prefer Brave New World where all the information was available, but no one cared about it.

Sebastian said...

So, to sum up, the Trump collusion hoax was triggered by Dems colluding with Russians, and the Trump impeachment fiasco was triggered by Dems trying to hide the Bidens' actual corruption.

Joe Smith said...

This should scare the fuck out of everyone, liberals included...

It's odd how conservatives are always accused of being fascists, but it's liberals who end up acting like it...

Joe Smith said...

"Streisand Effect will win over the lefty censors."

But that won't always be so.

If the censorship is tight enough, and if Google joins in the fun, there won't be enough to leak out to set the 'effect' in motion.

Flat Tire said...

I'm starting to have fun with this previously terrifying state of affairs. Very grateful to Althouse and all you commentators.

hawkeyedjb said...

Joe and Hunter are crooks, but not the kind you can sort-of admire. They are just stupid crooks. It's the kind of thing men of low character get caught up in.

Iman said...

Ample, documented, public displays--

HOW CAN YOU INDICT THIS POOR IMPAIRED OLD MAN YOU RIGHT-WING MEANIES!!

and you-know-who has been waiting patiently in the wings

...she's coiled and ready to strike


Hillary and her Franzia? Or teh willie gobbler?

Francisco D said...

Make Orwell Fiction Again

Arashi said...

Is it time to storm the Bastille and setup the guiolltines in the town square ? Too early? Maybe too late?

I cannot help but feel trapped in an endlessly expanding Twilight Zone episode - it is a generally depressing situation. One keeps hoping that enough people realize what is happening and what is at stake before it is too late to bring things under control. Perhaps it is just the way the American Dream ends. Will a shooting civil war be the final chapter?

Are the folks driving all of this really sure they want to live in the world they are creating? One where I get an extra pound of butter for turning my neighbor in for thought crimes? One where occaisionally an elite member of the rulers gets taken to the Lubyanka and never returns - but gets their full measure of state lead in the back of the head and a burial in an unmarked grave (see the Gulag Archipelago books for details)?

We are supposed to be better than this.

Readering said...

Coincidence this drops at same time reported that "Obamagate" unmasking brouhaha went quietly away?

Drago said...

You know, I think I feel worst for ARM and FakeCon lefty lawyers from Michigan who claim to be conservative republicans.

Skeptical Voter said...

Wasn't Ben Rhodes the guy who worked for Obama and was proud about his ability to spread disinformation among the White House Press corps because they were mostly 27 and young and dumb?

Qwinn said...

As bad as Twitter and Facebook are in this...

The hard drive was sent to the FBI ages ago. They had this information and let the impeachment farce continue without saying a word about evidence that the phone call Trump made was infinitely justified.

The Long March Through The Institutions was almost too successful, because the victims had no defense, having been bamboozled into thinking that any resistance was a great moral evil called 'McCarthyism'. We are living with the results of that idiocy. Leftists need to be fired and purged from all the institutions, for no other reason then they are leftists... it would only be balancing the purge of conservatives that they've been doing for 70 years without any restraint whatsoever.

And quite a few of them need to hang, or faith in the rule of law will never recover.

mikee said...

This twitter thing - is it going to be around a while, or should I just ignore it the way I do Facebook?

FullMoon said...

Some news is saying 10,000 emails on computer. Aren't emails stored on a server somewhere, unless intentionally copied and saved to hard drive?

gadfly said...

From The Daily Beast - all we needed to hear and smell:

[Computer Repair Guy] Mac Isaac refused to answer specific questions about whether he had been in contact with Rudy Giuliani before the laptop drop-off or at any other time before the Post article’s publication. Pressed on his relationship with Giuliani, he replied: “When you’re afraid and you don’t know anything about the depth of the waters that you’re in, you want to find a lifeguard.”

Seeming to realize he’d said too much, he added: “Ah, shit.”

So Rudy was your lifeguard? the reporters asked. “No comment,” he replied.

gadfly said...

From The Daily Beast - all we needed to hear and smell:

[Computer Repair Guy] Mac Isaac refused to answer specific questions about whether he had been in contact with Rudy Giuliani before the laptop drop-off or at any other time before the Post article’s publication. Pressed on his relationship with Giuliani, he replied: “When you’re afraid and you don’t know anything about the depth of the waters that you’re in, you want to find a lifeguard.”

Seeming to realize he’d said too much, he added: “Ah, shit.”

So Rudy was your lifeguard? the reporters asked. “No comment,” he replied.

Narayanan said...

Techsplain requested >>>

- why would Scott Walker screenshot approach work but not linking to NYPost?

is it just the algorithm that needs to be tweaked further ?

Earnest Prole said...

Why are Republicans so bent out of shape about this? The glory of corporate capitalism is that any Republican is perfectly free to spend $10 or $15 billion to build their own version of twitter where they can say anything they wish about Joe Biden (though Biden will probably be six feet under by the time they can get the enterprise up and running).

tim in vermont said...

Twitter is a worse than useless time sink. I still click on links to tweets, but my life is better since I deleted my account. BTW, the emails were acquired completely legitimately and the repairman even has a receipt saying that if Hunter didn’t come back, pick up his computer, and pay his bill, the repairman owned the computer and all of its content, since Hunter signed away any claims of harm too.

There is that story “The Telltale Heart”? Well Hunter is the Telltale fuckup.

And it’s not like these emails are the only evidence that Joe BIden is lying about Burisma, there is this story that has been hiding in plain sight:

https://nypost.com/2019/10/01/joe-and-hunter-biden-golfed-with-ukraine-gas-executive-in-2014/

tim in vermont said...

I have to admit I am no fan of Ed Driscoll, who runs a little hot, IMHO, kind of like Hannity, but his comment "TODAY JACK SETTLES ALL FAMILY BUSINESS.” was pretty funny.

I think that the fact that these personal photos exist on the drive is evidence that the whole thing is probably authentic. It’s not that easy to fake emails with all of the metadata that’s involved, including checksums.

mezzrow said...

“Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to fuck things up.” - Barack Obama

BUMBLE BEE said...

Ingachuck... @9:20.. I said that months ago. As was mentioned above, congresscritters all have known about this investigation's ramifications. Think sexual harassment secret payouts.

tim in vermont said...

Remember that the Democrats impeached Trump for even asking about this stuff. How deep must it go. I had kind of dismissed the idea that billions were stolen from US foreign aid to Ukraine, but now I am not so sure.

“There was, about an hour ago, a WaPo "fact check" being highlighted by Twitter that the WaPo had confirmed Biden did not push out the prosecutor."

Except there is a recoding made by Ukraine

“It’s going to be critical for him to work quickly to repair the damage that Shokin did,” Biden said during the call. “And I’m a man of my word. And now that the new prosecutor general is in place, we’re ready to move forward to signing that new $1 billion loan guarantee.”

tim in vermont said...

I think Wretchard is right, I think that Democrats are pushing all of their chips onto the table because it’s that important for them to win so that they can cover all of this corruption up.

Hammond X. Gritzkofe said...

Twitter. For Twits.

Matt Sablan said...

It is the "I'm sorry you're offended" of apologies.

rehajm said...

You had to transgress their limitations to get to it, so you have a bit of a sense that you're a hero and line-crosser. That might predispose you to thinking what you get to has special value.

So my predisposition to thinking this information disqualifies Joe Biden from elected office matches the reality that this information disqualifies Joe Biden from elected office...

Good to know.

Bob B said...

I understand that due to pressure from the right, Twitter and Facebook have insisted their actions were not political, but are launching an investigation. Results of the investigation will be released sometime after November 4.

tim in vermont said...

Joe Biden has insisted that the US wanted Shokin removed over corruption concerns, which were shared by the European Union.

My personal hero, Steve McIntyre has pointed out that all of the public statements cited about Europe wanting the prosecutor gone came out *after* Biden got him fired. Put that together with the fact that Biden has promised that he will not enter into any trade deals with the UK until they agree to the harsh terms with the EU that British voters soundly rejected, including submitting to the EU high court, and Biden has promised to re-open the weapons and troops spigot to Europe, who don’t like to pay for their own defense, and it starts to make sense.

Remember it was weapons dealers who first brought up the delay in the weapons money for Ukraine.

I don’t get why Democrats who profess to be against war are able to stomach Biden. But we live in a country where Trump was investigated for three years for something Hillery did, and impeached for something BIden did.

tim in vermont said...

I know. that for somebody as dim as yourself, gadfly, that comment probably seems to make some sense, but the fact is that the repairman had every right to do with those emails whatever he pleased, since the crackhead owner of the laptop signed away his rights when he never came back for the laptop and never paid.

It’s just the nation’s good fortune that the laptop legally fell into the hands of somebody who understands what a corrupt hack Joe Biden is. He has every right to publish them in book form and charge to recover the money Hunter tried to cheat him out of.

The FBI has the laptop now, if this stuff is all false, I am sure they can make a statement to that effect. Somebody should ask them. But my feeling is that the photos show that the stuff is real.

Do you think that Hunter promised to come back and pay the guy on “his honor as a Biden”?

tim in vermont said...

"Some news is saying 10,000 emails on computer. Aren't emails stored on a server somewhere, unless intentionally copied and saved to hard drive?”

Free services like Gmail, maybe,but lots of mail programs save the mail locally.

It’s the same with messaging, that’s why the FBI and the IRS and the FEC had a sudden run of hard drive failures for which the only remedy seemed to be to take a hammer to them. That’s why so many agents working on the Mueller Report accidentally wiped their phones in the same convoluted way.

tim in vermont said...

"Coincidence this drops at same time reported that "Obamagate" unmasking brouhaha went quietly away?”

Yeah, the MSM is good at making stories go way if they don’t help Biden, and they can give a story infinite legs if it hurts Trump, even when based on complete fabrications by the Clinton campaign, like the Russia probe. This is more like that observation that Trump made on tape that women liked to fuck stars. Who’d a thunk it? That can’t be true!

Sauce for the goose and all. You guys ran Biden and his crackhead son, the one Biden got into the Navy.

I still think that Trump should make a big issue about how Biden ramrodded that bankruptcy bill through congress that made student loans non dischargeable through bankruptcy. That seems like a winning issue, and the fact that the credit card industry gave Biden’s son a lucrative position right out of college is only a minor part of that story.

tim in vermont said...

It was also funny reading that Ars Technica story that Insty linked to. The whole story was like a game of “hot potato” where the writer had to keep making statements that the readers should not believe their lying eyes, and that the whole thing had been debunked.

There is independent confirmation that Biden was lying. Or maybe he is so corrupt that he can’t keep track of every fallen robin, like the song goes.

Peter said...

Ben Rhodes: “Noted Liar”
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/noted-liar-ben-rhodes-touted-as-iran-expert-by-media

wendybar said...

THIS is how you know they are losing.

Mark said...

And Trump spent his night Tweeting, putting more money in their pocket.

This outrage is hilarious as your Twit in Chief keeps plugging their service.

Reminds me of a sore loser blaming the refs after every loss, who does nothing but complain.

Rory said...

"I think that Democrats are pushing all of their chips onto the table because it’s that important for them to win so that they can cover all of this corruption up."

It's an amazing thing: Trump is such a non-ideological person that all the Dems had to do was purge the worst of the Clinton followers and then put up a moderate front for a few years until Trump passed through the system. It seems, though, that their beast has to be fed every single year.

gilbar said...

FullMoon said...
Aren't emails stored on a server somewhere,

yes!

unless intentionally copied and saved to hard drive?

when you open your Mail program, it AUTOMATICALLY downloads to your harddrive
this way, you can still work on mail offline... Same wit your phone
Try it! go to AIRPLANE mode, and see what mail you can see.

tim in vermont said...

I see Mark gets right to the meat of explaining why Biden’s corruption is of no concern to voters.

“'Shut up,' he explained.” is supposed to be a joke Mark, but then again 1984 was supposed to be a warning, not a “how-to”. I should go to Barnes and Noble and refile any copies they might have to the proper new location in the store.

tim in vermont said...

" all the Dems had to do was purge the worst of the Clinton followers and then put up a moderate front for a few years until Trump passed through the system.”

It’s all about a woman scorned. Plus for Democrats, the future never comes.

buwaya said...

"when you open your Mail program, it AUTOMATICALLY downloads to your harddrive"

Depends on the mail program and its settings. Yahoo for instance doesn't. AFAIK you have to tell it to archive locally.

Mark said...

tim, keeping yelling squirrel.

Twitter has suffered nothing from your outrage, yet again. Trump keeps showing money in their pocket.

MayBee said...

Except there is a recoding made by Ukraine

“It’s going to be critical for him to work quickly to repair the damage that Shokin did,” Biden said during the call. “And I’m a man of my word. And now that the new prosecutor general is in place, we’re ready to move forward to signing that new $1 billion loan guarantee.”


I thought they would fix it, yet it still is there this am, at the top of their "trending" stories.

And....I don't think anyone in the Biden camp has been asked if this was indeed Hunter's laptop. The Biden camp has only said Joe *may* have met with this guy, but it was "cursory".
So Twitter is working harder to say this story isn't true than the Bidens are.

MayBee said...

I don’t get why Democrats who profess to be against war are able to stomach Biden. But we live in a country where Trump was investigated for three years for something Hillery did, and impeached for something BIden did.

Best line ever.
Yeah, I don't know either why Trump, who hasn't gotten us into new wars, isn't more popular with the "anti-war" crowd. But maybe those protesters are the same as the LaRaza protesters are the same as the Occupy protesters are the same as the Women's Marc protesters are the same as Antifa and BLM.

Obviously, for the powers that be, foreign money speaks a lot. Maybe the money our government puts out there (like to Iran) circles back to them. Who knows?

How *has* Joe Biden gotten wealthy since being VP 4 years ago?

Drago said...

Readering: "Coincidence this drops at same time reported that "Obamagate" unmasking brouhaha went quietly away?"

I am sorry that these specific emails with specific dates and identfied specific persons who make specific deals for specific amounts of money for specifically described actions which have been borne out and publicly confessed to by certain specific persons is happening to you.

Next up for readering and gadfly and Dumb Lefty Mark: Laptops are just an idea....

Mary Beth said...

I don't think abandoned data is the same as hacked data. (Assuming the story of how they got the emails and photos is true.)

Twitter was fine with letting people link to/show screen shots of Steve Scully's tweet about whether he should respond to Trump even though Scully claimed his Twitter account was hacked.

Twitter allowed me to link to an article by The Sun with similar content to The NY Post article. I tweeted the link yesterday and it still works. (Older tweets to the NY Post article, from before it prevented you from tweeting it, give you a "danger" message before allowing you to click through to the article.)

Todd said...

What's so amazing is that they never wanted this role. It was foisted on them by people, led by journalists, demanding they censor

LOL! I laughed so hard that that, that I pissed myself a little! Who do I send the cleaning bill to?

tim in vermont said...

"And Trump spent his night Tweeting, putting more money in their pocket.”

Twitter doesn’t actually make money. Twitter is in the business of doing favors for the powerful and collecting on them other ways. How does it feel to be on the side of Amazon, Wall Street, The FBI, CIA, weapons manufacturers, neocons, the ChiComs, who apparently knew about COVID in September and told nobody.

Is it really that big a deal to you that the Biden family have control of the graft produced as a byproduct of our military deployments overseas and our superior weapons tech?

Did it make you happy to know that Joe Biden’s brother got a 1.5 billion dollar contract to rebuild the homes in Iraq that Joe Biden voted to flatten?

Swede said...

Twitter's all in on Biden.

It still won't help him win.

I've seen more enthusiasm for root canals than from his campaign or supporters.

John henry said...

FullMoon said...

Some news is saying 10,000 emails on computer. Aren't emails stored on a server somewhere, unless intentionally copied and saved to hard drive?


Depends. Until a couple weeks ago I had been using Eudora going back to the 90s. It downloads email to the computer for reading. Back in the days of dialup and pay by the minute phone lines this made sense. To a packrat like me it still does.

I have about 25 years of email on my hard drive. Laptop and desktop. It moves each time I get a new computer.

I generally only keep the last month or so on the server

John Henry

daskol said...

There is every indication that Hunter Biden is reckless and irresponsible enough to have delivered this trove of data to a "random" computer shop, and also to have failed to retrieve it.

Mary Beth said...

Twitter has now blocked Kayleigh McEnany's account and the official Trump campaign account.

Mary Beth said...

Twitter has now blocked the accounts for Kayleigh McEnany and the Trump campaign.

Todd said...

John henry said...

...

Every. Single. TV. that I could find came with Alexa or one of the other systems installed with no way to physically disable it. Every. Single. One.

...

And if you use Google for search? STFU about 1984 too.

John Henry

10/14/20, 10:23 PM


Right you are. I was given one of those for Christmas last. Thanks the givers and later returned it. Had previously told the wife they are not allowed in the house. Have the phone audio-assistant disabled as well and the voice search on the newer TV. Only use DuckDuckGo for searches and regularly flush/clear browsers and cookies. Have the phone apps set so they can only use the services they need when I am actively using them and do not let any of them "run in background".

Have friends that are always surprised when they talk about products and/or google about products and then see ads for those products start showing up. Some people DON'T want to know the truth...

MadisonMan said...

How *has* Joe Biden gotten wealthy since being VP 4 years ago?
The same way Hillary!! got rich in the run-up to her election fiasco.

Anonymous said...

Shorter Mark: Twitter censorship good, fighting Twitter censorship bad.

Lovernios said...

"It's odd how conservatives are always accused of being fascists, but it's liberals who end up acting like it..." - Joe Smith

They're not acting.

Birkel said...

Trump is daring Twitter to ban him.
He wants to be banned.
Can Jack resist his fascist impulses and for how long?

Mark is stupid and I approve.
His sort of stupidity is an asset for the conservatives.
Turn it to 11, Stupid Mark.

3john2 said...

Apparently, "hacked" information should not be trusted, but "leaked" information is credible.

Drago said...

Dumb Lefty Mark: "tim, keeping yelling squirrel."

Blog topic: how Twitter is trying to shut down commentary and distribution of stories documenting Biden Crime Family corruption.

tim in vermont comments on Twitter tactics to shut down commentary and distribution of stories documenting Biden Crime Family corruption.

Dumb Lefty Mark believes this is tim in vermont "yelling squirrel".

Dumb Lefty Mark is, in addition to being a Lefty, Dumb.

Static Ping said...

Fullmoon: Where emails reside is dependent on the email system and how it is used.

If you do everything thru a web browser, then the email is on a server and you access it thru a web site. There are probably copies of the emails in the temporary internet files somewhere, assuming they were not deleted, and I suppose someone sufficiently skilled could recover what was there.

If you use a software application with your email, there are usually two options. The first option is to download the emails to the local computer and delete them off the server, in which case they are on the local hard drive only. Computer savvy people know which file types store these sort of things and viewing the emails from these files is usually simple given they are meant to be viewable. There is also the option to have the emails on both the server and the local computer and to have the two sync - read an email online and the local copy is marked as read, delete an email locally and it deletes it off the server - in which case there are two copies of the emails, one on the server and one on the local hard drive. This is useful as it both allows online access and offline access when the computer has no Internet for whatever reason. Again, the local hard drive file types are well known so viewing the contents is pretty simple. In this latter case, if the computer is unable to connect to the server for whatever reason, the local email file will remain intact and unchanged indefinitely. The email account could be deleted and scrubbed but that local file sticks around forever.

There's a reason why security experts want you to wipe your computers before giving them away or recycling them.

hstad said...

LOL - now that's precision use of words (lies)! "Ben Rhodes" - the arbiter of truth?

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/may/6/l-todd-wood-obama-adviser-admits-lying-media-seal-/

Joe Smith said...

"How *has* Joe Biden gotten wealthy since being VP 4 years ago?"

The easiest way is the classic way...book deals and speeches.

This is, indeed, what Joe claims.

Does anyone seriously think that Joe merits millions in advances on a book that nobody wants to read?

Or that he would sell hundreds of thousands of copies?

These numbers are either inflated by the publisher to justify the payout, or the books are bought by the truckload by Unions and other special interest groups.

It's called money laundering.

Usually done as a thanks for services rendered, or as a bribe for future consideration.

n.n said...

So, Deep Plunger is still on the job, and the Democrats, Deep State, JournoLists, and online editorial platforms are kneeling in the muck of Water Closet.

Ken B said...

I see Yancey Ward 9:12 and I are making similar points. At some point someone is going to start shooting at people.and we agree about a name.

FullMoon said...

Came to me in a dream. Dems provided the laptop in order to eliminate Joe. Harris at top of ticket, Coumo quickly selected for VP.

Thanks to those explaining email storage. Maybe next week we get more from Weiners.

TheOne Who Is Not Obeyed said...

Anyone remember the good ol' days, when the National Enquirer broke a salacious story about Boy Wonder John Edwards and all the mainstream media scoffed and refused to pay any attention? I'm sure nothing like that has ever, ever happened again.

Ever.

TheOne Who Is Not Obeyed said...

And don't forget that Barr has stated DOJ has Hillary's emails. I'm sure there's nothing salacious in there, either. Or compromising.

Just sure of it.

n.n said...

DOJ should investigate a presumptive collusion between party, bureacracy and corporation. This us the very model of a fascist enterprise to deny civil rights.

Sgtpepper said...

### Drago said...

Readering: "Coincidence this drops at same time reported that "Obamagate" unmasking brouhaha went quietly away?"

I am sorry that these specific emails with specific dates and identfied specific persons who make specific deals for specific amounts of money for specifically described actions which have been borne out and publicly confessed to by certain specific persons is happening to you.

Next up for readering and gadfly and Dumb Lefty Mark: Laptops are just an idea....###

LOLLOL.....shit that was funny.

Sajib Deb said...

How, has, Joe Biden gotten wealthy since being VP 4 years ago?

The easiest way is the classic way...book deals and speeches.