New Jersey Cop Facing Charges After Hitting A Man With His Car And Driving His Body To His Mom's House

from the whole-lot-of-wtf-going-on-here dept

There's something different about being a cop. The training, the atmosphere, the culture… all of it leads to officers handling crime differently than regular people. Even when they're the ones committing it.

A normal person doesn't do the things Newark police officer Luis Santiago did. While driving on the Garden State Parkway, Santiago struck and killed 29-year-old Damian Dymka. This is what Officer Santiago (who was off-duty and in his own vehicle) -- with all his training, expertise, and knowledge of applicable laws -- did next:

After striking Dymka, who was a nurse, neither Santiago or his passenger, Albert Guzman, 25, of Newark, called 911 or tried to render aid.

“(The suspects) returned to the scene multiple times before Santiago loaded the victim into the Honda and removed him from the scene,” [Essex County Prosecutor Theodore] Stephens said. “Santiago then took the body to his home in Bloomfield where he, his mother and Guzman allegedly discussed what to do with the body.”

Eventually, Santiago drove Dymka’s body back to the scene of the crash, Stephens said.

It took another cop to finally end this dark and bleak farce.

Santiago’s father, who is a lieutenant in the Newark Police Department, called 911 and reported that his son was in an accident, Stephens said.

State troopers responded to the scene of at least one crime and came across Officer Santiago and his passenger. They also came across Dymka's dead body, which was lying in the back of Santiago's Honda.

More than three weeks after this happened, Officer Santiago is facing a long list [PDF] of criminal charges.

In addition to vehicular homicide, Santiago was charged with leaving the scene of crash resulting in death, endangering an injured victim, desecrating/moving human remains, hindering one's own apprehension, conspiracy to hinder prosecution, tampering with physical evidence, obstructing the administration of law, and two counts of official misconduct.

Santiago's co-conspirator/passenger (Albert Guzman) is facing many of the same charges. The officer's mother -- Annette Santiago -- is facing the same charges as Guzman, given her alleged assistance in attempting to cover up Dymka's killing.

It's all very surreal and horrifying. Some drivers might panic when they hit a pedestrian. Very few of them will leave and return to the scene several times before driving the victim's now-dead body out to their parents' house to discuss what to do about it.

Maybe it's a law enforcement thing. This incident is somewhat similar to the bizarre actions of South Dakota attorney general Jason Ravnsborg after he struck and killed a pedestrian. While Ravnsborg did call 911 within minutes of the accident, he claimed he had no idea what he had hit. He returned to the accident scene the next day and allegedly "discovered" the body of the man he had struck and killed, 55-year-old Joseph Boever. Investigators found the victim's broken glasses inside Ravnsborg's vehicle, casting doubt on his claim that he didn't know what he had hit until the next day. Investigators also pointed out Boever had been carrying a flashlight, which Ravnsborg denied seeing. The flashlight was near Boever's body and still on when investigators arrived at the scene the following morning.

These aren't normal reactions. These are the actions of people who think they have a better chance than most to escape any culpability for their actions. Most people would not compound criminal charges after striking a pedestrian. But Officer Santiago did. And, worse, he was surrounded by enablers unwilling to deter him from turning a pedestrian accident into something far worse than a hit-and-run.

But equally as surreal are the statements released by the State Police, who had encountered this bizarre scene and found a driver with a dead body in his car. While it's understandable that public statements wouldn't include any accusations of wrongdoing while an investigation was underway, the State Police withheld any information on the driver, giving residents the impression this was a normal accident involving just some guy... and that it really might be the fault of the person who was killed.

State police say a man from Garfield was killed after being struck by a car while walking on the Garden State Parkway.

The accident happened Monday morning near Exit 151.

State police is unsure why the pedestrian was walking on the highway.

His identification is pending family verification. The driver involved was not injured.

Just the facts. I mean, it's all factual but it leaves out all the interesting facts, like the body in the back of the car, or the driver being a public servant. Three weeks later, the truth is out. And chances are that if this had involved a regular person rather than a cop, a few of the more unusual details (like the body in the car) would have been added to initial press statements.

Prosecutors won't have to do much to prove intent. Someone who isn't trying to evade responsibility for striking a pedestrian with their car simply doesn't do the things alleged here. And someone who's a cop should definitely never do these things because they're supposed to be holding themselves to a higher standard, even when they're off-duty. It looks like Officer Santiago rolled the dice on being a cop, possibly assuming that would be enough to allow him to escape accountability. That gamble failed to pay off and now Officer Santiago is going to have to face the consequences of his completely inexplicable actions.

Filed Under: damian dymka, luis santiago, new jersey, newark, police

Space X Engine Production Woes Could Screw Up Musk's Starlink Broadband Play

from the trouble-looming dept

We'd already noted how Elon Musk's Starlink isn't going to be the broadband disruption play many people had imagined. The service lacks the capacity to really provide broadband to more than 500,000 to 800,000 users during its first few years in operation (for context, somewhere between 20 and 40 million Americans lack access to broadband, and another 83 million live under a broadband monopoly). With a $100 monthly cost and a $500 first month equipment fee, it's also not doing any favors for the millions of Americans who lack access to affordable broadband.

Eventually, with a fully upgraded fleet of 42,000 low orbit satellites years from now, Wall Street analysts estimate Starlink could potentially reach upwards of 6 million users. But again that's an optimistic high end guess, and it requires that everything go swimmingly the next few years.

Everything is not going swimmingly. Chip shortages initially delayed Starlink's exit out of beta. And now a new leaked email suggests that Musk is warning about a potential bankruptcy for Space X if the company can't sort out production of the company's Raptor engine:

"Unfortunately, the Raptor production crisis is much worse than it had seemed a few weeks ago. As we have dug into the issues following the exiting of prior senior management, they have unfortunately turned out to be far more severe than was reported. There is no way to sugarcoat this...What it comes down to, is that we face a genuine risk of bankruptcy if we can’t achieve a Starship flight rate of at least once every two weeks next year."

Will Heltsley, former SpaceX senior vice president of propulsion, recently left Space X due to a lack of progress on the project. In the email, Musk makes it clear that if things don't improve, Starlink could also be in deep trouble:

"The consequences for SpaceX if we can not get enough reliable Raptors made is that we then can’t fly Starship, which means we then can’t fly Starlink Satellite V2 (Falcon has neither the volume nor the mass to orbit needed for satellite V2). Satellite V1, by itself, is financially weak, while V2 is strong."

One problem, of course, is that Starlink is poised to receive millions in FCC subsidies to bolster a service that may not be financially viable several years from now. The Trump FCC already faced a scandal after it announced it would be doling out nearly a billion dollars to the planet's richest man (who professes a performative disdain for government subsidies) to deliver broadband to some traffic medians and parking lots. The Biden administration is scaling back the scope of the hand out after backlash, but Musk's Starlink is still poised to receive tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars.

Those subsidies are dependent on Starlink meeting certain projected deployment goals Musk's newly leaked email suggests they won't be able to actually meet if things don't turn around quickly:

So again, the question then becomes: why is the FCC continuing to dole out millions in subsidies for a service that may not even exist in a few years? Especially when that money can be used to help fund future-proof and already proven fiber deployments across countless communities? Starlink does have the potential to provide some help to shore up U.S. broadband access, but even before these latest problems its full potential reach was limited. And the world's richest man, who routinely professes a disdain for subsidies and "freeloading," has made it abundantly clear he doesn't want or need government financial help.

Filed Under: broadband, competition, elon musk, profitability, satellite, starlink
Companies: spacex

Sidney Powell's Michigan Election Fraud LOLsuit Just Cost Her And Her Buddies $175,000 In Legal Fees

from the cough-up,-hucksters dept

Sidney Powell, the self-proclaimed "Kraken," has managed to turn a bunch of potentially defamatory allegations and unabashed pro-Trump showboating into actual money. I mean, she probably had before this, what with the Trump camp being hip deep in grifters at all times. (And neck deep in people who apparently just love being grifted.)

But this time it's the grifter, alleged defamer, and spectacular flameout being relieved of money. Sidney Powell -- along with several other lawyers who sued over Michigan election results (most notably, fellow grifter L. Lin Wood) -- has already been sanctioned by a federal court. Back in August, Judge Linda Parker ran Powell and her legal arguments through the judicial woodchipper, leaving nothing but minute chunks of election fraud rhetoric and MAGA blood scattered across the 110 pages of masterclass excoriation.

For instance:

It is not acceptable to support a lawsuit with opinions, which counsel herself claims no reasonable person would accept as fact and which were “inexact,” “exaggerate[ed],” and “hyperbole.” Nor is it acceptable to use the federal judiciary as a political forum to satisfy one’s political agenda. Such behavior by an attorney in a court of law has consequences.

And:

Plaintiffs’ counsel did everything in their power to ensure that their bias—that the election was fraudulent, as proclaimed by Former President Trump—was confirmed. Confirmation bias notwithstanding, Plaintiffs’ counsel advanced this lawsuit for an improper purpose and will be held to account for their actions.

And this one sentence summary of L. Lin Wood's post-2016 career:

Wood is not credible.

Powell and her co-counsel were ordered to attend classes on the subject of pleading standards (lol) and election law (LOLOL). They were also referred for investigation, with the possible outcome of being disbarred. On top of that, they were collectively responsible for the legal fees racked up by the state of Michigan and the city of Detroit, which were both forced to respond to Powell's court-based electioneering.

The bill has arrived. First, there's the opinion and order [PDF], which explains the how and why of the amount charged to Powell et al.

The sanctionees complained they were being double and triple-charged, arguing the expenses claimed by both Michigan and Detroit were unreasonably large. The court (Judge Linda Parker again) points out the expenses incurred are the fault of the failed plaintiffs, who couldn't be bothered to make a concise argument, much less a coherent one.

Plaintiffs’ attorneys identify only four instances where the billing records of the City’s attorneys reflect duplicative efforts: (i) review of the Complaint by four attorneys; (ii) review of the Amended Complaint by three attorneys; (iii) reviewing and revising the City’s Supplemental Brief in Support of Sanctions by two attorneys; and (iv) reviewing and preparing the City’s response to Plaintiffs’ attorneys’ supplemental briefs regarding sanctions. But this was a complex case which, by Plaintiffs’ account, needed to be resolved rapidly.

Plaintiffs’ Complaint, along with attached exhibits, exceeded 800 pages. Their Amended Complaint, with exhibits, exceeded 900 pages. The length of the pleadings alone justifies the contribution of multiple attorneys to sort through Plaintiffs’ allegations. Moreover, all attorneys defending a case need to be familiar with the pleadings to adequately assist in the litigation. It was not unreasonable, particularly given the complexity and significance of the litigation, for more than one attorney to prepare and draft briefs.

If you had just stopped emptying the clip into your own foot, you might have been able to stop the bleeding, the court reminds Powell and her co-conspiracy theorists.

Nor does the Court find the 114.25 hours billed by the City from the date of the hearing to August 4 excessive. Ms. Newman attributes all of these hours to the City’s preparation of its supplemental briefs. Again, the docket reflects more activity after the hearing than that. For example, Plaintiffs’ attorney L. Lin Wood had posted a video from the hearing on social media in violation of the Court’s local rules, leading to the filing of an emergency motion and a show cause order issued by the Court. Plaintiffs’ attorneys filed an emergency motion asking the Court to publicly release the video. Moreover, Plaintiffs’ attorneys raised many arguments for the first time at the July 12 hearing in response to the motions for sanctions, many of which related to the City’s Rule 11 motion, not the State Defendants’ motion. Additional new arguments were made (and even new facts asserted) in Plaintiffs’ counsel’s supplemental briefs. Counsel for the City reasonably had to expend time responding to these new arguments.

1,700 pages in complaints alone adds up to over $175,000 in legal fees. Here's the fee order [PDF]:

IT IS ORDERED that Plaintiffs’ counsel, jointly and severally, shall pay attorneys’ fees in the amount of $21,964.75 to Defendants Gretchen Whitmer and Jocelyn Benson;

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that Plaintiffs’ counsel, jointly and severally, shall pay attorneys’ fees in the amount of $153,285.62 to Intervenor Defendant City of Detroit.

I don't know what the going rate for bad faith arguments is, but this seems about right. If anything, it's maybe a little low. But it's enough to be a deterrent. Or at least it would be if any of these lawyers had managed to walk away from the Trump presidency without their brains being scrambled by hyper-partisanship. This isn't the end of this either. The Kraken and her crack(ed out) team of co-litigators may still see their law licenses stripped. If nothing else, that will, at least temporarily, keep them from stamping "COMES NOW THE PLAINTIFF" on 800 pages of conspiracy theories and conjecture and heaving it into already backlogged courts.

Filed Under: election fraud, elections, kraken, lin wood, linda parker, lolsuit, michigan, sidney powell

Verizon Once Again Expands Its Snoopvertising Ambitions

from the opt-in-to-adventure dept

Back in 2008, Verizon proclaimed that we didn't need additional consumer privacy protections (or opt in requirements, or net neutrality rules) because consumers would keep the company honest. "The extensive oversight provided by literally hundreds of thousands of sophisticated online users would help ensure effective enforcement of good practices and protect consumers," Verizon said at the time.

Six years later and Verizon found itself at the heart of a massive privacy scandal after it began covertly injecting unique user-tracking headers into wireless data packets. The technology allowed Verizon to track users all over the internet, and the company neither bothered to inform users it would happen, or gave users any way to opt out. It took security researchers two years before security researchers even realized what Verizon was doing. Verizon ultimately received a $1.35 million fine from the FCC (a tiny portion of what Verizon made off the program), but still uses the same tech (albeit with functioning opt-out) today.

A few years later and it's not clear Verizon has actually learned all that much. The company last week began expanding its data collection and monetization once again, this time via a new "Verizon Custom Experience" the company says will help it "personalize our communications with you, give you more relevant product and service recommendations, and develop plans, services and offers that are more appealing to you." In reality that means Verizon is expanding the collection of data on the websites you visit, the people you communicate with, and the apps you use.

Of course Verizon isn't asking user permission before enrolling them in this new exciting "experience," and while the company claims it emailed users to inform them they were being opted in, many customers (including myself) never received any such notification. So while users can opt out through a fairly simply opt-out process, most users aren't going to know they're enrolled in the first place. And Verizon being Verizon (where most of its apps and services are shoddy copies of better products), nobody really wants any of this stuff in the first place:

"Nothing I’ve read about the program would make me even consider staying in, especially since Verizon is sneakily signing people up without asking. In an example of how the program could benefit you, Verizon says it could present music listeners with a “Verizon offer that includes music content” or give you a “choice related to a concert in our Verizon Up reward program.” The company then tries to persuade you with “personalized content and marketing” when opting into Custom Experience Plus."

Of course Verizon has been caught up in more privacy scandals than I can remember, from its collection of user metadata to its role as one of the NSA's most trusted allies in domestic surveillance. And when Verizon gets too greedy, which it does a lot, it generally sees a wrist slap with a fine that's always a tiny, tiny fraction of the money made from the dodgy behavior. And the only demand placed on it is usually that it be transparent about whatever dodgy behavior it's doing, while providing working opt out tools.

So not only does Verizon never really face any meaningful accountability when it goes too far, any feckless regulatory enforcement that does happen generally puts the onus on the consumer to not only pay attention to what Verizon's doing, but to also take the time to understand it then opt out. Verizon being Verizon, it's going to always be financially incentivized to make that as convoluted and cumbersome as possible, assuming the opt out system works at all (telecom, like Facebook, has a nasty habit of re-enrolling users who've opted out of such programs).

Filed Under: advertising, custom experience, opt-out, privacy, super cookie, surveillance, telcos
Companies: verizon

Daily Deal: TREBLAB Z2 Bluetooth 5.0 Noise-Cancelling Headphones

from the good-deals-on-cool-stuff dept

The Z2 headphones earned their name because they feature twice the sound, twice the battery life, and twice the convenience of competing headphones. This updated version of the original Z2s comes with a new all-black design and Bluetooth 5.0. Packed with TREBLAB's most advanced Sound2.0 technology with aptX and T-Quiet active noise-cancellation, these headphones deliver goose bump-inducing audio while drowning out unwanted background noise. These headphones are on sale for $79.

Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. A portion of all sales from Techdirt Deals helps support Techdirt. The products featured do not reflect endorsements by our editorial team.

Filed Under: daily deal

New York Times Lies About City's Murder Rate, NYPD's Clearance Rate To Sell Fear To Its Readers

from the don't-be-shitty dept

There's no reason for the New York Times to be this bad at reporting. It has plenty of resources and a slew of editors, and yet we get headlines like this one, which says something completely false:

If you can't read/see the screenshot, this is the original headline attached to an article that says nothing of the sort:

After Murders ‘Doubled Overnight,’ the N.Y.P.D. Is Solving Fewer Cases

Murders did not "double overnight." The murder rate in New York City hasn't doubled at all. Here's what the murder rate looks like according to the NYPD's own stats:

Want another look at the "doubling" the NYT falsely asserts in its headline? This comes via David Menschel, one of dozens challenging the Times' embrace of "bleeds/leads" rather than the truth:

So, where does this "murders doubled" quote come from? Who knows. The article doesn't provide a source for this supposed direct quote (remember, there are quotes around "Doubled Overnight"). At best, one can extrapolate the statement in the headline from a very different statement provided by a former Baltimore PD officer who is now the director of, um, something called the "John Jay College's NYPD Executive Master's Program."

Here's the NYT pull quote:

“The increase in shootings, that’s got to have a negative impact on clearance rates,” said Peter Moskos, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. “Their caseload literally doubled overnight. The odds are never great. That’s the unfortunate truth.”

The first part ("that's got to have...") is pure speculation. So is the rest of it. Someone asked a cop to offer a statement on cop stuff and received something exonerative from someone who used to be a cop but now teaches a masters program aimed at NYPD officers.

At best, it's maybe "caseloads doubled overnight." But it's unlikely this has happened either. And, if we're going to examine year-to-year crime rates, whatever increases officers in the Bronx (the article occasionally focuses on the family of a Bronx murder victim) have seen in caseloads and reported crimes still cruises along at historic lows for the city that never sleeps.

The headline and the article to a disservice to the purported subject: the survivors of an unsolved murder. Cops have never been great at solving murders and the NYPD is no exception. Unfortunately, the article also lies about clearance rates, which have historically been nowhere near what is claimed by the reporter.

In the years before the pandemic, the New York Police Department was solving nearly 90 percent of the murder cases in the city. But in 2020, as shootings and homicides increased, the percentage of homicides the police solved, a statistic known as the clearance rate, plummeted to around 60 percent, according to the department’s records.

This is just inexcusable. Anyone can pull up these records. The article is (deliberately?) vague about how many "years before the pandemic" it's talking about, but nothing in the NYPD's own records suggests it has maintained a 90% clearance rate for murders.

People cherry-picking data may find a quarter from the last three years that shows something approaching 90% clearance, but the NYPD as a whole has never consistently approached the number stated in this article. And the published numbers have their own problems. Every so often, precincts report clearance rates above 100%, which suggests these are rolling averages that simply add solved cases to the total, no matter how long it has been since the crime was reported.

I would normally use the phrase "to its credit" before reporting that the NYT altered its headline less than a day later to have at least one less lie in it. Instead of "murders doubled," it simply says "murders increased." But "credit where it's due" applies, and the NYT is so far in arrears in the credibility department that no credit will be issued. The NYT added quotation marks to quote something no one actually said and turned a NYPD-oriented professor's speculation into an eye-grabbing "fact."

Its extremely casual relationship with the truth does no favors for the purported subjects of its article: a tortured family hoping for some justice and closure following the senseless murder of their son in a local bodega. Instead of focusing attention on historically low clearance rates, the paper decided to sell fear to its readers. It irresponsibly claimed readers were surrounded by murderers and the police were powerless to stop them.

What the NYT should have asked is why clearance rates were so low, given the NYPD's considerable resources. And it should have asked why it takes a pretty white woman dying to motivate law enforcement to put those considerable resources to use. In the grand scheme of all things policing, nothing means less than the death of a young black man. And that's the real story -- one that the Times chose to ignore in favor of misrepresentations and law enforcement-friendly extrapolation.

Filed Under: journalism, murder rate, nyc, nypd
Companies: ny times

Public Fallout Over Take-Two Playing IP Troll Begins

from the is-this-worth-it? dept

Take-Two Interactive continues to find itself in the news for all the wrong reasons. The game publisher and parent company of Rockstar Games, the studio behind the Grand Theft Auto franchise, had a reputation built for itself for making great AAA video game titles. More recently, its reputation centers more on its aggressive actions on all things intellectual property. The company has gone after its own modding community, seeing it as a threat to its release of a shitty anthology of past GTA games. The company has also found itself going after companies in totally unrelated industries over the silliest of trademark concerns. And, most recently, there was speculation that there was a threatened opposition to the trademark application filed by Hazelight Studios for its indie hit game It Takes Two, as though anyone were going to take that common phrase and confuse it with the much larger game publisher.

That was left to speculation because Hazelight abandoned the application without explanation, though now we find that it was at least partially done due to the threat from Take-Two.

Hazelight confirmed the news to Eurogamer today, after it was spotted that it had abandoned its efforts to trademark It Takes Two in late March. The team did not dispute that the abandonment came as a result of Take-Two's actions, but didn't comment on whether or not this affected sales or a possible sequel.

Which sucks because, again, there's no real public confusion to be had here and therefore no trademark concerns. And many in the public saw that non-response as to whether the dispute is preventing a sequel or hurt sales as confirmation that it likely did both.

And many in the public are not happy about that.

Take-Two Interactive is back in the news for a trademark dispute and fans are fuming about it. For the past few months, Take-Two Interactive has been the talk of the town for trying to take down the modders community. But now, the parent company of the Rockstar Games is issuing trademark claims even more liberally. They’re targeting anyone who uses words or logos that are similar to any property of Take-Two Interactive. This news has shaken the entire gaming community and fans are absolutely not happy about it.

That Essentially Sports post goes on to list a bunch of Twitter responses to the news, all of which are quite critical of Take-Two. And, sure, it's Twitter, where you can find people complaining angrily about every last silly thing, but the comments themselves are probably not the type of public reception that Take-Two would want. Some examples include:

• Take-Two are truly a very miserable company for going after Hazelight Games over them using a name “It Takes Two” for a bloody game. Get a grip for goodness sake. I swear your legal tactics are way over the top. Not even Nintendo pulls this shit off.

• Take-Two is almost impressively evil. Are they doing their best to become the most morally bankrupt incompetent entity in order to give Rockstar inspiration for a potential villian in GTA 6?

• ''it takes two'' is literally a song by Marvin Gaye and Kim Weston lol, they should sue Take Two for using their name instead

• Wooow, that's actually pathetic. A new studio doing new things, and you got a multi billion dollar company being an actual bitch.

There are plenty more. Whatever Take-Two thinks they're getting out of this type of aggressive action campaign, I sure hope it factored in the downside of a public backlash, however big or small it may be. Because people don't like to support a company they view as a bully, generally speaking. And, yes, Nintendo still has its fans, but it also takes regular PR hits for its bullying.

Is that really where Take-Two wants to go?

Filed Under: ip trolling, it takes two, take two, trademark, trademark trolling, trolling
Companies: hazelight games, take two interactive

Devin Nunes Retires From Congress To Spend More Time Banning Satirical Cows From Trump's New Social Network

from the we-have-to-do-content-moderation? dept

In a bit of a Monday afternoon surprise, Rep. Devin Nunes has announced that he's retiring from Congress this month to become the CEO of Trump's new media company, Trump Media & Technology Group -- a company which apparently now has tons of money in the bank (even if from sketchy sources) but also is facing a newly revealed SEC investigation that might require someone who actually understands this stuff, rather than a very thin-skinned politician who sues people who criticize him.

Note to Devin: you can't sue the SEC for defamation.

There's all sorts of speculation about why Nunes would do this now. He's actually a pretty powerful Congressional representative, and in line to be in charge of some very powerful committees if, as is widely expected, the Republicans retake control over the House next year. But, he might also see the writing on the wall. Earlier in his career he was winning elections by a pretty wide margin, but the last two elections have actually been pretty tight. And, with California going through its redistricting process, he may have realized there was a high likelihood he'd lose next time around. Also, we know that watchdog groups have asked for an investigation into some of Nunes' activities.

And, then, of course, there are all the many, many frivolous lawsuits he's filed over the last few years, with the first one remaining the most notable and the most ridiculous: suing a satirical cow that made fun of Devin Nunes online. The fact that he'd sue a satirist for making fun of him does not suggest someone who believes very strongly in free speech.

So it should be extra interesting to see just how Devin Nunes handles content moderation questions for Truth Social now that he's in charge. Will he allow @DevinCow to have an account there? Or will he prove himself to be a hypocrite -- complaining about "censorship" on other sites, but actively engaging in the same (or more selective and biased) moderation on his own site? The press release from TMTG with quotes from Nunes reads as quite laughable when you realize he's suing satirical accounts on Twitter that made fun of him:

Congressman Devin Nunes added, “The time has come to reopen the Internet and allow for the free flow of ideas and expression without censorship. The United States of America made the dream of the Internet a reality and it will be an American company that restores the dream. I’m humbled and honored President Trump has asked me to lead the mission and the world class team that will deliver on this promise.”

For someone who is literally suing a bunch of reporters and critics, the claim of allowing for "the free flow of ideas and expression without censorship" doesn't just ring hollow, it rings of being a total hypocrite.

Either way, as we've seen with every wannabe Trumpist social media site promising to "bring back" free speech, it doesn't take long for them to realize that content moderation is not about "censorship," it is simply necessary to run a modern website.

How long will it take Nunes to recognize this simple fact? And will it happen before or after Trump fires him and stabs him in the back?

Filed Under: 1st amendment, congress, content moderation, defamation, devin nunes, donald trump, free speech, nune's cow, retirement, social media
Companies: tmtg, truth social