Elon Discovers When Content Moderation Makes Sense: When He Can Use It To Protect Racist Bigots From Being Called Out
from the ah,-that-kind-of-moderation dept
Right after Elon took over Twitter, we published what we had hoped would be a useful “speed run” through the content moderation learning curve that most platforms figure out along the way. We’ve seen other “free speech!” platforms learn these basic lessons, though not always quickly enough to survive.
The basic idea is that no one actually wants to be on a platform that doesn’t enforce some fairly basic rules. But the actual rules can vary a lot.
And while Elon Musk continues to insist to this day that he wants his site to be the platform for all “legal” speech, he has an odd way of showing it, regularly banning or suppressing perfectly legal speech that he just doesn’t like.
The latest one, though, is particularly telling. For years, an extraordinarily awful (in all the most awful ways) comic called “Stonetoss” has made the rounds among all the worst people. It had some similarities to an earlier cartoon, which was equally awful, called Red Panels. Both comics were focused on the most bigoted, awful shit: anti-LGBTQ, antisemitic, racist nonsense. Some researchers figured out that the person behind Stonetoss (who went by the name “Stonetoss” online) was also behind Red Panels and was actually a dude in Texas named Hans Kristian Graebener. And, not surprisingly, he’s expressed support for literal neo-Nazis (so, no, this isn’t one of those cases where people overreact in calling someone a supporter of neo-Nazis).
And Elon decided to suspend anyone who mentioned Hans Kristain Graebener’s name from ExTwitter. This came after Graebener himself appealed to Musk, asking for the thread revealing his name to be deleted in the name of “free speech” (lol).
On Thursday, the Stonetoss account appealed to X users who have “a direct line” to Musk, X’s owner, to help to get the thread deleted. Musk has, in the past, shared an altered version of a Stonetoss cartoon about the collapse of society. “If Elon’s idea of a ‘free speech’ website is one where people can be intimidated into silence, the outcome will be a site where the Stasi will drive out all dissent,” Stonetoss wrote. The account also tagged Musk and offered to share a list of people to target.
In a subsequent post, Stonetoss said this appeal was not about him but about other “artists.”
“This is about others I know personally,” Stonetoss wrote. “There is a whole ecosystem of artists out there who cannot (or have stopped) making art because of people on twitter organized to punish them IRL for doing so.” The cartoonist also added that sales of his plush toy were “going gangbusters” since his alleged identity was revealed.
Won’t somebody please think of the poor, oppressed neo-Nazi cartoonists?
Now, this is kind of funny, because as many people have pointed out over the years, the reason you have rules on sites and trust & safety teams is not “political censorship,” but rather to avoid harassment and abuse that drives people from the site. So, now, suddenly, this reactionary creep who has regularly made fun of others for wanting safe spaces and the horrible “woke” view that people shouldn’t be harassed is worried about people who will stop “making art” because “people on twitter organized to punish them.” Oh, really?
And, of course, Musk took it further and started banning anyone mentioning Graebener.
Hours later, the account associated with the Anonymous Comrades Collective that posted the thread was deleted, and the account was suspended. On Friday, dozens of users, including a number of researchers and journalists, began discussing the incident and posting some of the details of the research, including Graebener’s name.
X locked down many of these accounts and ordered them to delete the offending tweet to get full access to their accounts back. Among those targeted were Jared Holt, a senior research analyst at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, who covers right-wing extremism; Hannah Gais, a senior research analyst at Southern Poverty Law Center; and Steven Monacelli, an investigative journalist for the Texas Observer. (WIRED has also published Monacelli’s work.)
X also imposed a ban on sharing the link to the Anonymous Comrades Collective blog detailing its research. WIRED verified this on Monday morning by attempting to post the link, only to be met with a pop-up message that read: ‘We can’t complete this request because this link has been identified by X or our partners as being potentially harmful.”
Free speech!
The whole thing quickly turned into a Streisanding for Graebener with tons of people posting about him on social media, and articles like this:
In some ways this is reminiscent of when Elon banned the ElonJet account (which he had promised to leave intact) and then started banning any account that merely mentioned ElonJet’s existence. After people criticized that, Elon retconned an excuse, about how ElonJet was “doxxing” (it wasn’t) and it was publishing “assassination coordinates” (it wasn’t).
But, at least in that case, you could argue that there was some information (location of a plane) that some might consider kinda intrusive, even though it’s public information, required by law to be available. But here, we’re just talking about someone’s name.
ExTwitter quietly changed their privacy policy as more people complained. They added in this line as a violation:
- the identity of an anonymous user, such as their name or media depicting them
Of course, if you go just a few lines below that, to the section “What is not a violation of this policy?”, you also find out that it says “the following are not in violation of this policy:”
sharing information that we don’t consider to be private, including:
- names
Ah. Well.
As I noted on our recent Ctrl-Alt-Speech episode, we now have Schrodinger’s privacy policy. Mentioning names both is and isn’t allowed. It’s a quantum superposition of content moderation that only collapses when observed by Musk himself.
And, of course, it’s notable that while he insisted these kinds of things were a problem of “the woke mind virus” that had infected Twitter’s old employees, it seems only fair to point out that Elon seems to be infected by racist brainworms leading to his decision to protect this bigoted asshole against clearly legal speech of revealing the dude’s name.
That shouldn’t be much of a surprise, though. As Greg Sargent at the New Republic recently highlighted, Elon seems to keep diving deeper and deeper into extremist conspiracy nonsense around “the great replacement theory” that has resulted in real world violence.
It shouldn’t be any real surprise, then, that as Musk has embraced the kinds of Nazi-adjacent ideas that Stonetoss has also been promoting for years, he would use his understanding of content moderation to not actually protect marginalized groups, but to protect those pushing for further marginalization and harm.
Musk is turning his platform into a cozy nook for neo-Nazis. He’s rolled out the welcome mat and fluffed the pillows, while making it clear that those who might want to push back on fascism and bigotry are not welcome at all. His moderation practices appear even more biased and arbitrary than the old Twitter. It’s just that it’s in favor of the worst fucking people in the world. But sure, tell us more about how you’re a ‘free speech absolutist,’ Elon. We’re all ears.
Filed Under: content moderation, doxing, elon musk, great replacement theory, hans kristian graebener, racism, stonetoss
Companies: twitter, x
Comments on “Elon Discovers When Content Moderation Makes Sense: When He Can Use It To Protect Racist Bigots From Being Called Out”
I’m surprised he hasn’t called for the banning of “DEI” and its proponents on Twitter, considering the efforts of right-wingers to ban diversity, equity, and inclusion in meatspace.
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And hey, here’s another fun little side effect of Elon’s new policy change: Libs of TikTok violates that new policy many times over. That said, I’d bet on Elon refusing to enforce his new rules for that particular account. He must remain consistent in his hypocrisy so the leopards he wants to hang out with don’t start thinking his face would make a nice meal.
Re: Re: Repeat after me: 'It's only bad when people I don't like do it'
Not a chance in hell that he’ll go after one of his own over something as piddly as ‘blatantly violating the very rule he just put in place as an excuse to silence/boot the latest group of people he doesn’t like’.
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Old Twitter really should have banned her long ago. They banned plenty for far less.
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While Musk’s explicit efforts to directly cater to far-right ideologs would suggest he would cynically support support for Anti-DEI positions, I find you can instead point to direct action by Musk as to why its genuinely surprising Twitter hadn’t lead the charge on this.
Elon Musk is actively engaged in a war on DEI. He made a series of anti-DEI Xitter posts and followed up with erasing DEI references in Tesla corporate 10-K documents. And thats why Twitter not also having a explicit DEI ban is surprising to me. I’d have thought the free speech platform would be the better place to lead that charge.
To baselessly speculate, I think we are seeing the limits of the far-right edge lords to push Musk the guy who loves money. SpaceX can’t put out an Anti-DEI statement. Not while SpaceX is under lawsuits for discrimination. And I think Twitter has similar issues within its. I speculate Musk has been convinced of the danger. Like with the SEC “funding secured” investigation, Musk can be conviced of the danger to his money, at least temporarily.
Slightly more grounded alternative speculation that changes Depending on Musk’s opinions: Either hes a true believer as suggested by his tweets, and the Anti-DEI shit is going into the company that can make money and let Twitter burn. or hes been told anti-DEI is shortsighted and burns revenue long term, nad the only company hes implementing at is the company that can theoretically afford to lose revenue for a political pop.
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Safe to assume Elon is a true believer.
He doesn’t need to be explicit when he can let the insurrectionists on his platform do it for him. But him actually tweeting it out helps so the rest of us can archive it for evidence.
“It’s only okay when we do it.” – Rightoids
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test
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Yep, you’re still a dumbass.
I’m sure Matty will be in here shortly to explain how this is a move to protect free speech.
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Sorry, I was too busy having sex with 700 hot women in my annual Have Sex With 700 Hot Women One After The Other marathon. Who’s this “Stone Toss” guy? Does he also have sex with hot women?
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This might be the truest comment you have ever made on TechDirt.
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Possibly, but you should take care to notice the middle initial, which is different from that of another Bennett who posts here often.
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Excuse me, I have never been proven wrong.
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yea you do imao
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Okay, Incel.
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Incel – a member of an online community of young men who consider themselves unable to attract women sexually, typically associated with views that are hostile toward women and men who are sexually active.
How can I be an incel if I love women? I’m on 644 btw. Might break 700 by tonight.
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said bratty matty who is lying
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Your obsession with me is near sexual. Are you by chance a beautiful woman? I hit 700 already but I could go for 701.
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… Ummm… You do realize that handing out tokens to cam-girls on chat-sites… doesn’t count, right?
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The only tokens I buy are Monero tokens so I can purchase black tar heroin from underground drug markets.
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Yes, apparently. Their names are Eva Braun, Magda Goebbels, Lina Heydrich, Emmy Goering, Brigitte Frank, and Gerda Bormann.
It of course should be noted that it was found out who he was because of his own publicly posted content on multiple accounts along with using the same info to sign up for services like domain names.
The superior race pos who is too stupid to actually hide his real identity.
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To be fair, the article from the Anonymous Comrades Collective points out that he did take steps to mitigate the discovery of his identity:
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Lol.
And yet he was outed because he would post to both his real and fake Twitter at the same time about major events like landing in Japan.
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Note that I did say “mitigate” instead of “prevent”. 😉
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So he absolutely knows how much of an asshole he is but didn’t have the balls to own it.
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It’s funny how the proudest white nationalists tend to be the ones who try hardest to conceal their identities, either under hoods, behind masks which don’t apparently stop you breathing when you’re terrorising a drag brunch, or behind online pseudonyms.
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He also got his shit leaked when Gab got hacked. Kind of on him for signing up for Gab at all TBH.
'Silencing opposing ideas and people is only okay for my side!'
X locked down many of these accounts and ordered them to delete the offending tweet to get full access to their accounts back.
Boy that sure sounds like what happened to the Babylon Bee account that the bigots love to bring up as proof of pre-Elon censorship and silencing of opposing ideas, I’m sure that just as they condemned that ‘delete this comment or your account remains locked’ when it came to a bigot account they’ll be just as strident condemning it when it comes to anti-bigot accounts.
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Speaking of the Babylon Bee: “They post something funny one time and their audience loses it[.]”
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You can’t see replies on X without an account anymore. And fuck if I’m going to spin up a Nazi bar account.
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Darn yeah I am not making a new account after deleting the old one to see the “you weren’t supposed to say the quiet part out loud!!” Comments
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Worst zoo ever.
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And the ironic thing about the ‘genetic purity’ of white people is that there are far more genetic mutations in our genomes than in those of black people, probably because of our origins in Africa.
A ten-word short story about this guy’s persecution complex:
Heard a snippet of Don Lemon’s interview of Musk, where Musk says to Lemon, “you want censorship, you want censorship so bad you can taste it.” A perfect example of 100% pure projection.
His site, his rules.
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Yep. And his rules for his site speak volumes about who he is.
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His bar, his Nazis.
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And? Did you have some other revelation we didn’t already know about?
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And that should stop people from criticizing his decisions…how, exactly?
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How’s that neurological developmental disability, ‘tard?
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Be sure to tell your mom I said hi next time she brings down your hot pockets
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It’s pocket protectors, actually. And AC isn’t even a nerd (insufficient engagement in critical thinking).
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How mature.
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It’s funny that people you call “tards” are more successful, insightful, and generally useful to society than you are.
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Funny how that didn’t shield the site from criticism before it changed owners…
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And your point was?
It may be his site, but that doesn’t defend his actions beyond anything but legality. His morality is what we’re criticizing here.
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Morality is an alien concept to rightoids.
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Not as such. It’s just that their idea of morality is based around actors rather than actions. They label people as ‘good’ or ‘bad’, and then anything done by a good person is a good action and vice-versa.
I imagine that this is going to attract a ‘no, you’ reply from one of our resident right-wingers. But if that’s truly the case, then surely you can agree that this action is bad, even if Elon Musk’s a ‘good person’.
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That is true. It is also irrelevant.
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Son, this is why you have to sit at the kids table.
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It’s funny how you think you’re sharing a pearl of wisdom that we’re all not completely aware of. But thanks for trying.
Hey Matty, ya boos getting punked. Where you at? You still smarting from that whipping you inflicted on yourself yesterday?
“First they came for the Nazis…
…And I said Fuck ’em. They’re the reason that poem exists in the first place.”
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“First they came for the Nazis…
…then Elon Musk kicked them out and invited all the Nazis back.”
Meanwhile: Missouri AG sues Media Matters over its X research, demands donor names
Luckily a second SLAPP suit is in the works by brave culture warriors like the Missouri Attorney General: “Media Matters has used fraud to solicit donations from Missourians in order to trick advertisers into removing their advertisements from X, formerly Twitter, one of the last platforms dedicated to free speech in America.”
‘Bailey didn’t provide much detail on the alleged fraud but claimed that Media Matters is guilty of “fraudulent manipulation of data on X.com.” That’s apparently a reference to Media Matters reporting that X placed ads for major brands next to posts touting Hitler and Nazis. X has accused Media Matters of manipulating the site’s algorithm by endlessly scrolling and refreshing.’
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ok troll
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nvm
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Hahahahaha you dumb progtards can’t wait to attack each other.
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The fuck is a progtard? The new album by King Crimson?
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Your mom is a veggiesexual and your dad was a sentient TRS-80, explaining your low processing power.
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Have you not been watching the GOP like at all?
Mixed emotions on this one...
Subject is clearly a scumbag, but I’m not in favor of doxxing anonymous speech under any circumstances short of overt threats.
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Then you basically support fascism.
Re: In which case...
Both comics were focused on the most bigoted, awful shit: anti-LGBTQ, antisemitic, racist nonsense. Some researchers figured out that the person behind Stonetoss (who went by the name “Stonetoss” online) was also behind Red Panels and was actually a dude in Texas named Hans Kristian Graebener. And, not surprisingly, he’s expressed support for literal neo-Nazis (so, no, this isn’t one of those cases where people overreact in calling someone a supporter of neo-Nazis).
Does ‘repeatedly created content to dehumanize entire groups of people, and voiced support for a people who self-identify with a historical group most well known for attempted genocide‘ tick that box for you?
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Right! If Bruce C. doesn’t support doxxing StoneToss, then he basically abets genocide.
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Unironically, yes.
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Guess why actual genocide supporters are free to actively call for it out loud?
Worthless liberals like you who would stand up for them before a minority.
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Liberals have an easier time relating to Nazis than to minorities.
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You’re exactly the type of pants-wetting liberal that slow-walks fascists to power.
It’s really wild how Elon has gone from being seen as some cool guy who builds rockets to ultimate right wing edge lord censor in such a short span of time.
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What are you talking about? Musk is cooler and more based than ever now that he’s enabling free speech of voices critical of regime narratives on Twitter.
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Say what you mean, bitch.
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It’s not that wild.
Elon provided the resources for other people to help him build rockets for which he claimed the credit and leveraged for clout.
The best case scenario is that Elon is a boss in charge of people who build rockets. And as it turns out, he’s a pretty terrible boss. The whole X debacle was just icing on the cake that confirmed what a lot of the actual workers under his regime have been saying for years.
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“cool guy who builds rockets”
idk, my experience is more like from some guy I know little about to omg what an asshole!
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He didn’t ever build anything. He just threw his emerald mine inheritance at people who could actually build things.
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"bigots"
Oh, yay, you’ve hit the “everyone who disagrees with me is a bigot” phase of your shrill partisanship.
Of course, that is when the normal people, usually labeled “alt right” by anyone professing to be a “journalist” know we have won, and that you have no actual argument.
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Preach, brother!
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Except he’s referring to literal neo-nazis, you donkey.
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Matty can’t comprehend the difference between “I disagree with you so you’re a bigot (strawman claim) and “You’re a bigot so I disagree with you”.
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“Wet streets cause rain.” – Bratty Matty
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Also, doxxing is doxxing, you stupid shiite.
…even when it’s doxxing of people you don’t like, you partisan asshole.
X
I’m starting to think Musk renamed Twitter to X simply because it’s the letter that most resembles the swastika as it appears on the Nazi flag (卐 but rotated about 45 degrees)
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That’s because you’re a fucking dork.
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He is not, I am officially the King of Dorks and he is not one of my royally stupid subjects.
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Hey! Who said you could have my title?
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If I want a crazy woman to speak, I’ll specifically direct you to, sweetheart.
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You’re not the first, either.
Musk is a perpetual motion machine powered by hypocrisy and ketamine.
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If a tree fell and no one heard it, would it make a sound?
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Of course it would. Your question is an altered version of a philosophical question that seeks to ignore the facts of the hearing acuity of non-human animals and physical reality.
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In Isaiah 53 , a chapter in the Hebrew Bible, a virtuous servant is murdered but does not protest: “Like a sheep being led to the slaughter or a lamb that is silent before her shearers, he did not open his mouth” (Isaiah 53:7).
“You have to be trusted by the people that you lie to, so that when they turn their backs on you, you’ll get the chance to stick the knife in” Pink Floyd
People are being conditioned from birth to trust healthcare and mental healthcare workers, but they have proven by all accounts to be cold blooded assassins, which is why the majority of them claim to be religiously affiliated organizations in America, until one day, someone goes to the hospital where they are murdered in cold blood by them.
Why it is that my comments proving this have been flagged, has not been explained to me.
Evidently there was a bi-partisan agreement by over fifty million Americans that I was not a part of to be terrorists, so, if that was what the dmocracy decided to do, terrorize Americans, which they have done to me and my family, and they murdered my parents, my brother, and my dog, why don’t you just drop all of the bombs that you have all over America?
America can end with a bang the way that it started, and the way the universe was created, rather than a wimper.
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Evil trio of government, surveillance state, and healthcare, you have decided to be terrorists because it is as impossible for you to be civilized human beings as it was for Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer. I am sick and tired of being tortured, terrorized, illegally enslaved, ripped, off, and gas light by you sick evil stupid God damned fucking animals.
Either kill me, kill yourselves, or drop all of the bomvs across this country. I will not go to any hospital or healthcare or mental healthcare worker for you to do it though, like you want me to so that you can finish the job of stealing from me by racking up fraudulent medical bills.
I kniw that you really want win win, but you do not even deserve to live. You are totally evil.
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Of course, Noland Arbaugh, Elon Musk’s first human Neuralink patient would be able to wear a helmet with computer chips in it that coukd be removed when he requested in order to play chess on a computer, which would be far less invasive and far less damaging, but that would cut the neurosurgeons and neurologists totally out of the picture. It would also be vastly less expansive. Stephen Hawkings did it over a decade ago. This is refornated technology that has been around for over half a century, done illegally to be and kept under wraps, starting with MKULTRA and the CIA then transferred to DARPA, because congress decided that it would be legal for the military to do what would be illegal for the CIA to do. WTF?! Why in the helk are these God damned fucking Frankensteins doing this?!
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The uncivilzed savage beastly monsters in the tech sector, government, healthcare mental healthcare sector, military, DARPA, academia, scintific community, financial sector, government, and Goebells Media Unlimited have all admitted to themselves and the world that being intelligent, talented, civilized humman beings is something that they are biologically, and genetically incapable of doing, which is why they developed Generative AI chatbots that will only help them to ve able to deceive peopke that they are intelligent, talented, civlized human beings, while remaining, stupid, talentless, useless, evil, uncivilized savage beasts that live by the law of the jungle.
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America is just a soul-less, stupid, evil, monstrous beastly vampire. in a nuclear wasteland. This crime spree would not have been committed against my family and me if America was anything more than that. It is intolerable.
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Are you going to admit to being unable to spell yet, or are you going to continue to blame mythical ‘hackers’ for your loss at the last local spelling bee?