The media pearl-clutching over changes to the Twitter social media platform has become detached from reality. During a Face the Nation discussion today, a very serious Margaret Brennan and Kris Krebs, former director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) outline the national security risks created by Elon Musk’s change to the “verified Twitter user” system. The “blue checks.”
Mr Krebs outlined how bad actors from Russia, Iran and China could potentially write mean words on Twitter and create social collapse in the United States as a result of election interference, defined as misinformation and disinformation. Additionally, the unified western military order is at risk from the national security threat posed by allowing random unmonitored discussion on a social media platform. With the midterm election this week, people could die if Elon Musk removes the control filters on the global conversation. WATCH:
[Transcript] – […] BRENNAN: We return to our conversation now about election security with CBS News, cybersecurity expert and analyst Chris Krebs. Chris, I want to talk about something that’s happening right now. Social media has already changed the way we communicate and, certainly, our political world. President Biden said a few days ago that he has concerns about billionaire Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter- said, “the platform spews lies all across the world. There’s no editors anymore in America, there are no editors, how do we expect kids to be able to understand what is at stake?” It’s not just kids, right? What concerns do you have about this happening just days before the election, these changes to Twitter?
KREBS: Well, I think I think the government for one has a mechanism by which they can review the acquisition, the Committee for Foreign Investment in the United States can take a look at particularly the second and third ownership positions in Twitter, including Saudi Arabia. That is something that I’m assuming that the Treasury Department is taking a look at right now to see if they can put in place a national security agreement or even potentially unwind the purchase. But I think more specifically to what’s happening right now with Twitter, I think there are kind of- there are two “Elons” that we are seeing. There’s the public Elon, that’s, you know, trolling and saying $8, please, on all the complaints about some of the shifts in the moderation and other activities. Then there’s what’s happening behind the scenes, the conversations with the civil rights groups, with advertisers, with the teens, which perhaps maybe a little bit more stable. And I think if you look at the platform itself right now, not a whole lot has changed. That may not be a popular opinion, but I think the reality is that most, you haven’t seen too much of a change in the moderation. Now, the concern, though, is what happens tomorrow, where you can buy the blue tick for $8 a month, Twitter Blue–
MARGARET BRENNAN: For our viewers who don’t use Twitter, a blue check is a sign of credibility.
KREBS: It has historically been a marker of trust, and that Twitter has said, we’ve confirmed and authenticated the identity of this person, which tends to be a politician, or a news media personality or a journalist, an academic or someone that may be a popular voice in certain civil rights, civil liberties issue.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Now you can buy it for eight bucks a month.
KREBS: Along with a number of other features of editing and longer-form video posting. But again, to have such a dramatic shift in that marker of trust, now you can buy it, in advance of as we’ve been talking about a very contentious and important election. It opens the information space to a broader community of influencers, clout chasers, election denialists–
MARGARET BRENNAN: Foreign actors?
KREBS: Absolutely, I mean, we’ve seen reports lately of Russia, China and Iran, back at their old tricks, and it is going to create a very chaotic environment.
MARGARET BRENNAN: To that point in- in 2018, during the midterms, [U.S] Cyber Command took offensive operations to take out Russian trolls who are spreading misinformation. The New York Times has a story today saying Russia is back at it. What does that say to you about U.S. defenses?
KREBS: Well, I think so Recorded Future and Graphika, two research firms have released information that Russian bots, trolls, associated with the Internet Research Agency, which is a group that targeted since the 2016 and the 2018 election, are back at it and are undermining this time Democratic candidates for Senate in some of the- the more contentious races. I think what it says is that the- there’s a broader community of actors, they recognize that political discourse is very divisive here in the US, and they have more opportunities, probably than ever before, to continue to undermine confidence to create chaos, which is really, their primary objective here. It’s not necessarily that a winner wins, but that we’ve all lost- lost confidence and they degrade the American democracy experiment.
MARGARET BRENNAN: There are also a number of sitting Senators, and of note, Ambassador Richard Grinnell former President Trump’s Acting Director of National Intelligence has been posting some misleading information, that’s him on the screen, about the election. He said, “any state which doesn’t count all the votes and announce the winner Tuesday night is incompetent.”–
KREBS: So all 50 states then, by that formulation,
MARGARET BRENNAN: Because what you’re saying is just the fact that votes are never finalized on election night. But why do you think someone who knows better is posting something like that?
KREBS: Well, whether he knows better, I can’t assume that, but the point here is that it’s for clout chasing, it’s for influence. There’s a reward system and structure set up right now within the far-right of the GOP that provides additional engagement. So, you tweet something like that, and you can see your likes, your retweets, your amplification really take off. And if you’re just talking about some other, you know, more mundane domestic issue, nobody cares. But there’s a reward system and incentive structure that’s set up where exactly this sort of messaging is- is rewarded. It’s encouraged, and, and this is again, going back to Governor Sununu’s comments, we need leaders to lead. We need the presumptive leaders of the Republican Party to stand up and say this is unacceptable, this is not how it works. We need to be good faith actors in this process and unfortunately, leaders aren’t leading right now.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Chris Krebs, thank you as always for your analysis and we will see you on election night as part of CBS coverage at our democracy desk here at CBS News. (LINK)
They think we are stupid.
They do.
we seldom prove them wrong
Ahhh, unfortunate truths…
Some are – my brother-in-law believes all the cr@p he hears on MSNBC, his go-to news (propaganda) source.
I’m glad he lives over 800 miles away! LOL!
And I thought inflation was all to do with the Big Bang or something . I guess we are all stupid
Too many Americans are indeed stupid. there are still a lot of idiots who will always vote for all democrats on the ballot.
Half the Country has been incited against a strawman.
At least half of the country is as stupid as they think.
How can I tell if I’m in the stoopid half?
Voting democrat is the biggest give away.
Who did you vote for in 2020?
By definition 2/3 of the country have an IQ between 90-110. Those people can’t make independent analyses, they depend on others.
They think their base are credulous political simpletons, and they’re correct.
Unfortunately it isn’t just their base. We have so many people who are just low information that are easily fooled by the media.
It’s quite amazing how much value the Establishment places on Twitter, what is said there, and its assumed role not only as the primary vehicle for news “reporting” but also as a resource for news “investigation.”
Fundamentally, there is no difference between Twitter and papyrus. It is a communication tool, and nothing more.
This begs a question. Why do these people invest Twitter with a importance that borders on religious fervor?
Could it possibly be that Twitter was established as a pulpit to spread certain messages, in certain ways by, by certain people?
A little light exposes the whole room. When things come to light for people and they begin to see reality clearly, that is very bad for roaches and Democrats. Roaches and Democrats hate the light.
They are demo-rats. Rats don’t like the light or people.
“Why do these people invest Twitter with a importance that borders on religious fervor?”
Because it’s their weapon
Their cudgel
… that they owned free and clear until now
Elon man bad
for several years now the Davosians have based significant amounts of their policy on the mob rule of Twitter. They think twitter is the entirety of the public square. And without the army of diarrhea CIA bots to tell them what to think, they intuit that their world is collapsing.
God willing it is.
Twitter with the bots and suppression / censorship is their ‘force-multiplier’.
Without it, the emperor has no clothes and they will continue to whine about it.
It has been revealed that twatter was getting instructions from the Intel community on how to control speech, and what speech to control. This is straight out of Hitlers play book. And it is illegal. Since we know this, what else is hidden there the left is hiding?
Hell, the feds were paying the salaries of all the employees. I saw an interview with one of these Twitter employees, an IT guy. He stated most folks only show up to work 2 or 3 days a month. Some only come around every three months or so. The hard chargers, looking for a promotion, may sho up a few times a week. No lie, real employee.
How do you run an operation like this, one that had 7000 people on the payroll and few if any show up for work? Well, this is simple, who has the financial ability to pay 7000+ plus employees that essentially never show up for work, and have the ability to do everything that it takes to run an operation like this? I can only think of one, the US Government. I bet the Twitter server farm would be found at one of the number of NSA server farms across the country.
Elon bought furniture and an address.
Some people regard Costco with an importance that borders on religious fervor also.
Thinking about these people would give one a big headache. They are not to be trusted.
Say it’s not so. It wasn’t established as that, imo, but was co-opted by the DC C@rtel.
That and to suppress the messages of others, like us.
“There’s no editors anymore in America, there are no editors…”
Isn’t that the logic behind the section 230 protections? If there are editors then the platform is a publisher and liable for defamation disseminated on the platform.
.
if you’ve spent much time reading what is supposed to be the “professional” media this is very obvious. I get that’s not what this clown is whining about, but good lord… they can’t even spell, much less put together a reasoned, coherent, and factually-researched article anymore.
“And I looked, and behold a pale blue bird and his name that sat on him was Musk, and Heck followed with him.”
stellar
If I pay $8 per month can I get a physique like that? (not the bird) 🤣
Are they still censoring and “fact checking” 2020 election result deniers comments?
So they’re upset and kvetching because they don’t control the blue-check allocations any more?
Just pay your $8 twitwit!
They are kevetching because we get a voice now. They also know they can’t win an argument. So they become juvenile. Well, reveal they are juvenile.
Boy, talk about awake up. Wait until 10,000 MAGA show up with receipts!
It’s not the $8 that they now have to pay.
It’s that YOU can pay $8 and get the blue check.
They don’t like the masses being their equals.
They are elite and they will never be one of us.
If anybody can be special, then nobody is special, and we are the special ones, it’s not fair!!!!
(Insert Primal Scream here…)
Per Krebs’ comment on what used to constitute a blue check, who’s to say how many Blue Checks were actually Bots?
Or, actually worthy of whatever criteria established being verified a blue check.
A bot with a blue checkmark would seem to have more gravitas than say an ordinary bot w/o the official Twitter verification and endorsement.
I hope all of the bots can one day be identified and then used to filter previous opinion poll results that people assumed were accurate and true.
Wouldn’t that be great?
honestly, if each bot wants to crank out their 8/month, let em have their “say” – twitter is still a mountain of diarrhea of the fingers, and we all know it.
99.945😉percent
Fear, fear, fear. May they continue to eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Glad to see it. They’re terrified.
Well, I hope it is fear.
But it could be they’re simply mending fences — doing maintenance they think is appropriate to the situation.
Or another analogy, the immune system fighting off invaders. Just routinely doing its job, not necessarily desperate.
Probably best not to underestimate an enemy.
Like I said, I hope you’re right, CoffeeBreak.
I sincerely hope our Red Wave is bigger then Brazils
i sincerely hope we are prepared to be as mobilized as the Brazil people in the event the fix is in.
we are the “land of the free and the home of the brave” after all.
yep, were gonna need a bigger area to mobilize in.
https://www.projectveritas.com/news/breaking-fbi-whistleblower-leaks-document-showing-agency-targeting/
Add: Blue Check Appropriation!
Good grief! These people are so stupid to think that we believe them.
“MARGARET BRENNAN: Now you can buy it for eight bucks a month.”
See how they’re framing the situation?
To my understanding, the blue check has meant “verified user” — that is, Twitter – through whatever means – has verified that the name on the account is who they say they are … to combat imposter accounts that co-opt the names of the famous
I haven’t heard that Twitter has abandoned their verification procedure for blue checks … anyone?
Just that you now need to pay $8 bucks a month for it … Elon needs to generate revenue and it’s a nominal charge
But the Left screams that anyone can just buy a blue check now …. implying while not stating that verification has gone away — you can just buy it now — now it’s cheapened — now it’s no longer protective, everything’s a free-for-all
Lies and the lying liars who tell them
Anyone know the precise details? I’m working mainly from supposition
We think alike.
Uh-oh.
Lol
🙂
And when you buy this “blue check” thing, how is the money transferred? Is there a way of verifying the source of the money if someone wanted to dump a pile of coin on the purchase of large quantities of bogus accounts?
well, in the pre-Musk twitter, twitter said they apply a “verification” process to vet applicants
I haven’t yet seen twitter say that they’ve abandoned that process
anyone?
see Phlipper’s question directly below
Seeadler further below has a GP article with some interesting info regarding the buying of blue checks.
Perhaps CBS will get to the bottom of it all. . .. haha, ne er.
……in the pre-Musk twitter, twitter said they apply a “verification” process………..
So we’ve gone from “trusting” an anonymous group of twitter employees assigning unverified credentials to where anyone can buy this tin badge for eight bucks a month. As I see it Musk is simply generating revenue from what was once a symbolic little trinket that cost money to produce. I never have, and never will be a twitter user. To me the whole thing reminds me of a modern day version of a Barnum & Bailey circus act. All a dog and pony show meant to provide temporary distraction from the seriousness of reality. I wish Musk well in his endeavors. Just don’t look for me in the audience. I’ve got work to do.
Of course, twitter ‘verified’ that everryone who got a blue check was a F@scist like Parag Agrawal and the DC St@si.
exactly. so if there are 20 of you “verified” to pretend like your idiot opinion is a movement, pay 8/mo x20 and git er done.
Come on, CIA, you can afford it, right? you’ve stolen from us for a generation or more. Use a few of my dollars and see if i believe you more. go ahead, i’ll wait.
Did Elon Musk say somewhere he would do away with rigorous verification of obtaining blue checks in lieu of merely allowing any propagandist to subscribe and to obtaining blue checks at $8 per month?
Big difference. Just ask Hiawatha. I mean claiming and being are two different things.
If you know what I mean.
thx, Phlipper, you phrased that concisely and directly
If this is an existential threat to the country and it was known before Musk bought Twitter why was he in the end forced to buy it? Sometime doesn’t add up? I quit Twitter when President Trump was banned but he had a blue check mark and I don’t remember there being any security issues when that happened? Right now there are no “good faith actors” in the IC or those acting as “cybersecurity experts” for the corrupt leftist msm!!
I would love to see censorship including at least 95% of the garbage and slander from the socialist/neo Marxist left.
Two can play this game and we expect equality.
We would accept the same percentage censored of what each group posts. That would be fair.
That’s actually not the first time I’ve heard someone say “There are two Elons.”
must be the pre-frame-job talking point.
Kris is projecting
I see this media pearl-clutching as great news. It signifies, to me anyway, just how weak their supposed grip on narrative engineering and control over us truly is.
I do believe that if we are able to “throw the bums out,” there will be bad things happen. The left is not going quietly into that abysmal night either. For as hilldawg said if that *Beep* wins we will all hang by nooses. Now, why would she say that? What is Ukraine really all about? Where is all that money and weapons truly going? Soooo many questions. And the blue is ready to hightail it into high cotton. Dangerous animals in a corner.
Yet we insist! GET OUT!
Well then I guess they won’t mind paying the eight bucks.
Or is should that be subsidized for these grifters.
BUSTED: Elon Musk Confirms Twitter Employees Secretly Sold Verification Badges Under Previous Managementhttps://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/11/busted-musk-confirms-twitter-employees-secretly-sold-verification-badges-previous-management/?utm_source=Email&utm_medium=the-gateway-pundit&utm_campaign=dailypm&utm_content=2022-11-06
So here it is. One big twitter upper management scam. Elon Musk is a cross between John Galt and Cape. John Blackthorn of ‘Shogun’ fame. Doing the unexpected and succeeding. Don’t rock the boat..sink it.
Krebs assumes that all people are like him and engage in social media as a token economy of status and influence. This
What a child!
“people could die if Elon Musk removes ….”
=====
No way. We already died from the year 2000 bug, except for those people who died because of the Net-Neutrality plague, or any one of the 37 gazillion other things the media insisted we should panic about over the last couple decades.
Since we are all dead, we can’t die of anything new.
Every four years the university campuses fill with posters and flags, waved by another crop of ambitious youth shouting from the rooftops about the dire need to vote in this, the “most important election in our nation’s history!!!” Watch the news reels. Except for a change in fashionable attire you can’t tell them apart. It’s the same script every time.
Edit: There has been one notable change to the script. Some time ago we went from global cooling to global warming.
I think it’s a smart move to force the swamp to pay $8/ month for each bot account. Genius, really 😂😂😂
they can still create innumerable bot accounts for free, they just won’t be blue checks
I wonder if Musk is stupid enough to fall for this ?
Krissy Krebs is a typical limp wristed milquetoast establishment type who has no clue as to how little credibility he possesses.
You have to give them credit for not breaking into laughter during that segment.
Ditto, the Democrat-Media Complex really is populated by professional liars, top to bottom.
This is about maintaining the lies . If open conversation is allowed the left dies along with their never ending lies.
If viewpoints are allowed that they can’t immediately shut down it’s over for them and they know it.
What terrible people.
Inexpensive plentiful energy is the problem you fool.
All caused 100% by the anti human Malthusiun fools in Davos, pulling your WEF nose ring.
IMO they just confirmed what many of suspected all along. Twitter (and others )was / is largely an IC controlled op and the foundation is shook.
Dishonesty is pandemic in the government media complex.
Laughable.
Such horse manure
🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳💪🏻💪🏻💪🏻💪🏻
The libs are sooo butt-hurt they may lose total control over a single media site. Too funny.
Not social collapse, just junta collapse.
“Well, I think so Recorded Future and Graphika, two research firms have released information that Russian bots, trolls, associated with the Internet Research Agency, which is a group that targeted since the 2016 and the 2018 election, are back at it and are undermining this time Democratic candidates for Senate in some of the- the more contentious races.”
Right. ‘Cuz if there’s one thing the enemies of The United States Of America want more than anything, IT’S TO STABILIZE THE COUNTRY BY KICKING ALL OF THE BATSHIT CRAZY DEMOCRATS OUT OF CONGRESS.
I’m SURE that’s the plan, Krebs… you freaking genius…
Once again, the media is the biggest enemy America has ever faced. Until we can do something to change that, the country will continue to decline.
Much the same way the American public experienced a renaissance when the internet first opened up prior to the advent of the Tech Giants squashing and de-platforming everything, the deep state will look back at the 2016-2022 period as their heyday. They will look back in fondness and tell their children about the great time when they had no opposition and that they could silence and destroy their enemies at will and keep the majority from uniting.
BREAKING:
@elonmusk says journalists with “they/them” pronouns in bio will pay a $16 monthly fee instead of the standard $8 for verification because “they” identify as multiple people
heh. We’s very clever.
If these two weren’t so pathetically sincere, they’d be a great comic act.
No one ever cared about how Jack and company ran the coffee shop. Now, omgosh, it’s a “threat to democracy, we’re all going to die!”
I find it incredible that people would agree to go on national TV and make idiots out of themselves. But maybe they’re really that stupid. They certainly think we are.
Forgive my ignorance, But what is the significance of the blue check mark ? Just to show that you are really you ?
Yes.
From Twitter …
https://help.twitter.com/en/managing-your-account/about-twitter-verified-accounts
It’s a social media company… I think both sides think the concept, and their participation in that concept is WAY more important than it actually is.
It’s the internet folks… Learn to point and laugh.
After Trump, it was the truth and the memes they feared the most. Neither need a blue check.
2020 Fed. Gov, Microsoft, SolarWinds data breaches on Krebs expert watch. All memory holed. How does this idiot show his face in the public, he is a failure. He is only the lying talking face for the regime and compromised.
Jordan, add this clown to the list of things you will be investigating.
“Because what you’re saying is just the fact that votes are never finalized on election night. ”
Huh? Knowing the winner on election night is the norm.
Let me get this straight….
When it was $15,000 per check mark and membership was scarce, Twitter was all about facts and information. Totally no influencing going on, just straight talk filtering out misinformation before a user could see it.
When it is $8 per check mark, then Twitter will be a wretched hive of scum and villainy. Practically anyone could be an influencer with whatever version of truth they want to tell. They might not even be a member of professional media, or a government official, oh the horror!
Okay–for you, $7.50.
Great idea. Sliding fee scale, based on social value scores. Politicians, media, hollywood celebs pay $100,000/month. Trash haulers, sewage tank cleaners, stable muckers are free. Others fall in between.
Last week it was this:
Sunday Talks, Senator Mark Warner Says “People Will Die” if Trump Mar-a-Lago Documents Become Public
Somewhere along the line, Democrats quit arguing principles and just started screaming “People will die, people will die!!!“, like hysterical schoolgirls trapped in Joe Biden’s shower.
It’s pathological.
Only if they are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law
And it is now just noise. Onlynuseful idiots are listening and they are too feeble minded to be reached anyway
Awesome video (#2)! Thank you! Power to the People!
I’m so sick of leftist hyperbole…
Well, the blue checkelitists have a choice of 8 bucks for a digital pimp blue check pass, or the price of a diet Coke from the Grubhub they constantly use.
Give me a friggin’ break.
Censor me harder, Daddy!