Shadow Banning is the term given to social media backroom activity that uses computer algorithms to shrink user account engagement without informing the user.  The process involves putting friction upon the account to block amplification and control engagement.  The user doesn’t see the process, they just notice a severe drop in the engagement by other users on the platform.

Last year, Elon Musk promised to start letting the account holders see what level of friction they were assigned to by letting the users see their shadow ban status.  However, that promise was never fulfilled.  Musk was questioned about why the X platform, formerly known as Twitter, has not followed through on the transparency pledge.

Continuing the process of pretending not to know things, Musk says transparency is hard.

(Washington) –  The long-hated process of shadow-banning on X, formerly Twitter, soon will change, according to owner Elon Musk. 

At the Viva Tech conference this week, the billionaire said he plans to address the issue soon. He said the company is working on a plan that will let people see if their account was affected by the Twitter system. 

“Sorry it’s taking so long,” Mr. Musk posted. “There are so many layers of ‘trust & safety’ software that it often takes us hours to figure out who, how and why an account was suspended or shadow-banned. A ground up rewrite is underway that simplifies the X codebase dramatically.”

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In an effort to keep the Daily Open Thread a little more open topic we are going to start a new daily thread for “Presidential Politics”. Please use this thread to post anything relating to the JoeBama Administration and Presidency.

“This is no small thing, to restore a republic after it has fallen into corruption. I have studied history for years and I cannot recall it ever happening. It may be that our task is impossible. Yet, if we do not try then how will we know it can’t be done? And if we do not try, it most certainly won’t be done. The Founders’ Republic, and the larger war for western civilization, will be lost.”

“But I tell you this: We will not go gently into that bloody collectivist good night. Indeed, we will make with our defiance such a sound as ALL history from that day forward will be forced to note, even if they despise us in the writing of it.”

~ Mike Vanderboegh

This thread will refresh daily and appear above the Open Discussion Thread.

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Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. THY WILL BE DONE, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but DELIVER US FROM EVIL.

For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen †

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There really is no other phrase that seems to adequately describe the future for online life in the United States than to describe it through the prism of the previously discussed shadow banning that takes place on the X-platform for specifically wrong-thinking users.

It is important to begin with the end in mind.  Perhaps some people are unaware that internet services, meaning the actual experience of using the internet for communication and commerce, are not the same in every nation.  In fact, it is quite a different experience depending on where on the globe you are located.  The differences are driven by internal controls, the intranet of the regional internet per se.

The internet in China is not the same as the internet in Europe, which is not the same as the internet in Australia, which is not the same as the internet in North America, which is not the same -at all- as the internet that now exists within Russia.  Even in some continents, the internet traffic flows are controlled at different levels within each nation. The “world wide web” is a format, but when you get down to the national level, things change.

This baseline helps to understand that internet freedom is defined by access to information and commerce.

To the extent the information or commerce is defined as against the interests of the authority structure, or potentially a threat to the national security interest of the government therein, the internet content is filtered, modified, censored, removed or just simply blocked from view.  This is one layer in the information control system.

Another layer is the flow of commerce that floats atop the flow of information.  This is where advertising, product sales, purchasing and general e-commerce takes place. This layer represents another option for control; therefore, this e-commerce layer should be considered running in parallel to the information, albeit perhaps indirectly attached.

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This is the fifth in a row of recent polls showing the complete collapse of Ron DeSantis.  Fortunately, there may be no further reason to discuss his election viability, and it may be well worth just waiting for his campaign withdrawal announcement.

As CTH suspected, DeSantis has followed a similar path as former Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker.  Both candidates were driven by the financing of billionaire donors behind them.  A campaign created around the shell of a candidate  – devoid of personal intent or internal purpose for running, while being driven only by shallow self-interest and attached to the policy of the funding mechanism – is always a structure for failure.

[Daily Signal] – […] With support from 60% of Republican primary voters, Trump commands a 47-point advantage over his nearest competitor in Scott Rasmussen’s latest national survey.

The poll from RMG Research Inc. was in the field Aug. 11-14, before news of Trump’s indictment in Fulton County, Georgia. The margin of error for the full sample is +/- 3.1 percentage points.

Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who tallied 13%, made the biggest gains over the past two months, rising from 3% in Rasmussen’s June 21-22 poll. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is third in the new poll with 8%, dropping 7 percentage points since Rasmussen’s Aug. 7-8 survey. (read more) 

DeSantis never had the skills to be a strong presidential candidate.  Additionally, he’s not that smart, and once the facade around him started to fall away, people saw the real person, the weakness, not the carefully fabricated image his handlers tried to create over the prior 3 years.

The most unfortunate outcome is not that DeSantis is failing, it’s that speaking from a position of freedom and liberty, Florida was a better place prior to his election in 2018.  While he managed the COVID-19 pandemic reasonably well, the state he governed has been messed up by DeSantis’ total control of the state legislature just to give him the illusion of social policy ‘wins’.  I don’t like the thought of what comes next in the big gov takeover using the tools he created. It’s a hot mess.

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In an effort to keep the Daily Open Thread a little more open topic we are going to start a new daily thread for “Presidential Politics”. Please use this thread to post anything relating to the JoeBama Administration and Presidency.

“This is no small thing, to restore a republic after it has fallen into corruption. I have studied history for years and I cannot recall it ever happening. It may be that our task is impossible. Yet, if we do not try then how will we know it can’t be done? And if we do not try, it most certainly won’t be done. The Founders’ Republic, and the larger war for western civilization, will be lost.”

“But I tell you this: We will not go gently into that bloody collectivist good night. Indeed, we will make with our defiance such a sound as ALL history from that day forward will be forced to note, even if they despise us in the writing of it.”

~ Mike Vanderboegh

This thread will refresh daily and appear above the Open Discussion Thread.

(more…)

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. THY WILL BE DONE, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but DELIVER US FROM EVIL.

For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen †

.

(more…)

Using the X platform, formerly called Twitter, Tucker Carlson interviews Robert Kennedy Jr about his campaign, U.S. foreign policy, Ukraine, Russia, NATO, Bio-Labs and who killed his uncle. {Direct Rumble Link}

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The Fulton County clerk of courts is putting out the third public statement trying to explain and justify why they posted the grand jury indictment of Donald Trump before the grand jury had even met to vote on the indictment.   This latest explanation is so incredulous it’s almost impossible to believe they are making this public:

According to the story above, the original indictment before the jury met, was a trial run upload, made of a totally fictious construct, with totally random charges, that just happened to line up with the exact same charges, in the exact same sequence, as the indictment after the jury voted.  👀🤔…

Yeah, when you are trying to get out of a hole this deep, it’s best to stop digging.

I wonder if Suspicious Cat believes the clerk?

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Donald Trump continues to dominate the field in New Hampshire, with the competition for first loser position taking shape.  At this point, none of the other GOP candidates are in a position to win any delegates, and the second highest polling lane is Undecided with 13%.

Undecided passed by I Don’t Know shortly before the Iowa fair.  Apparently, putting sticks in eggs as a skill exhibited by the Florida governor was not enough to convince the Live Free or Die people of his leadership.  It seems Chris Christie, who did not need the optics of being surrounded by multiple food stalls, benefited the most since the last poll within New Hampshire.  [DATA HERE]

Together with the 8% egg handler, Mike “I don’t care” Pence seems to have lost the most support in New Hampshire, dropping to 1%, and will now put all his efforts into Iowa. Randhawa and Ramaswamy are holding steady at 4% and 3% respectively. Lisa Murkowski’s BFF is smiling big with 6% hoping to catch the meatball.

New Hampshire – […]  Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie surpassed DeSantis for second-place in the Republican field: 9% of voters support his 2024 bid, while 8% support DeSantis. 

“DeSantis has been the alternative to Trump in Emerson polling this presidential cycle. This is the first time we have seen DeSantis drop out of second place in our polling, and fall back into the pack of candidates,” Kimball said. (link)

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