Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Compromise? There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist.

The real work of an opposition party is to oppose.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

Republicans cannot even be trusted with their own money.

T R E 4 5 O N

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

In my day, never was longer.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

At some point, the ability to learn is a factor of character, not IQ.

How stupid are these people?

Republicans do not trust women.

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

Republicans in disarray!

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.

It is not hopeless, and we are not helpless.

You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Holiday Evening Open Thread: Why Blogging Is Better Than Facebook

Holiday Evening Open Thread: Why Blogging Is Better Than Facebook

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WATCH OUT WITH THAT TALK ABOUT ‘TYRANNY’ AND ‘SAVAGES’, MR. SILVERMAN!!!!… (/snark)

… Since June 24, the Liberty County Vindicator of Liberty County, Texas, has been sharing daily excerpts from the declaration in the run up to July Fourth. The idea was to encourage historical literacy among the Vindicator‘s readers.

The first nine such posts of the project went up without incident.

“But part 10,” writes Vindicator managing editor Casey Stinnett, “did not appear. Instead, The Vindicator received a notice from Facebook saying that the post ‘goes against our standards on hate speech.'”

The post in question contained paragraphs 27 through 31 of the Declaration of Independence, the grievance section of the document wherein the put-upon colonists detail all the irreconcilable differences they have with King George III.

Stinnett says that he cannot be sure which exact grievance ran afoul of Facebook’s policy, but he assumes that it’s paragraph 31, which excoriates the King for inciting “domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages.”…

Fearful that sharing more of the text might trigger the deletion of its Facebook page, The Vindicator has suspended its serialization of the declaration.

In his article, Stinnett is remarkably sanguine about this censorship. While unhappy about the decision, he reminds readers “that Facebook is a business corporation, not the government, and as such it is allowed to restrict use of its services as long as those restrictions do not violate any laws. Plus, The Vindicator is using Facebook for free, so the newspaper has little grounds for complaint other than the silliness of it.”…

The Reason blogger, incidentally, is careful to remind his readers that referring to Indigenous Americans as ‘savages’ is “clearly racist”, just in case. But historical context!

Reader Interactions

70Comments

  1. 1.

    EBT

    Historical context of we were founded by racists? It’s not a hard thing to admit what with the wealth of evidence to that point.

  2. 2.

    Robert Sneddon

    Basically the Declaration of Independence reads like an Al-Queda text or something out of Mein Kampf, a list of grievances and plans to do something about it involving bloodshed and bullets. It’s not surprising an AI filter looking for terrorist material would catch it.

  3. 3.

    Yarrow

    Treasonbook must know it’s in trouble. I’ve seen commercials for it on TV saying they’re getting back to what it’s supposed to be, with lots of pictures and videos of happy family and friend events.

  5. 5.

    BlueDWarrior

    @Yarrow: that cannot be done at this point without an actual purge of the rats and roaches infesting the platform, and that might inculde some of the executives

  6. 6.

    Villago Delenda Est

    AIs are not that intelligent. Which goes for Zuckerberg and Dorsey outside of their narrow areas of expertise.

  8. 8.

    germy

    @Yarrow:

    https://www.theonion.com/facebook-users-ashamed-of-criticizing-company-after-see-1826830521

    WASHINGTON—Expressing remorse for disparaging an organization with such a noble mission, the nation’s Facebook users admitted they were ashamed of criticizing the social media company after seeing its heartwarming “Here Together” advertising campaign, sources confirmed Thursday.

    “My God, what were we thinking?” said Lucas Balfo, 32, one of the millions of users who deeply regretted condemning the company for its privacy violations once he watched the minute-long advertisement featuring soft piano music and footage of emotionally stirring Facebook posts such as a mother kissing her child and a soldier returning home from deployment while a voiceover explains how the company will be doing more to keep users safe and feel a “little less alone.”

    “How could we have been so blind? I slandered them for selling user data to third-party advertisers without permission, but now I see they were just trying to connect us to those we care about. To think that I was so ignorant as to attack them for psychologically manipulating their users when all they wanted to do was make us all feel closer—I can’t even look at myself in the mirror anymore. All along, I was the true monster.”

    At press time, the nation’s Facebook users were relieved that their protests didn’t end up having any palpable effect and left the company relatively unscathed.

  9. 9.

    WaterGirl

    @Yarrow: It is reminding me of the commercials for one of the pizza places that basically said: “Hey our pizzas don’t suck anymore”

  12. 12.

    germy

    @lamh36: I just saw a clip on the news of the climber being led away by the authorities.

    Interesting side note: my wife was changing channels and came upon our local sinclair station. They did a quick segment on the climber and said she “appeared to be wearing a t-shirt with some sort of message, but it’s not clear what”

  16. 16.

    Millard Filmore

    @chris:

    Happy Independence Day, American friends! Independence for some anyway.

    God bless America the beautiful,
    Home of the brave,
    With liberty and justice for some.

  17. 17.

    Mnemosyne

    Speaking of blogs, does anyone have a good book or website they can recommend about setting up a hosted website? I have my domain and have picked a WordPress template, but now I’m stumped on what to do next. ?

  20. 20.

    Obvious Russian Troll

    Bad news: I got the “Click to Edit” options for a comment that wasn’t mine (Millard Fillmore’s), and I was able to open it.

    Good news: It never fully loaded and I wasn’t able to save it. It’s just as well, as I couldn’t think of anything witty to say.

    Edit: the edit button works fine for my own comments.

  21. 21.

    lamh36

    Sittng here watching Winter Soldier, and realizing the reason why ScarJo was able to play Black Widow: BW is supposed to be this hard nosed former Russian operative who rarely shows her emotions…perfect for ScarJo’s brand of “acting”. Her “emotional” scenes are meh.

    Someone told me that Emily Blunt was alleged first was gonan play Black Widow….hmmm..Emily woulda been good. And after seeing her in the Edge of Tomorrow with Tom Cruise…I could totally see her as a badass action star!

  23. 23.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    So earlier today, Jack Posobiec put up some asinine tweet expressing his desire that the Trump sons gain the Presidency following Deadbeat Donnie. I expressed something rotten and hateful. Next up, some Ivanka fanboy with a gab account expressed his desire that she be next. I respond with a one word response: “whore”.

    He tells me I’ll get suspended later in the afternoon, and to remember not to mess with him again. Three or four hours later, sure enough, I’ve not only been suspended but blocked as to the clock ticking pending my removal of the offending tweet (he’s also added me to a pile of lists).

    That’s unusual and new – my suspicion is that the asshole either is a twitter employee or knows a twitter employee who’s shift started at the time I got suspended. It would fit that twitter employs a bunch of jerks.

  26. 26.

    Mnemosyne

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Well, sure, eventually. But how do I actually set up the website using my chosen template and make it direct to my new URL?

    You jackals are going to end up being my beta testers anyway, so I may as well have you help me get it set up.

  27. 27.

    Catherine D.

    @Mnemosyne: Take a look at pantheon.io. Our management punted our sites to them, and their support has been good. I can roll my own, but they’re also used to non-geeks.

    And thanks for the kind comments about my late, lamented dog. I really appreciate all you jackals.

  30. 30.

    lamh36

    @lamh36: I swear, elevator scene and Cap’s escape from SHIELD, in Winter Soldier could legit be the main reason why CA:WS is in my top 5 all time Marvel Avengers movies. But it doesn’t hurt that the pacing and the story and the big actions sequences are some of the best filmed for MCEU

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqIBGEcKhGs

  33. 33.

    Mnemosyne

    @Catherine D.:

    Google Domains was steering me to Bluehost since they get a cut.

    I missed seeing the post about your dog, so belated condolences.

  34. 34.

    Mnemosyne

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Yes, please! I’ve been procrastinating today by taking online classes about procrastination. ?

    Also, happy citizenversary! We are happy that you’re one of us.

  37. 37.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Mnemosyne:

    Posobiec is in the category of “candyassed motherfuckers I’d like to see beaten to death with a baseball bat as a lesson to others”.

  39. 39.

    ? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?

    The “historical context” thing is bullshit. I bet you could have found people living in those days that thought a lot like we do now. It’s not hard to be a decent human being.

  40. 40.

    Chyron HR

    @germy:

    They did a quick segment on the climber and said she “appeared to be wearing a t-shirt with some sort of message, but it’s not clear what”

    “I care, why don’t you?”

  42. 42.

    Percysowner

    So I’m waiting for episode 3 of the Steven Universe Bomb and I turn into Hardball with Chris Matthews and there are four people declaring that Bernie Sanders is going to run in 2020. I can believe that that self absorbed, ego maniac may well do his best to blow up the Democratic Party and make sure that Trump gets reelected. Or maybe he just figures that one totally unprepared President should be followed by another. Just make it STOP! PLEASE!

    @Obvious Russian Troll:

    Bad news: I got the “Click to Edit” options for a comment that wasn’t mine (Millard Fillmore’s), and I was able to open it.

    Good news: It never fully loaded and I wasn’t able to save it. It’s just as well, as I couldn’t think of anything witty to say.

    Edit: the edit button works fine for my own comments.

    That’s happened to me as well, but I can never get into another post, so I’ve kind of just ignored it.

  43. 43.

    Mnemosyne

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    The downside of the self-publishing revolution is that editors and agents expect you to have a fully functioning website and/or social media accounts for them to look at. Sigh.

  51. 51.

    The Moar You Know

    “I’ve seen commercials for it on TV”

    @Yarrow: Are you serious?

    Commercials for a website on television? That’s just so…backwards. It was one thing when AOL was advertising to grandmothers back in the late 1990’s…oh shit, I think I see where this is going.

    Just fucked up. I’m sure Facebook could buy every television network on the planet and not even notice the outlay. It just seems backwards, like advertising for TV on shortwave or something like that.

    I’ll just say this: if I were a parent, and I’m grateful every day that I’m not, I wouldn’t let my kids on there. Or any other “social media”. I’ve read the comments. Ought to call that cesspool “antisocial media”.

  52. 52.

    ? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:
    I’m just saying the “they were products of their time” isn’t a valid excuse. Langston Hughes wrote in the same time period as HP Lovecraft yet he wasn’t a raging racist.

  67. 67.

    Dev Null

    @The Lodger: Never heard the term before. No idea.

    If there is a point you are trying to make – I can’t tell …

    … what would that point be?

    er, ~snark~

  70. 70.

    Dev Null

    @The Lodger: I was joking.

    Or more accurately, I was trying to be clever and edgy. Instead I was inane and and possibly offensive… and, possibly worst of all, boring.

    I apologize to anyone I offended with my lame snark. I am A Idiot, per Wonkette. (But you knew that.)

    Yes, I know what anal-retentive means. No, I am not a copy editor.

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