Social Media Outrage/Cancel Culture

[BigPiney]

that was awesome

[MartyFunkhouser]

[BigFatMeanie]

Thanks for sharing - that's an entertaining read. I kind of rolled my eyes at the n word justification.

Then he gets into forced vaccinations that will include microchips - though I'm disappointed there was no mention of Bill Gates, but he does get points for quoting the Bible and identifying this as the "mark of the beast". Now we're getting into something a little more interesting....

But when he got into talking about the atomic bomb not being real and just some elaborate hoax to control people - with films of atomic bomb tests from the 40's-60's being the product of elaborate special effects, which are still a military secret? Wow. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were fire bombed, not a-bombed. Guy is on a roll!

And best for last - the fake moon landings.

Dude is a professor of physics and astronomy. OK.

Yeah, this cracked me up. A professor of physics and astronomy that thinks the moon's surface gets up to 700F and thus is glowing red hot during a lunar eclipse.

[Eddie]

I'm going to go ahead and say this person probably deserves the firing that is coming his way.
https://twitter.com/samueljrob/statu...655175687?s=19

Thanks for sharing - that's an entertaining read. I kind of rolled my eyes at the n word justification.

Then he gets into forced vaccinations that will include microchips - though I'm disappointed there was no mention of Bill Gates, but he does get points for quoting the Bible and identifying this as the "mark of the beast". Now we're getting into something a little more interesting....

But when he got into talking about the atomic bomb not being real and just some elaborate hoax to control people - with films of atomic bomb tests from the 40's-60's being the product of elaborate special effects, which are still a military secret? Wow. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were fire bombed, not a-bombed. Guy is on a roll!

And best for last - the fake moon landings.

Dude is a professor of physics and astronomy. OK.

[swampfrog]

I'm going to go ahead and say this person probably deserves the firing that is coming his way.
https://twitter.com/samueljrob/statu...655175687?s=19

Yeah. Administrative leave for now, but that's a *lot* to put in a single document and addressed directly to the college community. Wow. There's no way that's consistent with employment as a university professor.

[MartyFunkhouser]

I'm going to go ahead and say this person probably deserves the firing that is coming his way.

https://twitter.com/samueljrob/status/1331005392655175687?s=19

[Jeff Lebowski]

I like this lady.

[swampfrog]

Great article in the New York Times today about a professor at Smith College teaching a course against "call out culture":

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/19/s...gtype=Homepage

And here's a speech from the same professor earlier this year:

Interesting to see people on the far left recognizing that this trend needs to stop.

I had that come across various feeds, but hadn't take the time to read it. Thanks for the reminder.

“I think this is also related to something I just discovered called doom scrolling,” Professor Ross told the students. “I think we actually sabotage our own happiness with this unrestrained anger. And I have to honestly ask: Why are you making choices to make the world crueler than it needs to be and calling that being ‘woke’?”

[UVACoug]

Great article in the New York Times today about a professor at Smith College teaching a course against "call out culture":

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/19/s...gtype=Homepage

And here's a speech from the same professor earlier this year:

Interesting to see people on the far left recognizing that this trend needs to stop.

[swampfrog]

i'll continue to help you out, but that's not very viewpoint diverse of you, bro.

Point taken on the laptop, I was down further in his arguments, the word alleged or similar should have been incorporated. He does use the language "purportedly" later in discussing other published materials. However, I will note in the editor's complaints against the piece, the emails in question appear to be taken by both sides as sufficiently corroborated. Note their problem is not with the verification of the emails themselves, but that they insinuate any wrong doing by Joe Biden.

Betsy agrees with me that the draft’s core problem is the connection it often asserts or assumes between the Hunter Biden emails and corruption by Joe Biden.

There are a couple of published emails and texts in which Hunter Biden or his business partners suggest or hint that Joe Biden might be aware of, or involved in, their dealings with China.

And I do think you should treat the origin story of the hard drive – that it came from the Delaware repair store – with a bit more skepticism. It’s true that nothing has emerged yet to significantly undermine it, but it remains a very strange story surrounded by many unanswered questions.

I agree with it being a very strange story, the editor does note that so far nothing has emerged to undermine it, which for a very strange story, is a very strange twist in the story. "A very strange story surrounded by many unanswered questions", and the majority of mainstream journalism is just not interested? How are we at such a place that a computer cannot be validated as belonging to a certain individual? I've been involved with a couple of computer forensic cases involving digging through a hard drive, and the amount of redundant logging going on in all modern OS's and major software packages is sufficient to determine authenticity pretty straightforwardly. Especially if you have the user's credentials.

the lack of a denial of the allegation is the lynchpin of his entire argument in the entire article:

The silence of the Bidens may not be dispositive on the question of the material’s authenticity, but when added to the mountain of other authentication evidence, it is quite convincing: at least equal to the authentication evidence in other reporting on similarly large archives.

Hmmm. That's not how I parsed that sentence. I read that as a claim that there is a large amount of authentication evidence ("mountain"), and in combination with the silence makes the whole mountain as convincing as other large archives. Knowing how straightforward validating the existence of the laptop, its contents, and who its owner is, I also find it somewhat disconcerting that there has been not been an immediate declaration that it is a fake, doesn't exist, wasn't Hunter's, etc. Is that significant? I don't know, but I would sure like a trustworthy source to find out.

i'm glad you're satisfied with the conclusory nature of sentences like "the archive contains private photos and videos of Hunter whose authenticity is not in doubt," but i (along with the editorial boards of every news outlet that is not a literal tabloid) do not agree that they have been authenticated.

That statement is only applicable to the photos and videos of Hunter. His argument for the other information is that it has been corroborated by other sources, which he lists.

He also gives his reasoning for finding the lack of denial significant.

Because when journalists report on a massive archive, they know that the most important event in the reporting's authentication process comes when the subjects of the reporting have an opportunity to deny that the materials are genuine.

Is this claim wrong? Is it not standard practice and a significant part of a story to approach the subject of the reporting, tell them, "here is what I have", and then have them respond?

[old_gregg]

i'll continue to help you out, but if you keep being a fuckin idiot that's not very viewpoint diverse of you, bro.

He did not make this claim:

He reported a claim made by the store owner. Which should be investigated. Pretty sure it's standard practice for media outlets to publish allegations well before investigation is complete.

literally the first sentence:

Publication by the New York Post two weeks ago of emails from Hunter Biden's laptop, relating to Vice President Joe Biden's work in Ukraine, and subsequent articles from other outlets concerning the Biden family's pursuit of business opportunities in China, provoked extraordinary efforts by a de facto union of media outlets, Silicon Valley giants and the intelligence community to suppress these stories.

Again, he did not present this as factual, he did describe what had taken place:

not alleged pursuit of business opportunities:

Publication by the New York Post two weeks ago of emails from Hunter Biden's laptop, relating to Vice President Joe Biden's work in Ukraine, and subsequent articles from other outlets concerning the Biden family's pursuit of business opportunities in China, provoked extraordinary efforts by a de facto union of media outlets, Silicon Valley giants and the intelligence community to suppress these stories.

This statement was not about denial of allegation, it was that a specific set of investigative questions were asked of the Biden campaign, to which that statement was deemed insufficient as a response.

the lack of a denial of the allegation is the lynchpin of his entire argument in the entire article:

The silence of the Bidens may not be dispositive on the question of the material’s authenticity, but when added to the mountain of other authentication evidence, it is quite convincing: at least equal to the authentication evidence in other reporting on similarly large archives.

Here's the full quote in which he describes how archives of documents are handled by media. He then establishes that this standard has been met.

i'm glad you're satisfied with the conclusory nature of sentences like "the archive contains private photos and videos of Hunter whose authenticity is not in doubt," but i (along with the editorial boards of every news outlet that is not a literal tabloid) do not agree that they have been authenticated.

[frank ryan]

This seems odd coming from you. I would think you would value differing viewpoints.

I do; I just think it's an unnecessary and very PC-type term. People dislike the term social justice and find it to be a loaded one, but that does not mean they are against the idea of striving for justice throughout all strata and groups of society.

[frank ryan]

This is nonsense Frank. Viewpoint diversity is a straightforward concept and has been "muddied" by those who have cultivated the monoculture. You and I both know what it means and that it exists.

Monoculture? That's another new one.

[swampfrog]

ok buddy. quick list of things from two seconds of skimming that are presented as factual or are otherwise objectionable from an editorial perspective:

the laptop is hunder biden's

He did not make this claim:

The initial documents, claimed the New York Post, were obtained when the laptops containing them were left at a Delaware repair shop with water damage and never picked up, allowing the owner to access its contents and then turn them over to both the FBI and a lawyer for Trump advisor Rudy Giuliani. The repair store owner confirmed this narrative in interviews with news outlets and then (under penalty of prosecution) to a Senate Committee; he also provided the receipt purportedly signed by Hunter. Neither Hunter nor the Biden campaign has denied these claims.

He reported a claim made by the store owner. Which should be investigated. Pretty sure it's standard practice for media outlets to publish allegations well before investigation is complete.

the biden family pursued business opportunities in china

Again, he did not present this as factual, he did describe what had taken place:

A former business partner of Hunter has stated, unequivocally and on the record, that not only are the emails authentic but they describe events accurately, including proposed participation by the former Vice President in at least one deal Hunter and Jim Biden were pursuing in China. And, most importantly of all, neither Hunter Biden nor the Biden campaign has even suggested, let alone claimed, that a single email or text is fake.

He also provided corroborating stories from other media outlets:

Beyond that, the Journal's columnist Kimberly Strassel reviewed a stash of documents and "found correspondence corroborates and expands on emails recently published by the New York Post," including ones where Hunter was insisting that it was his connection to his father that was the greatest asset sought by the Chinese conglomerate with whom they were negotiating. The New York Times on Sunday reached a similar conclusion: while no documents prove that such a deal was consummated, "records produced by Mr. Bobulinski show that in 2017, Hunter Biden and James Biden were involved in negotiations about a joint venture with a Chinese energy and finance company called CEFC China Energy," and "make clear that Hunter Biden saw the family name as a valuable asset, angrily citing his 'family’s brand' as a reason he is valuable to the proposed venture."

journalists "concoct[ed] excuses to justify [biden's] silence"

He should have provided citations for this claim. Seems like a fair criticism.

the statement that biden "has never even considered being involved in business with his family, nor in any business overseas" is not a complete denial of the allegations

This statement was not about denial of allegation, it was that a specific set of investigative questions were asked of the Biden campaign, to which that statement was deemed insufficient as a response.

Though the Biden campaign indicated that they would respond to the Intercept’s questions, they have not done so. A statement they released to other outlets contains no answers to any of these questions except to claim that Biden “has never even considered being involved in business with his family, nor in any business overseas.”

"it is clear to me that the trove of documents from Hunter Biden’s emails has been verified in ways quite similar to those." glad it's clear to you, glenn.

Here's the full quote in which he describes how archives of documents are handled by media. He then establishes that this standard has been met.

With an archive of this size, one can never independently authenticate every word in every last document unless the subject of the reporting voluntarily confirms it in advance, which they rarely do. What has been done with similar archives is journalists obtain enough verification to create high levels of journalistic confidence in the materials. Some of the materials provided by the source can be independently confirmed, proving genuine access by the source to a hard drive, a telephone, or a database. Other parties in email chains can confirm the authenticity of the email or text conversations in which they participated. One investigates non-public facts contained in the documents to determine that they conform to what the documents reflect. Technology specialists can examine the materials to ensure no signs of forgeries are detected.

This is the process that enabled the largest and most established media outlets around the world to report similar large archives obtained without authorization. In those other cases, no media outlet was able to verify every word of every document prior to publication. There was no way to prove the negative that the source or someone else had not altered or forged some of the material. That level of verification is both unattainable and unnecessary. What is needed is substantial evidence to create high confidence in the authentication process.

The Hunter Biden documents have at least as much verification as those other archives that were widely reported. There are sources in the email chains who have verified that the published emails are accurate. The archive contains private photos and videos of Hunter whose authenticity is not in doubt. A former business partner of Hunter has stated, unequivocally and on the record, that not only are the emails authentic but they describe events accurately, including proposed participation by the former Vice President in at least one deal Hunter and Jim Biden were pursuing in China.

I'll try to get to the rest later.

[falafel]

It's a faux academic word created to legitimize painting people as victims.

This seems odd coming from you. I would think you would value differing viewpoints.