Science & Tech
Musk Humiliates AOC After She Whines About $8 Verification Fee
“Your feedback is appreciated”
Published
3 months agoon
Steve Watson

New Twitter owner Elon Musk humiliated Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez Wednesday night, pointing out that she is selling branded sweatshirts for $58 a piece after she complained about Musk potentially introducing an $8 fee for Twitter verification.
Musk has floated the $8 fee as a way of levelling the playing Twitter playing field, which he sees as currently skewed, as well as making the platform less reliant on ads for revenue.
Price adjusted by country proportionate to purchasing power parity
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 1, 2022
When AOC provided her thoughts, Musk’s response was to the point:
Your feedback is appreciated, now pay $8
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 2, 2022
Because it’s evil for a company to create revenue… or something.
It’s OK when we do it though:
đ€ pic.twitter.com/XuJdfMTTi1
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 2, 2022
This resulted in the triggering of all triggerings:
Not to mention all proceeds go to community organizing like our Homework Helpers program which gives private tutoring to kids whoâve needed learning support since COVID:
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) November 3, 2022
Check out our shop!
Support our workers and our communities: https://t.co/hhXgu01Ey8
One guyâs business plan for a $44 billion over-leveraged purchase is apparently to run around and individually ask people for $8.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) November 3, 2022
Remember that next time you question yourself or your qualifications.
Are you seriously equating an app where people are torrenting racial slurs at an accelerated clip with the New York Times đ€Ł
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) November 2, 2022
Also fyi, legacy newspapers actually care about verifying newsworthy sources. And they donât charge their journalists/creators for âpriorityâ placement. https://t.co/rFSWZSW8Rd
Cue the memes:
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 2, 2022
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 2, 2022
— The Right To Bear Memes (@grandoldmemes) November 2, 2022
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) November 2, 2022
Instead of leaving it there, AOC then started to make claims about her Twitter account being mysteriously limited:
BUY*
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) November 3, 2022
Conspiracy theorist eh?
It isn’t the first time Musk has courted the attentions of AOC:
Stop hitting on me, Iâm really shy âșïž
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 29, 2022
Musk had similar responses for others dialing into the Twitter complaint hotline:
Pure savagery. đ„ pic.twitter.com/oxB5aRKqvN
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) November 2, 2022
To all complainers, please continue complaining, but it will cost $8
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 2, 2022
you get what you pay for
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 2, 2022
Advertisers should support:
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 2, 2022
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 1, 2022
If something is pissing off all the woke establishment leftists thereâs a close to-100% chance itâs a very good thing. @elonmusk
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) November 2, 2022
The entitled elite is not mad that they have to pay $8/month. Theyâre mad that anyone can pay $8/month.
— David Sacks (@DavidSacks) November 3, 2022
Meanwhile, some on the right had perhaps more legitimate points to make about the $8:
I'll spend 8$ after Elon frees the political prisoners and releases documents on the DHS collusion with Twitter to control and suppress information
— Tim Pool (@Timcast) November 2, 2022
Considering he's already working with "New Knowledge" I really doubt he will do anything
Why is someone connected to a âfalse flag operationâ (their words) at New Knowledge during the 2018 midterms anywhere near election integrity people at Twitter?
— Cernovich (@Cernovich) November 2, 2022
All of this was documented. Itâs not a matter of opinion.
They bot Russian bots to follow a Republican candidate. pic.twitter.com/zpoDMfb9jk
Being attacked by both right & left simultaneously is a good sign
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 2, 2022
Reports are also now circulating that Musk is going to offload half of Twitter’s staff by the end of the week:
SUBSCRIBE on YouTube:
Follow on Twitter: Follow @PrisonPlanet———————————————————————————————————————
Brand new merch now available! Get it at https://www.pjwshop.com/
ALERT! In the age of mass Silicon Valley censorship It is crucial that we stay in touch.
We need you to sign up for our free newsletter here.
Support our sponsor â Turbo Force â a supercharged boost of clean energy without the comedown.
Also, we urgently need your financial support here.
———————————————————————————————————————
You may like
-
We Have a Problem
-
Leftists Triggered By Old Mister Rogers ‘Boys Are Boys, Girls Are Girls’ Clips
-
Video: Colbert Brags About His NPC Audience Still Wearing Masks
-
Christian Mother is Suing School For Forcing Her 4-Year-Old Son to Take Part in Gay Pride Parade
-
Massive Peer-Reviewed Mask Study Shows ‘Little To No Difference’ In Preventing COVID, Flu Infection
-
Hamburger Prices Might Continue To Rise As US Cattle Herd Shrinks
Science & Tech
Highly-Cited ‘Hamilton 68’ Russiagate Tracker Is Total Hoax: Taibbi
Published
6 days agoon
28 January, 2023Zero Hedge

Out of the caterwaul of cries proclaiming that Russian collusion, and Russian influence operations, were the only reason Donald Trump won the 2016 US election (a hoax funded and promoted by his opponent, Hillary Clinton), a website which claimed to track said Kremlin efforts sprung forth, and was used to justify baseless allegations;
Hamilton 68: a widely-cited, (indirectly) state-sponsored propaganda tool.
The website claims to monitor a secret list of Twitter accounts which they accused of Kremlin control, however it’s impossible to verify their claims as the group has never disclosed their methodology.
As Matt Taibbi notes via Racket:
Hamilton 68 was and is a computerized âdashboardâ designed to be used by reporters and academics to measure âRussian disinformationâ. It was the brainchild of former FBI agent (and current MSNBC âdisinformation expertâ) Clint Watts, and backed by the German Marshall Fund and the Alliance for Securing Democracy, a bipartisan think-tank. The latterâs advisory panel includes former acting CIA chief Michael Morell, former Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, former Hillary for America chair John Podesta, and onetime Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol. –Racket
And now, Taibbi has torn Hamilton 68’s ‘black box’ asunder after reviewing the latest batch of “Twitter Files.”
1.THREAD: Twitter Files #15
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 27, 2023
MOVE OVER, JAYSON BLAIR: TWITTER FILES EXPOSE NEXT GREAT MEDIA FRAUD pic.twitter.com/bLRpDpuWql
s Taibbi notes via Racket:
Ambitious media frauds Stephen Glass and Jayson Blair crippled the reputations of the New Republic and New York Times, respectively, by slipping years of invented news stories into their pages. Thanks to the Twitter Files, we can welcome a new member to their infamous club: Hamilton 68.
If one goes by volume alone, this oft-cited neoliberal think-tank that spawned hundreds of fraudulent headlines and TV news segments may go down as the single greatest case of media fabulism in American history. Virtually every major news organization in America is implicated, including NBC, CBS, ABC, PBS, CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times and the Washington Post. Mother Jones alone did at least 14 stories pegged to the groupâs âresearch.â Even fact-checking sites like Politifact and Snopes cited Hamilton 68 as sources.
An American group made false claims about Russian election interference to interfere with American elections https://t.co/Bpej1UOlOw
— Mr. Tweet (@elonmusk) January 27, 2023
Twitter thought they were full of shit
Taibbi reveals that Twitter was concerned enough about Hamilton 68’s claims that they ordered a forensic analysis which found that of 644 accounts, just 36 were registered in Russia – many of which were associated with news outlet RT.

As Taibbi further notes (emphasis ours):
Examining further, Twitter execs were shocked. The accounts Hamilton 68 claimed were linked to âRussian influence activities onlineâ were not only overwhelmingly English-language (86%), but mostly âlegitimate people,â largely in the U.S., Canada, and Britain. Grasping right away that Twitter might be implicated in a moral outrage, they wrote that these account-holders âneed to know theyâve been unilaterally labeled Russian stooges without evidence or recourse.â
10. The secret ingredient to Hamilton 68âs analytical method? A list: âOur analysis has linked 600 Twitter accounts to Russian influence activities online,â was how the site put it at launch. pic.twitter.com/8ipRLSfzOm
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 27, 2023
Other comments in internal company emails:
âThese accounts are neither strongly Russian nor strongly bots.â
âNo evidence to support the statement that the dashboard is a finger on the pulse of Russian information ops.â
âHardly evidence of a massive influence campaign.â
13.âThese accounts,â they concluded, âare neither strongly Russian nor strongly bots.â
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 27, 2023
âNo evidence to support the statement that the dashboard is a finger on the pulse of Russian information ops.â
âHardly illuminating a massive influence operation.â pic.twitter.com/LMrgWVKe7k
Declared Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth: âI think we need to just call this out on the bullshit it is.â
The two founders of Hamilton 68, the blue-and-red team of former counselor to Marco Rubio Jamie Fly and Hillary for America Foreign Policy Advisor Laura Rosenberger, told Politico they couldnât reveal the names of the accounts because âthe Russians will simply shut them down.â Tchya, right. One look at the list reveals the real reason they couldnât make it public.
This was not faulty science. It was a scam. Instead of tracking how âRussiaâ influenced American attitudes, Hamilton 68 simply collected a handful of mostly real, mostly American accounts, and described their organic conversations as Russian scheming. As Roth put it, âVirtually any conclusion drawn from [the dashboard] will take conversations in conservative circles on Twitter and accuse them of being Russian.â
Twitter execs wanted to out Hamilton 68!?
“Why canât we say weâve investigated⊠and citing Hamilton 68 is being wrong, irresponsible, and biased?” one exec asked, after Russians were blamed for hyping the #ParklandShooting hashtag.
Trust and Safety head Yoel Roth even wanted to confront Hamilton 68 – writing in one email “My recommendation at this stage is an ultimatum: you release the list or we do.”
“I also have been very frustrated in not calling out Hamilton 68 more publicly, but understand we have to play a longer game here,” said Carlos Monje, the future senior advisor to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
But Future White House and NSC spokesperson Emily Horne advised against it.
19.âWe have to be careful in how much we push back on ASD publicly,â said future White House and NSC spokesperson Emily Horne. pic.twitter.com/BRZEESQZlT
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 27, 2023
As Taibbi further notes:
“So the âlegitimate people,â as one Twitter exec called them, never found out theyâd been used as fodder for mountains of news stories about âRussian influence.â Because the #TwitterFiles contain the list, theyâve begun finding out.”
Hamilton’s victims speak out
“Iâm shocked,” said Sonia Monsour, who as a child lived through civil war in Lebanon. “Supposedly in a free world, we are being watched at many levels, by what we say online.”
Another person alleged by Hamilton to be a Russian is Chicago-based lawyer David Shestokas.
“Iâve written a book about the U.S. Constitution,” he said, adding “How I made a list like this is incredible to me.”
24. âWhen I was growing up, my father told me about the McCarthyite blacklist,â says Oregon native Jacob Levich. âAs a child it would never have occurred to me that this would come back, in force and broadly, in a way⊠designed to undermine rights we hold dear.â
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 27, 2023
Continued:
26. Iâm listed as a foreign bot?â said conservative media figure Dennis Michael Lynch. âAs a proud taxpaying citizen, charitable family man, and honest son of a U.S. Marine, I deserve better. We all do!â pic.twitter.com/HhKE9FPfpO
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 27, 2023
28.What makes this an important story is the sheer scale of the news footprint left by Hamilton 68âs digital McCarthyism. The quantity of headlines and TV segments dwarfs the impact of individual fabulists like Jayson Blair or Stephen Glass. pic.twitter.com/zfyjLb5Tkq
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 27, 2023
30.These stories raised fears in the population, and most insidious of all, were used to smear people like Tulsi Gabbard as foreign âassets,â and drum up sympathy for political causes like Joe Bidenâs campaign by describing critics as Russian-aligned. pic.twitter.com/3lsuG1ZTrd
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 27, 2023
The Hamilton 68 story shows how the illusion of ongoing âRussian interferenceâ worked. The magic trick was generated via a confluence of interests, between think-tanks, media, and government. Before, we could only speculate. Now we know: the âRussian threatâ was, in this case at least, just a bunch of ordinary Americans, dressed up to look like a Red Menace. Jayson Blair had a hell of an imagination, but even he couldnât have come up with a scheme this obscene. Shame on every news outlet that hasnât renounced these tales. -Matt Taibbi
And Elon with the last word:
Shame on @MSNBC for misleading the public! https://t.co/16VEGTjXnH
— Mr. Tweet (@elonmusk) January 27, 2023
Science & Tech
“Flaming Dumpster”: Musk May Need To ‘Tear Down’ Twitter Code And ‘Start From Scratch’
Published
6 days agoon
28 January, 2023Zero Hedge

Journalist Dave Rubin was allowed into Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters recently, where owner Elon Musk opened the kimono and allowed him vast access to the company’s operations.
When asked what he could share, Musk replied “anything that’s true.”
Below is Rubin’s Twitter thread detailing his findings:
I met with several engineers who were doing a deep dive on why my account and so many others seem to be absolutely crushed after that two or three week return to normalcy when Elon first took over. They still have more questions than answers, but they did learn a bunch of stuff.
— Dave Rubin (@RubinReport) January 26, 2023
Continued…Accounts arenât just hit with labels that are obvious to insiders. They now found more âsecretâ labels which are causing shadowbans. My account was hit with all three; âRecent abuse strike,â âRecent misinformation strikeâ, âRecent suspension strike.â Itâs unclear so far what these strikes actually do, but for sure they suppress views and recommendations, they are trying to figure out to what extent. I also had many innocuous tweets labeled NSFW or NSFA (not safe for ads) which affect visibility in the timeline. Also, thereâs an entire KeyWord database so that machine learning makes sure not to promote violence, porn etc., but itâs a mess of overreaching words. Literally the word âgayâ was on the KeyWord list which would make you not advertiser friendly and harm the tweet in the algo.  Backing up for a sec, they found the ârecent suspension strikeâ on my account most interesting because it was fro July 2022, when I was suspended for calling out @jordanbpetersonâs unjust suspension. So though suspension was reversed the action on the account remained.
Elon was bringing people in and out constantly and seems to be aware of pretty much every issue. He thinks maybe the entire code has to be torn down and start from scratch. At the end last night he said that the whole situation is âa flaming dumpster rolling down the street.â pic.twitter.com/bTdNmbX5Ks
— Dave Rubin (@RubinReport) January 26, 2023
So I assure you they are aware of the problems and Elon and engineers are there all night trying to untie this crazy knot. Some changes theyâve made, like the âFor Youâ tab, have confused people and hurt engagement for accounts who have gotten the NSFA label without knowing.
They also donât know for sure why things got so much better once Elon made the acquisition and why it seems far worse now. Some is probably related to excitement around Elon himself, which also coincided with World Cup, but that doesnât explain why it feels so off right now.
Will share more in bit but have to catch a flight.
Closing remarks
On a personal note Elon is funny as hell, laughs a ton and itâs just really obvious he cares about Twitter because he cares about free speech and the bigger problems facing the world. He doesnât need this headache, he chose it.
Also huge shout out to @DavidSacks who is helping Elon clean up this mess because he believes in the fight for free speech as much as Elon does. And massive thanks to the engineers who opened up their computers, showed me literally everything I asked for, and were total pros.
Oh, one either thing for nowâŠ
Elon really lit up when we talked about the shifting political landscape and how anyone non-woke is now âfar right.â
That notion is deeply connected to how screwy thing got at Twitter and heâs working to fix it despite the huge challenges ahead.
And frankly they gotta get that company out of SFâŠ
And frankly they gotta get that company out of SF⊠https://t.co/5FbcSibQRe
— Dave Rubin (@RubinReport) January 26, 2023
Whatâs also really crazy now having seen under the hood is that Jack Dorsey repeatedly said they donât shadowban.The entire machine behind Twitter is designed to shadowban. Itâs almost as if that was the primary goal rather than the product itself.
Perfect illustration of how crazy things are. A friend just sent the to me, watch the RTâs go up and then suddenly go down. @elonmusk pic.twitter.com/3Q0T7AcEMs
— Dave Rubin (@RubinReport) January 26, 2023
Perfect illustration of how crazy things are. A friend just sent the to me, watch the RTâs go up and then suddenly go down. And as Musk himself says, this is an:
Accurate thread
— Mr. Tweet (@elonmusk) January 26, 2023
Science & Tech
Defense Department official says troops need training about online misinformation
“The war on disinformation.”
Published
1 week agoon
25 January, 2023Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net

The US authorities and many other governments around the world â including âtrans-nationalâ groups like the WEF â have been beating the drum regarding the serious danger of misinformation and disinformation for some time now, and that noise is getting louder and louder.
On the one hand, there is no doubt that disinformation can be harmful â but there is also no doubt that it has not only just appeared in the last couple of years, so the fierce insistence on finding new ways to âcombatâ it seems curious.
Unfortunately, there is also no doubt that this âwar on disinformationâ is often used as a convenient excuse to curtail free speech or engage in open acts of censorship.
And the rather sudden and outsized reaction to possible harm is often justified by the ârise of social mediaâ (despite the fact this is another thing that hardly only just started happening.)
With all this in mind, itâs no surprise the âmisinformation panicâ has reached the Defense Department.
According to assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, Christopher Maier, the threat from misinformation and disinformation is âseriousâ and relates to âall levels of armed forces.â
Maierâs explanation for this kind of reaction to possible harm is âthe growth of social media,â according to National Defense Magazine.
This defense official does acknowledge that disinformation campaigns have existed in the past, but, apparently, social media now give them some âsuper powers.â
Addressing a panel organized at the National Defense Industrial Association Special Operations/Low Intensity Conflict Symposium, Maier spoke about âadversariesâ who are, according to him, realizing that their disinformation works well when targeting lower levels of the military and security apparatus rather than their leaderships.
And so the Defense Department has started âeducatingâ troops about these threats, including by releasing a document dubbed, âOfficial Use of Social Media For Public Affairs Purposes,â that, among other things, provides instructions on how to report what is seen as a fake or imposter account.
Thereâs another guide â one about âspotting disinformation actorsâ that comes from Army Training and Readiness Command.
âAn important piece of building awareness and resilience is training newly enlisted personnel, as the Defense Department canât presume recruits have the required âlevel of awarenessâ,â Maier said.
And this effort to educate should not stop with members of the military, he revealed, but should also include their families, âand other people in their lives.â
This post was originally published at Reclaim The NetTrending
-
clownworld4 days ago
London Police Recruiting Illiterate Officers Who Can Barely Write English to Meet Diversity Quotas
-
LGBT4 days ago
Video: Mother Reads Shocking Gay Porn Material Found In Minnesota School Direct To Board Members
-
censorship2 days ago
News Outlets Announce They’re Abandoning “Objectivity” Because It’s Racist
-
World at War7 days ago
Croatian President Calls Germany’s ‘We Are at War With Russia’ Comment “Madness”
-
LGBT12 hours ago
Leftists Triggered By Old Mister Rogers ‘Boys Are Boys, Girls Are Girls’ Clips
-
Bizarre2 days ago
Video: Kamala Harris Lambasted For Weird Cringe Kindergarten Description Of Astronauts’ Historic Mission
-
Politics7 days ago
Biden Jokes About People Thinking He’s “Stupid” Then Makes Another Stupid Verbal Gaffe
-
LGBT3 days ago
Cosmetics Brand Accused Of “Erasing Women” With Bearded Lipstick Ads