Today in Elon’s Radical Free Speech News

Exactly as predicted by me and many others, propagandists – Russian in particular – are big, big buyers of #Twitter Blue. Elon also knows this, and it’s part of how he’s wanting to turn Twitter profitable – by turning it into a disinformation and alt-right propaganda fountain. He’s helping, of course, by personally retweeting their disinformation, in addition to algorithmically boosting it:

[Except from linked Washington Post story stating my summary in more words]

It is, as always, a very good day to leave Musk Twitter.

Oh, also:

Before Elon, Twitter used to publish information on what information governments were asking it to censor, or demanding it censor, depending upon the country involved. India in particular has ramped up this practice over the last few years. That information is no longer published.

If, as he said, “Transparency is the key to trust,” Twitter is very definitely not worthy of trust.

Again: it’s a good day to leave Twitter.

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Today’s Cultural Warfare Update: February 23, 2023

I’ve said many times that not one word – not one word – of fundamentalist propaganda has changed in my entire life, and it’s absolutely true. It’s always the same lies, it’s always the same deception, it’s always the same bad faith. The only thing that changes is the targets, and somehow that resets people’s minds and they treat it as something new when it is 100% not.

Don’t believe me? Here’s a fundamentalist flyer from 1980. It’s a great example. Same lies, same insinuations, same bullshit… different target.

In other news:

In US, three anti-transgender bills also oppose alterhumans. Yep, they’re targeting furries. One tries to cast a broader net and in doing so targets otherkin. I stress: these are actual laws moving through actual red state legislatures and likely to pass in one form or another.

They will make us all illegal (again) if they can.

The New York Times is reportedly bringing in reporters who signed the open letter about their bias anti-trans coverage for disciplinary actions. If you don’t think they’re institutionally anti-trans in specific – and trust me, anti-LGBT in general historically – then you’re in denial. (See also: how they did the same thing during the Nazi era and that holocaust.)

Christian Nationalism, the modern name for Dominionism, is making itself very plainly known at this point, and letting it be known that they absolutely consider all LGBT people to be abominations. The latest loud, fashist, and proud version is the National Association of Christian Legislators, working first to ban abortion nationally and force LGBT people into hiding.

And since they’re Christian fascists, yes, I’m including this in both updates.

Florida’s book banning isn’t slowing down, reaching now to the rather famous children’s books about penguins, And Tango Makes Three.

It’s always true even if something of a cliche, but in this case it’s more literal than usual: abortion rights in Wisconsin are functionally on the ballot in this April’s special state Supreme Court election. You literally have a Supreme Court candidate who thinks women are people, and another Supreme Court candidate who will vote to end abortion rights and gods know what else along the way. It’s that clear-cut, making this functionally a referendum on women’s rights.

If you’re in Wisconsin, pay attention and vote.

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Fascism Watch for February 23, 2023

I’ve moved this to the top and expanded it, because it’s so much worse than I thought:

Florida Republican governor DeSantis has adopted a more severe variation on Trump’s attempts to weaken freedom of the press, helping push legislation to make it dramatically easier to sue news organisations for publishing stories you don’t like. They don’t say this, but I’m thinking the model is extremely-restrictive UK libel law, which has a strong and clear chilling effect on criticism of the government.

ETA: But while early reporting said it was about reporters, it’s not. It’s not just reporters and news organisations. It’s literally anyone, particularly on social media. It’s intended to be a broad silencing of anyone criticising anti-LGBT activists, or anyone accusing someone else of being racist, sexist, or anti-LGBT.

And it specifically excludes truth of the statement as a defence.

Which is very much more in-line with UK libel law, but even more so, it’s very much in line with Putin’s speech laws. And it’s is so shockingly un-American it’s un-colonal-American, because that is when libel law in what was to become the United States diverged from UK traditions, and truth became an affirmative defence.

This is DeSantis. This is today’s GOP.

Previously the top story:

So not only will the Ohio Department of Education not do anything about the extremely literal neo-Nazi homeschool network (In an email to VICE News, the Ohio Department of Education appears to have concluded their investigation into the neo-Nazi homeschool network and determined the group did nothing wrong in light of the state’s homeschool policies), the GOP have responded by loosening homeschool requirements and oversight even further, making shit like overtly-Nazi homeschool networks easier to set up and run.

It’s an authoritarian party that is just fine with fascism, and it’s hard to see how they could make that any more obvious without adding a goddamn swastika to their party flag..

Talking of DeSantis’s Florida, literal Nazis feel entirely emboldened, and will continue to feel so since DeSantis continues to do nothing about their anti-Jewish sidewalk harassment campaigns. This is today’s GOP, folks.

Also in Florida, most of the public focus has been on the ideological remaking of the public school system, secondary and below. But he’s also extending it very specifically to the university level, with his plan to force the liberals arts college New College of Florida into a conservative Christian makeover – one which will, again, be ideologically compliant to the Christian Right. The New Yorker has a pretty decent article on the plan – and how it’s a testing ground for taking the plan national, to every state and every college and university.

Needless to say, the original Nazis did all the same shit. Don’t sleep on this.

Also today’s GOP: WaPo has a story on how Arizona’s top prosecutor concealed records debunking election fraud claims. As in, hid his own office’s conclusions and put out a misleading statement about “serious vulnerabilities” that included several allegations his own office had found baseless. Which gets us back to

A crossover note: Christian Nationalism – the modern name for Dominionism, a form of Christian-specific authoritarianism which shares several key traits with core fascism – is making itself very plainly known at this point, and letting it be known that they absolutely consider all LGBT people to be abominations. The latest loud, fash, and proud version is the National Association of Christian Legislators, working first to ban abortion nationally and force LGBT people into hiding. They’re doing all the usual national work, with model legislation that can be rubber-stamped across red-state legislatures.

And since they’re Christian fascists and cultural warriors, yes, I’m including this in both updates.

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