DandomRude

Well, that should finally make it clear that the US is a failed state where organized crime reigns instead of law and order. This has been more than obvious for a long time, but perhaps now even those who still refused to believe it will finally realize that they are ruled by a king-like mob boss whose depravity can hardly be surpassed by any other monstrous tyrant of this world.

Yup, there is even video evidence that the German chancellor at the time explained to him in detail ages ago how things work, but he clearly still hasn’t understood: Merkel Had To Explain EU Trade To Trump ELEVEN TIMES

Yes, it is unfortunately becoming increasingly clear that even in the EU, billionaires and their companies are above the law. The legal situation should be clear here and there should be consequences - but there apparently aren’t any.

Unfortunately, this applies not only to Twitter, but to most US tech giants in particular, to meta, for example. I have already stopped counting the massive violations of the GDPR that meta and others are constantly committing, because nothing happens anyway. If anything, the fines are so low that violating the law brings these companies far more revenue than it costs them.

So unfortunately, the same major issue that brought the US to the brink of a straight up dictatorship also applies in Europe: even the most blatant violations of the law have no serious consequences for the richest of the rich – and that is why billionaires are becoming more and more powerful.

The situation may be better in the EU for now than in the US, whose legal system obviously no longer even maintains the appearance of fairness, but even in the EU, the enforcement of the law is miles away from anything that could even remotely be called justice.

The reason seems to me to be the same as in the US: concentration of power in a tiny billionaire class that asserts its influence through corruption.

I think that if things continue like this, and I see no indicators that they will not, it will not be long before even the appearance of justice is abandoned in the EU as well.

Edit: Here is an example of how this is possible - it’s just plain old corruption, but in the highest ranks of our institutions: From Meta to the EU Parliament: Former chief lobbyist negotiates data protection (German article)

Aura Salla was Meta’s chief lobbyist in Brussels for many years. Her task: to convince politicians to weaken EU digital rules such as data protection in order to generate even higher profits with Facebook, WhatsApp, and other platforms.

This is likely a physical defense reaction against the prosecution of serious criminals who are waging a war to cover up their own misdeeds. Perhaps he should seek advice from Bibi.

Of course it is tragic, heartbreaking even. But what bothers me about the term tragic in this context is that it makes it sound as if the deaths of these innocent girls were inevitable, as if they had been killed in a natural disaster for which no one is responsible.

However, that is not the case here at all: these girls were murdered by ruthless criminals.

This is not tragic, but a war crime - and this war is itself a crime, simply because it is completely contrary to international law.

The whole point is to distract attention from the Epstein files. So…

I don’t feel sorry for anyone sitting there.

I think it’s fair to say that pretty much all the dystopian visions of the future from literature and films have now become reality. Brave new world…

What do they mean by “turned him into a joke”? Haven’t they seen excerpts from the State of the Union Address or any of his speeches? What else could the Kremlin possibly add to that to make it more ridiculous?

Yes, it would be desirable if truth were rewarded and deliberate false information punished. Unfortunately, neither is even remotely realistic:

True, or at least objectively researched, information was the business of journalism, which for the reasons mentioned above now exists only as a farce of itself (but still retains parts of its former reputation as a reliable source of information). I just don’t think there is any way to make journalism work in the age of the Internet (and I’m from Germany where we have publicly funded media).

Criminalizing misinformation would in turn require appropriate legislation. And as is always the case with laws, those in power would use them to make their worldview the only one that is widely disseminated. To see this, one need only look to the US, where the criminal but also wealthy president is already using current legislation to sue anyone who dares to make him look bad.

So, I think the only option that remains, despite all its flaws and problems, is decentralized social media. Of course, it is susceptible to manipulation, but at least it is not directly controlled by those who want to manipulate the discourse in their favor.

It is certainly not a solution in the true sense of the word - in a purely profit-oriented system, there can be no such thing - but in my opinion, it would at least be an improvement on the status quo, in which people like Zuckerberg and Musk can de facto directly control what people perceive as their reality.

Yes, that’s true. The Fediverse is also susceptible to manipulation. That’s why I’m not a fan of broad rules such as “no politics” in the largest communities, as their breadth would make it easy to buy off a few moderators, which shouldn’t be a problem at all if you have even a little capital.

Nevertheless, traditional journalism is dead because its business model is simply no longer financially viable today. Investigative journalism is very expensive and, with the loss of advertising revenue (wnet to search engines and mainstream social media apps), it is simply an impossible business model today. In fact, most of the traditional media today is run at a loss by billionaires like Bezos (Washington Post, among others).

I’m not saying that the Fediverse is a promise of salvation. I’m just saying that it’s the only option left.

The internet as such was originally designed to be decentralized, but it was taken over by big capital, for which we are now being presented with the bill in all the remaining democracies of the world.

In my opinion, the only response can be to do everything possible to return to decentralization, in order to at least put obstacles in the way of the powerful of this world.

That goes without saying, but the choice of information media that people use influences their decision. As long as these information media are controlled by billionaires, which is absolutely the case for the majority of voters, not only in the US, the outcome of the elections is a foregone conclusion.

One should not assume that even obvious misinformation has no effect if it is spread widely enough. It is, of course, commendable to believe in people, but this hope is clearly dashed by the US.

Do not believe for a moment that something like this cannot happen in your home country.

In itself, the answer is really simple, at least for the remaining democracies, and a solution would be entirely possible: people would have to switch to decentralized media apps, such as those provided by the Fediverse, and stop attributing so much credibility to legacy media. This would significantly reduce the scope for concerted disinformation, which is the main reason for any autocratic form of government being possible, which is of course never in the interests of citizens.

How this can be achieved is the question, and the answer can of course only be education, because the majority of people are obviously unaware of how they are being duped.

I think the problem these people face is more about how to implement the directive to funnel most of this absurd supplementary budget directly into the pockets of a few, preferably conservative, cronies of this criminal regime…