magicalkittycat
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User ID: 3762
magicalkittycat
2d ago
don't sell guns or sex
Those aren't speech. Those are definitely questions of autonomy, but they aren't speech. Which makes me think we're both having different conversations here.
Operation Choke Point?
Government.
Kiwi Farms?
Now that's a good example and yes Cloudflare is an example of the rare institutional power broker without much alternative. But one of the main killers was from an Australian defamation suit. (And despite that, they're still around anyway).
Try living your life after having been deemed a politically liability whom no bank will touch and come back to me.
That doesn't and hasn't really happened in the US ... except for well, the one big thing we're seeing right now. Over porn/adult content. The payment processors ability to censor the largest stores on the internet and some of the state governments suppressing adult content sites is a pretty easy to see what real power looks like.
It looks like you literally not being able to see or buy the "bad things" to begin with. And even this still needs the backing of government and the deepest institutions of credit and capital to enforce their censorship with decently accessible workarounds still available. This is the worst America has to offer currently, multiple times more censoring than almost any other cultural clash and it's still struggling.
magicalkittycat
3d ago
It's not a circular argument at all, because it's not the only reason why Tiktok is a threat. It's an auxiliary point of "Hey shit this is so dangerous that two presidents in a row would rather break the law than stop it" with the main danger being ya know, the reason we passed the law to begin with.
That's how Anglo-Americans traditionally (read pre-CRA) viewed it. That's not how continental Europeeans ever viewed it.
Ok well in the case of us (me, and the jubilee guy) being American, the American view is pretty relevant here.
And considering how poorly Europe has been on free speech lately, I'm even less enthused about their philosophy.
Consider a church that a large majority of your society attends (let's call it the catholic church, for "universal"). Let's say this catholic church has formal processes that would impose specific penalties on its members if they associate with people deemed unsavory by the institution. This is not a government institution, and yet it possesses large powers of censorship through this simple application of freedom of association.
If you get large enough it basically becomes a psuedo-government at that point and I would entertain the argument. Throughout much of history, this has been the case so yeah I'd agree we should be cautious.
But America is widely diversified. There is not a single corporate/religious/etc other private entity with that power. In many ways this can beneficial for them because there's a shit ton of powerful rich groups willing to support you. Shiloh Hendricks as an example made almost a million dollars just for being a viral cancel culture focus.
It certainly doesn't seem like there is an all encompassing major institution where dissent = failed life if even the closest thing to that has its victims made millionaires. Maybe it tries, but it's been proven over and over again to be lacking in power outside of a limited subset of society.
magicalkittycat
4d ago
Could anyone tell who he was working for from the video, and did he said anything at all relating to their business?
Well
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We only have his side of the story for the claim so we don't even know if we was fired over the video to begin with
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Ok so you're an employer and you see an employee of yours on the internet in front of millions saying things that you view as disgusting and horrible and that you don't want in your business. Are you only allowed to fire them if they mention your company during it?
If you want to say "a company should be able to fire and hire whoever they want, for any reason" there's entire books of labour law that would need to be abolished to stop the government from being "authoritarian".
I never said that, but yes from the perspective of the business owner they do lose some rights from anti discrimination laws. That is just a fact.
Which ones we find as acceptable is a different discussion and if you believe that should extend to anything a person says outside of work (or maybe even things they do inside of work) then that's a coherent viewpoint, but we can acknowledge that this definitely takes away more rights from the business owner.
magicalkittycat
4d ago
Not a great question considering free association rights are essentially a form of free speech rights. At least that's how we've traditionally viewed it in the US
As the Court noted in Roberts, the choice to associate and "maintain certain intimate human relationships" is "a fundamental element of personal liberty." These associations play a "central role" in the constitutional scheme and in "safeguarding individual freedom." Therefore, they receive protection against "undue intrusion" by the government.
The right to associate is more than just a right to attend a meeting. Instead, it is "the right to express one’s attitudes or philosophies by membership in a group or by affiliation with it or by other lawful means." (Griswold v. Connecticut (1965)). The Supreme Court has stated that association in this context is a "form of expression of opinion."
magicalkittycat
4d ago
Also possible. Or a mixture, people are really good at just convincing themselves of things if they are rewarded for it.
Seems like an easy Occam's razor to me. Either Candace Owens is just bullshitting with the obvious incentive that she is rewarded with views and attention and money, or she of all people stumbled on hard proof that the first lady of France is transgender, hard proof that is strong enough to overcome the questions of "Why would no one else know about this till now?" and "she somehow faked three pregnancies?" but also isn't able to be shared to convince others to overcome their prior.
Also consider that this is part of a movement accusing large amounts of celebrity women to be secretly trans. It seems like the standards of evidence they use might be pretty weak, or maybe Taylor Swift/Jennifer Lopez/Lady Gaga/the Kardashians/etc are really trans after all.
magicalkittycat
4d ago
And allowing "our children" to see things put out by the Chinese is a national security threat exactly how?
Consider that despite a literal ban being passed, two presidents have ignored it in a row. That seems pretty concerning, they must have a lot of influence in the country if we aren't even enforcing our laws.
magicalkittycat
4d ago
I mean didn't he literally just get purged for expressing a political opinion?
He doesn't have to read about authoritarian states, he's already living in one!
If my employee is on TV and says rude things about a major client of mine, should the government ban me from firing them? From my perspective as a business owner in this hypothetical, it seems more the authoritarian government is the one that forces me to keep shitty and unliked employees around even if they're costing my business reputation.
magicalkittycat
5d ago
Strong is relative. They're holding off Russia for years so clearly they're not too far off from one of our greatest enemies.
magicalkittycat
5d ago
If the politicians across both parties are making up national security concerns as a false justification to suppress rival companies or speech, or use them in other negotiations then that also seems like a major issue of a different kind.
That being said it certainly doesn't seem fake, Tiktok is clearly a Chinese owned app with direct access to the eyes of our children.
magicalkittycat
5d ago
Really interesting thing said in a recent Reason article which I think is a good jumping off point for a greater discussion. Lawfare as censorship and a weapon. https://reason.com/2025/07/21/trump-who-wants-to-straighten-out-the-press-sues-the-wall-street-journal-over-fake-epstein-letter/
Trump and his companies "have been involved in a mind-boggling 4,000 lawsuits over the last 30 years and sent countless threatening cease-and-desist letters to journalists and critics," Seager reported. "But the GOP presidential nominee and his companies have never won a single speech-related case filed in a public court."
In addition to the lawsuits against Gapp and O'Brien, Seager noted Trump's 2013 lawsuit against comedian Bill Maher. That complaint was prompted by a joke mocking Trump's promotion of the calumnious claim that Barack Obama was not qualified to be president because he was not born in the United States.
One major issue with the law right now is that even the most bullshit allegations cost money and time to fight against, and even doing something like trying to get the costs covered by the one suing you is itself expensive and time consuming, especially when that is rarely given even in cases where the lawsuit is bull. Settlements are common in part because of that.
Even in cases like this
That seemed like a lot until Trump sought 10 times as much—$5 billion—in a 2006 lawsuit against Tim O'Brien, a financial journalist who had dared suggest that Trump was not worth as much as he claimed. Although Trump lost both of those cases, he later told The Washington Post he got what he wanted from his suit against O'Brien. "I did it to make his life miserable," he said, "which I'm happy about."
But this isn't just about Trump and his openly admitted to constant use of the court system to harass his critics in an attempt to silence them. It's not just him after all, it's a pervasive issue in the legal system that we call SLAPP or "Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation". 4k is a particularly high amount of abuse, but there's lots of smaller amounts of abuse too.
This is about the court system being able to serve as a weapon to begin with. There will always be bad people who try to exploit a system, and we don't (yet I suppose) have a way to fix those bad people, so it's easier to change the system instead. Unfortunately this isn't just an American issue but pretty common worldwide and historically, so it's probably not perfectly fixable. But still, this is an interesting situation where instead of the government violating free speech on its own, the threat of government is used as a tool by private censors.
Also one interesting thing is that it's not just rich people or corporations filing to harass, but sometimes things like small claims court where a company sending a lawyer to show up and handle things would be more expensive than just giving the person suing you some money to drop the case.
Some solutions:
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Existing Anti-SLAPP laws do seem to have at least some use, as seen by politicians and public figures like Trump or Newsom filing the defamation/libel claims in states that lack them. A federal anti-SLAPP law or at least all states enacting their own would likely be progress then even if not fully sufficient. If someone admits they filed a lawsuit just to harass a person, punish them for abuse of the legal system.
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Scale the costs of suing by how often you sue. A person who sues once or twice in their lifetime is less likely to be abusing it than a person who seems to sue everyone.
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Higher standards for filing a case to begin with, make them present. Current standards for complaints are pretty permissive, so raise them up and make people show they have a stronger case or risk dismissal from the start.
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Make it a criminal offense to abuse the courts. Prank 911 calls can end with jail sentences, so why not lawsuits?
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Another similar option, just ban someone from seeking further redress for a while (forever?) if they're found to be constantly abusing the courts. Tell the boys who cry wolf to go get eaten by one.
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Find a way to lower lawyer costs/ease the burden for defending yourself/speed up court. Maybe AI lawyers/judges will help this a lot in the future. One of the reasons SLAPP suits work is because court is so expensive, and that's because lawyers are expensive and court dockets tend to be packed and take months (if not years) to resolve cases. If court wasn't so miserable to defend yourself in, then people couldn't sue you for that purpose.
magicalkittycat
7d ago
The US refuses to even take on the national security threat propagandizing our children despite a literal ban passed on the books because we're too scared to actually enforce it. Either we're cowards or the Chinese propaganda is so powerful and entrenched that the security threat is even greater than we realized (and thus all the more reason we need to ban it now). And yet we aren't.
The only shows of military strength are bombing nations like Iran which are basically toddlers compared to China, when we're up against another adult we can't even do a fraction of what they do without backing down.
We have lost, we will not make any sacrifice even as they brainwash our youth. We will not stand up to them in a literal war either in the region.
magicalkittycat
7d ago
but it’s a rather different situation than South Korea or Taiwan.
Taiwan is ethnic Chinese who literally speak the same language, and lots of Taiwanese celebrities and people visit China on vacation/tours/etc. They're arguably more linked to our adversaries.
In Ukraine, we helped the anti-Russia faction gain power in 2014. Taiwan and South Korea have been die-hard against Chinese rule for generations
Nice so in 2014 we got strong allies in the region, and now because of two weak and cowardly presidents in a row we might lose it. I guess the days of America growing more powerful and influential is behind us.
Yeah it's not really that much and in exchange here's one good advantage of Ukraine, it's an actual war with actual survival pressure making new strong technology for the west. The US Army is so far behind we're bragging about just being able to drop grenades from drones because there's no actual survival pressure on us to do anything.
Israel and Ukraine hold value just by being live testing grounds. If drone warfare is the future (it most likely is a pretty significant part of it) then having an ally actually expanding western drone capability for cheaper is a great return, instead of sticking with this level so bad we're bragging about being able to do things even rebels in Myanmar can manage. Here's Grok doing a comparison, it's baffling how much better the Ukrainians have gotten just by actually facing a real threat
The US Army's Skydio X10D drone costs ~$25,000-35,000, with 340g payload (e.g., M67 grenade) and advanced AI for precision, but high per-unit expense limits scalability.
Ukrainian homemade droppers (e.g., Osa quadcopters) cost $500-1,000, carry 0.5-2kg payloads, and excel in efficiency via mass production and combat-proven low-cost drops, enabling asymmetric warfare advantages.
Yeah it's hard to imagine a situation where giving the egotistical leaders of Russia and China free wins isn't going to empower them and encourage more war.
If you're Putin or Xi and you know America will just walk away bored if you grind out for a few years, then what's the cost of war? Like hell just look at Trump right now, he's giving China high tech AI chips from Nvidia and literally ignoring the law to allow their propaganda site to brainwash teens despite the ban.
Why would Xi have any faith this American apparatus too lazy and scared to even take down Tiktok would actually stick around for long in Taiwan? We're metaphorically bending over and begging for our enemies to fuck us with propaganda and advanced AI capabilities, and yet people are expecting a serious fight when it comes to actual war?
magicalkittycat
7d ago
Fundamentally there's only one way for an invasion to stop and that's for the invaders to either win or give up (either voluntary or by force).
If Ukraine stops fighting back and lets Russia win easily, then the US just has major egg on our face, especially when we've been able to help hold back Russian forces for this long while barely even lifting a pinky. We're supposed to be this big strong global superpower, leader of the free world, and our allies in Asia are watching how we treat our allies in Europe. Taiwan is watching, South Korea is watching. This is one of the big pressures on Trump, a losing Ukraine and a winning Russia is a morale victory for anti-American demagogues and a strong sign to China that we will fold on Taiwan.
We leave the vacuum out of cowardice and fear, our enemies will gladly fill it.
magicalkittycat
8d ago
Daily Mail is not the best sort of news outlet, but they are serving as additional confirmation that the birthday book exists and that the Trump letter is real. Also that Bill Clinton sent one as well. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14921905/Donald-Trump-sues-Wall-Street-Journal-MoS-reveals-Bill-Clinton-letter-Jeffrey-Epstein-birthday.html
Important parts
Bill Clinton wrote a 'warm and gushing' letter which was included in Jeffrey Epstein's infamous 50th 'birthday book', The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Mr Clinton's letter is one page and is embossed with: 'From the desk of William Jefferson Clinton' at the top.
A lot of other people wrote letters
Prince Andrew and his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson – both friends of Epstein at that time – are also believed to have contributed letters to the book alongside Mr Clinton, who regularly flew in Epstein's private jet, dubbed 'the Lolita Express'.
Last night, a source said: 'Ghislaine asked everyone they knew and that included presidents, princes and kings.
'Bill Clinton wrote a warm and gushing letter. It was one page and profuse in its admiration for Jeffrey.'
The MoS has been told Epstein's close friend, Harvard scholar Henry Rosovsky, former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson and computer pioneer Marvin Minsky also all contributed letters.
The WSJ claimed Epstein's lawyer Alan Dershowitz wrote a letter but he has yet to comment about the claim.
We don't know where the original book is at now.
The whereabouts of the original book is not known.
It is thought to have been seized during one of the raids on Epstein's homes in Florida and New York, where Maxwell kept 'dozens of albums' filled with pictures of their trips together including holidays to visit Prince Andrew at Balmoral, Buckingham Palace and Windsor.
The source says the book is real, the letters are real, but the evidence files themselves used contain facsimiles of them
The letters are believed to have been included in more than 100,000 pages of evidence recently reviewed by 1,000 FBI agents working in 24-hour shifts.
It is believed the letters were copied by investigators and entered into evidence as facsimiles around the time the book was seized.
A source claimed the WSJ's story was based on a 'poor facsimile' copy of the alleged Trump letter and said: 'The book is now sitting in a storage facility somewhere, if it still exists.
'What was in the evidence pile were poor-quality copies of single pages, not a copy of the whole book.'
This could be one of the funniest ways to confirm that the Trump letter is a real thing, a retaliatory leak against Clinton. Also suggesting that the Epstein files are a bit of a MAD situation going on with the parties and perhaps even other elites.
In fact I wonder why the WSJ didn't leak the actual letter. The WSJ reporter saw the alleged letter and was able to transcribe its entire text, yet they couldn't release an image of the letter? My guess is that it's a shoddy fake and that if the internet got to see the letter itself then the charade would fall apart immediately. But if the WSJ "journalist" puts his head in the sand and turns off his brain, they can legitimately say they had no idea it was fake.
The idea that the WSJ wouldn't have the resources to make a decently convincing letter seems weak though. Some sort of legal strategy or source protection makes sense.
It's also possible that they don't even have a copy of it itself, like if a whistleblower snuck the paper out of the files, showed the journalist, and then snuck it back in and they don't want to leave any hard evidence behind the security violations while still getting the info out. Hell maybe even a journalist got snuck in to see the files directly, but that's unlikely.
magicalkittycat
9d ago
Since WSJ's defense depends on proving that their publication of the material wasn't malicious, proving the authenticity of the alleged letter is paramount.
American libel and freedom of the press laws are also really strong to the point that it's mostly going to be on Trump and his team to show that the WSJ knowingly made specific claims they had strong reason to believe were fake. Given how cautious the WSJ article is already with wording like "It isn’t clear how the letter with Trump’s signature was prepared." hedging for possible ghostwriters/forgery by Epstein for blackmail/etc, Trump doesn't have much chance here.
It's an uphill battle for politicians trying to silence media, and that's part of the reason why over and over again they keep filing in states lacking anti-SLAPP laws because even they know it's mostly frivolous and for headlines/supporters, while they quietly drop it later on.
I think as Coffeezilla pointed out though, this reaction itself is meaningful and suggests the Trump admin also views the contents as damning if real.
magicalkittycat
11d ago
It’s funny to me that in real life, many a man will cop to being friends with various kinds of scumbags with the “yeah, I wouldn’t want him to marry my sister, but he never did anything to me” reasoning, but somehow when it comes to celebrity I’m expected to be scandalized that people stayed friends with Epstein even though he had a thing for 16 year old girls (whom they may well have believed were 18 anyway)
How many of those scumbag men are accused of being ringleaders of international sex trafficking schemes (allegedly) providing for rich elites from across the world like royalty and party leaders? That seems a lot different to me than just "he had a thing for 16 year olds"
Also not just 16 year olds, one of the lawsuits alleged as young as 12
Even a thousand Epsteins wouldn’t be as bad as, say, the Rotherham scandal where 12 year olds were being sexually tortured and pimped to hundreds or thousands of strangers, sometimes dozens a day.
Yeah the Rotherham scandal is bad but is it hard to understand why people tend to care more about international elites more than they do gang members? People have always been interested in the drama of the powerful upper class and celebrities more than they are of the peasants.
We're gonna have to see if Trump actually goes through with the lawsuit and what happens over it, but given WSJ and Murdoch decided to go through with the article knowing his plans (they even state in the article that's the comments they got when reaching out to the admin) I'm expecting they might be storing more in the barrel still and baiting.
As a North Carolinian, I saw a similar story play out with Mark Robinson where he claims it's fake, starts a lawsuit and then quietly dropped it after things were no longer relevant. Especially funny cause he kept using the username in question too.
Still whether or not this particular letter is real is mostly a distraction from the Case of the Missing Epstein Files we kept getting promised only to end up not existing and things like the altered video. Probably why this is the first time JD Vance suddenly has some thoughts to share, of course none about the Epstein situation, it's so sad how we just don't talk about it anymore in favor of random drama of the day.
Anyway funniest conclusion will be a real letter but not by Trump or associates, but by Epstein and associates faking it and putting people's signatures on things for some weird fantasy.
Doesn't Israel claim sovereignity over the area? This isn't "they won't feed foreigners", this is "people are starving within their claimed jurisdiction" which I think plenty of countries have been blamed for in the past. A pretty significant chunk of Mao and Stalin deaths were starvation in their own territory after all.
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