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Rotherham, H1B's and the news cycle on X
On X (formerly Twitter), Elon likes to say "You are the media now". I think, he's... kinda right.
One thing that always amazed me about the mainstream media was their ability to control the news cycle. You'd wake up one Monday, and all of a sudden the entire media would be talking about one story like it's the most important thing in the world. Everyone is using the exact same language, repeating the same facts, etc... You'd be forgiven for thinking that a government propaganda bureau is directing it all from a central office. But the media wasn't actively conspiring, it was just group think and herd-following.
What's more, it mattered. Stories that got major media exposure led to real action from political and corporate leaders. The summer of George Floyd may have been the platonic ideal of this.
Well, X seems to have its own news cycle now.
Last week, X was aflame with a intra-right culture war between those who support and those who oppose high-skill immigration, especially from India. Feelings were hurt, accounts were banned, and it didn't die down until Trump made a statement.
This week, the big story is the Rotherham grooming gangs. I'm not exactly sure why it's being revisited now, but every other story in my feed is about the horrific crimes and the massive coverup which extends in England to this day. Perhaps people smell blood in the water. Kier Starmer, the incredibly unpopular PM of the UK, was head of CPS during the critical years. It seems he chose not to aggressively prosecute many of the monsters who gang-raped 13 year olds.
In my opinion, X provides a better platform for ideas to percolate into the public's consciousness. In the past, unless a story was "too big to ignore" like the Trump assassination, corporate newsrooms could and did bury stories that reflected their political team in a negative light. This can't happen on X. Moreover, a lot of the coverage of news events is less retarded on X (depending on who you follow of course). I'm sure there were lots of bad takes during the H1B kurfluffle, but I didn't see many. I saw a lot of nuanced but fearless conversation that went a lot deeper than anything you'd be likely to see on ABC or in Time Magazine.
I think that there is some special sauce in the technology.
Traditional journalism is top down. We (the authority figures) tell you what to think. On the other extreme, discussion sites like Reddit allow anonymous accounts to speak with the same authority as established ones. As a result, they are gamed by bots, and flooded with low value opinions. X seems to be a hybrid. Authority figures can post to their audience, but they cannot do so without getting pushback from others. When using it, I somehow feel connected to the people and ideas that matter.
I'll probably have to delete the app again in a few weeks.
Something that really stood out to me about the Rotherham et al. issue is how low some of the prison sentences were (in many cases the low single digits). Like, I'm all for rehabilitation if it's likely to work, but it's trivially obviously not going to for these people!
Rape sentences (indeed sentences for almost all violent crime) are very low in Europe. They were in the US, too, until the 1990s. In the UK Blair and Major implemented some strike rules and high mandatory minimums exist for some types of knife and gun crime, but sexual violence wasn’t typically part of that unless it culminated in homicide.
This isn't just regular rape. It's child rape, kidnapping, torture, etc...
I could post some of the excerpts from the court documents, but I wouldn't want you to lose your lunch.
This isn't about sentencing guidelines, it's about corruption and ideology. If the victims were Pakistani and the perpetrators white, these cases would have been treated like the crime of the century and resulted in severe punishments.
I am morbidly curious. Can you link some?
Here is a transcript from one of the court cases.
I regret reading even some of that. Don't think I'll be getting any sleep tonight. And the UK government actively covered up this massive gangrape ring for thirty years. Absolutely unthinkable that such a thing can happen in the 21st century, in a first-world country.
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You can find them on X. I won't ruin people's day by posting them here.
So "I could post some" was a misleading offer. I am going to assume that your other claims were also misleading.
Did you just spin up a new account to be an ass? Knock it off.
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