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Disagree here, I think your point is extremely overblown. You could replace “they” and “them” in your post with Twitter and Facebook. Twitter and Facebook are not the internet. Let me repeat. Twitter and Facebook are not “the internet.” Now if you’re talking about the sensible regulation of over reaching, monopolistic large tech companies, I’m all ears. But that’s not your post. Instead, you’re mad that a company has a political leaning. Newsflash: all companies do. Find a different company. The internet in its current form is a worldwide international marvel, not just an American free speech machine. And if you go on it and actually look outside Twitter and Facebook, you can find literally every group of people still has their place and their voice. I’m not keen to make the American internet into the Chinese version anytime soon. Also, they don’t control your access to information. YOU control your access to information, and, sure, the fact that a bunch of dumbasses get their news from Facebook is a huge contributing factor to the problem. But that’s not facebooks fault. That’s your great Aunt Kay being an idiot who doesn’t look at multiple sources. I don’t see Twitter or Facebook limiting the ability for Fox or MSNBC or CNN or the Washington Post to put out their own stories. I don’t see Facebook shutting down 4chan. It’s not like Twitter took Parler off the web. My rub with a lot of this is you could just as easily argue that former president Trump getting online and spouting lies and misinformation is as destructive or even more destructive to the country. Yet there’s no discussion there? Hell, I think you’d be hard pressed to argue against that. Here’s just a few of the gems of falsehood and disinformation Trump has produced and spread using Twitter and Facebook that have helped us get to where we are today: 1) President Obama isn’t born in the US and isn’t a US citizen. YGBSM. 2) “Just stay calm, it will go away” in reference to COVID. Turned out his plan isn’t working so great, maybe should have followed science/his own advisors. 3) “VOTER FRAUD IS NOT A CONSPIRACY THEORY, IT IS FACT” - thousands of bipartisan government workers have argued that there is no meaningful amount of fraud. The other side has failed to prevent any actual evidence. Yet this is the speech you are trying to protect? 4) “Republicans will always protect people with pre-existing conditions” while stripping away protections 5) “Tarrifs are making us rich” in 2018 as economic experts showed that we were and still are the people who pay the lions share of the costs 6) Single payer healthcare is a “radical left socialist” movement that Dems are using to turn America into Venezuela. When 90% of first world democratic nations have something like it. 7) “We’ve pulled off an economic turnaround of historic proportions” in 2018 when the economy was doing just fine coming out of Obama’s second term. 8: “There was no crime” in the Mueller probe, which resulted in charges brought down on nearly 50 people close to Trump. Oh, and it still has the words in there about “individual #1,” if you ever actually read it 9) “We’re building the wall as we speak” in 2018, as they were not in fact doing so 10) Hell, choose between the 30,000 false or misleading claims that the Washington post found. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/trump-claims-database/?itid=lk_inline_manual_4 At what point do straight lies and misinformation from the president no longer deserve coverage? At what point does lying lose its “press protections?” At what point can a sitting US presidents misinformation cause a threat to America. Because there is a point. And there is not a good political way to reign it in. And I’ll use your overblown oath example. You’re an officer who swore an oath to the constitution to defend from all enemies, including domestic. This bro tore our country apart and made enough people think that the election results were deliberately and simultaneously faked across 6 different states that he got a mob to legitimately invade the legislative branch of our government. And you think that should be protected? He’s off his rocker, and why should companies be required to host his lies? What I got out of this is, actually, those in office should have to be held accountable for anything they say. If they say things that are provably false at the time they say them, then that should be illegal. Free speech and free press doesn’t equal politicians getting to lie to our faces on every platform that exists.

Maybe the internet as we know it should be destroyed. As it stands there are a few tech conglomerates that control EVERYTHING and they have shown they are willing to silence free speech. Many are troubled by them banning Trump (complete overkill as they respond to the mob), but i am more concerned about the double standard because they are picking sides. The did nothing when Madonna said "I want to burn down the White House, the did nothing when Kathy Girffin stood there with the severed head of Trump, they did nothing when BLM rolled out their "Fry police like bacon" chat, they did nothing when BLM and other extreme groups burned cities and attacked Government property this summer....all of these acts inciting violence but it happened on the other side of the political aisle. MOST concerning is they silenced the NY Post when they published the story about Hunter Biden's laptop...calling it fake news when in fact it is true and there is an active federal investigation. If these few companies that control our access to information can choose sides and determine what we are allowed to see then our system is done. I am stunned that more people on here are not shocked...you took and oath to the Constitution, not a political party...you should be appalled that we have abdicated control of the free press to Jack Dorsey, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, and Tim Cook.

Remember when news stations used sound off at the end of the night with a waving American flag and the National Anthem? We need more of that and less 24 hours entertainment "news."

There's a lot of moderates like myself that find the democratic party running away from them.

I think you'd have a hard time getting anyone that they used a contrived rationale. I'll give you the double standard, and readily admit social media is garbage, poisoning our ability to critically think, but nothing was contrived. Ignoring the double standard, clear violations of ToS were present, warnings were given, and now they finally did what they should have been doing across the globe to left and right a long time ago. Now they need to step up and apply this standard evenhandedly. Here's me holding my breath... I don't use any social media for this reason. I agree, it's virtually impossible to not use Google or Amazon, but Facebook? Nope, have none of it. People value their social media more than they value their real lives, so good luck convincing people to jump ship en masse.

Say nothing to the fact that tech companies did nothing to censor the 3 years of lies politicians told about Russia-gate and the Trump dossier.

I seem to remember a great deal of social media and news coverage regarding complaints about BLM, Kathy Griffin, and Hunter Biden. Lots of coverage of the details and the reaction from the right. Not sure what media you consume. Even if social media exerts bias on what does and doesn't get posted on their platforms, there are many other currently-available avenues to communicate via the internet. Also, I mentioned in another post that if you have the financial means, technical acumen, and business savvy you can start your own social media platform. You're not beholden to anyone. Go for it! You are absolutely right! My oath was to defend the constitution, not a flag, political party or specific person. It is a really complicated situation. You've got the issue of a private company having the ability to control its destiny. You've got public accommodation laws to prevent things like minorities not being able to get mortgages. Then you've got the issue of very partisan people like a Hawley, Schumer, McConnell, or Pelosi having a direct say in what a private company can or can't discuss. If I had the answers, I wouldn't be doing this. On a related topic: Fox, Newsmax, talk radio and other right leaning news outlets ARE part of mainstream media. They have global reach and huge, growing viewer/readership. The tired old "liberal mainstream media" whining is obsolete.

The only reason any of us know Bret Weinstein's name is because he had the temerity to call a spade a spade when he stood up to the extreme, racist, left wing mob that attempted to enact a "day without white people" on his campus. He (rightfully) took a stand against that effort and has been in the limelight ever since. Probably because he's not woke enough. So most of his exposure on the internet is derivative of that one-off event, hence why 95% of it is complaining about democrats...since it was a reaction to democrats. It's the same fundamental story behind Jordan Petersen. These are "normal" guys (professors, scientists, etc.) who wake up one morning and go "WTF is going on around here?" and they call it out. Call me crazy, but we need more of that. For goodness sakes, he's an evolutionary biologist at Evergreen State College...none of that suggests secret conservative mastermind. And the only reason we hear about him via Joe Rogan (left, right, centerish) and Sam Harris (leftish) is because no one on the true "left" wants to engage in an honest way with what he's saying. That says way more about the left than it does about Bret Weinstein and it certainly doesn't implicate him as a (gasp) conservative.

I think that's a mistake - it would destroy the internet as we know it. This message board, and others like it would likely be collateral damage, as now the owners, administrators would be liable for whatever gets posted up here - legal or illegal. A much cleaner kill, and IMO the right move, would be to regulate portions of Amazon's business (i.e. AWS, etc)...ala AT&T and their phone business.

I was naively hoping Trump in the white house would piss off the Democrats enough for them to strip powers from the executive. Joke's on me, the hate kabuki got him out and set them up to ramp up the EO party.

I liked most of Biden’s speech. Only dislike was it seems like the democrats are already setting up the white supremacist/domestic terror line as their distraction crutch if some of their other policy moves don’t play out as successfully as they hope. Otherwise, I think he genuinely wishes to lower the temperature and try and make the country more united. That being said, I am highly skeptical that others in his party wish the same and I’m also skeptical of his ability to manage those same people. There are a few republicans that worry me as well who will likely not play ball simply because the other team is in power. The next two years are going to be really interesting. Probably the most challenging period we’ve had for a new President in a long while. I truly wish him the best and hope he succeeds, but I would be lying if I said I wasn’t worried about where the country may head.

Forgot the (sts). Let's change the subject. I should have just wrote it out: British Broadcasting Corporation. Funny story: there's a restaurant chain in New England called British Beer Company. Great place for a first date, "I'll take you to BBC"

Real life will do that to you. It truly is remarkable that some liberals are able to live their entire lives as liberals. It take some real dedication. Of course, a lot of times it's a case of "liberalism for thee, but not for me." I mean, Bernie is keeping the millions from his book I assume and not giving it to the government to distribute.

This is all somewhat ironic, because fairness issues up until very recently were primarily based around the extremely conservative talk radio bias that has existed for decades. Rules that would force private entities to protect political speech existed before under the fairness doctrine, which was repealed during the Reagan presidency. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine#Opposition Many have attempted to revive it, but attempts have almost been unilaterally opposed by conservatives up until this point because it was politically in their favor to maintain a monopoly on things like radio messaging. Now that one private entity is showing an obvious anti-far-right bias, conservatives cry foul and say "not fair!" The hypocrisy is glaring.

Who do you propose should be the arbiter of truth? Should a private entity be compelled to host opinions they disagree with by the government? Those examples have government exerting direct control on information.

Again, who determines the truth....a Facebook fact checker...Snopes...gimmie a break. Again, i don't support Trump but I never saw him call for violence as opposed to Madonna, BLM, Antifa, the leader of Iran who have all called for violence yet their accounts remain active. Is 100% of the laptop story true, that remains to be seen, but there are frightening portions that appear to be valid and MUST be investigated. What is true and proven so far: 1. It was Hunter's laptop - he asked for it back. 2. The Biden's business partner Tony Bobulinski has gone on record and validated the shady dealings...yet the mainstream press turns a blind eye. 3. The counter email accounts have been validated...the sent emails are real. There should be great concern that there is mention of "10% for the big guy." Now is that just Hunter talking...no idea but certainly worth an real investigation. 4. The suggested business dealings are not just shady, they impact national security. Assisting the Chinese government is acquiring interest in companies that have a direct impact on U.S. National security...again MUST be investigated. if you investigate over what has been proven to be a fake dossier that was paid for by Hillary why don't you investigate this??? COMPLETE BIAS....what was your comment about innocent until proven guilty? Come on man. Interestingly the laptop repair shop owner is now suing Twitter and others...he has a strong case and will likely win big like Nick Sandmann who was similarly smeared by a host of new organizations like CNN that are now paying big bucks to settle. I have a small amount of faith that a small group of dedicated Justice Department and FBI folks are following the rats nest...sadly the result would be to install the most radical former member of the Senate in the Oval office.

Not at all. I don't agree with a lot of free speech, but I still want it protected. But there is a different between an opinion I don't agree with and an actual mistruth. Have any opinion in the world, that's fine. But I don't think lying about facts deserves a pass. And brother, what do you mean the 100% truth about the laptop? What was hidden precisely? A last minute hail mary to smear Joe Biden based off of circumstantial evidence presented by Rudy Giuliani? What you actually have to prove is that a 50 year old drug addict's dealings directly are tied to his father's finances. There has never been even an iota of proof that Joe Biden has been involved with anything related to Hunter Biden's tax problems or foreign business. Yes, there is an FBI investigation into Hunter Biden. No, there is no substance into investigating Joe Biden, like OANN and Tucker Carlson try to insinuate. You do realize that in late October 2020, FOX news even decided not to run the story based on the extreme lack of evidence. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/fox-news-passed-on-chance-to-break-hunter-biden-laptop-story-over-credibility-concerns-report This one's not a giant conspiracy against conservative voices, give me a break. Every news outlet from Antifa to Fox agreed that running a circumstantial story with no substance was not real press. Also, because we're all about maxims, how about "innocent until proven guilty?" You defending the ability for anyone to throw any political attacks they want, regardless of veracity/evidence and without accountability, is not something that I think I'm going to agree with you about.

Overblown...thanks for proving my point...there is no longer civil discussion. Free speech is free only when you agree with it. I don't care for Trump, but who decides what is truth or a lie? You have completely walked past the fact that Twitter locked the account of the NY Post because they deemed the story to be false information when in fact it has proven to be 100% true...the laptop is Hunter's. Facebook then attempted to purge the story as well. That should be frightening to everyone...this has nothing to do with Trump. Two of the major controllers of information to the American public stepped in to silence negative information that proved to be true about the Biden family and used the cloak of 230 as protection. Previous to this event these things only happen in places like Russia and North Korea.

Not sure if you're being sarcastic or not... Getting kicked off Facebook or twitter is not being kicked off the internet. You still have options to express yourself-build a website, forums, etc. Using a phone example, someone or some business blocking your number in their phone because they think you're annoying does not mean your ability to communicate by phone has been restricted. Getting kicked off AWS or Azure because Amazon or Microsoft do not support your business is not the same as being kicked off the internet. You can use your own computer to host your website, and then scale up to bigger and better servers if it becomes popular. It's like losing phone voicemail hosted by a third party-you can still make and receive calls, but you lost a service you wanted that makes your ability to communicate with incoming calls easier. You can always buy an answering machine if you want that voicemail service. Comcast or Verizon blocking your internet service based on the the traffic they see on your home network, or your opinions expressed elsewhere, is what being kicked off the internet means. This would be getting cut off from using the phone.

When everyone you disagree with is a traitor, that's what tends to happen. I'm seeing a lot of it among my Trump-supporter friends as well. Now the VP, Mitch McConnell, and every congressman who voted to certify the election are traitors.

I don't hate the idea IF it was a part of a national PR campaign. With so many people being concerned about the speed of the development of the vaccine I would invite celebrities (I don't have to know who they are) that are respected by groups that are being hesitant about receiving the vaccine. Get a Tik Tok star, some professional athletes, The Rock, and an influencer, put them on TV getting the vaccine and have them use their social media to get the word out. Maybe wait a few weeks until the 65+ age group is done but don't be afraid to give it earlier. This also wouldn't be the first time the US has done this, Elvis helped out with the polio vaccine: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/12/18/elvis-presley-polio-vaccine-confidence-448131

Oh shit! Now you’ve done it... I looked at a few articles he posted. Didn’t know there were so many “traitors” in our midst.

End 230...period DOT.

It sounds like it was an outlier due to the unique circumstances. I spoke with AFPC and nothing is official until they brief the AFPC commander and he or she signs it--which they iterated had not happened yet and won't until late Jan. They also said mid Feb is still likely the release window

I thought we're supposed to be believing ALL women now?

So...10 reactions out of 330,000 doses? I'll take those odds.

I got the first Moderna shot a week ago. Zero side effects.

"Flagler-Mitchell has denied sexually harassing the girl...the Democratic legislator has since insisted that he believed he was sending the photo to his wife....he believes himself to be the victim of extortion." Deny, deny, deny. Counter accuse. Demand apology. Right out of the playbook...

Depends big time on your ATAG. Right now, ours doesn't require it, but you'll go to ROPMA (2 year delay). I'm a prior-e that would have had to stay to 23 or 24 years if I had waited for ROPMA...something I really didn't want to do. I bit the bullet and finished ACSC while deployed or otherwise in a pay status. Weird enough, some states/units REQUIRE you to ROPMA to O-4! Not sure why you'd purposely do that to your people but I know of at least 2 states that do it. Sounds like they have a problem of letting senior O-5s stick around too long, or their unit is low on control grades. Admittedly, we're on the high side of control grades right now, which means we currently have a ridiculous amount of O-5s. I reached the same conclusion as you Brabus. It earned me an extra ~$15k this year, however his was a deployment year for me so this isn't the norm.. As a true DSG, if I do all my AFTPs/UTAs/AT, it's only a difference of ~$6k/yr. So if I retire, right at the 3 years TIG, it will have made me an extra $27k. Not bad considering I knocked ACSC out while being paid. Ya man, be happy to be in the Guard on that one...AFRC is a totally different animal. If you're looking for O-5, you're likely better off in the ANG. I pinned on O-5 well before many of my 2nd assignment B-Course IPs who later moved to AFRC.

I love how these rumors are born and bred. For one, Rick actually *won* his case where he objected to what he found to be an unconstitutional order to kill an American citizen, and was reprised against by his local chain of command for that objection. Second, he just retired....not any "retirement in lieu of" or any of those shenanigans, but a regular ol' retirement. IIRC it might have been a couple years less than 20, when they were offering early retirements 5-ish years ago. Dude had/has his issues, but wasn't kicked out.

In my class, CBM 87-04, we had a guy essentially wash out because of a standup. He was a strong student up to this point. We were in the first weeks of T-38’s and the Stan EVAL section sent a representative to “sit-in” on our morning stand up, to observe. Since this stud was pretty solid, he was chosen for the stand up and he royalty fu#@ed it up! He was quickly sat down (it was an automatic bust and grounding for a failed stand up in my class) Our flight Commander asked the visiting Stan EVAL observer to step outside for a minute. As he left the room, our Flt CC chewed the stud out and ripped him a new a-hole, telling him he embarrassed himself, us, the IP’s and everyone in the civilized world! We never saw our CC so mad. The next flight he took, he busted, then he busted again, went to an 88 ride, busted that and failed his 89 ride and was gone within a week of his stand up performance. No lie! Sad thing is, he would have been a solid pilot, but he couldn’t handle the onslaught and wrath of the CC and IP’s. It was a different time.