Facebook takes down accounts and pages of Roger Stone
reuters.com
reuters.com
https://www.npr.org/2017/07/13/537023277/documentary-reveals...
“During the early 21st century as “social media” began to emerge, various political forces attempted to manipulate it to achieve their goals. Luckily, only the bad people were unsuccessful.”
"You mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling." ~ Eames, "Inception"
We barely know about the Persian empire for example. It's mostly been preserved by plays written by a greek dude.
The garbage on Twitter is literally garbage and propaganda. The bleating of various mouthpieces are only useful in coordination with events and real documents.
The closest thing are postcards from the early 20th century, and they are more banal then the garbage on Twitter. The difference is the egotistical impact of the platform. Most successful Twitter influencers who aren’t domain specialists are monsters.
Today, people just throw a bunch of words on the internet without thought or care, and if people react to it, Yay! We're an influencer!
We can (and do) archive this stuff in a way that doesn't go up in smoke from a single library fire. It's searchable too.
Statues are often used to glorify or celebrate famous historical figures. I think Confederate statues would work well in a museum with context explaining the horrors of slavery, but to display them in public places is more glory than they deserve.
Many Confederates no doubt showed courage and other commendable qualities, but I do not agree with celebrating people who betrayed their country to fight for slavery.
If you want to learn about local history, you absolutely go to city hall, or wherever you local clerks office is.
The answer to “Where do we draw the line?” should always be “somewhere”, instead of just throwing up your hands and admitting defeat.
Not all history is good, and not all is bad.
Removal of statues, to me, is like trying to hide history.
Statues usually have some plaque describing who the person was, and what they did. Why can't that plaque say the guy owned slaves, or was a confederate general or whatever? Ya, these guys were on the wrong side of history, but there's still things to be learned.
One of the best military minds of all time, for example, happened to be a confederate. Should we learn nothing from this man aside from the fact that he was a confederate?
I believe it was an upside down triangle... That's a common symbol and just happened to match an obscure Nazi symbol I think very few people alive today have ever seen before.
Just more propaganda repeated over and over. "Nope, it wasn't an upside down triangle, it was a Nazi symbol. Everyone using upside down triangles is hereafter deemed to be making Nazi dogwhistles!"
• The ad was about a political stance they disagree with (Antifa)
• The upside-down red triangle was specifically used to mark groups of prisoners who participated in anti-nazi political speech
So what's the alternative? That the Trump campaign chose an upside-down red triangle in an ad at random because... it's uh... a shape?
Do they also have ads with blue circles? pink rectangles? hmm, no.
Have they also "accidentally" used gold 6-pointed stars? yes.
Perhaps Antifa itself got the symbol from nazis though?
"It can be found in that context. But it is surely not the most recognisable symbol for Antifa in the US."
https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/47917/have-anti...
So ok, maybe we can give the benefit of the doubt. By why not use the actual symbol that's very predominantly used in Antifacist protests? It's very easy to find and much more familiar and relevant. Honestly it would have made for a better ad.
And in isolation this is a single mistake, but the administration has been repeatedly criticized for using fascist symbolism and language, including "America First." At what point do these things stop being coincidental?
"While the America First Committee had a variety of supporters in the United States, 'the movement was marred by anti-Semitic and pro-fascist rhetoric.'"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America_First_(policy)
And again, this is another example where they could have literally picked anything else... but they didn't. When pressed about its history Trump literally backed up the phrase's use by stating "I like the expression."
It's isolationist, nationalistic, xenophobic nonsense with a tinge of antisemitism. It's been denounced by multiple jewish scholars and the Anti-defamation league.
This is pulled directly from an NPR article denouncing the triangle as a Nazi symbol:
"Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh said that some products are sold online that use the inverted red triangle in antifa imagery, though experts said it is not a commonly adopted symbol among anti-fascist activists.
"We would note that Facebook still has an inverted red triangle emoji in use, which looks exactly the same, so it's curious that they would target only this ad," Murtaugh said"
Which is a perfectly reasonable explanation that's ignored by the Democratic Party's political propagandists in the media.
> To claim like the campaign that this would be the symbol, or even a really common one – in the US – seems to not have been true. This changed obviously in a reverse-Streisand now.
Seems, to me, the upside down red triangle is definitely a symbol of Antifa, although perhaps not the most commonly used symbol in the US.
Regardless, the claim that the Trump campaign picked an obvious Nazi symbol just to make Antifa look bad seems very clearly garbage. I, as a sample of one, have never seen that symbol used in a Nazi context before, but that's just me.
That is not anyone's claim. Explain why you think that the Trump campaign's adoption of the symbol the Nazis used to brand and kill political prisoners somehow makes antifa look bad?
The three flag symbol isn't nearly as easy to make the same everywhere every time without some official stencil or something.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/88_Precepts
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteen_Words
edit: If anyone doesn't believe that "14 words" is a neo-Nazi dog-whistle, here's the Anti-Defamation League's explanation:
https://www.adl.org/education/references/hate-symbols/14-wor...
There's a lot to bash Trump with... we don't need to make stuff up.
Taking the goodwill approach for Facebook's actions, they determined Stone "broke the rules". I don't personally think these actions pass the consistency "smell test" of good community governance.
That's the beautiful thing about vague policy, they can be selectively enforced. When there's pushback, well, the rules are the rules right?