Watch these three clips very carefully, focusing on the count on the retweet symbol. Do you see what is wrong?
This had been happening for hours when I realised I could record it with my phone. I was not filming continuously and it did this several more times inside the couple of minutes or so between these clips.
Earlier the “likes” had also been doing this even more obviously, but once over 10,000 the counter switches to 10.1k and as the deletions are in continual batches of under 100, it doesn’t show up.
All in all the counters reduce the likes and retweets by about 40 to 50 per cent. The reason appears to be simply to reduce the apparent popularity of a tweet contradicting the NATO fake narrative. Which of course begs the question whether twitter artificially boosts the like and retweet count of tweets supporting the NATO fake narrative.
Almost certainly the answer is yes.
Reducing the retweet count also reduces the incredible mismatch between the number of retweets and the number of people Twitter has permitted to see the tweet. Twitter measures this by “impressions”. This is the number of people into whose notifications or home page twitter has put the tweet the number of people twitter is showing it to. It is different from clicks which is measured separately as “engagements”.
Currently twitter analytics show only 2 million impressions from an admitted 13.1k retweets. That 2 million figure is astonishingly low for a tweet retweeted by 13,000 people. Hundreds of people within that 13,000 have individual follower counts of over 100,000 they believed they retweeted to. So do I.
Let me put it this way. This tweet has reached only 18 times my personal follower count, despite being retweeted by 13,000 people. Then consider that 13,000 people is probably really 25,000 people (see the videos above!)
This level of suppression is very sinister. It happens to me every single day.
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Twitter is mainly a device for the security services to keep track of us
Nice for looking at pictures, but no use for communicating
I don’t know if you have a telegram account or not but maybe it’s time to think about it and get people familiar with it before they boot you off twitter. Same with paypal.
I think you are right on both counts there, for what my 2p is worth. Scott Ritter, Graham Phillips, Patrick Lancaster etc etc all have Telegram accounts that I keep an eye on. They do not seem to have problems with posting their points of view on there, whereas Youtube, for example, can cut live streams when showing truths. Again, just my 2 pennies worth.
I also hear Paypal have been demonetizing individuals & am sure there has been 1 case where the money was confiscated as well, maybe Consortium News?
Consider me shocked – not !
Ouch! Very sinister indeed. I note your tweet which brought me back to Alexander Mercouris and his report on the Nord Stream pipeline: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ju2Ggsvjbg
HMS Northumberland has been very useful in the Baltic Sea recently with her towed array sonar which is very good at mapping the sea-bed together with a crew very experienced in sonar detection techniques…
I don’t mess with Twitter, life is too short.
The problem is – where else does one look for reliable sources? The mainstream media censor and lie about all the important issues, and so are useful only as a guide to what they want us to know and think. Twitter, of course, is itself hopelessly infiltrated by the security services; but it does enable one to discover other sources that otherwise receive no publicity. In this way one learns to filter the honest, well-informed websites from the dross that surrounds these – by checking the sources, triangulating with other accounts, researching who funds them, etc. Until we develop a platform that’s less compromised (Panquake?) – and IF the state allows it, which I doubt – then Twitter is at least a useful starting point.
Uncensored news are on Telegram now
How long is that going to last?
[ Mod: Caught in akismet spam filter @5:29pm, restored @6:18pm. ]
—
There really aren’t reliable sources any more. A team of good journalists used to cost a lot of money, which used to be paid for by advertising revenue in the newspapers. Now, all the advertising money has gone to the web and flows into the pockets of people like Zuckerberg instead of funding journalism.
All we have now is government and corporate press releases, re-worded by the mainstream media, and thinly-disguised deep-state propaganda from Bellingcat et al (and of course similar on the other side from sites like strategic-culture.org); plus a constellation of independent bloggers like Craig Murray, all of whom have their biases and don’t benefit from being part of a team.
I think the best we can do is read a cross-section of the independent bloggers, plus sites like rt.com and strategic-culture.org in full awareness that they are just as biased as the BBC but (usually) in the opposite direction. Free aggregators like news.mafraresearch.eu let you see headlines from dozens of different sources on one screen so that you can see how different sources distort the news differently, which gives you a chance to tell probable fake from probable fact. You have to use your judgement, and you can almost never be really sure.
Fuck Twitter.
I don’t understand the Twitter stuff but that Biden via CIA, UK etc was the one who “dunnit” is my hypothesis until the evidence proves me wrong, which I doubt will be forthcoming.
When I’m the first one to reply to a tweet, adding an image, the counter of responses switches to ‘1’ when I press ‘Submit’, then switches to ‘2’ when the image has uploaded. The first time I noticed this, I thought “Neat! Someone else responded just now!”, only to find that this was not the case.
This is not an argument against your claims, but in favour of Twitter’s metrics being unreliable, and not necessarily (only) nefariously so.
A strange thing could be observed: While the EU is very shocked and swears to hunt down and punish the saboteurs of Nordstream I and II, there are other entities within the NATO sphere which try to downplay the damage by arguing that there was no gas anyway so why to worry, as it is done in one comment in the Guardian.
Craig:
“The reason appears to be simply to reduce the apparent popularity of a tweet contradicting the NATO fake narrative. Which of course begs the question whether twitter artificially boosts the like and retweet count of tweets supporting the NATO fake narrative.”
That is just paranoia. As with Google, Twitter has no knowledge of what your tweets are about – they don’t have the kind of AI that would be required to comprehend your tweet and compare it with some official narrative.
More plausible explanations.
I don’t pretend that either of the above is the correct explanation – but I am reasonably certain that whatever the explanation is that it is ‘technical’ in nature. (Although humans and therefore politics may be involved in deciding exactly which accounts may be in violation of the end user agreement).
Yeah. I’m quite suspicious of what regularly suggests to be manipulation on the part of Twitter, but I’m also convinced that the policing of bots is at least part of the cause Craig is noticing. Particularly when what is posted is gladly taken up by bot farms.
Andrew H they have exactly the type of AI that would know what you’re tweeting/googling. They need that sophistication to make billions in ad revenue.
Andrew,
Why do you think that the more high profile dissidents are not subject to human agency? What do you think the tens of thousands of people employed by the state to counter internal dissent do all day long? Serious question.
To be honest, after all Craig’s been put through and what we know about Twitter, I’d say it’s not paranoia at all.
“never attribute to malice…”
It has happened before, https://mashable.com/article/twitter-bug-retweets-likes .
Of course, we have no idea what actually goes on at twitter, which is why I don’t use it. Possibly some hackers (state or otherwise) got in and are having fun. I really doubt it’s a central policy at twitter, too many people can see the codebase that you couldn’t keep something like this very secret. If it got out that twitter was intentionally compromised this badly then twitter would be finished.
Serious answers. Twitter is a publicly listed commercial software company. Such companies are required by law to maximize profits for their shareholders (read: board members). Employees, the environment, paying taxes and the wellbeing of the nation or its citizens are secondary. Being publicly listed there is little secrecy in such companies (it is not government). Programmers in the commercial world are typically opinionated and have big mouths and really don’t care about their employer because morality is a two-way street and finding a new well paid job is easy (I am a programmer). This is not an environment in which the deep state flourishes.
Obviously the NSA could furnish orders for the company to provide data on its customers or to provide an unencrypted feed – but it can’t require the programmers to program in some kind of suppression logic for state dissidents – it’s too complicated and it’s not happening – the real world of computers isn’t like in the movies when some hacker can just look at the code and in twenty minutes modifies it to save/destroy the world. There can be upwards of a million lines of code (try to imagine a book with a million lines – at 50 lines per page that’s 20,000 pages). It takes years to learn to navigate and maintain such a program and every change is hugely painful – the NSA can’t make the modifications itself and it has no authority to order the programmers to do so. There really is no conspiracy in Twitter, Google or Microsoft Windows or any other mainstream household software.
When you say you are being suppressed, what you are actually observing is that others are being amplified. Because you are an ordinary human you don’t go out of your way to understand how to amplify your tweets – but others do. (Governments, curious amateurs and even commercial software companies that understand they can sell amplification). As a thought experiment let’s consider how you might amplify your tweets – you could start by creating a second shadow account and just retweet everything – ok that is only going to add 1 to your retweet counts. Creating 1000 such accounts might be the next step – but likely Twitter has thought about this possibility and it won’t work. However, there are many other things that one could try and if you spend enough time on this you will likely find a way to game Twitter and then you can sell that knowledge or amplify your own messages or both.
So the nefarious activity comes from outside the Twitter corporation rather than from within. There is little Twitter can do about this and any serious solutions would just eat into profits. Neither Twitter nor Elon has any idea about how many fake/duplicate accounts there are and Twitter has no interest in even finding out. Every few months Twitter announces it has deleted x number of fake accounts, but this is no different to law enforcement announcing they have intercepted x kilos of cocaine: it serves to keep the public happy that the fake accounts are being dealt with. Arguably it would be illegal for Twitter to even attempt to deal with the problem – unless they can justify that it adds value to the company.
Your question is probably deeper – why don’t I believe in any conspiracy theories? (not just those pertaining to Twitter). You might as well ask an athiest why he doesn’t believe in God. First show me the evidence (your video doesn’t count). I also don’t accept you are a high profile dissident (seriously – you are not Wikileaks/Anonymous/Mr Anthrax or an amateur oil pipeline diver with a tendency towards arson).
“Being publicly listed there is little secrecy in such companies (it is not government).”
You’ve got that the wrong way around. Public listing doesn’t give anyone the right to information about anything the company does, apart from seeing the published accounts. Governments, OTOH, are subject to freedom of information acts and the like.
Publicly listed companies are heavily regulated by the SEC. Board members and company management go to great lengths to ensure that they don’t fall foul of the rules. My personal experience of working for such companies is that management tend to be quite open and avoid lying not least because emails tend to surface in investigations / patent suits. There are some things they cannot tell you about such as upcoming mergers and acquisitions that would have the potential to affect share price – that would foul of insider trading rules – but they also won’t lie. (the risks are too high). A lot of information is contained in the accounts. Privately owned companies tend to be less transparent to their employees because there are fewer rules.
I cannot speak to government work – but I suspect you are correct in that most government is also pretty open and transparent. (It’s the politicians that are free to lie; and I suppose if you are employed by GCHQ/NSA, you might expect being untruthful goes with the job??). I would say with government work that if you disagree with your boss it can be very hard to just switch jobs – For example, if you are a diplomat and your boss tells you to do something that you disagree with, then you could be under a lot pressure since your career options with other employers are limited.
“Publicly listed companies are heavily regulated by the SEC. Board members and company management go to great lengths to ensure that they don’t fall foul of the rules. My personal experience of working for such companies is that management tend to be quite open and avoid lying not least because emails tend to surface in investigations / patent suits.”
That may be true of large companies like BP or Diageo, or it may be different in the US, although I doubt it, the last thing a company wants is for its shareholders to know what is going on, but it is certainly not true for most SMEs over here in the UK, where you have to fight like a bastard to get the tiniest scrap of information out of them, even as a shareholder and putative part owner of the company. They are not regulated in how they run their business by anybody outside of keeping to the law of the land, nor even do they do that if they think that they can get away with it.
Indeed, and putting it down to algorithmic reasons raises the next logical question who created those? Why and for what purpose?
If the suppressed all seem to have their lack conformity to with establishment narratives in common. That’s a feature not a bug.
The fact that Google & Twitter etc, are based in the USA and their owners can be subject thuggish, coercive legal & quasi-legal pressure to toe the line, is also a factor.
Assuming this isn’t all willing collaboration.
“Twitter removing fake accounts (accounts are constantly being created by bots which are programmed to spread disinformation).”
How does Twitter know the accounts are fake and why can’t the same process as is used to determine if an account is “fake” be used against accounts that are unsatisfactory in some other way? What makes an account “fake” in the the first place?
Twitter doesn’t know which accounts are fake or how many there are (remember Elon Musk got cold feet over this). Some accounts are presumably much more obviously fake than others – but I don’t know what algorithms Twitter might use to detect these accounts. (However if 10 accounts are just retweeting the exact same posts, or sending identical messages that might be detectable).
If I were in the business of running a bot farm service (I’m not) I would likely create 1000’s of easy to detect fake accounts every day for the sole purpose of overwhelming Twitter’s admin team and to allow Twitter to declare it was dealing with the problem and behind that I would create many more fake accounts that would work in a way that is not obviously coordinated and very hard for Twitter to detect. In my view, Twitter will always be on the losing end of the bots. (The service was originally built to be a friendly environment where people of all walks of life would exchange thoughts – it was never designed to withstand people, businesses and governments gaming the system)
“Twitter doesn’t know which accounts are fake or how many there are”
Then why did you say that Craig’s retweet count going down was due to “Twitter removing fake accounts” if they don’t know which are fake? If it’s not bots but humans doing the removing, then they could easily be told to downgrade a small range of high-profile dissidents. If it is bots, then you’d expect a fairly high level of false positives and, correspondingly, people whingeing about them.
It’s more likely to be going up and down because of a small bug in how the counts are calculated. It’s not easy to count these things instantaneously across the vast array of servers. Plus it’s probably not important to twitter to have a totally accurate number. There has been a confirmed bug in the recent past, https://mashable.com/article/twitter-bug-retweets-likes .
I have no doubt that some in the establishment are out to get Craig. Maybe a couple of people at twitter are compromised and put in some complicated secret back doors to let the bad guys in discreetly. It’s also possible that there’s a bug, and someone outside twitter has figured out how to exploit it to annoy Craig.
But it is inconceivable that twitter HQ are purposefully out to get him personally. I know something of the culture at places like twitter. There are so many people there and it’s inconceivable that they would all be in on such a blatant stitch up.
If a human removes someone’s account who has retweeted Craig’s tweet, then Twitter admin is suppressing the removed account and not Craig’s account. (although Craig’s retweet count is also affected the action is not against him!!)
“they don’t have the kind of AI that would be required to comprehend your tweet”
Wrong. They absolutely do. AI flagging posts by specified key words was easily doable over a decade ago, current AIs can grasp the meaning and are capable of even flagging sarcasm. How do you think modern translation AIs work? By magic? Claiming ‘AI can’t do it’ was valid in 2000s, not today, when AI can solve GO, paint better than human artists, or seamlessly transform people in videos into someone else.
But that’s also wrong on fundamental level. You don’t need AI to censor dissidents. All you need is something like Integrity Initiative or any number of other NATO troll farms spotting ‘wrong’ accounts, which are then flagged and semi-shadowbanned. That’s all. Claiming Craig is paranoid is delusional, silencing high profile critics is not only trivial but is getting easier with each passing day.
“That is just paranoia. As with Google, Twitter has no knowledge of what your tweets are about”
Andrew, you’re wrong. Tampering with tweets and comments is automated by AIs. Even this site uses automated deletion of posts.
Utter and complete nonsense. Demonstrably so. Why do you think Alexa (and others like it) listens to everything you say? Because it has no idea what you’re saying? In that case how does it respond appropriately? Same with your smart tv and every other device that listens to you: of course they know what you’re saying. And understanding verbal material is far more challenging than reading and understanding text; Google has been reading all your emails since its conception and so do all the other major email and browser providers, with the possible exception of Yandex. Twitter doesn’t know what you’re posting? How then does it know enough to respond to your actions and decide whether you’re a bot or not? You think it has a million operatives poring over suspicious text? Get real.
I respectfully disagree on the main point here. The AI problem is no closer to being solved today than when I started programming in the 70’s. (That’s probably not quite true, but there has been no fundamental breakthrough). Btw this is a good thing – the day we invent an AI that is capable of understanding language is pretty much the day before we build an AI that is capable of reading and understanding every book that has ever been written including those on human psychology, mathematics and how to program. This is quite possibly the same day we are no longer in charge.
“I respectfully disagree on the main point here. “
Are you saying that Alexa can’t understand what anyone says? How does it work then, incredibly lucky guesswork?
You’re dwelling on semantics. Of course no AI literally “understands” anything, it’s not alive or intelligent, it simply has software that’s been programmed to respond appropriately. When you have thousands of programmers, linguists, psychologists, etc. as your slaves, even quite large, thorny problems get solved very quickly.
I tweet a lot of pro-Palestine stuff; and this happens to me on a regular basis. After I ‘like’ a tweet, the number goes up one, then immediately down one or two. The only way I can get past this is by clicking repeatedly and fast on ‘Like’ – and then the Twitter machine slowly and relentlessly reduces the number again.
Much the same happens with retweets and follower numbers. The latter are added one by one during the day, then are suddenly reduced by six, ten, or whatever overnight . ..
Twitter is rigged – against Palestine, against these supporting Russia, against ‘real’ left-wing narratives generally. We need a new platform, urgently!
I’m really struggling to understand why you ever thought Twitter was ever anything other than a US/UK intelligence asset.
Swedish Coast Guard detects fourth gas leak at Nord Streams, reported today by Reuters.
The Russian prosecutor’s office opened a case on international terrorism. Russia also convenes the UN Security Council on Friday at 22:00 Moscow time.
I wonder if this meeting will be broadcast, or will it also be closed like the last one on biolaboratories in Ukraine?
What do you think Tatyana? All of RF’s complaints or reports to the UN or other agencies are routinely ignored, covered up or explained as RF’s attempts to obscure its own actions.
Expect nothing of the UN-it’s a US controlled agency.
Well don’t use Silicon Valley Stasi apps like Twitter then, but also be glad you don’t live in Russia where Roskomnadzor would have you thrown in jail for contradicting the official line.
Cui bono? Yes probably the Americans. There is also the view that the Russians can now use the need to fix it as leverage on the Germans to get sanctions lifted. Putin is in such a deep hole now psychologically and strategically it presumably is not an immediate American priority to blow up a disused gas pipeline. On the other hand it may be a deniable shot across the bows in terms of what the US threatens in retaliation for Putin’s increasing Syrian-style terror bombing of Ukraine, and nuclear threats.
None of this is good, but at the end of the day Nord Stream 2 should never have been built. It was key to a German fossil fuel-based rapprochement with Russia’s ultranationalist, militarist regime.
Politically Homeless said,
“Putin is in such a deep hole now psychologically and strategically… “
Please advance some evidence for this impulsive revelation.
“but also be glad you don’t live in Russia where Roskomnadzor would have you thrown in jail for contradicting the official line.”
Have you been in the middle of Congo for the last two years? Being thrown in jail for contradicting the official line is exactly what happened to Craig. Perhaps you meant “be glad you don’t live in Scotland..”
Looking ahead to midwinter with severe gas shortages in Germany etc, we can see why someone might sabotage the shutdown pipelines. Then, the idea of agreeing with Russia to withdraw support for Ukraine and seeing the shortages ended in a day would be rather compelling. Not so much if it’s going to take weeks or months to repair the pipes.
Plus the fact that the Russians control the flow at the source, which rather obviates the need for ”leverage” other than simply stopping the flow at their end.
The Russians did it BS would however make sense if someone else’s pipeline to Europe blew up Say one supplying gas from Azerbaijan or Algeria or literally anywhere else.
As for the rest *yawn*, In my fairly short life I’ve heard that boilerplate BS numerous times NUMEROUS! Every villain of the moment is the Austrian corporal, guilty of the worst crimes since WW2. This goes back as far as fucking General Nassar in the 1950’s he was Hitler too, for the temerity of nationzing the Suez canal.
Old, stale, dull, boring, repetitive! Above all boooo-ring!
Which is why Western narratives are fading out of popularity at home & abroad these days, as surely Soviet ones did under Brezhnev sheer boredom…
It seems highly likely that any peace deal would have included the NordStreams’ pumping gas. That option is removed until repairs are made. The engineering, logistics and timescale of such repairs is beyond my pay grade.
A list of who gains and, more importantly, who loses from this action needs to be drawn up. Then reasonable assumptions can be drawn. The first is that this doesn’t seem like a pipe malfunction or accident.
Europe needs gas, a zero fossil fuel option for energy is pie in the sky. I judge europe as gaining little and losing greatly from this attack.
Russia gains little and loses a lot by this action. Any peace talks would probably involve operating NordStream at their conclusion, so Russia loses a major bargaining chip. And as Craig’s Twitter clip says, why blow up a piece of kit that cost you billions?
If the USA executed this attack they now dominate the game board, a heck of an advantage.
If they did organise this attack, would they risk contracting it out to a third party? The more parties involved, the more exposed to leaks the instigators and participants become.
It does seem that somebody has doubled down on their position. Four nuclear powers are involved in this conflict, powers that have 95% of the worlds nuclear weapons. A ceasefire is needed now. Peace negotiations must be supported and demanded…_
I doubt these pipelines will ever be repaired. The Baltic Sea is a NATO sea, patrolled and controlled by NATO states thus even if Russia has the desire to repair them, can you see Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Poland et al, allowing Russia to even get close to the pipelines?
Dream on!
Barofsky,
It appears the damage is in international waters. If so, then any attempt to thwart Russian repairs will just up the ante.
If Russian attempts to fix the pipe are prevented, the narrative about Russia benefiting somehow by blowing up its own pipeline get very strange…_
2 leaks are in Swedish waters and 2 in Denmark’s, both areas of damage are at about 50 meters depth. Looks like repairable. At least, not impossible. A clamp maybe, to prevent sea water getting inside (though, it even an extra precautions, because the inner surface of the pipe is epoxy)
Hah! So Russia covertly entered Swedish and Danish waters, blew up their OWN pipelines and just as covertly disappeared! And pigs can fly.
Hmmmm… pure sophistry. The pipelines travel along a very narrow channel, sandwiched in on all sides between a host of NATO countries. Any attempt by Russia to gain access to the damaged pipelines would be blocked under USNATO sanctions. To quote the inestimable MK Bhadrakumar’s latest:
Meanwhile, Radoslaw Sikorski, a European Parliament member and a former Polish foreign minister, has thanked the US for damaging the Nord Stream pipelines. “A small thing, but so much joy,” Sikorski tweeted, adding, “Thank you, USA.”
Sikorski cited US President Joe Biden who had threatened on February 7 before Russia began its military operation in Ukraine, that if Moscow acted against Kiev, “there will no longer be a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.” When a journalist asked Biden to clarify, he said enigmatically: “I promise you, we will be able to do that.”
Indeed, there are reports that two groups of US warships were sighted recently within 30 kms of the site of the incident where Nord Stream was attacked.
According to Sikorski, the damage to the Nord Stream narrowed Russia’s room for maneuver, since Moscow will now have to talk to the countries controlling the Druzhba and Yamal gas pipelines — Ukraine and Poland respectively — to resume gas supplies to Europe.
https://www.indianpunchline.com/attack-on-nord-stream-kills-prospects-for-dialogue-in-ukraine/
You are talking unadulterated rubbish Barovski, where is your evidence, blowhart?
The reluctance and trickery the US played out trying to control Norway’s independent oil and gas resources are well known and now that the warmongers armtwist about every organisation that competes with its fracked and shipped gas.
It’s the US that has caused these fractures, imho.
Unless their president repeats threats from Nuland and does not mean it.
They said they would do it, so give us your evidence Beoffski that they did not do it.
“Russia gains little and loses a lot by this action.”
Russia has absolutely nothing to gain by sabotaging the Nordstream pipelines. If it wanted to stop supplying gas to Germany, all it had to do was turn off the tap at its end of the pipeline.
The pipeline potentially benefited Germany (if Washington permitted Germany to use the pipeline) and benefited Russia. Therefore neither of those countries would sabotage it.
Chief suspects are, in no particular order, Poland (the Poles hate Russia and don’t like Germany); one of the Baltic states (but I doubt they have the capability); and the USA. The USA gains by weakening Russia, weakening Germany, making Europe more dependent on US LNG and therefore even more subject to US control, and increasing profits of its LNG producers (who wield substantial political power via campaign donations).
Roger, that is exactly as I see it. I said back in March that this conflict would not end whilst Europe was getting gas from Russia. Biden and Nuland both openly stated that Nordstream would be stopped, one way or another.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLb0QeCQF_I&t=238s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7HPG69vIas
Ylva Johansson, Swedish European Commissioner
https://amp.zdf.de/nachrichten/heute-journal/pipeline-lecks-gas-johansson-100.html
“… an attack that cannot be carried out by an ordinary group of people. Thus, there is a high risk that some state is behind this after all … We have suspicions, but it is still too early to say …”
Reminds me of:
Husband returned home too early to find his naked wife in bed. Furious, looking for a lover, he looks behind the curtains, searches under the bed, and finally opens the closet doors. An athletic man 2 meters tall and 120 kg in weight stands in the closet, and asks the husband:
– So, did you find him?
– Not yet, I think I better go and look in the kitchen.
Very good Tatyana. Reminds me of a similar story. A man hires a private detective to confirm his suspicions of his wife’s infidelity. After a week, the detective reports: “ I followed your wife to a club where she met a man and they danced and kissed passionately. They then left the club in the man’s car. They drove to a flat. I saw them enter the flat where they stood in the lounge kissing. They then moved to another room where they drew the curtains. I saw them, in silhouette, embracing and getting undressed. Then the light was turned off. That was all”
The husband says “Damn! Always that element of doubt!”
🙂
Russians currently exercise the ‘best’ of racist jokes, posting new Little Mermaid by Halle Berry, saying there was no crimes in the seas until there were no black mermaids. Pictures of the Little Mermaid with a sawblade near the leak
https://pikabu.ru/story/otvet_na_post_versiya_zapada_vyiglyadit_primerno_tak_9504694
I like that analogy, made me chuckle. But so true
None of the videos display
But now they do!
We note ROS -so far, the UK has committed £2.3 billion to support the Ukrainian war effort against Russia in spite of UK cost of living pushing families to the brink and 14 million living in poverty in which 4.3 million are children (Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s UK Poverty Profile 2022).
He has to keep demanding more because 70% always goes missing.
Note that in all three cases, the amount of ‘likes’ is reduced by 7. Looks like the reductions are more likely to be deliberate actions, and not coincidence.
Unfortunately social media companies use all types of covert censorship, I am sure they are shadowbanning Craig.
All these social media companies are infested with pro-Nato/US western intelligence services,
“National Security search engine: Google’s ranks are filled with CIA agents ”
https://mronline.org/2022/07/27/national-security-search-engine/
Not to mention all these dictatorial fact-checkers:
” Most of the “fact-checking” organizations Facebook uses in Ukraine are directly funded by Washington ”
https://mronline.org/2022/08/08/most-of-the-fact-checking-organizations-facebook-uses-in-ukraine-are-directly-funded-by-washington/
Google censors EVERY website that doesn’t tow the line, from Moon of Alabama to my modest enterprise. Eg, If you use Google and do a search for Moon of Alabama, the search returns just TWO links, the Home Page and the About Page, ditto for my site. I’ve checked this using other, independent news/information sites and gotten exactly the same response.
When Russia’s military action in Ukraine commenced in Feb, my site was getting 1500+ visits a day but within 2 days, it had dropped to a little over 100. When I checked the source of search engine searches, I was getting just 1 or 2 results from Google searches. The censorship is TOTAL. This is digital Fascism.
Google is an American company. Why did you expect anything different?
I get MOA with Google, no problem.
Go to Youtube and search any title of Jimmy Dore’s video + something remotely close to it. We get 20 results from MSNBC, CNN, WPost , Kimmel and literally ZERO from Jimmy’s
https://imgur.com/a/LAmQXxj
Has anybody ever asked Twitter about this type of activity/shadow banning practices? I’m not aware that they’ve ever been asked about it.
Also, surely a lot of people would have to know about something like this if it were being done systematically. It seems odd to me that there have been no leaks, off-the-record comments or anything of the kind, to my knowledge, about it happening.
My personal philosophy is: ‘if you don’t like the smell, don’t swim in the sewer’.
wrt the pipeline. The inner core is, I believe, steel pipes. Steel and salt water does not make a good combination. The longer the pipeline is left unrepaired then the less likely it is that it can be economically repaired – at all. In addition, the cost implications are huge. We can conclude NS1 and NS2 are no more.
Stevie,
No. The West African Gas Pipeline, of which I have substantial professional experience, has been seriously damaged several times in the sea. It’s about a six month job.
I imagine now Sweden, Denmark, Germany must unite and arrange the repairs, perhaps under protection of their military forces.
I imagine its a bit of a tricky job, but well possible by a good marine engineering firm. Go down, cut out the damaged sections. Cap them with a line to the surface, and then pump the sea water from the undamaged sections (to prevent corrosion). Easy to say, tricky to do. Then attach undamaged replacement sections which can withstand the pressure (of the sea from without, and the gas from within). Again, easy to say, tricky to do. But, this is what engineers are for, the tricky stuff.
Then run a pressure test, and then pump cleaning fluid through the pipe. Then pump a test “gas” through the pipe. Test for purity.
Should take a few months. People might be getting a little cold before the thing is operational again.
Exactly what I was thinking of. Leaking pipe repair is not rocket science.
I agree on this point. The pipeline is in relatively shallow water – nothing compared with Deep Water Horizon. However NS2 won’t be repaired since it already had zero commercial value. Even with regards to NS1, it is not clear who would pay (engineers don’t work for nothing). I doubt insurers are going to cover this – there will be some force majeure exclusion.
“Then pump the sea water from the undamaged sections (to prevent corrosion). “
Apparently the pipeline is lined with glass and clad in concrete, so I think corrosion will be the least of their worries. Given that, I expect that the repair procedure is to remove an entire section, drop in a new one and reclad it in concrete. I can’t see the glass lining being repairable.
The lining is not glass, it’s epoxy. Anyway, I think those who built it knew about possible threats, so must have plan for repair. I think there may be some inbuilt mechanism to isolate sections, like in submarines, perhaps.
I guess the real issue is why bother repairing the pipeline if its security can not be guaranteed ?
A lot of time and money just to see the USA or its stooges blow it up again.
Seriously damaged by what ? It’s very vague. It was not blowup job!
According to this
“On 27 August 2012, the West African Gas Pipeline was damaged when pirates who had tried to board an oil tanker in an attempt to get away from the pursuing Togolese Navy, severely damaged the pipeline with their anchor. For nearly a year, the supply of gas to Ghana, Togo and Benin ceased, causing major power supply problems to the affected countries”
Maybe it is different episode.
Yes, that is one of them. It was essentially snapped – they dragged it with their anchor. it was filled with sea water. The explosion doesn’t really make a difference – it’s just a big pipe you are replacing a section of, ether way.
I don’t want to be petty but it took a year. It is much closer to the shore and less deep and it’s capacity is 10% of NS1 or 2 . I would assume that damage of pulling out 1 section pipeline by anchor is different to blowingup a section whatever sections means. No doubt that anchor can make more damage than explosive!
Africa was lucky that anchor did not pull whole pipeline and we are lucky that explosion just
damage few meters of a pipe.Who ever did it, made sure it is just small leak and plumber with diving equipment can
fix it. BTW who should fix it???????
“I would assume that damage of pulling out 1 section pipeline by anchor is different to blowingup a section whatever sections means. No doubt that anchor can make more damage than explosive!”
I doubt that it makes any difference how the pipeline was damaged or the extent of the damage, you are still talking about replacing a section with a new section.
Not just Twitter, but also thumbs up on sites such as DM, I have noticed. Which leads me to conclude that probably all MSM is more than likely propped up by fakery.
Thanks for your work, Craig. It’s always refreshing reading honest opinions.
I reckon the Daily Mail has a few hundred payroll trolls and sockpuppets on their comments section, and they can draft in thousands more from other agencies as needed per article.
Why would they even bother? If you tend to believe what you read in the DM, you tend to believe what you read in the DM, whatever it is. Comments aren’t going to change your mind. If you don’t tend to believe what you read in the DM, why would you read it in the first place?
Bayard, it is to manipulate public opinion in a devious manner, in my opinion. Same as all the MSM narratives. I’m sure it’s been said many times but it doesn’t seem to be about what’s really true, but what’s perceived to be true by the masses. People do pick up on this & tend to just accept the narrative, without question, maybe because they’re too busy to read alternatives or even look to find alternatives. These are very strange times we’re living in, as far as I’m concerned. I don’t believe any of the propaganda being put forward with regards to China, Russia, NK etc. etc. all being the bad guys & we are the good guys.
With regards to reading the DM, it’s more so habit now for me. I just scroll through to look at the headlines; if something catches my eye, I might have a read. Not much more to it, really.
jm – I don’t think you’re too wrong there.
“it is to manipulate public opinion in a devious manner, in my opinion.”
Well it’s not a very efficient way of going about it, is it? How many people even read the comments, let alone allow them to affect their opinion? In all my years of reading comments on this blog, I’ve only a few times seen anyone change their opinion because of what other people commented. Certainly it’s not worth employing “a few hundred payroll trolls and sockpuppets” for. People read comments so that they can confirm their existing opinions and tell people they disagree with that they are wrong.
Have to disagree with you there. I’ve seen comments saying ‘Not read the article yet, come straight to the comments’, for a start.
And whether or not it’s effective, again, I think the fact there are so many people who will reiterate the narrative put forward by the Main Stream Media is telling. No dissent is allowed in the comments on certain articles.
“I reckon the Daily Mail has a few hundred payroll trolls and sockpuppets”
=======
Why then did they do such a rotten job supporting the DM’s editorial line on the current Truss/Kwarteng budget fiasco?
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2022/09/the-tories-declare-class-war/
A nice piece of investigative journalism there, Craig.
There is nothing like evidence to make a point.
I really do not think there is any mystery about this (quite apart from the answer to the question “Cui Bono” ( which question by I understand will label me as a Russian Bot). After all, the culprit himself flagged up his intention before Putin finally swallowed NATO’s bait and sprung a well-prepared trap):
In a televised news February 7, 2022 interview the President of the United States acknowledged that the United States would act against Nord Stream if required. This statement was made 3 weeks prior to the Russian invasion:
President Joe Biden: “If Russia invades that means tanks and troops crossing the border of Ukraine again, then there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2.”
Reporter: “But how will you exactly do that, since the project is in Germany’s control?”
Biden:“We will, I promise you, we will be able to do that.” (emphasis added)
Nordsteam was a major competitor to hugely expensive US LPG. It had to be destroyed.
It’s always about money and access to scarce resources. The US is just getting rid of the competitiion and continuing its century-long quest to control all of Eurasia’s assets.
To tell you a secret, google for Russian seaport near Ust Luga (Усть-Луга)
There’s a facility there, build for liquifying Russian gas.
Now calculate, what are the chances for a clever businessman to bring expensive but democratic LPG from the US via Atlantic vs buying non-democratic but cheap Russian gas just around the corner.
I recall I read a piece of news describing a new law under consideration somewhere in a Baltic state, saying that you can make a wholly democratic gas by mixing 50ru/50us.
I want 49 ru/51 us and than we can talk ?. Where are the ships BTW.
I am pleased that Olaf Scholz arranged 1 tanker of LNG of 150 000 m3 to be delivered by the end
of the year after visiting Gulf States. TBH this NS 1 and 2 shit really worries me from energy crises points.
I can afford another 30% increase but what I fear is lack of gas/el. We learned how many products are
connected to gas that you would never thought off. Apparently even effing CO2. I better buy shares in “Bitter beer” breweries.
Tatyana Bitter is traditional English beer without CO2.
The Finns missed a trick by joining NATO. If they hadn’t, western Europe could be buying “Finnish” LNG sourced from you know who.
Finns are not joining, because Sweden is not. According to Swedish law (nobody knew about it before making loud NATO statements, can you believe?), well 2 parliaments should vote pro joining NATO during their term, so it maybe takes another 8 years. Finns were going to join the alliance only together with Sweden.
Finland and Sweden will be NATO members by Christmas.
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/national-security-daily/2022/09/22/u-s-ambassador-finland-and-sweden-in-nato-by-christmas-00058404
The above is slightly out of date as Slovakia has ratified, just waiting on Turkey and Hungary.
No chance that the newly appointed US ambassador to Finland might be 1, being a bit overoptimistic and 2, not know about the legal ramifications vis-a-vis Sweden? Or that Politico, gasp, may be being economical with the truth?
It’s possible Turkey might drag things out until next year but otherwise we shall see.
BTW to me you seem honest person with views and as Russian lady you give other side of the argument and many of us appreciate.
What I would like you to do is tell us what is missing in the shops if anything, prices going up more than normali etc.
While ago I joked about you not having French or Italian red wine.
I can imagine that spare parts are a problem and you can not comment on a such vast and specialised issue. Never the less your explanation about two different turbines involved in NS1 and NS2 was impressive to me.
Pigeon English, thanks. I shared recently my observations, just cannot find that comment at the moment. I was talking about 10-15% increase in food price.
From my today’s shopping, I noticed nothing new.
It’s ‘fish day’ today in my kitchen and I looked for a bottle of olive extra virgin oil.
You know, last time I cared about supporting people with buying their products, was COVID the beginning. There were news about Italy suffering greatly and I chose new sorts of pasta, olive oil and wine, all Italian, and I shared on Insta and FB urging my friends to do the same.
Today, when choosing the oil, I saw bottles from Spain, Italy and Greece. I thought they all are EU… So I decided this time I should refer to my personal list of Wise Men Sayings, and there was “f*ck the EU” by Ms. Nuland.
I chose a bottle of good oil from Tunisia 🙂 Never been there, my mom was, said people are friendly and the tour was exciting. So be it. Thanks, Baya, good oil, highly recommend.
I am confused. How much of EU products Russians have stored or “we ” are still selling?
My cheap Extra V olive oil ftom 4-4.50 is now 6 or 6.50 Euro. My pasta was 1.65 some months ago and now 1.99.
Talking about Extra Virgin Olive oil. Few years ago it was a scandal that Italian E V oil was Tunisian bottled in Italy and sold as Italian. I am not a Brand man so I wouldn’t care if Tunisian?.
Txs for a reply
I don’t know how much you sell to us, I don’t even know what country you’re from 🙂
Speaking of the UK, the last thing I’m sure I heard of as UK-made was the body of my cousin’s car, and she’s been driving it for over a decade now.
if we talk about food, it’s unlikely that essential products are imported here. E.g. my ‘fish day’ looked like a local farmed salmon steak. We planned to spend the rest of the fishing day in the Kamchatka restaurant, with scallops, mussels, eel, crab and maybe imported alcohol, my husband says that I should try Chivas.
live streaming. if I try to post nonsense further, I apologize to the moderators, apparently Chivas is not my drink.
Export orders for SU 35 jets cancelled because radar and other hi-tach components previously sourced from EU (and Israel) no longer available.
https://defence-blog.com/egypt-algeria-indonesia-reject-su-35-fighter-jet-deals-with-russia/
“Governments of Egypt, Algeria and Indonesia rejected the potential acquisition of Russian modern Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jets amid economic sanctions against Russia, targeting its oil industry, defense, dual-use goods and sensitive technologies, according to people familiar with the matter.”
Yeah right, that’s got to be the reason. The US government would never lean on on an independent state to stop it buying military hardware from Russia and buy it from a Western manufacturer like Lockheed Martin, would it?
well, Pigeon English, now i know we import big green mussels from New Zealand, pesto sauce from somewhere in europe, Chivas seems Irish and frankly i didn’t like it – it’s not the drink’s fault, just too strong for me. I chose local wine, anyway Chivas didn’t go well with the food.
Instead of this barbaric meal, you know, when cooked seafood looks at you from the plate – I regretted that our previously favorite place, the Czech tavern, was closed. This is where the real art of cooking delicious food from simple things is, and their beer and cheese are beyond praise.
Or maybe the SU 35 just isn’t as good as the sales brochure makes out:-
“This was highlighted in an air-to-air faceoff in 2021 arranged by the Egyptian Air Force, which operates French-built Rafale jets and had begun receiving Su-35s from Russia. The attacking Su-35’s radar was reportedly rendered useless by defensive jamming from the Rafale’s F3R’s SPECTRA electronic warfare suite — admittedly, one of the most formidable of its kind.
The Rafale proceeded to acquire and mock shoot down the Su-35, the Rafale’s RBE2-AA AESA radar undeterred by the Su-35’s L175M Khibiny self-defense jammer.”
“Chivas seems Irish and frankly i didn’t like it”
=====•
Chivas Regal is a blended malt whisky from Scotland. Not recommended with seafood!
Thanks, Cynicus
Honestly, I cannot imagine a whisky going good with seafood.
In my opinion, it must go with a fireplace and a woolen plaid, in a rainy day or a chill evening. No ice, no cola 🙂 Pork will do. Maybe mutton, or rabbit. Sour things maybe. I can imagine a slice of cheese, cream or, well, tobacco.
Seafood, however they try to pose it as a ‘real food’, spicing it with butter and pesto, frying or grilling it – is no match to whisky. Seafood needs greens and citrus, sparkling water, light wine.
My traditional regional alcohol is red wine, Isabella type. Rich in body and flavour. Goes well with poultry, pork and cheese. All sorts of grilled meat you can match with a glass of red wine and local tomatoes, salad and spice.
“Or maybe the SU 35 just isn’t as good as the sales brochure makes out:-“
Now that’s something that I can believe, but it’s not a problem unique to Russian manufacture. Just look at the F-35.
Mr. Murray, you were right in your Twitter posting, someone is definitely working to facilitate Ukrainian and Polish gas transfer.
Latest news:
“As a result of the introduction of new sanctions, on September 18, 2022, the export license of South Stream Transport B.V., the operator of the Turkish Stream offshore gas pipeline, through which Russian gas is transported through the Black Sea to consumers in Turkey and European countries, was prematurely revoked”
https://ria.ru/20220929/litsenziya-1820456574.html
“someone is definitely working”
One little thing I notice from watching the flow of the propaganda streams that surround us all. Of course, whenever something happens with Russia, it is Vlad Putin personally who is named and responsible. And of course, Joe Biden never does anything at all himself. Most often it isn’t even the USA doing it, and then that other country can at times claim their own deniability and claim its some force inside their country that, for instance, used a car bomb to blow up a journalist.
Personally, I counter this by putting Joe Biden’s name on everything that is done.
No, I don’t believe that Joe Biden is some secret mastermind behind this. I think the powers that really run things are having a good day when Joe can read his teleprompter and not drool. But, by applying the same technique equally to both sides, it makes it clearer about what is really going on.
So, it is not ‘somebody’ who is working … it is Joe Biden.
Besides, the American LNG companies are expecting to make a fortune (while the market prices Americans pay increase from increased demand on the product), and who knows exactly what energy stocks Hunter Biden’s hedge fund is currently holding, so its not very far fetched to assume that Joe can indeed put an ‘I did this!” sticker on this one.
I called him Brandon on reddit and said he blames everything on Russia. Someone called me for it and said Biden took responsibility for inflation on multiple occasions so I did little research.
“Biden blames Putin” gave 7 SEPARATE INSTANCES when Biden blamed Putin for anything from inflation to racism etc. , on Google’s first page.
“Biden takes responsibility” gave, surprise surprise, zero.
Judge for yourself
https://seapowermagazine.org/baltops-22-a-perfect-opportunity-for-research-and-resting-new-technology/
In support of BALTOPS, U.S. Navy 6th Fleet partnered with U.S. Navy research and warfare centers to bring the latest advancements in unmanned underwater vehicle mine hunting technology to the Baltic Sea to demonstrate the vehicle’s effectiveness in operational scenarios.
Experimentation was conducted off the coast of BORNHOLM, Denmark, with participants from Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific, Naval Undersea Warfare Center Newport
Poland still produces 83% of its electricity from fossil fuels placing it top in the EU. 72% of the country’s power in 2021 was from coal.
My point is that they are not dependent on Russian gas and produce a lot of coal that could be exported to Germany?.now when there is no gas.
Yeah you’re right but you omit the most important details.
1 ton of coal can be between 3 and 5 times more expensive than LAST YEAR.
I remember my mother paying for it 15 times less, around 15 years ago.
There are shortages in coal “intermediaries” or however they are called too. 30-40% out of 4000 of them are out of the business.
Even if Germany wanted to buy our coal, we do not have enough coal even for Poles.
Average household needs 3-5 tons for the winter. It’s 1800/3000-3000/5000 Euro.
I’d say, 90% of my friends work for not much more than the minimum wage. It’s little over 600 Euro. Do the math.
https://www.muratorplus.pl/biznes/wiesci-z-rynku/ceny-wegla-2022-w-polsce-w-skladach-na-swiecie-cena-tony-wegla-w-pgg-aa-2Wgb-NFp1-kFbJ.html
In good old days when I was in the Army I learned how to remove the mines and how to make a minefield or plant mines and make booby traps (many of us were killed by our mate). Now they just learn how to remove mines?. We are better society than 40 years ago.
So, at the very least, we know that the USN (and partners) have very accurate and very recently updated maps of the area. That’s at the minimum.
Also, that had say, ‘the Russians’ been working in the area to set this up, as is being suggested by the usual suspects, it would have been very hard if not impossible for them to do so undetected. Likewise if the Russians had planted any sort of underseas explosives on the pipeline which were awaiting detonation, such an exercise certainly would have detected them. Surely mine-detectors would have detected explosives already on the pipeline at that time? If not, how much did the tax-payers pay for those systems?
So, as a fan of detective stories, we can at the least say this area had an “all-clear” during the time of the exercise and whatever was done occurred in the short window after the exercise. This helps to set the time frame for when the crime occurred. That is if you believe NATO, of course. That’s the best they can say. That somehow the Russians got in there in very recent times after the exercises, somehow planted and detonated these explosives and got clean away in shallow seas surrounded by NATO countries. Wow, Boris and Natasha have gotten good! I hope Rocky and Bullwinkle are keeping up.
Personally, I feel that if you believe that, well I hear there is some new Florida swampland coming on the market soon, and I can get you in on the ground floor (after they vacuum the mud from the model home). Call the toll-free number now.
(PS … my hearts are with those trying to survive a disaster in an extreme-capitalism zone, so no offense meant to those who could not fly away on their personal planes before the storm arrived … in a country where a large part of the people say that they can not afford a $400 emergency, the government says that you are on your own for all evacuations …. thanks.)
Glenn Greenwald on the Nordstream sabotage.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIt6yxsCFQ8
andyoldlabour
Thank you! Glenn also made a point on Georgia Meloni’s speech censored by YouTube, if I’m allowed to provide the link
https://youtu.be/7qWwUUh1P_k
Italian language is easy to understand and great pleasure to listen to, English subtitles available though.
The lady was in russian social media today, with her another speech and an appealing header of the news
Good Morning,
VietnamEU!Georgia Meloni has harshly criticized French President Emmanuel Macron. She accused the French leader of bombing Libya /… /
“France continues the colonial exploitation of Africa. This country mints money in 14 countries, and also receives raw materials by forcing children to work in mines. France receives 30% of the uranium used in the country’s nuclear reactors from Niger. However, 90% of the population of Niger lives without electricity.
Don’t try to teach us, Macron! Because thanks to your policy, Africans are forced to leave their mainland. But the solution to this problem is not for Africans to move to Europe, but for Africa to get rid of Europeans. We do not accept lessons from you!”
https://pikabu.ru/story/nachalos_v_ese_utro_9506918
Previously I met news on (baroness) von der Leyen, saying ‘in case Meloni wins, in case the Italians make this choice, then EU have instruments, look at Hungary and Poland’. I find this statement a manifestation of political censorship, threats, dictatorship.
Tatyana, they are indeed threats from the EU. I listened to Meloni on a twitter thread and she was superb. Of course, as soon as a European leader starts criticising the esteblishment, then they are automatically labelled “far right”, the demonisation process has begun. Everything Meloni said about France and Macron was and is true. France still sees itself as a colonial power. As for the EU, when it comes to individual countries imposing austerity measures, which hurt the poorest in society, it is the EU behind that decision making.
https://www.redpepper.org.uk/the-trouble-with-being-both-anti-austerity-and-pro-eu/
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10162176
I am fascinated by the role of ‘democracy’ in this conflict. We are of course told that it is an epic, pay-per-view, match-up of “The Democracies” versus “The Authoritarians” for the World Wrassling Championship.
And yet, have you gotten a chance to vote on this? If a Democracy is going to go to war, should not there be a national referendum on the question?
And yet, when people do get a chance to vote on their right to self-determination, they do so under shell fire from “The Democracies”. And elsewhere, as has been the case before, when the ‘wrong’ people win an election, the response is a snarl that says “we have ways of making you comply”.
In America, I will soon get a ballot. A two-party ballot featuring a pro-war Democrat who proudly served in Iraq, versus an equally aggressive Trump supporter who openly attacks democracy in America, (except of course when she wins her own elections confirming her legitimacy to call the other similar elections into question …. confused yet?). Neither of the officially allowed candidates would stop this war, and the only possible change from the current incumbent is to go in the direction of more aggressive Democratic escalation all the way to World War III.
There is of course no referendum on the war. What do you think this is, a democracy? Get back to work!
thank you! The best ever moderation I’ve seen! From Russia with love 🙂
Over in the states, Twitter just blocked the account of a candidate for United Auto Workers President.
With the last two UAW Presidents in jail for corruption, the election is being held under a federal ‘monitor’, which is why a grass-roots worker candidate is allowed to run. However, Twitter just added their own insult to the UAW official attempts to silence this candidate trying to represent ‘rank-n-file’ workers. Twitter blocked his account, citing of course vague violations of rules.
The tweet that apparently caused the suspension included a call for ‘Equality’, and contained a video of a UAW member/worker expressing support for the rank-n-file candidate. ““Equality is a central concern of workers, as this young worker at Deere Harvester says:””
Obviously radical stuff indeed!
See https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/09/29/twit-s29.html
The UAW leadership, the ones who aren’t in prison (yet), are of course very closely connected to the US Democratic Party.
The UAW is so corrupt that General Motors and Stellantis (Fiat/Chrysler) were in court fighting a lawsuit with one giant corporation claiming the other giant corporation got an illegal benefit from conspiring with the UAW to do a better job of rigging labor contracts to the benefit of the corporation. Seriously.
The like count going down from time to time is almost certainly nothing sinister.
Twitter isn’t just running on one server. It has lots and lots and lots. And each of these servers inevitably has a different count of likes and reposts at various times. If your count is changing a lot, then every time you refresh, you will be talking to a different server.
Consider, you have two servers, A and B; both servers have you at, say, 4000 likes. A couple of people give you a thumbs up or a like or an upvote, or whatever it’s called, and they happen to be on server A when it happens, so when you refresh the page and you happen to get your page from server A, the count is at 4002. You refresh again shortly afterwards, before the syncing between A and B, and this time you get the info from B, and you see it back at 4000. When you’re talking hundreds or thousands of servers, and there’s frequent activity on your “like” or “repost” counter, then you’ll see this phenomenon more often.
Eventually the databases all get in sync and settle on the same number, which will be at least as big as the biggest one you see (assuming people eventually stop posting likes and reposts faster than the database syncing happens).
These sorts of concurrency issues are a normal issue under the hood for people who deal with concurrent systems – networked databases, big social media networks, computer programmers and even bankers. The consequences of getting them wrong when it comes to meaningful information can be calamitous (like if a bank transaction inserts itself between the two halves – taking money out of your account and putting it in a remote bank account – of another bank transaction on the same account – or having two computer programs try to write to the same piece of memory at the same time) that’s it’s surprising these systems are engineered well enough that only a minority of folks know about them.
Here, the concurrency issue is just a cosmetic one (your like count sometimes counterintuitively goes ‘down’; the counter is never able to show you the *total* count because no computer at the other end knows it, yet), so there’s no harm done, except to spur on a bit more conspiratorial thinking than is generally warranted.
I’m sure there are shady things going on at twitter, but manipulating counters in this way isn’t going to be one of them. If twitter wants to manipulate those counters, they can trivially do it in a way that won’t be apparent to the general public.