When The Elephants Scuffle...

The NY Times takes a long look at Facebook and won't be getting many likes from that quarter. Oliver Roeder of Vox has a nice summary:

Facebook seems to materialize in this column an awful lot. But when a service has “connected” more than 2.2 billion people, I suppose that makes sense. The New York Times published a deep dive into the company, based on interviews with “more than 50 people,” many of whom are anonymous. We learn, for example, that the company hired a Republican opposition-research group to discredit protesters by linking them to George Soros, and that it lobbied a Jewish civil rights group to label criticism of Facebook as anti-Semitic. Just normal, cool, I-started-a-company-in-my-Harvard-dorm-room stuff.

One of the mice that got trampled as the elephants battled is the Republican oppo-research firm Definers Public Affairs, which lost Facebook as a client amidst the hue and cry. Facebok's position: senior execs knew nothing and anyway, the media knew full well that DPA had Facebook as a client:

Late Wednesday, Facebook decided to terminate its relationship with Definers after the publication of the Times article prompted an outcry, said a person familiar with the matter, who was not authorized to speak publicly. Top Facebook executives including Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg were not aware of the specific work being done by Definers, the person said.

In a statement, Facebook said it had not hidden its ties to Definers and disputed that it had asked the firm to spread false information.

“It is wrong to suggest that we have ever asked Definers to pay for or write articles on Facebook’s behalf, or communicate anything untrue,” a Facebook spokeswoman said in the statement.

“The relationship with Facebook was well known by the media — not least because they have on several occasions sent out invitations to hundreds of journalists about important press calls on our behalf,” the spokeswoman added.

Well. We wouldn't expect Facebook to stand up to a left-wing mob. With a different alignment of politics and players the Times follow-up headline would be "Republicans Kvetch About Business As Usual".

Just for example, the Times also included this detail in their original expose (with a picture of the offending poster):

By then, some of the harshest criticism of Facebook was coming from the political left, where activists and policy experts had begun calling for the company to be broken up.

In July, organizers with a coalition called Freedom from Facebook crashed a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee, where a company executive was testifying about its policies. As the executive spoke, the organizers held aloft signs depicting Ms. Sandberg and Mr. Zuckerberg, who are both Jewish, as two heads of an octopus stretching around the globe.

Eddie Vale, a Democratic public relations strategist who led the protest, later said the image was meant to evoke old cartoons of Standard Oil, the Gilded Age monopoly. But a Facebook official quickly called the Anti-Defamation League, a leading Jewish civil rights organization, to flag the sign. Facebook and other tech companies had partnered with the civil rights group since late 2017 on an initiative to combat anti-Semitism and hate speech online.

That afternoon, the A.D.L. issued a warning from its Twitter account.

“Depicting Jews as an octopus encircling the globe is a classic anti-Semitic trope,” the organization wrote. “Protest Facebook — or anyone — all you want, but pick a different image.” The criticism was soon echoed in conservative outlets including The Washington Free Beacon, which has sought to tie Freedom from Facebook to what the publication calls “extreme anti-Israel groups.”

Hey, maybe the posters were meant to be anti-Semitic. Or maybe not! But it was lefties, so no biggie.

Comments

[Porchlight]

Yay

[Pinandpuller]

Neo

Yes, so technically I went to school with Jason Bourne.

[Jane]

Can't click on your name without a post.

[Pinandpuller]

If you guys have a hard heart and are feeling mean look up Chuck Schumer+Austin Powers.

[henry]

Thanks jack... alas no cable here at the office.

[hrtshpdbox]

Rush was talking about how there will be no wall now (for the next two years) because the House went Dem. Why can't he say that the military is there to protect the country and task the Army Corps of Engineers to build it? Sure, the Dems would howl, and that's just another reason that Trump should want to do it.

[Jane]

Now check

[daddy]

Test on Safari

[Captain Hate]

Test

[Thomas Collins]

Testing whether I am able to sign in from Typepad. Looks as if I am able to.

[daddy]

Test on Firefox

[Jane]

Is the third time the charm?

[henry]

hi kiwi!

[Captain Hate]

For whatever reason, a c&p from Ewokville, slattering dumbass S. E. Cupp, has been rejected 4 times.

[daddy]

How do you make a picture not be sideways?

[daddy]

Guess I'll go Egyptian:(

[henry]

fun with DNA... they can predict things like IQ, or mental illness now. (no Bell Curve type revelations in the article, racial differences completely avoided).

https://twitter.com/WSJ/status/1063155953527414790

[henry]

How do you make a picture not be sideways?

I don't know.

[henry]

oops.

[henry]

Great, an unelected committee for public safety. What is wrong with free speech?

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Thursday said the company will establish an independent body to oversee user appeals of content removal, one day after a bombshell report that detailed how the company avoided and deflected blame in the public conversation around its handling of Russian interference and other misuses of its social network.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/15/facebook-creating-independent-body-for-content-removal-appeals.html?__source=twitter%7Cmain

[Marlene]

Kiwi!

[Old Lurker]

Hi Kiwi!

[Porchlight]

Nonsense, henry. IQ doesn't exist. Leftists told me so.

[Old Lurker]

Henry "committee for public safety"

Are they working of the original French text I guess?

[Jack is Back!]

dadddy,

Edit the original photo in Preview or Photo if you are on an IOS device. Don't know how you do it on a PC.

[Jack is Back!]

henry,

Mean't to not to you that my Avatar is the design for a 5G processor chip:)

I thought it would speed up my posting but it doesn't.

[henry]

the original French text

that or Animal Farm

[glenda]

Test of new sign-in

Catching up is impossible, but I’m trying😉
Hope all are well !

[Jack is Back!]

There is only one word to describe her: Bitch.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/kamala-harris-draws-parallel-between-ice-and-kkk

[Buford Gooch]

Posting with avatar pics is getting to be more fun.

[MAM]

Test

[Captain Hate]

I don't know if anyone's talked about this but I think Cocaine Mitch, aka Gamera, and Grassley may have pulled off a masterful move. In the last session of the Senate, Ol' Yeller was livid that Chuck had introduced a Mueller protection bill; saying it was obviously unconstitutional and very unlike Grassley to do something like that. Then it just disappeared in committee without being voted and I thought "hmmmmm".

Speed forward to yesterday when grandstanding Flake decides to make a pest of himself on the way out the door and reintroduce it only to have the War Turtle use Senate rules where he can block it all by himself. I'm liking this unprecedented GOP smart strategy.

[daddy]

Just got a message that FireFox wants access to my calendar? Denied.

Why would they want that?

[Buford Gooch]

Did I get a pic this time?

[Rocco]

Maybe you could copy this and change the name before you upload it to your typepad profile.

[Rocco]

Oops...and hi Kiwi

[daddy]

Hi Kiwi!

.

[Rocco]

MAM, what a handsome Sox FAN!

[Rocco]

Baby's up, gotta run...cya tonight.

[Old Lurker]

Kiwi is a CAT????

[Jack is Back!]

How the hell could Rocco know that kid was a Sox fan?

[mike in houston]

test

[MissMarple2]

Henry,

I got to edit profile but exactly WHAT do you do to get a picture uploaded?

[Manuel Transmission]

rse, if you get signed in,

Wanted to relay to you that you have been a great help in keeping our DIL focused on our GD's education. She started Montessouri at 22 mo. and now has entered 1st grade in a system that Montessori is running within the local public school system in CO. They were initially excited about this, but it's turning sour pretty rapidly. The teacher is mostly blowing smoke on the activities and GD was taken out for a week due to some scheduling conflicts and DIL managed to get a week's lesson plan for the effort. GD ran through the week's work in 1.5 hrs.

So some combination of home schooling is on the horizon. However, DIL started to check out the acedemies that she could use for math, etc. and discovered that Ascent Classical Academy, which is apparently part of Hillsdale, is for the first time allowing a mid-year transfer, if she can get accepted. The fact that her current school is now part of the Douglas County District, there is a high probability she can get in. Fingers crossed.

[boatbuilder]

Neo:WSJ: Special Counsel Robert Mueller's office is exploring whether longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone tried to intimidate and discredit a witness who is contradicting Mr. Stone's version of events about his contacts with WikiLeaks,

"Intimidating" and "discrediting"--like by saying: "Stop lying about me you bastard I have your texts."?

[henry]

MissM, there is a box for a picture on the left. under that is a "select picture" button.

press the button, then search your device for the picture you want, and bingo it will be there (possibly sideways). Then press save changes.

[James D.]

Hi, y’all.

I went to the ER yesterday with abdominal pain and severe nausea. They smites me once they saw my blood work which indicated pancreatitis.

They are pretty sure it was caused by a gall stone gett By intontgr pancreas and inflaming it. I will hopefully go home tomorrow, and then in a month or so come back to have my gall bladder out.

Hope everone’s been behaving in my absence!

[daddy]

Rocco, that one goes sideways for me also.

Too hard! I need a drink.

[hrtshpdbox]

Boat, I'll bet Credico is exactly the witness Mueller means, and that Stone is trying to get Mueller to back off by going public with it. Unless Mueller really and truly believes that something somewhere somehow ties into Trump, he's being an awful PITA by messing around with fringe wackos.

[Old Lurker]

James I like it better when you are CAUSING stomach aches, not suffering from them.

Take care of yourself.

[MissMarple2]

James D.,

Oh, gosh! Hope you feel better.

I find that 2 fingers of gin is wonderfully helpful.

[lyle]

Test

[lyle]

Well, glory be!

[boatbuilder]

I suppose that this Credico guy was as intimidated and discredited as the lefty protesters that Vox is all hot and bothered about:
We learn, for example, that the company hired a Republican opposition-research group to discredit protesters by linking them to George Soros,

Were they actually connected to Soros? I suppose that is prima facie discrediting, but I thought Soros was a great guy and if you say anything bad about him it's anti-semitism. Leftism is very confusing.

[Rocco]

He laid back down...he's about 15 months now but a few months ago the doc said he's one of the most active 1 year olds she's seen and he wears me out rough housing.

Jib, MAM's profile says Massachusetts so I just assumed? I also assumed he was a boy and hope that's right. My daughter just told me Bennett's getting a haircut this weekend because a stranger called him a she. (even though he was wearing blue with work boots on she stressed, lol) It's the mullet getting a bit long in the back but he's awesome!

And Glenda has a cute pup too, another little one!

[MAM]

Rocco - thanks! That's my grandson Charlie who is a big Red Sox Fan:-)

[lyle]

Stephanie, bountyhunter dot com has great wine gift boxes in all price ranges. If you use them and are feeling in the holiday spirit, don’t forget your good bud lyle. Hint, hint. 😎

[Rocco]

Sorry daddy...now I really have to go.

[Extraneus]

Lotta Labs in this place.

[boatbuilder]

Yeah, box, Credico seems to be exactly who the WSJ article is talking about.

Any bets on whether Mueller indicts Credico? (Correct answer--no way.)

I am afraid I see eye to eye with the eye doctor on this one.

[MissMarple2]

Testing to see if avatar shows up. If it does, I am the cowgirl to the left in the picture.

I had the COMPLETE outfit, even the boots! I was Annie Oakley in our kindergarten spring production, orgabized by Mrs. Turner, our kindergarten teacher and a frustrated Cecil B. DeMille.

The woman is my mother. The other cowgirl is my sister the retired schoolteacher, and the toddler in the back is my dem sister.

[MAM]

Rocco and JIB - we do live in Massachusetts. I'm originally from Vermont. If my grandchildren weren't here, we'd move out of this crazy state. Today, I had a student tell me that the Russians manipulated the voting machines in PA and Michigan, changed thousands of ballots and stole the 2016 election for Trump. His Political Science professor is writing a book on the subject. Pitiful.

[clarice]

James D, the gallbladder operation is easy these days. Just remember to check yourself out fast when they are done.

[Jack is Back!]

Mueller seems to be investigating everything except Russians. I want to make the left, and Dems howl. I want Matt Whitaker to take one high, over the middle, and restrict Mueller to his original remit. That's what tight ends do:)

[Porchlight]

Wow, JOM has a real old days feel to it now that we're all signed in.

To our friends and lurkers, I hope you will consider creating an account. It's only the trolls we want to exclude.

Narciso commented earlier on FB that he was having trouble signing in....

[boatbuilder]

test

[boatbuilder]

Wow-not only did I put the photo in my avatar, Typepad went back in time and put it on all my earlier posts.

[RattlerGator]

I'm halfway tripping off of y'all responding to this Typepad account stuff. I was reading earlier today and trying to figure out what the big deal was, why the thanks to TM, what the hell is going on, etc.

[MJW]

For those, like Miss Marple, who had to modify their user names to register with typepad, if you prefer a different name appear on your comments, you can change the Display Name in you profile.

[Jack is Back!]

I think she needs new glasses. OUCH!

[clarice]

We had an insurmountable troll infestation and so now posters need to register so it will be easier to keep the place fumigated, RG

[MissMarple2]

MJW,

I couldn't get in with the Typepad log in, so I used the Twitter option. MissMarple2 is my name on Twitter. so I just decided to keep it.

[Stephanie Nene Not Your Normal Granma]

Lyle, that domain name takes me to an unregistered domain.

And if I try to put it in here, it doesn't post the comment. Weird,

[Jack is Back!]

RG,

If don't have one, you now need to sign in with a Typepad account. Avatars are optional. Idea is to keep the sewer rat in his element and not in ours.

You could call it censorship but TM owns the blog, and the broadband. We are only guests. By the way, from now on, its BYOB. What are you drinking? On the ledge its vodka martinis, extra olives:)

[Captain Hate]

Best wishes, James.

[MissMarple2]

The artwork at the US ambassador’s residence here in Switzerland 🇨🇭 pic.twitter.com/8m4xbkTQDu

— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) November 13, 2018

Photo at the link. Many replies are asking where they can buy a reproduction! HA!

[Jack is Back!]

MM,

That is exactly the problem with twitter. For every positive tweet like Darcy's there are hundreds, if not thousands of prog/FULL COMMIE comments. Never see complimentary ones.

I think Twitter is strictly a infestation of treasonable left wingers. I have no idea why Trump still wants to use it. Even his tweets are full of un-American, crazy batchit comments.

[Pinandpuller]

Hope everone’s been behaving in my absence!

Posted by: James D. | November 15, 2018 at 03:45 PM

Hope you feel better. Did you have to queue up behind a bunch of illegal Canadians or what?

[DrJ]

RG,

You were able to post above, so presumably you signed in with a Twitter, Facebook or other account. You are good to go, and there's no need to futz with Typepad.

[Porchlight]

Hi James D, so glad it wasn't anything more serious, although that is scary enough.

Strangely enough, one of my coworkers is in the hospital with pancreatitis right now.

[Jack is Back!]

jamesD,

Sorry, to be so late to give you my prayers for a speedy resolution.

Funny story. I had an associate who had a kidney stone, and we was getting treatment to shrink it, and eventual pass it. So, he walked around the office in a suit with a mini strainer tucked into his suit's lapel pocket:)

[Pinandpuller]

My daughter just told me Bennett's getting a haircut this weekend because a stranger called him a she.

Posted by: Rocco | November 15, 2018 at 03:52 PM

So there are some normal people left?

My son gave his baby sister a haircut and there was no saving it so we got her ears pierced. Then one of her baby incisors was flawed so she got a silver tooth. I almost had to spring for a quinceañera.

[Neo]

Judge Timothy J. Kelly heard nearly two hours of oral arguments about CNN's request for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction on Wednesday. Then he said court would reconvene Thursday at 3 p.m.
But on Thursday afternoon, he rescheduled the next hearing for Friday at 10 a.m.

[Porchlight]

I want to spend about $100 on a Christmas present of wine for my bro and SIL... so any suggestions for a winery from which I can select some bottles to give them?

Stephanie, depending on where they live, this may not be possible, as not all states allow shipped alcohol. TX is one of them.

I've used wine clubs before for gifting and the quality has generally not been great. A lot of the money goes to advertising and not your wine.

If you have a good wine shop in your area, ask if they ship. My dad used to have his CT wine guy ship me a case every year for my birthday (unmarked of course).

[Neo]

CNN: Bill Nelson needs a miracle in Florida. It likely won't come.

[lyle]

Good luck, James D.

Stephanie, try bountyhunterwine dot com.

[Marlene]

Hope you feel better soon,James!

[Pinandpuller]

JiB

I had an ex that put me thru hell but the one time I almost felt sorry for her was at a 'Sliding Scale' Community Health Center dentist. This guy was more like Community Service, no lie. He went to numb her and he was shaking like Michael J Fox.

I don't really know what happened to either one of them but I will always have that memory.

[MissMarple2]

Jack,

President Trump uses Twitter for 2 reasons:

1. He is on the record for what he thinks and it gets promulgated by people like me.

2. The ledt goes nuts and attacks him, raising his opinion's profile and showing how nuts they are.

When he finds it counterproductive, I imagine he will go to GAV or some other site.

People like me don't read the replies to his comments. I read them occasionally to block a bunch of lefties.

[Stephanie Nene Not Your Normal Granma]

They are in Sarasota. It will ship there, but probably will have to go through the Opa Locka post office and will come complete with absentee ballots. :)

[MissMarple2]

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/11/15/president-trump-and-first-lady-melania-visit-marine-barracks-washington/

Two videos at this link.

[Porchlight]

Lol, Stephanie.

Hope little grandbaby P is doing well!

[lyle]

I just tried that one, Steph, and it works.

I’m crushed that no one has remarked upon my avatar. 😎 That’s Jazzy at six months. She’s a super sweet girl and starts my mornings by jumping up on the bed and cuddling while the missus showers.

[Old Lurker]

Steph, you could just send me the $100 and I will promise to mail them a very nice note.

[Old Lurker]

It is hard to see, Lyle.

[lyle]

So is yours, OL. 😬

[Old Lurker]

Let's all start complaining to TM about getting bigger avatars!

:-)

[Porchlight]

Stephanie, this wine shop in Sarasota looks great, and it has a wine club.

I bet if you called them and told them what you'd like to arrange, they could deliver to your bro and SIL.

https://www.michaelswinecellar.com/

[Extraneus]

Graham says Whitaker assured him on fate of Mueller probe

[Sen.] Graham met with Whitaker Thursday afternoon in his Russell Building office and says the man President Trump tapped to replace ousted Attorney General Jeff Sessions says he doesn’t see anything wrong with Mueller’s probe.

“As to the Mueller investigation, I’m confident that it is not in jeopardy,” Graham said after meeting with Whitaker.

Graham said that Whitaker assured him that he doesn’t think that Mueller’s probe has breached any Justice Department guidelines.

“There’s no reason to fire him. I asked him, ‘Do you have any reason to [fire] Mr. Mueller? He said he has zero reason to believe anything is being done wrong with the Mueller investigation,” Graham said, recounting the conversation.