What I've learnt on the Twitter this year:
1. The State of Hawaii makes Jason Kenney honorary Premier.
2. Rod Phillips and John Tory say Rod nodded off on a TTC streetcar and somehow ended up in St Barts.
3. New Conservative Task Force created to locate their MPs and staff.
6. Doug Ford announces that a large order of McDonald's fries and a box of Philadelphia Cream Cheese will also be awarded the Order of Ontario this year.
8. UCP MLA Jeremy Nixon says he only travelled to Hawaii to personally forward a really funny email joke to Allard
10. Doug Ford sent Jason Kenney a Thank You card.
12. The Toronto Sun covers its eyes, counts to 30 and pretends Justin Trudeau is hiding.
14. With dozens and dozens dying in LTCs, Caroline Mulroney travels to 1986 and urges us all to buckle up.
16. Jason Kenney appears at his New Year's Day press conference wearing a "I ❤️ Maui" hoodie.
19. Zoom Inc reports huge surge in green screen background use in 2020, saying uptick rates concentrated in cities with provincial legislatures.
21. Doug was most upset about Phillips's pandemic jet-setting because Rod was expected at the Ford Extended Family Christmas dinner and Secret Santa swap.
23. In 2035, millions of adults who were kids in 2020 will think back fondly on memories of Nana and Papa's foreheads and stippled ceilings.
24. 2020: The year of the Glory Hole. Oh, and Doug Ford's food orgasm.
Clearly, I'd make a lousy politician.
https://t.co/dyf6FfHVL8
More from Twitter
So regarding to my "bombshell"...it's perhaps a bit less dramatic than many presumed, yet it still troubles me a lot, to the point that I wondered whether I should stop posting on certain things
You see, I realized in the last few months that, by translating information and news related to one of the fastest growing spaceflight powers of the world...I inadvertently became a spreader of PRC propaganda.
And with me exactly 180 degrees away from them, I feel scared.
It actually started a few years ago - it's not hard to meet Chinese Twitter users interested in spaceflight, either those living overseas or find a way to climb over the wall. Not surprisingly, many of these S/F enthusiasts are interested in their own military too.
This steadily grew with my followers' count until the flagship Chinese spaceflight missions of 2020 (Chang'e 5 especially but also many others) brought in dozens of them liking/re-tweeting my info tweets sometimes, and similar no. of such followers every month.
I do casually check these new followers/users sometimes. To my horror, far too many of them routinely insults, attacks, mocks others who they see as "anti-China" or spread potential mis-information, even blatant attacks, that started off w/ their state media/spokesperson.
I'm going to make a bomb shell statement here around the turn of the year, something so risky that I face prospects of the Twitter account being attacked or even banned.
— Cosmic Penguin (@Cosmic_Penguin) December 31, 2020
It's about my very uneasy Twitter experience over the past 2-6 months, the worst I could ever remember.
You see, I realized in the last few months that, by translating information and news related to one of the fastest growing spaceflight powers of the world...I inadvertently became a spreader of PRC propaganda.
And with me exactly 180 degrees away from them, I feel scared.
It actually started a few years ago - it's not hard to meet Chinese Twitter users interested in spaceflight, either those living overseas or find a way to climb over the wall. Not surprisingly, many of these S/F enthusiasts are interested in their own military too.
This steadily grew with my followers' count until the flagship Chinese spaceflight missions of 2020 (Chang'e 5 especially but also many others) brought in dozens of them liking/re-tweeting my info tweets sometimes, and similar no. of such followers every month.
I do casually check these new followers/users sometimes. To my horror, far too many of them routinely insults, attacks, mocks others who they see as "anti-China" or spread potential mis-information, even blatant attacks, that started off w/ their state media/spokesperson.
The twitter ban on 45 is a victory in some sense for the immediate but a warning in the long term, not on the curtail of free speech but as gesture towards the expansive power commercial tech has on every aspect of our governance and our lives, I don’t quite have the words but-
What I’m trying to get at, is not just that Twitter’s decision allows us to see—in ways that have been obscured—how much control they have over content moderation—
but as @Elinor_Carmi points out “platforms don’t just moderate or filter “content”; they alter what registers to us and our social groups as “social” or as “experience.” https://t.co/GSByAOoDWg changed
I’m worried that the celebration of Twitter’s intervention on fascist rhetoric-however too little and too late- directs us to desire tech companies enforcement of liberal and democratic procedures rather than towards an investigation of
how they’ve developed computational infrastructures which exceed the power of the nation state, are hollowing out our institutions for frictionless (see removing human contact) optimization and are insufficiently described by neoliberalism
What I’m trying to get at, is not just that Twitter’s decision allows us to see—in ways that have been obscured—how much control they have over content moderation—
but as @Elinor_Carmi points out “platforms don’t just moderate or filter “content”; they alter what registers to us and our social groups as “social” or as “experience.” https://t.co/GSByAOoDWg changed
I’m worried that the celebration of Twitter’s intervention on fascist rhetoric-however too little and too late- directs us to desire tech companies enforcement of liberal and democratic procedures rather than towards an investigation of
how they’ve developed computational infrastructures which exceed the power of the nation state, are hollowing out our institutions for frictionless (see removing human contact) optimization and are insufficiently described by neoliberalism
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5 webinars/conclaves since May 2020 and over 100 stock ideas shared. Still not enough :)
Twitter should be like that airport shuttle service, the moment you walk out (start following someone) - there should be a chauffeur (new stock idea) ready to drive you to your destination!
[Free CDMO Masterclass #18] https://t.co/208eQbYKEF
[Free Art of Investing] https://t.co/bHvUqnpiTE
[Paid IIC Dec 2020 on SeQuent] https://t.co/3iDO438Et9
[Charity fund raise on Unseen Trends in Biotechnology] https://t.co/eNi1x1qwhH
[Q&A on APIs]
Twitter should be like that airport shuttle service, the moment you walk out (start following someone) - there should be a chauffeur (new stock idea) ready to drive you to your destination!
[Free CDMO Masterclass #18] https://t.co/208eQbYKEF
[Free Art of Investing] https://t.co/bHvUqnpiTE
[Paid IIC Dec 2020 on SeQuent] https://t.co/3iDO438Et9
[Charity fund raise on Unseen Trends in Biotechnology] https://t.co/eNi1x1qwhH
[Q&A on APIs]