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An interesting assesment of how a failing state almost makes privatisation inevitable. But at the cost of not servicing the majority of the country’s population, and only catering to those who can pay for all services. Pay to win in reality.

Crazy story.

CNN right now saying Trump is done for because he said Mar-A-Lago was worth 500 million when it's actually worth 300 million. You're donzo Drumpf.

X/Twitter scraps feature letting users report misleading information

Critics say decision by Elon Musk-owned company is ‘extremely concerning’ ahead of Australia’s Indigenous voice to parliament referendum

Josh Taylor @joshgnosis

Tue 26 Sep 2023 23.34 EDT

X, the company formerly known as Twitter, has removed the ability for people to report a tweet for containing misleading information just weeks before a referendum on an Indigenous voice to parliament in Australia.

Since 2021, users on X in countries including the US, Australia and South Korea had been able to flag tweets that they believed contained misleading information for review by staff at the company – separate to other processes the company has in place to report abuse or hate speech.

The feature had been available in the US, Australia and South Korea since August 2021 and was expanded to Brazil, the Philippines and Spain in early 2022, with the administration of the company at the time noting the importance of such a tool during elections. However, this tool has now been removed from those markets in the past week or two, according to digital platforms critic group Reset Australia.

In an open letter published on Wednesday, Reset Australia said it was “extremely concerning” that it was removed just weeks out from the referendum on an Indigenous voice to parliament and was at “a disastrous point in time for Australia’s electoral integrity” if the tool had been removed deliberately.

X was contacted for comment and, in an auto-reply, said: “Busy now. Please check back later.”

The site’s owner, Elon Musk, made pushing against censoring content on platforms a key plank in his reason for taking over Twitter.

Correspondence between the Australian Electoral Commission and X obtained by Guardian Australia last week revealed frustration within thecommission about X’s failure to act to remove posts inciting violence against its staff and promoting disinformation about the electoral process.

The AEC commissioner, Tom Rogers, said veiled threats against staff made on social media platforms had been difficult to remove regardless of which platform they were on.

A spokesperson for the AEC said the commission had its own avenue to refer content to X.

“There is an avenue that still exists for the AEC to refer content to X, and we utilise it,” the spokesperson said. “However, we have a high threshold for matters we report to social media platforms and are realistic about it.

“The AEC understands the responsiveness of the AEC on the platform is always going to be swifter and likely more effective in countering incorrect claims regarding the electoral process than the actions of platforms.”

The spokesperson said there had been a shift in responsiveness from social media platforms in the past year, not just X.

“There are matters pertaining to what we would consider inciting violence, or veiled threats, that we believe should be actioned. This sometimes occurs but has not always been the case.”

In a report to the digital platforms lobby group Digi on its compliance with the voluntary industry misinformation and disinformation code in May, Twitter pointed to its community notes feature – where users could fact check a tweet and, if enough users approved it, it was added to the tweet as additional context – as how the platform was combatting misinformation.

“We know that misleading information is complex, evolving, and sometimes cloaked behind questions or opinions,” the company said. “To ensure that people are better informed on Twitter we launched Community Notes, our approach to offering context and surfacing credible information.

“As Community Notes rapidly evolve on platform, within Twitter, and in public, this product presents a profound shift for our company and people who use our service.

“It is a priority area of development, grounded in more than a decade and half of Twitter, the platform and content moderation experiments, policies, and products. It is also grounded in ongoing research, evaluation and consultation.”

The change comes as the federal governmentfaces pressure from the opposition to scrap a draft bill that would grant the Australian Communications and Media Authority (Acma) powers to enforce the code on the platforms.

The Metro Police Authority of Genesee County is looking for the driver of a dark-colored Chevrolet HHR that hit five people Tuesday on the United Auto Workers picket line outside of General Motors Co.'s Flint Processing Center in Swartz Creek, Police Chief Matthew Bade said Tuesday.

Officers were called to the plant on Bristol Road about 4 p.m. after a driver who was leaving the facility struck the five individuals when trying to leave and then drove off. Only minor injuries were reported at the scene.

The incident is now being investigated as a hit-and-run, Bade said. "The driver left the area and we're working to identify that person now," he said.

Officer Mark Dial had been charged with murder, voluntary manslaughter and five other counts stemming from the August 14 shooting in Philadelphia. The case was notable in that police initially told reporters Irizarry “lunged at the officers” while outside his vehicle, only to later admit that video disproved that assertion.

Total lies. They shot a man who was conforming to police orders while sitting in the front of his car.

Dismissed because the officers allegedly thought the knife in the guys waistband was a gun.

Link to the article

Transcript: https://kawsachunnews.com/nicaragua-at-the-78th-general-assembly-speech

Best part, middle section:

Nicaragua, with the dignity and heroism of our Struggles, Races, Peoples, Cultures, of Living Well demands this closure and we also join the demand of all the Peoples and countries that have spoken from this place to denounce the aggressive, > interventionist, arbitrary, unjust policies, whose coercive, unilateral measures are not only illegal and illegitimate, but constitute a destabilizing, destructive warlike modality, imposing changes of governments, through coups d’état, attempts to bring > about coups and acts of vandalism known these days as “color revolutions”, causing grief to so many families among so many Peoples.

We stand in permanent solidarity with the Peoples and countries that experience this uncivilized barbarism, which indeed repeat the waves and echoes of the imperialist, colonialist, fascist models, which have caused the death of millions of human beings, > imposing regimes of terror and deprivation, with shameful tides and unprecedented tsunamis of migration. These tragedies trace the desperation of injustice, and the neo-colonial pretense to silence, dominate and exclude, so as to continue plundering the > wealth of the world’s Peoples.

Entire countries have been destroyed, in this brutal scorched earth policy, which seeks to satisfy the beastly appetites of the Earth’s imperialists… Entire countries have been occupied, and their peoples sacrificed and massacred, via the same atrocious > policies and actions, violating all Rights, which reinforce what we know and denounce again here, as hate crimes.

Our permanent and combative Solidarity with the Palestinian People; the Syrian People; the Saharawi People; the Eritrean People; the People in all those place they have wanted to create fascist and neo-Nazi enclaves. Our permanent and combative > Solidarity to all the Peoples in struggle in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. We are Peoples and Countries that resist and fight the blockades, the economic warfare, the systematic and permanent intervention in the Social, Cultural, Economic and > Political Life of all our institutions… As we see, more and more violations of all Rights!

Our combative Solidarity with the People of Cuba… of Martí, of Fidel, of Raúl, of Miguel Díaz-Canel, over 62 years of murderous blockade… Our combative Solidarity with the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela where Chávez lives on, the struggle goes on, and where Nicolás has defeated all destructive attempts…

Our combative Solidarity with the Peoples and Governments of our Central American region that do not weaken in the struggle for Security, for Peace, so as to confront and conquer, the hell of Poverty. With Honduras, and its brave President Xiomara Castro; Honduras, our fraternal neighbor, where Morazán and Sandino prevail, our family, fraternal embrace always in Solidarity.

Our combative Solidarity with Bolivia, the great People of Túpac Katari, who are moving onward amidst the same threats as always… With the People of Argentina and their sovereign Right over the Malvinas Islands… With Puerto Rico, brave and unstoppable in their just struggle for Independence…

Our strength is with the People’s Republic of China, the power that today shows the World and the human family how Solidarity, respectful Cooperation, generous brother and sisterhood is practiced and lived, between older brothers and sisters, younger brothers and sisters, but all as one big family with a “common destiny”, such that we fight to overcome the actions of dispossession and economic stagnation and poverty, imposed on so many people.

Our active and combative Solidarity with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, in its historical battles for Sovereignty and Rights…

To the People of Belarus, always dignified and in solidarity, our respect and recognition…

Our solidarity and combative force with the heroic struggles waged by the Russian Federation, for Peace and Security, for a World that we must all defend from the growing threats of Empires, and their neo-Nazi policies, their fascist emblems and contents, which intend to return us to the unwonted perversion of expansionist and wars of domination, which have left millions of dead and families destroyed all over the world. Our support for the Russian Federation is an unwavering support and an inescapable human alliance, for Security, Dialogue and Harmony, essential, irreplaceable, for the human community.

Our Solidarity and accompaniment with the Islamic Republic of Iran, another example of sharing and coexisting with Peoples ravaged by imperial greed. Despite the incessant, excessive and infernal arrogance of those who think they are superior, we reaffirm it: They do not separate us and together we travel along paths of Courage and Dignity.

Whoopsy daisy, did celebrating a Waffen SS veteran get in the way of heckin NATO solidarity?!?!

Today, in the liberal media..