“Unsafe” at any speed
[NOTE: The title of this post is a riff on a 1965 Ralph Nader book about auto safety.]
You’ve probably noticed the prominence of the words “unsafe” and “safety” in the working lexicon of the woke youngsters who now have gained outsize power in the world, through influential positions at Twitter and other media companies, government, education, and what passes for journalism these days. But when Yoel Roth, for example, speaks about it, what does he mean?
First, see this video from Glenn Greenwald featuring Roth and a discussion about him:
It seems that Roth’s entire working career has been involved with defining what words are “unsafe” to special interests groups, targeting those words, and censoring them. He seems to think that his personal opinions on this, forged in the atmosphere of the modern “woke” university and shared by so many of its denizens and graduates, are some sort of universal truth. Once given the power – and he was given a great great deal of power – he sought to put his virtue into operation.
Ban a president of the US? No problem. After all, on day one of that president’s term, Roth already knew he was an ACTUAL NAZI. There’s no way to read Roth’s old tweets and think he could maintain any type of objectivity or neutrality in making decisions; he was the most lefist of partisans. And yet he was hired to be the censor (head of “Trust and Safety”) for Twitter. It is truly mindboggling.
What happens at the university does not stay at the university. It goes on to deeply affect the rest of the world, as its graduates fan out into various jobs and apply their woke standards to the rest of us, sometimes clandestinely. To put someone as young as Roth in such a position of power is ridiculous, too, but it happens all the time these days. And make no mistake about it – Roth didn’t do this by himself at Twitter, either. He had plenty of willing help.
And what do Roth and the others mean by “unsafe”? Something is “unsafe” if it makes them or anyone in one of their favored groups feel bad. Note the elevation of mere words, another hallmark of the young and the left. And yes, of course words can led to violent actions on occasion. But it’s the actions that are the problem, not the words, and in a society concerned with preserving liberty – as ours used to be, but increasingly is not – the words are protected.
Seems that these days, every woke ORG needs its SBF….
Criticism or disagreement are labeled “unsafe” to what are really a bunch of spoiled babies who never grew up.
They’re just evil. They don’t really believe this BS. Its an act to spread perversion.
If the election was not 100% Free and Fair, then it was partly unfair, so it WAS unfair.
Censoring the truth about Hunter Biden’s laptop was unfair.
It was an unfair election – it was a stolen election.
EVERY time Trump said this, he was saying the truth. Now proven to be true.
The 2022 red wave was a puddle because:
so many GOPe, like Bill Barr, (and even some lukewarm Trump supporters), were unwilling to call out that the 2020 election was unfair – thus stolen, saying some form of “we don’t want to call into question the election process”.
All of them are wrong; all Americans who want freedom should be demanding 100% Free and Fair elections, and voting for Reps who call for that.
“election denier” is an acoustically excellent smear. Better, tho less accurate, than:
“fraud enabler”,
“rigged election supporter”,
“truth censor”…
Tho a good label would be very helpful.
Facebook and Google are certain to have Roth – like folk, as well as ex-FBI Deep State free agents.
Unfortunately for Trump – there is nothing in the Constitution about what to do after an election is wrongly certified because it was stolen. He makes a very lousy victim.
“Language is a convenience of the heart, not something to bludgeon people with.” — Jim Harrison, Revenge
People who feel unsafe because of words spoken to them really need to grow a pair. I say that metaphorically, so as to be inclusive of the ladies present.
Twitter was a *publicly traded company* prior to its purchase by Elon Musk. Is it possible to believe that Yoel Roth’s decisions were made with a primary focus on the best interests of the shareholders?
What would Twitter have been worth if it had been better-managed and employee-ideologues had been kept on an appropriate leash? Even after considerable stock price declines, Facebook (Meta) is still valued at $307B, compared with the $44B that Musk paid for twitter.
of course the university of pennsylvania, doesn’t really want us looking into what motivates roth, and they deleted his thesis from the record, against safety is an orwellian catch phrase, which would only make sense to the city fathers of sodom or some other phoenician metropole
And what do Roth and the others mean by “unsafe”? Something is “unsafe” if it makes them or anyone in one of their favored groups feel bad. Note the elevation of mere words, another hallmark of the young and the left. And yes, of course words can led to violent actions on occasion. But it’s the actions that are the problem, not the words, …
Yes. This below is the sort of thing that the folks on the left like to shout about.
Wikipedia on Mathew Shepard
The prosecutor argued that McKinney’s murder of Shepard was premeditated and driven by greed. McKinney’s defense counsel countered by arguing that he had intended only to rob Shepard but killed him in a rage when Shepard made a sexual advance toward him. McKinney’s girlfriend told police that he had been motivated by anti-gay sentiment but later recanted her statement, saying that she had lied because she thought it would help him.
Now the argument is that we mustn’t say anything that could “endanger” members of the trans community.
There’s no way to read Roth’s old tweets and think he could maintain any type of objectivity or neutrality in making decisions; he was the most lefist of partisans. And yet he was hired to be the censor (head of “Trust and Safety”) for Twitter. It is truly mindboggling.
Can anyone possibly believe that Jack Dorsey didn’t understand the above and the kind of actions those folks were going to take??
just like sam brinton, the luggage thief, apparent fraudulent testimony, caused conversion therapy to be banned, at a certain point, we see this as enemy action, every perversion is given full flower, every sense of restraint is discouraged, lies are trafficked as truth, and vice versa, and we see all these oprichniks, security men, making sure this process is unimpeded,
My leftwing San Francisco brother considers all sorts of speech as unsafe. But then again he showed up at an SF Giants baseball game wearing TWO masks.
He’s left Twitter because it is unsafe. Here’s a recent Mastadon post, “Yoel Roth, Twitter’s former head of trust and safety has fled his home due to an escalation in threats resulting from Elon Musk’s campaign of criticism against him — CNN.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/12/tech/twitter-files-yoel-roth
Note how CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan worded this.
“things took a dark turn over the weekend when Musk appeared to endorse a tweet that baselessly accused Roth of being sympathetic to pedophilia — a common trope used by conspiracy theorists to attack people online. ”
#Musk #Yoelroth #Twitter
Actually, Roth is a homosexual, a groomer and very much in favor of sex with minors. I’d like to know the exact nature of these so-called threats. Probably like Jesse Smollett.
This censoring and cancelling of speech the Left disagrees with is unAmerican.
This is off-topic, but I blame Neo’s title choice.
Unsafe at Any Speed
The subject for which the book is probably most widely known, the rear-engined Chevrolet Corvair, is covered in Chapter 1—”The Sporty Corvair–The One-Car Accident”. This relates to the first models (1960-1964) that had a swing-axle suspension design which was prone to “tuck under” in certain circumstances. George Caramagna, a mechanic working on the suspension system, suggested installing a stabilizer (anti-roll or “anti-sway”) bar, but was overruled by GM management.[citation needed] To make up for the cost-cutting lack of a front stabilizer bar, Corvairs required tire pressures which were outside of the tire manufacturers’ recommended tolerances. The Corvair relied on an unusually high front to rear pressure differential (15psi front, 26psi rear, when cold; 18 psi and 30psi hot), and if one inflated the tires equally, as was standard practice for all other cars at the time, the result was a dangerous oversteer.[4] Despite proper tire pressures being more critical than for contemporaneous designs, Chevrolet salespeople and Corvair owners were not properly advised of the requirement and risk. According to the standards of the Tire and Rim Association, these recommended pressures caused the front tires to be overloaded whenever there were two or more passengers in the car.
I knew about the “tuck under” problem which I think was mostly an overstated issue. I didn’t know about the tire pressure issue which I find appalling. There is a long history of auto manufacturers fiddling with tire pressures and recommending unsafe pressures. For sales and marketing reasons. Fifteen PSI?? Gads. I wouldn’t recommend anything under 28 or 30 for daily use when rain is possible.
If the woke like Roth prevail, tyrants like Xi will introduce them very briefly to what “unsafe” truly means.
Tom Gray,
“all Americans who want freedom should be demanding 100% Free and Fair elections, and voting for Reps who call for that.”
What politician, republican or democrat does NOT call for “Free and Fair elections”?
My aunt accused her ex of less than benevolent motives regarding tire pressures he set for her in the early Corvair she was driving. But then she was manic/depressive IIRC. Both survived the Corvair.
The youth aspect that you stressed is something I’ve been thinking about for some time.
Nina Jancowicz, the Mary Poppins of Disinformation? 33. The genderfluid luggage thief in charge of nuclear waste disposal for the DOE? 35. These people are too young for these positions. The FTX ponzi scheme guy? 30. Ohhh sure, let’s put the thirty-year-old guy in charge of ten billion dollars! What could possibly go wrong? Now, I understand that this FTX guy started his own business, but nevertheless….
On a related note: the prior CEO of twitter, Parag Agrawal, age 38. Perhaps this guy is a genius, I don’t know, but he was born and raised in India, a country that has no history or interest in freedom of speech. Could Jack have not found, in this large country that was founded largely upon freedom of speech, a senior statesman type of man who grew up here and understood the meaning of freedom of speech? He hired a 38-year-old software engineer from India who simply could not have understood freedom of speech, and I bet he could not have cared less about it, to run this $45 billion company, which has a business model based entirely on speech?
I’m a computer programmer, age 56. If, at age 35, the CEO of my corporation called me in and asked me to be the Chief Information Officer in charge of all databases across the company, I would have been flattered, but I would have declined, because I knew I did not have either the technical capability, nor the human management capability that such a position requires. And I would have privately considered the CEO an idiot for having even considered me.
Back when Barak was president, there was this national security guy Ben Rhodes, who said, and I quote:
“The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old, and their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns. That’s a sea change. They literally know nothing.”
People in their thirties have a place in important corporations and government agencies, but not in senior-level positions that can affect so many people.
Erronius
the bahamian atty general has called in sbf for his comfy chair (seeing as he used to work for him, I don’t expect much)
i’m old enough to remember when they excoriated dominion machines because reasons, about six years ago,
Dietrich understood stupidity;
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ww47bR86wSc
and the beat goes on,
https://www.uncoverdc.com/2022/12/12/rich-baris-maricopa-had-a-heat-map-of-expected-republican-voters/
IrishOtter;
Jim Harrison was one of the great wisemen of literature!
TommyJay, I owned a Corvair from 1961 to 1968. I loved that car! It was very nimble, easy to drive, and worked very well in the snow with the weight on the rear tires. It was sensitive to side winds but having some weight in the front “trunk” would solve that problem. I remember something about differential pressure between the front and rear tires, but not anything that extreme. I never did understand why Nader pickled on that car. It had overe100,000 accident-free and trouble-free miles on it when I traded it in for a Chevy II station wagon. One of the best and most fun to drive carts that I ever owned.
People like Yoel Roth seem unbelievable to me. The kid has little life experience outside of academia and his job at Twitter. He thinks he knows it all but has no wisdom. Can he change a tire on his car? Can he fix a leaking toilet valve? Has he ever spent some time in a third world country? What does he know of the world of the blue-collar craftsmen who build and maintain our infrastructure? My guess is that he lacks in those and many other areas. He thinks he’s “King on the World” when he’s just another snot-nosed, over-educated delusional, would-be Goebbels.
JHCorcoran:
He had a knack for pith, that’s for sure.
he was the most lefist of partisans. And yet he was hired to be the censor (head of “Trust and Safety”) for Twitter.
Ah, I love the smell of guillotines in the morning!
During the French Revolution the “Committee of Public Safety” organized the “Reign of Terror,” which was responsible for massacres and public executions.
Yoel Roth is a kinder, gentler Robespierre.
Of course the Revolution eventually ate Robespierre. So, fingers crossed.
There were a lot of gays in the SA, back in the day.
But they were purged (Night of the Long Knives). The camps came later.
Just saying …. Now a days the Antifa seem all in on that kink.
JJ,
I used to get a ride to high school from my cousin who drove a Corvair. It was before I had my license so I never drove it, but I thought it was a cool car.
I think that future history will look back on this time with a very different perspective. I think it will be recognized that the advent of social media, which for the first time harnessed the power to communicate instantaneously with millions, maybe billions, was not led with competence. The power of the concept far outpaced the moral capacity of the people that were administering to it. They accumulated their power and authority by gaming the corporate systems within the companies, just like every modern worker games the corporate system, to rise in the hierarchy. But they never had to demonstrate competence to deploy and oversee the power of the concept. Not like a pilot, that must demonstrate piloting skill. Not like a general, who rises through the ranks. There was no test, no system of assessment.
And even though they had no special philosophical training or demonstrated qualifications, they were still authorized to control this vast power, the power to decisively shape public opinion, the power to censor or to direct the outcome of elections – they wielded this power while being rather conventional from the standpoint of moral character: Spiritually naive, rather pedestrian progressive values, and unable to resist the temptations of the power they controlled. Think of how similarly powerful social institutions are regulated. Of course they failed to control their impulses. Future history will be amazed that such things were allowed to stand for as long as they did.
}}} Ban a president of the US? No problem. After all, on day one of that president’s term, Roth already knew he was an ACTUAL NAZI. There’s no way to read Roth’s old tweets and think he could maintain any type of objectivity or neutrality in making decisions; he was the most lefist of partisans. And yet he was hired to be the censor (head of “Trust and Safety”) for Twitter. It is truly mindboggling.
To those running Twitter at the time, his position was not an issue, it was a FEATURE. A desirable, laudable quality. Whether he believed it or was just a self-serving charlatan is equally irrelevant — either would lead him to act as they wanted him to.
So, no: Not mindboggling at all.
Remember when
“Sticks and Stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me”
was a given in our society? Every single child was taught that.
Granted: it’s not entirely true — words can sting, no argument… but that’s not the same degree of hurt that sticks and stones cause. For almost all cases, the difference is not a fine line, it’s the mother fuckin’ Great Wall of China of difference.
Do they still teach Aesop’s Fables in school? AT ALL?
I’m betting not, in most schools.
}}} They’re just evil. They don’t really believe this BS. Its an act to spread perversion.
No, Dave… some are certainly evil. Many, though, actually believe it. Part of the purpose of banning words and ideas is to protect those who actually believe — the reality deprived — from actual reality.
Sad, but very dangerous, nonetheless.
It will be interesting to see how these woke companies weather a recession. Most companies don’t have a public safety department like Twitter, but they do have legal and hr departments, which is where most of these 20 and 30 something wokesters operate. Those are also two departments that are often cut first when things get tight.
The Rule of Three enumerates the maximum number of categories Aubrey can imagine.
WRT the concept of “safe”–restricted now to words–there are three groups of people.
Those who know it’s false but require their brains to pretend to believe it so they can be the Right Sort of People. They act and react as if they actually, in the functional parts of their minds, believe it.
The people who know it’s false but due to the prevalence of the preceding category, know it’s a useful manipulative technique.
Those who know it’s nonsense but are limited in their response by the requirements of courtesy in polite company.
I know I’ve made this metaphor before. Decades ago, I saw in a local paper a picture of a high school cheerleader weeping because their team had lost. It occurred to me that we’re H. Sap who spent a million years coming up the hard way and our abilities to handle difficulties need to be run up every so often. Or something. So….we weep over football games.
Perhaps there are some people who do, really, believe. Because they have to. But perhaps that’s category one.
Some years ago, there was a local citizens’ meeting about an issue. The location was in a facility which doubled as a camp for underprivileged and a destination destination for weddings and such. The woman who arranged it said we were meeting in a safe space. She was sitting right in front of me and the temptation was very great. Given the circumstances, the appropriate response was inappropriate. I’ve since wondered.
Passing through Dayton five years ago, we went through the Wright Brothers displays–shop, home, so forth–all set up as a museum. When we left, heading for Wright Pat’s aviation museum which also had a Wright Brothers display, the docent said we were going to have to summon all our courage. Because we were going to a military installation. I couldn’t help myself. You know that falsetto laughter you only get when somebody has busted through the last quantum of earnest stupid?
I thought of saying I was Infantry and could handle a few zoomies but I couldn’t actually form the words. My wife got hold of me and off we went.
In retrospect, she was adding her little bit to the “safe” issue in society.
I should not be so lighthearted. It strikes me as one of the most effective ways of manipulating others’ speech I’ve ever heard. “racist” requires some race thingy going on. Ditto Homo, islamo, anti…whichever. But “safe” or “unsafe” need nothing but the assertion and…if you don’t have a ready supply of vile obscenities, you’re kind of stuck.
By the by, The PostMillenial:
https://thepostmillennial.com/breaking-twitter-disbands-infamous-trust-and-safety-council
I think that future history will look back on this time with a very different perspective. I think it will be recognized that the advent of social media, which for the first time harnessed the power to communicate instantaneously with millions, maybe billions, was not led with competence.
–Aggie
I don’t expect anyone of any era to manage a new technology with competence. Incompetence goes with the territory.
That said, I agree social media is a big factor in Why Things Are Different Today.
History is largely about new changes which turn out to be big and … problematic.
Radio was a breakthrough technology which offered great boons but also terrible opportunities for Hitler and Goebbels. As I recall, radio was also an important factor in the Rwandan genocide.
We’ve more or less learned to handle radio. Now we are sorting out social media.
The country is sick and getting sicker.
There are many problems, and the distorted and corrupt use of language as a weapon is one. As the saying goes, the practice has become endemic and systemic.
We also seem to give a pass to those who use the vilest language against certain targets, while bringing the full majesty of the law (pun intended) down on others.
Here is an example of the former that I came across today.
“Diane Loud, who was appointed to the Human Rights Commission in Dedham, Massachusetts, by the town’s Commission on Disability, reportedly called Desmond “a selfish f—ing b—-” in a subsequent Facebook post that accused her of endangering lives by raising the issue.”
/skip/ “In closing, I would like to add a F— YOU, YOU PIECES OF TRASH. I hate each and every one of you and I do wish great suffering on you. You are terrible, terrible people. And you did it all because you didn’t get your way. You are despicable,” Loud concluded.”
Lord’s primary target, a town librarian, triggered her hate spewing diatribe by asking why she suddenly could not display a Christmas tree at the library after doing so for 28 years. Lord continued, becoming even more vile against Christians in general
https://www.foxnews.com/us/human-rights-commissioner-ma-quits-mocking-god-blasting-trash-christians-christmas-tree-spat
As noted, the Lord woman resigned her post on the “Human Rights Commission”; but apparently retains her position on the “Commission on Disability”.
There is no question, that under certain circumstances, Lord would be charged under federal hate crime laws for her venomous speech which triggered threats of violence against her target. Except that such laws are only arbitrarily enforced. The only clue as to why Lord is so bitter is that she advertises that her son recognized his gender identity issues when he was 13 years old; so, she is a proud member of one of the currently trendy groups that demand absolute obeisance from one and all.
oldflyer
Been said often, free speech allows the morons to out themselves. Yay for free speech.
These censors are fundamentally antidemocratic. They really don’t believe that the common man should play any role in making decisions about the direction of the country. The proles just aren’t educated enough, knowledgeable enough, woke enough. The type of knowledge they have–how to build things, how to feed a family when the money runs out for the month, how make sure your kids get some kind of education out of the public schools, how to keep your kids off drugs and out of gangs–isn’t real, important knowledge, like what the censors learned at their expensive colleges.
To really believe in democracy means believing that the voice of the common man has wisdom and knowledge that is worthy hearing.
Jefferson thought a lot of the yeoman farmer, owing nothing to anybody and self-sufficient as a very good citizen.
Nothing really new here…but…
what if YOUTH and INEXPERIENCE is a FEATURE?
THE feature?
THE mask?
That is, if someone else is pulling the strings—perhaps specifically, perhaps generally—then when the scandal erupts, as it must (though quite commonly BEFORE it is supposed to) it’s, quite conveniently, the “Youth and Inexperience” that takes the blame (gotta blame someone!)—a “young whippersnapper” if there is anything too gritty or otherwise untoward…or a “callow”, “unsophisticated” young man of promise or “aspiring”, “innovative” young woman of unusual talent—all out to save the world, especially celebrated because of their oh-so-laudable, sincere ambition to improve the world and/or oh-so-refreshing absence of cynicism….
(Well, it sure sounds better than “conniving, manipulative scoundrel”….)
The bottom line? One really must fine tune one’s ability to detect the YUCK factor that lurks beneath the thin (or sometimes thick) veneer of WOW!…
And from the “Hey It’s Just A Few Bad Apples” File, how could we NOT have seen THIS??
” ‘Just A Few Rogue Actors’ Behind Banning Of Trump From Twitter; Nothing To See Here…”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/just-few-rogue-actors-behind-banning-trump-twitter-nothing-see-here
A few highlights and a synopsis of Twitter reveals in the latest meme video, Elon Derangement Syndrome:
1. A video clip of Trump calling BS on Yoel Roth, “the arbiter”, in the Oval Office on May 28, 2020.
2. “Märtin” tweet re Roth: Yoel Roth made an entire career out of intellectualizing his homosexual fetishes – even writing his PhD dissertation on his random GRINDr encounters. He then got put in charge of censoring “hate speech” on Twitter. A path to power and a reality most GOP voters aren’t aware of.
3. Per Matt Taibbi, Twitter Deputy General Counsel (and former FBI General Counsel) Jim Baker was fired for, among other reasons, vetting the first batch of “Twitter Files” (to hide FBI involvement) without knowledge of new management. Was Baker asked for an explanation? Elon Musk: Yes. His explanation was …unconvincing.
An overarching theme of Twitter revelations is what they implicitly expose about the woke demons censoring content on other platforms. Was Twitter a one-off? Not likely.
Speaking of Bay Area GRINDr encounters, we’re still waiting for SFPD body cam footage from the Pelosi residence. Might be a long wait.
TommyJay writes: “Can anyone possibly believe that Jack Dorsey didn’t understand the above and the kind of actions those folks were going to take??”
Actually, from the way he acted in front of Congress and from the fact that he was on vacation in Tahiti when Trump was banned, I don’t have a hard time believing Dorsey was an out-of-touch CEO.
It is not hard for me to believe all these young people working in Silicon Valley, making huge salaries, building “safe spaces” and having both a meditation center and a free wine bar in the office, are out of touch with the reality that most of us live. When Twitter was first created I remember it as an electronic place where people posted photos of their lunch or their trip to the beach. I had a hard time taking it seriously, and when my boss told me to open a Twitter account to talk up the business, I remember thinking anyone who read my Twitter posts about our business would probably not be inclined to come give us their cash. But the boss was right: people did come on the basis of our Tweets, and it was free advertising.
While I was slow to see the commercial aspect of Twitter, I recognized how pernicious it could be when I saw people being given “time outs” for saying something that our overlords deemed inappropriate. I looked at it as akin to the quips we wrote in peoples’ yearbooks at the end of the school year.
Then the political tweets began to creep in, and Trump used them to his advantage. I still thought it was something for kids. And it would have remained a kids’ playground except for the huge sums of money that flowed in, and the youngsters who managed it. Money and youth — what could go wrong with that combination? And then the political aspect.
The rest, as they say, is history. Sordid history.
Huxley…”Radio was a breakthrough technology which offered great boons but also terrible opportunities for Hitler and Goebbels. As I recall, radio was also an important factor in the Rwandan genocide.”
Yes, and Printing led to social disruption and religious wars by allowing people to read the Bible for themselves rather than be dependent on the interpretation of priests.
Marshall McLuhan argued that the *nature* of a medium influences human behavior as much as does the *content* of that medium, and, IIRC, argued that there was something inherent in the nature of Radio that had an affinity to the characteristics of people like Hitler.
Dobleplus unsafe!
… and from the fact that he was on vacation in Tahiti when Trump was banned, I don’t have a hard time believing Dorsey was an out-of-touch CEO. — F
It’s certainly conceivable that Dorsey was that out of touch. CEOs usually must delegate most decisions to subordinates. But my point is that a CEO must also know, in great detail, who the more important subordinates are; so that there is a considerable level of trust regarding those decisions.
That Dorsey claims ignorance of all of the above is convenient but not credible.
@ OBloodyHell > “Do they still teach Aesop’s Fables in school? AT ALL?”
Clearly not.
@ Aggie, & huxley > ” Now we are sorting out social media.”
Everything is more obvious in retrospect; the wise can see things coming at the time, but they are generally called conspiracy theorists or cranks.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1602300086905704449.html
Doc Zero, 2022-12-12
No one in the general public ever asked (or, was never allowed to ask) for whom “they” were making spaces safe, but it’s become very clear what group is one of the privileged factions.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1602661974881468416.html
Doc Zero, 2022-12-13