In Feb. 2020, after a @nypost oped said COVID-19 came from a lab leak, Facebook censored the story. Why? Because "independent fact-checkers" said it was "False information." Not only was it true information, one of the fact-checkers had worked at the labhttps://t.co/7sPmKdpOYH
— Michael Shellenberger (@shellenberger) June 14, 2023
The sequence of events that led to this digital exile began innocuously enough. A package was delivered to my house on Wednesday, May 24, and everything seemed fine. The following day, however, I found that my Echo Show had signed out, and I was unable to interact with my smart home devices. My initial assumption was that someone might have attempted to access my account repeatedly, triggering a lockout. I use a fairly old email address for my Amazon account, and it’s plausible that an old password might have been exposed in a past data breach. However, I currently use strong, auto-generated passwords via Apple and employ two-factor authentication with an authenticator app, so unauthorized access seemed unlikely.
I swiftly checked my other accounts (social media, streaming apps, etc.) to ensure I hadn’t been compromised. All seemed normal, with no flood of notifications from Microsoft Authenticator that would indicate an attempted breach. Puzzled, I followed the advice of the Amazon app and dialed the customer service number it provided. That’s when things began to take a surreal turn.
FAFO.
Today, Facebook has blocked news for some Canadians. It’s not a coincidence that Facebook chose to do this on the same day that Senators did their clause-by-clause study of Bill C-18. Facebook is trying to intimidate Canadians with these reckless moves. It won’t work. 1/2 https://t.co/GTBewfimUS
— Pablo Rodriguez (@pablorodriguez) June 13, 2023
Brandon Jackson- A Tale of Unwanted Disruption: My Week Without Amazon
I have a smart home, and my primary means of interfacing with all the devices and automations is through Amazon Echo devices via Alexa. This incident left me with a house full of unresponsive devices, a silent Alexa, and a lot of questions.
The sequence of events that led to this digital exile began innocuously enough. A package was delivered to my house on Wednesday, May 24, and everything seemed fine. The following day, however, I found that my Echo Show had signed out, and I was unable to interact with my smart home devices.
When I connected with the executive, they asked if I knew why my account had been locked. When I answered I was unsure, their tone turned somewhat accusatory. I was told that the driver who had delivered my package reported receiving racist remarks from my “Ring doorbell” (it’s actually a Eufy, but I’ll let it slide).
Upload the video here on your X/Twitter account!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 10, 2023
Tony Venhuizen, a smart guy from South Dakota, operates a web site where he writes about the history of the governors of that state. He asked ChatGPT, “Please write a blog post discussing South Dakota’s oldest and youngest governors.” Chat GPT responded with a competent description of South Dakota’s oldest governor, Nils Boe. It then went on to write about the state’s youngest governor, Crawford H. “Chet” Taylor.
I have to admit, my old pedal bike was never this exciting.
Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis is officially entering the 2024 presidential race this week during a special event with Twitter owner Elon Musk.
The conversation between DeSantis and Musk will take place on Twitter at 6 p.m. ET on Wednesday, according to multiple reports. The conversation will be moderated by Republican donor David Sacks, who is supporter of DeSantis and a close ally of Musk.
Update: Tear up the 2023 bingo cards and start over.
This morning, an AI generated image of an explosion at the US Pentagon surfaced.
With multiple news sources reporting it as real, the S&P 500 fell 30 points in minutes.
This resulted in a $500 billion market cap swing on a fake image.
It then rebounded once the image was… pic.twitter.com/DpHgflkMXP
— The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) May 22, 2023
Nonsense, they only had dinner.
Interesting stuff: ChatGPT and the Dawn of Computerized Hyper-Intelligence
Google Co-Founder Larry Page Vanishes as Authorities Try to Subpoena Him in Jeffrey Epstein Investigation
Meet Caryn Majorie.
She’s a 23-year-old Snapchat Influencer.
She made an AI version of herself “CarynAI”.
You can chat with her AI bot for $1/min.
She made $71,610 this week.
She says she could earn $5m/month.
Things are about to get weird…
(@cutiecaryn) pic.twitter.com/WTshQeditw
— Lorenzo Green 〰️ (@mrgreen) May 12, 2023
h/t Scott
New conservative AI chatbot drops, named after President Reagan…
“Godfather of AI” quits Google, fears what he has created.
Twitter Journalist Loses Blue Check pic.twitter.com/fFCgP1qlnL
— Ryan Long (@ryanlongcomedy) April 22, 2023
“That is why Apple, not IBM, perfected the personal computer, why the Wright brothers, not the French army, invented powered flight, why Jonas Salk, not the British National Health Service, invented a polio vaccine, why Amazon, not the Post Office, invented one-click ordering and why a Finnish lumber-supply company, not a national telephone monopoly, became the world leader in mobile telephony.”
Another good one from Robert Graboyes.
“I’ve never had a Twitter account. I don’t intend on having a Twitter account, and I’ve had nothing to do with Twitter. “
The Fauci Files are finally out.
1) Twitter Files #FauciPharmaFiles
Last December, @elonmusk sent out his viral tweet about Fauci.
Fauci went on Fox News and said he had "no clue what [Elon] was talking about." pic.twitter.com/L0RIZVRsEO
— Paul D. Thacker (@thackerpd) April 20, 2023
Related, from Judicial Watch;
Judicial Watch announced today it received 552 pages of records from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) which include the initial grant application and annual reports to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) from EcoHealth Alliance, describing the aim of its work with the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China to create mutant viruses “to better predict the capacity of our CoVs [coronaviruses] to infect people.”
Eco Health planned to sequence the spike protein from coronaviruses obtained from bats for the purpose of “creating mutants to identify how significantly each would need to evolve to use ACE2,” which is explained as “the receptor to gain entry to human cells.” […]
In the initial “Application for Federal Assistance” submitted on June 5, 2013, by EcoHealth Alliance, a section is titled “Specific Aims,” which notes the intention to create mutant bat viruses and “predict the capacity of our CoVs [coronaviruses] to infect people:”
