The Streisand effect

[Coldwater]

refers to the phenomenon where attempts to hide or censor information inadvertently led to greater public awareness of that information.

[Coldwater]

1. Censorship to protect a felon in chief

[calimary]

2. I don't see how that whole smoke-&-mirrors crap can still work.

And on FAR FAR FAR too many people.

[Coldwater]

3. Agreed,

For example, just look at Trump’s abysmal approval rating

55% disapproval, and yet there’s still that 41% that just won’t budge

[Attilatheblond]

5. I was recently, and for the first time in my long life, asked to participate in a public opinion poll.

I declined & blocked the caller. First, because I didn't know who commissioned the poll, but there's another reason, and one I think might be true for many people with a little bit of brain: Let the idiots who want to make the US a dictatorship think their opposition is a lot smaller that it really is. Let them keep tying the hangman's knot in the noose their arrogance is making for their attempt to destroy us and the US.

Have to wonder how many people there are like me, people who do work to get information and try to understand as much about what is going on and why as they possibly can. There are a lot of people who DO care about others, including people who are different from themselves. There are a lot of people who DO want to curb damage to our planet, and even work to find ways to undo as much of the damage already done. Have to believe that the fools who will blindly follow a cult are really not the majority and that even some who are swayed by that cult might have enough spark inside them to be guided away from the suicide pact the tyrants of industry have tried to inflict on the world.

I have to believe. As much as I like, and need, to communicate I am a bit particular about what I share and with whom. I know for a fact that there are good, smart people who do try to get real information and mull it over but who keep their mouths shut. I know some of them and try to nudge them to join actively, telling them they will not feel so alone or powerless if they come to a meeting, or join in a protest. Work to make sure those people can vote, and do vote!

Polls? Those probably have some value, but most are just another arm of the forces trying to brainwash a certain vulnerable part of the voting public. Betting I am not the only politically active liberal who just says NO to pollsters. And we know there is a tendency among the racists and the fearful to be happy to answer, often in sad detail, when a pollster calls. So the numbers are likely skewed badly, and the Theil types are in for some surprises.

[jfz9580m]

4. In this case that is good

Last edited Fri Dec 26, 2025, 10:28 AM - Edit history (1)

But in some ways I have mixed feelings about too much glorification of net based democritization.

Nothing to do with transparency or censorship. I don’t mean info the public has every right to know. But I can see now that tabloidization by Facebook/TikTok/YouTube/old Twitter/Newer NaziTwitter is built into the model of these creepy hyper libertarian companies that have destroyed public broadcasting/the public sector/ education/ publicly funded science etc to have Sesame Street be replaced by Mr Blippi.

A lot of stuff that should have been in the annals of some decent and honest system and handled by experts with no ties to national defense or for profit corporations instead
spill out on the web thanks to the predators at Google/Facebook/anything Musk/Palantir etc and that is not good.

It’s objectionable as it’s part of the same process of theft and also part of The Spectacle (thanks to the awesome Yasha Levine I have a smattering of an education). And it can be controlled and timed and predicted. Which is why I am going offline. Not a bloody pawn.

DU is cool. It is a legit lefty underground.I would assume that there are some spooks here (Hi guys ..not a call-out) as there are spooks all over the net.. Hamilton Nolan wrote in Current Affairs about some similarities between activists and intelligence communities.

It clicked for me then why I hated my former employer so much. It was a sleazy data mining and defense contracting giant and I think they would have hoped that if people like me didn’t kill themselves we’d find a nice gate-kept fraudulent, defanged and toothless “tech critic” not the awesomely rabble rousing Yasha. And he is not a Russian troll etc.

But there’s underground like the animal activists in Barn 8 (who aren’t effective altruists but normal rabble like Christopher Ketcham or Nandita Bajaj etc..my people basically). And underground like spook and the two are totally antagonistic.

The reality is that the national security establishment is not left or right. I had a brush with them and I don’t like them. I am myself a military brat. I have no use for violence or terrorism. But I do think access etc are given for specific reasons not to hog things and force your own agenda or make money.

Yasha is honest. He can’t be bought off by anyone left or right. And he doesn’t suffer fools. I am weary of a world with few people like that. I was a publicly funded scientist and I recognize to sane extents prevention of terror etc. Not taking over all of reality via corporations and the security state.

I myself am polite if I can be, but it’s skin deep. Dislike petty conflict. That’s all..
I don’t even know Yasha or his wife Evgenia, but they remind me of scientists in being fairly uncompromising about the truth. But they are also not daft about truth. They wouldn’t be “truthful” in ways that destroy all of society like a bot.

Besides anyone can make mistakes so humility is essential and yet complicated in a world filled with so many sleazebags and morons that one can buy into one’s own bs. To not be like our disgusting elites (neoliberal or nazi) or like crazy MAGA etc is hardly a high bar.

Every time I go back to science I am reminded of the fact that I am an idiot anew. But it helps to kick out drivel with “No. Fuck off”.

I was listening to Starfucker Love earlier today and its lead singer Pat Briggs said in an interview that he was so full of his own bs when he was young. I am constantly failing at balancing awareness of one’s own bs* with anger at info about a world this fucking awful. Personal being political blah blah..

Sometimes one’s internal checks get confused by a world so out of whack. I should go work..for society or some such thing.

*: full disclosure: I’d rather give up and be high and watch tv because I hate everything, but I shouldn’t .


Edit: Besides my creepy former employer took out a core function of mine that’s not a ridiculous joke - solidarity. I never had a me vs the universe worldview till that place -you just can’t with those people. I tried. Not worth it anyway.

I like to be solitary, but that’s different. I have solidarity with my main lab and the real community broadly though I avoid them as there is nothing science related these days and besides it’s nazi time.

Community as in people like me or you guys here whom I do consider a community though loosely knit. I feel like that about my delivery men or my doctors or the few small businesses I like to support. We are all humans navigating this hideous hellscape. (Gotta be clear since I don’t plan to be nice to some creeps. Bad idea to go and mess with someone just because you despise them.)

But it is not the disgusting manufactured hearts and likes of those cynical jerks. Or being scammed by a series of creepy third parties and an altogether disgracefully extractive and parasitic operation.
I had to build that back. I was and am genuinely fond of my main lab.

[FakeNoose]

6. It's no longer known as "CBS News Broadcasting"

Now it's the "Chump-BS No-News Broadcasting"

[Joinfortmill]

7. Too late. F*ck CBS. The cat is out of the bag.

[paleotn]

8. So they've decided to play a losing game of whack-a-mole. So be it.

[gilpo]

9. It's still up on the internet archive

https://archive.org/details/60minutes-cecotsegment

[Wednesdays]

10. I clicked on that link

And the video started playing. But then I got a playback error, and couldn't get it to play again no matter what I tried to do. I think the video got taken down even as I was playing it.

However, I went to this link and it worked:
https://archive.org/details/60-minutes-inside-cecot-segment

[LetMyPeopleVote]

11. "Have these people never heard of the Streisand effect?"

Link to tweet

[LetMyPeopleVote]

12. Weiss' efforts to bury the CECOT story have now made it one of the most read stories this year

Link to tweet