so, a tropical ding-dong?

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Agree; this could all happen, yes. What my original comment was trying to convey—and your reply adds to—is that the variables and complexities required to be maintained by X/Musk to ensure that the lie they are defending are hugely disproportionate to other operations that can field similar results. It is also an incredibly high-risk operation for X/Musk, in that a collusion operation of this magnitude risks global repercussions. The required amount of time, effort and resources against politicians or reporters wouldn’t be worth X/Musk’s investment when simpler techniques can be executed at lower risk and require far less resources.

It really just comes down to a cost/benefit/risk analysis. Do we start fake-posting official accounts and risk massive legal and public fallout? Or do we pay Putin $X million to spin up a bunch of bots and push a particular message that could sway public opinion in a similar direction, with very little traceable evidence and virtually no risk to X/Musk?

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What I’m trying to convey, in the face of your obnoxious sarcasm, is that while the administration would of course interfere in what should be an objective investigation, politicians and reporters have a wealth of powerful advocates in their support networks. The administration can only control the message/investigation of the SS. They cannot control the message or investigations of the victim’s support network, however hard they may try.

Let’s run a little scenario: a reporter’s post is doctored or posted completely outside of their control. Their boss calls them in:
“Did you post this?”
“No”
“Yeap, treason!”

Please don’t confuse enthusiasm with critical thinking.

Lock the account from being able to make edits

So, the victim watches their post publish. Acknowledges it’s been doctored. Attempts to edit. Receives some error. And shrugs it off and puts their phone away…? They’ll turn to the closest person with broader knowledge of IT and then it snowballs from there. And that timeline post-publishing would be sufficient evidence for reasonable doubt.

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How would the server admin know the real-time location of the victim to spoof the GPS coordinates? How would the admin know if the victim was with others who could verify they weren’t engaged in their device? How could the admin counter legitimate logs from other applications or services the victim might be using at the timestamp of the post?

There are far too many variables to be able to execute this successfully by professionals, let alone a bunch of IT staff.

…the obvious flaw that said investigations would clearly conclude the posts were doctored?

The metadata of posts include too many data points (IP address, GPS coords, etc.) needing precise alteration in line with the exact movements of a victim that it would just be too complex to achieve a desirable outcome for Musk. Even if the SS’s investigations were subjective in their approach and/or conclusion, independent investigations would provide a trove of reasonable doubt, even if denied access to the data (which, in itself, would be a point of reasonable doubt).

idk if this needs to be said but the term ‘Gaslighting’ is the denominalisation of the 1944 film ‘Gaslight’, and doesn’t relate to the 19th century profession. one plot point in the film, the protagonist notices the gaslights in her house flickering, which her husband assures her is all in her mind.

awful. sounds eerily similar to the Station nightclub fire, both catalysts being pyrotechnic displays

i take agomelatine and have tried SSRIs and i will never go back after agomelatine.

i’m getting an evil Jonathan Hyde

not to mention the Signal protocol is open source so they could literally build something in days and ensure the same encryption

you’re right; I deleted my comment when I researched the author.

the intro seems a naive view of the American dream. I’d argue veterans of WWII came home and achieved the American dream but the billionaires were well underway stealing the American dream during any war the author—being 44 years old—was deployed to. In fact, they were probably deployed for the billionaires who wanted more oil money.

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This is the correct answer—a spring loaded toilet roll holder. You slide the spring in to replace the TP. on the holder