https://www.watoday.com.au/world/europe/very-interesting-kremlin-open-to-elon-musk-s-invitation-to-chat-with-putin-on-clubhouse-20210216-p572t3.html

Moscow: An invitation from Tesla boss Elon Musk for Russian President Vladimir Putin to join him for a chat on a social networking app? “Very interesting,” the Kremlin said on Monday.

Musk tagged the Kremlin’s Twitter account on Sunday, tweeting: “Would you like (to) join me for a conversation on Clubhouse?”

“It would be a great honour to speak with you,” Musk, the world’s richest man, added in a follow-up tweet in Russian.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call: “In general, this is of course a very interesting proposal, but we need to understand what is meant, what is being proposed… first we need to check, then we will react.”

Clubhouse, a San Francisco-based app that was launched last year requires newcomers to be invited by existing users before they can join. It offers a selection of audio chat rooms that are divided by topic.

Putin, a former KGB officer who once described the internet as a CIA project, has for years styled himself as suspicious of modern technology.

“We want to figure it out first. President Putin does not personally use social networks directly, he doesn’t have them,” Peskov said.

https://www.rt.com/usa/515648-biden-white-house-petition-removed/

President Joe Biden has gone beyond purging the legacy of Donald Trump to scrub that of Barack Obama too, taking down the White House petitions page. The media was too busy gushing over his Valentine’s Day display to notice.

All links to ‘We the People,’ the petition page launched out by the Obama administration in 2011, now redirect to the main White House website. Neither the ‘Contact’ nor ‘Get Involved’ links, which used to lead to it, do so anymore. Apparently, this has been the case since January 20, when the Biden administration took over both the White House and its website.

Yet for the past four weeks, not a single mainstream media outlet has noticed its disappearance. It was pointed out on Monday by Eric Garris, webmaster for the libertarian website Antiwar.com.

This total lack of interest in the petition site stands out in comparison to the media reaction when the Trump administration took it offline in December 2017. One report after another suggested this was done because the three most popular petitions on the site demanded Trump release his tax returns, divest of his business holdings, or resign outright – all initiatives launched by Democrats and the anti-Trump “resistance.”

Once the page was restored in early February 2018, and the Trump White House began responding to the petitions, the media quickly lost interest. Fast forward to January 2021 and the outright removal of the petitions page didn’t even register on their radar.