https://twitter.com/jack/status/1602800292424212480

Here is his document Jack refers to in full – emphasis in bold.

There’s a lot of conversation around the #TwitterFiles. Here’s my take, and thoughts on how to fix the issues identified.

I’ll start with the principles I’ve come to believe…based on everything I’ve learned and experienced through my past actions as a Twitter co-founder and lead:

Social media must be resilient to corporate and government control.

Only the original author may remove content they produce.

Moderation is best implemented by algorithmic choice.

The Twitter when I led it and the Twitter of today do not meet any of these principles. This is my fault alone, as I completely gave up pushing for them when an activist entered our stock in 2020. I no longer had hope of achieving any of it as a public company with no defense mechanisms (lack of dual-class shares being a key one). I planned my exit at that moment knowing I was no longer right for the company.

The biggest mistake I made was continuing to invest in building tools for us to manage the public conversation, versus building tools for the people using Twitter to easily manage it for themselves. This burdened the company with too much power, and opened us to significant outside pressure (such as advertising budgets). I generally think companies have become far too powerful, and that became completely clear to me with our suspension of Trump’s account. As I’ve said before, we did the right thing for the public company business at the time, but the wrong thing for the internet and society. Much more about this here:

I do not celebrate or feel pride in our having to ban @realDonaldTrump from Twitter, or how we got here. After a clear warning we’d take this action, we made a decision with the best information we had based on threats to physical safety both on and off Twitter. Was this correct?

I continue to believe there was no ill intent or hidden agendas, and everyone acted according to the best information we had at the time. Of course mistakes were made. But if we had focused more on tools for the people using the service rather than tools for us, and moved much faster towards absolute transparency, we probably wouldn’t be in this situation of needing a fresh reset (which I am supportive of). Again, I own all of this and our actions, and all I can do is work to make it right.

Back to the principles. Of course governments want to shape and control the public conversation, and will use every method at their disposal to do so, including the media. And the power a corporation wields to do the same is only growing. It’s critical that the people have tools to resist this, and that those tools are ultimately owned by the people. Allowing a government or a few corporations to own the public conversation is a path towards centralized control.

I’m a strong believer that any content produced by someone for the internet should be permanent until the original author chooses to delete it. It should be always available and addressable. Content takedowns and suspensions should not be possible. Doing so complicates important context, learning, and enforcement of illegal activity. There are significant issues with this stance of course, but starting with this principle will allow for far better solutions than we have today. The internet is trending towards a world were storage is “free” and infinite, which places all the actual value on how to discover and see content.

Microsoft and Apple among the global companies accused of 'turning a blind eye' to child sexual exploitation

Some of the world's biggest technology companies, like Microsoft and Apple, aren't doing enough to prevent the spread of child sexual exploitation on their platforms, according Australia's e-Safety Commissioner.

Key points:

A world first study has found tech companies aren't proactively searching for child exploitation material in streaming and cloud services

e-Safety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant says the tech companies were "turning a blind eye" to crimes on their platforms

She says they need to do more to protect children's safety

A report from Julie Inman Grant, a world first of its kind, found tech companies were failing to proactively detect exploitation in cloud storage and streaming services.

"Some of the largest, richest, most powerful tech companies in the world are turning a blind eye to crime scenes happening on their platforms, being hosted on their cloud-based services, being propagated through their messaging services and they're simply not doing enough," Ms Inman Grant told the ABC.

After years of talking with the companies, the commissioner used new laws that allowed her to send questions to Apple, Facebook's owner Meta, WhatsApp, Microsoft, Skype, Snap and Omegle, demanding they answer what they were doing to tackle the issue.

Ms Inman Grant, a former Twitter employee and two-decade veteran of the sector, said she was both shocked and disheartened yet not surprised companies weren't taking more meaningful action.

She said none of the companies that offered streaming, where exploitation of impoverished children was rife, were using available tools to search for abusive material.

"The kind of child sexual exploitation that we're talking about is known child sexual exploitation and the tools like photo DNA have been around since 2009," Ms Inman Grant said.

"We're simply asking the companies that invented it to start using them across their platforms and services."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-15/microsoft-apple-child-sexual-exploitation-esafety/101771844

Epstein Island: Newly Unsealed Evidence of Abuse

Unsealed testimony implicates Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell

We have newly unsealed documents – including the depositions of Ghislaine Maxwell and one of her victims – revealing new details on the extent of the abuse and victimization that took place by Jeffrey Epstein. Those filings come from Giuffre v. Maxwell, a civil case filed against Maxwell in 2015 in the New York Southern District.

Some of the broader allegations have already been made public. Sarah Ransome, who accused Epstein and Maxwell of abuse that took place during her early 20s, settled a civil lawsuit against them in 2018. Ransome has publicly described some of the abuse. And there have been reports on what transpired at Little St. James, often referred to as Epstein Island.

Let’s get to the new details, starting with the testimony of Ransome, available here. She actually lived one of Epstein’s apartments in 2006 with a few other girls. During that time, she worked for what she described as an “agency” which arranged paid dinners with wealthy clients: “I was paid to spend dinner with a gentleman.” Whatever happened after dinner with the client was done on her “own accord” and “after that time period had finished.”

Ransome was introduced to Epstein by a female associate of his (her name is still redacted), who described Epstein as a wealthy “philanthropist” who “really cares about people” and “really wants to help them.” She was open to meeting Epstein because she was struggling financially. Soon after meeting Epstein, Ransome was invited to travel on Epstein’s plane to Epstein Island. She was told it “was going to be a girls’ week” and they would have “so much fun”:

Q. How did the flight meeting become arranged, if you know?

A. So it was pretty a last-minute thing. phoned me up and said that Jeffrey Epstein would very much like to have me go to his island. It was going to be so much fun, it was going to be a girls' week, there were lots of other girls going, we were going to have so much fun, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

What happened on the flight – her first flight with Epstein – must have been shocking to Ransome. She described what happened after they took off:

“The rest of the passengers in the I think it's towards the front of the plane where all the seats are we all all the guests were fell asleep. I pretended to be asleep.

Jeffrey then went – Jeffrey went to his – was in his bed on the plane, having open sex with for everyone to see, on display.”

Ransome would eventually give massages to Epstein at the Island. She had been told that Epstein “loves women, loves getting massages” and that this “was a nice way to make extra cash.” At first, the massages were relatively normal. Then then escalated to the type of “massage” Epstein is now notorious for – much of which was done without Ransome’s consent.

She described her experiences at Epstein’s Island as being constantly surrounded by “beautiful young people” and that there “were always girls” there to visit “Jeffrey and Ghislaine.” Ransome also gave a description of the Island as having multiple buildings – a main house and then various buildings around the Island for Epstein and his guests:

https://technofog.substack.com/p/epstein-island-newly-unsealed-evidence

>>17942134

They put them in all sports clubs in 2018-19

Former Manager of West Alton Marina Pleads Guilty to Federal Sex Trafficking and Child Exploitation Offenses

https://www.justice.gov/usao-nh/pr/former-manager-west-alton-marina-pleads-guilty-federal-sex-trafficking-and-child

Farmer calls for spray drift to be investigated after thousands of marron die at his property

South Australia's primary industries department is investigating the deaths of thousands of bees and freshwater crayfish at a farm south of Adelaide.

Key points:

A farmer has reported large numbers of freshwater crayfish and bees dying on his property

He believes chemicals from nearby agricultural spraying drifted into his ponds

PIRSA believes there are several potential causes

It is the second time thousands of animals have died at the site, but the Department of Primary Industries and Regions in SA (PIRSA) says there are several potential causes.

Farmer John Luckens first contacted PIRSA on December 2, when he noticed thousands of bees seemed to be dropping dead on his property near Kuitpo, south of Adelaide.

"Literally bees were falling out of the sky and the driveway was covered in dead and dying bees," he said.

"I did a quick calculation and worked out there's probably at least a thousand bees on that driveway and then in the grass beside there was probably 8,000 or 10,000 bees and I thought that was pretty unusual."

He feared that if insects were dying, his marron — a type of freshwater crayfish — would be next.

"I also then thought that then – because we had a [suspected] poisoning event from farm chemicals here a few years ago, that there might be an impact on the marron, and there was," he said.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-15/sa-pirsa-investigates-bee-and-marron-deaths/101767092

'My fault alone': Jack Dorsey falls on sword to protect woke Twitter staff

"The current attacks on my former colleagues could be dangerous and doesn’t solve anything. If you want to blame, direct it at me and my actions, or lack thereof," Dorsey wrote.

On Tuesday, Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey penned a blog post explaining his take on the Twitter Files, outlining what he felt went wrong during his time in charge of the company and taking the blame for the social media platform's shortcomings.

Dorsey began by outlining three core principles he believed social media platforms should adhere to going forward. He suggested that they must be "resilient to corporate and government control," only allow the original author to remove content they produce, and ensure that users have their choice when it comes to moderation algorithms.

Dorsey went on to explain that the "biggest mistake" he made was to continue helping build tools allowing Twitter to "manage the public conversation" instead of tools giving users the ability to manage it themselves.

"This burdened the company with too much power, and opened us to significant outside pressure (such as advertising budgets)."

He suggested that companies have become "far too powerful" in today's world, pointing out that the decision to suspend a sitting president from a social media platform, while savvy from a business point of view, was detrimental to society.

"Content takedowns and suspensions should not be possible," Dorsey added, noting that, "Doing so complicates important context, learning, and enforcement of illegal activity."

Turning his attention to the Twitter Files, Dorsey wrote that if Twitter had worked to put the people in the driver's seat, the company "probably wouldn’t be in this situation of needing a fresh reset." He expressed support for Elon Musk's actions, but suggested that perhaps a "Wikileaks-style" drop would have been more beneficial as it would have allowed for more people to give a diverse set of interpretations.

"There’s nothing to hide…only a lot to learn from," he continued, adding that the attacks on his former colleagues "could be dangerous and doesn’t solve anything.

"If you want to blame, direct it at me and my actions, or lack thereof," he said.

Dorsey concluded by announcing that he would soon be giving out $1 million per year to Signal for the first in a series of grants with the goal of "open internet development."

Since leaving Twitter, Dorsey has been consistent in his acknowledgment that the internet is being changed for the worse via the actions taken by big corporations, and has fought to promote the idea that it should return to its former glory as a free space where community and creativity can flourish.

https://thepostmillennial.com/my-fault-alone-jack-dorsey-falls-on-sword-to-protect-woke-twitter-staff