Now X has all sorts of hoops to jump through to use the platform. From Eric Peters at ericpetersautos.com:
That people – some people – expected Elon Musk to allow free speech on X is as remarkable as the fact that some people expected less government (and less war) from Trump. Musk is a player – and he plays people for fools. He tells them they’ll get free speech – provided they pay for the reach. And even if they do pay for it, the algorithm will time-out room speech that the algorithm does not approve of.
Well, it’s about to get worse.
It already has. – in Australia, where the government is now demanding and X is enforcing ID Verification requirements to enjoy what isn’t free speech on the platform in that country. Soon to come to this country, as inevitably as fall follows summer.
The ID is of course biometric. You must “be prepared to take a selfie” and send it to X, along with your government-issued ID. Then you must “agree” to some terms and conditions. You must agree to “X and Persona using images of my ID my selfie, including extracted biometric data, to confirm my identity and for X’s related safety and security, fraud prevention and payment purposes.”
Italics added.
It’s always for “safety” and “security.” Because so many people seem to consider one or the other or both to be the most important things in life. Far more important then their liberty – much less anyone else’s. As regards the latter, the people who would rather be “safe” and “secure” even if it means surrendering every last vestige of their liberty are invariably hysterically hostile toward anyone who doesn’t esteem “safety” and “security” to the exclusion of every other consideration. We all witnessed this during the period when people who wore “masks” insisted they “worked” yet also insisted everyone else wear the damned apparatus as well. It was never about precautionary measures – because whether they “worked” as that never mattered. What mattered, above all, was that everyone be made to submit to the feelings of congenitally neurotic people who were also much worse than just that. For it is one thing – a sad thing – to be neurotic. It is another thing to insist that everyone else share in and pretend to believe in your neurosis.
Jump through hoops to wade in the social media sewer?
I have better things to do.
Like make a meme of comrade Elon and the old Twitter logo saying not Fakebook and not your friend.
Honk, honk.
Omeleto – video on youtube. It pays to read the comments.