I don't think you're following my argument. The point is not that CNN is my "source of info." The point is that CNN, a source of info for millions of others and quoted verbatim here in the Slashdot summary, framed something which is a very legitimate claim as being the central conspiracy theory of a fringe group, when as you and others have pointed out, there are many other examples of verifiably false things they could have listed instead.

Also, Twitter doesn't need to be involved in child sex trafficking to have its actions influenced by powerful people who are -- and it's a conspiracy that lacks perfect secrecy anyway, since here we are talking about it.

> They don't care for the actual truth of the matter, only their version of it.

My experience has been that this is everyone, but that's beside the point. CNN said: "Its main conspiracy theories claim dozens of politicians and A-list celebrities work in tandem with governments around the globe to engage in child sex abuse." Now, perhaps that's not even what QAnon believes, I don't know. I'm mildly more interested in QAnon now just due to the Streissand effect, but I'm much more interested in the fact that CNN's article frames this claim as a conspiracy theory. So I have two beefs:

1. The claim, as CNN has written it, seems entirely reasonable in light of publicly-available evidence. Perhaps that's not even QAnon's claim, I don't know, maybe their version is crazy and much different. I see attributing the claim as CNN has written it to QAnon, and framing it as a crazy conspiracy theory in doing so, as being a form of misinformation in itself. Why describe a group as fringe cultists who embrace disinformation, and then cite as their main conspiracy theory something that reasonable people can believe in light of evidence now plainly in view of the public?

2. There are many special interest groups acting on Twitter and other big platforms for a variety of reasons. One of those interest groups is people who want better discourse. I consider myself part of that interest group. I consider this interest group to be so pathetically weak as to be irrelevant, because it seems like there's a lot more money and power in making sure we have bad discourse. So why on earth should I believe that QAnon's ban is motivated principally by a desire for more accurate and useful information, and not by some other interest group -- such as child molesters who don't want a cult of obsessive lunatics digging (however clumsily) into their illegal shit all day long where anyone can see what they come up with?

I couldn't care less about what QAnon has said about Michael Flynn. I care about the part where the article frames the statement that "dozens of politicians and A-list celebrities [working] in tandem with governments around the globe to engage in child sex abuse" as the main conspiracy theory of a group of disinformation-spreading cultists. I am interested in that specific remark, which seems to try to paint that assertion as false.

Yet, it is only a conspiracy theory insofar as conspiracy theories can be highly plausible and well-supported by publicly-available evidence.

Now, given that conspiracies DO happen, and given that one of them seems to involve important people trading children for sex, and given that getting some nuts banned off Twitter is probably a lot easier than facilitating the death of a high-profile suspect in a prison, and given that people otherwise say batshit crazy, misleading, wrong or dangerous things on Twitter all day long... why should I believe that Twitter gave them the boot because they said some shit about Michael Flynn getting let off or whatever?

> But its followers now act more like a virtual cult, largely adoring and believing whatever disinformation the conspiracy community spins up. Its main conspiracy theories claim dozens of politicians and A-list celebrities work in tandem with governments around the globe to engage in child sex abuse.

I'm not a QAnon guy, but this "conspiracy theory" is pretty darn well-established now. Jeffery Epstein was connected to dozens of politicians and A-list celebrities, to include Trump, the Clintons, and Kevin Spacey. He trafficked child sex slaves, including a 16-year-old girl to Prince Andrew. Then he is alleged to have committed suicide in a maximum security prison because, for some reason, the guards who were supposed to check on him fell asleep, coincidentally at the same time Epstein happened to choose to kill himself.

This raises very obvious questions about the integrity of our justice system, and the complicity of government in this (including possibly foreign governments, such as the UK), and so far, exactly none of them are answered. The government's strongest response, as far as I can tell, has been to indict the two guards who were supposed to guard him. Epstein's closest-known associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, is now in custody... in the exact same jail.

Again, I haven't followed QAnon at all apart from dismissing it as an elaborate LARP several years ago. Still, if this is the "misinformation" they're pushing, then perhaps the reason Twitter has chosen to censor them now isn't because of falsehoods, but because there really ARE politicians and A-listers sexually exploiting children, with the protection of government.

We have accepted, for thousands of years, that a person may join a military understanding that they will be shot, stabbed, and generally face fates with a higher mortality rate than COVID. We have accepted volunteers, and at times, we have simply told people that they must go or be imprisoned or killed. The entire world is, at this time, occupied by COVID almost as if there were armies in the streets shutting down stores, enforcing strict curfews, and killing civilians at random.

If someone now wishes to volunteer to serve in this capacity, why would this be unacceptable?

Primes have a reputation for being spooky and mysterious; if mathematicians go around proving theorems about their structure, then that's harmful to the brand. Big prime has a lot riding on making sure that there's a lot of FUD around alleged proofs of these things.

> You can't argue from ignorance that the people who do have knowledge are intellectually dishonest

You claim knowledge but haven't demonstrated it, so why should anyone treat you as if you possess it? Citation or GTFO.

This is deeply relevant to anyone who ever found themselves watching King of Kong and devouring an alarming amount of popcorn in the gripping drama that followed.

Strip guests spend something like $1k per day on average, counting food, room and entertainment. Who the fuck is burning $1k a day and wants to take mass transit?

Twitter's fallacy here -- and the one which powerful forces are trying to foist upon other big names -- is that you can have a global communication platform with one set of rules. There is no one set of rules that refers to all speech. There is no way to measure "hate" fairly. Twitter has painted themselves into a corner: they will forever be too strict, or too lenient, often being loudly accused of both at the same time.

Amazon does everything else now, maybe they can start doing on-demand cardboard pickups for Prime customers. Or, they could collect recyclables in general and assign a certain day of the week to send a truck by your house to collect them from a bin placed at your curb. This kind of zero-click technology is incredibly innovative, and clearly warrants a patent.

Maybe there's an emulator for it and maybe there's not, but I was never expecting to play the Xbox games on my Linux box, any more than I expect my phone apps to run on it. But there's no movie, TV show or music album for instance that was released, DRMed and unpiratable, unless that media was so spectacularly unpopular that no one wanted to pirate it in the first place.

You know, the-man-will-get-you FUD used to worry me, but now it doesn't. They tried it, and it was way too expensive. So instead they did what we said they ought to do all along: release their stuff on a platform like Netflix, which is easier to use than piracy. And lo, I pay for Netflix! But I'm likely to cancel my subscription because of barriers introduced by DRM.

DRM does not work. If you doubt this, name for me one piece of copyrighted material HDCP is intended protect that is not already available for piracy online. This cannot be done, therefore, anything I could watch if HDCP is supported, I can already watch without it. So if there's no value-add for the user, and no value-add for the media companies, and it contradicts the open nature which has made Linux so successful in the first place, why should it be included?

Oh, my disk drive left me
Optical I lack,
when it comes to networks, well
I ain't got jack!
I got the Retina blues...
but I get good reviews.