Internet

A childhood in Canada. A stint on the Big Island of Hawaii. A move to the Bay Area. A stretch of pro-nudity activism. And then, most recently, an apparent obsession with pumping right-wing conspiracy theories into the internet — spending hours and days in front of a computer, filling web pages that had no apparent audience. This was the strange and peripatetic life of 42-year-old David DePape before he was accused of breaking into the San Francisco home of Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and striking her husband, Paul Pelosi, with a hammer, leaving him in need of surgeries to repair a fractured skull and injuries to his right arm and hands. Related: Ex-girlfriend of suspect in Paul Pelosi attack says he struggled with mental illness While a precise motive for the attack just before 3 a.m. Friday morning was not known, DePape reportedly asked at one point, “Where is Nancy?” City dispatch recordings indicate the intruder told Paul Pelosi he was “a friend” and planned to wait for his wife, who was in Washington, D.C., at the time. Arrested at the scene, DePape was booked on suspicion of several criminal counts, including attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, burglary and dissuading a witness to a crime. Police Chief Bill Scott said DePape was hospitalized, but would not say whether he was receiving medical or psychiatric treatment, or both. District Attorney Brooke Jenkins’ office will have to decide on charges by early next week.

via sfchronical: Paul Pelosi attack: From nudist activism to online hate, suspect David DePape’s strange descent

He was rather quick to amplify disinformation that served the Trumpian right. Two serious threats—Republican extremism and the takeover of Twitter by billionaire Elon Musk—intersected in one 16-word tweet this weekend. When Hillary Clinton on Twitter cited a Los Angeles Times article that reported the would-be assassin of Nancy Pelosi, who assaulted Pelosi’s husband Paul, was a QAnon fanboy who espoused right wing conspiracy theories and extreme MAGA rhetoric, Musk replied with a tweet promoting a false story disseminated by a known disinformation site that claimed that the assailant was a man Pelosi had met in a gay bar late that night. Flogging this baseless assertion to counter Clinton’s tweet and the Los Angeles Times article, Musk observed, “There is a tiny possibility there might be more to the story than meets the eye.” Reasonable folks on Twitter howled, but before Musk deleted this post hours later, it had been retweeted at least 24,000 times. The new owner of Twitter had helped spread a conspiracy theory designed to undermine the fact that a fellow propelled by right-wing extremism had apparently tried to kill Pelosi, who has long been demonized by the GOP and conservative media. There is so much that is wrong with this picture. This episode suggested that Musk, the guy now in charge of Twitter, is unable—or unwilling—to discern disinformation from legitimate material. (The source of the bogus article Musk boosted is well-known as a publisher of false information and once claimed Hillary Clinton was replaced by a body double for a debate with Donald Trump in 2016.) This was a stark demonstration of Musk’s severe lack of judgment and a cavalier attitude toward the importance of truth in the public square. There’s more: This tweet also illustrated how Musk was eager to push back against bad news for the Trumpian right. The brutal hammer attack on Paul Pelosi, which sent him to a hospital for surgeries related to head and arm injuries, cast a bright light on Republican extremism. Trump has embraced QAnon conspiracism, which has repeatedly led to violence, and the GOP has accepted the merger of QAnon and MAGAism. As I reported recently, three prominent Republican secretary of state candidates, each QAnon-aligned, participated in a Florida conference that featured a white nationalist, assorted conspiracy nutters, and fellow 2020 election denialists. According to the Los Angeles Times, Pelosi’s assailant was a denizen of the dark and demented world of QAnon, Holocaust denialism, anti-vaxxism, and other far-right conspiracies, many of which are encouraged, amplified, or winked at by Trump, other Republicans, Fox News, and various conservative outlets. The right’s efforts to dismiss the meaning and significance of the Pelosi attack—Donald Trump Jr., Virginia Gov. Glenn Younkin, and other Republicans even joked about it—was a move to deflect attention from the GOP’s connection to far-right fanaticism.

via mother jones: Elon Musk and Right-Wing Extremism: Part of the Problem, Not the Solution

Musk says he’ll establish a content moderation ”council,“ and no ”major“ content or reinstatement decisions will happen until then. Elon Musk’s first day as Twitter’s new owner caused concern among many on social media, as hate speech against Black and Jewish people went unchecked, just as media watchdog groups had feared. On Thursday night, the billionaire tweeted “the bird is freed,” while also telling advertisers he did not want the platform to turn into a “free-for-all hellscape.” But as Friday rolled out, there was a noticeable difference in what was now allowed on the platform. A tweet with a Swastika-heavy, pro-Hitler video and the caption, “I hear that there have been some changes around here,” was still up on Friday morning and had more than 800 likes. After articles by the New York Times and Washington Post about the surge in hate speech and concerns about the lack of moderation amid staff cuts, Musk tweeted on Friday, “Twitter will be forming a content moderation council with widely diverse viewpoints. No major content decisions or account reinstatements will happen before that council convenes.” Alejandra Caraballo of the Harvard Law Cyberlaw Clinic rounded up several tweets that would have been banned prior to Musk’s regime. One tweet said, “Elon now controls Twitter. Unleash the racial slurs. K—S AND N—–S,” unleashing antisemitic and Black slurs. Another wrote, “I can freely express how much I hate n—s now, thank you, Elon.” While another wrote, “Killing n—s” multiple times, and still others threatened violence against Black people and to the “Jewish media.”

via tehwrap: Elon Musk’s First Day at Twitter: N-Word and Pro-Nazi Tweets Go Unchecked – at Least for Now