The incarnation of a bullying and harassment problem

I spent the middle of my day at the Museum of Innovation at The Henry Ford. I went because of a special exhibit that will be there another ten days. It’s an exhibit of the Apollo moon missions. It includes: The start of the space race. President John Kennedy proclaiming the goal of reaching the moon before the end of the decade interspersed with corresponding comments by Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev. Kennedy’s assassination. The civil rights and anti-war protests of the 1960s. Models of the various rockets. Video of the Apollo 11 descent onto the moon while hearing the dialogue between the astronauts and Houston – hearing the phrase “Tranquility Base, the Eagle has landed” is always emotional for me. The news as reported around the world. Small displays for Apollo 12 to 17 and the US-Soviet joint efforts for Mir. And a full size model of the lunar rover. A big reason I went is because the Apollo program was a big part of my teenage years. I watched the Gemini and early Apollo flights (I was too young to pay much attention to the Mercury program). While in the exhibit I saw a lot of people my age and older. And, of course, lots of school kids. One display was of an engineer’s desk. I was nearby and heard kids wonder what some of the stuff was. One declared “I know what that is – it’s a ruler.” It was actually a slide rule. In a Ukraine update from Sunday, Kos of Daily Kos included a diagram of the tunnel network under the Azovstal factory in Mariupol. Reports he’s read say the only thing the soldiers and civilians lack is ammunition. Meaning they have plenty of food. They could hold out for a while and harass the Russians by popping out from one tunnel entrance or another. Hunter of Kos reported on ...

the continued tendency of major infrastructure inside Russia to violently and inexplicably explode. Two massive fires are burning in Bryansk, 90 miles from Ukraine, after explosions rocked two large oil depots in the city. One of those depots is next to a Russian "artillery and missile storage" site. The cause of both explosions is currently unknown; this, after fires destroyed a Russian missile research facility, a Russian space program facility, and Russia's largest (and absolutely critical) chemical plant in recent days. It also coincides with a string of bloody murder-suicides plaguing the Russian oligarchy since Russian strongman Vladimir Putin issued his orders to invade. We remain in the same position as before. Ukrainian defenders around Izyum are in a precarious spot, with any significant Russian advance posing a potential existential risk to the Ukrainian trenchlines that have held for eight years now. But Russia continues to suffer losses not compatible with victory, backed by supply shortages that will put a time limit on its ability to press its assault.

In a Tuesday update Kos again noted Russia is trying to advance on too many fronts at once, meaning it will have a lot of difficulty in all of them. He also noted a couple of tweets that say Russia is warning that Western armaments sent into Ukraine are “legitimate targets” for Russia's military. Kos noted that of course Western military equipment – in Ukraine – is indeed a legitimate target. Russia hasn’t talked about targeting shipments of arms still outside Ukraine. Also, after all the war crimes Russia has committed, they care about what targets are legitimate? Kos also included a tweet by Nolan Peterson that includes a photo:

I was on hand to watch workers dismantling the Ukraine-Russia friendship statue today in Kyiv — it stood since 1982, now 2 months into the war, this probably isn’t what Moscow had in mind...

Greg Myre of NPR reported on the success Ukraine has been having intercepting Russian communications. Ukraine has been releasing some conversations it has gotten when the contents are embarrassing to Russia. An example is two soldiers taking and one calling for Ukrainian prisoners of war to be killed. When Russian soldiers came into Ukraine they brought their phones. Ukraine banned those numbers from its network. So Russian soldiers seized phones from civilians. The citizens notify the government which now has listening devices and a big advantage in intelligence. Why Russia hasn’t bombed Ukraine’s communication network into rubble is a mystery (same with the railways and electric power grid). Perhaps Russia wants to be able to use those things after the win that won’t happen? Russia hacking and taking down parts of Ukraine’s electrical grid in 2015 prompted much better sharing of intelligence between the US and Ukraine. Putin probably doesn’t appreciate this irony. Mark Sumner of Kos reported that US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said,

We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can't do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine.

Because that comment has gotten some fake outrage Sumner discussed that yes, this is a noble and important goal. Even if Ukraine wins this won’t be the last country Russia tries to invade. In the same way Ukraine has a “breakaway” region in Donbas, Moldova has a breakaway region in Transnistria. There were a series of explosions there on Monday. Were these attacks from Russia who will try to blame Ukraine? Whatever the cause, the explosions prompted long lines of people leaving Transnistria and heading into Moldova or maybe farther west. As Alina Radu put it, “People do not want to be ‘liberated’ by Russians.” In a report from yesterday afternoon Sumner started with a picture of what’s left of that Ukraine-Russia Friendship statue. The pedestal has little more than the figure’s shoes with the rest on the ground behind and little children posing in front of those shoes. Then Sumner discussed that Western countries are being careful of what weapons they give to Ukraine. All those wonderful military toys aren’t all that useful if they don’t come with all the right spare parts, if they require weeks and months of training, or if they require a different gauge shell. We don’t want to be a burden to Ukraine while we are trying to help them. Shashank Joshi, the defense editor for The Economist, tweeted:

All this hand-wringing at Austin's comment that US wants to see a weakened Russia. Russia has spent the last decade seeking to weaken the US & Europe. It has spent the last two months seeking to erase the Ukrainian state. Weakening Russia has costs, but it is in NATO's interest.

Heavy sanctions of Russia and a sustained military support of Ukraine will weaken Russia. “That’s a feature, not a bug.” The cost is a different balance of power in the world and China saying we told you this wasn’t about Ukraine, but about the US/NATO goal of weakening Russia. Julia Davis, who created the Russian Media Monitor tweeted, with video:

More genocidal talk on Russian state TV: political scientist Sergey Mikheyev claims that no one speaks the Ukrainian language & it doesn't even exist. No one in the studio contradicts him or stops him. Every pundit is aboard Putin's train to destroy everything Ukrainian for good.

Kos took a look at the term “combined arms,” used by war analysts. Kos has help from a thread by Andrew Fox, a British paratrooper. Tanks are fearsome, but vulnerable to anti-tank missiles. Also fearsome yet vulnerable in different ways are soldiers, howitzers, helicopters, surface to air missiles, planes, and ships. A military also needs logistics, engineers (who would be glad to talk about their bridges), transport, mechanics, medical, and experienced commanders. Since each part is vulnerable in a different way a competent military needs it all. It is complicated to pull off. Western militaries use large training exercises to practice all those pieces put together. And Russia can’t afford training exercises and can’t make it all happen when needed. Laura Clawson of Kos reported that after Elon Musk, the (second?) richest man in the world, made an actual offer too sweet to be ignored, the board of Twitter agreed to sell the company to him. Musk says he will take the company private and he will make Twitter a platform of free speech. Many have big reasons to be skeptical. Musk’s big company Tesla lost a lawsuit that said the Tesla factory is highly racist. Musk is known for tweeting crude and insulting messages aimed at his enemy of the moment. Clawson wrote:

“What Musk seemingly fails to recognize is that to truly have free speech today, you need moderation,” Katie Harbath, a former Facebook executive, told The Washington Post “Otherwise, just those who bully and harass will be left as they will drive others away.” ”A platform that allows people to spam misogynist and racist abuse is unsafe for pretty much anyone else and would lose advertisers, corporate partners and sponsors rapidly, leaving it a commercially unviable husk within months,” said the nonprofit Center for Countering Digital Hate’s Imran Ahmed.

Mary Louise Kelly of NPR spoke to Anand Giridharadas, author of the book Take All: the Elite Charade of Changing the World. Some of what Giridharadas said:

Free speech has become a dog whistle in American life in recent years, and Elon Musk means it in a much more specific way. And he's been much more specific about it. And what he's talking about is the feeling that what is, frankly, content moderation on sites like Twitter and other social media platforms is suppressing free speech. In other words, efforts that have been made to clamp down on very real problems that you and I see on Twitter every day - which is Nazi speech going unchecked, racism going unchecked, disinformation going unchecked, misogyny, rape threats to women who've made the mistake of having opinions going unchecked - there have been modest - inadequate, but modest efforts in recent years to clamp down. And Elon Musk thinks that kind of reform, which actually allows more people to speak more freely and safely, is the problem. ... And when I talk to people who work at Twitter, these are the three they're thinking about, right? So Twitter has a disinformation problem by its own acknowledgment, right? And Elon Musk has shown himself to be someone who spreads falsehoods. Twitter has a racism problem, which, again, Twitter has fessed up to and has tried to fix and not done enough, but owned up to the fact that it is working to make it a less bigoted, harassing place for people of color. Elon Musk runs a company that the California Department of Fair Housing and Employment recently said is a segregated workplace; not awkward, not mean - segregated. And Twitter has a bullying and harassment problem, as particularly women and people of color experience every day. And Elon Musk is the incarnation of that kind of social media behavior, siccing his followers on people who disagree with him.

Twitter may not have the reach of network TV in the 70s with an audience of 40 million people. But Musk is correct Twitter is a town square. And Musk will own the square and shape how things are discussed there. Leah McElrath (whose tweets I’ve quoted a lot) wrote that she is staying on Twitter until doing so is unmanageable. She is also pursuing other platform possibilities. David Rothkopf, who is a contributor to USA Today, tweeted:

The richest guy on the 2021 Forbes 400 owns the Washington Post. Number 2 now owns Twitter. Number 3 owns Facebook. Numbers 5 and 6 started Google. Numbers 4 and 9 started Microsoft. Number 10 owns Bloomberg. Free speech? You decide. Combine this w/the Citizens United formula that money equals speech & so those w/the most money are entitled to the most speech, lack of campaign finance regulation & pols who depend on $ to hold power & you've got a country sinking ever deeper into the quicksand of corruption.

Musk is not going to enhance the voice of the little guy. Billionaires controlling public forums is linked to growing inequality, more division, and more shaping the narrative to suit themselves. We don’t deserve this. We need regulations to protect us from hate and Musk’s purchase made that more urgent. Ebony Elizabeth Thomas tweeted what she says is not legal advice, but still important. Research before you deactivate from Twitter. Musk will own your data and you won’t have access to it. Don’t burn a digital bridge. A few months ago when Twitter started to demand I sign up to look at all of McElrath’s tweets I contemplated it, but didn’t. Now I’m glad I didn’t. Michael Harriot, a black man who writes about racism, tweeted:

Before everyone leaves, let's have some fun. What are some of the things we'll see on #WhiteTwitter?

Some replies: John Malkontent: A fundamental misunderstanding of the first amendment. Randy Watson: And 2nd... Mad Bastard: The saddest recipes for potato salad. Jamie Oberdick: Even more RTs of Christopher Rufo with comments like "if you really listen to him with an open mind, he has a point." Jay Bullock: How many black friends you need to not be considered racist. Pure True Love: #CriticalRaceTheory is banned & your account will be suspended if you mention #MLK