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Biden administration coerced social media giants into possible free speech violations: court

The White House, health officials and the FBI may have violated the First Amendment rights of people posting about COVID-19 and elections on social media by pressuring technology companies to suppress and remove the posts, a federal appeals court ruled late Friday.

Stating the obvious there.

The Biden administration has 10 days to seek a Supreme Court review of the ruling.

“DOJ is reviewing the court’s decision and will evaluate its options in this case,” the White House said in a statement.

Once again, they were caught doing something wrong, but refuse to accept responcibility for.

…the White House coerced the platforms through “intimidating messages and threats of adverse consequences” and commandeered the decision-making processes of social media companies, particularly in handling pandemic-related and 2020 election posts.

Yay, like how to suppress the damage their agenda/narrative has caused to so many people.

“It is true that the officials have an interest in engaging with social media companies, including on issues such as misinformation and election interference. But the government is not permitted to advance these interests to the extent that it engages in viewpoint suppression,” the judges wrote.

And we saw how all that was one way.  Only the government approved viewpoints were allowed.  Government misinformation (Russian dossier HOAX) was allowed to spread, etc.

And how the so-called “fact checkers” are themselves full of fraud and misinformation.

When the media is no longer neutral (and are very much biased), and accept talking points without question or concern, when social media companies and other tech companies are so ready and willing to censor free speech and open discussions as “misinformation” or “hate”, that is a huge problem.

I just hope something more comes from this lawsuit and court verdict.

Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, a game filled with  nostalgic images of cel-shaded characters and street style gameplay reminiscent of Jet Set Radio Future (Not Jet Set [grind] Radio). The game definitely has the look and somewhat feel of JSRF, but the music, the story, and the characters and character designs are all lackluster to say the least.

The story is about ” 3 big writers inspiring the streets” which in itself makes almost no sense and has no substance to a proper introduction to a story. Keep in mind I’m about 1/3rd in the game already and it already seems like the story is going to be a let down as it continues with your character getting decapitated and you have a robot head to replace yours while trying to find your “identity” which is heavily implied by the first rival gang you end up fighting who are a bunch of Frankenstein creatures stapled together talking about where their “parts” came from by priding racial origins of the part, almost blatantly dehumanizing himself and the people his parts came from.

This gets your robot head character (named red) questioning his own identity… Already feels like they pushed identity politics in this game. Maybe it’s because I’m on guard from all the Woke BS indie devs have been trying to influence gamers with, but this feels like a forced story piece and feels absolutely pointless.

It goes on from here where you have to get street cred by tagging different areas to challenge the street holder and antagonist “writer” who has your head. You meet the big bad briefly only to have him retrieve a memory that you have no idea where it came from to see your old self (makes no sense) as you play through a dream level that tells me the game focuses more on a personal story, than an actual story.

From there you go on to challenge the next gang who is literally a group of angry black women in spandex 80s looking suits with giant shoulders and braids that stick out complaining how your character is a man🤦 so progressive….

The placement of these characters are boring and predictable which is sad to say the least. That’s about where I stopped story wise. I honestly couldn’t think this was woke until I saw character designs predominantly leaning in with race/gender and boring designs. The first gang was literally just Frankenstein creatures in basketball outfits riding BMX bikes, boring.

Now let’s compare that to a JSRF character: Combo, a boom box holding beast with a free dangling gold chain with a logo and baggy pants and the most chill shades you ever saw, way better. Compare that to the Frankenstein characters, boring.

But not as boring as the music. Sure it sounds like techno, but it has zero of the same energy and memorability as JSRF. It has no up eat tempos, the soundtracks don’t stick out and really sounds like they want stick to more boring tempos and mixes of music. When I hear the music, all I can think of is “when is ‘concept of Love’s track coming up?” That’s how bad the music has been so far. I wouldn’t be surprised if we do get some more memorable mixes in the playlist, but really it’s not exciting or pushing me to keep playing.

Which brings me to the gameplay itself. I was shocked to see the gameplay was strikingly similar to JSRF, even when you’re using other modes of transportation like a skateboard and bicycle. But it’s also harder to control with the camera angles always shifting in awkward positions making you incapable of seeing where you’re going compared to JSRF and even then it’s still either too slippery to control your movements and the combination trick system doesn’t work in tempo like JSRF did. I know I bring this up a lot, but JSRF is the direct inspiration and it doesn’t remain faithful to its roots as ironic of a statement that is, it deviates and forgets what made JSRF good like the graffiti.

The graffiti system works with specific patterns of each design which gives you a option for every movement you make with your spray  button commands, but good luck remembering each and every spray option. It would’ve been easier just to preset which ones you want to use, but the game Creators rather make it harder for you to use the designs you want to use. It’s just overcomplicated for a 10 hour game…

Ultimately, this game tries too hard to emulate the visual success of JSRF but falling short in every other part.

The game feels like the story was trying to push a story more than the fun of the game. You see the story unfold and simply don’t care because it doesn’t make sense and the characters are paper thin boring.

When I played JSRF, the characters weren’t trying to be deep, they were trying to be fun which they did successfully. In the same time I spent playing JSRF, I unlocked two characters and and passed a quick tutorial with Beat. In that same time, I played a character that had his head removed and played through TWO SEPARATE TUTORIALS and a really bland storyline… I really can’t say this was all that fun, but it wasn’t the worst thing I ever played either. It has the elements of JSRF, but lacks all the charisma of the game they are emulating.

With JSRF you got characters who seemed almost out of this world, you had a easy fluid gameplay, and while the camera angles were a problem too, they were more manageable in JSRF. BRC simply trying too hard to be bigger than it actually was. The game is mid at best. I’d say worth at most $20 dollars and the game itself is only recorded at 10 hours long. Not really a game I would pay $40 again.

Let me be blunt and state this isn’t my best writing and I just wanted to give you all of my opinion of the game overall. I didn’t take time to proof read, or edit or anything that would possibly  be considered to a well written review.

Let me know what you all thought of the game or if you think I’m being too critical.

For anyone interested, the book can be found here and a video of someone reading the book can be found here.

This isn’t so much a book review as it is an attempt to try to understand what Lewis was writing, and to see how what he wrote may be playing out now.

One thing Lewis tries to establish early on is that there is a universal code of morals and ethics. It is universal because almost all aspects of it are found across all human cultures in all times. “This conception in all its forms, Platonic, Aristotelian, Stoic, Christian, and Oriental alike, I shall henceforth refer to for brevity simply as ‘the Tao’.” (p. 8).

The existence of this code is of primary importance to humanity. “The head rules the belly through the chest—the seat, as Alanus tells us, of Magnanimity, of emotions organized by trained habit into stable sentiments. The Chest-Magnanimity-Sentiment—these are the indispensable liaison officers between cerebral man and visceral man. It may even be said that it is by this middle element that man is man: for by his intellect he is mere spirit and by his appetite mere animal.” (p. 11).

To take away this code would be to create what Lewis calls “Men Without Chests”. “And all the time—such is the tragi-comedy of our situation—we continue to clamour for those very qualities we are rendering impossible. You can hardly open a periodical without coming across the statement that what our civilization needs is more ‘drive’, or dynamism, or self-sacrifice, or ‘creativity’. In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.” (p. 12).

Is this something we can see with our own eyes, the effects of this void between our heads and our stomachs, between our minds and our appetites? I can think of the recent outbreak of mass robberies in certain cities, where large crowds of people rush into stores, steal in an almost haphazard manner whatever is at hand, then leave. And when the businesses shut down and leave for better, safer places, they will cry that their neighborhoods are being abandoned by those greedy businesses.

It could even be that the whole of what we called “cancel culture” is an example of this void. For most of those who participate in cancelings, it seems to be less about intellect, about the give-and-take of ideas and only shutting the doors to truly heinous ideas, but about silencing any idea that they find troubling, or that simply disagrees with them. They are simply obeying their own desires, their own emotions, their own appetites., and have given no thought to the idea that the same rules they want to use against others could very well also be used against them.

Or the recent examples of transgender madness, or people intentionally exposes young children to sexually charged drag shows, or the insanity during the time of Covid over things that we now know were useless and even lies,. I’m sure other people can add to the list of things that show how as a whole our minds and our appetites have been separated, how our culture is being pushed around by people who are ruled by their appetites and not ruling their emotions by their minds.

Lewis gives us a possible scenario of how things may finally play out. “At the moment, then, of Man’s victory over Nature, we find the whole human race subjected to some individual men, and those individuals subjected to that in themselves which is purely ‘natural’—to their irrational impulses. Nature, untrammelled by values, rules the Conditioners and, through them, all humanity. Man’s conquest of Nature turns out, in the moment of its consummation, to be Nature’s conquest of Man. Every victory we seemed to win has led us, step by step, to this conclusion. All Nature’s apparent reverses have been but tactical withdrawals. We thought we were beating her back when she was luring us on. What looked to us like hands held up in surrender was really the opening of arms to enfold us for ever. If the fully planned and conditioned world (with its Tao a mere product of the planning) comes into existence, Nature will be troubled no more by the restive species that rose in revolt against her so many millions of years ago, will be vexed no longer by its chatter of truth and mercy and beauty and happiness. Ferum victorem cepit: and if the eugenics are efficient enough there will be no second revolt, but all snug beneath the Conditioners, and the Conditioners beneath her, till the moon falls or the sun grows cold.” (pp. 31-32).

“Traditional values are to be ‘debunked’ and mankind to be cut out into some fresh shape at the will (which must, by hypothesis, be an arbitrary will) of some few lucky people in one lucky generation which has learned how to do it. The belief that we can invent ‘ideologies’ at pleasure, and the consequent treatment of mankind as mere ulh, specimens, preparations, begins to affect our very language. Once we killed bad men: now we liquidate unsocial elements. Virtue has become integration and diligence dynamism, and boys likely to be worthy of a commission are ‘potential officer material’. Most wonderful of all, the virtues of thrift and temperance, and even of ordinary intelligence, are sales-resistance.” (p. 34).

What we are left with is a vast herd of sheep called humanity who are ruled by some few who through education will not train us in how to think but will tell us what to think. They will not believe in a code themselves, but they will force a code upon all the sheep below them.

Yet since they themselves have no code, what code can these dear leaders force upon us? Only what is convenient for them. They have no code that tells them to care one whit for the sheep, except perhaps insofar as happy sheep make for happy shepherds. But the rules they make for the sheep will not be rules they intend to keep themselves.

Consider the climate fearmongers. In words, they are very ready to make dire predictions, and in actions, they are very ready to make the lives of the sheep very difficult. But in their actions regarding themselves, they are very ready to ignore their own rules. When they gave for their conferences, they come on their private jets with the vast entourages of people and armadas of vehicles. Their homes are examples of energy waste.

If I could offer one counterpoint, it’s not as if such hypocrisy is new. Jesus denounced the religious rulers of His day for putting burdens of the people that the rulers themselves would not touch.

Netflix puts out a lot of low quality content in my opinion as they just try to fill their platform with enough stuff to keep subscribers interested.  I figure 9/10 things they create is total garbage (my opinion).  But now and then they do something interesting and good.

This morning I watched “The Monkey King”.  The only reason I gave it a chance is because it was animated (Netflix seems to have a higher success rate there) and I enjoyed the non-animated Monkey King series they created a few years ago which they killed off before the story was done unfortunately.

This one appears to be a prequel to the non-animated series.

I started to watch this and I was drawn in and on the edge of my seat.  It’s a unique telling of the story.  It is very fanciful, colorful and has some cool music in it of different genres.  The Monkey King theme was hard rock/metal and it was really cool.

I detected no wokeness in this and I just found it fun and enjoyable.

Highly recommended for adults and or children.

<p style=”text-align: left;”><p style=”text-align: left;”>I’m sure many have noticed the uptick in PlayStation hardcore fans becoming more and more delusional by the minute.</p>
Despite the accuracy of PlayStation being the market leader in the console market, PlayStation has been losing more and more traction and still not making as much money as its competitors while simultaneously being investigated and sued by 3 countries for anti competitive business behavior which is in fact, illegal. Which goes without saying their censorship practices are all the more alienating their audience to other platforms, Japan being the prime example of boycotting.</p>
Recently, PlayStation fans have taken up extreme cause to discredit Microsoft for their business practices which oddly enough, do follow the proper business practice compared to PlayStation. Microsoft, as you all know has been on an acquisition spree to obtain more IPs for their ongoing services for GamePass and Cloud based gaming which has shown some improvement over the last few years. Sadly, PlayStation fans have made up an excuse after excuse and making false accusations of anti consumer practices when Microsoft has made no such moves as of yet.

This brings me to the first false claim: The ABK acquisition. Activision Blizzard King was recently and successfully ruled in Microsoft’s favor to close the deal which while is extending out for the UK deal, is confirmed in the US and every other country and it looks like the acquisition will go through even if the UK doesn’t agree because even if the UK backs out, Microsoft is willing to sell their cloud rights over the UK to allowed the acquisition through without their approval.

PlayStation fans, however, made the false narrative that this acquisition would be blocked in the FTC ruling which as we all saw, The FTC had no case in pursuing in the first place and lost 25% funding as a result of the frivolous behavior in defending PlayStation, not the consumer (FTC neglects they work for the consumer, not PlayStation).

After the backlash of PlayStation fans being wrong, many went on to delete social media accounts and then change their arguments to fit their anti Microsoft agenda which showed the gaming community how utterly ignorant they were to make their arguments in the first place.

Even before this debacle, another was already in place for Starfield being exclusive to Xbox and PlayStation fans making the false narrative that it would be PlayStation exclusive when that simply wasn’t the case. The did not stop there, they went on with making a petition to make it exclusive after the fact Microsoft acquired the company whose making starfield. This brings us up to date where the fans have accepted they’ll not be getting starfield but at the same time won’t let their personal vendetta against Microsoft end as they have openly admitted, recently on Twitter, that they were making fake accounts to review bomb the game due to a lack of availability on their console. The level of delusions these fans are going through to make their agenda known to protect a company that quite literally hates them is simply disturbing, for lack of a better word.

It doesn’t stop here though, more recently the fans have gone through another stage of coping by making a false claim of Baldur’s Gate 3 being a “PlayStation exclusive”…… You read that correctly, a current game that’s only been released on PC, somehow is a PlayStation exclusive to them. Last time I checked, no consoles have received a functional copy of this game on their platform, but magically, Baldur’s Gate 3 came to PlayStation exclusively? As you can see, the degeneracy they’ve fallen into has been nothing short of the mental illness of a group of consumers.

But why am I bringing this up? Why have I chosen to give you a huge forum post about one particularly weird group of fanboys? Honestly, it’s for two reasons: One, I wanted to shed light on PlayStation fanboys and PlayStation. PlayStation fanboys are toxic little cretins who literally have the coping mechanism of a 5 year old and I detest PlayStation because they take advantage of their consumers, developers, third party developers, and spit on the consumer market. I am accepting of any platform that doesn’t pursue censorship or bad business.

My second reason is that this behavior of bootlicking for corporations have become a nuisance to the gaming community as a whole. I get it, we all have platforms we like and we want them to stick around a bit longer. To me, the only company that is worthy of our respect is Nintendo. Not Microsoft (woke brand BS), Not PlayStation (woke and censoring games), but Nintendo. And sure, Nintendo isn’t making all the right choices, but Nintendo is the only company that has outspokenly stated: we would not arbitrarily censor a game (despite hiring localizers who did such a thing). Aside from changed language due to woke localization, censorship from Nintendo is nearly non existent. We continue to get fun and sexy games like Galgun and Senran Kagura without the extra censorship PlayStation adds in.

Nintendo even hired Playboy at one time to make a Bayonetta photo shoot. Does Nintendo have more edge than PlayStation now? Indefinitely, yes.

By all means we should continue to support Nintendo because at this point, Nintendo is still independent and still gives us the fullest games with the least to almost no censorship which is saying something.

But I didn’t write this to talk about Nintendo, I brought this to your attention because I love gaming, I love the freedom to enjoy gaming, and I wanted you all to be aware of the industry, the communities, and really just wanted to have this conversation.

I do think playstation delusional syndrome is real and only the most hardcore of fanboys can truly be considered among this claim.

I’m sorry if this offends anyone who owns a PS5, but my statement stands that Playstation is a crap platform and we should all move forward with boycotting to another console because let’s face it, playstation isn’t going to stop stealing content from it’s consumers, it’s not going to stop being underhanded, it’s not going to do anything in favor of the consumer demand. Make the right choice, buy anything else that doesn’t censor.

Thank you.

• This topic was modified 1 year, 3 months ago by Salvince.