Assuming you're on the other side of the 'pond' I doubt many over there are laughing at the Russian Bear at the moment. Putin took Crimea during Obama's era, sat quietly through Trump, will probably take the Donbas while Biden is in office.
DeSantis 2024 - Trump with brains.

I'm on the other side of a pond, yes, but probably not the one you seem to be thinking. Fortunately for me [and unfortunately for your argument], I'm in a part of the world which is well away from all of that. But if you think the sitting US President has anything to do with the situation there and the decisions which lead to it, I think you're wrong.

It's pretty well known that Russian trolls manipulate "free speech" on Facebook and Twitter, isn't it?

Talking of "morons", looks like the more things change, the more they remain the same. Of course, it's probably someone sabotaging the teleprompter or ripping stuff out of context or ... : https://twitter.com/i/status/1524058793713315841

I'm sorry, should I substitute 'Chinese Dragon' for 'Russian Bear?' Trolls, Russian or otherwise, are only effective with those who limit their intake to only a small subset of the World Wide Web instead of using the tools at their disposal to gather a World view. Musk has said he will fight 'bots' on the platform. We shall see.

To my knowledge no one has been banned from twitter for "moronic behavior". In fact, twitter ABOUNDS in "moronic behavior"!

Most people who are banned from Twitter (or any social media platform) are banned for violating the terms of service. Some are banned for violating the law. A few are banned for skirting the edges of violation, but creating a legal and potentially financial liability for twitter itself. Donald J Trump is one from a very select group that was banned for ALL of those.

Musk is only starting to understand that totally open freedom to say anything on the platform cannot be supported for legal, financial, and practical reasons. You can ignore the practical restrictions when you just use or just criticize the platform, but not when you RUN the platform! Musk HATES restrictions (see SEC and court interactions that stand as his learning experiences) but as a business owner they must be considered as a requirement of doing business.

Poor Musk! (Need more popcorn, excuse me...)

Ha! Touche.

But in reality, they probably own more of your country than mine already... and they achieved it not with fists, but with tool$ we all under$tand. Why would they bomb their own property?
But you just said that he'd allow Trump back on?
Yeah it's funny, but I didn't see any incitement to insurrection in that video.
BuT mUh FrEe SpEeCh

You are legally responsible for your words: well-established legal principles include "libel," "slander," and "fraud."

But the recent trend in many "social media" platforms is to ban speech because the owners of the site disagree. Which by the way is exactly why I have never participated on any of their platforms, and why I never intend to do so.

I'm frankly amazed that these companies still command such stupendous stock-market valuations, because there is no "barrier to entry" for any company that can – and does – provide the same service much better than any of them do. Literally anyone on earth can deploy a forum or a "chat room," using software that is available free-of-charge.

I have read that Truth Social is censoring content and kicking off users, even Parler censored content. I'm not sure that social media platforms can be a "town square". I have not read all of the posts in this thread but do remember that twitter is used by people all over the world not just the US and it does have to comply with rules of specific countries and for example the EU is much stricter then the US. I liked the fact the title of the thread is fair not free speech.

Depends on your point of view as to what this means. IMHO Putin was getting what he wanted from Trump and there was no need to invade.

Very true, but not in a good way if you are for Democracy. If you paid any attention, many of his recent laws are actually from Hungary's Victor Orban's playbook. Authoritarianism at its best... The hypocrisy to his Communism day is that students will learn about Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong and Fidel Castro systemic poverty, starvation, lethal violence and suppression of speech that people endured under their regimes but not to which Blacks have been and still are subjected to in this country.

Hungary higher education is under state control so “liberals” cannot pollute the minds of the young. Sound familiar...

I re-quote that BBC journalist who said it weeks ago: "Musk has just bought himself a gigantic headache".

Still not well enough. Especially the deviousness of it, and the type of the manipulation: they aren't necessarily trying to turn us all pro-Russian - just sowing dissent and doubt. FUD.
These are facts.

Also, dismissing it because "it doesn't affect them" is par for the course for people who believe they can get real journalism from Youtube and scientific facts from Facebook, or think that "head shrinks" are a waste of time.

As you say, it depends upon one's viewpoint. I fail to see how Putin was "getting what he wanted from Trump" in between taking Crimea while Obama was in office and 4 years later invading Ukraine under the Biden administration.
Trump sent "210 Javelin missiles and 37 launch units" in 2018. After procrastinating over the sale Trump allowed the sale of an additional "one hundred fifty (150) Javelin missiles and ten (10) Javelin Command Launch Units (CLUs)." launching a failed impeachment attempt by overjealous Democrats.

In between he allowed the sale of sixteen (16) Mark VI Patrol Boats; thirty-two (32) MSI Seahawk A2 gun systems; twenty (20) Electro-Optics-Infrared Radar (FLIR) (16 installed and 4 spares); sixteen (16) Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD) 5km loudspeaker systems; sixteen (16) Identification Friend or Foe (IFF) systems; forty (40) MK44 cannons (32 installed and 8 spares); communication equipment; support equipment; spare and repair parts; tools and test equipment; technical data and publications; personnel training and training equipment; U.S. government and contractor engineering, technical, and logistics support services; and other related elements of logistics support. The estimated total cost is $600 million. https://www.dsca.mil/press-media/maj...d-launch-units

In 2017 Trump prodded the 'Bear' again when he allowed the deployment of 12 A10 'Warthog tank killers' to NATO member Estonia who was alarmed by Putin's actions in Crimea. Four of those aircraft did highway landings within 10 miles of Russia's 186 mile border with Estonia. Remember that picture of stalled Russian tanks on the failed attempt to take Kyiv - they'd be dead meat if that happened in Estonia. https://www.businessinsider.com/watc...estonia-2016-6

"Operation Desert Storm was the first time the “Warthog” had flown in combat. By the time it ended, the Warthog would be credited with destroying more than 900 tanks, 2,000 military vehicles, and 1,200 artillery pieces. That the A-10 remains in service 29 years later is a testament to the platform’s reliability and effectiveness." https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-s...nks-180975619/

If you'd like to read much more about Ukraine, and Putin and Zelenskyy and Biden and all the rest, may I refer you to thepostil.com.

An on-line imprint of St. Augustine Press, this site publishes scholarly articles from impeccable sources (military, diplomatic, and academic), but which are not an "easy or quick read." There are hours worth of careful reading to be found here, and I commend it to you. (It might well take you an hour to read one piece.) This is not a "political" site; not at all. These writers did not form their positions yesterday, and they write to inform you, not to persuade you.

Here you can learn where and when and why "Nazis" became a part of Ukraine – over a hundred years ago. You can learn why Ukraine has been waging civil war against Russian-speaking Ukranians for the last six years or so. All sorts of things that you never knew nor suspected ... until now. Of course, the company also publishes books and e-books, and has been doing so for a long time.

Putin got exactly what he wanted from Trump: The near complete political destabilisation of what was once the world's greatest superpower.

Consider that the politics in your country are charged to the point where some of your very own fellow Americans attempted to tear down the Capitol. It doesn't matter what "side" they're on. They're Americans, and they were incited to treason by another one of your very own. You can bet that the "Bear" and the "Dragon" were both dancing with glee on that day.

There are few times in history when the Unites States has been more politically divided than it is now.

What does history teach us about divided populaces?

"Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users" https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1525049369552048129

I don't know about yours's but having lived through the Viet Nam debacle and 9/11 I can tell you about mine: Paraphrasing Yamamoto's allegorical/mythical phrase concerning the U.S. - "You prod the 'sleeping giant'" at your own peril!
So 'lessor' powers can quake at Chinese influence in the S. Pacific or Africa but no one should doubt that the U.S. is the apex predator when it comes to 'superpowers' and at the tip of the spear of the NATO alliance.
Speaking of which, Finland seems poised to add it's Nordic expertise to NATO along it's 800+ mile long border with Russia. Way to go Putin, lol.

@sundialsvcs Interesting link, thanks.

Just as AOL once counted every floppy disk they mailed out as a "subscriber," I have no doubt that social media companies have been doing the same. Do you really think that "millions of people" are hanging off your every word? I openly suspect that their subscriber count and their daily activity counts have been vastly over-stated since the very start.