Bonum Certa Men Certa

Criticising Microsoft and the OSI is “COVID-19 Misinformation”

Once you control the media the prospect of controlling social control media as well becomes seductive

"You want to infiltrate those. Again, there’s two categories. There’s those that are controlled by vendors; like MSJ; we control that. And there’s those that are independent. [...] So that’s how you use journals that we control. The ones that third parties control, like the WinTech Journal, you want to infiltrate."

--Microsoft's chief evangelist



Summary: Social control media has become the instrument of dictators; shortly after publishing this short and factual post about Microsoft and the OSI the OSI has, once again, apparently resorted to unjust censorship of its critics; we have good reasons to suspect OSI itself is responsible for a false report to Twitter, based on the timing

As noted earlier, Twitter had just suspended my account for 7 days for criticising Microsoft and the OSI without even contacting me first (it offered no due process). Of course the OSI or its allies would not be frank and upfront about the true motivations; they prefer to falsely pretend it's about COVID-19 and use that to flag criticism of theirs. If this isn't the worse censorship attempt, I don't know what is.



I'm astounded. Not exactly surprised, however, knowing how poor Twitter can be at "moderation".

So I accused them of using/exploiting the pandemic (COVID-19) to promote something harmful from Microsoft. That was many months ago. And now that I criticise them for something totally unrelated they latch onto COVID-19 to silence me for one week or more. I cannot even respond to anyone.

We suggest that readers of Techrights should contact OSI, and maybe Twitter to the extent feasible. Minutes after my account was suspended (about 10 minutes afterwards) the chief of the OSI tweeted this to me:

Tweet of OSI

I could not even reply to him! And he responded to me hours after I had posted this, or minutes after my account had been suspended. It makes one wonder who exactly reported me. I contacted Simon Phipps on this matter and responded to Stefano Maffulli via E-mail

My reply: you give them a majority of your budget, in effect promoting proprietary software vendor lock-in.

I cannot even respond because you folks appear to have reported me to suspend my account. Which one of you misused COVID-19 to suppress a voice critical of Microsoft?


Clear and obvious misuse of "report" to suppress perfectly-factual criticism of an unpopular institution.

I've filed a (counter) report to Twitter:

Report to Twitter

They say it can take days to assess. Yes, days.

If not trusting Microsoft is "COVID-19 misinformation", then we're in seriously trouble in social control media, which I've warned about all along.

Twitter sent only an automated reply by E-mail:

Hello,

We’ve received your appeal request.

Our support team will take a look at the information you provided for your appeal. We will respond via email as soon as possible. Please note that while we review your appeal, you’ll be unable to access your Twitter account.

If you would prefer, you may instead choose to cancel your appeal request and resolve the violations by proceeding to Twitter and following the on-screen instructions to restore your account to full functionality.

Thanks, Twitter


The suspension (00:54) was about 20 minutes before the reply from Mr. Maffulli. So the correlation in times may highlight who's responsible for it.

E-mail report of Twitter

Remember, kids. Don't criticise Microsoft and their facilitators (like Linux Foundation) or they will 'vanish' you digitally... like in China.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Open Source Initiative (OSI) Privacy Fiasco in Detail: The OSI Does Not Respect Anybody's Privacy
The surveillance mafia that bans dissent or key people (even co-founders) with dissenting views
The LLM Bubble is About to Implode, Gimmicks and Financial Shell Games Cannot Prevent That, Only Delay It
To inflate the bubble MElon is now doing the classic trick of buying from oneself for a fictional value
 
LLM Slop Piggybacking News About GNU/Linux and Distorting It
new examples
Links 31/03/2025: Press and Democracy Under Further Attacks in the US, Attitudes Towards Slop Sour
Links for the day
Gemini Links 31/03/2025: More X-Filesposting and Dreaming in Emacs
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, March 30, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, March 30, 2025
Links 30/03/2025: Security Breaches, Crackdowns on Dissent/Rival Politicians
Links for the day
Gemini Links 30/03/2025: London Soundtrack Festival, Superbloom, gmiCAPTCHA
Links for the day
Phasing Out Vista 10 in Nations Where ~90% of Windows Users Still Rely on It
Recipe for another Microsoft disaster
The Cost of Pursuing the Much-Needed Reform/Shield Against Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs)
“It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.”
Links 30/03/2025: Contagious Ideas, Signal Leak, and Squashing Lousy Patents
Links for the day
Links 30/03/2025: "Quantum Randomness" and "F-1 Visa Revoked" in US
Links for the day
Gemini Links 30/03/2025: US as a Threat, Returning to the WWW
Links for the day
Links 30/03/2025: Judge Blocks Dismantling Of VOA, Turkey Arrested Many Journalists
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, March 29, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, March 29, 2025
Judges Would Never Rule for Men Who Strangle Women or Against Women Who Merely Wrote Articles About Abuse They Had Received From Men
We don't intend to do "trial by media", so we won't be disclosing claims and defences until it's over
Windows is an Unnatural Disaster, It is Also Avoidable
there's a wide window of opportunity opening
Gemini Links 29/03/2025: Less YouTube and More Station
Links for the day
In Some Countries, Such as Thailand, Firefox is Already Measured at Less Than 2% (One Day Firefox Will Get Blocked, Not Only Lack Support)
Web consolidation around Chrom-isms will doom the Web as we know it
Killing the News With Spam and Slop Benefits Those Whose Desire is an Uninformed Population
adoption of Free software depends indirectly on political activities/activism
Links 29/03/2025: Trademarks Battles, Fires Destroy More Than 3,000 South Korean Homes
Links for the day
Open Source Initiative (OSI) Privacy Fiasco in Detail: An Introduction
Perhaps tomorrow or perhaps next week we'll share more information about what happened and what was reported to the California Privacy Protection Agency
Links 29/03/2025: More Crackdowns on Science, "Hey Hi" Slopping is Flopping
Links for the day
IBM's BS (Bait, Switch) Regarding Ways to Stay Onboard
PIPs, RTOs, and forced relocations are just an illusion of choice (or ability to recover)
Costa Rica Almost Bankrupt Because of Microsoft
the incidents in Costa Rica are Windows incidents
Gemini Links 29/03/2025: Art of Looking, Wireguard, EMacs
Links for the day
Links 29/03/2025: Attacks on Social Security and War Updates
Links for the day
Banned evidence: Ars Technica forums censored email predicting DebConf23 death, Abraham Raji & Debian cover-up
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, March 28, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, March 28, 2025