Musk Critics Including Laura Loomer Claim Censorship on X, Loss of X Badges

[u/Doctor_Byronic]

https://www.cf.org/news/musk-critics-including-laura-loomer-claim-censorship-on-x-loss-of-x-badges/

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[u/Doctor_Byronic]

Quick summary, quoted directly from the article:

Laura Loomer, New York Young Republican Club president Gavin Wax, InfoWars host Owen Shroyer, and the pro-Trump ConservativePAC were all stripped of their verification badges after criticizing Musk’s remarks about American workers and foreign H-1B visa holders.

[u/Normal_Saline_]

My opinion on Elon has done a complete 180 in the past two days. It's one thing to post an opinion that I disagree with, but censoring dissenting opinions while claiming to be a free speech absolutist is vile hypocrisy. Absolutely pathetic.

[u/eatajerk-pal → u/Normal_Saline_]

Yeah this is just censorship in the other direction and should not be celebrated. Elon Musk is gonna be a dingleberry that the 2nd Trump presidency needs to wipe free.

[u/CookingUpChicken → u/Normal_Saline_]

Sick and tired of multiple people trying to hijack MAGA. Be it him or all the companies donating to Trump's inauguration mere weeks after donating to Kamala. Cough Cough Bill Gates Cough

[u/eatajerk-pal → u/CookingUpChicken]

That’s nothing new. Corporations and lobbyists have always paid both sides. They don’t care who wins.

[u/Normal_Saline_ → u/CookingUpChicken]

Ultimately it's Trump's responsibility to listen to his supporters and not his donors. Hopefully he's not a failure like almost every other politician. I'm worried though, because in the past he was heavily influenced by the people around him.

[u/JediJones77 → u/Normal_Saline_]

There was some attention paid to the fact that Laura Loomer was on a flight with him a couple months ago. So, in this case, this seems like he'll be hearing both sides of the argument, and will have to make up his own mind. He did add restrictions to H-1Bs in his first term.

[u/prey4villains]

Musk needs to be very careful here if he’s behind any of this. You can’t claim freedom of speech being paramount to democracy and then start fucking with people…

[u/cathbadh → u/prey4villains]

You can’t claim freedom of speech being paramount to democracy and then start fucking with people…

We should definitely wait and see, but let's be honest, he's never be a defender of free speech. He regularly bans people for posting public flight data and either bans or notes people who use cis or cisgender in their tweets. Journalists who've reported on him have lost their accounts with no explanation, only to get them back again, with no explanation when it became a major news story. The man requires employees to sign restrictive non-disparagement agreements, and once tried to get CUSTOMERS to sign non-disclosure agreements just to get their vehicles repaired. Plus he loves to do business with the biggest anti-free speech regime on the planet, the Chinese government, and has never said a bad word about them.

The man can be good on some issues, and has done some good things at Twitter, and is a successful businessman. But lets be real, the only free speech he is interested in is the kind that serves his personal agendas and conforms to his personal worldview. He is a 14 year old 4channer with more money than God.

[u/GRSsearchlight]

So are Republicans gonna wake up and recognize that this guy is not some sort of principled conservative philanthropist, but rather just another example of a rich guy trying to influence public policy to further his own financial interests?

[u/Entilen → u/GRSsearchlight]

The positive in all this is seeing this post heavily upvoted.

I always had a "not quite right" feeling about Musk and Vivek as the whole anti-woke/America first stuff was feeling a bit too mainstream and commercial to feel genuine. It was difficult to bring up as on paper, these guys were saying all the right things.

It's now quite clear that both Musk and Vivek are bad actors who latched onto the Republican platform for corporate interests.

There's basically an elite war between new and old money. All Musk/Vivek care about is being able to compete against old money billionaires.

They'll tell you they care about free markets which sounds good to populist Republicans, but what they mean by free markets is winning in globalism. Their world view is, if you're against globalism and mass immigration, you're anti-free market which is obviously garbage.

Fingers crossed Trump isn't just a figurehead now for all this rubbish and he actually puts his foot down.

[u/37-19]

I'm curious if Trump has said anything about all this? I read Elon's comments on Twitter and it definitely sounded like he is gung-ho in support of importing more immigrants to boost his bottom line.

[u/DownrightCaterpillar → u/37-19]

That's explicitly what he's saying, you don't even have to read into it. He said this a year ago and still believes it today: https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1728140125299720560

We should greatly increase legal immigration of anyone who is hard-working, honest and loves America. Every such person is an asset to the country. But massive illegal immigration of people we know nothing about is insane.

Now, for the reality of "hard-working" and "honest" people (do we test for honesty before granting work visa? No, we don't.):

Under the strictest set of assumptions, in which all costs of public education fall on the parents of those being educated and in which the cost of public goods are shared across the population equally, first generation independent person units are estimated to be the most costly relative to second and third-plus generation units. For the 2011-2013 period, first generation independent person units incurred a net cost on average of $1,600 per unit per year, compared to a net benefit of $1,700 for second generation independent person units and $1,300 for third-plus generation units.

So, the 1st generation (i.e. the new immigrants Elon wants to bring over) are a net loss for local and state governments, largely because of the cost of educating their children. And they're disproportionately likely to have children.

Page 20

Those arriving after age 21 also typically do not add to the largest state and local cost of immigration—the cost of public education in the receiving country—although their children will.

Page 284

When a population is disproportionately of working ages, and therefore paying taxes and creating a positive fiscal impact, they are also likely to be disproportionately parents of children creating a fiscal negative, primarily in the form of public education costs. As shown below, this demographic characterization accurately describes first generation immigrants for the 1994-2013 period.

Page 450

Sometimes key pieces of information cannot be gleaned from household surveys. An example, used in the estimation of state and local fiscal impacts, is the cost of bilingual education and of educating students for whom English is a second language (not necessarily in a bilingual education program). The costs of such programs cannot be estimated from a household survey because they are incurred by schools, not parents.

So apparently, immigrant children are more expensive to educate than American children, but we don't know how much. 😬😬😬 So this cost analysis also doesn't account for the fact that the education (the largest public expenditure) is higher for immigrant kids. Thus meaning that the above net cost/profit analysis (1st gen: -1,600, 2nd gen +1,700, 3rd gen: + 1300) is wrong for the 1st gen; necessarily they are more expensive due to ESL costs.

I also wonder where they're getting their numbers for educational costs; for example, here's what Table 9-5 on page 401 says for California:

TABLE 9-5 State and Local Expenditures per Independent Person Unit (rounded to nearest $50), by Immigrant Generation by State, 2011-2013
Immigrant Generation Difference: First California: $17,650

This represents pure cost, not net cost or profit. Here is what we annually spend in California, per pupil, for one public school student: $19,548. California's state and local share of that is ~90.5% (since a bit less than 10% of it is funded by the federal govt). How on earth California spends ~$16k per person, including all costs, yet each person costs only about $3,500 more than that, is inexplicable.

[u/Running_Gamer → u/DownrightCaterpillar]

So it costs money to educate children who will likely serve the nation’s interest extraordinarily well? Where is the issue?

[u/DownrightCaterpillar → u/Running_Gamer]

who will likely serve the nation’s interest extraordinarily well? Where is the issue? 

The issue is the lie that you're spreading. Most of these 2nd generation immigrant households barely erase the debt that they imposed on society as children. And when you realize that the estimates we have don't account for the extra cost of providing them ESL classes, you'll realize that they don't even cover the costs of their own education.

[u/Running_Gamer → u/DownrightCaterpillar]

Congratulations for discovering that educating new workers costs money.

People over the course of their life obviously build more wealth and contribute more to society than any ESL education costs. You’re also acting like the HB1 immigrants somehow don’t already speak English. I live in a town where a significant part of the population are second generation Indian children. Their parents knew at least some English when they got here and their children are all fluent and barely needed ESL. The majority of them are at good universities and on their way to contributing to society. The cost of educating them in English was virtually zero. Their parents have to know English to work here. How the hell are you working at an American company at a high level and not know English? It doesn’t exist. Their children are taught English by the parents and if they need supplementary ESL classes, it will only be necessary for a year or two.

[u/GeorgeWashingfun → u/Running_Gamer]

The point is we've already got plenty of American citizens we could spend that money on educating. We don't need to import a bunch of foreigners that destroy our culture.

[u/DownrightCaterpillar → u/Running_Gamer]

Congratulations for discovering that educating new workers costs money. People over the course of their life obviously build more wealth and contribute more to society than any ESL education costs.

Prove it. And the cost here is the whole cost they impose on society, not just the ESL costs. I've already established that, until the 3rd generation, immigrants don't profit society significantly, and that those purported profits are exaggerated by not accounting for ESL education. I'll again quote the conclusion of the Economic and Fiscal Consequences of Immigration (touted by Trump in a 2017 speech):

Page 420

Under the strictest set of assumptions, in which all costs of public education fall on the parents of those being educated and in which the cost of public goods are shared across the population equally, first generation independent person units are estimated to be the most costly relative to second and third-plus generation units. For the 2011-2013 period, first generation independent person units incurred a net cost on average of $1,600 per unit per year, compared to a net benefit of $1,700 for second generation independent person units and $1,300 for third-plus generation units.

Page 450

Sometimes key pieces of information cannot be gleaned from household surveys. An example, used in the estimation of state and local fiscal impacts, is the cost of bilingual education and of educating students for whom English is a second language (not necessarily in a bilingual education program). The costs of such programs cannot be estimated from a household survey because they are incurred by schools, not parents.

[u/Running_Gamer → u/DownrightCaterpillar]

Lmao whatever study you’re citing is 100% wrong. You cannot estimate the aggregate “net-costs” (whatever that might mean) of a group living in the US three generations down the line. Do you have a Time Machine?

[u/DownrightCaterpillar → u/Running_Gamer]

"Whatever study you're citing" is the Economic and Fiscal Consequences of Immigration. It's the gold-standard study on this topic, you can go read its authors as I've already provided a link. The reason is not only because of the contributors, but also because the NAS is about 90% government-funded, meaning the kinds of bias you can find from industry-funded studies such as are produced by groups like the Cato Institute are less present. I'd recommend you at least read Chapter 9, it's not too daunting, and you'll gain a great deal of insight into how they calculate their numbers.

As to your claim about a Time Machine, the net costs are calculated off of data from past years, it's not about predicting the future.

[u/PixieDustFairies → u/DownrightCaterpillar]

Why not make it so that you have to pay tuition for public schools if you're an immigrant to offset the costs? They shouldn't be getting free stuff without contributing to the system, and we've made out of state college students pay more as well.

[u/DownrightCaterpillar → u/PixieDustFairies]

Why not make it so that you have to pay tuition for public schools if you're an immigrant to offset the costs? They shouldn't be getting free stuff without contributing to the system, and we've made out of state college students pay more as well.

"Pay more" and "pay for it" are two different things. As mentioned, the cost of educating a public school student in California (for example) is over $17k per year, per student. Considering the average 1st gen immigrant family has around 1 child:

Page 396

First generation independent persons have an average of 0.52 children per unit

That means they'll, on average, pay $17k/year. There's no way on earth that even above-average income immigrant households can shoulder that burden every year. Imagine, after income tax, paying for that. It's impossible even for regular American families. The solution is to do what you said, force them to pay for all of it, and turn away immigrants with trailing children. So that immigrants who are already in the US can be forced to pay if they have children enrolled in schools, and we can keep out immigrants who are already seeking to impose this burden on us.

For those who are thinking "but what about immigrants who can pay," you don't know they can pay. If you have money in your bank account today, you can lose it tomorrow for a variety of reasons. Or have a family member transfer money into your account, US government checks the amount, then you transfer it back after being audited. Thus pretending to be able to support your kid's education even if you can't. Alternatively, if you have the income to support a public school education, you can lose that job (and immigrants have far less job security than natives). There is truly no reason to pay for their kids. And of course we have no idea the reliability of credit agencies in other countries. And some countries, like Japan, don't even have 3rd party credit agencies; your bank serves as your credit agency and its data is not necessarily intended for consumption by those outside the bank.

Even if they're paying the financial costs, the negative impact of larger class sizes is one of the uncontested truths of education, mainly because of disruptive children. For example: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0883035506000607

For example, the synthesis of meta-analyses indicated that the presence of disruptive students (even one of them) in a class has the effect of decreasing achievement by 0.79—which is enormous. When I ask teachers if they would choose between a class size of 15 when I choose the students, or a reduction of 5 from their current class and they choose the students, they nearly always prefer the latter. For many teachers, it is the presence of a few disruptive students that often lead them to desiring smaller classes. There is a question also about the optimal class size; although there seems to be some ‘‘magic’’ in the literature and among policy makers around a class size of 15. When asked in a survey as to the optimal class size, New Zealand secondary teachers claimed that 16 was optimal for Year 13 (the final year of school), 19 for Year 12, 21 for Year 11, and 23 for Years 9–10 (which is not that different from the actual class sizes in NZ secondary schools).

Obviously, the larger the class size, the greater the potential for disruptive students. Simple as. Why introduce more students, thus diluting the quality of education? We already have a staffing problem with public school teachers, why make it worse?

[u/Highwiind-D4]

I'd respect Elon more if he just admitted tech oligarchs prefer cheap, subservant, foreign labor. It's the blatant lies that make me dislike him.

Each position these H1-B frauds are given is theft from a middle-class family.

[u/Ineeboopiks]

I thought we were going to America First? Can we please admit Doge is Joever. Fire them.

[u/eatajerk-pal → u/Ineeboopiks]

I like the idea of trimming the giant globs of lard that is bureaucracy, but I don’t want some try-hard South African numbskull being the one in charge of it.

[u/CuckAdminsDetected → u/Ineeboopiks]

Yep trump needs to fire them

[u/GeorgeWashingfun]

I've been saying for ages that he doesn't care about MAGA or America in general. He cares about money and power above all else. His recent anti-America "foreigners first" stance should be all the proof anyone needs yet his sycophants will continue to cling to him.

[u/Strong9811]

Conservatives should be upset by Musk’s visa/H-1B agenda. These aren’t “immigrant” farm jobs which the US is struggling to fill because who wants to pick fields for $7 an hour. These are high paying, white-collar, make enough money to donate to your community and your local church type jobs. These aren’t the jobs we can afford to lose.

[u/JediJones77 → u/Strong9811]

Last I checked, Americans won't do low-skill jobs, and now Vivek claims they can't do high-skill jobs. It's time to call shenanigans. Americans will do ALL these jobs, but the companies would rather pay cut-rate wages in all cases. Immigrants are willing to take less pay and live in miserable conditions, because the standards in their home countries are lower than even that.

[u/Ineeboopiks]

Well...it's only get worse on X. Elon now saying "fuck your own face" to Trump's base.

Can we please fire them. He's going full moochie.

edit: and elon deleted his tweet.

Seriously enough. Elon needs out of the cabinet. He can't be swearing and fighting with Trumps base. It's beyond repairing this unhinge rant with American people.

[u/Highwiind-D4 → u/Ineeboopiks]

He's melting the fuck down because he thought people would accept this BS without a second thought. These greedy pricks have no sound argument in favor of H1-Bs that isn't a lie.

Vivek’s ultra cringe rant may have been the worse mask off moment since Obama said White working-class voters, "cling to guns or religion."

[u/Res_Novae17]

It's fun when Elon agrees with you, but man can he be petty and childish. I wouldn't put it past him to just ban an account and give "because I own the place and I can" as his only explanation.

Trump should remind him as often as is takes that he's the one that won the election and will be setting policy.

[u/Dead-as-a-Doornail]

Muh private company

[u/Doctor_Byronic → u/Dead-as-a-Doornail]

If your point is that X is a private company and Musk can do as he pleases there, then sure, I don't disagree with that. I just don't want to hear him refer to himself as a "free speech absolutist" again if he's going to make a habit of retaliating against speech he doesn't like.