I often search on Twatter for stories and as I have done for well over a decade now, read the comments. Whilst there are legions of bots, many pushing CCP propaganda, and shills acting like arseholes defecating on everything, occasionally you can learn something or see an interesting link or thread and go down a rabbit hole that may, or may not, bear the fruits of knowledge. Many of the people I interact with were found in such a manner, such as the Climate Contrarian Jaime whom I often post articles from both here and at the WeatherAction newblog. I don’t have to agree with anyone but there are many genuine people online and I value insights and opinions. Occasionally however I find another type altogether. Cluster-B personality disorders.
A personality disorder is a mental health condition that affects the ways that a person thinks, behaves, and relates to others.
Medical News Today | What to know about cluster B personality disorders
These disorders can lead to significant distress and, in many cases, harmful coping strategies. People with cluster B disorders typically have trouble regulating their emotions and struggle to maintain relationships.
[…]
There are four types of cluster B personality disorders, each with a different set of diagnostic criteria and treatments:
antisocial personality disorder
borderline personality disorder
histrionic personality disorder
narcissistic personality disorder
Earlier this week I came across a recent piece by Matt Tiabbi,
Matthew C. Taibbi (/taɪˈiːbi/; born March 2, 1970) is an American author, journalist, and podcaster. He has reported on finance, media, politics, and sports. He is a contributing editor for Rolling Stone, author of several books, co-host of Useful Idiots, and publisher of a newsletter on Substack.
Wikipedia
He’s one of those rare journalists actually deserving of the title journalist but for his sins of not agreeing with the mainstream narrative is smeared as “right-wing”, a term so over used it is now devoid of meaning when you’re politics leans to the right of Chairman Mao.
Honoured Leader and Succesor to Chairman Mao
I happened to be reading Taibbi’s latest The British Medical Journal Story That Exposed Politicized “Fact-Checking”. It includes an interview with Paul Thacker, an investigative journalist, who wrote an article for the British Medical Journal back in November titled Covid-19: Researcher blows the whistle on data integrity issues in Pfizer’s vaccine trial (see also the Russell Brand video at the end of this post).
Paul D. Thacker is an American journalist who reports on science, medicine, and the environment. He was a lead investigator of the United States Senate Committee on Finance for Senator Chuck Grassley, where he examined financial links between physicians and pharmaceutical companies
Wikipedia
Thacker’s article, based on the title alone and regardless of the content, goes against the current narrative and was duly throttled. After this treatment and censorship, Thacker does not hold back in Tiabbi’s article.
After reading that I decided to have a look on the Twatter before sharing the article. It was then I came across a tweet by a Dutchman who shared the story a few days before, which I won’t link to as I have no wish to bring attention to him. What piqued my interest was Lead Stories, one of the ‘fact checkers’ for Facebook who replied to him even though at the time the tweet had one like (at the time of writing it has a whole three). This is the reply:
I found this bizarre, especially the wink emoji which had my narrative framing detector on DEFCON 1. The Dutchman replied, highlighting that he was referencing Matt Tiabi in his original tweet and not Paul Thacker. Can you see the slight of hand yet? Can you feel the burgeoning butthurt?
BMJ knows that:
https://bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m2384
The BMJ is a weekly peer-reviewed medical trade journal, published by the trade union the British Medical Association (BMA). The BMJ has editorial freedom from the BMA. It is one of the world’s oldest general medical journals. Originally called the British Medical Journal, the title was officially shortened to BMJ in 1988, and then changed to The BMJ in 2014.
Wikipedia
Peter Doshi is Senior Editor at The BMJ and on the News & Views team. He has been somewhat critical of the practices of Big Pharma including a distinct lack of transparency over data and has recently been increasingly scathing of them.
as I’m probably not long for the Twatter world
However the BMJ have also been quite scathing of Fact Checkers after previously having one of their articles throttled by Facebook due to the opinions of political activisists. They addressed this in Facebook versus the BMJ: when fact checking goes wrong (Published 19 January 2022). The throttling usually has a ‘misleading’ or ‘lacking context’ label added which affects sharing and visibility. I say opinions because that is exactly what Facebook admitted when they were taken to court regarding another ‘fact checking’ company they use.
That story was regarding Stossel vs Facebook Inc. et al
In September this year, American TV presenter, author, and journalist John Frank Stossel sued Facebook, Inc. (now known as Meta Platforms, Inc.), Science Feedback, and Climate Feedback. Stosell filed a personal injury lawsuit against the social media giant seeking injunctive and declaratory relief and award for damages along with costs for alleged defamation.
US Court Document: Facebook ‘fact-checkers’ are merely opinion checkers
The complaint states, “in the last year, Stossel posted on Facebook two short video reports in which he interviewed experts in the climate change arena about facts and data that Defendants concede are true. Without identifying a single false fact contained in the video reports — and in one instance, apparently without even bothering to review the video at all — Defendants publicly announced that Stossel’s reporting had failed a fact-check.”
John Frank Stossel (born March 6, 1947) is an American libertarian television presenter, author, consumer journalist, and pundit, known for his career on ABC News and Fox Business Network. Stossel’s style combines reporting and commentary.
Wikipedia
Stossel addressed the lawsuit in The New York Post piece Here’s where the ‘facts’ about me lie — Facebook bizarrely claims its ‘fact-checks’ are ‘opinion’
I sued them because they defamed me. They, along with one of their “fact-checkers,” a group called Science Feedback, lied about me and continue to lie about me…. How did Facebook defame me?
I made a video that said that California’s wildfires were mostly caused by poor government management. Facebook censored that as “misleading.” They linked to a Science Feedback post that puts the following sentence in quotation marks, as if it were something I said: “Forest fires are caused by poor management. Not by climate change.”
But I never said that!
Facebook’s reviewers took that quotation from someone else. Or maybe they just made it up?
In my video, I acknowledge, “Climate change has made things worse!” I just argued that government mismanagement was a bigger factor. Climate change hit lots of forests, but well-managed forests fared much better.
So ‘Fact Checkers’ are a bit of a polished turd when it comes to credibility and I was quite aware of this dubious background when I decided to jump into the foray. I was also wondering why a Fact Checking organisation was so concerned with policing tweets. Having dealt with Cluster-B personalities, it appeared a case of “doth protest too much”. An opinion almost instantaneously confirmed by their rather rapid response to me, a no one with just 666 😈 followers as of this Wednesday.
“Not a good look?” Didn’t I write that first? 🤔 Where once you were blinded by them, once you see them you can’t help but see them because once you spot a Cluster-B it’s like they have a massive neon sign flashing above their head. You can give them the benefit of the doubt but they just can’t help themselves. Mirroring is also a dead give away.
Mirroring is how people learn to connect with others. It is the reflecting back, or mirroring, of what someone says or does. Through this reflection, rapport can be built and connections made.
Whilst it can be healthy to mirror, for example to build rapport or to take the piss out of an activist mung bean on Twatter, a Cluster-B is an arrogant fucker so it’s downright creepy because it’s not about rapport it’s about manipulation and winning you over.
When mirroring doesn’t work, they usually go to projection.
Projection is the process of displacing one’s feelings onto a different person, animal, or object. The term is most commonly used to describe defensive projection—attributing one’s own unacceptable urges to another. For example, if someone continuously bullies and ridicules a peer about his insecurities, the bully might be projecting his own struggle with self-esteem onto the other person.
Psychology Today | Projection
Yep. They accused the BMJ of gaslighting 🤦♂️ This is not just obvious, it’s Captain Obvious. Any nascent benefit of doubt was gone by this point. Cluster-B with a neon sign that even Elon Musk’s Starman, happily sat in a Tesla Roadster, could see from space.
Gaslighting is a colloquialism, loosely defined as making someone question their own reality.
Wikipedia
The term may also be used to describe a person (a “gaslighter”) who presents a false narrative to another group or person which leads them to doubt their perceptions and become misled (generally for the gaslighters’ own benefit), disoriented or distressed. Generally, this dynamic is possible only when the audience is vulnerable, such as in unequal power relationships, or when the audience is fearful of the losses associated with challenging the false narrative.
Of course Lead Stories don’t censor, just like politicians that don’t “inhale”, have “sexual relations with that woman” or indeed kill anyone – at least with their bare hands. That’s what delegation is for. I mean how do you argue with such logic when it comes to personal responsibility? Well I did have a logical thought and I bet you’re not surprised they never responded after that.
So what can we learn from this? Something that was always staring us in the face. Those who wish to control the narrative have been gaslighting us. And in my humble ‘opinion’ this whole shit show is infested with miscreants with personality disorders. You’re welcome to fact check me, because opinions are like assholes – everyone has one only they don’t use them to shit on everyone else like some deviants seem to enjoy doing.
CraigM350 