The Reload is journalist Stephen Gutowski’s year-old Substack subscription venture that features, as he describes it, “sober, serious reporting on–as well as analysis of–firearms policy and politics to accomplish those goals. No hot takes. No screaming. No manipulating. Just reporting.”
If you’ve ever read any of Gutowski’s free content, you know that’s exactly what he puts out. We here at TTAG take a slightly more pointed approach to all things gun-related, but that’s OK. As The Reload’s success in the last year as demonstrated, there’s a market out there for buttoned-up content that reports the “details and nuances of big gun stories” along with our approach, too. There are plenty of eyeballs out there for all of us.
The Reload’s sober reportage, however, is apparently too much for the pathetically photophobic, safe space-craving millennials at Twitter to countenance. As of some time last night, anyone who clicks on a tweet linking to one of The Reload’s stories gets this caution . . .
Malicious links? Doubtful. Substack doesn’t do that. Spammy content. Nope. Violent or misleading content that leads to IRL harm? It hasn’t happened. Content that violates Twitter’s rules when posted to the hellsite itself? Please.
The problem, we expect, is that someone at a gun control org or possibly even in the .gov let the Twitter drones know that they don’t like the kind of content Gutowski puts out. Even straight-laced pro-gun content that could be published in any corporate media outlet (and has actually been cited by many of them) is over the line as far as Twitter is concerned.
As a test, we posted a link to one of our stories there to see what happens. It didn’t produce the warning message that’s being put up in front of The Reload’s content.
Maybe that’s because we rarely post links to our stories at Twitter. We get almost no clickthroughs from posts there. That’s because our tweets have been shadow-banned by Twitter for years. Posting tweets linking to our content is a waste of time and electrons.
Meanwhile, Twitter employees have been freaking out in the last couple of weeks at the prospect of the site being taken over by Elon Musk, who made an offer to acquire the platform. Musk’s move has been greeted by shrieks of horror from Twitter employees and many of the usual suspects.
Somehow, though, when another Bond villain bought one of the nation’s most prominent newspapers, nary a peep was heard from any of them. Go figure.
As one former Twitter engineer derisively tweeted about Musk’s ambitions . . .
Every clown out there thinks they can drive the clown car better than the clowns currently behind the wheel.
— Ian Brown (@igb) April 14, 2022
Some who still work there are allegedly now looking for a safer space, a place where opinions and political positions that challenge their own beliefs and views are kept out.
My name is Jackson Mulholland & I’m one of many ppl here working at @Twitter in charge of developing terms & conditions for users. We’re not stripping away “free speech”, we’re protecting users from bullies, bigots, & spam. I refuse to work with or for @elonmusk. I’m resigning🏳️🌈
— J. Mulholland (@MulhollandL0ver) April 4, 2022
It seems that the prospect of Twitter becoming a forum where people of all political and cultural persuasions can post and exchange ideas on an equal footing is threatening to those who have come to depend on the platform’s one-sided enforcement of their “community standards.”
Musk’s offer was, of course, rejected by Twitter management via the adoption of a poison pill provision to try to preserve their own control. Last night, though, the mega-billionaire hinted (with a couple of blast-from-the-past references) that the board’s desperate move hasn’t deterred him.
What is best in life?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 22, 2022
It appears that Musk is preparing to go full Carl Icahn on Twitter’s management with a vintage 1980s-style hostile takeover bid. Plenty of us will be popping lots of popcorn and watching with interest from the sidelines. We’re willing to bet the clown with the huge bankroll can drive that Volkswagen much more profitably and fairly than the jokers who’ve been careening behind the wheel for years.
UPDATE:
Getting easier to narrow down the leftist turds behind this; Soetoro, Bare Shelf Biden, punk Bloomberg, Leadhead Giffords & Egghead husband, and traitor/spy Feinstein. I hope Elon doesn’t pay more for Twitter than it’s actually worth but if he’s really for free speech I don’t think he can get Twitter soon enough.
The spoiled brat dirty diaper democRats at twitter HQ can go pound sand.
I logged on to this site and its a radical Far Right site posing as unbiased. I tried to access a radical and unfair attack on Biden but found out you have to pay to read those Far Right articles. This was a ploy by the “The Reload” to appear non-committal by mixing articles that were less radical (and free) with access to “pay for access” radical Far Right attacks. I might add “all” the articles I read had a pro-gun biased slant to them. Twitter saw right through the slick and disingenuous ploy and propaganda and naturally banned it and rightly so.
darcydodo…How pray-tell could your libelous, slanderous marxist behind ever logon to such a Far Right site if it were biased? In case you have not noticed it…Jim Crow Gun Control joe is by all accounts his own worst enemy. Decent people do not not have to concoct slander and libel like dirtbag democRats concocted against the duly elected POTUS DJT.
Because you are obviously a tightwad “freeloader” the only guns you are concerned about are your guns. You straddle the fence pretending to have a leg on the side of the 2A while your other leg is deep in democRat Party Race Based Gun Control rot. The exact same rot history has confirmed over and over is rooted in racism and genocide. So once again you wishy washy scatterbrain…You Have No Podium.
TRDC
Why do you bother, all you do is stir shit, your facts are wrong, and when you are wrong, you just come up with some BS to cover yourself. Nothing but a hateful LIB/DIM go back to your hole.
Dacian, the Brian Stelter of TTAG comment section.
Shots fired!
Keeping it in the 10 ring.
From one who longs for trustworthy information sources such as Pravda and Izvestia.
Even Soviet citizens of the era joked “there was no news in the truth and no truth in the news”. Especially when such jokes could earn you 5-10 in the gulag.
“The demoralization process in the United States is basically completed…Actually, it’s over fulfilled because demoralization now reaches such areas where not even Comrade Andropov and all his experts would even dream of such tremendous success. Most of it is done by Americans to Americans THANKS TO LACK OF MORAL STANDARDS. As I mentioned before, exposure to true information does not matter anymore. A person who was demoralized is unable to assess true information. The facts tell nothing to him, even if I shower him with information, with authentic proof, with documents and pictures. …he will refuse to believe it…. That’s the tragedy of the situation of demoralization.”
-Yuri Bezmenov (ex-KGB)
Twitter is trying to protect you from hurting yourself by limiting what you see and only showing you the good things. Or in other words if you don’t acquiesce to their indoctrinating you are a bigot, racist, demagogue who wants to destroy the country because you do not adhere to their group think mob tactics.
Between Elon and the upcoming midterms/next presidential election there is going to be so many safe space/tampon change requests I am already smiling ear to ear.
It was a neat trick. Rather than start some censorous, left-wing social media site of the regime and wait for the signups that would have numbers on par with CNN+ subscriptions they took a seemingly neutral whose only goal was to make money and morphed it over years into what it is now after many millions sign up and incorporate it into their daily lives. They can say “look at all these people who agree with what we are doing.”
It sure is a shame that it takes someone like Musk to point out to Conservatives the power of ESG and how to flip the script.
Even more of a shame is how the majority of Conservatives still don’t get it.
On that I agree. Most don’t get it.
“one of the nation’s most prominent newspapers” – If “prominent” means the nation’s 2nd best bird cage liner then, yes the Wash Post qualifies (right behind the NY Times).
Lol
Might be unsafe?!?!
That’s rich!
Twitter has sent the world into a tail spin filled with all kinds of BS and insanity forcing everyone to go their way. Well Musk has them running scared and it’s obvious. No matter what happens, we are seeing a side of Twitter that should be eye opening to everyone.
I would rather see Twitter disappear completely.
The pro-corporation, pro-monopoly fascist Left are freaking out because they might lose one of their biggest tools of government censorship under the guise of the free market. You know, the free market that colluded to take down an uppity rival that threatened to give them some competition? Build your own twitter! (*maniacal laugh*)
Ellon Musk has been watching Conan the Barbarian again.
I just can’t wait for Ellon to declare open season on Twitter Twits. Maybe there will even be no bag limit or tags required.
What’s best in life…
Saw that too, and love the referance. But, I guess we would be listening to the lamentations of their beta males!
I Dont do Twitter dont do Facebook.
Nothing there for me.
Yahtzee.
Notice how the fascist (former?) twitter employee proudly flies the Progressive flag. The “rainbow” flag doesn’t mean you’re a pawn, excuse me, a PON (Person Of Non-hetero). It means you’re a Progressive or a useful idiot, or both. Okay, so maybe it does mean you’re a pawn.
Well it seems it has happened now. Elon Musk has purchased Twitter and will make it a privately owned company. I don’t know if he will be as supportive of free speech as he claims to be. I don’t trust Pot Heads. They have a history of being anti-civil rights, anti-Liberty. But they certainly do enjoy their marijuana smoking. We will see if Elon Musk really does believe in the First Amendment.
I hope he proves me to be wrong. Because if he does prove me to be wrong. He will be the first billionaire pothead who actually believes in the First Amendment. But that still doesn’t mean he believes in the Second Amendment.
And I’m sure he enjoys his well-armed and well-paid private security.
“I don’t trust Pot Heads. They have a history of being anti-civil rights, anti-Liberty.”
LOL, you have it backwards! Potheads are often libertarians.
And don’t you know the definition of a libertarian?
As the saying goes, “A libertarian is just a conservative Republican who smokes pot.”
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