BabyBird

[BabyBird @tspack0]

@Reezy371 @rirokpik Who? What sanitized versions of slavery? What the fuck are you talking about?

[BabyBird @tspack0]

@sweetfruitwine @SpamUnlimited Lmao this is just bait.

[BabyBird @tspack0]

@kokorobitch Failing to understand the difference between an is and an ought? That's a paddlin'

Self-righteous moral grandstanding on top of that misunderstanding? That's a paddlin'

[🕊️ @lichthauch]

Solomon had a thousand wives and still looked over the wall. this is the only thing you need to know about desire. a man who thinks he will find satisfaction by getting more of what he wants is a man who does not understand what want is. want is not a hole you fill, want is a muscle that grows stronger every time you use it. the men who knew this turned their eyes inward and built kingdoms out of the same force that would have destroyed them. the men who didn't know this built harems that became prisons and died inside them, surrounded by flesh and starving for something flesh was never going to give them.

[Moshe Emilio Lavi @MosheELavi]

Much has been written about @NickKristof's latest NYT opinion column over the past 24 hours, most of it focusing on the specific claims and their sourcing, but what I think deserves most attention is something broader: how this kind of journalism, whatever its intentions, ultimately makes accountability harder to achieve rather than easier, and harms the very people it claims to champion.

The principle that Israeli abuses should be investigated and condemned is not in dispute, and nobody serious is arguing otherwise. Israel is not above scrutiny, and in fact it operates under more intense international scrutiny than almost any country on earth, routinely held to standards applied nowhere else.

The problem here is something different entirely: the complete collapse of evidentiary standards the moment Israel is the subject.

This piece reads less like rigorous reporting and more like a catalogue of hearsay, unverifiable allegations, and activist claims stitched together into a sweeping moral indictment. Its sourcing leans heavily on Euro Med Human Rights Monitor, an organisation repeatedly criticised over extremist ties, disinformation, and deeply questionable methodology, yet treated throughout as a credible authority while its leadership openly engages in pro Hamas propaganda on X.

Worse, the same ecosystem of activists and self appointed “experts” that amplifies Euro Med’s claims online increasingly feeds narratives into more established organisations and media outlets, laundering deeply contested allegations into the appearance of institutional credibility.

The most severe claims are anonymous, uncorroborated, and presented in the emotional register of established fact rather than allegation, despite lacking meaningful evidentiary backing. Yet Kristof largely adopts them without serious scrutiny, publishing the piece in the Opinion section because even the already diminished evidentiary standards often applied to reporting on the Israeli Palestinian conflict would likely not suffice for it to pass as straight news reporting.

This approach doesn't strengthen accountability, it actively destroys it. When every allegation is immediately inflated into systematic rape and "standard operating procedure" before any serious verification, genuine investigation becomes harder rather than easier.

Real abuses, if they occurred, get buried beneath maximalist narratives so extreme that large portions of the public simply stop trusting any of it, and the people who actually suffered pay that price.

It also alienates the vast majority of Israelis and Jews worldwide, including the many who are perfectly capable of criticising Israeli policy and supporting investigations into misconduct, but who understandably recoil when accusations begin resembling modernised blood libels dressed up as human rights reporting. The framing matters enormously, and so does proportionality, and so does evidence.

Nor does any of this serve Palestinians. Atrocity inflation entrenches both sides deeper into defensive tribalism, and every dubious claim amplified by a prestigious outlet makes legitimate criticism easier to dismiss when it actually matters.

The timing compounds everything. On a day when documented reporting on Hamas sexual violence was again circulating, the NYT chose to run an opinion column built substantially on unverifiable anonymous testimony asserting that Israelis are conducting systemic rape campaigns, not as a rigorously evidenced investigative report but as an opinion piece with the imprimatur of the paper of record.

Kristof is not a naive bystander in any of this. In 2014 he used the full credibility of the NYT to repeatedly platform Somaly Mam, a Cambodian anti-trafficking activist whose harrowing personal story he championed across multiple columns, until it emerged that her backstory was substantially fabricated and he was forced to issue a public correction. When challenged this time around on his sourcing, corroboration, and methodology, he defaulted to bad faith engagement on social media rather than addressing the underlying concerns seriously.

It is the same pattern, playing out again in a different context. Real journalism requires skepticism, corroboration, and restraint applied consistently regardless of the subject, and when those standards disappear the moment Israel is involved, what remains is not human rights reporting but narrative activism wearing a journalist's costume that does far more harm than good to everyone it claims to serve.

[BabyBird @tspack0]

@OpeSyntax Ah yes, "the message is good therefore you have to like it", the lens through which true sophisticates view art

[BabyBird @tspack0]

@arvofart @nevermind9116 "My universal standards don't actually apply to everybody, dipshit! Read the room!"

[BabyBird @tspack0]

If you don't know how to operate in freedom, you will consciously or unconsciously avoid it until the suffering of staying where you are is greater than the risk of change

[BabyBird @tspack0]

@maninasuit0 @ArtemisConsort How did you determine this was the default position of most of mankind for most of history, because as far as I can tell most of mankind for most of history believed "God made us all be born where we were born and that means we were meant to live that life"

[BabyBird @tspack0]

@esjesjesj If I had been born in Sudan I would be a Sudanese person. I can imagine what that's like

It changes nothing about what I believe about private property and whether it is just to be able to pass on what I own to my children, or to receive the same from my parents

[Carlos That Notices Things @QuetzalPhoenix]

IMPORTANT REMINDER

[BabyBird @tspack0]

@NickySimps @xwanyex This is not what the average Republican believes, and you would have a much higher quality of life if you understood that

[BabyBird @tspack0]

The tonal sounds when it hits a hard surface is "bramp"

When it hits you or you catch it it's "thwup"

[Thrilla the Gorilla @ThrillaRilla369]

Can anyone spell the sound this makes?
😿

[BabyBird @tspack0]

@OrevaZSN Who is stopping you from making art and gardening?

[BabyBird @tspack0]

You can get away with white, very light/pale blue, and maybe some shades of gray depending on the material

Otherwise you look like you're going to senior prom and you've never worn a dress shirt in your life

I intend you to take this personally if you do any of these things

[eigenrobot @eigenrobot]

all of these are wrong. do not wear dark shirts. if you want color add a tie or a subtle pattern over the white base. otherwise save color for your jacket.

thank you for your attention to this matter!

[BabyBird @tspack0]

@BrianDunning The average GOP voter seems to be doing pretty well

[BabyBird @tspack0]

@tautologer I place value on "not risking death in the hope that enough people also risk death to save me"

Whether that's a dominant strategy, I don't know

It's an exercise about framing/psychology. If you word the problem differently, the choices feel completely different

[BabyBird @tspack0]

@peterrhague I don't care about the game theory, I'm not risking death on the hopes that enough other people risk death so I don't die, and I think very close to 100% of people would do the same were this a scenario with actual consequences

[BabyBird @tspack0]

@brazen__head @KelseyTuoc You're not making things worse for corporations, you're making them worse for your neighbors

[BabyBird @tspack0]

@ShadowVirg @Anton81191831 I will bypass the risk of death completely, yes, rather than risk death hoping that enough other people also risk death so that I don't die