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First Amendment Limits

TL;DR: It has some.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

You’re sick of reading about Elon Musk and the App Formerly Known As Twitter. I know this through observation and extrapolation. If it’s not true of you, you’re an exception; congratulations on being thus exceptional.

Either way though, I won’t take up much of your valuable time.

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The Price Tag Of Progress

We never even noticed the demise of the glossy magazine.  One day they were just gone, missing from waiting room tables everywhere as though they’d never been, with only empty racks and dusty outlines to mark their passing.

By and large they’re quite unmourned, it’s sad to say.  It’s tough to miss the sort of writing one only reads while killing time waiting for a haircut, articles you can put down unfinished without regret.

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TwiX: The Experiment IV

(If you’re new to the Great TwiX Experiment, click here for Week 1.)

I’ve been on vacation for a couple of weeks, and these reports have lagged to the point where they’re no longer even close to weekly. I’d thought I could keep up with them easily, but life intervened, and I left my data behind at home.

So here instead we have an interim bulletin, complete with…
NEWS FLASH! Elon Musk now pays me to TwiX!

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The Blue Check Experiment: Week 3

(This article is Part 3 of a series. For the first installment, click here.)

Hello, loyal readers, and welcome to Week Three of the Great Blue Check Experiment! In case you’re new here, I’m your host, @gnerphk on TwiX and J. Millard Simpson on any site that publishes my fiction. I’m coming to you today thanks to the wonders of caffeine overdose, having only just met a 4000-word short deadline that may or may not sell. Don’t blame me if the letters shake; blame the stimulants.

As you may recall, in the first article I discussed getting story clicks; in the second, the effects of being classed as “potentially abusive content”. Today I’d like to talk a bit more about the revised System, time-and-effort efficiency, and clickthrough rates.

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The Blue Check Experiment: Week 2

(This article is Part 2 of a series. For the first installment, click here.)

Hello, sports fans, and welcome to Week Two of the Great Blue Check Experiment! I’m your host, @gnerphk on Twitter and J. Millard Simpson on any site that publishes my fiction. We’re speaking to you today from the bottom of a well. It’s dry, so I won’t drown, but the walls are stone and there appears to be no way out, which makes things awkward.

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The Blue Check Experiment: Week 1

I asked your advice, and I took it. This is what happened next.

Quick recap for those who missed it: A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a short article about whether or not I was going to pay Elon the $8 for my Twitter Blue Check. …Uh, X? X-Twitter? TwiX? My TwiX Blue Check.

If you’re interested, click the link and you can read all the pros and cons I listed. I went into the ethics of it as well as the morality (there’s a difference), and then the cost-benefit analysis. And finally I confessed I was stumped, and asked for advice.

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Blue Checks: To Pay, Or Not To Pay

Well. That is the question, is it not?

Let’s start by clearing the underbrush. There are dozens of subordinate questions, such as the ethics of the thing and whether people should be expected to pay when the site’s making money from their presence anyway, all that. So let’s get that out of the way first and move on.

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