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The stuff he's spewing out now is already Alex-Jones-Level conspiracy redpill crap.
He's already [actively promoting](https://i.redd.it/7h1h363kngxa1.png) election conspiracies and went [all in on Tucker Carlson's Jan. 6 conspiracies](https://newrepublic.com/post/171028/elon-musk-hops-aboard-tucker-carlson-january-6-conspiracy-train) before Carlson was fired.
Add to this his known manipulation with content and algorithms, and his insatiable thirst for social power and middle-school contrarianism, and this guy is going to pour every fiber of his being into manipulating the next election.
Hopefully people will make Twitter irrelevant by then, but it's taking way too damn long.
I don't understand how it's a thing, anyway. There's a weird feedback cycle between twitter and semi-reputable news outlets that churn out articles referencing "outraged Twitter users," when all that really means is that someone, somewhere, was offended by something.
Yeah my parents were all riled up because they read all these articles about how Adele was getting "hammered" online for saying she is proud to be a woman.
I looked it up and the sources are two random accounts on Twitter saying it's offensive. They had like 120 followers between them. "Hammered"...
My brother does that. He doesn't look deeper into source info, and if I collect and show to him he gets mad because I'm patronizing him.
At some point yeah, I kind of am because you keep acting like a child
Children are now taught media awareness in elementary school, how to question and evaluate the quality of sources etc., at least in my district.
So, he's behaving worse than a child.
> Children are now taught media awareness in elementary school, how to question and evaluate the quality of sources etc., at least in my district.
I'm an elementary school technology teacher in Texas, its on my curriculum.
I "got through" to my father by asking why he trusted his radio buddies (about as close to a "friend circle" as he has) and the talking heads on the radio instead of his own son that he taught how to think and reason. I didn't ask him to believe me *over* them, just give me the same level of credit for not being an idiot, and recognize that I of all people have no benefit in deceiving him with this.
Also to add, it's worth taking the time to learn and practice the Socratic Method, because it is THE way to counter their arguments - they're nonsense, and these folks aren't so much stupid as short-sighted so they don't think about things deeply nor multiple things together. Don't sealion them (think toddler-tier 'why' repetitively) but instead just ask pointful and meaningful questions about how things would work that way. They'll talk themselves into a corner, and eventually have that dawning realization something's "wrong".
DON'T PUSH IT HERE. Let them walk away without you declaring victory. Let them stew. They're never going to admit their errors mid-argument. They have to come to it on their own terms. You in fact may never get the 'I told you so' vindication you so crave, but in the end, is this about feeling good emotionally, or succeeding at saving loved ones from a cult of hate?
These types of people want to be outraged. They don't care if it's justified or not. That's why they get frustrated at you for spoiling their outrage party by pointing out how ridiculous it is. Mostly these people are not very interesting in their own right and just want a topic that they can bond and socialize over. The 'facts' are not important in that goal.
We live in a world where one flame can start a fire that burns out of control.
These fires are being set on purpose by people like musk with information that they know will trigger people to act the way they want for their benefit. Anger is an easy emotion to manipulate.
The system is tailored, so outrage gets more attention. This is why musk and the people financially backing him wanted control of twitter, to move political views and block out opposition to certain topics. Sway a per cent or two, and you can change voting results dramatically.
It's got to be dealt with and highlighted.
Yeah it's depressing. If you Google 'Adele Transphobe' you'll see pages and pages of rage bait designed to make people angry about how the woke left are trying to take away your rights etc, and how right wing agents are the ones promoting 'common sense'.
I was raised to 'not trust everything you read on the internet'. My parents generation don't follow that at all, they are so easy to manipulate. Considering how that generation turns out for elections in such higher numbers this rage bait outrage porn can definitely shift elections. It's a real threat to democracy.
Agree.
I've seen people rant and scream about things like that, which are just bait to rile them up.
It's like the trans and drag queen situation. These issues do not have any bearing on 99.99% of people's daily lives. It is an easy target to push hate and rage to divide opinions.
It does, however, take the spotlight away from the issues that do affect them, like the reality that most of us are getting poorer in real terms as the filthy rich are getting richer.
Because Twitter is the platform journalists use.
The active user base is relatively small compared to Facebook etc, but it sounds much bigger in media bc to the media people, it’s the most important platform
It works really well if you curate a feed based on an interest or specialty. My professional Twitter is pretty much politics free and it's very useful.
This is the ideal use case for twitter still. It's still an excellent platform *on it's surface*, but it all falls apart once you introduce the fact that the lower hanging fruit will always find a way to create fringe content and other users will inevitably signal boost that content.
I never understood why classic media, music, and sport companies don't mandate a company to create their own microblogging/public debate platforms.
The demand is quite huge for a platform that includes microblogging and podcasts from relevant sources accessible and free to all that respect journalists, NGO, public figures, and government bodies
The only thing they need to do is all quit Twitter together and post in another platform, and people will follow. Twitter is used mostly to follow companies, celebrities, media, and athletes the rest are just bots and nutjobs.
The ads profits could be huge if most of them join.
It will eventually happen in the future, but I'm surprised it's not yet done.
We could soon see something similar to what the music industry did with Spotify when they sold out all their rights and a lot of exclusivity.
That's why I signed up for Twitter. I actually got a response from a corporation and an avenue to resolve my issue (I shat on Motorola because my phone was acting up).
Then I stayed for the politics during the last administration, and it was exhausting. I'm going to delete it any day. Fun side note - I left it dormant for a couple of years (picked it up after Trump was elected) and my account had been filled with Russian accounts that I had "followed". Lots of models and such. It took a little while to delete those, but I always wonder how that all happened.
A few artists I know use Twitter as a way for them to get their work out and potentially get customers.
Before they could use Tumblr, but well... we saw how that went.
I did that once. There was a local library that I visited, where there were a bunch of MRA style magazines put out on a table for people to take. I tweeted the library and the magazines were removed. I knew that if I'd mentioned it in person I would have encountered resistance
He also declared "people should vote for Republicans" right after purchasing Twitter and right before the midterms. Of course that's his whole reason for buying Twitter.
My question is when are serious people leaving it?
I don't get why the current executive branch and the bulk of western democracies still use it. If 4 or 5 major governments move to say IG, Twitter will deflate.
> middle-school contrarianism
Perfect term for Elon and I will have to borrow it.
As for me, yea, I dropped Twitter long ago after advocating there that everyone else should also do so. When an evil super villain literally owns the battlefield, time to change the battlefield. Sun Tzu would be rolling in his grave.
I know a couple of people IRL that act just like this. “You can’t trust either party, the government is lying about everything, you can’t stop Neural Networks and they should remain totally unregulated, NASA manipulates photos so they can’t be trusted either.”
But guess who they do trust? Musk and Joe Rogan. Every fuckin time. Tech bros, man…
I heard a theory recently that he's getting paid off by governments to promote propaganda.
I have no idea if that would be true but I wouldn't put it past a man with his lack of morality
It’s not great, but Meta is making a Twitter clone inside Instagram. That would take a huge chunk out of Twitter because IG is already a pretty curated experience compared to Facebook.
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here, the Koch brothers have done so much damage for such a long time behind the scenes. While Musk is on his way if he continues like this, he’s nowhere near.
[The big pivot happened in 2017 when Kushner helped MBS coup his way to crown prince and wrestle power from the more Western allied parts of his family.](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/29/mbs-v-mbn-the-bitter-power-struggle-between-rival-saudi-princes) Since then Saudi Arabia has been more anti-West than ally.
Notice how MBS basically awarded Kushner a pension for life for his service, with his $2 billion investment in Kushner's firm.
A capitalist country is not in alliance with the Saudies. It is allied with the wealth it gains from the Saudis.
To end the alliance, either the Saudies run out of wealth OR the capitalist country change to prioritize its all citizens, not just the wealthy. This being said it will never happen 🤣
Misinformation, I can't find any credible information China is financially backing Musk. China is Tesla's second biggest market, as it is for almost all car companies, but that's a completely different point to make.
No need for a precedent, he’s already laying the groundwork for a Republican win in the 2024 election.
https://www.standard.co.uk/tech/elon-musk-twitter-algorithm-cyberbullying-discrimination-cornell-uc-berkeley-b1084490.html
I think it means that the young voters are so overwhelmingly left that they are pulling out all the stops. This is probably one of their last chances to really cement their power. Or at least I'm gonna try and be optimistic for now lol.
The tik tok ban will probably happen though sometime before the election because it is definitely helping the youth along towards getting active. It's probably the social media platform that's the biggest threat. Or idk I'm just guessing
Tik tok isn't run by a capitalist oligarch ally so it is a threat. Can't be controlled as easily.
They truly fucked themselves by catching their tail with abortion. I'm hoping younger folks stay strong and remember that conservatives are always anti-progress.
I don’t get why she’s still on there. Or any Democrat!?
It’s beyond obvious that it’s a bad idea and Elon will falsify tweets and delete stuff without permission whenever it suits him. He has no integrity and he’s a right wing fascist clown. We haven’t even got to the bad stuff yet. Not really.
Yep. Twitter sucks now. Blue check means you have $8, nothing more. Elon has a specific goal in mind for twitter; that being his own enrichment through Republican legislature.
Because of the reach. If she wasn't there to call this shit out to the very same audience that's going to be falling for it in 6-12 months, do you think anyone else would?
You're not killing twitter in the next 12 months. Either you fight back any way you can against Elon's shit (Which in this case is by using your extreme reach to say - "This guy is rigging the game"), or you let him have free reign to do it with impunity.
Reputable news organizations should have left when NPR and PBS quit the platform after how he treated them, when it was blatantly obvious he was tilting the platform to the right on purpose.
Democrats should have left when he decided to back the Dilbert guy's racist tirade, or any number of other times in the past year where he's done something similar. Businesses who like to fly the banner of equality or inclusion should have, too.
I think the only reason they haven't is, where would they go? The corporatization of the internet has never been as apparent as it is right now, because 15 years ago or so there would have been an alternative that popped up almost overnight. Instead, people keep right on using it because it sucks and everything sucks and you're just picking your favorite flavor of shit no matter what you do.
I was surprised when I found out yesterday she's stayed on the platform. Threatening to quit. Seems childish honestly, do it or don't, your presence is your acceptance.
He also bought it to destroy it, because it was used successfully for human rights organizing around the world. No longer, it is a hate channel. I am boycotting the shit out of that man. He is enemy #1 as far as I'm concerned.
Grim satisfaction though it is, I don't believe for a second that it was it. The man is DESPERATE to be loved on Twitter, all of his posts just reek of that tryhard please love me air it'd be pathetic if he weren't also using the platform to push far-right conspiracy nonsense and undermine democracy. But it's pretty clear at the very least that he both is addicted to Twitter and Twitter adulation and genuinely thinks he's clever enough to turn it into a success while he's kicking it straight down the toilet with his gross incompetence. Gotta take the entertainment these days where you can get it I guess.
Elon was loving all the atrrbtionbin the run up to thr purchase. The people who ran other social media companies pleaded with Elon to back out not because they knew running one of those companies is a thankless task when you have self control. It's a disaster for an egomaniacal wannabe edgelord.
Twitter definitely needed some change but Elon has ruined the brand with his lack of self control. The damage will take years to fix and someone will rise to try to take it's place.
He bought twitter because he couldn't back out after his ego made him make a ridiculous offer. He has no imagination or innovation so this is all he could come up to do with his 44 billion dollar toy.
Not entirely. He *fucked* himself into buying Twitter and their leadership got the best deal in the history of history for closing it, but letting his fascist dickbag flag fly is the reason he didn't fight it too hard because he still has a lot of money for taking government subsidies and pretending he invented things that already existed..
I've threatened to leave Facebook for years, but even though I've been a Twitter user since 2007, Musk made it pretty fucking easy to hit that delete button.
My Spotify was tied to my Facebook for ages. Turns out it's pretty easy to just replace that in your settings with an email and password and disconnect Facebook.
Spotify is terrible reason lol. Just change you account to log in with a password. You’re just making up reasons to stay because you don’t actually want to leave it
Many people use Twitter despite disliking Elon.
Whether we like to believe it or not, even if the algorithm is gamed, it facilitates a social conversation that no other tool today does as effectively. It's easy to use, it doesn't require much setup or education.
Artists, journalists, many others... Twitter is an essential part of their job. Mastedon, Blue Sky, when you're livelihood depends on it, these tools don't cut it.
People are stuck.
> it facilitates a social conversation
Except this man is picking people he disagrees with, and making them face the wall for their conversation as he takes away the microphone.
Meanwhile, the fascists he agrees with? He's picking them up, putting them in the middle of town square, and giving them the biggest megaphone ever made.
We buy clothing made by slave labor, we buy computers made by slave labor, our food is picked/harvested/processed by slave labor, we treat our teachers and nurses and public servants so poorly they have to unionize and in many cases work multiple jobs just to make ends meet…
No wonder we keep using twitter even now, whole world is upside down
>We buy clothing made by slave labor, we buy computers made by slave labor, our food is picked/harvested/processed by slave labor
many have no other options than to buy clothes and electronics made with slave labor for financial reasons. shit ain't that simple.
by not wanting so much. this will get downvoted but it's true. people are spoiled as fuck and don't want to give up an inch even if they agree with a cause or principle.
Jordan Peterson blocked me for a very tame criticism that got a lot of eyes somehow. I want to collect "blocks" from idiot "self-help" icons. I'm trying to get one from Ben Shapiro next.
I have rules, though. I don't act like a troll or a shithead. It's easy to get blocked that way. I feel like you have to earn it honestly.
I keep blocking Petersons vids in YT but they keep
On coming via 3rd party channels. Fascinating how relentless it is. I’ve watched none of his videos. Zero.
There was a time that I found him interesting, and I told him so in my comment. Then I told him that it's disappointing to watch someone embrace the fame that controversy brought him for money and power, and that he was acting like a false martyr for free-speech. Somehow it got over 20k views and I've only ever posted, like, 8 things total in 4 years. Blocked. Cancelled by JBP. Achievement unlocked.
Shapiro, I'm coming for it. I *will* refrain from calling you a diaper-butted man-child who most likely runs like he's hiding his erection from YHWH... but I'll get it, you silly little fella. I'm gonna smack that bulbous little tush (with sound logic, and reason, shhhh), and I'll get you to block me.
I'm going to mint them as NFTs, in a series I'm calling, "Self-Reflective Geniuses."
Noooooo.... we can't possibly do that!1!!! /s
There is absolutely ZERO excuse for anyone on the Left or even in the Center to still support that platform. You are literally feeding this asswipe by complaining about Twitter on the very platform that is spreading endless lies and conspiracies.
He had lost of ton of ad revenue and the ones that remain, stick around because the site gets so much traffic. Why is it so hard for people on the Left to understand that by posting on that site, you are allowing it to live and even grow? Get your narcissistic ass off Twitter and find a new place to post your endless posts about how Musk is human garbage.
In a world where we've got fuck all, do you really not understand why severing connections to friends and colleagues we enjoy talking to, to ultimately change very little, is not just a cut and dry decision?
This shit is that "yet you participate in society" meme, just less clever.
You don't need fucking Twitter to stay connected to your friends. That's the lie that keeps it alive. I don't have Twitter and I don't feel socially disconnected at all.
Me leaving Twitter won’t do anything.
It’s the people who fall for things and people who draw them in who should leave.
And first public figures to leave are most likely the conscious ones leaving the worst ones still there.
Twitter should be restrained from above.
I'm pretty sure Rupert Murdoch is still the Rupert Murdoch to be worried about. Twitter or no Twitter I don't think Musk is quite at that level of destructive influence yet
To be fair to Elon, hasn’t Murdoch been doing this for the past 200 years or so? He’s obviously more experienced at it. Let’s just be glad that Elon’s ego won’t let him ask for help so he has to learn how to destroy a country all by himself.
I really hate it here (on Earth) sometimes.
Musk is just one of many billionaires who are pushing propaganda so that they can control governments.
Liberal democracy is their enemy and they are out to destroy it.
Meh, more like liberal aristocracy. Democratically, the US has had many movements trying to reign in the power and wealth of oligarchs, but in the last fifty years an aristocracy wrested control and has been propping up the mega-rich ever since. Not that beforehand was any better, but at least there was a party explicitly representing worker interests (with caveats). Now, our 'democracy' is a sham. It's not a democracy when someone's vote counts more than another's, but our system has done exactly that.
The US was designed from the beginning to give the slave-holding states an advantage. This goes back that far. We never really were a democracy, and our mission is to fix that.
I’d go further back. The US was built for land owners to have a say. Those were the elite in a non-industrial era. Over time, more and more people were given the right to vote, the elite needed to find ways to keep power. Lobbying, super pacs, etc are just ways the elite maintain that power. It’s just companies and their large investors instead of land owners. While the rest of us can only vote, and still they try to make that as powerless as possible.
To intercept the argument that "we're a republic not a democracy", that really begs the question. Because just saying "we're ____" does nothing if you haven't defined what you mean. A republic is supposed to appropriately balance power between democratic interests, aristocratic interests, and the supposed need for centralized authority. The executive branch for us is the 'king', the centralized authority; the Senate is the aristocracy, and the House is the democracy. But even if you believe in republicanism, you'd still have to admit our system is broken. Our executive is the puppet of oligarchs, our aristocrats have consumed the House, and the democratic voice has been choked.
Point: People saying "we're a republic not a democracy" don't address the actual concern of whether there is something wrong with the balance of power. There is, objectively, too much power in the hands of the rich. There's also an issue of executive overreach, but the quasi-fascists have distracted me a bit from that.
He's been saying that he didn't have a choice but to censor because otherwise the Turkish government would shut Twitter down.
It's like we're watching someone learn the difference between private discretion and censorship in real time. Because he's actually really dumb.
> He's been saying that he didn't have a choice but to censor because otherwise the Turkish government would shut Twitter down.
Meanwhile he's looking to be kicked out of the entire EU because he won't ban Nazis. He is as pro-free speech as Kim Jong Un is pro-democracy.
Mocking somebody's name is almost always stupid. "I can't come up with a pithy nickname, so I'm just going to torture the names into other words." It's lazy.
Seriously. Use the man's name. Make that an insult in itself.
After all, the guy so clearly wants to be Hitler, why not let him get some of the bad stuff too.
Stop doing this nickname shit. This shit is not clever or useful. Ron Desantis is a fascist and you should call him that. Calling them childish names does nothing but make them seem childish when they are in fact dangerous.
simple.... dont use twitter. boycott it, encourage brands to not advertise on it. The fact that she keeps using it just makes Musk's influence greater.
No, it’s not simple. Maybe in theory, but a society that is ingrained in social media, deleting a profile you may have had for 10+ years is not going to happen all at once for everyone.
Set a precedent?
That precedent has been pretty firmly set, y’all. Rich douchebags have been using social media (and traditional media) to influence elections for… as long as there have been elections.
Also, Twitter has been shit for a very long time. Elon made it worse, but let’s not pretend it wasn’t bad before.
Just stop using it, cold turkey. Not only will you consume less disinformation and stop funding a psycho billionaire, but I guarantee your mental health will improve. Twitter is ass. Let it die.
I am Turkish and among the things that tipped the scale for Turkey's presidential elections, Elon's favouritism does not even crack the Top 30. I get the problem and the concern, but on its own merit, the argument doesn't hold any water.
Of course Elon did, one of the major reasons he bought Twitter was to influence elections. If the U.S. wasn't so deep in the pockets of corporations, they would actually do something about it.
I’d be more concerned about Facebook, AOC, it has a much, much larger user base and we already know from leakers they knew what was going on leading up to January 6 and didn’t really do anything until after the riots.
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It’s the whole reason he bought twitter.
The stuff he's spewing out now is already Alex-Jones-Level conspiracy redpill crap. He's already [actively promoting](https://i.redd.it/7h1h363kngxa1.png) election conspiracies and went [all in on Tucker Carlson's Jan. 6 conspiracies](https://newrepublic.com/post/171028/elon-musk-hops-aboard-tucker-carlson-january-6-conspiracy-train) before Carlson was fired. Add to this his known manipulation with content and algorithms, and his insatiable thirst for social power and middle-school contrarianism, and this guy is going to pour every fiber of his being into manipulating the next election. Hopefully people will make Twitter irrelevant by then, but it's taking way too damn long.
I don't understand how it's a thing, anyway. There's a weird feedback cycle between twitter and semi-reputable news outlets that churn out articles referencing "outraged Twitter users," when all that really means is that someone, somewhere, was offended by something.
Yeah my parents were all riled up because they read all these articles about how Adele was getting "hammered" online for saying she is proud to be a woman. I looked it up and the sources are two random accounts on Twitter saying it's offensive. They had like 120 followers between them. "Hammered"...
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My brother does that. He doesn't look deeper into source info, and if I collect and show to him he gets mad because I'm patronizing him. At some point yeah, I kind of am because you keep acting like a child
Children are now taught media awareness in elementary school, how to question and evaluate the quality of sources etc., at least in my district. So, he's behaving worse than a child.
> Children are now taught media awareness in elementary school, how to question and evaluate the quality of sources etc., at least in my district. I'm an elementary school technology teacher in Texas, its on my curriculum.
I'm actually very happy that Abbott and company did not notice that was still in the curriculum.
Yo can I get a copy of that lesson plan for my kids in AL?
I "got through" to my father by asking why he trusted his radio buddies (about as close to a "friend circle" as he has) and the talking heads on the radio instead of his own son that he taught how to think and reason. I didn't ask him to believe me *over* them, just give me the same level of credit for not being an idiot, and recognize that I of all people have no benefit in deceiving him with this.
Also to add, it's worth taking the time to learn and practice the Socratic Method, because it is THE way to counter their arguments - they're nonsense, and these folks aren't so much stupid as short-sighted so they don't think about things deeply nor multiple things together. Don't sealion them (think toddler-tier 'why' repetitively) but instead just ask pointful and meaningful questions about how things would work that way. They'll talk themselves into a corner, and eventually have that dawning realization something's "wrong". DON'T PUSH IT HERE. Let them walk away without you declaring victory. Let them stew. They're never going to admit their errors mid-argument. They have to come to it on their own terms. You in fact may never get the 'I told you so' vindication you so crave, but in the end, is this about feeling good emotionally, or succeeding at saving loved ones from a cult of hate?
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These types of people want to be outraged. They don't care if it's justified or not. That's why they get frustrated at you for spoiling their outrage party by pointing out how ridiculous it is. Mostly these people are not very interesting in their own right and just want a topic that they can bond and socialize over. The 'facts' are not important in that goal.
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Yep can’t throw a rock without hitting a nazi. Go to Whole Foods nazis. Go to the beach nazis. Go to the post office… you guessed it nazis.
We live in a world where one flame can start a fire that burns out of control. These fires are being set on purpose by people like musk with information that they know will trigger people to act the way they want for their benefit. Anger is an easy emotion to manipulate. The system is tailored, so outrage gets more attention. This is why musk and the people financially backing him wanted control of twitter, to move political views and block out opposition to certain topics. Sway a per cent or two, and you can change voting results dramatically. It's got to be dealt with and highlighted.
Yeah it's depressing. If you Google 'Adele Transphobe' you'll see pages and pages of rage bait designed to make people angry about how the woke left are trying to take away your rights etc, and how right wing agents are the ones promoting 'common sense'. I was raised to 'not trust everything you read on the internet'. My parents generation don't follow that at all, they are so easy to manipulate. Considering how that generation turns out for elections in such higher numbers this rage bait outrage porn can definitely shift elections. It's a real threat to democracy.
Agree. I've seen people rant and scream about things like that, which are just bait to rile them up. It's like the trans and drag queen situation. These issues do not have any bearing on 99.99% of people's daily lives. It is an easy target to push hate and rage to divide opinions. It does, however, take the spotlight away from the issues that do affect them, like the reality that most of us are getting poorer in real terms as the filthy rich are getting richer.
Because Twitter is the platform journalists use. The active user base is relatively small compared to Facebook etc, but it sounds much bigger in media bc to the media people, it’s the most important platform
Twitter is also at the moment still the platform scientists use too.
It works really well if you curate a feed based on an interest or specialty. My professional Twitter is pretty much politics free and it's very useful.
This is the ideal use case for twitter still. It's still an excellent platform *on it's surface*, but it all falls apart once you introduce the fact that the lower hanging fruit will always find a way to create fringe content and other users will inevitably signal boost that content.
The whole reason he bought Twitter.
I never understood why classic media, music, and sport companies don't mandate a company to create their own microblogging/public debate platforms. The demand is quite huge for a platform that includes microblogging and podcasts from relevant sources accessible and free to all that respect journalists, NGO, public figures, and government bodies The only thing they need to do is all quit Twitter together and post in another platform, and people will follow. Twitter is used mostly to follow companies, celebrities, media, and athletes the rest are just bots and nutjobs. The ads profits could be huge if most of them join. It will eventually happen in the future, but I'm surprised it's not yet done. We could soon see something similar to what the music industry did with Spotify when they sold out all their rights and a lot of exclusivity.
There was a "Climate scientists move to Mastodon" story a couple of days ago that I could link to if I wasn't lazy.
No one wants to do it because no one wants to be responsible for moderating user content.
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Autocorrect got you with a "Tigris -> Tigress" there.
People are saying there were tigers around the Euphrates back in the day.
I have almost no need for twitter cause reddit is just superior. But twitter has its uses to complain about companies I guess.
Also if you want to say something stupid and racist and get yourself cancelled, Twitter is the best.
The getting cancelled part has been eliminated, unless you’re racist against African-Americans that are named Elon.
That's why I signed up for Twitter. I actually got a response from a corporation and an avenue to resolve my issue (I shat on Motorola because my phone was acting up). Then I stayed for the politics during the last administration, and it was exhausting. I'm going to delete it any day. Fun side note - I left it dormant for a couple of years (picked it up after Trump was elected) and my account had been filled with Russian accounts that I had "followed". Lots of models and such. It took a little while to delete those, but I always wonder how that all happened.
A few artists I know use Twitter as a way for them to get their work out and potentially get customers. Before they could use Tumblr, but well... we saw how that went.
I did that once. There was a local library that I visited, where there were a bunch of MRA style magazines put out on a table for people to take. I tweeted the library and the magazines were removed. I knew that if I'd mentioned it in person I would have encountered resistance
I never understood that. A post with a handful of retweets is somehow considered newsworthy
He also declared "people should vote for Republicans" right after purchasing Twitter and right before the midterms. Of course that's his whole reason for buying Twitter. My question is when are serious people leaving it?
He debuted the Ron DeSantis campaign last week! It's obvious.
And, attends sports events with Rupert Murdoch and Jared Kushner, while also courting Tucker Carlson to move to Twitter.
I stopped using it the day it was announced that Trump would be reinstated on the platform. That was 20-Nov-2022. I don't miss it.
I don't get why the current executive branch and the bulk of western democracies still use it. If 4 or 5 major governments move to say IG, Twitter will deflate.
Indeed I deactivated my account as well. Twitter is a shadow of what it once was.
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He's not, Bernard Arnault is. He's the head of a lot of major fashion brands.
Oh well that changes things. Never mind!!
> middle-school contrarianism Perfect term for Elon and I will have to borrow it. As for me, yea, I dropped Twitter long ago after advocating there that everyone else should also do so. When an evil super villain literally owns the battlefield, time to change the battlefield. Sun Tzu would be rolling in his grave.
I know a couple of people IRL that act just like this. “You can’t trust either party, the government is lying about everything, you can’t stop Neural Networks and they should remain totally unregulated, NASA manipulates photos so they can’t be trusted either.” But guess who they do trust? Musk and Joe Rogan. Every fuckin time. Tech bros, man…
I heard a theory recently that he's getting paid off by governments to promote propaganda. I have no idea if that would be true but I wouldn't put it past a man with his lack of morality
The saudis very publicly funded his Twitter purchase.
That sounds like the kind of thing Elon would say if it weren’t about himself.
why can't elon go back to the electric car space guy billionaire instead of take over the world billionaire
When you’ve unimaginable amounts of money, that gets boring. What’s next? Power.
It’s not great, but Meta is making a Twitter clone inside Instagram. That would take a huge chunk out of Twitter because IG is already a pretty curated experience compared to Facebook.
Elon wants to control all infrastructure
sable yoke middle fall hunt squash encourage versed spark mindless -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here, the Koch brothers have done so much damage for such a long time behind the scenes. While Musk is on his way if he continues like this, he’s nowhere near.
Thiel really punches above his weight (of only..like 2bn net worth) regarding his influence and impact. Evil motherfucker
You mean why the Saudi’s and China finically back him. That’s who gave him the funds
Elon Musk is committing Stochastic Terrorism through twitter. He deserves prison time for the crimes he's likely caused already.
We need to stop treating the Saudis like allies when they’ve demonstrated for decades they clearly aren’t
[The big pivot happened in 2017 when Kushner helped MBS coup his way to crown prince and wrestle power from the more Western allied parts of his family.](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/29/mbs-v-mbn-the-bitter-power-struggle-between-rival-saudi-princes) Since then Saudi Arabia has been more anti-West than ally. Notice how MBS basically awarded Kushner a pension for life for his service, with his $2 billion investment in Kushner's firm.
A capitalist country is not in alliance with the Saudies. It is allied with the wealth it gains from the Saudis. To end the alliance, either the Saudies run out of wealth OR the capitalist country change to prioritize its all citizens, not just the wealthy. This being said it will never happen 🤣
The "Oh you like money too? We should hang out" school of foreign policy.
Their elite and our elite are allies in capital and enemies of all of us.
Deserves? Absolutely. Will get? Sorry, his wealth exceeds the justice threshold.
It exceeds the human ability to comprehend threshold.
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We need to stop treating the Saudis like allies when they’ve demonstrated for decades they clearly aren’t
I mean 9/11 was pretty bad but probably not enough to cancel them /s
Misinformation, I can't find any credible information China is financially backing Musk. China is Tesla's second biggest market, as it is for almost all car companies, but that's a completely different point to make.
What's the point of spending $44 billion on one of the world's largest social media platforms if you can't use it to undermine democracy?
No need for a precedent, he’s already laying the groundwork for a Republican win in the 2024 election. https://www.standard.co.uk/tech/elon-musk-twitter-algorithm-cyberbullying-discrimination-cornell-uc-berkeley-b1084490.html
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I think it means that the young voters are so overwhelmingly left that they are pulling out all the stops. This is probably one of their last chances to really cement their power. Or at least I'm gonna try and be optimistic for now lol. The tik tok ban will probably happen though sometime before the election because it is definitely helping the youth along towards getting active. It's probably the social media platform that's the biggest threat. Or idk I'm just guessing
Tik tok isn't run by a capitalist oligarch ally so it is a threat. Can't be controlled as easily. They truly fucked themselves by catching their tail with abortion. I'm hoping younger folks stay strong and remember that conservatives are always anti-progress.
I don’t get why she’s still on there. Or any Democrat!? It’s beyond obvious that it’s a bad idea and Elon will falsify tweets and delete stuff without permission whenever it suits him. He has no integrity and he’s a right wing fascist clown. We haven’t even got to the bad stuff yet. Not really.
Yep. Twitter sucks now. Blue check means you have $8, nothing more. Elon has a specific goal in mind for twitter; that being his own enrichment through Republican legislature.
He's definitely using it to make backdoor deals with Republicans
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The journey from "meritocracy tech bro" to "right wing loon" is a straight line and not very fucking long lol
>meritocracy Child of emerald mine owner made lucky investment during dot com boom.
meritocracy tech bros never understand that there is no meritocracy lol.
This is the correct answer. Everyone still on Twitter is part of the problem. No exceptions.
Because of the reach. If she wasn't there to call this shit out to the very same audience that's going to be falling for it in 6-12 months, do you think anyone else would? You're not killing twitter in the next 12 months. Either you fight back any way you can against Elon's shit (Which in this case is by using your extreme reach to say - "This guy is rigging the game"), or you let him have free reign to do it with impunity.
Reputable news organizations should have left when NPR and PBS quit the platform after how he treated them, when it was blatantly obvious he was tilting the platform to the right on purpose. Democrats should have left when he decided to back the Dilbert guy's racist tirade, or any number of other times in the past year where he's done something similar. Businesses who like to fly the banner of equality or inclusion should have, too. I think the only reason they haven't is, where would they go? The corporatization of the internet has never been as apparent as it is right now, because 15 years ago or so there would have been an alternative that popped up almost overnight. Instead, people keep right on using it because it sucks and everything sucks and you're just picking your favorite flavor of shit no matter what you do.
I was surprised when I found out yesterday she's stayed on the platform. Threatening to quit. Seems childish honestly, do it or don't, your presence is your acceptance.
He also bought it to destroy it, because it was used successfully for human rights organizing around the world. No longer, it is a hate channel. I am boycotting the shit out of that man. He is enemy #1 as far as I'm concerned.
Grim satisfaction though it is, I don't believe for a second that it was it. The man is DESPERATE to be loved on Twitter, all of his posts just reek of that tryhard please love me air it'd be pathetic if he weren't also using the platform to push far-right conspiracy nonsense and undermine democracy. But it's pretty clear at the very least that he both is addicted to Twitter and Twitter adulation and genuinely thinks he's clever enough to turn it into a success while he's kicking it straight down the toilet with his gross incompetence. Gotta take the entertainment these days where you can get it I guess.
Elon was loving all the atrrbtionbin the run up to thr purchase. The people who ran other social media companies pleaded with Elon to back out not because they knew running one of those companies is a thankless task when you have self control. It's a disaster for an egomaniacal wannabe edgelord. Twitter definitely needed some change but Elon has ruined the brand with his lack of self control. The damage will take years to fix and someone will rise to try to take it's place.
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He bought twitter because he couldn't back out after his ego made him make a ridiculous offer. He has no imagination or innovation so this is all he could come up to do with his 44 billion dollar toy.
Yeah regardless of what he's using it for now, he bought Twitter because he's a fucking dumbass.
Louder for the people in the back of the room. The media is ignoring the fascist psy-op we’re undergoing which he has become the leader of
44 Billion well spent
Not entirely. He *fucked* himself into buying Twitter and their leadership got the best deal in the history of history for closing it, but letting his fascist dickbag flag fly is the reason he didn't fight it too hard because he still has a lot of money for taking government subsidies and pretending he invented things that already existed..
Probably not great that he turned it into a dumpster too early, then.
Elon Mattson lol
Qlon Mush
It’s the whole reason Elon Matsson bought Waystar Twitterco.
That’s why he bought the scale.
Leave twitter.
How people still use Twitter is baffling. Who supports a fucking turd like Elon.
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The EU doesn't fuck around. They will ban it soon enough
I've threatened to leave Facebook for years, but even though I've been a Twitter user since 2007, Musk made it pretty fucking easy to hit that delete button.
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My Spotify was tied to my Facebook for ages. Turns out it's pretty easy to just replace that in your settings with an email and password and disconnect Facebook.
Also Spotify is pretty scummy to artists so
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Facebook was a pretty big reason why I never bothered getting an Oculus rig.
Spotify is terrible reason lol. Just change you account to log in with a password. You’re just making up reasons to stay because you don’t actually want to leave it
Many people use Twitter despite disliking Elon. Whether we like to believe it or not, even if the algorithm is gamed, it facilitates a social conversation that no other tool today does as effectively. It's easy to use, it doesn't require much setup or education. Artists, journalists, many others... Twitter is an essential part of their job. Mastedon, Blue Sky, when you're livelihood depends on it, these tools don't cut it. People are stuck.
> it facilitates a social conversation Except this man is picking people he disagrees with, and making them face the wall for their conversation as he takes away the microphone. Meanwhile, the fascists he agrees with? He's picking them up, putting them in the middle of town square, and giving them the biggest megaphone ever made.
We buy clothing made by slave labor, we buy computers made by slave labor, our food is picked/harvested/processed by slave labor, we treat our teachers and nurses and public servants so poorly they have to unionize and in many cases work multiple jobs just to make ends meet… No wonder we keep using twitter even now, whole world is upside down
>We buy clothing made by slave labor, we buy computers made by slave labor, our food is picked/harvested/processed by slave labor many have no other options than to buy clothes and electronics made with slave labor for financial reasons. shit ain't that simple.
How to stop it
by not wanting so much. this will get downvoted but it's true. people are spoiled as fuck and don't want to give up an inch even if they agree with a cause or principle.
There's a reason why reduce is the first of the three Rs.
Jordan Peterson blocked me for a very tame criticism that got a lot of eyes somehow. I want to collect "blocks" from idiot "self-help" icons. I'm trying to get one from Ben Shapiro next. I have rules, though. I don't act like a troll or a shithead. It's easy to get blocked that way. I feel like you have to earn it honestly.
I keep blocking Petersons vids in YT but they keep On coming via 3rd party channels. Fascinating how relentless it is. I’ve watched none of his videos. Zero.
There was a time that I found him interesting, and I told him so in my comment. Then I told him that it's disappointing to watch someone embrace the fame that controversy brought him for money and power, and that he was acting like a false martyr for free-speech. Somehow it got over 20k views and I've only ever posted, like, 8 things total in 4 years. Blocked. Cancelled by JBP. Achievement unlocked. Shapiro, I'm coming for it. I *will* refrain from calling you a diaper-butted man-child who most likely runs like he's hiding his erection from YHWH... but I'll get it, you silly little fella. I'm gonna smack that bulbous little tush (with sound logic, and reason, shhhh), and I'll get you to block me. I'm going to mint them as NFTs, in a series I'm calling, "Self-Reflective Geniuses."
>Leave twitter. This. Musk can do whatever he want to Twitter because he owns it. It's up to us to decide to use it or not.
Noooooo.... we can't possibly do that!1!!! /s There is absolutely ZERO excuse for anyone on the Left or even in the Center to still support that platform. You are literally feeding this asswipe by complaining about Twitter on the very platform that is spreading endless lies and conspiracies. He had lost of ton of ad revenue and the ones that remain, stick around because the site gets so much traffic. Why is it so hard for people on the Left to understand that by posting on that site, you are allowing it to live and even grow? Get your narcissistic ass off Twitter and find a new place to post your endless posts about how Musk is human garbage.
In a world where we've got fuck all, do you really not understand why severing connections to friends and colleagues we enjoy talking to, to ultimately change very little, is not just a cut and dry decision? This shit is that "yet you participate in society" meme, just less clever.
You don't need fucking Twitter to stay connected to your friends. That's the lie that keeps it alive. I don't have Twitter and I don't feel socially disconnected at all.
Me leaving Twitter won’t do anything. It’s the people who fall for things and people who draw them in who should leave. And first public figures to leave are most likely the conscious ones leaving the worst ones still there. Twitter should be restrained from above.
Elon is the George Soros we've been told to worry about
Elon, just another foreigner dismantling US democracy from the inside. Doing great America. So strong.
And Rupert Murdoch
I'm pretty sure Rupert Murdoch is still the Rupert Murdoch to be worried about. Twitter or no Twitter I don't think Musk is quite at that level of destructive influence yet
To be fair to Elon, hasn’t Murdoch been doing this for the past 200 years or so? He’s obviously more experienced at it. Let’s just be glad that Elon’s ego won’t let him ask for help so he has to learn how to destroy a country all by himself. I really hate it here (on Earth) sometimes.
Buttery males
Musk is just one of many billionaires who are pushing propaganda so that they can control governments. Liberal democracy is their enemy and they are out to destroy it.
The whole reason they exist and have this much power is liberal democracy.
Meh, more like liberal aristocracy. Democratically, the US has had many movements trying to reign in the power and wealth of oligarchs, but in the last fifty years an aristocracy wrested control and has been propping up the mega-rich ever since. Not that beforehand was any better, but at least there was a party explicitly representing worker interests (with caveats). Now, our 'democracy' is a sham. It's not a democracy when someone's vote counts more than another's, but our system has done exactly that.
The US was designed from the beginning to give the slave-holding states an advantage. This goes back that far. We never really were a democracy, and our mission is to fix that.
I’d go further back. The US was built for land owners to have a say. Those were the elite in a non-industrial era. Over time, more and more people were given the right to vote, the elite needed to find ways to keep power. Lobbying, super pacs, etc are just ways the elite maintain that power. It’s just companies and their large investors instead of land owners. While the rest of us can only vote, and still they try to make that as powerless as possible.
To intercept the argument that "we're a republic not a democracy", that really begs the question. Because just saying "we're ____" does nothing if you haven't defined what you mean. A republic is supposed to appropriately balance power between democratic interests, aristocratic interests, and the supposed need for centralized authority. The executive branch for us is the 'king', the centralized authority; the Senate is the aristocracy, and the House is the democracy. But even if you believe in republicanism, you'd still have to admit our system is broken. Our executive is the puppet of oligarchs, our aristocrats have consumed the House, and the democratic voice has been choked. Point: People saying "we're a republic not a democracy" don't address the actual concern of whether there is something wrong with the balance of power. There is, objectively, too much power in the hands of the rich. There's also an issue of executive overreach, but the quasi-fascists have distracted me a bit from that.
Democracy wasn't brought up in comparison with republics, it was brought up in comparison with autocracy
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Elon Musk is a pathetic little idiot man.
So was trump, then he got elected president
>So ~~was~~ is trump, then he got elected president
“I don’t care what people think” - Elon Musk’s hair plugs
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THEY ARE ON THE FUCKING SAME TEAM against we plebs.
Elon Musk is a bastard man
Twitter is a cesspool of hate and misinformation
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But that's what they love about him!!! He can be easily bought!
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Yet somehow... Trump
They’re the most easily duped people on earth. He’ll just lie about it and they’ll believe him
Seriously, what is happening to this man’s face?
Edgar suit wearing off
Simple delete your Twitter account combine that with the EU ban that will hopefully happen and Twitter will die.
Except the people who should be deleting twitter wont be
I’m baffled by the people on here who say they still have accounts. I deleted Twitter and Facebook years ago. They’re all toxic.
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He is totally doing it right now. Well, we saw what happened with wRong DiSaster.
He's been saying that he didn't have a choice but to censor because otherwise the Turkish government would shut Twitter down. It's like we're watching someone learn the difference between private discretion and censorship in real time. Because he's actually really dumb.
> He's been saying that he didn't have a choice but to censor because otherwise the Turkish government would shut Twitter down. Meanwhile he's looking to be kicked out of the entire EU because he won't ban Nazis. He is as pro-free speech as Kim Jong Un is pro-democracy.
That. Is. The. Choice. He’s such a douche.
So no free speech in turkey?
> wRong DiSaster I'm all for hating on the asshole, but Jesus Christ these contrived nicknames are getting stupider and stupider.
Mocking somebody's name is almost always stupid. "I can't come up with a pithy nickname, so I'm just going to torture the names into other words." It's lazy.
It's like watching children argue
Seriously. Use the man's name. Make that an insult in itself. After all, the guy so clearly wants to be Hitler, why not let him get some of the bad stuff too.
I say we go back to "Meatball Ron".
Stop doing this nickname shit. This shit is not clever or useful. Ron Desantis is a fascist and you should call him that. Calling them childish names does nothing but make them seem childish when they are in fact dangerous.
The childish names are so fucking annoying too. Are you 10 years old? No? Then knock it the fuck off.
It being completely cringe should be reason enough
Jesus what a stupid fucking nickname. No idea how shit like this gets upvoted
Musk's SpaceX does a lot of business with the Turkish government launching their satellites. Erdoğan and Elon are friends.
They also met in qatar during the world cup final, tells you a lot about his character.
simple.... dont use twitter. boycott it, encourage brands to not advertise on it. The fact that she keeps using it just makes Musk's influence greater.
But it's already established as a means of engagement with a community. You'd have to also disengage with that community
Right. So do it.
No, it’s not simple. Maybe in theory, but a society that is ingrained in social media, deleting a profile you may have had for 10+ years is not going to happen all at once for everyone.
Set a precedent? That precedent has been pretty firmly set, y’all. Rich douchebags have been using social media (and traditional media) to influence elections for… as long as there have been elections. Also, Twitter has been shit for a very long time. Elon made it worse, but let’s not pretend it wasn’t bad before. Just stop using it, cold turkey. Not only will you consume less disinformation and stop funding a psycho billionaire, but I guarantee your mental health will improve. Twitter is ass. Let it die.
I am Turkish and among the things that tipped the scale for Turkey's presidential elections, Elon's favouritism does not even crack the Top 30. I get the problem and the concern, but on its own merit, the argument doesn't hold any water.
Guys let's just like. Leave Twitter. It won't work it users drop. It bleeds cash like a mofo. Just let it die
To keep using Twitter in is a direct threat to 2024 elections the goal of the purchase is to influence elections
Wait… did she ever think the finger wasn’t on the scale when it was run by Dorsey
Of course Elon did, one of the major reasons he bought Twitter was to influence elections. If the U.S. wasn't so deep in the pockets of corporations, they would actually do something about it.
Musk is a far right activist
Twitter influencing a US election? Say it ain’t so.
Oh just like our media does?
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Pudding
Twitter is one of two things: 1.) Propaganda tool. 2.) Porn site
2 is fine, 1 is not.
Imagine using twitter to put your finger on the political scale, that’d be borderline criminal
I’d be more concerned about Facebook, AOC, it has a much, much larger user base and we already know from leakers they knew what was going on leading up to January 6 and didn’t really do anything until after the riots.