Social Media Political Lens

[waitingtoconnect]

I know this is the "I hate Elon" thread, but unfortunately he did another good thing in standing up to Australia trying to censor the entire world's online content.

"An Australian judge on Monday ruled that social media platform X must block every user in the world from accessing video of a bishop being stabbed in a Sydney church, extending the prohibition beyond users in Australia," noted the AP.

"Our concern is that if ANY country is allowed to censor content for ALL countries, which is what the Australian 'eSafety Commissar' is demanding, then what is to stop any country from controlling the entire Internet?" responded X owner Elon Musk. "We have already censored the content in question for Australia, pending legal appeal, and it is stored only on servers in the USA."

Knowing Australians I think most would agree with Elon. Even the victim agrees with Elon!! He wants the video public. But their governments love to censor things for either left wing or far right reasons.

Australia is probably where we don’t want to go and just as screwed up politically. Far right Maga types up against left wing socialists. That leads to crazy policies. Their health system for example is a crazy combination between the Canadian and US health systems because one party wants US style health and the other wants Candian style health.

That being said this video is evidence in a criminal case so this is a tougher one than just saying free speech off the bat. I understand that the cops who arrested this kid were attacked by a mob who demanded mob justice. So leaving it up may create issues with keeping the peace and keeping cops safe.


Also I don’t want Musk being the arbiter of free speech. Try critiquing Musk or publishing whistleblower material against him and see how far his free speech mantra goes!

In other news a French review has recommended children under 15 not be allowed to use social media apps, children under 11 be banned from using smartphones and children under 18 only be allowed access to whitelisted services that have no profit or data collective motive.

https://www.thestar.com.my/tech/tech-ne ... says-panel

[LordMortis]

Made the mistake of turning on the TV to get moving before an appointment and because every day has to be Musk news broadcast day, "Go Fuck Yourself" was a misunderstanding.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/elon-mus ... a634bd0d46

“First of all, it wasn’t to advertisers as a whole. It was with respect to freedom of speech,” Musk told the crowd. “It is important to have a global free speech platform where people with a wide range of opinions can voice their views. In some cases there were advertisers who were insisting on censorship.”

“We’re going to support free speech rather than agree to be censored for money,” he went on.

For context... (I wanted the larger context because censorship in his mind is apparently people criticizing what he is doing with his company and the way he acts and they "earth" responds to advertisers not wanting to give him money to platform and magnify his manchild toy.

[Daehawk]

Musk is an asshole. A rich asshole. But still an asshole.

[hepcat]

Every time I see Musk's facial expressions, I'm reminded of this.

[Skinypupy]

It's been fascinating to watch Twitter's descent into Gab or Truth Social since Elon took over.

- With no verification outside of "Send Elon $8", many (most?) people that I was interested in following have left the platform, replaced by a hundred imitators claiming to be them.
- Since there is basically zero moderation, nearly every comment is met with a flood of racist, sexist, and otherwise horrible comments. That's always been the case to some extent, but it has amplified 100X since Elon took over. Posting an innocuous picture of a cat is likely to get one "Cute cat" and a hundred "Show me your tits", "Kill all the [ethnic group]", and "You're a pedo" comments from dudes named "Hitlerwasright420" and "AlphaMale69".
- Because of the above, every respectable advertiser has fled because they don't want their ads showing up next to the racist spew. So the only advertisers left are Crypto bros, MAGA shirts, prepper kits, and vitamin supplements. It's basically Fox News as 2am advertisers.
- The bot requests are out of control. I've never posted, commented, liked, or shared a single thing on Twitter, and I still get 4-5 bot "follower" requests every day.

I do still check there often because there's still a few people that I do know are legit and provide good analysis of current events. But I find myself going there less and less. Which is pretty much what Elon was aiming for, I suppose. Turn a platform that provided lots of information into a MAGA misinformation echo chamber/cesspool during an election year.

I can only assume the current state is considered an absolute win for him.

[YellowKing]

My experience hasn't been as bad, but I still have to willfully ignore dozens of right-wing propaganda posts. I only stay on the platform with my podcast account, because we had amassed a sizeable number of followers that I didn't want to throw away. We also have some really good friends that have remained that I did not want to lose touch with.

I only post positive stuff on there because I figure if I'm going to stay, I'm going to do my small part to battle back against Musk's negativity. There are some other prominent accounts like Mark Hamill and George Takei who are doing the same - staying behind to fight the dragons, as it were.

[Holman]

I find Bluesky to be more and more useful, especially as so many of the posters who made Old Twitter good have set up there.

[Jaymon]

I have been generally pleased with my experience on threads.
I never used twitter, or any of the others like blusky and such. But my threads feed is nicely populated with only stuff that I want to see. I have created exactly the echo chamber I want to participate in, and I am having a good time.

[Pyperkub]

EFF has a good breakdown of the new alternatives:

The ongoing Twitter exodus sparked life into a new way of doing social media. Instead of a handful of platforms trying to control your life online, people are reclaiming control by building more open and empowering approaches to social media. Some of these you may have heard of: Mastodon, Bluesky, and Threads. Each is distinct, but their differences can be hard to understand as they’re rooted in their different technical approaches.

With tips:

User Experience

Mastodon, Threads and Bluesky have a number of differences that are not essential to their underlying protocol which affect users looking to get involved today. Mastodon and Bluesky are very customizable, so these differences are just addressing the prevalent trends.

Culture

Threads has a reputation for being more brand-focused, with more commercial accounts and celebrities, and Meta has made no secret about their decisions to deemphasize political posts on the platform. Bluesky is often compared to early Twitter, with a casual tone and a focus on engaging with friends. Mastodon draws more people looking for community online, especially around shared interests, and each instance will have distinct norms.

[Smoove_B]

Musk is an asshole.

Still true!

Elon Musk is not spending $45 million a month to elect former President Donald Trump, though he has created a new super political action committee (PAC) to fund the Republican candidate, the billionaire told conservative commentator Jordan Peterson during an interview Monday evening.


During the interview, which was hosted on Musk’s platform, X, Peterson asked Musk if he had “shocked” himself by donating a substantial amount of money to Trump’s campaign. Musk – who has previously criticized Trump, calling him a “bull in a china shop” – paused to correct the “media.”

“What’s been reported in the media is simply not true,” Musk said. “I am not donating $45 million a month to Trump.”

Note:

Musk did note that he created a super PAC, called the America PAC, to help support Trump. A super PAC is a group that can raise unlimited amounts of money for a campaign’s independent expenditures—such as for ads, or for day-to-day operations— but doesn’t donate directly to the campaign.

Directly from his mouth:

“I don’t prescribe to [a] cult of personality,” Musk said. But, he added that Trump demonstrated “great courage” after being shot by an attempted assassin on July 13, and that strength helps intimidate America’s enemies.

Additionally, Musk spoke about the “core values” that make America great, which he thinks the Republican party embodies more so than the Democrats.

“One of those values being meritocracy, as much meritocracy as possible, so you get ahead as a function of your skill, and nothing else,” Musk said.

The cherry on the sundae:

He also added that one of the principles the PAC aligned with was “freedom,” particularly freedom from “as much government intervention as possible.” The hand of government gets heavier every year, and if we don’t roll back some restrictions and regulations, eventually, “everything will be illegal,” Musk said.

[Skinypupy]

“I don’t prescribe to [a] cult of personality,” Musk said.

"Unless it's about ME!"

[Smoove_B]

What kills me is the day before we have this:

Following Kamala Harris’s announcement that she is running for president, users on Elon’s Musk X (formerly known as Twitter) found themselves banned from following the vice president’s political campaign account.

When users went to follow @KamalaHQ, the official rapid response page for Harris’s campaign, they were greeted with a message that said they had reached their “limit” and could not follow any more accounts at this time.

This message usually is deployed to prevent spam or “rate limiting,” for instance if one account is following hundreds of others. But it seems that the Harris account is the one being limited, rather than the users’.

An initial search for KamalaHQ on The New Republic’s X account also found that the campaign account is limited. The campaign account showed up in repeated subsequent searches, seeming to suggest the issue is being resolved.

I'm sure it was a coincidence and totally not Melon Husk putting his stupid thumb on the scale - the very reason he purchased Twitter in the first place.

[Alefroth]

Maybe we need an investigation.

[waitingtoconnect]

Musk has gone down the rabbit hole because one of his sons decided to transition and live as a woman.

He couldn’t cope with this and he now considers her dead. As told to Jordan Peterson and openly admits his journey to the Maga side largely started there.

[Isgrimnur]

“I don’t prescribe to [a] cult of personality,” Musk said.

"Unless it's about ME!"

This. Being born on third base and thinking he hit a triple.

[Skinypupy]

Over the last few days, I have noticed a VERY significant increase in the number of MAGA shills showing up in my Xitter timeline. I only ever used to see them when someone I followed commented on their nonsense, but since Biden dropped out, I’d say they now make up about half of what the algorithm is feeding me.

Working exactly as Elmo intended as the election hits full speed, I would guess.

[Skinypupy]

Twitter is now filing an antitrust lawsuit because advertisers chose to spend their dollars elsewhere instead of having their ads showing up next to the racist garbage that now dominates Twitter.

[Kurth]

That is just one more idiotic lawsuit by Elon Musk. The entire premise is absurd. Of course advertisers are entitled to boycott platforms they don't think are good for their brands. What a joke!

[LordMortis]

You are so much nicer than I can possibly be.

[Holman]

I miss Popehat.

[TheMix]

Boycotted? I haven't been following along, but have these companies actually been organizing a boycott? Actively working to get other companies to avoid buying ads? I thought it was more that they simply said "hey, we don't want to advertise with you any more". But even if they are calling for others to follow suit, unless he can prove that they somehow actually prevented ad buys.... What a lunatic.

[LordMortis]

It's his dedication to free market libertarian ideals fueling this suit. I mean look at the ad dollars he spends for his companies.


That's as nice as I can be...

[waitingtoconnect]

Musk says civil war is coming in Europe which given his reach and others quoting him actually calling for civil war in my opinion as good as calling for civil war.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... l-war.html

Bear in mind the daily Mail is a far right paper in the UK.

I did my dissertation on apocalyptic cults in the early 1990s

There is a belief amongst far right Christian fundamentalists informed by interpretations of the bible and Nostradamus that a race war will start sometime after the creation of the state of Israel and Europe will be conquered by Islamic fundamentalists requiring a combined US, UK and Russian intervention. This war will lead to a final battle somewhere in Syria which will be so furious it will result in Jesus respawning and triggering the apocalypse.

If you are looking at how maga acts, their support of Russia and Brexit and what they believe it all points to this thinking.

[Alefroth]

Twitter is now filing an antitrust lawsuit because advertisers chose to spend their dollars elsewhere instead of having their ads showing up next to the racist garbage that now dominates Twitter.

Oh yeah, X has a CEO. But is that an AI of her?

[waitingtoconnect]

Reminds me of Metallica railing against Napster in the late 1990s….

[Unagi]

Did they also have a really distracting and often oddly timed use of their hand gestures?

[Skinypupy]

I can think of few people who have so thoroughly torched their legacy then set fire to the ashes quite like Elon has.

It’s honestly quite a remarkable achievement when you consider what his legacy could have been (an innovator, a climate champion, a titan of industry who truly changed the world) compared to the sad, pathetic, petty, bitter shell of a person he has now become.

[Blackhawk]

It's a Michael Jackson/Howard Hughes level of detached rich person crazy.

[Jaymann]

Somebody was looking for an example of word salad. There's your sign.

[hepcat]

Did they also have a really distracting and often oddly timed use of their hand gestures?

That really stuck out to me too. It’s like watching Jeff Bridges’ character in Starman while he tries to learn how to act human.

P.S. how many of Musk’s kids does SHE have?

That is just one more idiotic lawsuit by Elon Musk. The entire premise is absurd. Of course advertisers are entitled to boycott platforms they don't think are good for their brands. What a joke!

If you tell potential customers they can go “fuck themselves” if they don’t advertise on your platform, what should you expect? Musk is insanely stupid for someone so smart.

[LawBeefaroni]

Presumably it's on Spaces.


Musk is all in on using Twitter to influence the election.

[Isgrimnur]

Exhibit A for the defendants:

[Jaymann]

Is anybody here on Truth Social? Apparently #TrumpIsACoward is trending way up. Need to drive that through the roof.

[Victoria Raverna]

[LordMortis]

The hand gestures didn't get to me at first but now I feel like she's teaching Romper Room

[Jaymann]

LOL, the Musk "interview" of DonOld was a disasterpiece theater. Technical difficulties, alleged denial of service attacks, incoherent DonOld, etc. In other words another Monday for DonOld.

[LordMortis]

From the clips played on the news this morning, TFG sounded drunk. They never played even a moment moment of Billionaire Techbro's Husk's deferential attitude toward the felon on his specially prepared grand showcased and yet technically incompetent "public square" begging for more government handouts for his libertarian dream. Wait. My desire for DElondald to just GTFO might be showing.

[Zaxxon]

[Unagi]

So happy to see him putting his talents to even better use.

[Kraken]

That's a good one.