this post was submitted on 05 Jan 2025
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[–] [email protected] 33 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I thought the whole point of being right wing was being negative?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

When your whole identity is consumed by boundless, baseless, joyless hatred of "the other", yes, you're gonna be negative.

I don't believe Musk is controlled by any of that though. He might share in it, but it doesn't quite dictate him as much as it dictates those in actual misery. For example, he isn't actually opposed to letting immigrants in, if they'll make him richer. He's motivated by greed and grift, and no small helping of pride.

I suspect he just doesn't want people criticising him and his cronies. Particularly when they inevitably start enacting policies that affect their base negatively (we've already seen our share of face-eating leopard voters shocked to find out that their face isn't off limits), social media could help pissed off people realise how many others are pissed off too. I don't think I need to spell out why that could be dangerous for him.

Better to quell dissent entirely. If nobody can complain about the government, it's harder to organise against it. Suppress criticism, censor the media, manipulate what you get to see to shape your view...

Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

(Obligatory note that calling a dictatorship communism doesn't make it less authoritarian than a capitalist dictatorship. Red boots hurt just as much as any other color if they step on your neck, no matter how tasty they might be. That has nothing to do with the topic, I'm just bracing for tankie whataboutisms.)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

I was being slightly sarcastic cause right wing folk seem to be very negative, or nostalgic, but in a negative sense. But I get your point.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

Oh you're absolutely right, I just felt like spelling out the subtext of "Musk isn't in it for the right wing mentality, just for the power" that I thought you were hinting at but left unsaid. I wasn't trying to contradict you at all, but rather to expand on your setup.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 hours ago

I appreciate the comment cause it’s definitely something I haven’t considered enough.

[–] [email protected] 62 points 2 days ago
[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 day ago

Don't want any Debbie-downers on Shitter once his bestie is in the big chair.

[–] [email protected] 247 points 2 days ago

Ah, so he's going to stop posting there? Right?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 day ago

I'm curious whether Truth Social will acquire Xitter, or vice versa.

And when.

[–] [email protected] 64 points 2 days ago

my puppet is in power — everyone be nice now.

[–] [email protected] 206 points 2 days ago (4 children)

Now that the election is over and we won, let's remove our bots. - musk

[–] [email protected] 84 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Oh, c'mon, who's going to tell him he is the best dad? He needs them.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 2 days ago

Ah, but there are still elections in other parts of the world, like Germany, where he is also very active

[–] [email protected] 23 points 2 days ago (1 children)

No, bots are still needed for hating illegal immigrants.

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[–] [email protected] 104 points 2 days ago (1 children)

He’s shutting down his account?

[–] [email protected] 45 points 2 days ago (1 children)

No he's gonna ban anyone who disagrees with him.

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[–] [email protected] 60 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Instead of “bad” you have to say “ungood” from now on.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 days ago

Double plus ungood!

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 days ago (1 children)

"Maybe if you tell me the bad news in a good way, it won't sound so bad."

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[–] [email protected] 72 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 days ago

Free speech abolitionist, more like.

[–] [email protected] 125 points 2 days ago (4 children)

No no, guys, you're misunderstanding. He MEANS there's too much negativity from people saying things like "X sucks since musk bought twitter....."

He's going to change those people's tweets to say "X is great!"

And by that I mean he's going to have a team to edit tweets that he doesn't like!

If that's not free speech, then Musk doesn't know what is!

[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 days ago

This is exactly what he means.

Next up the sanctioned daily hate.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

This has nothing to do with Twitters image. He could have enforced that decision sooner if it was. This is about Trump. The negativity was helpful during Bidens presidency. Now that Trump is about to take over everything has to look like the world is happy again. It's political manipulation.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I mean in principle this is just a matter of moderation being different from censorship.

But really, an "algorithm tweak"? I am still wondering when or why who decided that we needed to have "algorithms" that someone could "tweak" on the Internet at all. The first kind of "social media" I ever used was web forums where the entire "algorithm" was thread bumping, and even if you insist that we need to have the structure of a microblog: Mastodon does fine without an "algorithm" beyond reverse-chronological sorting.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I think Mastodon does fine, too, but I've often heard people complain about the lack of an algorithm. Like, they don't know how to find things if they aren't being shoveled into their feed

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago

Personally I follow slightly more than 100 accounts plus less than 10 hashtags and feel I'm already getting plenty of things into my feed, nowadays I tend to unfollow things that post too many irrelevant things more than I follow new ones.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

But you had all these rightwing weirdos complaining they were being censored because "the algorithm" didn't promote their weird little ideas enough!

Back when.
So tweaking the algorithm is quite literally censorship!

Not that this "free-speech absolutist" has proven particularly true to his word.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 days ago

Incumbent wants everyone to talk about how great things are.

[–] [email protected] 47 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (4 children)

X/Twitter is a misinformation platform. If you know a major influencer that uses, consider informing and directing them to the ActivityPub alternatives, even advertising on their platforms if you can.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I like how you say "that uses" instead of "that uses it" because the former generally implies drug use.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

Good point, best to leave it like that 🙃

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[–] [email protected] 78 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 43 points 2 days ago

A cisgender guy.

(This comment has been removed for violating X's policy on the use of derogatory slurs)

[–] [email protected] 25 points 2 days ago

Right, he should remove the last few humans and replace them with bots.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 days ago

Reading the title I thought he'll retire.

[–] [email protected] 44 points 2 days ago

Closing the shop will achieve that goal perfectly.

[–] [email protected] 41 points 2 days ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 25 points 2 days ago

He's such a fucking baby

[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 days ago (1 children)

More circus and bread. Classic move

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago

Dont shit where you eat Elon. Its your own turd sandwich so yeah....

[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 days ago

Project mayhem needs to take his balls

[–] [email protected] 25 points 2 days ago

Now that the election is over, he’s hiding the lightning rod.

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