They Criticized Musk on X. Then Their Reach Collapsed.
They Criticized Musk on X. Then Their Reach Collapsed.
www.nytimes.com
They Criticized Musk on X. Then Their Reach Collapsed.
17 comments
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So what, it's his platform, he can do whatever he wants on it, he paid a lot of money for it.
I really don't get why this would upset anyone, he is not forcing you to use his platform.
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"Twitter should be the global town square"
"free speech absolutist"
"make humor great again"
"leftists are snowflakes"
Sure, he doesn't force anyone to use Twitter. It's still unfortunately the de facto communication platform for a lot of government agencies. It's still an important tool for the world. Let's hope some large governments (EU? Please?) grow balls and leave Twitter alltogether...
This is absolutely newsworthy and worth being upset about.
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I mean, calling out Musks hypocrisy is not a bad thing per se, but is it really news?
At the end of the day a lot of people choose to remain on a platform that got bought by an gigantic asshole, who can now do whatever he wants with it. That's how it works and being upset about it just shows that many users are either naive or delusional. Twitter can't be saved, there's nothing left.
Combined with the fact that most Lemmy users probably know about this and already chose alternative platforms a long time ago, articles like these rarely cause more than a shrug, at least for me.
But hey, if it get's a few more people off of twitter (especially like large institutions as you mentioned), I won't complain. As time passes I just tend to think that everyone who still stays on Twitter maybe belongs there.
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Fair enough. It's still more news than the endless reporting major news websites do (I'm looking at you bbc) about his fucking tweets.
But I can see your point that it's not very newsworthy on Lemmy (nor is this new btw, he has done similar shit before)
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it's his platform, he can do whatever he wants on it, he paid a lot of money for it. […] I really don't get why this would upset anyone
lol
- Champions “free speech” to justify buying Twitter in a legitimate way.
- Wins over idealists who think they’re fighting for openness, calling it a “public square”, “Greek Agora” etc.
- Bans critics and content he just doesn’t align with.
- Gets called out.
- “Whoa whoa, I meant my free speech. The rest of you? Peasants.”
- People leave the platform: “I don’t get why this upsets anyone, it’s his platform”.
This reminds me of the behavior most common in subreddits such as /r/Bitcoin, we can even put it side by side:
- Step 1: Preach a grand ideal — “X is the free speech Agora!” / “Bitcoin is your path to financial freedom!”
- Step 2: Rally support by moralizing it — “If you’re against this, you’re against liberty!” / “Only fools ignore Bitcoin!”
- Step 3: When the consequences hit — censorship or market crashes — suddenly the ideal becomes personal: “It’s his platform, he can do whatever he wants.” / “You fool! You shouldn’t have invested more than you can afford to lose.”
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You're misunderstanding what I wrote, because:
People leave the platform: “I don’t get why this upsets anyone, it’s his platform”.
Is exactly the opposite of what I was trying to say with:
he is not forcing you to use his platform
you can just leave, there are so many alternatives available, if you don't then you are part of the problem, giving him power and putting more money into his pockets. In fact you should have seen the writing on the wall many years ago and latest when he bought it.
Being upset about this now after he did so many worse things is just silly.
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you can just leave, there are so many alternatives available […] In fact you should have seen the writing on the wall many years ago and latest when he bought it.
Yeah I know what you’re saying, and I agree — many people left Twitter back then indeed. But many people will still get bothered with the hypocrisy of this sort of behavior persisting in their society. Anything is justified at the moment it is convenient, then when the hypocrisy is pointed out, suddenly the problem is the person who fell for it. It feels a bit like an US cultural thing, where the damage of something to society isn’t really discussed, after all, we all have “free will”, so the fault is on the person who didn’t know better. But you’re gonna be affected by these things one way or another regardless of whether you try to ignore them.
There are enough fools in the world who will keep giving billionaires more and more power, no matter what they do, because America’s current indoctrination glorifies the ultra-rich (the dominant class in the U.S.) in the same way authoritarian countries indoctrinate their citizens to worship a strong leader who promises to take care of everything for them.
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Upset? I think we're all just reveling in his pain.
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I'm of the opinion that having a lot of money shouldn't, in fact, allow you to do what you want. No person should have this power to do mass censorship, not in the last place because manipulating online discourse means manipulating a fundamental aspect of democracy.
Musk specifically is meddling in elections, both in the EU and the US by e.g. bribing voters. Turning the dials of the algorithm lets him do this even more effectively.
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17 comments