X, the social media platform owned by Trump megadonor Elon Musk, is promoting Trump campaign-curated content to all U.S. users, regardless of whether they have opted out of Trump-related content.

On the platform formerly known as Twitter, banner ads for the Trump campaign donning the #Trump2024 tag appear for all U.S. users, even those who’ve blocked words, topics, and hashtags related to the candidate or his campaign or muted the advertiser.

Additionally, the #MAGA tag displays an edited image of the former president from his attempted assassination and the #Trump2024 hashtag displays an American flag.

It is unclear whether the Trump campaign paid for the images on the #Trump2024 and #MAGA tags, though an advertisement for the tag on the site’s trending page reads “Promoted by Team Trump.” As Mashable noted, it is the first time the platform has enabled the image feature to promote a specific political candidate.

Clicking the Trump2024 tag also prompts American flag graphics to flood the screen.

    • BossDj@lemm.ee
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      5 months ago

      But I need it for my ________. There are simply no alternatives.

      That’s what they say.

      • Alphane Moon@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        For certain content there really is no alternative. One example would be gaming, almost no studios/developers are on Mastadon.

        I do have a gaming-focused Mastadon account and I do use it, but it’s not really comparable.

        • ThrowawayOnLemmy@lemmy.world
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          Oh no, what ever would we do without the tweets from game developers? How How will clickbait articles survive? On the plus side, they’d get a lot less death threats for updates to their games. And we wouldn’t have a new news article for every fucking tweet that gets made.

          • Alphane Moon@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            I see where you are coming from (even if you are being a bit glib), but the reality is such that the vast majority will go with the flow.

            And trust me, my hate for Musk is way more than you can imagine. This is serious stuff.

              • Alphane Moon@lemmy.world
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                5 months ago

                Yes, I do.

                My national background and the current situation in my country makes Twitter an important source of information (I follow local news sites as well).

                I used the gaming as an example as a more neutral topic of conversation.

            • SorteKanin@feddit.dk
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              5 months ago

              the reality is such that the vast majority will go with the flow

              This also works the other way though - once a critical mass moves elsewhere, the mob is quick to follow. I would encourage you to be part of that early snowball that starts the avalanche - be the change.

          • jaaake@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            As a game developer that has curated my mutual list of fellow developers, I’m saddened by the state of Twitter and genuinely have no alternative. A few folks have left for Threads, Mastodon, and BlueSky, but no community has coalesced on one platform. I would love to leave, but the fact is that if we want to communicate in a similar medium, we have to go where the people are. Right now, the people are still on Twitter.

          • kaffiene@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            Indies use twitter to create buzz. Be snide all you like but that’s a big deal for those people.

        • fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com
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          5 months ago

          Write to their social media manager and ask them to mirror their content on a mastadon account so their community can grow with those that no longer use twitter.

          • Alphane Moon@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            I actually did try that twice (in a context where they would have more motivation than a typical dev/studio), no luck.

            Don’t get me wrong, I do think we have to move of corporate social networking systems. I started actively using Lemmy about two months ago and I am enjoying it. However, we do have to be realistic about the state of the market.

      • SergeantScar@lemmy.world
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        I totally get the sentiment… But there are people that I can’t get anywhere else… mostly my local police, fire department, and local govt are only on xitter… Also heavily use for the national weather service, but if drumpy wins that will be going away.

        The last couple days I’ve been investigating if any of those are on threads, so I can try find a way to follow them mastodon… But doubt they have their accounts enabled for the fediverse… But I’d also have to migrate my mastodon account to an instance that hasn’t de-federated threads…

        • SorteKanin@feddit.dk
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          mostly my local police, fire department, and local govt are only on xitter

          The thing is, they are there because the users are there. After all, they want to reach the most people with their important official messaging.

          You have to leave to make them leave.

      • aleph@lemm.ee
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        5 months ago

        Like it or not, Twitter is still the de-facto place for breaking news stories. You just have to sift through the dross.

        As much as Mastodon is a far nicer and healthier social platform, it has a long way to go before it gets anywhere close in this particular regard.

          • MummifiedClient5000@feddit.dk
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            5 months ago

            You know very well that musk is not just “a guy”, he is ultrarich and is using his money to get more money, no matter the cost to the rest of the world.

            You know very well that the amount musk promises to donate monthly is more money than most people will see in their entire lifetime - including you.

            You know very well that trump is not just a political candidate. He is a fascist piece of shit and has already stated that he will be a dictator.

            Why do you simp for these fuckers? They wouldn’t bother to piss on you if you were on fire.

              • MummifiedClient5000@feddit.dk
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                5 months ago

                None of the statements I made are wrong.

                Did you not pay attention when trump said he’d be a dictator on day one? Or are you just ignoring that easily verifiable fact?

                Will you be disappointed if he doesn’t behave like a proper dictator on day one, considering your love for truth and consistency?

        • lidd1ejimmy@lemmy.ml
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          Damn I just got back from twitter… It really changed in the past month it’s all political stuff and I never used twitter to research politics I’m not even American I’m a Canuck but maybe that is close enough.

          Moral of the story: I agree with you

          • nomous@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            It really has changed. I noticed it a few months back. Subtle rightwing and like, morbid “shock” content and even some animal abuse started popping up more and more. I just gradually started using it less and less, it was pretty obvious what was going on.

    • katy ✨
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      i got rid of mine shortly after he officially owned it but i used to follow a lot of certain people on nitter for a long time but the past year or so ive even been doing that less and less because i don’t care about it anymore

    • rammer@sopuli.xyz
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      I still have a Twitter account. I mostly watch the cess pit argue with each other and to keep up with the latest misinformation.

      But even that is growing tiresome.

  • Tramort@programming.dev
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    I’m willing to bet that Elon donated the money to be kicked back to Twitter in order to fraudulently make it look like revenue was improving.

  • Marin_Rider@aussie.zone
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    for a bloke who likes to accuse people of being paedophiles, he sure is simping hard for an actual pedo

  • iAvicenna@lemmy.world
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    Lets all remember the following tweet by Elon

    Guys you are all too left, calm down a bit please.

    • kureta@lemmy.ml
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      The USA doesn’t even have a left in any meaningful way. There are two parties, one is right and the other is far right.

      • zik@lemmy.world
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        As someone from a not-US country, I’m always amazed at how right wing the US “liberal” policies are. If Biden was our PM he’d be more right wing than our most recent conservative PM.

  • Avid Amoeba@lemmy.ca
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    So the whole Twitter acquisition hullabaloo was all about electing more tax breaks after all wasn’t it. And here I was thinking it was perhaps about the ability to do some more sophisticated propaganda or just because of Elon’s pure stupidity.

    • MindTraveller@lemmy.ca
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      You’re giving him too much credit. Influencing elections is an incidental benefit to the real purpose. Which is that now Elon gets to ban anyone who disagrees with him on Twitter.

    • riodoro1@lemmy.world
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      Yea, right.

      At this point he could push porn with himself as every second shiit you see and people would still mindlessly scroll

  • BigMacHole@lemm.ee
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    A Billionaire simping THIS HARD for a Politician who is a known Child Rapist who doesn’t pay his workers or taxes is PROOF that Democrats are the Swamp and REPUBLICANS care about the Working Class!

      • galoisghost@aussie.zone
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        Any platform that doesn’t openly advertise (and have an owner who openly donates to the campaign of) one particular candidate. I would not expect to find any self respecting journalist to have an account on Truth Social for instance. Being on either platform directly contributes to the election campaign of Donald Trump.

    • SorteKanin@feddit.dk
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      5 months ago

      A major Danish news site recently said they’d delete their accounts on Twitter :)

      Although no plans for making a Mastodon account instead :(

  • Delusional@lemmy.world
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    Maybe this will make people finally stop using the site for good. But I doubt it.

    Who wants to see a child rapist every time you go to their site?

  • aStonedSanta@lemm.ee
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    So is Elon Musk paying himself for these ads? What are the implications around that ideology? If he’s donating 34 mill a month and that all is going to Twitter for this…

    • Sethayy@sh.itjust.works
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      “Paying for these adds” lol he owns the platform, sure he’ll probably get some mega donation tax breaks but like all he has to do is flip a couple bits, which is pretty damn cheal

    • geekworking@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Wouldn’t the value of this advertising be a direct campaign contribution that could violate campaign finance laws?

      • aStonedSanta@lemm.ee
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        That’s kinda what I’m playing at. The whole things stinks. Essentially a way for him to project Twitters advertising as bumping back in a big way cause of all the “campaign funds” funneling back into Twitter. So paying himself maybe isn’t the right wording but I think it nails the context of what I mean. Edit: spelling.