My pet theory is that Musk acquired Twitter to destroy one of the most effective platforms for anyone on the left to organize.
You’re giving Musk too much credit here.
He bought Twitter because a) he’s addicted to it, and b) he rushed into a buying agreement he didn’t get his lawyers to vet properly (probably due to his massively inflated “I understand more than anyone else” ego).
He wanted to back out of it, but faced a lawsuit that he was almost certainly going to lose, so had no choice but to go through with the sale. The lawsuit happened because the shareholders at the time realized the company was worth nowhere close to the inflated $44 billion he offered for it, so they weren’t going to back down either.
Everything else that happened after the sale is a result of a man-child feeding his addiction and recuperate from the dumb deal he was legally forced to uphold.
You are right on why he bought it. But he then got funding from outsiders who would benefit from it’s transition away from effective gathering and communicating space
Yeah. I think MUSK bought it because it sounded cool and he got suckered into it. I think he got the funding for it because the people who funded him (like the Saudis) saw an opportunity to get an easy mark to break the system for them.
If you remember leading up to him claiming he wanted to buy it he kept claiming it was constantly blocking free speech and essentially calling it a propaganda machine. He made the claims about wanting to buy it because he was claiming he would fix it and run it better.
Then went on to limit free speech, and use it as a propaganda machine. While shedding a lot of users and worth for the company
He also didn’t like that kid who was tracking his plane.
I still think controlling (and ruining) it as a platform was an initial goal.
Just wait for the quid pro quo. SpaceX was supposed to get us back to the moon on 3 billion dollars. They are now at 5 billion dollars, and all they have to show for it is a flaming husk of a booster caught by “the chopsticks”.
For anyone who thinks that was some incredible accomplishment… NASA has been landing rovers on Mars using truly incredible engineering that makes SpaceX look like a bunch of kids eating Baby Ruth bars in the sandbox.
So if Elon gets appointed to a government position and starts awarding Tesla and SpaceX all kinds of extended taxpayer-funded gravy grift, you will know your pet theory is 100% spot on.
For anyone who thinks that was some incredible accomplishment… NASA has been landing rovers on Mars using truly incredible engineering that makes SpaceX look like a bunch of kids eating Baby Ruth bars in the sandbox.
You’re belittling and attacking the thousands of engineers and scientists who really built SpaceX, because their financier is a fascist sociopath. If you knew anything about this at all, you’d understand how exceptionally ignorant, naive, and disrespectful this is.
Seriously? Did you just feign outrage for all those employees who blew up 5 billion in taxpayers dollars? The ones who jump up and down cheering like deranged cult members each time one of their rockets blows up, excited they received a Participation ribbon for coming in dead last?
You do realize SpaceX will never make it to the moon, much less Mars, right? I will never understand how people can watch Musk lie, OVER AND OVER, about his solar tiles, his Boring bullshit, his Hyperpoop, his full-self driving lies year after year after YEAR, but somehow think SpaceX is not run the same way, with the same lies.
SpaceX employees know they are designing shite, and they are just there for the paycheck. So yeah, much respect.
EDIT: Should we even discuss Leuders granting them the contract, then leaving NASA to work for SpaceX? SpaceX has missed EVERY SINGLE benchmark, every single deadline. Again, they were supposed to get us to the moon for 3B, and they are at 5B and can’t get an EMPTY rocket into orbit. SpaceX is out of govt money, but that won’t be a problem anymore, will it?
and can’t get an EMPTY rocket into orbit.
I’m not here to argue any of the rest of you post but the last three star ship launches have been to orbital velocity but on a trajectory that purposely didn’t go into full orbit.
I understand what you are saying, but doesn’t that back up what he is saying. 166% of the budget spent and they aren’t even aiming for an orbit or further yet
I mean maybe but I don’t really think it does either way, I was just pointing out it’s kind of disinformation to say they can’t put starship into a stable orbit.
It’s also weird to say SpaceX is coming dead last when they’re still they one company with a reusable first stage and literally the only company developing a reusable second stage.
Elon Musk is an absolute cunt but I don’t really agree with the post I responded to.
How about you go research the projected vs actual cost of historic NASA projects, instead of commenting on something you apparently have not researched at all, and know nothing about?
Wait until you find out how much more most IT and military projects cost than projected…
Seriously. I have no love for Musk, but what the Space X team has accomplished is incredible. Wait until that guy finds out how much the SLS has cost so far, lmao.
Maybe but they’ve got me interested in how this actually compares to nasa from a financial perspective.
The difference isn’t whether or not NASA could do this. The difference is that NASA’s been funded by an anti-intellectual plutocracy who’d prefer to get rich bombing peasants in the middle east than do anything which would actually benefit humanity.
SpaceX engineers were people inspired by NASA, and would’ve likely ended up at NASA if the 4 year election cycle didn’t sabotage most projects.
My money is on NASA 100%.
Well to be fair, we are paying for both of them…
I like to post this to make SpaceX fans who also claim to care about the environment confused:
https://qz.com/spacex-starlink-satellites-ozone-layer-1851544567
Omg how good it feels to see others with this feeling
And/or weaponize it for his buddies to do so instead…
That’s incredibly cynical of you…
Well done! It is a scarily plausible scenario!
To be honest, I’m basing this on screenshots of Musk’s private conversations as reported by Gizmodo.
I distinctly remember this bit:
March 24, 2022
TJ [affiliation unclear] [Edit, October 4: We now know TJ is Musk’s ex-wife Talulah Jane Riley]:
Can you buy Twitter and then delete it, please!? xx
America is going INSANE.
The Babylon Bee got suspension is crazy. Raiyah and I were talking about it today. It was a fucking joke. Why has everyone become so puritanical?
Or can you buy Twitter and make it radically free-speech?
So much stupidity comes from Twitter xx
Elon Musk:
Maybe buy it and change it to properly support free speech xx
That’s an awfully expensive political statement, even for Musk
True, but he’s proven repeatedly that he’s got far more money than sense.
Does it really matter if you have one billion or 200 billion?
Previously he could buy a company like Twitter on a whim. He’d probably have to think twice about doing that again, so there’s a noticeable loss of purchase power.
Then you see his solar company is gone, drilling never went anywhere, car company may be pinched.
At least what he spent to buy a seat in government was cheap (for him)
He is the reason he has a loss in purchasing power. Imagine if he has focused on upgrading hardware/tech. Roughly 6 million Tesla’s have been sold. We know he spent around 3 billion buying chips from NVIDIA to funnel the money elsewhere used for other projects. That’s $500 dollars extra per car ever sold that could have been put into lidar and other research and development. Since he really wouldn’t need to put it in the older models, he could have used that money alone to produce a cheap well built $25k EV. And had to the money for full self driving in more expensive versions. Poof, Tesla would have gained support instead of losing support.
His toxicity is what cost Twitter so many users, and advertising money. He could be worth 400billion right now and growing fast if he had focused on his companies growth and not yelling at clouds.
Pretty good return on investment so far.
It was on attack on progressives.
We need to regroup ASAP, on other platforms, like here on Lemmy. I’m already seeing some happenings, we just need to beg more people to come here. Let’s make Lemmy the place chuds imagine what Reddit is! Minus the toxic callout stuff, that will be just weaponized against us, and anyone trying to leave the far-right (far-right trollfarms like to impersonate leftists to convince real leftists into attacking each other).
Yep many people left twitter and did not return. Basically they are silent now.
I still think he bought into the Twitter files conspiracy.
The biggest problem is the damage is done.
The party holds the supreme court. House. Senate. Executive. Under the unitary executive theory, the rest of the federal government, while being completely inept, will be party members.
All we can do now, is collectively survive. It’s a death cult. Steps we take to prevent the detainment, torture and death of our neighbors, friends, and family are the biggest fuck you to these people.
I don’t know how we’ll do it. But we don’t do it by joining or tolerating them. We don’t have to make it easy for them.
The post is about not letting it happen in the EU.
no reason why Europe and the american opposition can’t be on the same side
deleted by creator
I am aware.
350m people have been affected by it in the US. With the ties we have to Europe, it’s already been happening.
From time to time the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
From time to time the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/thomas-jefferson-tree-of-liberty/
okay. So please. Stop using X. Use Mastodon or other Fediverse alternatives, even if your reach is smaller there?
Sorry, internet activists will let you down like young voters. If leaving a platform slightly inconveniences them in even the most superficial insignificant sense, they won’t do it.
Edit:
Or they’ll do it for like 3 days. Make a post saying “Hi guys! I just left twitter!” and then never write another message beyond that.
I feel like people in general will let you down, but yeah I agree.
Surely Astley never did
He never gonna give you up.
Beg them to leave it, or at least use the alternatives too.
Mastodon has like zero comments on any news source i follow.
Mastodon has like zero comments on any news source i follow.
Maybe because the technical people there are more concerned about their privacy and bot spam there and do not post for that reason?
Sure. And so ending up with a dead platform.
I finally deleted my account. Had since 2007…it’s not useful anymore.
Good on you.
Haven’t deleted mine yet but have two active accounts on blusky and mastodon and my twitter one is inactive with a pinned post linking my new socials.
Honestly that might be more helpful.
I sometimes see the overwritten reddit comments when searching for a topic, and I wish that the comment would link to the person’s new account (wherever they may be) in addition to the usual blurb on whg they aren’t active on reddit anymore
Going from X account…
To ex account.
It’s a little bit naive and self destructive that human beings have created tools as powerful as mainstream social media with absolutely no checks or balances, absolutely no accountability, absolutely no transparency, and entirely at the whims of billionaire owners and nation states they’re in bed with.
Regulating and banning social media that is being used to blatantly conduct massive psyops should be uncontroversial.
I’m sick of private ownership and private decision making about every fucking single aspect of human life from who gets housed to who gets fed to our very culture.
Americans “hate” dictatorships but allow the economy to be run by a bunch of Lords.
Socialism is the democratization of the economy. Socialism puts the human and the worker and the people most impacted by these economic decisions at the helm.
But no, democracy in the economy wouldn’t be free. We need to slave away for fascist dictators.
It would be, if those same billionaire owners didn’t pull the politician’s puppet strings.
Why is anyone still using twitter?
because other people are. idk why anyone has trouble understanding that for most users social media is only as good as its population.
So the only reason to go there is because people are going there, but if people stop going there, then there is no reason to go there, so really there isn’t any reason to go at all.
Unless you’re a sheep.
that’s not how it works. think how multiplayer games work. it doesn’t matter if a multiplayer game is good if no one’s playing. but if a game people have been playing starts to deteriorate, they usually stick to it because they have invested time and accrued some in game currency or rank and they don’t want to start over on a new game that may or may not be successful.
Ah, that explains why Myspace is still huge.
Removed by mod
Same on Threads.
Everything went quiet.
I would love to see these accounts, when they were opened, when they ceased posting, what they posted, and what the IP addresses were.
Same on Lemmy to be fair.
Half of Lemmy.ml mysteriously disappeared too
Source: my ass
You should be showing your source.
Don’t give me hope
Well the election ended so there’s nothing to argue about right now
As it was the same on Reddit last cycle
Removed by mod
I was thinking about this recently. I’m not disagreeing that there isn’t massive bot bullshit.
But I purposely stayed off the internet for like 48 hours. Many of my friends did too.
It’s been a firehose of propaganda for weeks.
It really has been. So while I’m disappointed at the results, there is a relief that at least this part is over. And now we are in the eye of the storm.
Like, where is his data? Is there a list of all bot accounts on Twitter, with a column showing recent activity? Or is this guy doing the same thing as the other side - talking out of his ass?
Have you been on twitter recently? [Note that I recommend users do not use twitter]
It’s pretty obvious when for the past two weeks you had every single tweet of yours get spammed replies like “#TRUMP2024 #MAGA” with clearly AI generated profile pictures and fake names. All these accounts have like 20 followers and are following 5k+ accounts. And a bunch of them instantly reply to your posts like 5 seconds after posting. All these accounts have ceased activity overnight.
Nah, I don’t go on Twitter. Too many bots.
Probably talking out of his ass. I like to read conservative threads to see comments outside of my bubble - they say the same shit, just about other platforms like reddit.
It’s the age of post-truth and I don’t think there is a fix for that anytime soon.
Kraut is a decently respected figure with a Phd in central european history.
He may be the inventor of politics for all I care, credentials are no indicator of truth.
A claim such as this needs some data, otherwise it’s not much better than any right-wing conspiracy.
Isn’t it obvious from his tweet that he doesn’t have data, therefore, his conclusion must be based on personal experience and input from others. Which is why he doesn’t call for twitter to be banned, but for it to be investigated.
And regardless there have been multiple credible news stories and even US government reports on pro-Trump bot networks on twitter.
It is obvious, you’re right. I just feel like the proper course of action wouldn’t have been a claim and a demand for an investigation. Maybe ask others for their experiences and link a petition for people to sign, should they share this feeling, and start an investigation that way.
I feel like compiling receipts (a list of known/suspected bot accounts) and then following the paper trail would be a good idea… like Wolverine hunting down the school bomber during Civil War
Arf Arf Arf!
they say the same shit, just about other platforms like reddit.
Maybe because that is also true. Reddit is full of bots lately, you have to be blind not to realize that
Its not enough to say “fuck it”, active participation on any viable alternatives is essential to breathe oxygen into alternatives
The god damned problem is everyone still links to X because a flaming dumpster fire is hard to look away from
it is well known that bot farms red and blue fireup in the run up to election season, and there are millions of these bots.
It is well known that your false equivalence BS is an old, tired narrative. There was no “blue bot” propaganda campaign targeting red voters in an attempt to stop them from going to the polls. Oh, if only.
I sense a bit of bias. Politic isn’t football stop stomping so hard for your team.
What is he talking about?
Twitter is riddled with MAGA bots. Like AI generated accounts who spam pro-Trump content.
How the fuck did the Muskrat know Mango Mussolini was going to win?
That’s a good question, odd how all that vote fraud claims stopped after the election. We all know Republicans project.
before? where have you been this whole time?
Reddit in general and r/politics doesn’t have their democratic party astro turf campaign going either. Even here, there was clearly a campaign to convince leftists to stay out of the election.
We need to realize that the majority of people talking to us online during election years are probably not real people.
Anything to avoid self reflection.
Well, you got what you wanted. The orange fascist won.
Nothing that any of us could have done could ever counteract a bad (or good, this goes both ways) campaign on the national level. Sorry. Vote harder next time I guess.
There’s probably not going to be a next time.
Nah, this works for Republicans. Things will decline and Republicans will be voted out in 4 years, the Democrats will maintain the best case scenario of the status quo for the time, and then 4 years after that the Republicans will get voted back in, probably a Vance or Musk type. It’ll be a circus, the democrats will barely try and probably actively throw the election. You libs will all have false hope, refuse to see the campaign for what it is, and go right back to blaming the voters when the candidate of “this is all very good actually and should keep happening as it is currently, and fuck anyone who says otherwise” loses yet again.
It’s very clear what is happening and yet because you feel cornered, you refuse to get mad at anyone on your side who actually has the power to change things, and reject them for not doing so in order to make room for someone who will. You stand for nothing so you fall for anything. Well your “team” has been doing that long enough, and look where it got us. Perhaps you’re right and it’s too late now, but more of the same was never going to fix this.
Ay yess “you libs”. Because I’m the one downplaying the severity of the fascist, and passively accepting their leadership because “don’t worry, we’ll get back to boring status quo in four years.”
Fuckin dipshit. I bet you go around calling anyone who votes, protests or takes any action against the Republicans “Blue maga” too.
I’m not downplaying anything or suggesting we’d be going back to the current status quo in four years, and if you actually read what I wrote in a slightly less cynical way you’d understand that.
I’m telling you now that things will decline under trump and you will vote for the new status quo that will have been wrought about in four years instead of pushing for a platform that even expresses a desire to make things better, and you will fight against anyone telling you we should work together to achieve that end.
I’m not going around calling anybody anything, and I’m especially not denigrating their intelligence. We’re not allowed to question your candidates and you’re so convinced of your own righteousness that anyone who disagrees is a dipshit or a fascist that deserves everything bad coming to them. But sure, you guys are definitely morally superior to MAGA and totally different from them in every way.
Also, voting for democrats is not “taking action against the Republicans”, it’s taking action for Democrats, because a) that’s just the reality of how voting works, no matter how much you libs cry foul and doublethink yourselves into believing it’s not, and b) the Democrats are not taking action against the Republicans. If they were, they would have done something in the last 4 years to prevent the Republicans gaining ground or at the very least run a campaign that wasn’t objectively bad and ceded the framing on every issue to the Republicans, making themselves look incompetent.
This outcome works for them, the DNC, just as much as it does for Republicans. They don’t give a shit about winning elections and they don’t give a shit about you or trans people or minorities or any people who will actually suffer under Republican policy, no matter how strong of a hallucination you get from them being the only alternative to the Republicans you’re allowed to consider in our quote-unquote “democracy”.
