It is always difficult to watch as an old friend destroys themself, particularly when that old friend has provided countless hours of entertainment to you, has been a constant in your efforts to make sense of this sometimes senseless world, and, perhaps most importantly, introduced you to new friends that have been integral to both those efforts.
I fell in love with Twitter during Iran’s Green Revolution in the summer of 2009 when the new-to-me platform provided instantaneous communication between the brave Iranian youth who challenged their oppressors and used Twitter to warn each other, and tangentially perhaps the outside world, of the actions and locations of police and Revolutionary Guard units that posed a danger to them and their fellows.
I signed onto Twitter that summer, and have grown to depend on it as a source of news information and as a way of keeping in touch with the thoughts of the many good people who also use the site.
As with any tool, Twitter can be used for both good and ill and I was of course horrified when the Orangeutan used it as a platform to spread his hatred and disinformation but determined it was better to stay and fight the disseminators of lies and racial animus than to depart.
And needless to say I was thrilled when the executives at Twitter decided that trying to bring down our Republic with said lies and disinformation was not an appropriate use of drumpf’s account and kicked him the hell off.
But now Elon Musk with the help of Russian oligarchs and Saudi blood money has installed him self as the “chief Twit” I fear that I may have to part ways with my old friend and watch its demise from some remove.
The following exchange from yesterday made me realize just how little time I might have left.
Hillary Clinton posted a message that lamented the toxic mix of lies and disinformation that led to the attack of her old friend Paul Pelosi and the Chief Twit responded to her with a link to a right wing source which smeared Pelosi with vile accusations which I will not repeat, and which amounted to little more than the Twitter posting itself, as the “source” the Santa Monica Observer publishes exactly nothin and its links, even the one Musk reposted, lead to exactly nowhere.
Media Bias Fact-check has this to say about the Observer:
“A questionable source exhibits one or more of the following: extreme bias, consistent promotion of propaganda/conspiracies, poor or no sourcing to credible information, a complete lack of transparency and/or is fake news. Fake News is the deliberate attempt to publish hoaxes and/or disinformation for the purpose of profit or influence (Learn More). Sources listed in the Questionable Category may be very untrustworthy and should be fact-checked on a per-article basis. Please note sources on this list are not considered fake news unless specifically written in the reasoning section for that source. See all Questionable sources.
Overall, we rate the Santa Monica Observer Questionable based on the routine publication of false and misleading information and the use of poor sources.
Detailed Report
Reasoning: Poor Sourcing, Fake News, Lack of Ownership Transparency, Imposter
Bias Rating: RIGHT
Factual Reporting: LOW
Country: USA
Press Freedom Rating: MOSTLY FREE
Media Type: Website
Traffic/Popularity: Minimal Traffic
MBFC Credibility Rating: LOW CREDIBILITY”
I guess that tell us all we need to know about Musk’s credibility and motives.
Here is the exchange from yesterday as reported by The Daily Beast’s contributor Molly Jong-Fast:
Yep, I have to say a lot of accounts saying to stay and "fight" 🙄 pushback on disinformation.. I can't imagine how staying is going to help with the owner himself pushing disinformation.
I think a mass exodus would make a much louder statement.— AmACat🐈 (@NotAFelineEsq) October 30, 2022
I am starting to agree.
Oh my God. I've had enough of billionaires taking control of this country to serve themselves. What a pathetic man Musk is.
— WildFire 💔🔥🌻🔥 (@WildFlowerSeed_) October 30, 2022
Yup
I held out hope it would be ok. But nope. That devolved fast.
— Jen (@jett254) October 30, 2022
😟😟😟
I'm shocked that the guy who called someone a pedophile because the other guy didn't like his submarine is somehow not committed to safe speech
— Will (@discreetbear) October 30, 2022
Yup
Send in the clowns.
The Twitter party is over.
Well then, looks like I’ll be closing my account at Twitter; I really enjoyed the folks I’ve met there, and there wasn’t much in the way of nastiness (until recently). Too bad…
I’m gonna hang in for while yet, but probably won’t be far behind…
A lot of people are mad at Elmo for that one, which was unnecessary as well as false. I’ve been blocking people…
Please stay until after the election! We need all blue voices!
I think it’s time for the folks who aren’t happy with Musk to start tweeting things about Musk. Whether they’re truthful or not isn’t important–and it’s actually better if they’re not known to be truthful (the old “people say . . . ” thing has served the far-right very well for decades so it’s time for us to use it as well); what IS important is to see just how long it takes for Musk’s vaunted “free speech” principle to collapse into a sea of corporate censorship–the very thing that he claimed the old guard at Twitter was doing.
I mean, if Musk has no problem posting unverifiable bullcrap about others, then he shouldn’t have any problem with ordinary Twitter users posting unverifiable bullcrap about him. Should he?
Far too many people do not seem to understand that hate speech, lies and propaganda are NOT free speech! Unfortunately TWITter is a private company, the first amendment does not apply. What needs to happen to TWITter (and Fakebook and all other “social media”) is that they need to face very extremely severe consequences when they fail to prohibit or delete hate speech, lies, and propaganda!!
Well, we saw what happened when Twitter actually took some action to “prohibit or delete hate speech, lies and propaganda”: It got bought up by a guy complaining that the company was restricting “free speech.”
If he re-instates Trump I’m out of Twitter.
I decided to beat the crowd leaving Twitter. I closed my account months ago, on the day Musk said he was buying it. Good riddance.
About a month ago, my account was permanently suspended for Tweeting this, “RW are low-life, no class, white trash”! NO hate, no bullying, no physical threats! So I did appeal and got message, that they were still investigating or something like that! Twitter took away my 10k followers, so I couldn’t let them know what happened! I thought that was pretty sh…y! Anyway Ive been trying to close down my acct completely since Musk took over, but still get same response! I’m on FB, but don’t like it and Instagram, but don’t like it that much either! Anyone know of social media a Liberal would like? I sure miss my lovely followers! Peace & love!
I have already left Twitter as of today. So many places are going down hill way too fast!
I rarely used twitter anyway so no big loss to me Musk will never know I’m not there. Parting is such sweet, sweet sorrow, that I shall say adieu til the morrow