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Bye, Twitter

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Re: Bye, Twitter

#51

Maybe it’s holidays but I noticed my twitter feed getting filled up lately with various far right types posting crap. I guess these idiots were always there but somehow they were drawn out by saner content that I care about, not anymore it seems. I’ll probably delete twitter too if that’s the way it will continue on after another a couple of weeks.

There has definitely been an "upwelling" of far-right and explicitly reactionary content over the last few weeks. Like you, I've assumed that it's always been there, but presumably was being auto-moderated and wasn't receiving mass engagement from the site's leadership.

Re: Bye, Twitter

#52
post #35
post #17

The same people who lost their marbles over COVID/fear of death are now losing their marbles again over a private platform being raided & turned into a public square. I stopped listening to these people years ago. Good riddance.

[flagged]

[deleted]

Re: Bye, Twitter

#53
post #15

Nice. I've always been a firm believer that you haven't _really_ left a platform unless you first make a blog post loudly proclaiming that you're _definitely leaving_ but this guy takes it a few steps further by: - keeping his account active, poised to return immediately (but still, definitely leaving) - maybe posting on Twitter occasionally to point people to ongoing resources (but still, definitely leaving) - highl…

I am increasingly shocked that how mainstream traditional mainstreet political views are now viewed as "alt-right" online by the perpetual online class If Elon is alt-right then 85% of the US population is "alt-right"

Elon has interacted frequently and positively on Twitter in the last few weeks with alt-right figures like Ian Miles Cheong and Andy Ngo, e.g. agreeing that the slogan "hands up, don't shoot" is somehow a "lie", and retweeted a weird homophobic conspiracy theory about Paul Pelosi almost immediately after completing the acquisition. I don't think there was good (public) reason to believe these were his politics a year ago, but it seems that he's either shifted or made a deliberate cynical decision to court them to build the userbase. (And little about the Twitter acquisition has seemed that planned.)

Re: Bye, Twitter

#54
post #15

Nice. I've always been a firm believer that you haven't _really_ left a platform unless you first make a blog post loudly proclaiming that you're _definitely leaving_ but this guy takes it a few steps further by: - keeping his account active, poised to return immediately (but still, definitely leaving) - maybe posting on Twitter occasionally to point people to ongoing resources (but still, definitely leaving) - highl…

Ouch, that was brutal

[deleted]

Re: Bye, Twitter

#55
post #17

The same people who lost their marbles over COVID/fear of death are now losing their marbles again over a private platform being raided & turned into a public square. I stopped listening to these people years ago. Good riddance.

What’s the big deal? Isn’t this person free to choose where they spend their time? If they dont like Twitter they can leave. Isn’t that what freedom is all about?

Seems to me that many on the right don’t actually care about freedom… but more about their ability to subject others to their ideas… apparently freedom is the right of republicans to force themselves on others and restrain their critics from leaving.

What other interpretation should I make of someone objecting to an individual exercising their first amendment right to freedom of association?

Re: Bye, Twitter

#56
post #12

Free speech is now a euphemism for providing loud voices on private platforms for the far right, while banning progressive voices on the same platform. Any time a "free speech " platform like Truth Social emerges, we can be sure that its primary purpose is amplifying Nazis and banning liberals. Sad to see Twitter starting to go in the same direction.

My primary argument against banning (the right, or anyone) is I'm big enough to decide for myself if I want to listen/read them. When a platform makes the call on my behalf, they could be removing dissenting but legitimately truthful voices. I.e. people who have unpopular but true views, people who IMO should absolutely be heard out, but aren't because they're banned. A 2nd order effect is people self censor, since s…

Two of the moderation issues that I can think of are 1.) volume of information, and 2.) depth of knowledge.

Some unpopular views are overly represented on any platform. This is the reason why far left/right get amplified to be more mainstream opinions, despite being truly unpopular. Another thing is similar to self-censorship like you mentioned, but self-censorship in the sense that if you feel that the community has shifted towards a certain bent, then one might move on from that community, since it no longer represents what they're looking for/what they feel is right.

Finding legitimate information is also tough: there's been instances of journal-published data that was verifiably false, since the journal that it was published in was founded in order to push specific data/viewpoints. But, the average person doesn't know that, and probably won't be familiar with what journals are popular, legitimate, etc. While some people (you, I, and probably others on this platform) like delving deep into this sort of stuff, most people (I'm venturing a guess here) would stop short at "research shows that..." when fact-checking something.

I wouldn't argue _for_ banning, or at least would argue that there's a better way to do it that doesn't also burn people who are participating in good faith. But, most people won't/can't do the work to fact check everything since there's too much info and truly verifying everything would be a monumental task.

Re: Bye, Twitter

#57
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am increasingly shocked that how mainstream traditional mainstreet political views are now viewed as "alt-right" online by the perpetual online class If Elon is alt-right then 85% of the US population is "alt-right"

The man literally promoted the idea that Nancy Pelosi's husband was attacked because he visits gay bars, or something. How is that not alt-right? Yet, I fear you may be correct about that 85% statistic, nevertheless.

Well I agree he needs to take some time to vett news sources as his (correct) position that more traditional news (like CNN, AP, etc) can not be trusted before tweeting out links, which he deleted shortly there after, I do not call that "promoted" but today words have no meaning so sure.

This is the think impossible standard to have, and one of the reason many people like Elon is the fact he has no filter, and gives no fucks. Elon streams his thoughts in real time almost to twitter. That to many is refreshing to have a Billionaire engage engage on that level, not filtered through PR and Lawyers like the Gates and Bezo's of the world..

Elon will post a poll then act on the poll. I know many hate that, but many many many LOVE that.

In short, it is a type of Populism.

Re: Bye, Twitter

#58
post #15

Nice. I've always been a firm believer that you haven't _really_ left a platform unless you first make a blog post loudly proclaiming that you're _definitely leaving_ but this guy takes it a few steps further by: - keeping his account active, poised to return immediately (but still, definitely leaving) - maybe posting on Twitter occasionally to point people to ongoing resources (but still, definitely leaving) - highl…

I am increasingly shocked that how mainstream traditional mainstreet political views are now viewed as "alt-right" online by the perpetual online class If Elon is alt-right then 85% of the US population is "alt-right"

[deleted]

Re: Bye, Twitter

#60
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am increasingly shocked that how mainstream traditional mainstreet political views are now viewed as "alt-right" online by the perpetual online class If Elon is alt-right then 85% of the US population is "alt-right"

What mainstream political views are you seeing cast as alt-right by the chronically online?

Traditional family values (not christian) but traditional nuclear family, traditional job / working to provide for a family, traditional parenting, etc.

Anyone that does not have the term "CIS" in their vocabulary is called "alt-right" online

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