As I write this, Twitter is in the beginning of gravitational collapse. And, given its size, that will cause some serious ripples. This is because Elon Musk has bought it; despite lies to advertisers to the contrary, he already has let it become a bit of a hellscape, because he already got rid of much of the content moderation staff. (much of the staff, period; but especially those who can make it run) You have your tweets from people who could not wait to use the n-word dozens of times. You also have your antisemitic tweets.
And you have lots of tweets from Elon Musk's incel fanboys, who suck up to him like they imagine the richest man in the world is just a little smirking troll like themselves. They speak to him like henchmen waiting to carry out his plans, but as though they were somehow his bros, his equals--or even his equivalents. Just look at this:
This is only a week after this man, the supposed richest man in the world, acted as the willing accelerator of an invented right-wing fringe rumor concerning an attempted assassination of the husband of the Speaker of the House, and the intention to assault and possibly kill the Speaker herself. I won't say what the rumor was nor post a link to it, because it's already been thoroughly debunked, and it's counterproductive to give such bullshit oxygen. You can easily look it up, if you don't know about it already. But you probably already do, because Musk made sure this would get as much publicity as possible, as virtually his first act as Twitter's dictator. He made sure to reinforce an idea the Republicans put out there, that this was no big deal, that this is just random crime by an isolated individual that has nothing to do with their own escalating violent rhetoric. That it's not something to worry about and even comical. Because cruelty is all Republicans seem to be able to do anymore.
And Musk openly helps this trivialization, and worse.
Some people want to think this shows him to be stupid, or insane. As I've said many, many times, the belief a seemingly counterproductive action by someone you disagree with is "stupid" or "insane" should always be tested against the possibility that you're assuming someone who you disagree with nevertheless shares the same goals as yourself. Like calling Republicans stupid for believing or spreading election lies. This is a stupid activity if you want elections to be respected, or taken seriously, or conducted in a peaceful and honest way. But it's not stupid if fucking up elections was your goal.
Similarly, nothing Musk is doing is stupid if he wants Twitter to be so filled with shit it sheds all its advertisers, and crashes and burns. He can even claim it was the fault of liberals being against free speech. That's not the case, but he is already saying this and his lickspittles are spreading it.
An election that, if Republicans prevail, could be the last free election the US ever has, will be taking place this Tuesday. A lot of the money for Elon's purchase of this toy he's breaking was put up by Saudi and Russian investors(and in the latter case, you can assume that means Putin's catspaws)--so if he's ruining the platform, don't you think they'd stop him if they wanted to?
If Republicans win, this means at the least we stop helping Ukraine, something Musk has said he'd like us to do.
Why do you think such an important platform would be sabotaged just in time for such an election? Surely you're not that dense as to think it's accidental that Musk delayed the purchase till JUST two weeks before said election, at which point he began making the site as horrid as he could, as fast as he could. No way the chaos could possibly cool down by this Tuesday, even if he wanted it to, and you would not lose money on a bet he does not.
I keep wanting to return to this blog from Twitter and other social media sites that have sucked away a lot of what I used to write here. I don't know why that should be a problem; writing is writing, and here I have almost none of the strictures of length, content, or style that Twitter demands. But I have let Twitter suck away much of my online time in the past decade.
Why? Why do most of us find it hard to get
away from? And why should one stupid website have the power to warp our
culture and politics?
Anyway, I want to remind myself what it was like without it, so please keep checking here. (or at my very afffordable Patreon) Because I'm going to try to stop tweeting.
___________________
Labels: bastards, election 2022, politics, right wing
¶ November 05, 2022
Post a Comment