Social Media Political Lens

[malchior]

Just putting this here - Elon Musk just commenting on a post by a "reformed" red pill white supremacist. He didn't see a sick ideology that needed correct. He choose to boost an evil and sick ideology. These people are monsters and we need to utterly reject them before they become something worse. As an aside, the piece in the WSJ referenced here is unsurprisingly execrable.

[Carpet_pissr]

I can buy that instead of my "he just wants to burn it to the ground" theory.

It fits a bit better with his persona, is not as extreme of a "reason", and just makes more sense, generally.

[malchior]

I can buy that instead of my "just wants to burn it to the ground" theory.

That theory makes some sense too. If it burned down, it'd be removing a valuable source of dissent. Twitter was a mess but it boosted a lot of dissent communications which authoritarians hated. However, turning it into an engine for authoritarian action? That might have been the goal. Or possibly just an accident but nonetheless it was a good one for darkness. Unfortunately, darkness is absolutely winning right now.

[Carpet_pissr]

I can buy that instead of my "just wants to burn it to the ground" theory.

That theory makes some sense too. If it burned down, it'd be removing a valuable source of dissent. Twitter was a mess but it boosted a lot of dissent communications which authoritarians hated.

Elon might have sympathetic tendencies to some authoritarians, but he's not one (yet), so I don't see what it gets him. At least not a political authoritarian, unless you consider X to be a political...ugh, maybe we don't go down that path.

To burn down Twitter just because he sometimes leans authoritarian doesn't make as much sense to me as the woke reason above. Sure, he could be playing the REAL long game here, has political aspirations, and plans to "do it right" when it's time, instead of like that bumbling Trump who was too soft and waffly.

Occam's razor and all that though...
1. he hates "woke"
2. he has infinite money
3. At least in his mind, Twitter was the primary "woke" source
4. Buy evil woke epicenter, and "un-woke" it. I will concede that his idea was/is also probably "If that "un-woking" breaks Twitter? So be it."

[Unagi]

Don't lose track of the fact that 'Woke' is complete bullshit-code for "Doesn't Hate Enough"

[Carpet_pissr]

Don't lose track of the fact that 'Woke' is complete bullshit-code for "Doesn't Hate Enough"

Eh.
Whatever one's personal opinion of woke is, or its definition, is kind of irrelevant here. What matters is Elon's perception of it.

I am personaly probably in the middle between Elon (hatesssss it, precioussss!!) and most (many?) people here. The core principles of the movement are ideals that I absolutely support, speak up for, more importantly VOTE for etc. But like the Me Too movement, has swung too far in the other direction, and is causing a lot of harm as a result. I see it in my middle kid (16 YO) in particular, and how super quick she is to judge someone and condemn them and she has no idea what she is talking about (one, very small anecdote). I hate to see liberal movements whose ideas that I fully support, turn into witch hunts which makes it FAR too easy for the right to point at and vilify as being out of control, wrong, etc. I guess that is just the nature of the beast though, and I assume it happens on the right with their championed movements as well.

I assume there are plenty of righties that are quite "right" politically, who think that Christianity should have a larger role in America, but think Fox's annual "War on Christmas" dialog is just stupid and harming their goal of something more reasonable (to them).

[malchior]

I can buy that instead of my "just wants to burn it to the ground" theory.

That theory makes some sense too. If it burned down, it'd be removing a valuable source of dissent. Twitter was a mess but it boosted a lot of dissent communications which authoritarians hated.

Elon might have sympathetic tendencies to some authoritarians, but he's not one (yet), so I don't see what it gets him. At least not a political authoritarian, unless you consider X to be a political...ugh, maybe we don't go down that path.

This is less clear for sure but he got a fair share of the funding to buy Twitter from authoritarian sources - for instance the 2nd biggest investor is the Saudi sovereign holding company. As an aside, a person was just sentenced to death based on his Twitter posts. He happens to be a brother of a prominent dissident but how's that for "free speech"!

FWIW I think it is a long stretch too. Frankly I don't think Musk is smart enough to be honest but maybe it was in the math there somewhere.

[Zaxxon]

I am personaly probably in the middle between Elon (hatesssss it, precioussss!!) and most (many?) people here. The core principles of the movement are ideals that I absolutely support, speak up for, more importantly VOTE for etc. But like the Me Too movement, has swung too far in the other direction, and is causing a lot of harm as a result. I see it in my middle kid (16 YO) in particular, and how super quick she is to judge someone and condemn them and she has no idea what she is talking about (one, very small anecdote). I hate to see liberal movements whose ideas that I fully support, turn into witch hunts which makes it FAR too easy for the right to point at and vilify as being out of control, wrong, etc. I guess that is just the nature of the beast though, and I assume it happens on the right with their championed movements as well.

See also.

[Unagi]

Don't lose track of the fact that 'Woke' is complete bullshit-code for "Doesn't Hate Enough"

Eh.
Whatever one's personal opinion of woke is, or its definition, is kind of irrelevant here. What matters is Elon's perception of it.

I totally disagree. Completely.

That’s just it. It’s a shell game. There is no definition/opinion - the word itself is just code.

“Elon is just hell bent against Woke “ is a joke.

[malchior]

That book is on my to read list. I personally FWIW have my own theory about it. It is built around information overload. In short, the world is in decline because humans simply can't cope with the volume of information being presented to them. They don't have time to process it. They have to move on too fast. It leads to a very shallow (very shallow!) economy of information consumption that inevitably becomes trust based. And naturally people form into communities. Many of which are subject to a lot of abusive manipulation.

[Unagi]

But how hard is it to reflect on the positions you are putting your trust in, and to think about how you yourself feel about it morally?

I mean, obviously it's apparently impossibly hard for some people, but that just seems so pathetic to me.

I agree with the information overload idea and the trust-based/community-driven mind washing - but it seems like there is also a missing 'self review'... sigh - I suppose that part of trust-based and mind washing.

[malchior]

Don't lose track of the fact that 'Woke' is complete bullshit-code for "Doesn't Hate Enough"

Eh.
Whatever one's personal opinion of woke is, or its definition, is kind of irrelevant here. What matters is Elon's perception of it.

I totally disagree. Completely.

That’s just it. It’s a shell game. There is no definition/opinion - the word itself is just code.

I generally agree with this. Anti-woke is just a code. I'd say generally aligned to some form of hard right (generally) authoritarianism. Meaning that the various anti-woke crusaders "remedy" it has slightly different flavors.

Musk happens to belong to the Silicon valley branch which if you haven't experienced it...is flat out disgusting. It is a messy hodgepodge of red pill misogyny, authoritarianism, neoliberal market economics, libertarianism, and yes it isn't very cohesive or intellectually sound. But that doesn't matter because it is about getting the biggest pot of cash, turning it into influence and power, and then using that power to eradicate the people you don't like. Right now that is limited to punching down on the vulnerable, impoverishing the unfavored, and then justifying it as "natural order" like some sort of neo-Darwinian process.

[Smoove_B]

Is this the right thread for this? I honestly don't know anymore.

Elon Musk secretly ordered SpaceX engineers to switch off the Starlink satellite communications network near the coast of occupied Crimea in order to thwart a Ukrainian surprise attack on Russia’s naval fleet, according to a report. The incident last year is reported in Walter Isaacson’s upcoming biography of the billionaire titled Elon Musk. With the comms down, the Ukrainian submarine drones packed with explosives “lost connectivity and washed ashore harmlessly,” Isaacson writes, according to CNN. Musk was reportedly motivated to foil the attack out of concern that a strike on Crimea would constitute a “mini-Pearl Harbor” and lead to Russia retaliating with nuclear weapons.

It's not really social media, but it is? Maybe?

“How am I in this war?” Musk asked Isaacson. “Starlink was not meant to be involved in wars. It was so people can watch Netflix and chill and get online for school and do good peaceful things, not drone strikes.”

[LawBeefaroni]

Just putting this here - Elon Musk just commenting on a post by a "reformed" red pill white supremacist. He didn't see a sick ideology that needed correct. He choose to boost an evil and sick ideology. These people are monsters and we need to utterly reject them before they become something worse. As an aside, the piece in the WSJ referenced here is unsurprisingly execrable.

From the other thread:

Yeah, it's not for financial gain, it's for ideological gain.

It's absolutely true. And it's not really a big financial hit either, he's borrowing from SpaceX and Tesla shareholders essentially. So blow a small, but totally discretionary, fortune to control the national narrative. Worst case you help silence the opposition.

[Carpet_pissr]

Don't lose track of the fact that 'Woke' is complete bullshit-code for "Doesn't Hate Enough"

Eh.
Whatever one's personal opinion of woke is, or its definition, is kind of irrelevant here. What matters is Elon's perception of it.

I totally disagree. Completely.

That’s just it. It’s a shell game. There is no definition/opinion - the word itself is just code.

“Elon is just hell bent against Woke “ is a joke.

I wonder if we agree but are misunderstanding each other here? You seemed to introduce what using the word "woke" means, and I was saying that to THIS specific topic (Musk hates the woke movement and wants to kill it), our personal or the world's view/definition/whatever of "woke" is irrelevant.
Unless you were referring to Musk's specific interpretation?

Still though, no matter what Musk's view on woke is (whether it's bs code for "doesn't hate enough", or some weird interpretation that no one else gets, like "cool" or something stupid), he hates it, right? Fact remains that he (in theory) bought the company that he perceives is the HQ of the opposing team in the Woke War, and intends to either convert it to align with his way of thinking, or if that's not possible, destroy it.

[Unagi]

So let me try and explain what I was trying to say, better.
I shouldn't have even said what the word is code for, as I said - it's more of a shell game.

When Elon says that he hates Woke and that Woke is anti-human and he wants to destroy Woke - here is what I am saying he is appealing to:

All the people across our country that have their very own personal(negative) definition of woke - whatever that definition for them might be - he is speaking to them all as a whole. He is claiming them all. He wouldn't dare 'define it' because he doesn't want to alienate anyone who may be on board.
He is speaking to anyone who thinks it's absurd to respect all genders equally.
He is speaking to anyone who thinks it's horrible to let more dirty Mexicans into our wonderful country, because you know they don't send their best.
He is speaking to anyone who thinks teaching the actual history of Black people in America is hurtful indoctrination.
He is speaking to anyone who thinks 'Blue Lives Matter' more than "Black Lives Matter".
The list goes on, as I'm sure you could add more yourself.

That's it - he is grabbing them all as his own little warriors. If you have something that is pissing you off?? It's probably some god-damn woke thing.

not a joke:

(first seen here, can't recall where)

[Unagi]

So, I would revise your Occam's razor list to this:

1. he sees the power of "fuck the woke"
2. he has infinite money
3. At least in his mind, Twitter was the primary megaphone
4. Buy the primary megaphone and take control of the whole "fuck the woke" population.

[gilraen]

He just wants his own cult-like following. Kinda like Trump but a touch more diverse in terms of both political leaning and geographical spread.

I was never a big social media person, I only really used Twitter to keep up with news and sports but I did check it multiple times a day, just to see the headlines, what's happening, etc. I hardly ever open it anymore. Even if I just look at the posts of people that I follow, I used to open the post and glance at the comments. Now it pushes the "blue checkmark" comments on top, and most of those are Musk bootlickers and right-wingnuts. I don't need that level of toxicity dumped on me on a daily basis.

[Kraken]

I've never done Twitter, but I do spend about an hour a day reading my Facebook news feed and following the exploits of my friends and family. Much of my news feed is built around space- and science-related groups, and for the past year or so the ones that aren't moderated have been overwhelmed with flat earthers (flerfers). You can spot their presence without even opening the comments by the number of laughing emoji reactions. If the laughing face is the first or second reaction, don't even bother reading.

Now, I know that some percentage of flerfers genuinely believe that the earth is flat. However, most of them are bots and trolls. Bots make the same comments over and over ("where are the stars?" and "nice CGI" and "NASA lies!"). Trolls are sent to sow division and lower our opinions of one another and our interest in science. That's the political part; I assume they're sent by Russians and Republicans. If you look at their profiles, they're almost all affiliated with Jesus or Trump or guns. Real flerfers are a small minority, and their pretzel logic can be fun to follow in a train-wreck way.

For a few months I tried blocking the most egregious flerfers, but hundreds of blocks didn''t dent their numbers.

Many of these supposed science groups are just farming interactions. Flerfers reliably flock to space photos, and there's always a cadre of real space fans willing to engage with them. The more we go at each other, the happier the group owner is as their popularity rating goes up.

So a few weeks ago I stopped reading comments on unmoderated groups. It's too bad because the comments can be interesting and informative. Even though I'm well-read in general science news, I occasionally learn from experts who are drawn there.

If you want to play 4D chess maybe the trolls are sent by the left to make me hate Jesus and Trump and guns. If so, mission accomplished!

[malchior]

I hate to say it but we need to consider forcing SpaceX to break off Starlink and nationalize it. The United States granted them a license and with that came responsibilities. Musk has too much power and too little accountability. He needs to be cut down to size. When I first heard this idea months ago I thought it was perhaps too strong an action. Now I think it is probably necessary. Elon Musk is simply too erratic and amoral to have this responsibility.

[LawBeefaroni]

First off, it was the Russians who told him that there would be risk of nuclear escalation. Of course they did, they've been rattling that empty sheath since day one and he went right along with it.

Second, I don't see providing material of war hurting Boeing or Raytheon or Thales or Toyota. Or hell, even SpaceX when they put US military satellites in orbit. What a load of shit, the complicity excuse. For providing communications.

And third, he's made his fortune off of US government subsidies and tax breaks. So sure, if they want to take control of Starlink, I'm fine with that. They'll overpay anyway.

[malchior]

By his reasoning the major phone carriers are complicit too. It's complete and utter nonsense. He stood up a communications network and then decided to limit access based on his singular and unaccountable political judgement. That's unacceptable and we need to deal with him. I just don't know if we have the ability to do it.

[LordMortis]

And third, he's made his fortune off of US government subsidies and tax breaks.

Ding! I don't know about nationalizing Starlink but I do know if he can't respect the hand that feeds then he needs to find a different food source and if he wants to take his ball somewhere else without being provided a subsidized stadium, then you discuss whether or not he gets to keep his ball after taking so much of taxpayer money to live his libertarian dream. If he wants to take his ball to a hostile stadium then he loses everything. That he can influence the agency of nations as directly as he shows himself to do means he needs a leash. Period. Space is not his space.

As usual, it's good I don't run things.

[Carpet_pissr]

Second, I don't see providing material of war hurting Boeing or Raytheon or Thales or Toyota. Or hell, even SpaceX when they put US military satellites in orbit. What a load of shit, the complicity excuse. For providing communications.

Just based off the Xhit he posted above, his argument seems to be wanting to avoid complicity, not (at all!) worried that it would hurt Xhitter.

Somewhat related, I wonder how other US companies like the ones you mentioned, are regulated?

I’m sure Boeing can’t sell weaponry (directly) to probably a long list of countries. I wonder if there’s a loophole with Starlink since it’s such a non-traditional product. But is he even selling access to Ukraine at this point? Not sure how that is currently working.

Hell, when I sold international trade and shipping data, we had firm reminders every quarter about which foreign governments we absolutely could not sell to.

[malchior]

I’m sure Boeing can’t sell weaponry (directly) to probably a long list of countries. I wonder if there’s a loophole with Starlink since it’s such a non-traditional product. But is he even selling access to Ukraine at this point? Not sure how that is currently working.

There are no real loopholes so to speak. Every ground-to-satellite service is licensed by the United States and pretty much any other country which has satellite-to-ground service in the same network. The governments involved want to know and be able to tap/monitor each entry/exit into the network. Each license is reviewed by the FAA, DOJ, and undergoes a national security review by the entity formerly known as "Team Telecomm".

I did a NIST review of the security controls that the government was requiring for a competing service and they set several conditions as a condition of their license. They could not establish ground communications in Russia for instance. I vaguely recall looking at one of the Starlink applications to familiarize myself with a completed one back in March. I believe they've licensed several versions of their constellation.

The hardball thing to do next time is deny their license when they next modify the existing constellation or add a new constellation. He also might have violated agreements or contradicted material statements they made in the previous license applications. We'll see.

Hell, when I sold international trade and shipping data, we had firm reminders every quarter about which foreign governments we absolutely could not sell to.

Indeed.

[Zaxxon]

Just based off the Xhit he posted above, his argument seems to be wanting to avoid complicity, not (at all!) worried that it would hurt Xhitter.

Gives new meaning to the term 'net neutrality.'

[Carpet_pissr]

Did Elon Musk Just Admit That Twitter's Value Is Down By 90% After His $44B Acquisition?

Elon Musk's $44 billion acquisition of Twitter (now X) has been mired in controversies, but his latest admission could be a sign of just how bad it has turned out for him so far.

In his ongoing rant against Jewish-led civil rights organization Anti-Defamation League (ADL), Musk may have inadvertently admitted that X has lost at least 90% of its value, or nearly $40 billion.

"I don't see any scenario where they're responsible for less than 10% of the value destruction, so ~$4 billion," he said.

[malchior]

This is too perfect.

[Smoove_B]

Musk is suing California:

Elon Musk’s social media platform formerly known as Twitter has sued the state of California over a law requiring social media companies to publish their policies for removing offending material such as hate speech, misinformation and harassment.

The first-of-its-kind legislation was signed into law a year ago by California Gov. Gavin Newsom. In a lawsuit filed Friday against state Attorney General Robert Bonta, X Corp. challenges the “constitutionality and legal validity” of the law, saying it violates the First Amendment.

The California law requires social media platforms to post their content moderation policies — which they already do — and twice a year submit a report to the state on how they address hate speech, racism, misinformation, foreign political interference and other issues.

The law, “compels companies to engage in speech against their will, impermissibly interferes with the constitutionally-protected editorial judgments of companies such as X Corp.” and has pressures companies to remove or demonetize “constitutionally-protected speech,” says the lawsuit, filed in federal court in California.

[Zaxxon]

And this is
one of the instances where he’s absolutely correct.

Hey, Techdirt haters: hold onto your hats, because I’m going to praise Elon Musk for doing the right thing, even though many of you insist that my complaints about him are motivated by personal dislike. But, as I’ve noted repeatedly, I’m happy to highlight when he does the right thing, such as here where he is (perhaps surprisingly) challenging a terrible internet law that the bigger internet companies refuse to challenge (because it helps them), and bringing in a big time 1st Amendment lawyer to do so. And, importantly, the challenge seems really well done.
Over the last few years we’ve been writing about a long list of awful internet laws in California. Last year, the one that got the most attention was AB 2273, or the Age Appropriate Design Code, which we’re still hoping a federal court will toss out as unconstitutional in the near future. However, there was another bill we wrote about that got a bit less attention: AB 587 which was pitched as a “transparency” bill.
As we’ve said many times in the past, more transparency is a very good and important goal, and one that people should demand of the companies whose products and services they use. But mandated transparency creates all sorts of problems. AB 587 creates oh so many problems. So, of course, Governor Gavin Newsom signed it into law.
For what it’s worth, I’ve heard from multiple sources that the big internet companies love AB 587. It creates another moat for them that harms smaller companies. It allows them to tell lawmakers that they’re happy to embrace some laws that those big companies can handle, even if they’re problematic.
But it’s a bad law. It limits the ability of companies to respond and adjust tactics against bad actors in real time. It assumes (incorrectly) that content moderation is a static thing. It also requires that companies have policies in place to deal with 1st Amendment protected content, even though the government can’t legislate that.

[gilraen]

I'd hold off applauding Musk just yet. While there are obvious issues with this law (especially as it pertains to the ever-changing landscape of online moderation in real time), AB587 only applies to companies with $100 million or more in revenue, so the "but the small companies" argument holds about as much water as "think of the children". Also, Florida and Texas have similar laws - but way more strict - and yet you don't see Musk suing Abbott or DeSantis.

[malchior]

"Conservative" critic of censorship outed as white nationalist.

Michael Benz, a former Trump State Department official whose work has been cited in congressional hearings and promoted by Elon Musk, has become a go-to voice for Republican criticism of government and social media censorship in the past year.

But before his stints in government and as a pundit, Benz appears to have been a pseudonymous alt-right content creator who courted and interacted with white nationalists and posted videos espousing racist conspiracy theories, according to recordings, livestreams and blog posts reviewed by NBC News.

The pseudonym, Frame Game, posted videos and participated in podcasts and livestreams during the rise of the alt-right following Donald Trump’s election. Frame Game avoided showing his face in his videos or appearances, during which he pushed a variety of far-right narratives including the “Great Replacement Theory” that posits the white race is being eradicated in America for politics and profits. In others, Frame Game said he was a white identitarian, railed against the idea of diversity and made montages urging white viewers to unite under the banner of race.

...

Frame Game stopped posting in 2018. A review of his content revealed various details that match Benz’s appearance and life story. Benz, in his public posts and appearances, has not espoused the same racist views as Frame Game.

Frame Game went to some lengths to conceal his identity but inadvertent slips during several livestreams — in which he would often visit webpages and toggle between browser tabs — betrayed his anonymity. In one video, Frame Game brought up a website that automatically pulled a Facebook profile picture into its comments section. The picture appeared to be Benz with his then wife.

,,,

Benz and his organization were also cited in reports and witness testimony from the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, led by Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, as well as the Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs. Benz also amplified the “Twitter Files,” documents released by Musk that revealed internal debates about content moderation and communications with outside organizations, governments, journalists and researchers. For months, in videos and threads posted to Twitter, Benz has framed those internal debates as grand conspiracies and maligned the academic researchers and institutions involved as government spies and plants.

[Carpet_pissr]

Shocking.

[Alefroth]

Now they are concerned about disinformation-

https://deadline.com/2023/10/linda-yacc ... 235571197/

X CEO Linda Yaccarino has responded to European Union Commissioner Thierry Breton’s letter to her boss Elon Musk calling on him to act swiftly to remove posts from the platform spreading disinformation around the Israel-Hamas conflict.

Breton, who as E.U. Commissioner for the Internal Market has oversight on digital affairs in the 27-country political and economic bloc, had given Musk 24 hours to clean up the site in a letter posted on X on Tuesday at 7pm CET.

Failure to comply, he warned, would lead to sanctions under the rules of the E.U.’s Digital Services Act.

[Rumpy]

Only when it likely directly concerns them.

[Holman]

I've joined Bluesky, and in just a couple of days I've been able to replicate most of the "Following" list that I enjoyed on old Twitter. I can easily imagine leaving X behind forever now. Bluesky is like X without the Nazis. (That is, they actually have content moderation.)

Of course I've always been a reader/lurker, not a Twitter star. But I think even those folks are finding it possible to move over.

[Holman]

Have you noticed that Elon started trashing Wikipedia in the past two or three days?

Musk has been tweeting that Wikipedia is a woke, top-down "expert"-driven set of factual claims that are the antithesis of the "citizen journalism" of X's marketing push in recent days. So-called experts, of course, are nothing but deep-state liars dedicated to resisting Muskian ideology.

Of course everything Musk posts gets amplified by his army of Nazi incels and Russian bots, so now Wikipedia is up against a massive campaign to call its whole project and its methods into question.

Just more evidence that Musk is a piece of shit dedicated to reshaping the world as a defense of his own wounded ego.

[LawBeefaroni]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... ffends-him

So, the sight of Elon Musk charging towards Wikipedia with his trademark guile and delicacy was so predictable that it was almost relaxing. He saw a collective resource that people prized and he wanted to hurt it. Why does Wales even need any money to run Wikipedia in the first place, he wondered on Sunday. You could fit the entire thing on your phone, he claimed. Eleven minutes later, he offered $1bn if it would change its name to Dickipedia.

After Musk’s adventures on X, formerly Twitter, his views on what things cost and the relevance of what you can fit on your phone mostly evoke the thought: “Wow, to think I once took as read that tech bro billionaires knew what they were talking about!” The rest just make you wince. We called Twitter a sink even before Musk bought it, but that misses one fact: there were people making dick jokes that were funny about a thousand times an hour. Of the many points Musk missed when he bought Twitter, one concerned the standard of content he was seeking to govern. It’s like watching a drunk frat boy bowl up and flash Dorothy Parker.

Wincing and scorn aside, Musk is after Wikipedia for a reason. The sight of something created socially that works is an insult to him. I would spend two quid a month, or more, just for that.

[Daehawk]

Im going to quote the mighty Gump here "Stupid is as stupid does"

[LordMortis]

It has been like two whole weeks since hearing about or from that twat. Something must be happening with one his... Here we go... Another of is his companies trying to make a libertarian buck off government funding...

https://www.reuters.com/business/musks- ... 023-10-24/

Insufferable.