Seconds ago, I typed almost identically these same sentiments over on the former Bird app:
"Musk saw it, figured he could use it for his own purposes, sort of succeeded to the extent that it's a user-friendlier place for white supremacists. But I don't think he intended to lose money; he just didn't consider the possibility that he might be too stupid to run the place."
@kingbeauregard@Teri_Kanefield I think it's running as well as Musk and other billionaire investors saw it: A way to choke-out citizen reporters and promote autocracy.
It's not built to last, it just has to be enough of an X factor for the 2024 election - Turkey's election was just a dry run.
@Teri_Kanefield I can think of 40 billion reasons why he wouldn’t set out to destroy it but it certainly seems like he is destroying the brand. X is the equivalent of Coca Cola rebranding as The Big C.
@thepoliticalcat@Teri_Kanefield I realize that and of course Coke would not rebrand that way: I was just trying to make an analogy for the poor branding of X
@Teri_Kanefield I don't think he understands the problems with the bounds of freedom of speech he advocates for are. So he is ending up playing into the hands of the bullies.
@Teri_Kanefield This is a good framing of the situation as I see it also.
Musk doesn't know much about politics or public policy so promoting an ideology he believes to be popular is his way of engaging in "good" business. He has no idea that most people dislike right-wing libertarianism.
@Teri_Kanefield But that is destroying it. And he knows it. If there's one thing i'm sure republicans know it's that democrats/liberals don't like anything they create or promote.
They know without shadow of doubt that their success means the exit for liberals. He knew. He just thought he could FORCE liberals into stuff. Just like all republicans.
And all republicans know they'll fail at doing so to whatever degree.
@Teri_Kanefield He also believes "right-wing propaganda machine" = "viable business idea", because he lives in a bubble of rich tech bros who think the vile & dangerous & above all stupid nonsense they spout at each other is way more popular than it is.
@Teri_Kanefield He’s changing the fundamental nature of it—like slowly changing shampoo into mayonnaise. It has some characteristics of shampoo (the consistency, etc.) but it’s a totally different thing.
@Teri_Kanefield coming up with a company name before you do anything useful is tantamount to entitling a book whose contents you still haven’t decided upon
@Teri_Kanefield I’ve been also saying this from the beginning but I also absolutely think he did think explicitly right-wing propaganda machine. That “The woke mind-virus must be destroyed” quote came from the same period - as did his desire to punish his daughter for not being his son.
I think alt-right disinformation fountain and propaganda machine was absolutely conscious intent, and swinging the 2024 election is one of the goals.
Musk's obsessive disregard for analysis, his failure to assess what people and assets added value to the business before throwing them away, his need to throw them away anyway, his disregard for consequences, do suggest he had no desire to preserve value or make money.
They suggest that Musk didn't care about money. He needed to break what was there to make the ground fertile for a propaganda machine he could have built for a pittance.
@Teri_Kanefield he did make it better for his audience, in the way a segregationist thinks excluding black people from public spaces somehow improves them. How are you going to fix a shitty person who personally benefitted from apartheid?
@Teri_Kanefield the moment I knew he’s a genius when he asked Twitter software developers to prepare to bring in 30-pages of printed, latest code for code review. Lol:polarbear:
@Teri_Kanefield: Over time, more and more people who aren't part of the hard-right universe will leave.
There is reason to not delete your account though. After some period of time (I don't recall if it's 30, 60, or 90 days), the userids become available again, so somebody could potentially impersonate you. Better to keep your account, but lock it down so that nobody other than those you allow to follow you can see it. You don't have to actively use it at that point, but at least nobody else will either.
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