Before he bought Twitter, Musk remarked, “I hope that even my worst critics remain on Twitter, because that is what free speech means.”
Free speech for me, not for thee.
I know this will seem sarcastic but I am genuinely shocked. I’m not the most versed in Elon’s biography, although I do know he has treated his employees like shit, acted pompous about subjects and issues he’s not an expert on whatsoever, and just generally seems very egotistical (u/spez, somehow seems even more egotistical to me, as a side note).
The entire Twitter thing does, frankly, blow my mind. I know this community much like Reddit will lean progressive or at least centrist. But I would like to hear from some closeted “Musketeer” or open conservative - why on earth does the “free-speech” promoter seem to love to ban people so much? I thought the whole thing about free-speech was Twitter was banning people too much and he was gonna stop all that.
It really does blow my mind to think people will tout a virtue only for the sake of their own benefit… is that not the definition of Machiavellian?
Because he does not believe in freedom of speech. He is a right-wing authoritarian, and is only interested in gaining power and controlling everyone else.
Well, I don’t think I’m a “musketeer” and I’m certainly not a conservative, but I have been a fan of Tesla for a while now so maybe I’ll take a stab at this.
I want to start by saying Elon has always been an asshole. He’s incredibly intelligent, and clearly doesn’t give a shit about most people. Even among his own kids he only seems to act like a real father to one of them (the one nicknamed X). To me, that wasn’t much of a problem when he was just running Tesla and spacex. You don’t need to be friendly to run a manufacturing company, and Tesla is doing what every other company has so far failed to do: transition light vehicles away from fossil fuels. So despite Elon’s personality I support him running Tesla. Even now that other companies are finally making EV’s seriously they are moving far more slowly than Tesla is at ramping production of EV’s.
Second, before he bought twitter, almost everything he said there was him trolling or joking. You had to take everything he said there with a grain of salt. If you wanted to hear his actual opinions on things you needed to either listen to shareholder meeting or watch one of the many interviews he does.
Combined, these two things have created a problem now that he’s purchased twitter. He’s still using the platform for jokes and trolling, but he’s also using it for all of his communication, and he’s still an asshole. I think being an asshole is a problem when you’re running a social media company, I mean that’s why I’ve left reddit. You call him Machiavellian, and I think that’s an apt description of Elon. Machiavellian describes him to the point that as a long time fan, I find myself wondering if his sudden shift to the right is him trying to get conservatives on board with actually doing something about climate change. But I think that might be too optimistic of me.
He’s a racist edge lord. Stop trying to defend him.
I don’t think he is very smart at all and I also don’t think he is trolling. I think he really is a white supremacist, hates trans people, and is generally a right wing idiot.
When people show you who they are, believe them.
You think too highly of him if you really think this guy is running a ploy to convert conservatives to caring about climate.
He’s incredibly intelligent
Is he though? He’s been successful, sure. But I feel like he hires smart people and then rides on their coattails.
I thought he was smart as well - until he started commenting on a field I know (software). And now he seems to just be confidently ignorant.
Second, before he bought twitter, almost everything he said there was him trolling or joking. You had to take everything he said there with a grain of salt. If you wanted to hear his actual opinions on things you needed to either listen to shareholder meeting or watch one of the many interviews he does.
people say the same shit about trump. “take him seriously, not literally.” musk is an egotistical moron who will change his opinion day by day, claiming after the fact that anything he said that was blatantly wrong was just a joke
This. People need to stop defending right-wing bigotry. They’re not “joking,” they mean it. And they will most definitely open up concentration camps and the like if given the chance.
My Twitter account was suspended out of nowhere which was odd because I had not posted anything in months.
Head over to bluesky. It’s not a shit show.
Or sign up to a nice little Mastodon instance and stop promoting centralised social media platforms which can go the same way as Twitter.
I don’t think it’s open yet. Mastodon.social is though!
careful. BlueSky is headed up by Jack, of Twitter fame, and he’s cut from a similar cloth as Musk.
Jack is on the board but Jay Graber is the ceo. So far they have put tools in to squash alt right trolls, report and cut out nazi’s, misogynists, repost bots, growth hackers, transphobes, anti-LGBTQIA’s, enlightened centrist, reply trolls, and bigot defenders.
They brought in mastodon and activitypub advisors to help them decentralize, and went open source.
But, they are a corporate entity. But they’re trying for now.
Is that federated? If no, why not promote Mastodon or Kbin’s microblog, or something else within the Fediverse?
Totally fair comment, but some people like an app and a similar experience to what they’re used to and their is nothing wrong with that.
I disagree. Low-effort users that are just wanting to get a dopamine hit are not helping build something new and valuable.
That’s why you need to point them towards things like bluesky. Send them to what they want.
Haha, fair enough. You were also specifically replying to someone asking about Twitter vs Mastodon, so providing an alternative that isn’t owned by a total shitheel is still better.
I apologize profusely for being snarky on the Internet.
We’re cool!
