Critics say decision by Elon Musk-owned company is ‘extremely concerning’ ahead of Australia’s Indigenous voice to parliament referendum

  • Sludgehammer@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    It’s amusing to consider that Musk could have bought one of the many dying alt-right Twitter clones and achieved the same results for billions of dollars less. But no, he had to turn Twitter itself into a dying Twitter clone.

    • Endorkend@kbin.social
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      9 months ago

      In doing so, he destroyed Twitter.

      Which is exactly what was meant to happen, to either turn it into a tool of the right and foreign parties, or destroy it.

      Remember, the first thing crackpot dictators did in the past decade, whenever there was an uprising, was to block Twitter from being accessed.

      • Uranium3006@kbin.social
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        9 months ago

        There’s nothing unique about twitter that makes it irreplaceable, and in fact the alternative of a post twitter world is worse for dictatorships. Imagine trying to block every mastodon and Lemmy server, most or all of which aren’t in your borders, none of them have a commercial presence you can use as a hostage, and who would all tell you to go fuck yourself

        • Endorkend@kbin.social
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          9 months ago

          Something like Twitter isn’t just the tech behind it.

          Why do people keep stating this wishful thinking bit as how reality works??

          People flock to one social media platform of a specific type over time, period.

          And as we’re dealing with a large mass of people, this will never be fediverse systems, it will always end up being a corporate system.

          And those governments either want to control or if that is not possible, destroy.

          People are strongest together.

          Divide and conquer et al.

        • ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml
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          9 months ago

          I’m honestly kind of loving watching the destruction of Reddit and Twitter. It is a big loss, sure, but like you said they are not irreplaceable. The communities, the people are what matters, not the platform. The people make the platforms. If you lose the people, you lose the platform.

          If everyone migrates to Lemmy and Mastodon like I did, then these large platforms don’t have to matter anymore.

      • Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz
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        9 months ago

        Every day I’m getting more and more convinced that demolishing Twitter was 100% intentional and part of the plan.

        • Why9@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          I don’t think so, personally.

          I can’t imagine Elon spending over 40bn to buy up a company that he then desperately needs to enact measures in order to recoup the lost money in ways that just dig him a bigger hole.

          I think he’s really that dumb. He tried to devalue the company prior to purchasing by saying bots are rampant etc. The case against him said he needed to buy the company at the original price.

          Until this point, his reputation had him as some kind of infallible tech messiah, so in order to not lose face, he bought it at the original price, knowing his plan backfired and he had to borrow billions in order to complete the sale.

          Every decision he made after just attracted ridicule and caused the platform to fall further into a heaping mess. Once his reputation was revealed to be a petulant child, he just doubled down and destroyed it.

          Elon, it turns out, just isn’t as clever as he (or many of his backers/fans) thought…

          • Neve8028@lemm.ee
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            9 months ago

            People always forget he was literally sued into buying twitter. He never wanted to buy it, he was just playing stupid games like he always does.

            • Sludgehammer@lemmy.world
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              9 months ago

              Yeah, IMO he was trying to do a pump and dump in the same style of his crypto pump and dumps, but he managed to make some legally binding statements while doing the pump.

          • shapesandstuff@feddit.de
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            9 months ago

            Until this point, his reputation had him as some kind of infallible tech messiah

            I mean… only on terms of his PR team.

          • Endorkend@kbin.social
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            9 months ago

            He, like Trump, is the useful idiot.

            Remember, he didn’t exactly buy Twitter cash in hand.

            The money he used came from all over, only about half of it from selling stock he owned, the rest is banks and foreign interests (a very large one being the Saudi).

            His goal was probably genuinely to turn it into a success with his own political views ruling the platform, but to do that, they should’ve stuck with his usual shtick of him being the PR face of the company while actually competent people do the work and make the decisions. Whatever political shite he spouts on the platform then doesn’t matter.

            But the other interests wanted Twitter either in the hands of someone they can influence, preferably someone with questionable morals and a similar totalitarian political view, or have it destroyed. For them, either way is perfectly fine.

            They got what they wanted and the useful idiot is left to look like a fool.

            • Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz
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              9 months ago

              My guess is, Saudis are trying to prevent another Arab spring from happening. By fragmenting the social media landscape, it will be a bit harder for the masses to organize demonstrations.

        • stopthatgirl7@kbin.socialOP
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          9 months ago

          That requires there having been a plan to begin with. He desperately tried to get out of buying Twitter. Now he’s flailing but trying to act like he knows what he’s doing.

          • Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz
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            9 months ago

            My guess is that it wasn’t Elon’s plan. The Saudis might want to take Twitter out of the picture to prevent another Arab spring from happening, and they found a way to do it through Elon.

    • mateomaui@reddthat.com
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      9 months ago

      He also bought it to get Trump reinstated, but failed to convince him to return, and so winds up competing with him to convince the most ignorant demographic to come back instead.

      edit: and then tried to leverage DeSantis with a comic failure of an event, and now is in a weird limbo between them because DeSantis sucks on his platform and Trump sucks off his platform.

  • Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Getting kinda sick of those whole “Elon bought Twitter to destroy it!” Perspective. Read the history.

    1. He was trying to manipulate stocks (successfully) like he has for years.

    2. Finally, it caught up with him and didn’t work and he was forced to buy it or get sued.

    3. He tried really hard for months to “reinvent it”.

    4. He’s really really fucking stupid and with his drug habits and wealth, doesn’t live in a state of reality

    5. Twitter gets worse and worse because his knee jerk solutions aren’t working. Because unlike his other companies that run with competent people who block Musk from intervening, Twitter was pure Musk at the helm.

    Stop with the conspiracy bs. There’s so much documented resources to follow this history.

    • circuscritic@lemmy.ca
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      9 months ago

      This should become a copypasta, or stickied to every thread relating to the sometimes slow, sometimes fast, trainwreck that is X’itter.

    • Pxtl@lemmy.ca
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      9 months ago

      I agree on most of it, but I have genuine conspiracy theories I can’t let go of about the end of the “state media” flag. Applying the state media flag to BBC and CBC and NPR was an excellent way to kill it for his Saudi and Russian friends.

    • Squizzy@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      His drug use? Never heard of this before. I also haven’t heard that the competent people block him from making a difference. If anything I’ve heard of frustrations from other boards because he is lowering the stock of Tesla and distracted from leading the companies.

  • Treczoks@kbin.social
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    9 months ago

    I can understand Twitters move. The way things are pointing at Twitters user community, if they have to remove objectionable content, they’ll soon have nothing but empty pages.

  • Nougat@kbin.social
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    9 months ago

    ::taps forehead::

    Can’t be responsible for hosting objectionable content if nobody can point to it.

  • VodkaSolution @feddit.it
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    9 months ago

    They could allow user to highlight not misleading informations, it would be a much faster work, seeing how many b******t are on that site.

    About the link, it’s sad the Indigenous will be hit, but I bet they are unfortunately just the first… We can only hope the common people will start to understand what a s**tshow is that site and move to mastodon