Elon Musk admits X 'may fail, as so many have predicted'
Elon Musk admits X 'may fail, as so many have predicted'
Elon Musk said Saturday "sad truth is that there are no great 'social networks' right now."
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I feel like normally I would share y'all's view on this and be like "good" but now I can't help think about how Twitter was a critical space for organizing a lot of resistance movements. Really starting to believe those pieces that were like "Musk bought Twitter to bury it"
We were all like "he's not that smart" at the first few articles, but now I'm like, this dude has poisoned the well so utterly - and now he's getting rid of blocking, apparently? - like, fuck. (And yes organizing on a corpo platform was never going to be truly reliable/safe, but still, esp for folks just getting exposed to activism, this "on ramp" space going to shit really sucks.)
I know we'll always find/create new spaces for ourselves, but this is a blow to a lot of networks.
I absolutely believe he intentionally tanked it. Getting funded by the Saudis, though, means that he doesn't have to be smart to do it. He's just a puppet. Easy to manipulate, because though he doesn't need money, he does need attention. Perhaps the easiest kind of manipulation.
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The Twitter buyout was partially funded by Saudi investors, and there hasn’t been much public discourse about whether they’re pissed it’s value has tanked or whether they wanted that to happen all along.
There's less direct things that you could point to as well. Things like "conversations" Musk has admitted to having with Putin.
Authoritarian country's leaders can't do anything directly to Twitter, so why not just finance its downfall indirectly by giving Elon's other numerous multi-billion-dollar companies favorable contracts or even just easier access to their corrupt economies. Then those leaders can just ask Elon to tank the single largest platform used to whistleblow, organize, and resist said authoritarian leaders?
Any time critics claim a conspiracy, there's plenty to just point to of Elon doing stupid shit. There's no way you can easily point out the difference between stupidity and malice, and most will assume stupidity... so why not take advantage?
Tinfoil hat for sure, but not completely absurd, right?
Anything Twitter can do so can mastodon. Resistance movements can move forward without x with little issue. Twitter isn’t and never was special it was simply there at the right time. It’s not anymore and that’s okay because we are not helpless without some shit social media site.
Power to the people not corps.
I think this is a valuable point.
I saw the headline and thought "and nothing of value was lost". But reading this was a privilege check. I've never needed Twitter or anything else to help resist because my way of life isn't really being challenged.
I think it's a lesson as you point out. Don't trust corporations. And I would add don't trust centralized platforms either. But decentralization is a two edged sword. You're protected from a single entity's agenda, but the dispersed nature of a decentralized platform will make it more difficult to come together for a cause.
Edit: spelling