As much as I like Musk, Twitter has become horrible. I created a new account for work and without following anybody, my feed was filled with some of the most horrible racist shit against black people I have ever seen.
Now I don't mind that stuff in forums and 4chan (some folks find that content funny) but if I have to do work, it cannot coexist with that content.
I used to like Musk pre-Twitter, but he's turned into such an immature person -- or maybe he always was and now can just flaunt it without consequences.
Being immature is fine if you're alone in your basement hacking away, not when you have the power to single-handedly control the (formerly) most useful digital public square in the world, and use it to your own political ends.
Do you mean pre-Twitter buyout or pre-Twitter presence?
If you mean pre-buyout then I have bad news for you: Musk has been baselessly calling people pedophiles since at least 2018.
If you mean pre-presence then I have bad news for you: If you only liked someone before they were really expressing themselves, you probably never actually liked them.
I meant pre-buyout. I guess I hadn't heard much about his personal antics before then; mostly just knew of his achievements with Tesla, SpaceX, and admired him pushing the auto industry towards EVs (kicking and screaming, but they had no choice because Tesla posed an actual threat where no EV company had ever done before).
He should've been banned from Twitter for his own mental health years ago. Dude should've just stuck to building rockets and stopped trying to get into the culture war.
It's worth noting that Bluesky has exponentially grown to 23MM users on the back of changes that increasingly force X users to engage with what begins as a minority of trolls.
These types of users are not some noble vanguard of the free speech of the wise masses, or whatever else proponents try to portray them as - quite the opposite. Who do you actually know IRL who's a bitcoin-obsessed tradcath neo-nazi?
The "freedom of speech" being afforded here isn't going to the benefit of scientists or economists with technical misgivings of a small part of some overreaching left-anarchist agenda. If it were, the "free speech" crusade would be much easier to understand. But for every Jordan Peterson, there's twelve Nick Fuenteses, being treated as if their opinions have the same value. These types of users are a very vocal minority exceedingly committed to flowing a firehose of low-quality, sneery, fact-free, outrage-bait content. And fewer and fewer people are interested in any of it.
"Free speech" is the government-level abstraction. Private platforms are better to moderate their service, because this specific contingent ruins every platform they're permitted to dominate. It's the Nazi bar problem in a nutshell.
X's usership is dropping like a rock[1] as Bluesky's growth surges[2]. Nobody wants to be forced to engage with these types of users, and the trends demonstrate this. If I were one of X's investment partners, I would be fuming at Elon's abject squandering of my perfectly good investment capital.
If this is the platform Elon actually wants, then fine and dandy. Just don't complain when the result is different than what you expected and huge amounts of people leave instead of assimilating to the hivemind.
Not a Musk fan myself but I echo your sentiment about Twitter. I have mostly used it to lurk and follow tech personalities that post things I enjoy reading.
Now I can’t open it at work because the main page is likely to contain horribly racist or otherwise bigoted memes and diatribes from people I’ve never followed or interacted with.
This. It's not a political issue at all for me. I just find that X has become full of dumb and trashy stuff, with no way to turn it off. The problem isn't that it's right wing or left wing or whatever—it's that it's lame.
I don't really understand the first picture since it has nothing to do with race or racism, and I'll bet you 100 million dollars the latter two won't appear on anyone's front page unless you're searching for exactly that.
Discussing politics in political threads, with people who disagree with my own beliefs. I love going in echo chambers of people whose ideologies I don't agree with, and try to reason with them and understand them.
I'm a software engineer who's already seen the field of software. Talking about it isn't that interesting to me. I make more money than I need selling a rather simple subscription service, written in an obscure language that never gets mentioned here.
And finally, the obligatory "no u", since telling someone that this website is not for them is the epitome of this website not being for you.
Hm, last time someone challenged you, you responded with
>I’m not here to argue with socialists
And told them to read a book instead of asking your opinions. Sounds like you’re just here to whine about things you don’t like and insert your opinions.
Really just depends on the quality of the other person's argument. Good to see that you're spending time going over my post history though, makes me feel special. Would never cross my mind in a million years to click on your profile and start scrolling.
Clive Myrie is not an immigrant, he was born in northern England. The post is blatantly about race (“how often do white hosts”, “stop the racism”).
You asked for something high-engagement, but the stuff that tends to be “in your face” is low engagement/high volume, as in this case I shared with you elsewhere in the thread. https://x.com/kaseyklimes/status/1862323859321483316
You've linked a profile of someone whose entire following is centered around an anti-immigration sentiment. There are entire political parties centered around that. I understand that you're advocating for censorship, and you hate X because it's not going to cater to that wish.
My point is that X isn't some propaganda tool of hateful content. It's a platform that has a little something for everyone, just as it should be.
Why don't you mind racist shit against black people in forums and 4Chan? Do you think black people shouldn't mind it either? Where else do you think racism is acceptable?
The alternative is freedom of choice. Right-wingers will always whine that there’s no freedom of speech when liberals aren’t forced to listen to their drivel. Welcome to the marketplace of ideas!
Taken at face value, I find this forum is far more unpleasant, and far less inclusive, than a bunch of high school nerds trying to shock each other with naughty words. They're not trying to outsmart each other for fake internet points.
Weird, I created an account for a family member last evening, and I didn't see anything racist at all. Without following anyone I only saw ads and some tweets by Elon Musk.
I logged back in today for the first time in years, and the only real difference for me was in-line ads everywhere (I see you, VW, and I won't forget), and it was quieter.
I suspect there's a difference between an already-curated account and a new account.
If you stick to just following, twitter 2 months ago was fine, as long as you also didn't read the comments or click on your notifications (which was inevitable follows by cryptoshills). At this point the people I was following have all left, because they had to put up with way more shit than I did.
Now I don't mind that stuff in forums and 4chan (some folks find that content funny) but if I have to do work, it cannot coexist with that content.