As X’s owner and most followed user, Elon Musk has increasingly used it as a microphone to amplify his political views and those of the often right-wing figures he’s aligned with.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/19117230

As X’s owner and most followed user, Elon Musk has increasingly used the social media platform as a microphone to amplify his political views and, lately, those of right-wing figures he’s aligned with. There are few modern parallels to his antics, but then again there are few modern parallels to Elon Musk himself.

  • Lvxferre@mander.xyzEnglish
    531·
    4 months ago

    Musk often ruminates on the future of civilization. For one, he appears fixated on a coming “ population collapse,” threatening to wipe out humanity.

    Yeah, because demographic decline is totally a threat to a planet of eight thousand million apes. Sure thing.

    Musk has framed threats to free speech as yet another existential crisis looming over the world. And he is going to try his best to save it.

    Except that he doesn’t really give a flying fuck about freedom of speech. Censorship is fine in his book as long as it is not targeted towards his own agenda. Enberg got it right.

    Musk, meanwhile, is veering from cool nerd territory into what Kara Swisher, the elder stateswoman of tech journalism, recently called “the Howard Hughes portion” of an inevitable decline.

    “Is veering”? Nah. He’s already out of that territory for years.

    Could this all be part of a broader plan? After all, despite publicly criticizing Musk’s antics, those on the left continue to use his platform.

    Hanlon’s Razor + network effect explain it.

  • shininghero@pawb.socialEnglish
    40·
    4 months ago

    …most followed user,

    Abusing site admin powers to force accounts to follow you really shouldn’t count.

    • kingthrillgore@lemmy.mlEnglish
      14·
      4 months ago

      Twitter has been taken over by the saddest billionaire on earth.

      Are you a bad enough dude to delete your account and go literally anywhere else?

    • TheFeatureCreature@lemmy.worldEnglish
      7·
      4 months ago

      Simple indeed, but getting people to actually stop using that trash heap website has proven to be very difficult.

      I am very tired of Twitter users doing nothing but complaining about site changes and Musk yet they still just sit there… doing nothing about it. You’d think it’d be easy to rip the bandage off when it’s covered in fascist propaganda but apparently not.

  • Optional@lemmy.worldEnglish
    8·
    4 months ago

    Overseas — where most X users live — he’s feuded with top officials in Australia, Brazil, the European Union and the U.K. over the balance between free speech and the spread of harmful misinformation. And he accused a political party in his native South Africa of “openly pushing for genocide of white people.”

    Overseas, where most X users live.

    Ah. So, kind of how “facebook = ‘the internet’” to a large swath of people in other countries.

    Well. That’s bad.