November 20, 20222 yr I have no problem with Elon Musk's decision here. Deplatforming Trump was always an own-goal for liberals. Let Trump destroy himself on Twitter. If he had been allowed to do that in the past 2 years, the Democrats might even have had a blue wave in the midterms. More free speech always leads to truth and justice. One way this happens is that bad ideas get discredited by more exposure.
November 20, 20222 yr Twitter is one of the best social networks of not the best. It is no more toxic than Facebook but it’s not run by a puritanical prude (or at least it wasn’t) and so you ended up with content that could flourish that wasn’t available anywhere else. A proper safe space for the LGBT community exiled from Tumblr. Twitter content is *chefs kiss* I think I need to remind everyone that religious fundamentalists and gender critical feminists are a prominent part of the Twitterverse (even before Elon Musk bought it).
November 20, 20222 yr Yes, a trans friend of mine won't use Twitter as they find the level of hatred on there impossible to deal with.
November 20, 20222 yr Author I have no problem with Elon Musk's decision here. Deplatforming Trump was always an own-goal for liberals. Let Trump destroy himself on Twitter. If he had been allowed to do that in the past 2 years, the Democrats might even have had a blue wave in the midterms. More free speech always leads to truth and justice. One way this happens is that bad ideas get discredited by more exposure. Nah f*** that completely. First off deplatforming does minimise the reach of influencers and modulates the offensive discourse of their supporters (link to academic article on the topic, others I have read come to the same conclusion). Trump truthing over on Truth Social is only preaching to the converted - him blasting away on Twitter keeps him in the news for what he tweets. Now he's said he won't return, I doubt that'll last. But we'll see. It will help him electorally to tweet in his... particular... style again, but I hope he doesn't realise that. Especially if he advances economic arguments and doesn't entirely make it a steal-focused thing. Secondly, the President's party almost always suffers a setback in the midterms. That was priced in. That the Democrats got off relatively unscathed is in part due to the insane far-right wringing of the Trumpist Republicans. Them navel-gazing about how they're the best and that the election was stolen on dinky little platforms that aren't Twitter is a part of their trend towards extremism. Sucks that they are carrying a lot of Americans with them, but being extreme enough to be BANNED FROM MOST MAJOR PLATFORMS does tend to send signals to moderates that what they're about isn't acceptable. Therefore, Elon's little stunt has given a boost to Republican hopes for 2024, and it'll be moreso if Trump starts promoting himself again. The one good thing about this is that it does make potential DeSantis vs Trump catfights more visible.
November 21, 20222 yr I agree with Iz, there were perfectly good reasons for banning Trump in Jan '21 and there are no signs that doing so created an 'own-goal' Streisand type effect, not that fear of doing so should be the overriding reason for making such a decision anyway.. I actually quite like Twitter, to me it appears to be the lesser of the social media evils imo. However, it still suffers from similar issues that other platforms do such as echo chambers that reinforce established opinions/views and polarise society. It has allowed better real-time conversations and debates to be had between interested members of the public and experts, everyone to have a voice and find their own support networks of like-minded people, and I've certainly learnt a lot by viewing a number of favourite feeds. It's not all great of course, but I shall miss it if it does collapse in the coming months.
November 21, 20222 yr Deplatforming is bad because it leads to polarization and radicalization. This means more regular conservatives get turned into far right people. Anyway, if Twitter collapses, and we need something else to replace it, I suggest one major objective of the new platform should be to prevent echo chambers from forming. This will lead to less polarization and radicalization.
November 21, 20222 yr Deplatforming is bad because it leads to polarization and radicalization. This means more regular conservatives get turned into far right people. Anyway, if Twitter collapses, and we need something else to replace it, I suggest one major objective of the new platform should be to prevent echo chambers from forming. This will lead to less polarization and radicalization. FOX News are a reason more conservatives get turned into far right people, in the US at least. They have a huge platform and are using it to promote their hateful agenda. It's extremely naive to believe that people think for themselves and try to gather information from different sources. No, they will just believe Trump or Fucker Carlson because they are on TV all the time. You are free to voice your opinion but there are still consequences for hate speech.
November 26, 20222 yr Yes have to agree that the only safe thing to do would be to deplatform far right voices as otherwise they begin to grow. Twitter is becoming extremely dangerous now - in a way I hope that it suddenly fails due to technical reasons - now that Musk has unbanned several voices from the far right suddenly, who are now angry, hungry to take down progressive voices and are planning to recruit many. One example I took a look at today was Andrew Tate, the martial artist who was the subject of several articles about his banning from social media platforms a few months back. His posts are full of blatant homophobia, assaults on progressive voices and a call to arms to his followers to rise up. He is just one of many sadly. This is extremely worrying coming less than a week on a terrorist attack on an LGBT venue in Colorado (where the body count would have been far higher than 5 if not due to the extreme bravery of the staff/patrons there). There seems to be no comeback/deterrent for this attack and the conditions that yield the perpetrators and can only see the number and frequency of such events growing and growing.
November 27, 20222 yr Agreed with the above on the comments about the importance of de-platforming the far-right voices. They are not the typical voices of different opinions. They incite violence and have inspired numerous hate crimes against different minorities especially the LGBTQIA+ community. Elon Musk bringing them back to the mainstream platform is very worrying to say the least. I also remember teachers on Twitter complaining about the influence of these right wing voices e.g. Andrew Tate on the teenagers which instills misogynistic and other thoughts. You can argue that these voices have existed on Twitter for a good amount of time but at least we know Elon Musk is perputating these voices and silencing the left for calling them out. Edited November 27, 20222 yr by uhsting
November 27, 20222 yr Author Elongated "I'm not right wing or left wing, I think the White House needs a centrist like Ron DeSantis and also the woke mob are what's wrong with society" Muskrat the reach he is giving a vast array of right-wing demagogues by constantly replying to them and signal boosting them should show everyone who he is
November 28, 20222 yr Author How’s DeSantis a centrist?! ask the chief Twit he's clearly not but this is a sign that he's just going to say whatever to bring fascism into the US
November 28, 20222 yr Even by wonky American standards DeSantis is a Nazi. Centerist. f*** off apartheid Clyde
November 28, 20222 yr People have said for years that Elongated Muskrst is fash, ans the evidence is SKY HIGH at this point!! I am starting to wonder if he took over Twitger just to promote and platform fssh far right voices, particularly that of Trump?? The only thing deSantis campaignrd on last time was a nrbulous notion of "freedom" ... in a liberal democracy that prides itself on freedom... How is THAT an inspiring candidate with centrist ideas, Muskrat?!?!
November 28, 20222 yr Musk is now throwing a strop because Apple are exercising their freedom to spend their advertising budget how they like.
December 1, 20222 yr I identify as a centrist (among other things) and I think Biden is a good example of a centrist president. As for those who think DeSantis is centrist, they are probably delusional. DeSantis is to the Right of Trump, in my opinion, so in no world can he be thought of as a centrist. Fake centrists (who are almost always right-wing) give us a bad name. We should call them out. Edited December 1, 20222 yr by ta-ra*el~la
December 1, 20222 yr Centrism is part of the problem. It's useless, ineffectual, and its policies are quite extreme - poverty, homelessness, terrible working conditions, bad social security - centrism and neoliberalism. Left wing ideals are the only moderate way to deal with such issues.
December 1, 20222 yr Indeed, there's a good video I watched about it: fZ4nvCVAGw0 I don't deny centrism can exist, but in the traditional American sense, it just serves the right and maintains the status quo.
December 2, 20222 yr As I said, those are fake centrists, and I'm not that kind of centrist. I do not support poverty, homelessness, terrible working conditions, bad social security, neoliberalism, and endless wars etc. I hate people identifying as centrist to advance right-wing politics. I guess my differences with 'the left' are more philosophical. I mean, I support the 'left' candidate most, if not all, the time (as in e.g. US Democrats vs Republicans, UK Labour vs Conservative, Australian Labor vs LNP). I support Democrat/Labor type policies generally. But my philosophy is not actually 'left'. That is why I identify as a 'centrist'.
Create an account or sign in to comment