While many people steer clear of Twitter for various reasons, some of which are due to the mainstream media’s constant whining about how it is a ‘sewer’. This is mainly because there are some people on Twitter who consume the mainstream media intently, and they are so experienced that they can spot bullshit very easily, and are not afraid to call it out, often directly to the journalists who spout the said bullshit. As so many of these journalists seem to have fragile egos they often characterise this criticism as ‘abuse’. It is female journalists and others who receive most of the real abuse. That sort of thing doesn’t happen to me to anything like the same degree, presumably because I am a male and all sorts of innuendo and name calling has no effect on me, except to make me realise the limitations of the name caller (something I have also had to deal with on this blog).
However, Twitter has gone downhill since the idiot billionaire Elon ‘Elmo’ Musk took over the platform. He has allowed the Mango Mussolini back on the platform (although Trump seems less than enthusiastic about returning), and is planning to allow other deranged right-wing nut jobs back on the platform. These include people such as the former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, David Duke. The re-enrolment of the Mango Mussolini was a step too far for some of the old hands who have left the platform and allowing hate speech to return will turn away more, as it has turned away many of Twitter’s advertisers.
I am staying for the time being, just to see what happens, and just to stick in my two bob’s worth among all the Murdoch-run anti-progressive propaganda1. There has already been one instance of hate speech that I have seen and despite it being reported, this person continued for quite a while, but has now been banned. This tardiness was presumably because Elmo initially sacked all the moderators, who would have removed this moron’s account immediately, just as they did with the idiots Trump and Duke. If hate speech like this continues then even more advertisers will dump Twitter, and it will start losing even more money than it is now. Some big advertisers have already left. These include: General Motors, Balenciaga, Eli Lilly, Playbill, United Airlines, Audi, Volkswagen2, Pfizer, Mondelez, REI, General Mills, IPG, Carlsberg, and Group M3. Many of these companies spend millions per annum on the platform.
You can imagine what an advertiser would make of it if their ads appeared adjacent to a rant about how the 2020 election was stolen from the petulant toddler Trump, or adjacent to advocates of a second instalment of the January 6th insurrection. It would not do much for their bottom line, I suspect.
So, where are people going? I tried a couple of places early in November. These two were Mastodon4 and Tribel5. I have been active on both, and have found Mastodon to be the most dynamic, with Tribel being fairly quiet and its users mostly comprising Americans. This relative quiescence could be because there are more users on Mastodon than on Tribel. The latter is rumoured to have hundreds of thousands of users, whereas Mastodon has had a massive rise in the number of users, many of whom are ‘Twitter refugees’. Because of the decentralised nature of Mastodon, the people on it are from all over the world, whereas Trible seems to be America-centric. When Musk was first mooted as the likely new owner of Twitter, there were something like 600,000 users on Mastodon. In the last few days the number of users is reputed to have reached 7,700,000, a massive rise by anyone’s standards. In among this massive increase in numbers, are many of the people I used to follow on Twitter.
Those I now follow on Mastodon include climate scientists, biologists, epidemiologists, journalists, writers, environmentalists, comedians, and sundry others, many of whom I used to follow on Twitter and who have now jumped off the bird. So, I suspect Mastodon will be the platform for me when Musk drives Twitter into the mire of bigotry, neofascism and Trumpian stupidity.
Sources
- https://blotreport.com/2022/11/22/the-murdoch-method-in-australia/
- https://www.essence.com/news/money-career/twitter-business-leaving-elon-musk/
- https://gizmodo.com/elon-musk-twitter-list-of-advertisers-leaving-1849751644
- https://blotreport.com/2022/11/09/joining-mastodon/
- https://blotreport.com/2022/11/06/joining-tribel/
Have a look at Minds
Martin,
It didn’t get a great write-up here, and some of the people on it sound like cookers. https://medium.com/swlh/i-tried-the-alternative-social-media-app-minds-so-you-don-t-have-to-b2a367f0291a
I apologise for calling you Mrs BLOT.
Warren,
I forgive you, sweetie!
I see the self-labelled “free speech absolutist” has shut down the accounts of journos who write about him. As has been said many times, Musk’s hypocrisy is palpable.
On another front, his big mouthed ego might (should) have some effect on a current class action lawsuit regarding non-delivery of Tesla auto-pilot tech. Tesla lawyers are arguing that there was always doubt about its ability to deliver the complex tech and there was no timeframe given to buyers. “Mere [sic] failure to realize a long-term, aspirational goal is not fraud.” However apparently Musk in on record publicly declaring in 2019 that FSD (Full Self-Driving Capability) would be delivered within the next 12 months. It would be delicious irony if Musk’s shoot from the lip, ego-driven blurts were to tip the scale to the plaintiffs in the suit.
Jon,
Someone on Twitter listed the names of those journalists banished and noted that it was never about free speech, it was always about drowning ‘normal’ people in the voices of the far right, many of whom have been banned by Twitter for racism, incitement to violence, homophobia and numerous other bigotries. It reminded me of a time I was banned from Twitter for saying that the UK has shot itself in the foot with Brexit. That was apparently too much for the twitter police. What people like Musk are concerned about is the widespread realisation by many people, that neoliberal economics is a scam perpetrated on most of us by the wealthy and their pet economists. It has led to a great disparity between rich and poor the like of which we have not seen for the best part of a century. Pitchfork time is coming. Some wags online have been saying ‘eat the rich’, and someone with a sublime sense of humour replied: ‘We’ll only have to eat one, then the rest will fall into line’.
Probably the best take down of the cesspit and its owner you will ever read by Malcolm Knox (always a good wordsmith even if you don’t agree with his view) in the SMH today.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/this-x-rated-man-child-is-so-powerful-he-got-our-politicians-to-agree-on-something-20240425-p5fmgu.html
To whet your apetite (or temporarily ruin it?) here’s a small extract:
You consult your “feed” – aptly, the word suggests the slurry at the bottom of a farmyard trough. The first thing to note is that X is full of people punching each other. Adults throwing children out of cars. People walking down the street and randomly belting strangers. Scuffles solved by on-the-spot vigilantes. Little wonder that Musk is confused by a government wanting to shut down his footage of a mere stabbing in a church. His entire platform is a turd floating upon a sea of violent imagery. Minute by minute, X provides rolling coverage of Most Berserk Home Videos. So what’s one more assault?
Musk opposes any attempt to limit his freedom. To understand a billionaire, you need to get on the level of a three-year-old boy. His legal case can be summarised as “Don’t want to. Can’t make me.” But he’s not alone. The victim of the Wakeley church stabbing, Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel, is supporting Musk’s opposition to Australia’s so-called threat of so-called censorship, which seems to be a mysterious way for him to move until you listen to his views on many political and health issues, which are of the libertarian kind that would make him right at home on X.
Jon,
That is an excellent piece by Knox. It was good to see that Twitter is on the way out, despite me being still on it. I tend not to see many of the incels and other halfwits as I am a furious blocker of halfwits and ads. In the latter case it keeps asking me if I’d like to upgrade (i.e. pay to be ad-free), I simply reply ‘maybe later’. I occasionally use it to provide content here, mostly about cookers, trumpettes and other halfwits. However, I do have a badge of honour on Twitter in that Elmo blocked me some time ago. I spend more time on Mastodon and Threads (owned by another fwit billionaire, Zukky). The first of these is excellent and completely lacks fwits as far as I can tell. As soon as a server with fwits pops it stupid heaad above the parapet, it is ‘defederated’ (i.e. dropped of the system). There are some bloody smart people on there too. Threads is a bit bland, but there are no cookers or trumpettes on there that I have seen; however, there are occasional religious nutters who are easily dealt with by such posts as ‘Which god? There are thousands to choose from.” or similar. They tend to go away pretty quickly. I also tried Tribel, but have given that away as it is almost entirely American and fairly small.