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The media is hellbent on pushing the narrative that Musk is destroying Twitter. It’s actually kind of wild. You see it on here too. I think Musk’s product visi

The media is hellbent on pushing the narrative that Musk is destroying Twitter. It’s actually kind of wild. You see it on here too. I think Musk’s product vision is noble and clear: to make Twitter as neutral and transparent a speech platform as possible. No soft censoring, algorithmic manipulation, etc. You can imagine why certain groups would be against that. And rooting out “extremism” is not it, despite what they say.

dragontamer 3y ago
> No soft censoring Of course. Only the hardcore and literal censoring from Turkey.
- confoundcofound 3y ago
  I don’t believe the the US government ever threatened to take Twitter down if it didn’t comply with their censor requests. It’s just that those requests happened to align politically with those running Twitter Trust & Safety. My understanding is that Erdojan threatened to throttle the site for the entire country - a cost that maybe you or I may not have incurred if we were in that position. At the very least, Twitter was transparent about the content restriction, which is certainly better than how the previous team operated.
  - dragontamer 3y ago
    https://restofworld.org/2023/elon-musk-twitter-government-orders/ https://restofworld.org/2023/elon-musk-twitter-government-or... Twitter used to reject more censorship requests. Now they're accepting more of them after Mr. Musk has become the owner. I'm comparing Twitter pre-Musk vs Twitter post-Musk. > Most alarmingly, Twitter's self-reports do not show a single request in which the company refused to comply, as it had done several times before the Musk takeover.
  - foogazi 3y ago
    > My understanding is that Erdojan threatened to throttle the site for the entire country now we know what it takes to shut up a free speech absolutist
Krisjohn 3y ago
[flagged]
- dang 3y ago
  Please don't, regardless of how wrong someone is or you feel they are. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
aplummer 3y ago
> I think Musk’s product vision is noble and clear: to make Twitter as neutral and transparent a speech platform as possible. No soft censoring, algorithmic manipulation, etc. You should look up (or speak to ex twitter employees) about how pro censorship and pro-algorithmic manipulation he has been. The difference is when the topic is related to him or his companies.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
croes 3y ago
Yeah sure https://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-leaked-internal-message-suggests-musk-ordered-leftwing-account-freeze-2023-1 https://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-leaked-internal-mess...
caconym_ 3y ago
N = 1 and all that but the change to elevate blue check accounts actually organically made me stop using Twitter. I respect their right to monetize however they feel is best, but it elevated the most ignorant and illiberal and downright hateful and toxic tweets from the dullest and most ignorant and generally worst people the platform has to offer. It simply made the platform unpleasant to use in the way its UX had previously encouraged me to use it, so I stopped. Maybe I'm alone in not wanting to see (real example off the top of my head) apologia for a mass shooter's neo-nazi tattoos pushed to the top of my feed in the interest of "neutral and transparent free speech". But I don't think so.
- Freedom2 3y ago
  GP probably thinks it's important that anti-mask, anti-vaccine, pro-violence rhetoric makes its way to the top of the replies in the name of "free speech".
  - ori_b 3y ago
    Meanwhile: https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2023/5/2/twitter-fulfilling-more-government-censorship-requests-under-musk https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2023/5/2/twitter-fulfillin... > The social media giant fully or partially complied with 98.8 percent of takedown requests it received from October 27, the date of Musk’s takeover, to April 13, including hundreds of requests from Turkey and India, which have faced criticism for silencing critics. > Twitter fully complied with 440, or 50 percent, of requests and partially complied with 377, or 42 percent, during the 12-month period before Musk’s takeover.
  - dragontamer 3y ago
    Meanwhile, legitimate newspapers like "Kyiv Independent" is getting deprioritized right now. Because its become obvious that Elon is anti-Ukrainian with a huge number of his actions.
    - remote_phone 3y ago
      He’s been paying for the Starlink connection that the Ukrainian army has been using in the field. Tell me again how he’s anti-Ukrainian?
pfisch 3y ago
Remember when musk banned the guy reporting public flight information with a fake rule he made up that isn't actually enforced except when it is in musks favor.
- astrange 3y ago
  He's also changed site policy 2-3 times purely to annoy NPR and spends his free time trying to suck up to an right wing account named "catturd2" run by a Florida retiree.
jackmott42 3y ago
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/twitter-hate-speech-unprecedented-study-elon-musk_n_638a9d3ae4b0214ec97f7698 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/twitter-hate-speech-unprecede...
23B1 3y ago
While you’re right the media is desperate (as always) to unseat their favorite foes – tech bros – Elon has been anything but consistent in how he applies neutrality and transparency. I hate purity tests, but when it comes to censorship you can’t flip-flop on it.
afavour 3y ago
In addition to the points made by sibling replies I’ll also point out that the crashed Twitter Space was one where Musk helped a Republican presidential candidate launch his campaign. No matter which party is involved, that’s not something a neutral speech platform would ever involve itself in.
- confoundcofound 3y ago
  You think he wouldn’t do the same for a Democrat?
  - afavour 3y ago
    Not the point. The CEO being the interviewer is an automatic failure in neutrality. Which questions he chooses to ask, the tone in which he asks them, the statements he lets go unquestioned, etc etc etc, these are all subjective choices that are anything but neutral. Not to mention, step outside the two party lens for a second. If he does this for democrats and republicans then surely he needs to do it for absolutely anyone that declares a presidential candidacy? To do otherwise would be to endorse the two party political establishment, also not a neutral statement. A truly neutral Twitter would have no problem hosting a Space where a person announces their candidacy. But it would have no further involvement.
    - phpisthebest 3y ago
      So to you, interviewing someone makes you not neutral? I wonder how you feel about media then?
      - afavour 3y ago
        I don’t know why you’d think my feelings about the media is some sort of gotcha question, it’s precisely the point. The criticisms I’m laying out here (including the fact that, yes, interviewers have bias) are exactly the criticisms I and many others would level at corporate media. Despite his claims Musk is emulating them, not proving some radical alternative.
rkho 3y ago
I find it incredibly strange that The Atlantic, a publication I used to have tremendous amounts of respect for, put out an article the other day saying that Twitter has become some alt-right bastion equivalent to Truth Social and Parler[1]. And, of course, this article was boosted from The Atlantic's Verified Organization Twitter account[2]. Seems like they see the value in paying $1000/mo for the gold check on Twitter, even though it's now a "far right social network". I'd like to believe that they just want to make sure they have a presence on every social network to spread awareness and diversity of opinion, but I can't seem to find them on Truth Social[3]. So, has Twitter truly "evolved into a platform that is indistinguishable from the wastelands of alternative social-media sites such as Truth Social" if The Atlantic still finds it valuable to have a presence on Twitter? It's beyond transparent what legacy media is doing here, and it's quite sad to see. [1]: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/05/elon-musk-ron-desantis-2024-twitter/674149/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/05/elon-... [2]: https://twitter.com/theatlantic/status/1661113356277653507?s=46&t=nR9Ir12G4SqOrGpp4OQlmg https://twitter.com/theatlantic/status/1661113356277653507?s... [3]: https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Atruthsocial.com+%22The+Atlantic%22&rlz=1CDGOYI_enUS659US659&oq=site%3Atruthsocial.com+%22The+Atlantic%22&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i58.13525j0j4&hl=en-US&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Atruthsocial.com+%22Th...
- Capricorn2481 3y ago
  They're completely right if you're paying any attention
- aintgonnatakeit 3y ago
  Your argument is manipulative and fallacious. I doubt you have ever subscribed to the Atlantic. 1. Authors of articles do not necessarily reflect the viewpoint of the owners of a publication, except for articles clearly listed as editorial and representing the authors. 2. It is possible to believe that Twitter had become a racist alt-right hellsite (hint, it has) and yet want to connect with readers or potential readers. This is a commercial decision. 3. I’m curious what you think legacy media is doing since you provide no details and the rest of your post suggests you share some disturbing opinions on “MSM.”
csdreamer7 3y ago
> I think Musk’s product vision is noble and clear: to make Twitter as neutral and transparent a speech platform as possible. No soft censoring, algorithmic manipulation, etc. You can imagine why certain groups would be against that. My account was deleted around the same time many reporters who reported on elonjet in the past had. Maybe because I had retweeted elonjet in the past and posted. I do not know-I was never notified in email about it. Claiming he wants to create a "neutral and transparent a speech platform as possible" when Elon Musk does things like this after taking over Twitter is ridiculous! https://people.com/human-interest/twitter-accounts-belonging-to-journalists-who-cover-elon-musk-deactivated-as-ceo-cites-doxxing/ https://people.com/human-interest/twitter-accounts-belonging...
JoeAltmaier 3y ago
That sounds like some first-class apologizing and rewriting of fact. Certain groups include everybody that would like some relief from slander, yellow journalism and plain wholesale fabrication. Especially when the slant benefits Himself. Hard censoring I guess; crushing his opponents any anybody who dares speak against him.
mattacular 3y ago
> I think Musk’s product vision is noble and clear: to make Twitter as neutral and transparent a speech platform as possible. I don't think you have any idea what you're talking about. One of the most obvious changes is sorting the responses of people who pay for Twitter to the top of every reply thread.
astrange 3y ago
It instead has hard censoring, since he's fired all the lawyers and personally owns other businesses in Turkey, China and India, and therefore has stopped resisting anytime they demand posts be taken down. Twitter was previously the company that fought such requests the hardest and often won. And he's turned up all the algorithms 4x as hard, it defaults to a "for you" page that's full of viral accounts posting fight videos.
- astrange 3y ago
  …funny followup here, my main account got permabanned just now for "evading account suspensions" (which I've never done.) I mean, it's probably just a bug and they'll fix it on appeal but you never know…
  - hedora 3y ago
    Congratulations, you've discovered the corp-speak equivalent of being arrested for avoiding arrest!
    - astrange 3y ago
      Seems like it happened to a lot of people and was fixed. I've done the same thing myself on forums, but I didn't have a budget for my spam filter team.
scarface_74 3y ago
https://techcrunch.com/2022/12/14/elon-jet-the-twitter-account-tracking-elon-musks-flights-was-permanently-suspended/ https://techcrunch.com/2022/12/14/elon-jet-the-twitter-accou... https://techcrunch.com/2022/11/08/what-is-mastodon/ https://techcrunch.com/2022/11/08/what-is-mastodon/ https://newrepublic.com/post/171743/elon-musk-nuking-substack-twitter https://newrepublic.com/post/171743/elon-musk-nuking-substac...
benced 3y ago
It seems like if you were trying to do that, you wouldn’t personally co-host the announcement of any Presidential candidate.
djbusby 3y ago
Elon stated vision and his actions don't seem to match up.
EFreethought 3y ago
I have an account that is still active, and I get an email from twitter with some tweets every day. And every single day, the first tweet is from right-wing nutjob named Lara Logan. I do not follow her. I looked at her stream once (which was enough). I honestly do not understand why Mr Neutrality has HER as the first tweet every single day.
discordance 3y ago
There's literally an algorithm that ranks up paid blue tick messages above others. How is that neutral? The blue tick vitriol at the top of any thread has really turned me off reading any comments at all.
- cypress66 3y ago
  I believe it's always been like that.
nborwankar 3y ago
His product vision is to make it into a one stop application with all media and e-commerce - something he calls X. The whole free speech platform thing is a distraction. There’s no money in free speech. It’s just a way to lure maximum number of people to the platform.
lumb63 3y ago
There are a lot of replies beneath you attacking Musk and his vision/execution on Twitter. They mostly address the second half of your post, but most people are ignoring the first half. A prominent media outlet is running what amounts to nothing more than a smear article against Musk/Twitter. Why? If this were an isolated occurrence, I’d write it off as strange and move on, but it isn’t. Dozens of media outlets are pushing similar content. And every time the subject comes up, the replies are filled with terse and snarky comments along the lines of “Musk bad because <reason I gleaned from smear campaign against Musk>”. I haven’t used Twitter in years, so I can’t comment on the UX. I haven’t stayed incredibly up-to-date on all the goings-on, so I can’t provide citations or rebuttals. Maybe the site is truly that bad, that it is worth the entire Internet hammering home every single day now. It seems more likely to me that it is the other way around and the Internet decided Twitter was going to be bad once Musk purchased it. I say the above because, how many outsiders would have noticed any changes based on their usage of Twitter? Would users have known about the mass layoffs? Has the site experience degraded as a result of that, or was Musk right that most people were doing nothing? Would users have known about changes in the content recommendation algorithm, or were they hyper-alert to changes on their feed because it was widely reported? These are half-honest questions because I really don’t know as a non-user, but also somewhat rhetorical because I suspect the answer is no.
SecretDreams 3y ago
Twitter was a shit hole before, and it is now still a shit hole. Of course, I think the hole has gotten deeper since Musk took over and I don't find his goals noble or at all altruistic.. but we can have different opinions in this dystopian world where Musk is viewed to embrace free speech.

dragontamer 3y ago

> No soft censoring Of course. Only the hardcore and literal censoring from Turkey.

confoundcofound 3y ago
I don’t believe the the US government ever threatened to take Twitter down if it didn’t comply with their censor requests. It’s just that those requests happened to align politically with those running Twitter Trust & Safety. My understanding is that Erdojan threatened to throttle the site for the entire country - a cost that maybe you or I may not have incurred if we were in that position. At the very least, Twitter was transparent about the content restriction, which is certainly better than how the previous team operated.
- dragontamer 3y ago
  https://restofworld.org/2023/elon-musk-twitter-government-orders/ https://restofworld.org/2023/elon-musk-twitter-government-or... Twitter used to reject more censorship requests. Now they're accepting more of them after Mr. Musk has become the owner. I'm comparing Twitter pre-Musk vs Twitter post-Musk. > Most alarmingly, Twitter's self-reports do not show a single request in which the company refused to comply, as it had done several times before the Musk takeover.
- foogazi 3y ago
  > My understanding is that Erdojan threatened to throttle the site for the entire country now we know what it takes to shut up a free speech absolutist

Krisjohn 3y ago

[flagged]

dang 3y ago
Please don't, regardless of how wrong someone is or you feel they are. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

aplummer 3y ago

> I think Musk’s product vision is noble and clear: to make Twitter as neutral and transparent a speech platform as possible. No soft censoring, algorithmic manipulation, etc. You should look up (or speak to ex twitter employees) about how pro censorship and pro-algorithmic manipulation he has been. The difference is when the topic is related to him or his companies.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

croes 3y ago

Yeah sure https://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-leaked-internal-message-suggests-musk-ordered-leftwing-account-freeze-2023-1 https://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-leaked-internal-mess...

caconym_ 3y ago

N = 1 and all that but the change to elevate blue check accounts actually organically made me stop using Twitter. I respect their right to monetize however they feel is best, but it elevated the most ignorant and illiberal and downright hateful and toxic tweets from the dullest and most ignorant and generally worst people the platform has to offer. It simply made the platform unpleasant to use in the way its UX had previously encouraged me to use it, so I stopped. Maybe I'm alone in not wanting to see (real example off the top of my head) apologia for a mass shooter's neo-nazi tattoos pushed to the top of my feed in the interest of "neutral and transparent free speech". But I don't think so.

Freedom2 3y ago
GP probably thinks it's important that anti-mask, anti-vaccine, pro-violence rhetoric makes its way to the top of the replies in the name of "free speech".
- ori_b 3y ago
  Meanwhile: https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2023/5/2/twitter-fulfilling-more-government-censorship-requests-under-musk https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2023/5/2/twitter-fulfillin... > The social media giant fully or partially complied with 98.8 percent of takedown requests it received from October 27, the date of Musk’s takeover, to April 13, including hundreds of requests from Turkey and India, which have faced criticism for silencing critics. > Twitter fully complied with 440, or 50 percent, of requests and partially complied with 377, or 42 percent, during the 12-month period before Musk’s takeover.
- dragontamer 3y ago
  Meanwhile, legitimate newspapers like "Kyiv Independent" is getting deprioritized right now. Because its become obvious that Elon is anti-Ukrainian with a huge number of his actions.
  - remote_phone 3y ago
    He’s been paying for the Starlink connection that the Ukrainian army has been using in the field. Tell me again how he’s anti-Ukrainian?

pfisch 3y ago

Remember when musk banned the guy reporting public flight information with a fake rule he made up that isn't actually enforced except when it is in musks favor.

astrange 3y ago
He's also changed site policy 2-3 times purely to annoy NPR and spends his free time trying to suck up to an right wing account named "catturd2" run by a Florida retiree.

jackmott42 3y ago

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/twitter-hate-speech-unprecedented-study-elon-musk_n_638a9d3ae4b0214ec97f7698 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/twitter-hate-speech-unprecede...

23B1 3y ago

While you’re right the media is desperate (as always) to unseat their favorite foes – tech bros – Elon has been anything but consistent in how he applies neutrality and transparency. I hate purity tests, but when it comes to censorship you can’t flip-flop on it.

afavour 3y ago

In addition to the points made by sibling replies I’ll also point out that the crashed Twitter Space was one where Musk helped a Republican presidential candidate launch his campaign. No matter which party is involved, that’s not something a neutral speech platform would ever involve itself in.

confoundcofound 3y ago
You think he wouldn’t do the same for a Democrat?
- afavour 3y ago
  Not the point. The CEO being the interviewer is an automatic failure in neutrality. Which questions he chooses to ask, the tone in which he asks them, the statements he lets go unquestioned, etc etc etc, these are all subjective choices that are anything but neutral. Not to mention, step outside the two party lens for a second. If he does this for democrats and republicans then surely he needs to do it for absolutely anyone that declares a presidential candidacy? To do otherwise would be to endorse the two party political establishment, also not a neutral statement. A truly neutral Twitter would have no problem hosting a Space where a person announces their candidacy. But it would have no further involvement.
  - phpisthebest 3y ago
    So to you, interviewing someone makes you not neutral? I wonder how you feel about media then?
    - afavour 3y ago
      I don’t know why you’d think my feelings about the media is some sort of gotcha question, it’s precisely the point. The criticisms I’m laying out here (including the fact that, yes, interviewers have bias) are exactly the criticisms I and many others would level at corporate media. Despite his claims Musk is emulating them, not proving some radical alternative.

rkho 3y ago

I find it incredibly strange that The Atlantic, a publication I used to have tremendous amounts of respect for, put out an article the other day saying that Twitter has become some alt-right bastion equivalent to Truth Social and Parler[1]. And, of course, this article was boosted from The Atlantic's Verified Organization Twitter account[2]. Seems like they see the value in paying $1000/mo for the gold check on Twitter, even though it's now a "far right social network". I'd like to believe that they just want to make sure they have a presence on every social network to spread awareness and diversity of opinion, but I can't seem to find them on Truth Social[3]. So, has Twitter truly "evolved into a platform that is indistinguishable from the wastelands of alternative social-media sites such as Truth Social" if The Atlantic still finds it valuable to have a presence on Twitter? It's beyond transparent what legacy media is doing here, and it's quite sad to see. [1]: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/05/elon-musk-ron-desantis-2024-twitter/674149/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/05/elon-... [2]: https://twitter.com/theatlantic/status/1661113356277653507?s=46&t=nR9Ir12G4SqOrGpp4OQlmg https://twitter.com/theatlantic/status/1661113356277653507?s... [3]: https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Atruthsocial.com+%22The+Atlantic%22&rlz=1CDGOYI_enUS659US659&oq=site%3Atruthsocial.com+%22The+Atlantic%22&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i58.13525j0j4&hl=en-US&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Atruthsocial.com+%22Th...

Capricorn2481 3y ago
They're completely right if you're paying any attention
aintgonnatakeit 3y ago
Your argument is manipulative and fallacious. I doubt you have ever subscribed to the Atlantic. 1. Authors of articles do not necessarily reflect the viewpoint of the owners of a publication, except for articles clearly listed as editorial and representing the authors. 2. It is possible to believe that Twitter had become a racist alt-right hellsite (hint, it has) and yet want to connect with readers or potential readers. This is a commercial decision. 3. I’m curious what you think legacy media is doing since you provide no details and the rest of your post suggests you share some disturbing opinions on “MSM.”

csdreamer7 3y ago

> I think Musk’s product vision is noble and clear: to make Twitter as neutral and transparent a speech platform as possible. No soft censoring, algorithmic manipulation, etc. You can imagine why certain groups would be against that. My account was deleted around the same time many reporters who reported on elonjet in the past had. Maybe because I had retweeted elonjet in the past and posted. I do not know-I was never notified in email about it. Claiming he wants to create a "neutral and transparent a speech platform as possible" when Elon Musk does things like this after taking over Twitter is ridiculous! https://people.com/human-interest/twitter-accounts-belonging-to-journalists-who-cover-elon-musk-deactivated-as-ceo-cites-doxxing/ https://people.com/human-interest/twitter-accounts-belonging...

JoeAltmaier 3y ago

That sounds like some first-class apologizing and rewriting of fact. Certain groups include everybody that would like some relief from slander, yellow journalism and plain wholesale fabrication. Especially when the slant benefits Himself. Hard censoring I guess; crushing his opponents any anybody who dares speak against him.

mattacular 3y ago

> I think Musk’s product vision is noble and clear: to make Twitter as neutral and transparent a speech platform as possible. I don't think you have any idea what you're talking about. One of the most obvious changes is sorting the responses of people who pay for Twitter to the top of every reply thread.

astrange 3y ago

It instead has hard censoring, since he's fired all the lawyers and personally owns other businesses in Turkey, China and India, and therefore has stopped resisting anytime they demand posts be taken down. Twitter was previously the company that fought such requests the hardest and often won. And he's turned up all the algorithms 4x as hard, it defaults to a "for you" page that's full of viral accounts posting fight videos.

astrange 3y ago
…funny followup here, my main account got permabanned just now for "evading account suspensions" (which I've never done.) I mean, it's probably just a bug and they'll fix it on appeal but you never know…
- hedora 3y ago
  Congratulations, you've discovered the corp-speak equivalent of being arrested for avoiding arrest!
  - astrange 3y ago
    Seems like it happened to a lot of people and was fixed. I've done the same thing myself on forums, but I didn't have a budget for my spam filter team.

scarface_74 3y ago

https://techcrunch.com/2022/12/14/elon-jet-the-twitter-account-tracking-elon-musks-flights-was-permanently-suspended/ https://techcrunch.com/2022/12/14/elon-jet-the-twitter-accou... https://techcrunch.com/2022/11/08/what-is-mastodon/ https://techcrunch.com/2022/11/08/what-is-mastodon/ https://newrepublic.com/post/171743/elon-musk-nuking-substack-twitter https://newrepublic.com/post/171743/elon-musk-nuking-substac...

benced 3y ago

It seems like if you were trying to do that, you wouldn’t personally co-host the announcement of any Presidential candidate.

djbusby 3y ago

Elon stated vision and his actions don't seem to match up.

EFreethought 3y ago

I have an account that is still active, and I get an email from twitter with some tweets every day. And every single day, the first tweet is from right-wing nutjob named Lara Logan. I do not follow her. I looked at her stream once (which was enough). I honestly do not understand why Mr Neutrality has HER as the first tweet every single day.

discordance 3y ago

There's literally an algorithm that ranks up paid blue tick messages above others. How is that neutral? The blue tick vitriol at the top of any thread has really turned me off reading any comments at all.

cypress66 3y ago
I believe it's always been like that.

nborwankar 3y ago

His product vision is to make it into a one stop application with all media and e-commerce - something he calls X. The whole free speech platform thing is a distraction. There’s no money in free speech. It’s just a way to lure maximum number of people to the platform.

lumb63 3y ago

There are a lot of replies beneath you attacking Musk and his vision/execution on Twitter. They mostly address the second half of your post, but most people are ignoring the first half. A prominent media outlet is running what amounts to nothing more than a smear article against Musk/Twitter. Why? If this were an isolated occurrence, I’d write it off as strange and move on, but it isn’t. Dozens of media outlets are pushing similar content. And every time the subject comes up, the replies are filled with terse and snarky comments along the lines of “Musk bad because <reason I gleaned from smear campaign against Musk>”. I haven’t used Twitter in years, so I can’t comment on the UX. I haven’t stayed incredibly up-to-date on all the goings-on, so I can’t provide citations or rebuttals. Maybe the site is truly that bad, that it is worth the entire Internet hammering home every single day now. It seems more likely to me that it is the other way around and the Internet decided Twitter was going to be bad once Musk purchased it. I say the above because, how many outsiders would have noticed any changes based on their usage of Twitter? Would users have known about the mass layoffs? Has the site experience degraded as a result of that, or was Musk right that most people were doing nothing? Would users have known about changes in the content recommendation algorithm, or were they hyper-alert to changes on their feed because it was widely reported? These are half-honest questions because I really don’t know as a non-user, but also somewhat rhetorical because I suspect the answer is no.

SecretDreams 3y ago

Twitter was a shit hole before, and it is now still a shit hole. Of course, I think the hole has gotten deeper since Musk took over and I don't find his goals noble or at all altruistic.. but we can have different opinions in this dystopian world where Musk is viewed to embrace free speech.