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X isn't dead, nor is it dying. Elon Musk took away a bunch of people's status, people who thought they were important somebodies because some nerds in an offic

X isn't dead, nor is it dying. Elon Musk took away a bunch of people's status, people who thought they were important somebodies because some nerds in an office met them in person and/or they paid some money to get a verification mark. That's what happened. It's the election of Donald Trump all over again. One of the few people who actually understood what happened in the 2016 election - and was able to articulate it - was a guy who I actually cannot stand politically, but who happened to be 100% right - Thaddeus Russell. That election was about the common people finally getting one over on the elites, and the elites freaked the fuck out about it. Well same fucking thing about Twitter / X. A bunch of journalists - a profession generally and historically associated with the lower and middle class - have been / are being absorbed into the elite social classes of America, and they had a special widdle mark that gave them abilities the rest of the hoi polloi didn't have... and Elon Musk came around and he didn't just take it away from them - he did something worse. Same for the academics. Same for the so-called "thought leaders". He gave it to the common people. He put the elites and the commoners on equal footing... and they freaked the fuck out about it. X is not dying. It just isn't lorded over by the elites any longer. And they can't fucking stand it. Good. The Internet was supposed to be The Great Leveler anyway. We weren't supposed to have gigantic centralized platforms where only approved speech from the Party is allowed. The sooner the rest of these enormous social media platforms either die or radically change, the better. X didn't die, isn't dying, and won't die. The people you - whoever you is reading this - just don't post there any longer because Elon took away their toys and they can't stand it. And yes, the "you" in the above refers to me too... a lot of the people I followed on X no longer post there. Their loss, not mine. Nothing changed except everyone is allowed to use the megaphone now.

wharvle 3y ago
Musk said a couple weeks back that the loss of advertisers will “kill” Twitter, but it’s ok because “the world will judge them” (the advertisers) But maybe he was joking. Sure didn’t seem to be, but who knows. Or he’s wrong.
- vGPU 3y ago
  Musk has enough money to single-handedly pay for the costs of running twitter for the next few centuries, and nobody in their right mind would actually let twitter be “killed”.
  - wharvle 3y ago
    I dunno. Weird that he said it like it was going to happen, then, instead of saying he wouldn’t let it die. But he says a lot of weird stuff, so maybe this is one of those cases where we’re supposed to assume he’s just saying gibberish that doesn’t mean anything.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
gpspake 3y ago
Who are the nebulous "elites" and are you suggesting that Musk and Trump don't belong in that number? It seems like the argument is that the sheep got one over on the _maybe_ wolves by... rallying behind a couple of _definitely_ wolves who threw on some crummy sheep costumes?
- chankstein38 3y ago
  Don't you love when people do that? lol "Trump and Musk aren't like the elites!" like oh I didn't realize your normal, everyday, average Joe could just leverage their assets and spend $44bn to buy a platform just to ~destroy it~ sorry, make it better by making sure no one posts there.
  - woooooo 3y ago
    I think when people say this, they're using "elite" to signal a mentality rather a wealth level. Consider a wealthy, business-owning tradesman and a broke ivy league post-doc. Who sounds more "elite" in their mannerisms? "Professional/managerial class conformist" might be more precise but it's pretty clunky.
    - JohnFen 3y ago
      > they're using "elite" to signal a mentality Given the nonsensical things I've seen declared "elite" and "nonelite", I'm certain that "elite" is just used as a synonym for "whoever I currently hate".
      - woooooo 3y ago
        There's that too, plus the fact that using the word "elite" is itself something that mostly the elite do.
        staunton 3y ago
        In my experience that's false.
jpalawaga 3y ago
I’m not sure I agree that this is close to reality. The reality is much more benign. Musk isn’t the savior of free speech, he inserts rules against it constantly, like throttling nyt or saying they’ll comply with authoritarian states. He’s complains about spam and bots (despite claiming it’s an easy problem to solve) then changes verification in a way the makes it difficult know who is actually who. Separately, you seem very bitter toward people who have left twitter after Elon changed it. Perhaps because with the voices of the elite (a politically loaded term you’re using to describe experts or people at the top of their fields) departing, the platform is less valuable and interesting. The sad thing is, I think Elon could have been a good steward for the platform, but instead he’d rather antagonize advertisers and a subset of his users. That’s not being the great leveler though—if people select out, it’s no longer a common/shared space for everyone.
- listenallyall 3y ago
  How is throttling the New York Times on X anti-free speech? NYT is its own media platform, among the most powerful in the world, why should it expect a separate outlet to promote it? Further, as a powerful media outlet, the Times itself "throttles" all kinds of voices and opinions with which its editorial board and majority of its employees and readers don't agree.
  - digging 3y ago
    The narrative that Musk is "opening" Twitter is false. The game has not changed, he just swapped out some of the rules for ones he personally likes better. For example, deadnaming trans people is now protected speech, but calling a cis person "cis" is punishable. I do not care what your opinion on trans people is - this is a double standard and is not "free speech absolutism". He also banned an account that was posting public data about his personal jets. He is afraid of absolute free speech (which is reasonable - most people are).
    - listenallyall 3y ago
      That's an entirely different, unrelated argument. I asked about the New York Times, which is just as powerful and influential (probably moreso) as Twitter. NYT content is not free for Twitter users to read, why should it be able to use Twitter for free to essentially mine for subscribers?
segasaturn 3y ago
I feel like you may be overvaluing the importance of the blue checkmark icon.
- wharvle 3y ago
  To the extent people were bothered by the change, I think it was mostly because the blue check is primarily a benefit to Twitter to make it easier to spot people impersonating folks who are worth impersonating. Making it pay-to-play defeated the whole reason for its existence.
mcphage 3y ago
> a lot of the people I followed on X no longer post there. Their loss, not mine. Nothing changed except everyone is allowed to use the megaphone now. That's a weird take. The people whose posts you wanted to read no longer post on X, but also nothing has changed? It would seem you're describing a personally significant change right there.
- randomdata 3y ago
  > The people whose posts you wanted to read no longer post on X, but also nothing has changed?' He is saying that there was no meaningful change to the Twitter software that would diminish previous value found in posting on Twitter. You post your dumb quip and it shows up in other people's feeds just as it did before Musk.
  - mcphage 3y ago
    > there was no meaningful change to the Twitter software Social networks are more about the people in the community than the technical specifics. I didn't join twitter because they had an amazing way to input 140 characters, I joined because there were people I liked there.
    - randomdata 3y ago
      Yes, that's what the rest of the comment says – that the people left due to a change in the social dynamic. What's with all the replying without reading going on around here lately? Another Reddit boycott going on?
      - mcphage 3y ago
        > Yes, that's what the rest of the comment says – that the people left due to a change in the social dynamic. The comment: "The people you - whoever you is reading this - just don't post there any longer because Elon took away their toys and they can't stand it." > What's with all the replying without reading going on around here lately? I dunno, you tell me.
chankstein38 3y ago
I only have a few anecdotal pieces of evidence but I know of two people, who didn't give a damn about checkmarks, who have stopped using twitter because it's unusable now. They were die-hard twitter users who were on it every day but now they don't even open it. They were also the only two twitter-obsessed folks I know and now both of them have no interest. Again, just anecdotes but I feel like that's more evidence than you're sharing in this comment.
- briantakita 3y ago
  Maybe we are better off with less obsession with tech platforms
smeagull 3y ago
Okay, let's go visit X to see how alive it is. Oh, a login screen. Yeah they're dead.
nuker 3y ago
[flagged]
- progrus 3y ago
  Oh really? Which group are you? That election was about people with common sense getting one over on the brainwashed mids, obviously.
  - nuker 3y ago
    And all of those "brainwashed mids" just randomly happen to live close to cities, where housing is more expensive, meaning higher income, which means higher education levels.
    - progrus 3y ago
      Common sense is more valuable (in the real sense, not just money) than a diploma. And, the GPT revolution is making traditional education even less important than before. “Hate all you want, but I'm smart, I'm so smart, and I'm in school. These guys are out here making money all these ways, and I'm spending mine to be smart. You know why? Because when I die, buddy, know what's gonna keep me warm? That's right, those degrees.” - Kanye West
      - nuker 3y ago
        > Common sense is more valuable You assume that people with high income/education have less common sense. Correct?
        jaakl 3y ago
        Common sense has a new meaning nowadays: it is just opposite of educated. And in that semantic space education = brainwashing. So yes, by that definition higher education (etc) leads to less common sense.
        3y ago
wkat4242 3y ago
Voting for one of the elites does not really make you get one over on the elites. For all Trump's yapping about draining the swamp, his swamp was a lot smellier. And guess how billionaires become billionaires? By screwing over poorer people as much they can. They just fell for the trap, that's all.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
TMWNN 3y ago
>That's what happened. It's the election of Donald Trump all over again. One of the few people who actually understood what happened in the 2016 election - and was able to articulate it - was a guy who I actually cannot stand politically, but who happened to be 100% right - Thaddeus Russell. That election was about the common people finally getting one over on the elites, and the elites freaked the fuck out about it. Some people get it. From before the 2016 election: <http://www.vox.com/2016/4/21/11451378/smug-american-liberalism http://www.vox.com/2016/4/21/11451378/smug-american-liberali...> <http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reasons-trumps-rise-that-no-one-talks-about/ http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reasons-trumps-rise-that-no-on...> (so, so prophetic in why the Rust Belt broke for Trump) and after: <http://www.cbsnews.com/news/commentary-the-unbearable-smugness-of-the-press-presidential-election-2016/ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/commentary-the-unbearable-smugne...> The New York Times pointed out after Trump's election stunned the press that <http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/09/business/media/media-trump-clinton.html http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/09/business/media/media-trump...> >Whatever the election result, you’re going to hear a lot from news executives about how they need to send their reporters out into the heart of the country, to better understand its citizenry. >But that will miss something fundamental. Flyover country isn’t a place, it’s a state of mind — it’s in parts of Long Island and Queens, much of Staten Island, certain neighborhoods of Miami or even Chicago. And, yes, it largely — but hardly exclusively — pertains to working-class white people. In other words, it isn't just a question of The New York Times (and the TV networks, and pretty much all of the rest of mass media) completely ignoring the rubes out in rural Michigan and Pennsylvania and Wisconsin (which all, strangely enough, unexpectedly voted for Trump), but their ignoring the residents of their own city, just across one bridge.
dorkwood 3y ago
> The people you - whoever you is reading this - just don't post there any longer because Elon took away their toys and they can't stand it. Not quite. I used to get work through Twitter until Elon made it so you need a subscription to DM people. I used to get about one DM per week, but I haven't had any for about 3 months.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Always_Anon 3y ago
Watching leftists flip flop on free speech in real time after Elon took over gave me whiplash.

wharvle 3y ago

Musk said a couple weeks back that the loss of advertisers will “kill” Twitter, but it’s ok because “the world will judge them” (the advertisers) But maybe he was joking. Sure didn’t seem to be, but who knows. Or he’s wrong.

vGPU 3y ago
Musk has enough money to single-handedly pay for the costs of running twitter for the next few centuries, and nobody in their right mind would actually let twitter be “killed”.
- wharvle 3y ago
  I dunno. Weird that he said it like it was going to happen, then, instead of saying he wouldn’t let it die. But he says a lot of weird stuff, so maybe this is one of those cases where we’re supposed to assume he’s just saying gibberish that doesn’t mean anything.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

gpspake 3y ago

Who are the nebulous "elites" and are you suggesting that Musk and Trump don't belong in that number? It seems like the argument is that the sheep got one over on the _maybe_ wolves by... rallying behind a couple of _definitely_ wolves who threw on some crummy sheep costumes?

chankstein38 3y ago
Don't you love when people do that? lol "Trump and Musk aren't like the elites!" like oh I didn't realize your normal, everyday, average Joe could just leverage their assets and spend $44bn to buy a platform just to ~destroy it~ sorry, make it better by making sure no one posts there.
- woooooo 3y ago
  I think when people say this, they're using "elite" to signal a mentality rather a wealth level. Consider a wealthy, business-owning tradesman and a broke ivy league post-doc. Who sounds more "elite" in their mannerisms? "Professional/managerial class conformist" might be more precise but it's pretty clunky.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    > they're using "elite" to signal a mentality Given the nonsensical things I've seen declared "elite" and "nonelite", I'm certain that "elite" is just used as a synonym for "whoever I currently hate".
    - woooooo 3y ago
      There's that too, plus the fact that using the word "elite" is itself something that mostly the elite do.
      - staunton 3y ago
        In my experience that's false.

jpalawaga 3y ago

I’m not sure I agree that this is close to reality. The reality is much more benign. Musk isn’t the savior of free speech, he inserts rules against it constantly, like throttling nyt or saying they’ll comply with authoritarian states. He’s complains about spam and bots (despite claiming it’s an easy problem to solve) then changes verification in a way the makes it difficult know who is actually who. Separately, you seem very bitter toward people who have left twitter after Elon changed it. Perhaps because with the voices of the elite (a politically loaded term you’re using to describe experts or people at the top of their fields) departing, the platform is less valuable and interesting. The sad thing is, I think Elon could have been a good steward for the platform, but instead he’d rather antagonize advertisers and a subset of his users. That’s not being the great leveler though—if people select out, it’s no longer a common/shared space for everyone.

listenallyall 3y ago
How is throttling the New York Times on X anti-free speech? NYT is its own media platform, among the most powerful in the world, why should it expect a separate outlet to promote it? Further, as a powerful media outlet, the Times itself "throttles" all kinds of voices and opinions with which its editorial board and majority of its employees and readers don't agree.
- digging 3y ago
  The narrative that Musk is "opening" Twitter is false. The game has not changed, he just swapped out some of the rules for ones he personally likes better. For example, deadnaming trans people is now protected speech, but calling a cis person "cis" is punishable. I do not care what your opinion on trans people is - this is a double standard and is not "free speech absolutism". He also banned an account that was posting public data about his personal jets. He is afraid of absolute free speech (which is reasonable - most people are).
  - listenallyall 3y ago
    That's an entirely different, unrelated argument. I asked about the New York Times, which is just as powerful and influential (probably moreso) as Twitter. NYT content is not free for Twitter users to read, why should it be able to use Twitter for free to essentially mine for subscribers?

segasaturn 3y ago

I feel like you may be overvaluing the importance of the blue checkmark icon.

wharvle 3y ago
To the extent people were bothered by the change, I think it was mostly because the blue check is primarily a benefit to Twitter to make it easier to spot people impersonating folks who are worth impersonating. Making it pay-to-play defeated the whole reason for its existence.

mcphage 3y ago

> a lot of the people I followed on X no longer post there. Their loss, not mine. Nothing changed except everyone is allowed to use the megaphone now. That's a weird take. The people whose posts you wanted to read no longer post on X, but also nothing has changed? It would seem you're describing a personally significant change right there.

randomdata 3y ago
> The people whose posts you wanted to read no longer post on X, but also nothing has changed?' He is saying that there was no meaningful change to the Twitter software that would diminish previous value found in posting on Twitter. You post your dumb quip and it shows up in other people's feeds just as it did before Musk.
- mcphage 3y ago
  > there was no meaningful change to the Twitter software Social networks are more about the people in the community than the technical specifics. I didn't join twitter because they had an amazing way to input 140 characters, I joined because there were people I liked there.
  - randomdata 3y ago
    Yes, that's what the rest of the comment says – that the people left due to a change in the social dynamic. What's with all the replying without reading going on around here lately? Another Reddit boycott going on?
    - mcphage 3y ago
      > Yes, that's what the rest of the comment says – that the people left due to a change in the social dynamic. The comment: "The people you - whoever you is reading this - just don't post there any longer because Elon took away their toys and they can't stand it." > What's with all the replying without reading going on around here lately? I dunno, you tell me.

chankstein38 3y ago

I only have a few anecdotal pieces of evidence but I know of two people, who didn't give a damn about checkmarks, who have stopped using twitter because it's unusable now. They were die-hard twitter users who were on it every day but now they don't even open it. They were also the only two twitter-obsessed folks I know and now both of them have no interest. Again, just anecdotes but I feel like that's more evidence than you're sharing in this comment.

briantakita 3y ago
Maybe we are better off with less obsession with tech platforms

smeagull 3y ago

Okay, let's go visit X to see how alive it is. Oh, a login screen. Yeah they're dead.

nuker 3y ago

[flagged]

progrus 3y ago
Oh really? Which group are you? That election was about people with common sense getting one over on the brainwashed mids, obviously.
- nuker 3y ago
  And all of those "brainwashed mids" just randomly happen to live close to cities, where housing is more expensive, meaning higher income, which means higher education levels.
  - progrus 3y ago
    Common sense is more valuable (in the real sense, not just money) than a diploma. And, the GPT revolution is making traditional education even less important than before. “Hate all you want, but I'm smart, I'm so smart, and I'm in school. These guys are out here making money all these ways, and I'm spending mine to be smart. You know why? Because when I die, buddy, know what's gonna keep me warm? That's right, those degrees.” - Kanye West
    - nuker 3y ago
      > Common sense is more valuable You assume that people with high income/education have less common sense. Correct?
      - jaakl 3y ago
        Common sense has a new meaning nowadays: it is just opposite of educated. And in that semantic space education = brainwashing. So yes, by that definition higher education (etc) leads to less common sense.
        3y ago

wkat4242 3y ago

Voting for one of the elites does not really make you get one over on the elites. For all Trump's yapping about draining the swamp, his swamp was a lot smellier. And guess how billionaires become billionaires? By screwing over poorer people as much they can. They just fell for the trap, that's all.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

TMWNN 3y ago

>That's what happened. It's the election of Donald Trump all over again. One of the few people who actually understood what happened in the 2016 election - and was able to articulate it - was a guy who I actually cannot stand politically, but who happened to be 100% right - Thaddeus Russell. That election was about the common people finally getting one over on the elites, and the elites freaked the fuck out about it. Some people get it. From before the 2016 election: <http://www.vox.com/2016/4/21/11451378/smug-american-liberalism http://www.vox.com/2016/4/21/11451378/smug-american-liberali...> <http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reasons-trumps-rise-that-no-one-talks-about/ http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reasons-trumps-rise-that-no-on...> (so, so prophetic in why the Rust Belt broke for Trump) and after: <http://www.cbsnews.com/news/commentary-the-unbearable-smugness-of-the-press-presidential-election-2016/ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/commentary-the-unbearable-smugne...> The New York Times pointed out after Trump's election stunned the press that <http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/09/business/media/media-trump-clinton.html http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/09/business/media/media-trump...> >Whatever the election result, you’re going to hear a lot from news executives about how they need to send their reporters out into the heart of the country, to better understand its citizenry. >But that will miss something fundamental. Flyover country isn’t a place, it’s a state of mind — it’s in parts of Long Island and Queens, much of Staten Island, certain neighborhoods of Miami or even Chicago. And, yes, it largely — but hardly exclusively — pertains to working-class white people. In other words, it isn't just a question of The New York Times (and the TV networks, and pretty much all of the rest of mass media) completely ignoring the rubes out in rural Michigan and Pennsylvania and Wisconsin (which all, strangely enough, unexpectedly voted for Trump), but their ignoring the residents of their own city, just across one bridge.

dorkwood 3y ago

> The people you - whoever you is reading this - just don't post there any longer because Elon took away their toys and they can't stand it. Not quite. I used to get work through Twitter until Elon made it so you need a subscription to DM people. I used to get about one DM per week, but I haven't had any for about 3 months.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

Always_Anon 3y ago

Watching leftists flip flop on free speech in real time after Elon took over gave me whiplash.