I don't understand The Artist Formerly Known as Twitter. What I mean is I don't understand why people use it. I find X to be a complete chaotic jumble of nonsense. I'm an IT guy so I know how it works. I just don't understand why anyone works it. There's nothing to be learned over there, and as far as I am concerned, there never has been. I'm told "Spin, you just need to curate your feed!" I got no time for curating my feed. Unless it's a euphemism for "dealing with all the crap in your life." As we discussed, Claire, social media has been a net negative on society. X has got to be the worst of the bunch. Hopefully it simply dies off.
Second, I don't understand antisemitism. I guess I live in a bubble because most of the people around me don't, either. I did get accused of being a Nazi, in an oblique way, someone told me "That's the exact argument that Hitler used, that God has discarded the Jews." Of course I never made such argument and never would, because I think that's nonsense. But it's always easier argue against a strawman. And of course Godwin's Law is alive in well. Anyway I digress from my point: I don't understand antisemitism. I was golfing with my oldest son, and he said to me (because we were discussing this stuff) "I don't understand why anyone would be an antisemite..." I don't really understand why anyone is anti- anyone else. I can understand being anti-Zionism. Or anti-Palestinian Nationalism. Those are theories about the world that have the potential for negative impacts on specific people. So I can see why a person is against them. But why be against a certain group of people? It doesn't make any damn sense.
Now, don't get me wrong: I've been on this earth a while and met a lot of people and heard a lot of perspectives. In fact I do understand why people end up disliking or even hating other people groups. I just think that most often it's based on lies or half truths and preconceived ideas about things.
While it may not matter to most on here, the anti-trans posts and comments are often over the top. They are also trending constantly. While there's no doubt that America is trying to figure out who we are and why we are, a lot of the posts and comments are extreme misinformation and hate. I am not one who even believes in "hate speech" as a reason to shut people up, however all the hateful content on X/Twitter gives me pause. Ditto the antisemitism. For a tiny group of people, transsexual/transgender people seem to be catching a lot of attention. Again, there's no doubt there are important issues to clarify or figure out -- like youth transition, educational materials on transgender topics, and trans women in sports -- however, again so many of the tweets are hateful. sO many spread dubious ideas. Some even call for our death or... close. So I am not sure what to say. It is disturbing and disgusting but what does one do? For my own mental health, I need to stay away from X I guess, but easier said than done.
So Claire, you bring up valid concerns. Encouraging people to think hateful and ugly thoughts about any group of people by simply exposing them night and day to those ideas, is... troubling... Yes, of course he's losing advertisers since what company wants to be so closely associated with so much ugliness. Again, not sure what the solution is except Elon getting a grip and throttling some of the more extremist ugliness. That likely won't happen. The other issue that exremist and hateful and taboo content (antisemitism) gets eyeballs. People look just because it is ugly. It is like rubbernecking at the scene of a car accident. X is obviously not playing to our best selves.
In any event, thanks for this post. It must have been hellish to have to see so many of those images. Musk doesn't mind his site being a cesspool. Apparently... as you note, young and impressionable minds will be influenced.
Elon has a particular bug up his ass about transgenderism because his daughter disowned him. So he's made it very clear through his comments and posts that no one need be decent or polite on Twitter when discussing the matter.
Yes I have heard that. It is easy to see since the tweets have gotten uglier since he's been in charge. Also, he tried to ban the term "cisgender" as "hate speech" -- which is insane since "cis" simply means "on this side of" in contrast to "trans" which means "across". Just a simple way to indicate "not trans" or "trans" when speaking about people. I mean, "cis" is not a slur. At any rate, I also read that his girlfriend Grimes, who had a child with him via surrogacy, is having a thing, or left him for Chelsea Manning. Not sure if Grimes is still dating Chelsea, but it all adds up to explaining why Elon has a thing against trans people, and trans women in particular! Besides just being a jerk of course. Or oblivious to what civil discussion means.
I do not know or care a bit about Musk and X or his daughter, etc. But please, "cis" is not used in the neutral way you suggest. In the imagined hierarchy of oppressor and oppressed, cis is at the top always, suspect and disdained.
I am not using it that way, though I am sure some do. It is an entirely neutral term in my vocabulary. I actually do prefer the term "non-trans" when I have to distinguish however, and used it in my memoir _The Testosterone Files_ published before "cis" was really a thing back in 2006.
Some believe in these oppressor and oppressed categories and others do not. I mean, among us trans people, variously understood. Certainly we are a minority but not all of us are Marxist in our thinking.
But thank you for this feedback. It is instructive to me that some do understand "cis" as a neo-Marxist term and assign it a value that is not neutral.
I find the the antisemitic posts you referenced repulsive and ignorant. I am a casual twitter, now X, user and have never come across anything like that. Today I spent about thirty minutes scrolling down and found plenty of political posts, dog and cat posts, but nothing like the ones you referenced. I wonder if algorithm limits the people seeing those type posts to those that have demonstrated an interest one way or the other? I would reluctantly err on the side of freedom of expression no matter how repulsive and ignorant they may be.
I find the apparent rise of antisemitism baffling. I grew up in a religiously mixed post war neighborhood at a time when children were left to their own devices to play. We played the childhood games together, tag, hide and seek, explored the woods, and road our bikes, the girls played hopscotch, sometimes the boys would join in. Protestants, Jews, and Catholics we were aware of our religions, but they were irrelevant to us. I guess we were blessed to live in a time and place that our parents did not teach us to hate.
Hi, if a topic is "trending," that means everyone sees it. That's why this was so disturbing. I too support freedom of expression, but it's not the relevant principle for the moderation of a massive, global social media enterprise.
Decisions are made at Twitter every day not only about what people are and aren't allowed to say, but--much more important--what other people will *see,* and the reward structure for certain kinds of content creators, i.e., whether people are rewarded for being assholes (by attention and reach) or dissuaded from it (by lack thereof).
What shows up in your feed, what's offered to you as something you might like, what shows up in the trending topics--all of that is the consequence of human editorial decisions about how the algorithm should work. It's not just the content-neutral, mechanical output of some kind of input-output machine. What's so revolting here is not that Twitter chose to allow these people to say repellent things. It's that they're amplifying them. The algorithmic amplification, plus Musk's decision to direct off the entire platform's attention to these antisemitic accounts, is what drove that 72-hour outpouring of simply pornographic antisemitism. Anyone who was interacting with the platform as intended (i.e., who was looking at the trending topics to see what the world was thinking about at that moment) would have seen it, because it was at the top of the trending topics list. You don't have to prove you're an adult to use Twitter. So kids ----using the platform as it was designed to be used--would have clicked on that topic and immediately seen a torrent of antisemitic ideas and images that come straight from the Third Reich. The propaganda of genocide.
That has nothing to do with freedom of expression: Elon Musk made a choice to *promote* the most antisemitic accounts on Twitter.
TO the anti-censorship confuseniks who seem so keen to bring our learned host's uterus into this discussion as they bark rudely up the ADL tree (hint: almost nothing in Claire's article depends on whether you approve of the ADL's policy direction or not, it's about Yaccarino's knowing facilitation of Musk's knowing promotion of antisemites and their wares, with #BanTheADL as the incidental springboard):
A nice thing - maybe the best - about an open society is that you can *choose how you associate, and who you associate with*. I can join a group with a code of conduct. You can join a group with a different code of conduct. Or one with an anti-code of conduct, that explicititly disavows restrictions of conduct. Within the broader law (which is important), we're all good. I don't have to join your stinking group, and you don't have to join mine.
Some here applaud Musk for radically diluting Twitter's already flimsy content moderation. (Seems to me this isn't actually less "censorship", it's now "censorship" at the Whim of the Thin-Skinned Man-Child, but it's probably fair to say that it's less obviously ideologically-aligned in nature, which could be what makes it attractive.) Yet to be honest, it seems this Isn't Going Too Well for X/Twitter. Users and advertisers are voting with their eyeballs and $$.
Suppose this keeps happening; suppose (as it seems), they are heading over to platforms that have mainstream, anti-hate content policies. What do you conclude then?
Are they just *wrong*? The censors are always the bad guys, right? So if people flock to "censored" platforms are they deluded? Suffering from false consciousness, inspired by the evil manipulation of the ADL (maybe)?
Should right-thinking folk bully or buy up those platforms to remove their "censorship"? Should we drum up investment from freedom-loving Saudi princes to help put things right? Maybe we should have stop-and-search a bit like they do in Russia, where the police can interrogate you as to why you don't have the Telegram app on your phone? I mean, how serious *are* you about forcing people to expose themselves to this stuff? ("Today, children, we are learning to tolerate hate speech for the good of Democracy. We'll start with the Protocols, page 1...")
State censorship is just that. A private platform's clearly stated content policy is a Totally DIfferent Thing, whatever its global agoral ambitions. Claire was absolutely clear on this in her article. Democracy is not undermined if there's a big club that doesn't permit the Paedophile Information Exchange to use it to advocate a return to classical view of friendships with young boys. Democracy would only be undermined if you couldn't start your own club with different rules.
So if you don't like one platform's policy, you join a different one (there are plenty, really!). If you don't like the policy of the biggest platform in your manor, you don't get to pick the plurality - them's the democratic breaks. And NONE OF THIS IS ABOUT CENSORS. Musk is free to trash the platform he bought, Linda is free to work for him or not, and we are free to draw our own conclusions from her enabling of tedious would-be blackshirts. And yes, it seems you are free to pay for the right to post confused responses in this thread. The wonders!!
I like open societies, and I like to think the citizens of same will mostly show their distaste for Musk's hateful antics by finding alternatives to X. He can chose how he responds. If the platform fails, or he chooses chase out the hateful idiots after all, neither democracy nor freedom of speech will suffer. Each of us gets to choose whether hate-speech is a price we want to pay or not.
(Before you get started, I don't personally have a uterus.)
I don’t disagree; people should follow whatever social media platforms strike their fancy. If they prefer sites that censor information about COVID or Hunter Biden or anything else, that’s where they should go. If they prefer sites that in their zeal to censor hate speech end up censoring political speech that’s fine too. If they think Mark Zuckerberg is a better proprietor of the platforms he owns than Elon Musk is of his, they should head over to Zuckerville. If they like the idea of American intelligence agencies (or the FBI) intimidating social media sites into censoring information the Government disapproves of (even if that information is true) then there are plenty of alternatives to X/Twitter.
Those who approve of censorship and actually wish there was more of it, like Claire does (except in Hungary which she holds to a different standard), should abandon Twitter for greener pastures.
What I can’t figure out is why so many of America’s excessively educated intellectuals and their courtesans in the managerial classes have fallen head over heals in love with the censors. What exactly do you suppose that reveals?
I am surprised by the reactions to the issue raised by WigWag. I find the antisemitic posts displayed in this article thoroughly disgusting and have no problem with the idea that a social media platform may wish to censor those. The issue WigWag raises is about social media companies accepting government pressure to censor political speech, not hate speech. When they do that, they cease being purely "private" media companies entitled to monitor and publish what they like. They become arms of the government. And plenty of evidence shows they have complied with pressures to censor or shadow ban, etc., such things as the lab leak hypothesis or the Great Barrington Declaration. Any serious article about the problems of hate speech on these platforms that does not also grapple with this matter is evading the problem.
I also have a concern about the antisemitic content this article overwhelms us with. It all appears to be rightwing antisemitism. I don't excuse it for a second. But as a Jew, I can tell you I damn sure am NOT worrying much about it as compared to the various leftwing varieties, that always cloak themselves in more sanitized ideological lingo, but which now constitute a vastly greater danger to Jews than the right-wingers do.
Dear M. Wig-wag, as regards social media (and other sorts as well), I am afraid you have misconstrued "censorship" with "conformity with community standards". I am an intelligent, reasonable adult who is open to reading writers from across the political spectrum. Nevertheless, I don't want my mind filled with stupidity, prejudice or hateful rants, any more than I would wish to eat in a filthy restaurant or to live live in a waste dump. When I read, I like reading articles that enlighten and educate me. I do not like wading through a lot of hate-speech filled rants, just as, when I take a dip in a swimming pool, I choose places where my nose is not likely to bump into floating excrement. I stay away from X/twitter unless someone sensible like Claire includes an excerpt in her post -- and in this latest article, one quick glance at all the rubbish reposted told me to skip ahead to the comments. I am privileged by education and upbringing: I know enough to call BS on lies, propaganda and disinformation when I see it. I just don't have any desire to see it.
OK - so I hope I'm right that you're backing off from the idea that a private company's open content moderation is anti-democratic, if we can each choose the platform we please?
I don't think educated Americans or their international courtesan cousins *are* in love with "censors" (or moderators) or intimidation or the rest of your framing. I suspect that like me, they see intelligence agencies, regulators, editors and moderators as fallible and flawed but still vastly preferable to either a vacuum, or the anything-but-impartial alternatives suggested by conspiracists.
For one concrete example, the absolute fiasco of the "Twitter files" disposed of any lingering suggestion that Musk or his crew were reliable custodians of anything.
You can edit your comment. You need only click on the ellipses at the bottom right corner of the specific comment box - and then make the necessary emendations.
Here’s Christopher Rufo on being smeared by the ADL,
“The ADL, like the SPLC, uses the frame of identity and public goodwill to defame opponents of left-wing ideologies as a whole. The organization falsely marked me an "extremist" for the very obvious and factually accurate claims that queer theorists seek to disrupt "heteronormativity" and that DEI bureaucrats seek to replace words such as "man," "woman," "mom," and "dad" with vague, genderless terms such as "parent," "caregiver," "partner," and "adult."
This has nothing to do with fighting anti-semitism. The people who publish these baseless hit pieces are left-wing bullies, plain and simple. Their opinions on such matters should be assessed in the same category as Media Matters and other partisan oppo organizations.
And here is the tweet from ADL in which they smeared Rufo.
“Christopher F. Rufo is an anti LGBTQ+ extremist working for the Manhattan Institute. Previously known for fear mongering around critical race theory, Rufo has now turned his focus to the alleged “dangers” of “gender ideology”- a baseless, decades old conspiracy theory alleging that the progressive movement seeks to destroy traditional families and conservative values by expanding the rights of women and LGBTQ+ people. Rufo’s endeavors include a “Parents Guide to Radical Gender Theory” in which he promotes demonstrably false conspiracy theories including that progressives want to eliminate the words “man,” “woman,” “mom,” and “dad” and that “radical gender theory” wants to replace parents with a state backed sexual ideology.”
Claire would love to see the ADL and other similar organizations play a role in mediating what opinions are permitted to appear on social media platforms. That’s nuts. Siding with the censors always is. The censors are always the bad guys. It’s strange that a journalist like Claire doesn’t understand that.
In its current incarnation, the ADL is a far bigger threat to freedom of expression than Elon Musk’s Twitter could ever be.
Highlighting the rantings of crazed bigots because she’s pissed that Musk interfered with her personal business model is disingenuous at best.
And here’s a tweet from Stephen Miller that accurately portrays the perfidy of the ADL.
“Speaking as a Jew: ADL is NOT a Jewish organization. It is an ultra-left activist org that pushes radical transgenderism, border erasure, police dismantlement, and the demolition of free speech—deploying rank slander, bullying and character assassination to achieve its aims.
These views and tactics are expressly contrary to sacred Jewish and biblical teaching.
When justly criticized, ADL and its defenders falsely claim anti-Semitism, thereby diminishing all past and present victims of anti-Semitism.
In fact, conflating criticism of ADL with criticism of Jews is itself an anti-Semitic trope.
Bottom line: ADL is a disreputable organization that has gravely undermined Jewish interests and is worthy of the strongest condemnation.”
The antisemitic bigots Claire quoted are assorted nobodies. The ADL is a widely respected organization that doesn’t deserve the reputation for probity that it has.
Which of the two is a bigger threat to American democracy?
Claire is being hysterical. Antisemitic speech is repulsive but it should not be banned. No speech should be banned; not by law but also not by a platform that aspires to be part of the global public square. Putting up with hate speech is a price well-worth paying for a very light touch when it comes to censorship on social media platforms.
Like another formerly revered institution, the Southern Policy Law Center, (and like the ACLU) the Anti Defamation League has been captured by woke progressives who have eviscerated it founding mission. They have turned the organization (which I was once a member of) into a caricature of its former self. ADL now aspires to be part of the new government-censorship complex which mediates what the public can read and talk about. ADL’s aspirations in this area go well beyond policing antisemitism. Like Claire, herself, the ADL is in favor of suppressing any speech that it finds extremely politically objectionable. The ADL’s behavior is deplorable, far more than the behavior of the millions of “deplorables” that Hillary Clinton mocked and far more than the religion-clingers and gun-slingers that Obama expressed pity for.
Claire would probably like to see Tucker Carlson deplatformed because she finds his views heinous. The fact that tens of millions of Americans find his views compelling holds no water with her at all. In her view, the unwashed hordes need minders who can spoon feed the morons what they need to know and what they are forbidden from hearing and knowing.
Claire preferred the old days at Twitter, in part because as she has admitted, it facilitated promotion of her Substack account. That’s reason enough for her but it’s not her only reason. Like her fellow knowledge class lackeys, she is offended that those who hold diametrically opposed positions to hers get to speak at all.
Remarkably, Claire was aghast when Elon Musk revealed that under the former Twitter regime, American law enforcement and intelligence agencies routinely intimidated social media platforms into censoring content that those agencies found objectionable, even if the material being censored was true. By the way, that censored material had little to nothing to do with hate speech. It had a lot to do with COVID and with the misdeeds of Hunter Biden.
Claire’s concern about antisemitism is a fig leaf. It’s free speech that she doesn’t like, at least if that speech falls far outside of the parameters of what she considers reasonable. It’s obvious that Claire simply approves of censorship. In this case, it’s not Elon Musk who needs to be excoriated, it’s her.
Elon Musk may not be a hero but he’s done something valuable and important. , The social media site he now owns is far better than its previous incarnation. Maybe there’s more hate speech but more importantly there’s far more tolerance for all forms of political speech. Accusations that he is antisemitic reveals far more about the those hurling the accusations than it says about him.
One more thing comes to mind; somewhere or other I saw a comment that the new logo for the old Twitter, an X, was reminiscent of a swastika. It takes a remarkably fecund imagination to come up with that idiocy. Maybe we should just ban the letter “X” from the English language. We can’t put up with being reminded of Nazis every time we hear the words “Extra-Extra read all about it.”
No you're extrapolating from an observation I was making which maybe wasn't particularly insightful or tasteful or funny. Maybe it was crass. Whatever. X is less of a brand than a symbol and in the context of his endorsement of Nazism on his platform, I don't I was off or that you can blame me for associating X with a swastika. Not everyone who questions Musks's motives or deplores Nazism and any private business that would amplify it, is a woke scold. The job of demanding better from humanity would be a lot easier without woke people desecrating actual virtue with their revisionist totalitarianism.
It is reasonable to expect that people will be harmed by Musk‘s efforts of mainstreaming antisemitism and racism. Just as people were harmed (and killed) when the Former Guy‘s frenzied fanboys stormed the Capitol. Amplifying hateful speech will lead to violence eventually. Especially if you have as much reach as Space Karen. There’s a reason that pre-Space Karen-era Twitter moderated content. It‘s the same reason that YouTube and other Social Media companies do this. It‘s called capitalism! Simply put: You don‘t c..p where you eat! You‘re free to do so, but if you do, there are consequences. Drop in ad revenues is one of them. Companies will think twice about giving a large portion of their advertisement budget to a narcissistic buffoon, who‘s apparently working very hard at destroying Twitter and the last remnants of his reputation. Well, he‘s rich and may not care, but the shareholders, who financed his takeover of Twitter, might care much more! These people fully expected that their investment would pay off.
Andre, the censors are always the bad guys, never the good guys. The same can be said about those who support censorship. Whatever their intentions, their support of censorship is shows an ambivalence towards democracy.
Claire’s passionate support for censorship predates the recent dust-up between Musk and the ADL. It’s hard to believe anything she says about Twitter (or if you prefer X) because she’s admitted that her hostility to Musk is based in part on his interference with her business model. The fact that for financial reasons she’s not disinterested, means that her criticism of the platform has to be taken with a grain of salt.
Beyond that, Claire is highly selective about the censorship she supports and the censorship she opposes. If it’s American government officials doing the censoring or intimidating social media platforms to do the censoring for them, she’s wildly enthusiastic about the prospect. If it’s Viktor Orban in Hungary doing the censoring she becomes apoplectic. It’s a sad fact that the American deep state is doing everything it can to study Orban and use him as a role model.
Antisemitism exists now as it always has. The synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh is adequate evidence of that. But given the choice of the pervasive censorship that Twitter used to practice (and other social media sites continue to practice), and platforming moronic antisemites, it’s far better to put up with the bigots and enjoy free speech.
The censorship regime practiced by the United States Government under Biden (and also under Trump) was evil. Eliminating that regime is the highest calling for those who value democracy.
There’s one more thing worth mentioning, Andre. During the riot on January 6th, the only person killed was an unarmed American veteran shot by the police. The officer who killed her was exonerated because the judicial system decided that because she illegally entered the Capitol her life was worth nothing.
The same people who think her life wasn’t worth much are the same people who believe censorship is the way to go. It makes you wonder, doesn’t it?
Although unarmed, Ashli Babbitt was shot at near point blank range. If instead of being a Trump supporter she had been at a BLM demonstration, the cop would have been burned at the stake.
If you’re referring to Officer Sicknick, Matt, he died of multiple strokes the following day. It is true that the rioters treated Officer Sicknick indefensibly but his case and Ms Babbitt’s cases are hardly comparable. Babbitt was shot in cold blood. Sicknick’s strokes may or may not be related to the riot that took place the day before. It’s plausible that they were; it’s plausible that they weren’t. It’s impossible to know.
Elon Musk revealed his... nature a long time ago; years and decades for those people who saw and recognized the signs. His recent skein of chevron-bearing triumphalism is only more naked.
The media should cease doing Musk's heavy-lifting in his rebranding effort. Musk prefers to change the site's name to "X"...? Than [the media should] let him have at it and leave off the "formerly known as Twitter." They only provide him free publicity and, in the process, aid and abet his effort. And what does he offer in return? Oh yeah, he fails to pay his bills.
It is interesting but no surprise that Elon Musk, Mr Free Speech himself, chooses to ban the ADL and moots suing the organization for defamation for ... um, collecting the facts and then bringing those facts public. X: Home of Free Speech. The irony would be rich were it not so sad and shameful.
If the Jews really did control the government, Elon Musk’s made a pretty damn penny off them. Every project he’s run has been subsidized to the hilt, except Failing X. Sad! You’d think he’d show a little more gratitude. But of course he doesn’t believe this mess. He’s a pandering populist like Fake Vivek Ramaswamy. He’s trying bail out his bad investment using the same tool he always has, stirring up bro crap-posters into a frenzy with social media. But that isn’t going to work now. He’s not promoting a racket like Dogecoin or GameStop. His incel edgelord fanbois don’t have the capital to save a massively bloated tech whale that was already foundering before it was rebranded as StormFront 2.0.
As for Nazis in Florida wearing red, that works just as well for the Blut und Boden crowd. Besides, it’s too hot to wear black in Altamonte Springs, and sweat-stained khaki will just make them look like a bunch of laid off groundskeepers and fishing boat deck hands down there.
There's something even sinister and anti-semitic about the X logo to me. I mean X is like a swastika isn't it? Silver with the black background, symmetrical no matter what way you look at it, it is a pro-death emblem of nihilism, like a digital dog whistle, signaling to anyone virtually who desires to be Free to hate people-- Join the club! X marks the spot. X for extermination. I wouldn't be surprised at this rate if, in glib rejection of woke Twitter, he renamed it X-terminator. I think he should be investigated for ties to the CCP. He has publicly excused Xi's claims on Taiwan. He also signed a pledge to uphold "Core Socialist Values." He bended to Erdogan's demands to shut Twitter down in Turkey. And he thinks Ukraine should surrender to Russia. He is basically every autocrat's useful idiot. He's like a Tucker Carlson but not just for the Kremlin, but in all around fashion. Do you in any way undermine human rights and reject democracy? Are you an enemy of America? Then Twitter or X has your back! At every turn he undermines American foreign policy interests. In an earlier post of yours about AI you said corporations are becoming bigger than states and pretending to act like them. I think that's exactly the danger Elon Musk poses. I think Musk's ultimate goal is to become big enough to subsume self-government in America with his wealth, influence and technology. And he wants to use countries like China to help him establish a corporatist state. China would be fine with it. So would Russia. Putin and Xi only want to divide the world into spheres of influence. Musk wants to amass corporate power to build a perverse utopia that aligns with his psychopathic distorted, perverse vision of accelerationist Steve Bannon, Curtis Yarvin, Blade Runner technofuedal unfreedom. Just like to the radical postmodern left everything that is socialist in practice is considered liberal in principle, Elon Musk is the polar reverse of this, where everything that is fascist in practice is liberal in principle. If she's a real cold warrior, and she really wants to remove every trace of the CCP from the homeland, I would advise Nikki haley as soon as she's inaugurated to investigate Elon Musk for ties to the CCP. Or he should testify before Congress. America has a right to know what the limits of his business in China are, and what his ambitions for using the state to govern AI are, and how both his ambitions for technological supremacy and his obscene defenses of China and Russia intertwine.
Well add Elon Musk and the CCP to the list. And make it long. The Free World demands to know whether he's a communist before he gives us Neuralink brain implants and autonomous vehicles, and whether he wants to make Mars into a white ethnostate planet.
Claire -- given the absolutely horrific material you documented (and what an ugly task -- you might consider a walk-through autoclave rather than merely a thorough shower?) I was convinced that your search for other reports must have overlooked SOME publications with national reach.
Alas. The /only/ recent article I managed to find is in Rolling Stone, from 1st September:
David French, writing in the New York Times yesterday, produced a column concerning the necessity to ban children's access to pornography -- material most often reached through smartphones.
But who is to save the rest of us, regardless of age, from this growing, vile contagion propagated by Elon Musk? Perhaps Mr. French may be interested in expanding his recommendations from twenty-four hours ago, or to consider adding a footnote which recognizes that pornography has senses beyond those he treated. We'll see.
Today in the New York Times, David French has taken your -- very much credited -- newsletter here and pursued its themes, resulting in a front-page, exquisite skewering of Elon Musk and his bizarre conception of "free speech." David's reference to The Princess Bride in this context is, in the words of the television commercials for Master Card, priceless:
Nah, our country has always been a haven for people who are inclined to dissent, protest and believe in stuff that is out of the mainstream. It's just that people are getting bolder about saying it out loud, now that the internet has brought their fellow-travelers out into the open. I think the access provided by social media and platforms like X/twitter bring the nastier strains of thought into view, but I believe it's always been there.
Oh, good! Two of those were posted today while I was writing this and while Musk was explaining (I missed it, because I was writing this) that he has nothing against Jews, he just blames them for advertisers abandoning Twitter. I missed the Daily Beast article somehow--I don't know why it didn't turn up under the search terms I used.
Thank you for for putting forward the effort to compile this post, Claire. I know it must have been a deeply unpleasant and demoralizing task. Sharing everywhere I can.
I'm late to this article sorry. A few things:
I don't understand The Artist Formerly Known as Twitter. What I mean is I don't understand why people use it. I find X to be a complete chaotic jumble of nonsense. I'm an IT guy so I know how it works. I just don't understand why anyone works it. There's nothing to be learned over there, and as far as I am concerned, there never has been. I'm told "Spin, you just need to curate your feed!" I got no time for curating my feed. Unless it's a euphemism for "dealing with all the crap in your life." As we discussed, Claire, social media has been a net negative on society. X has got to be the worst of the bunch. Hopefully it simply dies off.
Second, I don't understand antisemitism. I guess I live in a bubble because most of the people around me don't, either. I did get accused of being a Nazi, in an oblique way, someone told me "That's the exact argument that Hitler used, that God has discarded the Jews." Of course I never made such argument and never would, because I think that's nonsense. But it's always easier argue against a strawman. And of course Godwin's Law is alive in well. Anyway I digress from my point: I don't understand antisemitism. I was golfing with my oldest son, and he said to me (because we were discussing this stuff) "I don't understand why anyone would be an antisemite..." I don't really understand why anyone is anti- anyone else. I can understand being anti-Zionism. Or anti-Palestinian Nationalism. Those are theories about the world that have the potential for negative impacts on specific people. So I can see why a person is against them. But why be against a certain group of people? It doesn't make any damn sense.
Now, don't get me wrong: I've been on this earth a while and met a lot of people and heard a lot of perspectives. In fact I do understand why people end up disliking or even hating other people groups. I just think that most often it's based on lies or half truths and preconceived ideas about things.
Anyway I guess I'm just rambling on, now...
While it may not matter to most on here, the anti-trans posts and comments are often over the top. They are also trending constantly. While there's no doubt that America is trying to figure out who we are and why we are, a lot of the posts and comments are extreme misinformation and hate. I am not one who even believes in "hate speech" as a reason to shut people up, however all the hateful content on X/Twitter gives me pause. Ditto the antisemitism. For a tiny group of people, transsexual/transgender people seem to be catching a lot of attention. Again, there's no doubt there are important issues to clarify or figure out -- like youth transition, educational materials on transgender topics, and trans women in sports -- however, again so many of the tweets are hateful. sO many spread dubious ideas. Some even call for our death or... close. So I am not sure what to say. It is disturbing and disgusting but what does one do? For my own mental health, I need to stay away from X I guess, but easier said than done.
So Claire, you bring up valid concerns. Encouraging people to think hateful and ugly thoughts about any group of people by simply exposing them night and day to those ideas, is... troubling... Yes, of course he's losing advertisers since what company wants to be so closely associated with so much ugliness. Again, not sure what the solution is except Elon getting a grip and throttling some of the more extremist ugliness. That likely won't happen. The other issue that exremist and hateful and taboo content (antisemitism) gets eyeballs. People look just because it is ugly. It is like rubbernecking at the scene of a car accident. X is obviously not playing to our best selves.
In any event, thanks for this post. It must have been hellish to have to see so many of those images. Musk doesn't mind his site being a cesspool. Apparently... as you note, young and impressionable minds will be influenced.
Elon has a particular bug up his ass about transgenderism because his daughter disowned him. So he's made it very clear through his comments and posts that no one need be decent or polite on Twitter when discussing the matter.
Yes I have heard that. It is easy to see since the tweets have gotten uglier since he's been in charge. Also, he tried to ban the term "cisgender" as "hate speech" -- which is insane since "cis" simply means "on this side of" in contrast to "trans" which means "across". Just a simple way to indicate "not trans" or "trans" when speaking about people. I mean, "cis" is not a slur. At any rate, I also read that his girlfriend Grimes, who had a child with him via surrogacy, is having a thing, or left him for Chelsea Manning. Not sure if Grimes is still dating Chelsea, but it all adds up to explaining why Elon has a thing against trans people, and trans women in particular! Besides just being a jerk of course. Or oblivious to what civil discussion means.
I do not know or care a bit about Musk and X or his daughter, etc. But please, "cis" is not used in the neutral way you suggest. In the imagined hierarchy of oppressor and oppressed, cis is at the top always, suspect and disdained.
I am not using it that way, though I am sure some do. It is an entirely neutral term in my vocabulary. I actually do prefer the term "non-trans" when I have to distinguish however, and used it in my memoir _The Testosterone Files_ published before "cis" was really a thing back in 2006.
Some believe in these oppressor and oppressed categories and others do not. I mean, among us trans people, variously understood. Certainly we are a minority but not all of us are Marxist in our thinking.
But thank you for this feedback. It is instructive to me that some do understand "cis" as a neo-Marxist term and assign it a value that is not neutral.
Offered without comment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYymRU-bfpQ
I find the the antisemitic posts you referenced repulsive and ignorant. I am a casual twitter, now X, user and have never come across anything like that. Today I spent about thirty minutes scrolling down and found plenty of political posts, dog and cat posts, but nothing like the ones you referenced. I wonder if algorithm limits the people seeing those type posts to those that have demonstrated an interest one way or the other? I would reluctantly err on the side of freedom of expression no matter how repulsive and ignorant they may be.
I find the apparent rise of antisemitism baffling. I grew up in a religiously mixed post war neighborhood at a time when children were left to their own devices to play. We played the childhood games together, tag, hide and seek, explored the woods, and road our bikes, the girls played hopscotch, sometimes the boys would join in. Protestants, Jews, and Catholics we were aware of our religions, but they were irrelevant to us. I guess we were blessed to live in a time and place that our parents did not teach us to hate.
Hi, if a topic is "trending," that means everyone sees it. That's why this was so disturbing. I too support freedom of expression, but it's not the relevant principle for the moderation of a massive, global social media enterprise.
Decisions are made at Twitter every day not only about what people are and aren't allowed to say, but--much more important--what other people will *see,* and the reward structure for certain kinds of content creators, i.e., whether people are rewarded for being assholes (by attention and reach) or dissuaded from it (by lack thereof).
What shows up in your feed, what's offered to you as something you might like, what shows up in the trending topics--all of that is the consequence of human editorial decisions about how the algorithm should work. It's not just the content-neutral, mechanical output of some kind of input-output machine. What's so revolting here is not that Twitter chose to allow these people to say repellent things. It's that they're amplifying them. The algorithmic amplification, plus Musk's decision to direct off the entire platform's attention to these antisemitic accounts, is what drove that 72-hour outpouring of simply pornographic antisemitism. Anyone who was interacting with the platform as intended (i.e., who was looking at the trending topics to see what the world was thinking about at that moment) would have seen it, because it was at the top of the trending topics list. You don't have to prove you're an adult to use Twitter. So kids ----using the platform as it was designed to be used--would have clicked on that topic and immediately seen a torrent of antisemitic ideas and images that come straight from the Third Reich. The propaganda of genocide.
That has nothing to do with freedom of expression: Elon Musk made a choice to *promote* the most antisemitic accounts on Twitter.
TO the anti-censorship confuseniks who seem so keen to bring our learned host's uterus into this discussion as they bark rudely up the ADL tree (hint: almost nothing in Claire's article depends on whether you approve of the ADL's policy direction or not, it's about Yaccarino's knowing facilitation of Musk's knowing promotion of antisemites and their wares, with #BanTheADL as the incidental springboard):
A nice thing - maybe the best - about an open society is that you can *choose how you associate, and who you associate with*. I can join a group with a code of conduct. You can join a group with a different code of conduct. Or one with an anti-code of conduct, that explicititly disavows restrictions of conduct. Within the broader law (which is important), we're all good. I don't have to join your stinking group, and you don't have to join mine.
Some here applaud Musk for radically diluting Twitter's already flimsy content moderation. (Seems to me this isn't actually less "censorship", it's now "censorship" at the Whim of the Thin-Skinned Man-Child, but it's probably fair to say that it's less obviously ideologically-aligned in nature, which could be what makes it attractive.) Yet to be honest, it seems this Isn't Going Too Well for X/Twitter. Users and advertisers are voting with their eyeballs and $$.
Suppose this keeps happening; suppose (as it seems), they are heading over to platforms that have mainstream, anti-hate content policies. What do you conclude then?
Are they just *wrong*? The censors are always the bad guys, right? So if people flock to "censored" platforms are they deluded? Suffering from false consciousness, inspired by the evil manipulation of the ADL (maybe)?
Should right-thinking folk bully or buy up those platforms to remove their "censorship"? Should we drum up investment from freedom-loving Saudi princes to help put things right? Maybe we should have stop-and-search a bit like they do in Russia, where the police can interrogate you as to why you don't have the Telegram app on your phone? I mean, how serious *are* you about forcing people to expose themselves to this stuff? ("Today, children, we are learning to tolerate hate speech for the good of Democracy. We'll start with the Protocols, page 1...")
State censorship is just that. A private platform's clearly stated content policy is a Totally DIfferent Thing, whatever its global agoral ambitions. Claire was absolutely clear on this in her article. Democracy is not undermined if there's a big club that doesn't permit the Paedophile Information Exchange to use it to advocate a return to classical view of friendships with young boys. Democracy would only be undermined if you couldn't start your own club with different rules.
So if you don't like one platform's policy, you join a different one (there are plenty, really!). If you don't like the policy of the biggest platform in your manor, you don't get to pick the plurality - them's the democratic breaks. And NONE OF THIS IS ABOUT CENSORS. Musk is free to trash the platform he bought, Linda is free to work for him or not, and we are free to draw our own conclusions from her enabling of tedious would-be blackshirts. And yes, it seems you are free to pay for the right to post confused responses in this thread. The wonders!!
I like open societies, and I like to think the citizens of same will mostly show their distaste for Musk's hateful antics by finding alternatives to X. He can chose how he responds. If the platform fails, or he chooses chase out the hateful idiots after all, neither democracy nor freedom of speech will suffer. Each of us gets to choose whether hate-speech is a price we want to pay or not.
(Before you get started, I don't personally have a uterus.)
Yep. Why is this hard to grasp?
I don’t disagree; people should follow whatever social media platforms strike their fancy. If they prefer sites that censor information about COVID or Hunter Biden or anything else, that’s where they should go. If they prefer sites that in their zeal to censor hate speech end up censoring political speech that’s fine too. If they think Mark Zuckerberg is a better proprietor of the platforms he owns than Elon Musk is of his, they should head over to Zuckerville. If they like the idea of American intelligence agencies (or the FBI) intimidating social media sites into censoring information the Government disapproves of (even if that information is true) then there are plenty of alternatives to X/Twitter.
Those who approve of censorship and actually wish there was more of it, like Claire does (except in Hungary which she holds to a different standard), should abandon Twitter for greener pastures.
What I can’t figure out is why so many of America’s excessively educated intellectuals and their courtesans in the managerial classes have fallen head over heals in love with the censors. What exactly do you suppose that reveals?
I am surprised by the reactions to the issue raised by WigWag. I find the antisemitic posts displayed in this article thoroughly disgusting and have no problem with the idea that a social media platform may wish to censor those. The issue WigWag raises is about social media companies accepting government pressure to censor political speech, not hate speech. When they do that, they cease being purely "private" media companies entitled to monitor and publish what they like. They become arms of the government. And plenty of evidence shows they have complied with pressures to censor or shadow ban, etc., such things as the lab leak hypothesis or the Great Barrington Declaration. Any serious article about the problems of hate speech on these platforms that does not also grapple with this matter is evading the problem.
I also have a concern about the antisemitic content this article overwhelms us with. It all appears to be rightwing antisemitism. I don't excuse it for a second. But as a Jew, I can tell you I damn sure am NOT worrying much about it as compared to the various leftwing varieties, that always cloak themselves in more sanitized ideological lingo, but which now constitute a vastly greater danger to Jews than the right-wingers do.
Dear M. Wig-wag, as regards social media (and other sorts as well), I am afraid you have misconstrued "censorship" with "conformity with community standards". I am an intelligent, reasonable adult who is open to reading writers from across the political spectrum. Nevertheless, I don't want my mind filled with stupidity, prejudice or hateful rants, any more than I would wish to eat in a filthy restaurant or to live live in a waste dump. When I read, I like reading articles that enlighten and educate me. I do not like wading through a lot of hate-speech filled rants, just as, when I take a dip in a swimming pool, I choose places where my nose is not likely to bump into floating excrement. I stay away from X/twitter unless someone sensible like Claire includes an excerpt in her post -- and in this latest article, one quick glance at all the rubbish reposted told me to skip ahead to the comments. I am privileged by education and upbringing: I know enough to call BS on lies, propaganda and disinformation when I see it. I just don't have any desire to see it.
Probably less than your head over heels love of anti-semites, if we're going to play that game.
OK - so I hope I'm right that you're backing off from the idea that a private company's open content moderation is anti-democratic, if we can each choose the platform we please?
I don't think educated Americans or their international courtesan cousins *are* in love with "censors" (or moderators) or intimidation or the rest of your framing. I suspect that like me, they see intelligence agencies, regulators, editors and moderators as fallible and flawed but still vastly preferable to either a vacuum, or the anything-but-impartial alternatives suggested by conspiracists.
For one concrete example, the absolute fiasco of the "Twitter files" disposed of any lingering suggestion that Musk or his crew were reliable custodians of anything.
Have you ever met Hunter Biden?
jeez, the typos in that - aplogies...
You can edit your comment. You need only click on the ellipses at the bottom right corner of the specific comment box - and then make the necessary emendations.
Claire:
I took some time to research the ADL.
Once again your passion overwhelmed your judgment.
Just like with your anti Trump articles, you present an emotional, strident case with little regard for facts.
The other day, you made a heart rendering plea for more subscribers because your numbers fell.
Suggest that you lost subscribers the old fashioned way - you drove subscribers away with near deranged screeds.
I subscribe for facts with reasoned opinion.
Near hysterical rantings are unpleasant to read.
And your calls for censorship are just plain wrong.
More on the venality of the ADL. See,
https://www.newsweek.com/adl-has-lost-its-way-elon-musk-right-stand-censorship-opinion-1824691
Here’s Christopher Rufo on being smeared by the ADL,
“The ADL, like the SPLC, uses the frame of identity and public goodwill to defame opponents of left-wing ideologies as a whole. The organization falsely marked me an "extremist" for the very obvious and factually accurate claims that queer theorists seek to disrupt "heteronormativity" and that DEI bureaucrats seek to replace words such as "man," "woman," "mom," and "dad" with vague, genderless terms such as "parent," "caregiver," "partner," and "adult."
This has nothing to do with fighting anti-semitism. The people who publish these baseless hit pieces are left-wing bullies, plain and simple. Their opinions on such matters should be assessed in the same category as Media Matters and other partisan oppo organizations.
And here is the tweet from ADL in which they smeared Rufo.
“Christopher F. Rufo is an anti LGBTQ+ extremist working for the Manhattan Institute. Previously known for fear mongering around critical race theory, Rufo has now turned his focus to the alleged “dangers” of “gender ideology”- a baseless, decades old conspiracy theory alleging that the progressive movement seeks to destroy traditional families and conservative values by expanding the rights of women and LGBTQ+ people. Rufo’s endeavors include a “Parents Guide to Radical Gender Theory” in which he promotes demonstrably false conspiracy theories including that progressives want to eliminate the words “man,” “woman,” “mom,” and “dad” and that “radical gender theory” wants to replace parents with a state backed sexual ideology.”
Claire would love to see the ADL and other similar organizations play a role in mediating what opinions are permitted to appear on social media platforms. That’s nuts. Siding with the censors always is. The censors are always the bad guys. It’s strange that a journalist like Claire doesn’t understand that.
In its current incarnation, the ADL is a far bigger threat to freedom of expression than Elon Musk’s Twitter could ever be.
Highlighting the rantings of crazed bigots because she’s pissed that Musk interfered with her personal business model is disingenuous at best.
And here’s a tweet from Stephen Miller that accurately portrays the perfidy of the ADL.
“Speaking as a Jew: ADL is NOT a Jewish organization. It is an ultra-left activist org that pushes radical transgenderism, border erasure, police dismantlement, and the demolition of free speech—deploying rank slander, bullying and character assassination to achieve its aims.
These views and tactics are expressly contrary to sacred Jewish and biblical teaching.
When justly criticized, ADL and its defenders falsely claim anti-Semitism, thereby diminishing all past and present victims of anti-Semitism.
In fact, conflating criticism of ADL with criticism of Jews is itself an anti-Semitic trope.
Bottom line: ADL is a disreputable organization that has gravely undermined Jewish interests and is worthy of the strongest condemnation.”
The antisemitic bigots Claire quoted are assorted nobodies. The ADL is a widely respected organization that doesn’t deserve the reputation for probity that it has.
Which of the two is a bigger threat to American democracy?
Claire is being hysterical. Antisemitic speech is repulsive but it should not be banned. No speech should be banned; not by law but also not by a platform that aspires to be part of the global public square. Putting up with hate speech is a price well-worth paying for a very light touch when it comes to censorship on social media platforms.
Like another formerly revered institution, the Southern Policy Law Center, (and like the ACLU) the Anti Defamation League has been captured by woke progressives who have eviscerated it founding mission. They have turned the organization (which I was once a member of) into a caricature of its former self. ADL now aspires to be part of the new government-censorship complex which mediates what the public can read and talk about. ADL’s aspirations in this area go well beyond policing antisemitism. Like Claire, herself, the ADL is in favor of suppressing any speech that it finds extremely politically objectionable. The ADL’s behavior is deplorable, far more than the behavior of the millions of “deplorables” that Hillary Clinton mocked and far more than the religion-clingers and gun-slingers that Obama expressed pity for.
Claire would probably like to see Tucker Carlson deplatformed because she finds his views heinous. The fact that tens of millions of Americans find his views compelling holds no water with her at all. In her view, the unwashed hordes need minders who can spoon feed the morons what they need to know and what they are forbidden from hearing and knowing.
Claire preferred the old days at Twitter, in part because as she has admitted, it facilitated promotion of her Substack account. That’s reason enough for her but it’s not her only reason. Like her fellow knowledge class lackeys, she is offended that those who hold diametrically opposed positions to hers get to speak at all.
Remarkably, Claire was aghast when Elon Musk revealed that under the former Twitter regime, American law enforcement and intelligence agencies routinely intimidated social media platforms into censoring content that those agencies found objectionable, even if the material being censored was true. By the way, that censored material had little to nothing to do with hate speech. It had a lot to do with COVID and with the misdeeds of Hunter Biden.
Claire’s concern about antisemitism is a fig leaf. It’s free speech that she doesn’t like, at least if that speech falls far outside of the parameters of what she considers reasonable. It’s obvious that Claire simply approves of censorship. In this case, it’s not Elon Musk who needs to be excoriated, it’s her.
Elon Musk may not be a hero but he’s done something valuable and important. , The social media site he now owns is far better than its previous incarnation. Maybe there’s more hate speech but more importantly there’s far more tolerance for all forms of political speech. Accusations that he is antisemitic reveals far more about the those hurling the accusations than it says about him.
One more thing comes to mind; somewhere or other I saw a comment that the new logo for the old Twitter, an X, was reminiscent of a swastika. It takes a remarkably fecund imagination to come up with that idiocy. Maybe we should just ban the letter “X” from the English language. We can’t put up with being reminded of Nazis every time we hear the words “Extra-Extra read all about it.”
No you're extrapolating from an observation I was making which maybe wasn't particularly insightful or tasteful or funny. Maybe it was crass. Whatever. X is less of a brand than a symbol and in the context of his endorsement of Nazism on his platform, I don't I was off or that you can blame me for associating X with a swastika. Not everyone who questions Musks's motives or deplores Nazism and any private business that would amplify it, is a woke scold. The job of demanding better from humanity would be a lot easier without woke people desecrating actual virtue with their revisionist totalitarianism.
"...Parklife!"
You just totally cracked me up.
It is reasonable to expect that people will be harmed by Musk‘s efforts of mainstreaming antisemitism and racism. Just as people were harmed (and killed) when the Former Guy‘s frenzied fanboys stormed the Capitol. Amplifying hateful speech will lead to violence eventually. Especially if you have as much reach as Space Karen. There’s a reason that pre-Space Karen-era Twitter moderated content. It‘s the same reason that YouTube and other Social Media companies do this. It‘s called capitalism! Simply put: You don‘t c..p where you eat! You‘re free to do so, but if you do, there are consequences. Drop in ad revenues is one of them. Companies will think twice about giving a large portion of their advertisement budget to a narcissistic buffoon, who‘s apparently working very hard at destroying Twitter and the last remnants of his reputation. Well, he‘s rich and may not care, but the shareholders, who financed his takeover of Twitter, might care much more! These people fully expected that their investment would pay off.
Andre, the censors are always the bad guys, never the good guys. The same can be said about those who support censorship. Whatever their intentions, their support of censorship is shows an ambivalence towards democracy.
Claire’s passionate support for censorship predates the recent dust-up between Musk and the ADL. It’s hard to believe anything she says about Twitter (or if you prefer X) because she’s admitted that her hostility to Musk is based in part on his interference with her business model. The fact that for financial reasons she’s not disinterested, means that her criticism of the platform has to be taken with a grain of salt.
Beyond that, Claire is highly selective about the censorship she supports and the censorship she opposes. If it’s American government officials doing the censoring or intimidating social media platforms to do the censoring for them, she’s wildly enthusiastic about the prospect. If it’s Viktor Orban in Hungary doing the censoring she becomes apoplectic. It’s a sad fact that the American deep state is doing everything it can to study Orban and use him as a role model.
Antisemitism exists now as it always has. The synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh is adequate evidence of that. But given the choice of the pervasive censorship that Twitter used to practice (and other social media sites continue to practice), and platforming moronic antisemites, it’s far better to put up with the bigots and enjoy free speech.
The censorship regime practiced by the United States Government under Biden (and also under Trump) was evil. Eliminating that regime is the highest calling for those who value democracy.
There’s one more thing worth mentioning, Andre. During the riot on January 6th, the only person killed was an unarmed American veteran shot by the police. The officer who killed her was exonerated because the judicial system decided that because she illegally entered the Capitol her life was worth nothing.
The same people who think her life wasn’t worth much are the same people who believe censorship is the way to go. It makes you wonder, doesn’t it?
They always forget the police officer who got killed.
Although unarmed, Ashli Babbitt was shot at near point blank range. If instead of being a Trump supporter she had been at a BLM demonstration, the cop would have been burned at the stake.
If you’re referring to Officer Sicknick, Matt, he died of multiple strokes the following day. It is true that the rioters treated Officer Sicknick indefensibly but his case and Ms Babbitt’s cases are hardly comparable. Babbitt was shot in cold blood. Sicknick’s strokes may or may not be related to the riot that took place the day before. It’s plausible that they were; it’s plausible that they weren’t. It’s impossible to know.
Classic! The Motte and Bailey. And I swear, so many of you are using the same "if you're referring to" line. Who got that started?
Well, who were you referring to?
Elon Musk revealed his... nature a long time ago; years and decades for those people who saw and recognized the signs. His recent skein of chevron-bearing triumphalism is only more naked.
The media should cease doing Musk's heavy-lifting in his rebranding effort. Musk prefers to change the site's name to "X"...? Than [the media should] let him have at it and leave off the "formerly known as Twitter." They only provide him free publicity and, in the process, aid and abet his effort. And what does he offer in return? Oh yeah, he fails to pay his bills.
It is interesting but no surprise that Elon Musk, Mr Free Speech himself, chooses to ban the ADL and moots suing the organization for defamation for ... um, collecting the facts and then bringing those facts public. X: Home of Free Speech. The irony would be rich were it not so sad and shameful.
Thank you Claire. This is exactly the kind of free journalism we need!
I wonder if anyone will be bold enough to call Musk a "hero" in the comments to this article.
Or would it be a bit too revealing this time.
Now you know.
If the Jews really did control the government, Elon Musk’s made a pretty damn penny off them. Every project he’s run has been subsidized to the hilt, except Failing X. Sad! You’d think he’d show a little more gratitude. But of course he doesn’t believe this mess. He’s a pandering populist like Fake Vivek Ramaswamy. He’s trying bail out his bad investment using the same tool he always has, stirring up bro crap-posters into a frenzy with social media. But that isn’t going to work now. He’s not promoting a racket like Dogecoin or GameStop. His incel edgelord fanbois don’t have the capital to save a massively bloated tech whale that was already foundering before it was rebranded as StormFront 2.0.
As for Nazis in Florida wearing red, that works just as well for the Blut und Boden crowd. Besides, it’s too hot to wear black in Altamonte Springs, and sweat-stained khaki will just make them look like a bunch of laid off groundskeepers and fishing boat deck hands down there.
There's something even sinister and anti-semitic about the X logo to me. I mean X is like a swastika isn't it? Silver with the black background, symmetrical no matter what way you look at it, it is a pro-death emblem of nihilism, like a digital dog whistle, signaling to anyone virtually who desires to be Free to hate people-- Join the club! X marks the spot. X for extermination. I wouldn't be surprised at this rate if, in glib rejection of woke Twitter, he renamed it X-terminator. I think he should be investigated for ties to the CCP. He has publicly excused Xi's claims on Taiwan. He also signed a pledge to uphold "Core Socialist Values." He bended to Erdogan's demands to shut Twitter down in Turkey. And he thinks Ukraine should surrender to Russia. He is basically every autocrat's useful idiot. He's like a Tucker Carlson but not just for the Kremlin, but in all around fashion. Do you in any way undermine human rights and reject democracy? Are you an enemy of America? Then Twitter or X has your back! At every turn he undermines American foreign policy interests. In an earlier post of yours about AI you said corporations are becoming bigger than states and pretending to act like them. I think that's exactly the danger Elon Musk poses. I think Musk's ultimate goal is to become big enough to subsume self-government in America with his wealth, influence and technology. And he wants to use countries like China to help him establish a corporatist state. China would be fine with it. So would Russia. Putin and Xi only want to divide the world into spheres of influence. Musk wants to amass corporate power to build a perverse utopia that aligns with his psychopathic distorted, perverse vision of accelerationist Steve Bannon, Curtis Yarvin, Blade Runner technofuedal unfreedom. Just like to the radical postmodern left everything that is socialist in practice is considered liberal in principle, Elon Musk is the polar reverse of this, where everything that is fascist in practice is liberal in principle. If she's a real cold warrior, and she really wants to remove every trace of the CCP from the homeland, I would advise Nikki haley as soon as she's inaugurated to investigate Elon Musk for ties to the CCP. Or he should testify before Congress. America has a right to know what the limits of his business in China are, and what his ambitions for using the state to govern AI are, and how both his ambitions for technological supremacy and his obscene defenses of China and Russia intertwine.
Agree about *all* of this. I've been thinking well before this blew up about his CCP ties.
Make that your next post please. That would be really really cool. I'm going to research this more too.
I have so many "next posts" I'm working on. I really didn't intend to write this one.
Well add Elon Musk and the CCP to the list. And make it long. The Free World demands to know whether he's a communist before he gives us Neuralink brain implants and autonomous vehicles, and whether he wants to make Mars into a white ethnostate planet.
Claire -- given the absolutely horrific material you documented (and what an ugly task -- you might consider a walk-through autoclave rather than merely a thorough shower?) I was convinced that your search for other reports must have overlooked SOME publications with national reach.
Alas. The /only/ recent article I managed to find is in Rolling Stone, from 1st September:
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/elon-musk-boosts-antisemitic-propaganda-twitter-anti-defamation-league-1234817008/
David French, writing in the New York Times yesterday, produced a column concerning the necessity to ban children's access to pornography -- material most often reached through smartphones.
But who is to save the rest of us, regardless of age, from this growing, vile contagion propagated by Elon Musk? Perhaps Mr. French may be interested in expanding his recommendations from twenty-four hours ago, or to consider adding a footnote which recognizes that pornography has senses beyond those he treated. We'll see.
Well done. Many thanks.
Today in the New York Times, David French has taken your -- very much credited -- newsletter here and pursued its themes, resulting in a front-page, exquisite skewering of Elon Musk and his bizarre conception of "free speech." David's reference to The Princess Bride in this context is, in the words of the television commercials for Master Card, priceless:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/10/opinion/musk-free-speech.html
Articles about this just popped up in Forbes and the New York Post. It looks like the Daily Beast wrote something about it a couple days ago.
Can you send me the links? Thanks!
https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattnovak/2023/09/04/elon-musk-promotes-campaign-to-ban-adl-while-agreeing-with-raging-anti-semite/?sh=4979c7e2358d
https://www.thedailybeast.com/elon-musk-ponders-twitter-poll-on-banning-adl-from-free-speech-site-after-bantheadl-trends
https://nypost.com/2023/09/04/elon-musk-boosts-antisemitic-bid-to-ban-adl-from-x-perhaps-we-should-run-a-poll-on-this/
Maybe it wasn't a good idea for me to read the comments on that New York Post article. Man, this stuff spreads like wildfire.
Ack, you had to mention it. Now I’ve read them too.
I mean, really--our country is going nuts.
Nah, our country has always been a haven for people who are inclined to dissent, protest and believe in stuff that is out of the mainstream. It's just that people are getting bolder about saying it out loud, now that the internet has brought their fellow-travelers out into the open. I think the access provided by social media and platforms like X/twitter bring the nastier strains of thought into view, but I believe it's always been there.
Oh, good! Two of those were posted today while I was writing this and while Musk was explaining (I missed it, because I was writing this) that he has nothing against Jews, he just blames them for advertisers abandoning Twitter. I missed the Daily Beast article somehow--I don't know why it didn't turn up under the search terms I used.
I mean "Good" that I wasn't the only one to think, "wtf???" That was weirding me out.
Yeah, I wasn’t trying to be contrary, just let you know you weren’t alone.
Another one just now: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-04/musk-blames-anti-defamation-league-for-x-s-us-ad-sales-slump?in_source=embedded-checkout-banner#xj4y7vzkg
Thank you for for putting forward the effort to compile this post, Claire. I know it must have been a deeply unpleasant and demoralizing task. Sharing everywhere I can.
I feel better after doing it. It was getting me down to have that rattling around my skull, though.