Consept

Before Musk took over Twitter was a very popular social media platform and was the go to source of news for a huge amount of people. Elon Musk criticised Twitter as a platform that didnt allow free speech, was too left biased and he believed he could do a better job and so proceeded to buy the platform for $44 billion and took it private. His assumed goal would be to allow free speech and make it a more balanced site. Since his take over he has reinstated many previously banned accounts, he has allowed all kinds of 'free speech' to proliferate regardless of whether it was fake, hateful etc, there is a massive problem with bots. The biggest hypocrisy is that Musk himself is completely and unashamedly on the right, some would say maga right as he himself propagates conspiracy theories and actively and very regularly promotes Trump. Now all this is what it is and if you want to be a free speech absolutist you could make the argument that Musk should be allowed to say whatever as he also has free speech rights, i would obviously argue this point as I think the owner of a platform should be as neutral as possible otherwise its just a propaganda machine for one side. But the bottom line is this has not worked as a business or even as a platform. In 2 years, by most estimations X has lost between 70-80% of its value, even an internal leaked memo from X has shown that its lost over half of the value it was bought at. Ther ad business is down 60% from advertisers dropping out, the US daily users has dropped 23%, global 15%. Whole countries like Brazil have banned X a trend that will no doubt spread if he doesnt follow each countries rules. Essentially this is a lesson in how to tank a company. As well this has affected the dialogue around politics to the point where you have conspiracies such as man made hurricanes started to influence an election, actually being debated and taken seriously. Musk and Trump have legitimately set America back years as well as dividing a nation and occupying a lot of minds with absolute garbage. However it was an interesting experiment in whether you could actually have unregulated free speech, simply put it doesnt work. If a platform started out with unregulated free speech it would never get to the popularity of Twitter without severely evolving. Musk buying Twitter is interesting because its imposing these libertarian ideals onto something already hugely popular, to see if it could maintain or even increase popularity, none of this happened obviously. Maybe X will make a comeback I dont know, but what i think will happen is it will shrink to just a usership of the maga right, essentially becoming a 'truth social'. Its interesting also that Musk even thought this would work or maybe he just didnt care if it would.

It's more you're not looking for this information, you just have an opinion. Tbh I actually think it's bad enough that an owner of a tech platform has his extremely partisan views amplified and yes people's minds can be influenced, that's the whole reason he over paid for twitter, otherwise he wouldn't bought. But I will give you the easily searchable examples of left leaning accounts being shadow banned- Steven Monacelli, a journalist at the Texas Observer Ken Klippenstein, a national security correspondent for The Intercept Alan MacLeod, a reporter for MintPress News Rob Rousseau, a left-leaning podcaster @liamnissan, a comedic commentator who criticized Musk @zei_squirrel, a left-leaning commentator who has criticized Musk https://newrepublic.com/post/177936/twitter-suspends-accounts-journalists-critical-elon-musk Also Shadowbanning of a Tesla fan A Tesla fan claimed that X shadowbanned his posts after he complained about a defective Cybertruck. https://futurism.com/tesla-fan-shadowban-cybertruck Story about him shadow banning critics - https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailydot.com/debug/elon-musk-shadowban/%3famp He's also reinstated some extreme right accounts like Tate, Ye, Majorie Taylor Greene, babylonia bee, projrct veritas etc. He's promoted and retweeted accounts like libs of tiktok who dox people they disagree with on the left. To be honest you'd have to be pretty blind not to see this stuff happening. Basically everything the right complains about the left doing is being done 10x. Question now is, is this enough evidence for you?

There's a lot of things he's done to give himself an unfair advantage in terms of attention. His tweets are promoted more than anyone else - "The engineers fixed “the problem” by tweaking the code to automatically “greenlight” all of Musk’s tweets. “The algorithm now artificially boosted Musk’s tweets by a factor of 1,000,” reported The Verge, “a constant score that ensured his tweets rank higher than anyone else’s in the feed.”" https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/elon-musk-x-twitter-donald-trump-b2586440.html#:~:text=The engineers fixed “the problem,anyone else's in the feed.” So his voice is amplified artificially 1000x more than anyone else. It wouldn't surprise if Trumps and others likes are too but I'm speculating. He's also made it so that even if you block him, you'll still see his tweets, you just can't engage with them. So literally if you're on X there's no way that you wouldn't see his tweets. Now this may make sense if he was just giving technical updates for users or news about X as it may important for users to know. But he's not he's tweeting out, in some cases, very far right misinformation, or just inflammatory posts like the one saying the UK is on the brink of civil war, during a time of unrest. Imagine now if there was a civil war, would he have played a part in pushing it that way? Also he's not trying to hide this, it's all in plain sight, so no it's not a conspiracy or anecdotal it's literally what's happening.

That is true but i would argue that even that is not really a success. What Murdoch did very well was tread the line where he would work within the regulations of a particular country and so the media output, although biased, could get out to a lot of people because the bias could be somewhat hidden, or at least not as blatant and off the rails as something like Musks posts. This meant that Murdoch could keep a massive audience and put out his agenda in a sometimes subtle way, thus he could actually convert people from the other side. Also he was a good business man, so his platforms could stay relevant and be successful for years. With Musk this is definitely not the case, hes so partisan, that he actually works to engage the other side to vote against Trump. As well the business model is not sustainable and its haemorrhaging users and value at a crazy rate. I think his genuine belief was that his leadership would take twitter up a level and improve upon it, mainly by getting rid of the 'woke mob'

Not gonna give specific details but hopefully I can give am idea of the situation. So I have a family member who has always been a big issue within the family, I believe they have npd although they would never admit that. Reason I think that is they get into fits of rage when disagreed with, sometimes smashing walls or throwing things and even physically attacking, not to the point of striking but pinning down. As well they never take responsibility for these type of actions. In general can be very manipulative and if they want something they will find a way to get it. In conversation focus is constantly on them and they often play victim as an emotional tactic ie no one gets their pain etc. I have always found it hard to connect with them and so I use the grey rock method, which basically don't give them much emotion or supply, in fact I give nothing basically. The issue is though I'm not often there but I have other family members that are directly affected almost daily by this behavior. I generally just hear about it or see it when I visit. Recently something tragic has happened in this person's life, after which this behavior escalated, numerous rage incidents, arguments etc. After this other family members stopped communicating with them. I didn't necessarily stop communicating, but I decided to take a stop back and not put in any effort with them. To which they replied by basically disowning me. I do feel bad because it does feel like I'm abandoning someone in their time of need. In a similar situation they haven't provided any support even though we were on speaking terms, so it's not like this person would do anything for me but I do still feel bad. Also what's stopping me is that he can tend to drag you into certain situations that you don't need or want to be in. I'm also much closer with the rest of my family and feel like they deserve the support. I will also say I don't think he's consciously doing this stuff, I think he genuinely believes his reality and that everyone is wrong and he's right. I guess more just wanted to get it out but am I wrong for taking this step back or should I just deal with the fallout? Obviously any other general thoughts about the situation are welcome

@Letho Hey man, thanks for the detailed reply. So yeah i have put in boudaries and had them for a while, the only thing that makes this different is that something genuinely bad has happened to this person but they have used that to justify bad behaviour to other members of the family. So the dichotomy from my side is feeling bad because it is something terrible they're going through but then also maintaining these boundaries and not accepting the behaviour. I decided to not accept the behaviour and haven't had much contact but I also believe that they will use what has happened to manipulate if that makes sense. I may be wrong about that but I have seen it in the past. What you said though makes me think, whether I have a negative perception which is slightly exaggerated. So I believe that they would feel pain if something bad happens, I don't think they're a psychopath, but I do believe that most things they say and do in their life is some sort of manipulation to get others to side with them or to get them to do their bidding. For example, I'm not aware of them calling someone close to just see how they were doing or listen, even with parents, but if they want something they will phone a lot until they get that thing or support or whatever they want. So because of this I find it hard to see the good in them mainly because they are so self focused. From a meta perspective I can love them but inter personally I don't want to be around them

In the uk its similar, men are quote repressed sexually, however there can be a difference with say 2nd generation immigrants as their culture at home can be quite different. I can also attest to what you say about mujeres Latina, I dated a colombian girl and she was pretty much all the things you say and living in the uk she couldn't get her head around how insincere British people are

I'm with you but glory hole's do exist so some dudes are doing it

Lol yeah that's a pretty good analogy. Patrice O' Neal did a joke something like, men put their dick in a glory hole just so something happens to it they don't care what. For women sex starts when they meet a guy and they are conniseurs of it

Good question, I guess not because they will probably get the feeling I don't want to be around them. Thanks for your thoughtful response. I have tried seeing the good in him. I'm not sure if I'm just heavily biased because of past behaviour and just my general perception of them, but I do feel almost everything they do in relation to other people is some form of manipulation to get what they want, which I believe to be narcissistic supply, as well as survival needs from others. A stupid example might be offering as a birthday present an activity that the recipient has no interest in but that they really want to do. So on the face of it, it seems nice but there's no real concern for whether the person actually wants to do that thing. There are much worse examples btw, but just wanted a fairly light one. I do have these boundaries up, which is why they have developed issues with me. However what's hard for me to watch is the stress they put other members of the family under who don't have good boundaries. I have tried pointing out things but it usually ends in them reacting badly and justifying everything put forward. I think this will be the route ultimately taken, what I find is I have to limit myself so much around them and cannot live in truth because truth is corrosive to them, if something questions their reality, they react very negatively. So for me I don't see how I could be around that. Before I guess I wanted to keep peace and just tell people to keep boundaries etc but now I feel I want to opt out Thank you my bro 🙏🏽

This is the issue, I would be fine to just be there for them or talk to them or whatever the case maybe but I feel when I do that there are attempts to manipulate me to do things that they want or just to enable the behaviour, using the central issue as a pretence for this. So for example it could be them saying I'm depressed so I don't want to work anymore, but then they may say to their parents that they're thinking of unaliving themselves so their parents pay their rent. Then when I 'support' them I have accept this manipulative behaviour to be around them because if I were to question it, I would also be an uncaring monster. So what I'm having trouble with is, is not wanting to be around them because of their distorted reality but then also being aware that they have been through something potentially very traumatic.

To be honest this is a big componant, they have always been protected from the consequences of their actions. Someone always bails them out agrees with them even when they're wrong, I do believe this has led to how they are now. Even me who has tried to keep a decent distance, if a friend had done similar I probably wouldn't talk to them again. So just by virtue of it being a family member I have loosened my boundaries. I feel that because they know that I have to have looser boundaries they feel more confident to push them. This is also part of the problem as they constantly have to be around people. However the amount of people that want to be around them is dwindling due to their behavior

I can resonate with what youre saying thanks. I think in this instance uncovering these patterns is seemingly impossible because they see no problem with their behavior. Theyre very good at spinning situations so at least to themselves theyre the righteous one, even if everyone disagrees. So I dont know how they will uncover this when they dont believe there are any problems.

It's basically they're going through something and they feel like no one is supporting them. However there is always some kind of dispute with them, if it wasn't this it would be something else

@Javfly33 I see your point, in some ways the victim can be somewhat culpable in not fighting back. But I think the dynamic of bullying would mean that there's a power differential between thr bully and victim. In some cases this can be very wide like a celebrity, let's call for example duddy and a non-celebrity who works for him. Duddy specifically knows how to manipulate and bully this person and can also put fear in this person that no one will believe them. We have to accept that there are going to be more powerful people tha others in our society, the question is, do the strong people protect them or do they take advantage of them.

Just do it once a week

I don't really know too much about this guy and my Spanish isn't good enough to get much of what he's saying (even though I'm in Spain atm). But I just wanted to say a couple things ive noticed about influencers in this space. The main goal is to make you feel something, motivated, happy, intrigued, even envy, whatever. This is done through talking in a tone that seems completely certain of what they are saying. What they're saying is somewhat important but the more successful ones are able to say it in a way that hooks you. The actual content won't be anything you couldn't get and even better in relevant books, so it isn't really the content it's the feeling you get from the personality. So what happens is you buy in wholesale to this personality and even defend them when others criticise them. You overlook any flaws because you're focused on the way you feel when you listen to them. This feeling trumps any logic because it's addictive. There's also the feeling of 'normal' people don't get it but I do, so it gives you a sense of you're the one in the know. These guys are experts at doing this, this is their real talent. This isn't to say that you couldn't have this talent and also have something worthwhile to say and don't have any ulterior motives. But in my experience it's more likely people that develop these talents to this degree, are usually covering up something. If you are really trying to seek further understanding and knowledge, I would build up the skill of trying to discern who is trying to manipulate your feelings for some sort of gain and who is genuinely just passing on solid, helpful information

Tbf the royal family have always done this, but the coins are never as high in price as Trumps coin and are produced by the royal mint where all the currency is minted - https://www.royalmint.com/shop/commemorative/royalty/

I think the main issue with being a debunked is just by debunking it puts you at a higher moral ground or at least attempts to, than whoever you're debunking. So your bias and your own ideology are very important factors. Everyone has bias' but if you're not aware of them and actively work to counter act them, you would feel in the trap of someone just attacking people that don't believe what you do. Another issue is being taken in or gullible, I've seen Spencer Cornelia literally be fooled by grifters that he's interviewed. You have to have an open mind but it can't be so open that you're being convinced by bullshit. A lot of online people set themselves up as debunkers, lets say someone like candace owens, but really she's just trying to forward her narratives and discredit others. So it's extremely important that people just learn how to actually discern when someone is like this, it's difficult because if someone agrees with you, you'll probably overlook red flags. Regarding decoding the gurus, I like them because Brand and the like are obvious grifters and I like to see people going at them, but I think because of their snarky, laughing at them mode of conversation, it takes away from their ability to actually convince anyone who mightve been a follower of Brand, that he's bullshit. Imo coffezilla does a great job in terms of it would be hard to watch his videos on Logan Paul and still be able to side with Logan Paul even of you did before.

I think his intentions are probably sincere but he's definitely got biases that are quite obvious. But then again unless you get some unbiased ai, that's always gonna be a factor

thoughts?

So you don't think the danger from absolute free speech is enough that it would be worth working out a balance and have some regulations on free speech? You'd rather go with the binary blanket free speech. OK I mean it's an opinion I guess

Would you guys say the right are more likely to grift? Like would prominent figures on the left sell out to promote Russian propaganda?

Whats your opinion on the anti-tourism movement? Obviously there are pros in terms of money coming in but very relevant cons in terms of pricing locals out of the market

So are you saying there are no dangers to blanket free speech, aside from what you mentioned previously about screaming fire in a theatre?