Elon Musk bought Twitter.

[I like neeps]

Indeed.

The Twitter freak-out from both the extreme Elon fanboys and the extreme "Elon is hate speech" crowds is illustrating exactly the issue with the culture of Twitter. And is hilarious to observe.

One extreme thinks we’ve now entered a utopia for free speech and this means conservatives will thrive now the oppressive libs are gone. The other extreme thinks we’ve arrived at a dystopia where ideas they disagree with is hateful and will make every supposed vulnerable group kill themselves. Except those in the vulnerable groups who aren't politically alligned with them of course.

I think Musk will make Twitter better. Or he'll atenmpt to, different question if he'll succeed. But the issue of online public discourse essentially being in the mercy of the whims of the super rich is not at all resolved.

Musk won't want a sewer of racist, homophobic, sexist discourse attached to his name though. People will continue to be banned - just maybe not Donald Trump.

Ultimately, Musk and Dorsey have pretty much the same views on the world. Very little will change.

New York Post - Hunter Biden - Twitter ban. That's the sort of stuff Musk will clamp down on I expect.

Sure, but most of the news media and Facebook didn't report on it at the time either as it lacked a lot of credibility. Now that looks a mistake by them sure but these are the problems Musk will continue to have. Because the fundamentals remain in that do you want to fact check and only allow fact checked comments, or moderate nothing and just let everything out there and see what happens in the name of 'free speech', or moderate somethings and not others and have to explain what 'free speech' means on the platform you own.

I believed during the Trump ban and believe now. There is no free speech on a privately owned platform. Free speech is about the government, not about businesses. And Musk buying twitter doesn't change that. Just he becomes basically a media baron like Murdoch and co.

[laurent]

So you go back to the same shop that has overcharged you 10 times already just in case he won't do it once more ?

Me? No. But we're not talking about wrongs done to the consumers. To take your example, I hate to say it but Amazon is a great company that gets quality shit to my door fast and cheap, and that's not gonna change no matter how many baby seals Jeff Bezos clubs in his spare time.

The whole point I made originally was that (for now) Musk hasn't done anything that would harm the Twatters themselves. If he does, like charging for use (which has been rumored) or just doing things that alter the experience, that changes things. Then I get why people would ditch it.

Yes (despite the slander case) though it is a cause for concern.

[Paddington Bear]

It is amusing watching the people who screamed 'it's a private company, they can do what they want' switch places with the free speech crowd

They can do what they want indeed. And a lot of users seem to be leaving (I left myspace before it became empty wasteland never joined creepy faecesbouc or any of it's subs)
(just the same I have not used amazon for a long time).
A company owned by a "libertarian" is not appealing to a lot of people with good reasons.

I don't really get this...what changes for the average user after this?

Is it really just "wahhh the owners don't think like me!!"?? Well, welcome to how normal people live, folks.

Pretty much. I'm a little over data privacy tbh, unless you disconnect from all social media, are don't have a smart phone it strikes me that it's too late.
For me, Musk has bought twitter because the most culturally and politically influential people in the world are addicted to it and pour their lives out onto it. I don't know how to extract or monetise that information myself, but would imagine Musk and his funders very much have people who can.

[Hugo]

Musk won't want a sewer of racist, homophobic, sexist discourse attached to his name though. People will continue to be banned - just maybe not Donald Trump.

Ultimately, Musk and Dorsey have pretty much the same views on the world. Very little will change.

New York Post - Hunter Biden - Twitter ban. That's the sort of stuff Musk will clamp down on I expect.

Sure, but most of the news media and Facebook didn't report on it at the time either as it lacked a lot of credibility.

But the NY Post had their account suspended because of it.

The reality is that many things that "lack credibility" in the short term are proven true over the long term and some things that appear true to begin with are later proven to be false. It took the best part of 30 years for the truth to emerge about the Hillsborough disaster for example however the lies about the Iraq war unravelled much faster.

Suppressing perspectives by silencing or censoring them does huge damage in the long term because people end up with no faith in the institutions that they are supposed to trust.

[JM2K6]

New York Post - Hunter Biden - Twitter ban. That's the sort of stuff Musk will clamp down on I expect.

Sure, but most of the news media and Facebook didn't report on it at the time either as it lacked a lot of credibility.

But the NY Post had their account suspended because of it.

The reality is that many things that "lack credibility" in the short term are proven true over the long term and some things that appear true to begin with are later proven to be false. It took the best part of 30 years for the truth to emerge about the Hillsborough disaster for example however the lies about the Iraq war unravelled much faster.

Suppressing perspectives by silencing or censoring them does huge damage in the long term because people end up with no faith in the institutions that they are supposed to trust.

Probably not as much damage as the hurricane of misinformation and disinformation that social media has unleashed upon the world, though. And as for the NY Post, well... sowing, reaping, etc.

[eldanielfire]

Tbf they said the same thing about Tumblr and that became a wasteland almost immediately as soon as new owners fucked with it

It was aways a wasteland wasn't it? Except they took the porn off which is what so many users were apparently using it for.

No, it was hugely popular. 500m page views per month before the ill-advised content change.

I used wasteland not about it's popularity but the culture there.

any study shows it was domianted by the Far Left. Progressive Activists, who are around 8% of the population, accounted for 50-70% of the posts on social media. The hard right also did account for disporportionate level of discourse. I believe also that 80% of twitter users never actually post either. The Hidden Tribes report explains this very well.

The Hidden Tribes report is a bit shaky(*) and disagrees with other studies, e.g. https://knightfoundation.org/wp-content ... rt1-v6.pdf

The center left is the largest segment present on Twitter by far. The extreme right is a distant second in size, followed by the center right and extreme left.

and as some right wing outlets pointed out, they also played silly buggers with how they counted traditional conservative Americans: https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/c ... -majority/

So the “Exhausted Majority” consists of an American public from which America’s most left-wing 8 percent and most right-wing 25 percent have been removed — which is to say that it is a majority whose center is significantly to the left of the actual country’s center.
...
Anderson does not dismiss the report as devoid of interest. But anyone seeking to glean something about our country’s majority should keep in mind that the report has excluded three times as many Americans on the Right as on the Left.

[/quote]

He may disagree with what counts for Exhausted majority. But that doesn't actually refute the statistics of whom is using Twitter the most are progressive activists. Likewise he only states Traditional conservatives are the most active politically. That isn't the same as being the most vocal on Twitter or posting the most with would still go to those more extreme groups.

Likewise the Vox artice does the same. But both ar opinion pieces whose main bag is they don't like what is categorised as extreme. Given the report highlighst both the more extreme right and left for criticism. Of cousre neither of the critics provide any contradictory evidence, but merely opinion.

Numerous studies also support the idea the most extreme political groups, however you want to find them domiante the discussion, even if they aren't the majority of users and most outside these groups tweet or post far less frequently. Pew has a few and The Joe Cox foundation produced a good one that greatly echols the US Hidden Tribes one with different data and categories but similar trends echoed.

https://www.britainschoice.uk/
https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/n ... ts/610146/
https://www.deseret.com/2022/1/14/22880 ... epublicans
https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/20 ... ter-users/
https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/20 ... ter-users/
https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/20 ... n-twitter/

The real problem with Twitter is absolutely not "it's dominated by the far left / far right". The problem is AI amplification of extremism, misinformation, and clicks-led bullshit.

* I remember reading this at the time, it's a decent article: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics ... vid-brooks

Interesting, a study shows when neutral bots are used on social media, they find fewer or no biases in the political content.

https://research.impact.iu.edu/key-area ... -bias.html

So yeah, the domination of the far left and right are issues. As one of my links indidates, the amplification by AI make sit worse of course, but the two issues are interlinked and magnify ecah other seffects.

A solution, I hope would be for laws to ensure partisan hate posts and not amlified by algorithms. I'd also say pressures from mainstream legacy media are also usually bad, as they enhance partisan and big corporate interests. It's why the media will suddenly run numerous hit pieces on one really successful YouTuber or Podcaster all at once to get Social Media to benefit their interests in grabbing peoples attention for news and entertainment. But tha's another discussion.

[JM2K6]

Eldan, you're conflating "supports Democrats in the US" with "far-left". That's just silly.

[I like neeps]

New York Post - Hunter Biden - Twitter ban. That's the sort of stuff Musk will clamp down on I expect.

Sure, but most of the news media and Facebook didn't report on it at the time either as it lacked a lot of credibility.

But the NY Post had their account suspended because of it.

The reality is that many things that "lack credibility" in the short term are proven true over the long term and some things that appear true to begin with are later proven to be false. It took the best part of 30 years for the truth to emerge about the Hillsborough disaster for example however the lies about the Iraq war unravelled much faster.

Suppressing perspectives by silencing or censoring them does huge damage in the long term because people end up with no faith in the institutions that they are supposed to trust.

Sure ofc it's damaging to not report on something true as the story lacked credibility at the time. However, stories based on lies e.g. Hillsborough are also very damaging. So, the question is...How do you decide what's true, what's a lie and what's proper reporting? It's horses for courses depending on your internal standards. So we get to the main problem. Free speech is not the responsibility of a public company. 4chan is well within its rights to allow its users to say whatever. The Sun can say what they want about Liverpool FC fans. Not Planet Rugby can ban me tomorrow. That's how private business works. It becomes a problem when the government crack down on it. But Twitter, Musk, etc aren't the government. Musk buying twitter doesn't change the fundamental problem of what is free speech on a platform of a private business and how to differentiate fact from fiction etc. The problems will all be the same.

[eldanielfire]

Sure, but most of the news media and Facebook didn't report on it at the time either as it lacked a lot of credibility.

But the NY Post had their account suspended because of it.

The reality is that many things that "lack credibility" in the short term are proven true over the long term and some things that appear true to begin with are later proven to be false. It took the best part of 30 years for the truth to emerge about the Hillsborough disaster for example however the lies about the Iraq war unravelled much faster.

Suppressing perspectives by silencing or censoring them does huge damage in the long term because people end up with no faith in the institutions that they are supposed to trust.

Probably not as much damage as the hurricane of misinformation and disinformation that social media has unleashed upon the world, though. And as for the NY Post, well... sowing, reaping, etc.

Interesting on PR I ahd a discussion with towny and at some point in our discussion the fact that conspiracies aren't spread more, only faster was the broad takeaway from the links we posted. But what is true is the more partisan the media acts overall in it's behaviour in what stories it does, what stories it ignores and the angles they present them with, the less trust it has and the more likley conspiracy beliefs are to be held. Corporate interests is also a distrustung fact. I think 75% of media ad revenue for cable chanels is from Big Pharma. Media trust is at an all time low.

[eldanielfire]

Eldan, you're conflating "supports Democrats in the US" with "far-left". That's just silly.

I haven't done that.

Though the far left will inevatably get behind the Dems, just like the far right will with republicans.

[Hugo]

Sure, but most of the news media and Facebook didn't report on it at the time either as it lacked a lot of credibility.

But the NY Post had their account suspended because of it.

The reality is that many things that "lack credibility" in the short term are proven true over the long term and some things that appear true to begin with are later proven to be false. It took the best part of 30 years for the truth to emerge about the Hillsborough disaster for example however the lies about the Iraq war unravelled much faster.

Suppressing perspectives by silencing or censoring them does huge damage in the long term because people end up with no faith in the institutions that they are supposed to trust.

Probably not as much damage as the hurricane of misinformation and disinformation that social media has unleashed upon the world, though. And as for the NY Post, well... sowing, reaping, etc.

I can't think of anything more damaging to public trust than when it is exposed that governments have lied, covered things up or committed criminal acts.

Oftentimes it is only a free press and the dogged determination of an investigative journalist that has uncovered the truth and sometimes at great personal cost. As much as possible you can't interfere with that, its one of the few things that brings accountability to those in power.

[Hugo]

But the NY Post had their account suspended because of it.

The reality is that many things that "lack credibility" in the short term are proven true over the long term and some things that appear true to begin with are later proven to be false. It took the best part of 30 years for the truth to emerge about the Hillsborough disaster for example however the lies about the Iraq war unravelled much faster.

Suppressing perspectives by silencing or censoring them does huge damage in the long term because people end up with no faith in the institutions that they are supposed to trust.

Probably not as much damage as the hurricane of misinformation and disinformation that social media has unleashed upon the world, though. And as for the NY Post, well... sowing, reaping, etc.

Interesting on PR I ahd a discussion with towny and at some point in our discussion the fact that conspiracies aren't spread more, only faster was the broad takeaway from the links we posted. But what is true is the more partisan the media acts overall in it's behaviour in what stories it does, what stories it ignores and the angles they present them with, the less trust it has and the more likley conspiracy beliefs are to be held. Corporate interests is also a distrustung fact. I think 75% of media ad revenue for cable chanels is from Big Pharma. Media trust is at an all time low.

The truth is not always easily accessed. Sometimes it is apparent immediately, other times it takes years of investigation, research, litigation and court cases to finally come out.

IMO suppressing free speech only makes the truth harder to come by which in the long run makes us worse off.

[JM2K6]

But the NY Post had their account suspended because of it.

The reality is that many things that "lack credibility" in the short term are proven true over the long term and some things that appear true to begin with are later proven to be false. It took the best part of 30 years for the truth to emerge about the Hillsborough disaster for example however the lies about the Iraq war unravelled much faster.

Suppressing perspectives by silencing or censoring them does huge damage in the long term because people end up with no faith in the institutions that they are supposed to trust.

Probably not as much damage as the hurricane of misinformation and disinformation that social media has unleashed upon the world, though. And as for the NY Post, well... sowing, reaping, etc.

I can't think of anything more damaging to public trust than when it is exposed that governments have lied, covered things up or committed criminal acts.

Oftentimes it is only a free press and the dogged determination of an investigative journalist that has uncovered the truth and sometimes at great personal cost. As much as possible you can't interfere with that, its one of the few things that brings accountability to those in power.

OK. What about the many, many times that accusations are made on social media that governments have lied, covered things up, or committed criminal acts when it's simply not true - or when it was true, and the disinfo is in fact denying that happened? Because that's a huge problem at the moment. The press does not exist alone. The press includes those cunts at OANN and the like, too.

[JM2K6]

Eldan, you're conflating "supports Democrats in the US" with "far-left". That's just silly.

I haven't done that.

But you have indeed done that. You made this claim:

any study shows it was domianted by the Far Left

and then produced various links that apparently back that up, except you haven't read those links, e.g.

Pew quote:

Despite the differences between highly active tweeters and those who are less active, other instances show these active users differ only modestly – or not at all – from the rest of the Twitter population. Although prolific tweeters report tweeting about politics with great regularity, their overall partisanship is not out of sync with other Twitter users. Overall, 61% identify as Democrats or lean toward the Democratic Party, compared to 60% among other users.

Pew again:

Of course, many political independents actually lean toward one of the two major parties. Of the Americans who lean toward either party, 52% of U.S. adults identify as Democrats or lean toward the Democratic Party, while 60% of U.S. adult Twitter users say the same. Similarly, 43% of U.S. adults identify as or lean Republican, compared with 35% of adult Twitter users.
...
In terms of political ideology, Twitter users are less likely than U.S. adults more broadly to characterize their views as very conservative. On an 11-point scale ranging from 0 (“very conservative”) to 10 (“very liberal”), 14% of Twitter users place themselves between 0 and 2, compared with 25% of the general public. At the same time, similar shares of Twitter users and U.S. adults identify as very liberal.

The Britain's Choice link is a British retread of the Hidden Tribes report, complete with exactly the same language, and says absolutely nothing about the relative proportions & volume of each group on social media (or about the far left in general).

So a small majority identify as Democrats or lean towards the Democractic Party with very little mention of the "far left". And that's the evidence you've used to back up your claim that the far left dominates Twitter. Ergo, you are conflating the two. I've not seen any evidence in either my own searches or your links to back up your assertion that studies show Twitter is dominated by the Far Left.

Though the far left will inevatably get behind the Dems, just like the far right will with republicans.

Lol, no. The far left frequently does not do that, in fact. As you probably would've noticed if you'd spent much time on Twitter around them... they hate the Dems almost as much as they hate anything else - the perennial weakness of the left. Just look at the election Trump won.

The far right gets behind the Republicans because the current Republicans have courted them and essentially been subverted by them in many ways - going back to the insanity of the Tea Party. The same has not happened to the Democrats, who are currently led by a centrist and have not had a left wing leader for a very long time.

[JM2K6]

On another note. Click through:

[eldanielfire]

Eldan, you're conflating "supports Democrats in the US" with "far-left". That's just silly.

I haven't done that.

But you have indeed done that. You made this claim:

any study shows it was domianted by the Far Left

and then produced various links that apparently back that up, except you haven't read those links, e.g.

I guess youmost if not all these links in detail before.

Pew quote:

Despite the differences between highly active tweeters and those who are less active, other instances show these active users differ only modestly – or not at all – from the rest of the Twitter population. Although prolific tweeters report tweeting about politics with great regularity, their overall partisanship is not out of sync with other Twitter users. Overall, 61% identify as Democrats or lean toward the Democratic Party, compared to 60% among other users.

Pew again:

Of course, many political independents actually lean toward one of the two major parties. Of the Americans who lean toward either party, 52% of U.S. adults identify as Democrats or lean toward the Democratic Party, while 60% of U.S. adult Twitter users say the same. Similarly, 43% of U.S. adults identify as or lean Republican, compared with 35% of adult Twitter users.
...
In terms of political ideology, Twitter users are less likely than U.S. adults more broadly to characterize their views as very conservative. On an 11-point scale ranging from 0 (“very conservative”) to 10 (“very liberal”), 14% of Twitter users place themselves between 0 and 2, compared with 25% of the general public. At the same time, similar shares of Twitter users and U.S. adults identify as very liberal.

The Britain's Choice link is a British retread of the Hidden Tribes report, complete with exactly the same language, and says absolutely nothing about the relative proportions & volume of each group on social media (or about the far left in general).

So a small majority identify as Democrats or lean towards the Democractic Party with very little mention of the "far left". And that's the evidence you've used to back up your claim that the far left dominates Twitter. Ergo, you are conflating the two. I've not seen any evidence in either my own searches or your links to back up your assertion that studies show Twitter is dominated by the Far Left.

[/quote]

If it retreads the Hidden Tribes report why then does it produce it's own statistics and characterises the UK political scene by different categories with exhaustive research? Likewise you demand other reports produce the same effect and then complain they are too similar in their findings. You only produced a couple of opinion pieces that quibbled if one category or two was an extreme or not, depsite neither peice having any refuting of the actual trends that the ends domiant the discussion. No disputing the stats, methodology or trends.

Though the far left will inevatably get behind the Dems, just like the far right will with republicans.

Lol, no. The far left frequently does not do that, in fact. As you probably would've noticed if you'd spent much time on Twitter around them... they hate the Dems almost as much as they hate anything else - the perennial weakness of the left. Just look at the election Trump won.

The far right gets behind the Republicans because the current Republicans have courted them and essentially been subverted by them in many ways - going back to the insanity of the Tea Party. The same has not happened to the Democrats, who are currently led by a centrist and have not had a left wing leader for a very long time.

The Democrat party for better or worse has mechanisms to ensure it's leadership is centralist. I've often mentioned how they use this to kneecap Bernie Sanders. Trump joined the republicans lkely because he realsied he could get the nomination with them after donating more to the democrats. But while many far left do hate and complain about the Democratic party they will eventually vote for it. More lefty leaning types are clearly there in the Democrat party but they are away from the levers of power. I suspect there is also a separation on what is meant by far left, I'm continuing my use of the idea of the Progressive activist. The type more involved in what people would call woke and cancel culture politics. Twitter on the left is ceratinly not as vocal about economically left leaning politically. Lots of vague lip service to socialism but little actually about it realative to other topics. Which of course is why people will quibble with these categories.

[JM2K6]

Eldan, do me a favour and quote the bits from those pieces you think actually back up your argument rather than just handwaving away all the quotes I've used. If you are conflating "Dems" with "far left" - and even calling progressives far left is proper bonkers - then we're wasting our time here.

"Woke" people are not far left. That's like saying the right wingers on here are far right. Being awake to social injustice does not make you far left. Words mean something!

[eldanielfire]

The truth is not always easily accessed. Sometimes it is apparent immediately, other times it takes years of investigation, research, litigation and court cases to finally come out.

IMO suppressing free speech only makes the truth harder to come by which in the long run makes us worse off.

Free speech of course eliminates lots of stuff like harrassment and incitement.

I suspect a lot of media distrust is due to the fact when the media knows something or hides it or even attacks many on partisan grounds that suit their political side or corporate stances.

[eldanielfire]

Eldan, do me a favour and quote the bits from those pieces you think actually back up your argument rather than just handwaving away all the quotes I've used. If you are conflating "Dems" with "far left" - and even calling progressives far left is proper bonkers - then we're wasting our time here.

"Woke" people are not far left. That's like saying the right wingers on here are far right. Being awake to social injustice does not make you far left. Words mean something!

And in terms of definitions Woke these days is clearly not used as just people "awake to social injustice", regardless of how it was originally coined decades ago. Though it's usually the very disingenious defence used on twitter of course.

Just like when for a decade on PR when dozes of posters constantly called me a white knight when I pointed out the huge number of cases of misogyny or bigotry in various discussed topics they weren't saying it as a positivething in it's original definition.

[JM2K6]

Eldan, do me a favour and quote the bits from those pieces you think actually back up your argument rather than just handwaving away all the quotes I've used. If you are conflating "Dems" with "far left" - and even calling progressives far left is proper bonkers - then we're wasting our time here.

"Woke" people are not far left. That's like saying the right wingers on here are far right. Being awake to social injustice does not make you far left. Words mean something!

And in terms of definitions Woke these days is clearly not used as just people "awake to social injustice", regardless of how it was originally coined decades ago. Though it's usually the very disingenious defence used on twitter of course.

Just like when for a decade on PR when dozes of posters constantly called me a white knight when I pointed out the huge number of cases of misogyny or bigotry in various discussed topics they weren't saying it as a positivething in it's original definition.

Right. Woke is largely used this days as a derogatory term by the right wing, aimed at pretty much anything they don't like. So it's become meaningless. It's still a really shit way to determine who the far left are.

[eldanielfire]

Eldan, do me a favour and quote the bits from those pieces you think actually back up your argument rather than just handwaving away all the quotes I've used. If you are conflating "Dems" with "far left" - and even calling progressives far left is proper bonkers - then we're wasting our time here.

"Woke" people are not far left. That's like saying the right wingers on here are far right. Being awake to social injustice does not make you far left. Words mean something!

And in terms of definitions Woke these days is clearly not used as just people "awake to social injustice", regardless of how it was originally coined decades ago. Though it's usually the very disingenious defence used on twitter of course.

Just like when for a decade on PR when dozes of posters constantly called me a white knight when I pointed out the huge number of cases of misogyny or bigotry in various discussed topics they weren't saying it as a positivething in it's original definition.

Right. Woke is largely used this days as a derogatory term by the right wing, aimed at pretty much anything they don't like. So it's become meaningless. It's still a really shit way to determine who the far left are.

And there's the disingenuous defence. Lots of left wingers and centre-left and centralists do as well, unless you'll say Obama, liberal comedians like Ricky Gervais, Dave Chapelle, andBill Maher, pro-social democratic journalists like Helen Lewis, Democratic strategist for Clinton James Carivlle, and numerous others who are clearly not right wing have used it in this context and often critically.

It's also not meaningless, as I pointed out it's clearly the side of the left who are deemed 'Progressive activists' in the report I spoke about earlier. Who are a minority even for the left. When people criticise woke they have a very specific meaning, not some vague one size fits all things I don't like. Sure there are some bad faith right wing idiots who splash any and all vaguely left wing politics as Woke. But hey they think any sort of universal health or government spending (except on their own businesses of course) care is socialist, so yeah, they clearly aren't talking accurately or in good faith, which is why they mirror much of Woke cultures commentary.

[eldanielfire]

In another one of those Twitter comments don't appear to accurately reflect the outside world, it appears Elon is quite popular across the main political divide:





You certainly wouldn't think from the comments that Elon was less popular among republicans.

[FalseBayFC]

I know Tik Tok is hugely popular but does it have any use for people other than children, pranksters, posers and loony activists?

I can't quite get why Tik Tok is so popular. It's barely different to the old Vines app and just recycled material, recycled vine style memes and not much else.

My 18 year old daughter loves and has always loved Tik Tok. It makes her happy and makes her laugh. She's never outraged by it and that's why kids love it. They are innocent and enjoy being happy. Twitter is the opposite its an environment full of people who have lost their innocence and feed off the darker side of life.

[I like neeps]

In another one of those Twitter comments don't appear to accurately reflect the outside world, it appears Elon is quite popular across the main political divide:





You certainly wouldn't think from the comments that Elon was less popular among republicans.

I wonder why the party of oil and gas are less effusive about the world's most famous and successful renewables business leader.

[JM2K6]

And in terms of definitions Woke these days is clearly not used as just people "awake to social injustice", regardless of how it was originally coined decades ago. Though it's usually the very disingenious defence used on twitter of course.

Just like when for a decade on PR when dozes of posters constantly called me a white knight when I pointed out the huge number of cases of misogyny or bigotry in various discussed topics they weren't saying it as a positivething in it's original definition.

Right. Woke is largely used this days as a derogatory term by the right wing, aimed at pretty much anything they don't like. So it's become meaningless. It's still a really shit way to determine who the far left are.

And there's the disingenuous defence. Lots of left wingers and centre-left and centralists do as well, unless you'll say Obama, liberal comedians like Ricky Gervais, Dave Chapelle, andBill Maher, pro-social democratic journalists like Helen Lewis, Democratic strategist for Clinton James Carivlle, and numerous others who are clearly not right wing have used it in this context and often critically.

It's also not meaningless, as I pointed out it's clearly the side of the left who are deemed 'Progressive activists' in the report I spoke about earlier. Who are a minority even for the left. When people criticise woke they have a very specific meaning, not some vague one size fits all things I don't like. Sure there are some bad faith right wing idiots who splash any and all vaguely left wing politics as Woke. But hey they think any sort of universal health or government spending (except on their own businesses of course) care is socialist, so yeah, they clearly aren't talking accurately or in good faith, which is why they mirror much of Woke cultures commentary.

The people you list all hit back at "woke" because they got criticised for dumb shit they said and did. It's the reflex bad faith response. The very idea that it's being used to refer to anything specific when it's being used as a criticism is nothing short of farcical. You only have to look at how our government uses it for a good example.

You're living in a fantasy world (the same one where the far left row in behind the democrats) if you think "woke" is being used accurately rather than a braindead go-to slur that is aimed at pretty much everyone. It's not aimed at the far left - sorry, but progressive means something and it doesn't mean far left - and it's been wielded against genuinely quite far right people and organisations as soon as they broke ranks in any minor way.

Even fucking GB News was accused of being woke.

It's a useless term and even more useless as a frame of reference for what determines the far left. But we should probably just agree that you have your definition of the far left and are unwilling to change it, even if it doesn't match anyone else's definition beyond the psychos on the fringe of the right wing in America where everyone to the left of Ted Cruz is a communist

[JM2K6]

In another one of those Twitter comments don't appear to accurately reflect the outside world, it appears Elon is quite popular across the main political divide:





You certainly wouldn't think from the comments that Elon was less popular among republicans.

The American left doesn't like him much but the centrists - the majority of the Democratic support base - like him for a variety of reasons, some of which they share with the libertarian right.

[notfatcat]

Musk won't want a sewer of racist, homophobic, sexist discourse attached to his name though. People will continue to be banned - just maybe not Donald Trump.

Ultimately, Musk and Dorsey have pretty much the same views on the world. Very little will change.

New York Post - Hunter Biden - Twitter ban. That's the sort of stuff Musk will clamp down on I expect.

Sure, but most of the news media and Facebook didn't report on it at the time either as it lacked a lot of credibility. Now that looks a mistake by them sure but these are the problems Musk will continue to have. Because the fundamentals remain in that do you want to fact check and only allow fact checked comments, or moderate nothing and just let everything out there and see what happens in the name of 'free speech', or moderate somethings and not others and have to explain what 'free speech' means on the platform you own.

I believed during the Trump ban and believe now. There is no free speech on a privately owned platform. Free speech is about the government, not about businesses. And Musk buying twitter doesn't change that. Just he becomes basically a media baron like Murdoch and co.

Well they told everyone it lacked credibility because they had an agenda. It was a political decision and nothing to do with credibility.

[I like neeps]

New York Post - Hunter Biden - Twitter ban. That's the sort of stuff Musk will clamp down on I expect.

Sure, but most of the news media and Facebook didn't report on it at the time either as it lacked a lot of credibility. Now that looks a mistake by them sure but these are the problems Musk will continue to have. Because the fundamentals remain in that do you want to fact check and only allow fact checked comments, or moderate nothing and just let everything out there and see what happens in the name of 'free speech', or moderate somethings and not others and have to explain what 'free speech' means on the platform you own.

I believed during the Trump ban and believe now. There is no free speech on a privately owned platform. Free speech is about the government, not about businesses. And Musk buying twitter doesn't change that. Just he becomes basically a media baron like Murdoch and co.

Well they told everyone it lacked credibility because they had an agenda. It was a political decision and nothing to do with credibility.

Interesting, I haven't seen this - do you have the quotes to hand?

[notfatcat]

Sure, but most of the news media and Facebook didn't report on it at the time either as it lacked a lot of credibility. Now that looks a mistake by them sure but these are the problems Musk will continue to have. Because the fundamentals remain in that do you want to fact check and only allow fact checked comments, or moderate nothing and just let everything out there and see what happens in the name of 'free speech', or moderate somethings and not others and have to explain what 'free speech' means on the platform you own.

I believed during the Trump ban and believe now. There is no free speech on a privately owned platform. Free speech is about the government, not about businesses. And Musk buying twitter doesn't change that. Just he becomes basically a media baron like Murdoch and co.

Well they told everyone it lacked credibility because they had an agenda. It was a political decision and nothing to do with credibility.

Interesting, I haven't seen this - do you have the quotes to hand?

I'm sure if you Google '51 national intelligence experts' you'll start to put 2 and 2 together.

[Uncle fester]

Big (realistic) improvement for me would be to crack down on bots somehow.

Yep. Shit like this is causing much of the strife on twatter.

[Tichtheid]

Eldan, you're conflating "supports Democrats in the US" with "far-left". That's just silly.

I haven't done that.

Though the far left will inevatably get behind the Dems, just like the far right will with republicans.

That's not what I've seen. Moderate Leftists will get behind the Democratic Presidential candidate, even if they'd have preferred Warren or Sanders, but I've seen a lot of attempted wrecking from people who I don't even consider "hard or far left" on the campaigns for Obama, Hillary and Biden (I didn't follow online before Obama, but the harshest criticts of Bill Clinton, Gore, Dukakis, Carter, way back to Kennedy are from the further left, and they are still not Communists)

What is now seemingly defined as far left is no longer taking public ownership of property and capital, now is seems to be those who want no one to go bankrupt and lose everything as a result of a hospital bill

[I like neeps]

Well they told everyone it lacked credibility because they had an agenda. It was a political decision and nothing to do with credibility.

Interesting, I haven't seen this - do you have the quotes to hand?

I'm sure if you Google '51 national intelligence experts' you'll start to put 2 and 2 together.

Interesting theory you have there. Sadly lacking evidence. Luckily, not planet rugby's rules allow for making sh*t up in their free speech policy.

[eldanielfire]

I wonder why the party of oil and gas are less effusive about the world's most famous and successful renewables business leader.

They'll be thankful when oil and gas effectively runs out and these alternative energy sources are available. Sadly they won't be convinced by the climate argument, because their so partisan and blinkered.

[eldanielfire]

Big (realistic) improvement for me would be to crack down on bots somehow.

Yep. Shit like this is causing much of the strife on twatter.

I'm amazed at how so many people have such exact views.....

[notfatcat]

Interesting, I haven't seen this - do you have the quotes to hand?

I'm sure if you Google '51 national intelligence experts' you'll start to put 2 and 2 together.

Interesting theory you have there. Sadly lacking evidence. Luckily, not planet rugby's rules allow for making sh*t up in their free speech policy.

Yeah, to be fair I should have countered your own evidence. Oh hang on...

[eldanielfire]

Eldan, you're conflating "supports Democrats in the US" with "far-left". That's just silly.

I haven't done that.

Though the far left will inevatably get behind the Dems, just like the far right will with republicans.

That's not what I've seen. Moderate Leftists will get behind the Democratic Presidential candidate, even if they'd have preferred Warren or Sanders, but I've seen a lot of attempted wrecking from people who I don't even consider "hard or far left" on the campaigns for Obama, Hillary and Biden (I didn't follow online before Obama, but the harshest criticts of Bill Clinton, Gore, Dukakis, Carter, way back to Kennedy are from the further left, and they are still not Communists)

What is now seemingly defined as far left is no longer taking public ownership of property and capital, now is seems to be those who want no one to go bankrupt and lose everything as a result of a hospital bill

As I said before, it depends what you mean by hard left. I agree with you when we discuss people who re economically left wing. Here I mean the ones extremely culturally identifying as pushing divisive social rhetoric. Not the genuine left who would want economic changes.

I've spoken before how many Left Institutions are now fairly neo-liberal, or left language is embraced by neo-liberal big corporations and the activists who get into them or behind them. These online are often the hardest left in cultural politics but not economically. They often speak vaguely in favour of socialism but are more interested in Cancel Culture type of politics online. Their the kind when I'm speaking about the far left or hard left in the current climate. Not in it's classic form.

[notfatcat]

Big (realistic) improvement for me would be to crack down on bots somehow.

Yep. Shit like this is causing much of the strife on twatter.

I'm amazed at how so many people have such exact views.....

[Fonz]

That's not what I've seen. Moderate Leftists will get behind the Democratic Presidential candidate, even if they'd have preferred Warren or Sanders, but I've seen a lot of attempted wrecking from people who I don't even consider "hard or far left" on the campaigns for Obama, Hillary and Biden (I didn't follow online before Obama, but the harshest criticts of Bill Clinton, Gore, Dukakis, Carter, way back to Kennedy are from the further left, and they are still not Communists)

What is now seemingly defined as far left is no longer taking public ownership of property and capital, now is seems to be those who want no one to go bankrupt and lose everything as a result of a hospital bill

Looking to economic policy isn't going to tell you much though. Both parties are largely indistinguishable in that sense, certainly in terms of what they will actually do in power: like it or not, you're getting neoliberalism.

[TB63]

I'm sure if you Google '51 national intelligence experts' you'll start to put 2 and 2 together.

Interesting theory you have there. Sadly lacking evidence. Luckily, not planet rugby's rules allow for making sh*t up in their free speech policy.

Yeah, to be fair I should have countered your own evidence. Oh hang on...

Hunter Bidens laptop? Oh please..

[Fonz]

It's not aimed at the far left - sorry, but progressive means something and it doesn't mean far left

While I generally find debates about definitions to be rather pointless, I am curious as to how you'd define "progressive" as opposed to "far left"

(Which I always found to be a somewhat obnoxious and self-congratulatory term tbh, even when I was one)