Elon's Twitter Nonsense

So, the Elon Must Twitter drama continues. He paid $44 billion for it, so he'll damn well do with it as he pleases, from firing half the moderation team, to re-hiring some of them, to selling the blue verification-check-mark for $8 per month. Oh, and showing how much disdain he has for free speech by permanently suspending users who tell jokes about him he doesn't like.

First let's briefly assess his plan for letting users pay $8 per month. What do they get for that money? Well, in his own words, the paid-for blue check-marks will be prioritized in searches, replies, mentions, retweets and so on. Again, in his own words, you'll have to scroll down a long way before you'll see tweets by non-paying contributors. The idea behind this completely bonkers proposal, is that this would combat trolls and hate-speech. What it really does though, is shadow-ban everyone who can't or isn't willing to pay the subscription-fee.

Also, it's just completely against the principles behind such social platforms. The ones creating the content give the platform its worth. So now you have to pay to have Twitter make money of your content; that's just ridiculous. When I pay for a Netflix account, I do so because Netflix provides the content for me. It would be like Netflix having you pay, and then tell you to also provide the films and series. Completely bonkers. And even if you pay the $8 per month, you'll still not be able to enjoy an ads-free experience, as Elon's said you'll only have half the advertisements.

Elon has postponed this freedom-of-speech-killing measure until after the midterm elections in America, but that doesn't take away from the above worded criticism of course. What makes it worse is how Elon reacts to these criticisms like an eight year old child. First he blames some nebulous "activist groups" for influencing advertisers to leave the platform; I've already explained, as did many, many others, what really happened in my posts about Brand Safety and @zyx066/freedom-of-assholery 2 and 3 days ago respectively. Advertisers just don't want to be associated with the racist and bigoted assholes Musk has endeared himself with, or with the conspiracy theories, some of which he's spread himself. And by the way, advertisers pulling out is their free speech.

Then he posts a meme about how critics of the $8 per month "free-speech-fee" are willing to pay $8 for a latte at Starbucks, which lasts 30 minutes, but whine about paying $8 for the privilege to be seen on Twitter for 30 days. Again, Starbucks provides the product we're paying for, but with Twitter we provide the content and we (our information) are the product Elon sells to advertisers. Apples and oranges like a child would compare apples and oranges. I really don't understand how this man still has so much die-hard fans. How has this man-child fooled so many people into thinking he's actually smart?

And then there's this; he's suspended blue-check-mark users who had the audacity to make fun of him by creating parody-accounts with his name. The accounts were clearly marked and identifiable as parody-accounts, and the humor, although not always to my personal taste, was innocent enough. But clearly we've got a thin-skinned billionaire here who will not allow being made fun of. Free-speech absolutist? I think not. Watch the above linked video for the full Ron Barron interview, or use the timestamps to go directly to the $8 shadow-ban-prevention fee Twitter nonsense.

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