[socrates1998]

[flagged]

[SilverElfin]

> Elon will continue to mess with the algorithm until he gets his political goals.

Twitter/X has open sourced their algorithm (https://github.com/twitter/the-algorithm). So what do you mean by “mess with the algorithm”? And how do you characterize the extreme moderation (AKA censorship) practiced by old Twitter? For example when they banned a sitting president on the flimsiest reasoning, that even their own blog post justifying it could not describe, that their former CEO agreed was a big mistake?

> It's too bad that most people don't care about fascists getting control of these huge media platforms.

Define “fascist”. These days it seems to just mean “someone not aligned with one end of the political spectrum”. The bottom line is Twitter/X is far less censored today than it was a few years ago and it isn’t even close. The vast scheme of censorship it practiced previously dramatically altered elections worldwide.

[BlueTemplar]

Here you go :

https://acoup.blog/2024/10/25/new-acquisitions-1933-and-the-...

And Elon has forfeited the charitable assumption that he wasn't a fascist when he made the fascist salute at the inauguration. Twice.

At such a public event, it doesn't even matter whether he believes it himself : symbols have power.

[declan_roberts]

How do you measure viable? Twitter is still the best place to hear and read about breaking news.

[hn1986]

Nah, it's been altered to point to his biases. Just like he has with Grok. He represents the opposite of free speech

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/02/technology/elon-musk-grok...

[lovich]

It’s best only if you ignore the signal to noise ratio.

I might read “breaking news” on Twitter first, but simultaneously I’ll see the other 10 variants of reality about said “breaking news” with no way to discern between them quickly.

By the time you’ve fact checked anything, the regular news has already reported it

[Barrin92]

>Twitter is still the best place to hear and read about breaking news.

only if you don't care if what you're reading is true or not. I never really understood twitter or sites with user generated content as a medium for news. I'm just as well off waiting until some news room checks it and reports it in a format that doesn't have me wasting time scrolling through a sea of posts.

The only thing I need in the next five minutes is an earthquake or flood warning and for that I thankfully live in a place that has a public alert system.

[NelsonMinar]

Well, some breaking news at least. The kind that's flattering to a certain political mindset.

[kelseyfrog]

Morally viable. One that conforms to personal and social norms and values.

For example, if one values free speech or resistance against reactionaries, then a platform which censors and promotes reactionaries would not be morally viable.

Many people, think they hold a different set of values than they do. When push comes to shove, following rules, stability, and security trump liberty, freedom, and equality. In reality some folks are much easier than even that - a quick bite of hot news releases a squirt of dopamine more enticing than all of these and it's much easier to justify that it didn't really compromise their moral behavior.

[kiitos]

are you stuck in 2021? hang on let me give you a hand, join us here in the present! things are different now, friend!

[catapart]

citation needed on that "best" designation. It's certainly A place to hear about breaking news. Maybe the best place to hear about elon or tesla news fast. but anything else? Been keeping up with the gamedev industry just fine on my twitter-less socials.

[rideontime]

If you don't mind getting completely fake news. Community Notes used to be good at addressing this, but Elon publicly gimped it recently to kowtow to the right-wing crowd upset about losing their monetization.

[dakiol]

No news is better than Twitter news.

[Havoc]

It has critical mass and network effects which apparently can take a hell of a lot of strain from the actual product being shit

[mariusor]

I can understand this point of view if you're an unknown with opinions where being on a platform with algorithmic feed and many users can give you some exposure.

But when you are a national level public figure, any micro blogging tool, even one fully dedicated to yourself would be equally suitable. Nobody at that level benefits from being on Twitter.

[kiitos]

twitter lost critical mass and network effects years ago

[mvdtnz]

X does not have "critical mass". It could disappear tomorrow and it wouldn't make a single bit of difference.

[numpad0]

Decentralized socials haven't found a great way to generate informational bandwidth comparable to peak Twitter. Twitter demographic is thoroughly desensitized with data bandwidth and will not move to alternatives that don't offer current Twitter even though it's nowhere near the rosy peak.

[immibis]

Bandwidth above a certain point is actively detrimental, and that point is quite low. It's not just why we all have ADHD now but also why we can't tell reality from fiction.

[mensetmanusman]

Twitter has 611 million monthly active users.

More than 245 million people worldwide use Twitter daily.

64.14% of Twitter users are men, while 35.86% are Women.

Most of Twitter’s audience (36.6%) belongs to the 25-34 age group.

With 103.96 million users, the United States has the highest number of Twitter users.

Twitter users in the United States spend an average of 34 minutes and 6 seconds daily.

Twitter generated a revenue of $744 million in the first half of 2024.

[fsflover]

> comparable to peak Twitter

This is an unnecessarily high bar. Otherwise Mastodon works fine and won't be enshittified.

[idiomat9000]

Its more a auction house for selling the western public any opinion. The irony beeing that all those unsavoury characters, autocrats, islamo-facists can push their stories with the rest rented out to lobbies. Resulting in public places with no public.

[cryptoegorophy]

Did you know you can just ignore politics? There are filters. When it comes to politics everyone seems to be a retard, even figures like Paul Graham being a genius in one field, while being a complete moron in all others.

[fsflover]

Did you know politics won't ignore you? One day you wake up in a dictatorship that prohibits whatever you find important in your life.

[dlivingston]

The sole reason I'm still on Twitter/X is that it's still ground zero for the startup scene. Paul Graham, Sam Altman, Garry Tan, and thousands of other VCs, CEOs, founders, and engineers are highly active and visible.

Also, I cannot stand BlueSky, as much I want to like it. There's this intense moralizing and pile-on culture that reminds me of the worst of pre-Musk Twitter. I'll never forget joining BlueSky late last year, posting some very milquetoast, liberal-coded and frankly inoffensive opinions, and finding myself added to lists called "MAGA / Nazi accounts to block". Just absolutely blew my mind and caused me to write off the platform forever.

[collingreen]

Thanks for the anecdote (honestly; this isn't snark). I haven't used bluesky and I like to see people's perspectives. Do you have any links to the inoffensive stuff that people thought was fascist?

Also are these official lists or are you just saying "someone out there put my account on their own list of accounts they don't like"? I dont know how the platform works and if its the first then wow but if its the second then I'm reading your comment and subsequent actions differently.

[archagon]

By the way, one of his primary political goals these days is white nationalism. He does not try to hide it anymore: https://bsky.app/profile/harikunzru.bsky.social/post/3lxrqzm...

(In case anyone is not familiar: “Remigration is a far-right European concept of ethnic cleansing via the mass deportation of non-white immigrants and their descendants, sometimes including those born in Europe, to their place of racial ancestry.”)

I am gobsmacked that this is rarely mentioned whenever there’s news about Twitter. It’s just so stunningly grotesque.

[docmars]

Unfortunately fascists were in control before Elon bought the platform, so if that's the case, nothing's really changed.

[jjangkke]

by your own measure then communists and socialists have gotten control of platforms like Reddit and is no longer a viable platform

[immibis]

Reddit is terribly corrupted by something, but I don't think it's communism or socialism. Proof by contradiction: communists and socialists are very strong advocates for punching everyone they think are Nazis, but if you ever hint at that on Reddit (especially as your first comment), or you call Elon or Trump a Nazi, you'll be banned.

Identical to X, it's a platform that pushes what the corporate overlords want you to think, while making it look organic. Different from X, they push more advertising and pro-USA agenda than pro-right-wing.

[NelsonMinar]

It says a lot about the people who are still ok using Twitter after what's been done to it.

[loeg]

Twitter is still the best of the twitter clones.