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Alec Joseph Ott's avatar

I can honestly take or leave Twitter—and Facebook for that matter. Every year for Lent, I take off from social media, excepting “business” reasons to login—needed communications, posting articles, etc. It’s actually quite liberating. If I had to give up anything for good, certainly Twitter would be it—I know next to nobody on the site personally and my postings hardly generate any kind of activity—I’m probably not using it well—I’m too lazy to put in hashtags, etc.

All that said, I do prefer Twitter after Musk than before. I far prefer that users are free to say unpopular, vulgar, or even “so-called racist” things on the site than having some leftist-world-view people filter it before I see it. And I say “so-called racist” content because I am now quite numb to that charge, as I think many are. I am not defending Scott Adams—frankly I knew nothing about it before reading about it here. As I understand from what you’ve reported, he’s already suffering repercussions from his statements—justly or not.

But to say that Musk is defending “racism” by supporting Adams, I think goes too far. I think that Musk is more properly trying to defend free speech, especially when it’s made against something as untouchable as race relations. Again, I don’t claim to know the details of what Adams wrote nor the context, other than he was commenting on a survey. The whole thing seems ridiculous to me—first, the survey itself, and second, taking it seriously and wasting time commenting on its results. (That might be Adam’s chief fault in all this.)

I am also neutral on Musk the man personally—I don’t see him as any great savior of the world, but nor do I see him as a great villain. As far as I know, he’s no better or worse than any of the other heads of social media companies.

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Kenny H's avatar

I agree the issue with Scott Adams is a good enough reason to stop feeding Elon Musk attention. He does not need anymore attention. I guess the more he focuses on the money pit that is Twitter the less he is focusing on his other companies which probably will help those other companies do better in his absence, as he shares memes and does his best impression of a 19 year old.

Twitter has been since it's inception likely a net negative. The benefit of celebrities, public figures, aspiring public figures, and semi-famous people having a direct connection to their audiences. Does not outweigh the fact that absolutely horrible people also get a direct connection to their audiences.

Also since the beginning the word count restriction was destine to being the discourse found on Twitter immediately into the gutter. This also seems to make reactionary sentiment much more powerful than anytjing else. It's also nearly impossible to actually moderate the massive site fairly.

Now it seems like it's just a tool for a billionaire who is obsessed with being worshiped by a very particular subset of people.

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