General Elon Musk Fukkery Thread
- Thread starter Armchair Militant
- Start date
The fukk he needs a Faraday cage for?
Spidey Man
Superstar
Apple needs to buy Tesla at this point just to fire him before they boot Twitter from the store. Big bank that a$$hole
I approve of anything that is anti-AI.
I also approve of anything that sets Apple stans and Musk stans against each other.
And I approve of anything that makes Musk look goofy.
This is a win-win-win situation.
I been saying that too… Straight hostile takeover
sjankis630
Pro
Too late atm Tesla despite being down is too overpriced IMHO. Musk claims he wanted to sell to them a while back.
Spidey Man
Superstar
It’s 2024. Elon Musk Rules X. And the Political World Is Still Addicted.
Paid ads for political candidates are all over the platform, and politics insiders are secretly buying blue checks.
www.notus.org
Last year, Democratic candidates spent more than a million bucks on Twitter ads, per The Washington Post. Godofredo A. Vásquez/AP
MEDIA
It’s 2024. Elon Musk Rules X. And the Political World Is Still Addicted.
Paid ads for political candidates are all over the platform, and politics insiders are secretly buying blue checks.
Evan McMorris-Santoro and Alex Roarty
June 07, 2024 06:00 AM | Updated: June 10, 2024 10:14 AM
While former President Donald Trump was actively being convicted by a jury of his peers in New York City last week, Democratic strategist Tim Hogan did what just about everyone in politics, media and the surrounding D.C. ecosystem did: He flipped open the social media app X, f.k.a. Twitter, and began furiously scrolling.
“Twitter still critical on days like today,” he tapped out. “There is no replacement.”
He deleted the post shortly after publishing it, in what appeared as a perfect articulation of the love-but-wish-I-didn’t relationship many in the political world now have with Twitter.
“I guess you have your lead,” Hogan laughed in a phone interview about his tweets with NOTUS. The delete was not intended to be poignant, Hogan said; he periodically deletes the ones that aren’t “bangers.”
But he stands by his point: Political elite circles are on Twitter once again, only in a weirder fashion than before Elon Musk took over at the end of 2022. The argument is over; the hellsite is back. It’s a win for Musk, but one that people absolutely do not want to hand to him. In interviews, users said Twitter is not what it was, but also it’s not as bad as it was in the most chaotic days after it became Musk’s to do with as he pleases. People do not like to be on it, but they also once again have to be. Two years after words like Mastodon, BlueSky, Post and Threads became rallying cries and users declared war on the blue check, those who made Twitter what it was in the days before Musk have returned to using X.
“It’s a little bit like — with different stakes, of course — a little bit like the Trump administration,” Hogan said. “He won in 2016; it was horrible. We said we were going to move to New Zealand or Canada, but the reality is we had to ride it out. That is a little similar to this platform.”
Musk has notoriously trashed the media on X and drove industry stalwarts like NPR away with policies they said undermined their credibility. NPR is still gone, but others are now paying up for access to what remains one of the most powerful audiences in social media. NOTUS pays for a gold check that promises “better reach” for content, among other benefits. A number of for-profit news outlets have bought similar access.
Multiple D.C. tweeters said they knew people — everyone says they know one, no one will admit they are one — who paid for the site but chose a setting that keeps the blue check hidden so no one would know. When that setting was threatened, many of these people panicked.
It’s not just the media part of the political universe paying up for the privilege of accessing Twitter users. Paid ads for political candidates are all over the platform. Last year, Democratic candidates spent more than a million bucks on Twitter ads, The Washington Post reported.
One reason for this is that ad buyers love a bargain. One digital political strategist familiar with X told NOTUS that buying advertising on the site had become much cheaper recently, amid a broad advertising pullback from nonpolitical commercial interests on the platform. That’s led to an even greater return on investment for campaigns, the source added.
Another is that Twitter is back when it comes to politics. A second source said that the site remains a popular destination for people highly engaged in politics, many of whom are prime targets for a campaign looking to expand its list of donors.
“Campaigns are seeing it pay off,” said a national Democratic strategist working on campaigns this year.
Outside politics, Musk appears to be losing on X, which he formally renamed shortly after buying it. The value of the company has plummeted, and ad revenues and active users have reportedly slipped. On Thursday, NBC News reported paid ads appeared on X alongside “hateful hashtags,” another black eye for a business that has continued to take them. The company pointed NBC News to Musk’s promised new content moderation force in response to the story. Still, two years after many high-profile names made a dramatic exit from the platform, Democratic members of Congress remain prolific tweeters, and reporters pay close attention.
“I still use it, and I still communicate via Twitter,” said Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut. “But it’s just a much less user-friendly platform than it was when I started when I started using it.”
“It’s [a] tool that I don’t enjoy,” Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, whose missives on the site have routinely made news this year, told NOTUS. “So it’s just the way things are gonna continue.”
The senator added that he doesn’t spend much time on X and wouldn’t recommend anyone else do so either. The vibe is simply resignation.
“I would like to pause and take a minute here and say there is a squandered opportunity here on the part of Threads,” said Molly Jong-Fast, prolific poster and pundit. Like just about everyone NOTUS spoke to, she tried the other sites and was most excited by Threads when it debuted. But the site never worked enough like Twitter to replace it, and Meta doesn’t seem very interested in politics.
X, what’s left of it, is what there is, Jong-Fast said.
“A lot of people are gone, and people don’t use it as much. You do feel like you are producing content for someone who may or may not be a supporter of American democracy,” she said.
“I don’t think you get shamed as much for staying on there anymore,” she added. “Why give it to the right? We built it. Why can’t we stay?”
The value of the X has plummeted, and ad revenues and active users have reportedly slipped. Godofredo A. Vásquez/AP
Does that make Musk a winner?
“If that’s a win, I don’t want to see what losing looks like,” said Daniel Schuman, executive director at the American Governance Institute, who has spent a lot of time in his career thinking about how social media can make a better democracy. He’s also one of those people in D.C. who is so addicted to Twitter he has an app on his phone to stop him from looking at it too much during work hours.
“We’ve gone from Twitter to Zombie Twitter. Right? It’s still alive. It’s still chasing you,” he said. “You have to pay attention to it, but it’s not what it once was, and there are a lot of other places people are.”
Schuman once was one of those who once urged members of Congress to get on Twitter and who used its open API to create bots aimed at improving access to information, like one that for a time posted every new Congressional Research Service report automatically. The API is now closed off, and services like that are gone. Schuman uses Mastodon and champions it, but he also uses X and says in D.C. that it’s “the first among equals.”
“It’s always worth mentioning that Twitter is relevant to a certain subset of folks who have been on it for a while that are in certain communicating classes,” he said. “But it doesn’t necessarily mean that everybody is there and talking about the same stuff in the same way. There’s a lot of other spaces that we don’t necessarily see.”
But there is no doubt that if it happens in top-level politics, it happens on X, pretty much like it always has. On Wednesday, after a Wall Street Journal story painted an unflattering picture of President Joe Biden, Democrats lined up to defend him. The battlefield was X. Prominent elected officials and White House aides hammered away with tweets. That resulted in stories about the tweets, and tweets about the stories.
X is the place, and everyone knows it.
Drew Harwell (@drewharwell) on Threads
Twitter is 18 years old; Threads is less than one. No one should have expected a bunch of addicted DC types to stop using it overnight. Social platforms don't suddenly implode, they erode and decline over time. Personally I find X basically useless
www.threads.net
Dan Kennedy (@dankennedy_nu) on Threads
We don't need a news-friendly algorithm. We need lists so we can do it ourselves.
www.threads.net
Rebecca Milliken (@rmilliken439) on Threads
I left twitter before I started on threads. It had become a shyt show. I didn’t see people I followed anymore. Nothing made sense. There was a bunch of right wing shyt I don’t want to see. It wasn’t the same.
www.threads.net
Alex Howard (@digiphile) on Threads
This report on who’s using X/Twitter in DC by @evanmcs & @alex_roarty has human perspectives that reflect their arc, but is missing data on what % of “verifiedl journalists, politicians, nonprofits, officials, & federal agencies are paying-to-get-seen, for Tweetdeck, or for ads in 2024. It’s...
www.threads.net
Molly Jong-Fast (@mollyjongfast) on Threads
I think I’m correct https://www.notus.org/media/elon-musk-x-politics-addicted-twitter
www.threads.net
Jesse Baer 🔥 (@misc@mastodon.social)
Seeing a lot of lamentation about this situation and, outside of tech projects, scant evidence of active efforts to change it https://www.notus.org/media/elon-musk-x-politics-addicted-twitter
Bluesky
bsky.app
Joan Westenberg (@joanwestenberg) on Threads
When you have over 100,000 followers, complaining about not being able to grow your account on Threads is absolutely a damn choice
www.threads.net
Dan Gillmor (@dangillmor@mastodon.social)
It is an ongoing disgrace that journalists continue to support Musk's evil business. If you know a reporter who's using Twitter, please tell him/her to stop disrespecting the audience, and the craft. https://www.notus.org/media/elon-musk-x-politics-addicted-twitter
Isaac Pigott (@ikepigott) on Threads
Pretty pretty please come back to the site where my account has better traction
www.threads.net
Tom Gara (@tomgara) on Threads
This seems like a directionally correct take, Twitter is still extremely vibrant. But it’s also rooted in the dumb media narrative obsession with places being either dead or dominant, dying or taking over. That’s almost never true on the internet or in the economy in general
www.threads.net
Charlotte Henry (@charlotteahenry) on Threads
I wrote about this in my newsletter yesterday! Lack of news is stifling threads. https://newsletter.theaddition.net/posts/this-is-not-the-threads-election
www.threads.net
Nick Davis (@nickdavis1095) on Threads
As an alleged journalist, this guy’s take is why our news media is by and large utter rubbish. It’s not just the CEOs, it’s the rank and file hacks that make the whole thing shyte.
www.threads.net
Karl Bode (@kbode) on Threads
"what can I do, musk won, I guess I'll just keep using a nazi site (twitter) to drive subscription revenues to the other nazi friendly site (substack) I'm still using because I have no ethical backbone or am too lazy to build engagement or audience elsewhere."
www.threads.net
Chad Smith (@chaddie94) on Threads
Hey @mosseri , politics ( real news) is what people want. Stop throttling political posters
www.threads.net
Joan Westenberg (@joanwestenberg) on Threads
I deleted my Twitter account with 30k followers back when it was still called Twitter. As a journo and writer, I have no interest in supporting Musk’s propaganda machine. I started again on Threads and Mastodon with zero followers. I have worked every day to grow my audience all over again...
www.threads.net
Noelle :verified: (@noellemitchell@mstdn.social)
It’s 2024. Elon Musk Rules X. And the Political World Is Still Addicted. "Two years after words like Mastodon, BlueSky, Post and Threads became rallying cries and users declared war on the blue check, those who made Twitter what it was in the days before Musk have returned to using X." "Last...
Karl Bode (@kbode) on Threads
I think this is what journalists without an ethical backbone who keep using a shytty right wing propaganda mill to chase engagement want to tell themselves
www.threads.net
Dan Kennedy (@dankennedy_nu) on Threads
There is some truth to this. In particular, folks who work in local news and the Mass. political community, two categories I need to follow, haven't budged.
www.threads.net
Bluesky
bsky.app
Linda Groezinger (@astroattorneyastroimaging) on Threads
First there is no such thing as political conversation on Twitter. Second this is all about the egotistical little shytpile self-absorbed egotistical little reporters & journalists not following anyone else on threads but demanding that they have a big following.
www.threads.net
Tom Gara (@tomgara) on Threads
Threads, of course, was dead on arrival and then died again maybe a dozen times since. Twitter keeps dying. Facebook has been in a quantum superposition of both dead and dominant for Good knows how long now. I think Google was dying for a while there but it’s domanint AI search results are about...
www.threads.net
Catalin Cimpanu (@campuscodi@mastodon.social)
@Techmeme@techhub.social What are these authors on about. Just because you have a flood of troll farms on newly-registered verified badge accounts post content that doesn't mean it's a hot destination for politics. It's literal content spam from threat actors with agendas. My email gets 1k spam...
Shay Stewart-Bouley (@blackgirlinmaine) on Threads
There is no Twitter replacement. Just a shifting social media landscape, where these spaces are not as informative or useful as they once were. That said, I do think Threads is the closest community vibe to the ole Twitter. Mastodon failed, Bluesky is like an insular club where only hard-core...
www.threads.net
Romit Mehta (@theromit) on Threads
There’s enough news pubs updating here, enough tech pubs updating here, bunch of public personalities posting here, and the normal banter is fun. Don’t like the ex-Twitter users who are looking for an exact replacement bevause peak Twitter was lightning captured in a bottle and can’t be carbon...
www.threads.net
Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) on Threads
"The argument is over; the hellsite is back. It’s a win for Musk, but one that people absolutely do not want to hand to him."
www.threads.net
Tim Fullerton (@timfullerton) on Threads
I simply do not understand spending all that time/resources to build a real-time app if you’re not going to push news. That’s what keeps platforms like this alive since it’s always on. You cannot have a Twitter-like app when you deprioritize news. It simply will not work. And it’s exactly...
www.threads.net
Dustin Moskovitz (@moskov) on Threads
yea, it's crazy, the three of us may as well be in an empty room. I don't even know why I still come here 27 times per day.
www.threads.net
Karl Bode (@kbode) on Threads
Twitter is now a right wing propaganda and spam mill run by an ignorant fascist, and I'm embarrassed for anybody (especially journalists) still using it, funding it, or helping lend it credibility
www.threads.net
Pet Czar (@pet_czar) on Threads
I’ll never understand why Threads didn’t seize the opportunity to be the number one. It was theirs for the taking. People were begging for news, breaking events, and politics, and they ignored it. Go look at any comments under @mosseri posts, and you’ll see the pleas. And all the money they...
www.threads.net
BK The Great
Veteran
No shyt dikkhead
voltronblack
Superstar
BK The Great
Veteran
you know what he going to make that into a pay feature.
And dumbasses will pay for it like the blue check, all for validation.
AStrangeName
Member of Snitch Syndication
He did all of that, while ignoring that if someone wants to expose you, they can still go through your retweets
