If you're still on Twitter, you're part of the problem.
People keep repeating this for easy self-righteousness. Again, what about small artists whose careers depend on their social media following?
Fuck Musk, but for better or worse this isn't just about him.
Artists whose whole career depends on the whims of social media giants have dug their own hole.
Easy for you to say. Are you even an artist?
Small artists need a convenient way to get their work to the eyes of regular people. If their self-hosted gallery is seen by no one, it doesn't facilitate their career. They generally can't afford to buy ads and are not popular enough to get a fan made groups spreading the word everywhere else.
Not to mention that this is such a callous attitude in general. Because you in particular aren't susceptible to this manner in which wealthy assholes are screwing people, then it's their fault for needing it?
It's ouroboros.
People don't leave which means there is an audience so people try to stay and capitalize on the audience that stayed.
Seriously, fuck Twitter. It needs to die. That might mean that a lot of people need to change a lot of things to make their lives work.
If you're successful you can pivot. If you're barely making ends meet and rely on Twitter to keep you afloat, I'm sorry to say this, but you're not successful yet.
It's not ouroboros because it's not artists with 1k followers that are keeping most people on Twitter. They are just the small fishes caught in the turmoil. Rihanna and those at her level can move anywhere, anytime and they won't even notice the difference. They are likely not even handling their accounts personally.
But I don't care to kill Twitter more than I care about smaller artists. What is it really being gained if you sacrifice them just for the satisfaction of killing a platform you don't even use? A lot of artists struggle but that doesn't make their work any less valid.
I'd hope everyone manages to move over, ultimately it's their best hope because that place will only get worse, but even I see that not everyone will make it. The followers lost in the move might be the difference that ends the viability of their career. But it's tragic that this is the situation that they have to deal with. So, why rush them and shame them for it?
I don't make money as an artist, but I live with two of them. They both migrated to Mastodon, with my technical assistance, and left Twitter before Elmo bought it.
Bear in mind I'm not the previous commenter, but I believe what they were saying is that the writing was on the wall over a year ago, and there are alternatives. Artists and computer geeks tend to get along with each other, and so most artists should have a techy friend that can help them with exposure online. I understand that switching platforms is inconvenient, and tiresome. Looking at it from a tech perspective however, it's a better ROI.
The worst of it is the ≈week of daily posts right before you shut down your Twitter account, linking to your new account. My friends were able to direct link, but I don't know if Elmo is allowing that any more.
I'm not an artist but I know a lot of them and basically only use twitter to follow them. And honestly, the ball is in their court. I see a lot of them complaining about shadowbans and it being impossible to grow a following. But nobody wants to jump ship to a place without an audience.
The problem being there will be no audience sitting around a new platform waiting for a show to start. They need to start double posting, IMO. Being the change they want in the world. They don't have to quit twitter, but posting content to twitter and mastodon (for example) would give their audience a reason to move, would give them a chance to grow, etc.
There's even apps like PostyBirb that can do the multiposting for you.
All the more reason to give their following a chance to find them elsewhere, and to follow them there when they do. There are other options; ideally standards-based federated options not susceptible to hostile takeovers by unstable billionaires
So originally, it was that he was a "free speech absolutist," then it was that he was in favor of free speech "within the bounds of the law," and now he's not even in favor of that.
He never was, that was just an excuse to amplify the voice of his far-right buddies.
I know. It was more about what he said.
I don't believe this because it gives Elon Musk too much credit and honestly I think he's just a big loser who will latch on to whoever likes him at the time.
A series of stupid events led to Twitter being full of stupid far right nutjobs and stupid Elon decided they're his people now because they use his stupid platform.
I'm not so sure about that. The big tell is that whenever a far-right user complained to him about getting a tweet removed or the account getting banned or something like that, he'd respond that he'll personally take care of it. Just imagine, a billionare running a platform with millions of users personally taking care of a single one. This never happened with other people.
By free speech absolutist he really meant he thinks fascists should be able to say whatever they want.
By free speech absolutist he really meant he thinks fascists should be able to force you to listen to them say whatever they want.
Freedom for me but not for thee
Raise your hand if you are convinced this will not impact the people who pay for the blue checkmark. Meaning that a lot of Elon Fanbois / Bots / Fascists will be seen with theit shitty takes (since the checkmark pushes your comments up), while voices of reason will be dragged down further.
Twitter is rapidly becomming the new Truth Social and it's sad to watch.
Well that was the whole point. His old friend Peter Thiel and others failed to set up a competing service against Twitter, so now they're undermining Twitter. Either Twitter steps into line and becomes what they want it to be, or it dies due to the $13bn debt/tax avoidance scam that Musk performed.
Literally every single day we have idiots doing Musk’s PR work for free.
Downvote Musk spam. The billionaire doesn’t need your help ensuring his businesses stay in the 24 hour news cycle.
Can we stop posting musk shit? It’s exhausting.
Have you considered joining "Enough Musk Spam", another such community devoted entirely to posting about the thing they dont like seeing posts about?
Lol. I blocked that shit.
Like it or not (I don't), free speech has nothing to do with social media. Platforms are free to do this, it's the government that can't limit your speech like this.
Given those circumstances, I wonder if social media should be treated like infrastructure. That would fuse constitutional rights and the platform itself.
While you're right, I think the issue here is the hypocrisy of Musk claiming to be pro free speech (specifically on his platform) only to then repeatedly limit speech he doesn't personally like.
So much for that free speech he was talking about.
"Free speech absolutist"®©™
(Terms and conditions apply)
This is from April. Did something change with it?
This is the most important comment on this thread. I wish lemmy forced you to post the date of the article
Someone predicted that they were going to slowly add back all the stuff they took out and they were right
I think most people could have predicted that. Most of the things Musk removed were there for a reason (Regardless of whether they where popular with Twitter's users or not). Mostly of economical or legal nature. You cannot simply remove them if you want Twitter to someday make a profit.
You can say whatever you like... in the privacy of your own cell.
I mean, it was never about free speech. It was always about crippling a powerful communication tool that had been used to undermine Middle Eastern governments. "Free Speech" was just how Musk was able to curry favor with fascists and grift retards into paying for twitter blue.
Why are there people still using that garbage? It’s fucking hilarious watching everyone complain about twitter, YouTube, etc and then continue using it.
it's not a revolution if you don't wind up where you started
I don't give a fuck about Twitter, stop posting this garbage already!
Technology
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed