So many events and alignments happening right now, at a time when I’m so personally busy that I can’t fully write out the thoughts that I want to share about current goings on.
As one of the relative few who already saw through Musk, what he’s doing on the #birdsite doesn’t surprise me, but I am surprised at how quickly it’s turning.
There are important reasons I chose mastodon over other alternative “social” platforms and I hope to talk about that more soon.
That said…
/1
I am glad that so many others appear to have seen the same indicators, weighed the pros and cons, and saw the value of a more distributed model of social, as opposed to participating in yet another VC-funded app that is looking to build a brand & profit model, and then be sold.
Not that there is anything wrong with that - entrepreneurs are free to do what they like - but IMHO wallets should never vote for that again.
I’ve long said that…
/2
Social media as people know it today - platforms that seek to use algorithms to drive “engagement” in order to increase profit or revenue - will always, inevitably, amplify the voices of people who know how to manipulate other people, and trigger their basest instincts. And as a result, that model will always amplify and promote pathological behavior in our society.
In other words, a market-driven, algorithm-driven model is bad for society at large. Inevitably.
/3
We have been watching this play out for years (let’s not forget Facebook), but Musk’s recent actions are essentially a naked power grab over these mechanisms, and he doesn’t have the self control to be remotely subtle about what it is that he’s trying to do.
I’m not as shocked or depressed now as some are, because it isn’t surprising to me - but I also understand why so many are.
I still have a twitter account, and still share a bit there, but…
/4
In my opinion, since he has taken over the site, the best way to fight him is for everyone important to stop creating content there, and force the company into a no-win financial situation.
Let it devolve into the next alt-right swamp, and make him resort to taking ads from viagra and gold scams and MyPillow.
Sure, clarify the truth when it counts, but don’t create his content for him.
Let the world see what right wing platforms do.
They die.
/5
Unfortunately the site still has massive reach - which means all of the conspiratorial content it promotes will reach a lot of people. But I hope folks can now see that trying to challenge Musk with reasoned arguments is no more useful than reasoning with the former guy.
A narcissist now owns the #birdsite. The most responsible thing to do is not feed him - and let him destroy it.
You want a conspiracy myth?
When the the Reichstag in Berlin burned, Hitler blamed the communists, declared martial law and became started to formally execute his dictatorship. It will never be known who the arsonist was.
When Musk posts a random photo of a car with an non-pixelated license plate to the public with criminal allegation but does not involve the police and complains about the posting about public data of his plane 1/x
which was 1000s of miles away at the time from the location of the crime, he blames people who had previously reported critically of him as committing doxxing which is done by lots of other people with really serious consequences, and sends them into twitter's concentration camps.
Looks like somebody was just looking for enacting martial law on twitter.
ClearingTheFog 
txwikinger