The latest Musk “rebranding” epitomizes the rightwing project to restore dominance: It oozes the aesthetics and sensibilities you will find in a toxic tech bro man cave and is designed to impose them on all of us by brute force - a stunt that is as ridiculous as it is disgusting.
At its best, Twitter provided a way to access diverse voices and perspectives from outside the established institutions. I’ve written extensively about why it was a crucial instrument to democratize the political and cultural discourse - and why losing that would hurt:
https://thomaszimmer.substack.com/p/the-sabotage-of-twitter-is-a-disaster
The Sabotage of Twitter Is a Disaster for Democracy
Thoughts on Musk’s destruction of the virtual public square – and what democracy is losing
The virtual public square has been deliberately shattered, the political discourse (re-)fractured, with the intention of making it a lot harder for the perspective and criticism from people with no access to powerful institutional platforms to break through and shape the discussion.
@tzimmer_history I know one person on Twitter that's getting great numbers since the changes started. He's a trans man that insists all trans people are mentally ill, and his ideas only get worse from there.
@RnDanger @tzimmer_history so he’s popular for saying he’s mentally ill?
@jag0325 @tzimmer_history He seems to think he's the only person that did it correctly but also claims it was due to mental illness. So, yes.
@RnDanger @tzimmer_history I would tend to believe it’s not really a trans person. But I’m cynical.
@jag0325 @tzimmer_history I knew him IRL. My wife knew him before too
Thomas Zimmer
2xfo
JD
Brooke Binkowski