Tofu-Eating Wokerati
Micah LeeAn excellent article.
"They need us. We don't need them:" The fall of Twitter is making the trolls and grifters desperate https://www.salon.com/2023/08/01/they-need-us-we-dont-need-them-the-fall-of-twitter-is-making-the-and-grifters-desperate/
Jeff Moe
whereisk@micahflee too bad it doesn't mention the 'verse.
A. RiveraThey never learn. Reason those other RWNJ social media sites keep failing is because the RWNJs, Nazis, trolls, etc. don't have anyone to yell and harass. It's not fun if they can't bully someone.
Sad. (LOL.)
mays5891And the reason they whine about the leftist controlled sites is when there is actual free speech they get their ass handed to them
Oh yes, they do not handle getting their asses handed to them well at all.
toxtethogrady@mays5891 @bloodravenlib @micahflee That was how I ended up bounced off Twitter. I followed the Biblical admonition to hand them their asses...
Stu Duerson, machina exo deus@micahflee Lice don't live without a body to live on.
Expect the last wave to leave Twitter for Mastodon to be almost exclusively trolls and scammers, in search of a new body.
i_Cal@skydog someone should make a honeypot instance to attract them all to register on, then get the domain blacklisted everywhere else
Lee Fife@skydog @micahflee oh, and a number of the "journalists" will be in that wave too ...
Perhaps. But if they maintained Twitter as their main collection/dissemination to the end, I don't think they'll be a journalist I'd tend to listen to. They'd not be very far up the evolution curve.
Kid Mania
David O'BrienThe trolls troll the grifters, and the grifters grift the trolls, I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
beforewisdom 
That looked like a fun article. I skimmed it. I didn't see any numbers or references. No way to tell if it isn't something a writer spun up from nothing.
Dwevil@beforewisdom Same. Maybe Twitter is dying off popularity wise but that article didn’t have any numbers to back itself up.
William Gunn@beforewisdom @micahflee The author has more than a few axes to grind: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanda_Marcotte
I skimmed the page you linked to correctly. I didn't say any connection to this conversation about the article being a fluff piece.
Miragee@micahflee Might get a precursor if today’s Twitter/X Boycott is successful.
Ryan Egesdahl 
@micahflee @mastodonmigration I’m going to say this again: don’t give these people the attention they crave. Screenshot and calmly debunk if people are actively talking about something they said, but never name and link. If nobody’s talking about it, don’t be the first. They *want* the rage because it gives them the appearance of controversy. Kill it with disinterest.
Janlu@micahflee I think elon is trying to do some psychological tricks, but forgot that you can only do them if you got braincells.
Ramesh #NotGoingBack"What #Musk has proven through his actions and statements is that he's #committed to serving #trolls and #fraudsters first and ordinary good faith users second,"
But, #Elon is "blinded by his own #ideology" and can't see how this is #backfiring.
#Musk may #feign #confidence about his #strategy on #Twitter, but there are strong signs he's worried that the site's reputational #decline is driving off the everyday users he needs in order to keep his beloved trolls active.
Monica@micahflee SO happy to see others recognising these clout-goblins and professional rage farmers for what they are! Musk will continue to lose advertisers too as more and more become aware their ad money is wasted on a social platform increasingly populated by AI bots trained on violent & anti-democratic troll rhetoric!
chilort
Julescelt@micahflee Would you look at that...people who said to ignore the radical right grifters on the former bird site were correct. Take the air out of their sails and they're left floundering.
Good. Society needs less of that type of propaganda.
Daniel Hakimi@micahflee I literally only go there now to follow @dieworkwear (who doesn't post here). And that's the key value of Twitter today: it directs people to Derek Guy, so dressing reasonably well is gaining mainstream attention.
Theodora Lau"The reason people are leaving Twitter is not because they read a report on a non-profit's website. It's because they can see for themselves that Twitter is increasingly a ghost town dominated by a handful of trolls who get increasingly vile to make up for declining engagement numbers." 💯
Heidi@micahflee the article should have cited Bartle's 1996 four gamer types/MUD thesis. You can't have a viable multiuser game (space) with only the griefer type as they particularly require an audience.
Benjamin@micahflee it’s a nice theory, but I’m not sure there’s even proof the trolls are getting more radical. Maybe it’s just a vibe?
Even if they are radicalizing, that might just be the result of knowing they can traffic children or be unrepentant nazis and not get booted. I would expect radical content if all right wing moderation is removed.
@micahflee Do watch what Marcotte is doing here: exactly what she claims to be decrying. Bringing attention to the rw grifters, including multiple extwitter embeds so we give the thinskinned billioanaire more views, and conveniently ending the article with "follow her on twitter". She's a good writer, but always worth stepping back and thinking about why she's writing what she's writing ...
alex.@micahflee What the article misses is that the fall of Twitter isn't the result of an incompetent fool bumbling about but the whole point. The destruction of Twitter is premeditated. Disrupt public (liberal) debate and enable Trump to win in 2024.
As the article states itself: "As Hughes told Salon, "Twitter was very important for what we call 'agenda-setting' in media studies." Because Twitter was the favorite platform of journalists, politicians, and other politically important figures ..."
Louis Cyphre@alexdot @micahflee Absolutely. Mission accomplished for those folks. It's why certain foreign governments financially backed the takeover.
Dubious LegalityThe trolls and grifters are most of what Musk is removing though. Yes there are still SOME trolls, but its 1000x better than the constant barrage of bots I ran into daily before.
Luis Coello@micahflee I clicked on the link for an explanation as to why Twitter is a shithole. I stayed for the very awful story about Robert F. Kennedy Jr. This is lovely, thanks for sharing!
CurtAdams@micahflee A side point: the best way to deal with trolls and trollish arguments is to ignore them. Take action against mainstream (and "mainstream") supporters of the trolls but read and comment on writing that speaks truth or at least tries.
kcarruthers@micahflee @darylgibson it’s true. Social media without us is boring because we’re more interesting than the RWNJs who are always whinging about Barbie and wokeism.
daryl@kcarruthers @micahflee hey hi ho, yes we are, we are interesting humans
Roy #EatTheRich Pardee 🇺🇸@micahflee Amanda Marcotte like a mofo
Tushar Chauhan@micahflee I believe that's a gross misframing. The business model is to farm attention. There is no liberal or progressive in this calculation. This has been the grift ever since the dawn of internet based social-media. You make money by grabbing attention.
T Kennedy@micahflee the trolls and grifters deserve each other. it's only a matter of time before they turn to cannibalism.
David White :verified:@micahflee I am not going to be on Elon Musk's f*cking sh*tty "X" site anymore!!!
LivingCode@micahflee hrhrhrhr
xian@micahflee file under unintentionally good side effects?:
"Grifters need people to harass and a mainstream discourse to counter. As traffic takes a nosedive and Twitter becomes less a part of the conversation, it's going to be harder for these folks to make money," Melissa Ryan, a strategist who helps counter online disinformation, told Salon.
Laviro Sennomo 