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emptywheel Oct 4, 2023

Elon Musk's Machine for Fascism: A Tale of Three Elections

https://www.emptywheel.net/2023/10/04/elon-musks-machine-for-fascism-a-tale-of-three-elections/

Elon Musk's Machine for Fascism: A Tale of Three Elections - emptywheel

In 2016, far right trolls used Twitter's to hijack rational discussions about the election, contributing to Trump's win. In 2020, moderation and post-January 6 efforts thwarted a repeat performance, but only barely. Since then, Elon Musk attempted to restore the haven for far right trolls that Trump rode to the Presidency in 2016 and used to sow a coup in 2020.

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Phil Rees

@emptywheel That Hashtag hijacking technique was also used by PR pros at companies like The Social Architects. I've long wondered whether that vulnerability was left deliberately open for their clients like SAP and HWA to use. SA were at Twitter's NY offices on election night firing off amplifier account tweets from that location. Exploiting the vulnerability badly instead of reporting and fixing it may have cost Hillary the US election.