Twitter/X

This is what unregulated free speech looks like.

Unusable.

What did we lose with Steve Jobs? Simple user interfaces, a reduction in complication, leaving the past behind to go into the future. And with the loss of Twitter, we've given up instant news.

Used to be if you had a question about what was happening, the weather, a car accident, anything of the moment, you went on Twitter, where you would almost always find an explanation. But those days are through. Because the people posting these updates have left the platform.

You may not use Twitter, you may deplore Twitter, but the people who deliver your news, even opinion on the news, have historically been addicted to Twitter. That was where you went to find out information and take the temperature of a situation. It was an incredible resource.

That platform is gone.

And there is no replacement, and probably never will be. Apple eliminated USB-A on their Pro laptops in 2016. More than half a decade later, they released the Mac Studio with USB-A along with the now standard USB-C. How standard is USB-C? They even have it in automobiles, a slow moving industry if there ever was one. And all the new smartphones are USB-C, thanks to the European Union. But someone at Apple was afraid of angering pro consumers, who are on the bleeding edge. Jobs was all about perfecting the found item and then continuing to improve it. The first iPod had a moveable wheel, on the second one the wheel didn't move, it was touch sensitive, and more usable. Jobs was a stickler for getting it right.

That is not Elon Musk. If anything, Elon is a visionary, and that has been undercut too... How responsible for Tesla was he really?

As for Twitter...

He took a household name brand and changed it to something that does not roll off the tongue, to the point that most people still call X Twitter.

And then he kept on adding new features that confused what the platform was even about. Maybe he's trying to grow it into something bigger, but the problem is he lost a great deal of the user base along the way.

Now the two main ways to use Twitter are to follow individuals or have the algorithm render a feed by itself.

Unfortunately, many of the good posters have left Twitter. So if you go by following individuals, there's less there than ever before. And if you go by the algorithmic feed...

You're inundated with conspiracy theories, falsehoods, and a distinct right wing bias.

Meaning left wing people have abandoned the platform, making it less robust.

And the right wing people...

If Twitter is where you get your news, you have a totally skewed vision of the world, oftentimes, many times, inaccurate.

But even worse there's the attitude. Sure, social media is laden with hate, but usually it's a reaction to what someone has posted. Now the initial posts themselves are hate-filled. The attitude employed is one of holier-than-thou bullies. Mostly male. If you wanted to make sure a Democrat got elected for President you wouldn't send money to Kamala, you'd go into business with dating apps, and get all these bros laid. They're reactionary, angry, oftentimes detached from society. All they have is each other, egging them on.

And then there are conspiracy theorists like Laura Loomer. Who soon after the debate said Biden had a medical event on an airplane and we should be waiting with bated breath for the report, and when that didn't come that proved the point, right?

And for the last couple of days, Elon Musk has been saying his child died as a result of transitioning genders. Sh*t happens, anything can be true. So I checked the Google News... Nothing. The kid didn't die. Not at all. As a matter of fact, the kid will have nothing to do with their father, but unless you did research, you wouldn't know this.

And then there are the people trying to appear balanced so they can convince you of their heinous viewpoints.

And this is all a result of the lack of content moderation, of at least creating an algorithm that stops feeding this looney stuff to those who don't want to see it.

Free speech... Elon Musk doesn't even understand the meaning of the term. A private enterprise can restrict speech all it wants. And we can debate whether falsehoods should be removed from platforms, but the solution is not to throw out the regulators all together.

So now Twitter/X is completely untrustworthy. How did this "free speech" benefit society? It didn't, it hurt society.

We do not want a free for all.

You've got to obey the speed limit. You've got to have a license to drive. You can't drive the wrong way on a freeway. As for the vaunted "freedom" the right wing talks about...if it doesn't hurt anybody and you do it in your own home it should be all right, right? NO! They want to be able to say and do whatever they want to and restrict what you can say or do. Furthermore, if they don't like what you're saying they're going to drown it out in tweets, just like an individual is wary of suing a corporation for fear the company will bury them in paper and bleed them dry.

Do I expect a Twitter replacement to take hold?

No, because no one cares that much and there's not enough money in it. Threads is a C- level product, not in terms of raw usability, but its algorithm feeds stuff you like from Instagram, even though most people use the two platforms for completely different reasons. And although some lefties have defected to Threads, there are not enough people on the service to waste the time to go on it.

But it all comes down to one man. Elon Musk. Mark Zuckerberg...

Musk isn't supporting Trump out of the goodness of his heart, he doesn't believe in most of what Trump says, he just wants favorable business regulations. After Musk committed to Trump, the latter stopped excoriating electric cars. Not that anybody spewing hate and bile on X is aware of this. These are the same people who lost all that money on GameStop. They think they're changing the world, but they're not even playing in the real world.

So there's no Twitter replacement. There's nowhere to go for instant news. Apple News+ has a delay. Alexa's delay can be a whole day. Instantaneous? Out the window.

This is akin to music. The lead singer leaves, a band breaks up, and you can't fill that hole. If you want Led Zeppelin, that's the only place you can get it, there's been a few imitations, Kingdom Come and Greta Van Fleet, but even Greta moved on from that sound, if for no other reason than the backlash.

So we move forward and lose something in the process.

We can buy products online from Amazon, get them delivered overnight, but good luck finding what you want as a result of the ads. Never mind the ads you now see on Amazon Prime Video. Is there a single person who would get an Amazon logo tattoo? I can't imagine it. But you want the products. With Twitter/X, the true believers have left. Most of the rightwing blowhards weren't even on the platform before Musk bought it.

And whenever anybody criticizes Twitter/X, Musk blows back. Talk about a thin skin, this guy is responsible for so much internet hate but when the tables are turned on him he cries and wants to leave the game. As for his companies' exit from California... This is the guy who wanted Tesla employees to work on the line in the heyday of Covid. This is the guy who has created noise pollution in Texas. This is a guy who wants to live in his own world with his own rules. Fine for him, as long as it doesn't affect the rest of us, but it does!

I've about given up on MSNBC. The endless cheerleading is ridiculous. The Democrats are always right and the Republicans are always wrong. It's not as bad as FOX, but the end result with both is you end up with a skewed view.

And the further result of all this Balkanization is that fewer and fewer people actually know what is going on, and the way they deal with their ignorance is to pledge fealty to the team. And if you're not on their team, if you step outside the lines, if you question the orthodoxy, you're the target of extreme derision, and this happens on both the left and the right.

And the right now owns so much of the internet. They were behind at first, still depending on talk radio, but it's the right that has taken over the platforms, skewing reality. As for the left... It's not organized and it would rather just react and hate on the right.

Used to be when I had a moment, when I wanted to know what was going on, I'd pull up Twitter. Now I do so less and when I do I find it unsatisfying and I wince.

TikTok? That's a different thing. That's not for up to the minute news.

Instagram? Still users falsely parading, saying that you're better than us. The definition of curvy on Instagram is anorexic, talk about a skewed reality.

And if you speak out you're a hater. And every platform is a pejorative. "New York Times"? Untrustworthy. And you get that from the far left as well as the right. And you know why these people usually take this position? BECAUSE THEY FEEL POWERLESS!

That's why the bros are on Twitter/X, it's the only place they have power. And that's why the wealthy left wingers reject western medicine, because they don't want to be subjected to anybody else's judgment.

Last week both the "Wall Street Journal" and the "New York Times" printed stories about studies that say the unvaccinated have greater odds of getting long Covid. But we're still debating the efficacy of vaccines.

And you've got Joe Rogan, who is a full-time rumor machine. I'd like to send that guy to college, have him learn something, have to deal with those of other opinions and wrestle with the concepts. Joe's bros are such sycophants that Joe's convinced he's right when so often he's wrong, right on the face.

It's one thing to ask questions, it's another thing to support conspiracies. And if I'm focusing a lot on the right it's because in many cases the left has been somnambulant, in a bubble, thinking if your heart is in the right place others' will be too. Hogwash.

My life without Twitter is less rich, I've lost something, that I cherished. All in the name of Elon Musk's radical free speech.

IT'S INANE AND INSANE!


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