Muskovite Birds of a Feather: Notes on the Great Twitterpation

Undoubtedly. There are a lot of Musk fanboys on there.

 

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How it's going:

Advertisers are leaving the site formerly known as Twitter after a new report found that pro-Nazi content was appearing next to company ads and Musk himself supported a baseless antisemitic conspiracy theory to his 163 million followers.

IBM confirmed on Thursday that it is stopping advertising on X, saying the company has "zero tolerance for hate speech and discrimination."

The European Commission also condemned X's promotion of hate speech, confirming during a press briefing on Friday that it would no longer advertise on any social media platform.

As of Saturday morning, Disney, Comcast NBCUniversal, Warner Bros., Lionsgate, Paramount Global and Apple had all announced they were pulling ads from X, according to multiple news outlets that cited sources at the companies ....

.... The advertising exodus comes after the liberal watchdog group Media Matters released a new report this week that found a number of major companies, including Apple, Amazon, Oracle NBCUniversal's Bravo network had advertisements showing up alongside white nationalist posts on the site.

(NPR↱)​

Elon Musk continues his transformation of the former Twitter, and increasingly uneasy advertisers began distancing themselves from South African-American's rebranding of the social media site in the wake of a Media Matters↱ report last week:

As X owner Elon Musk continues his descent into white nationalist and antisemitic conspiracy theories, his social media platform has been placing ads for major brands like Apple, Bravo (NBCUniversal), IBM, Oracle, and Xfinity (Comcast) next to content that touts Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party. The company's placements come after CEO Linda Yaccarino claimed that brands are "protected from the risk of being next to" toxic posts on the platform.

Yaccarino has been trying to bring advertisers back to the platform by claiming it's safe for business. She's also claimed that X (formerly Twitter) has been "demonstrating its absolute commitment to combating antisemitism on the platform" and that "antisemitism is evil and X will always work to fight it on our platform."

But her boss last night endorsed the pernicious antisemitic conspiracy theory that Jewish people are supporting "hordes of minorities" who are "flooding" into the country to replace white people. That conspiracy theory was the same one that motivated the deadly 2018 Tree of Life synagogue shooting.​

In a follow-up report↱, Media Matters reminded the range of what is happening:

• Pro-Hitler account. X placed ads for brands including The New York Times Co.'s The Athletic, Major League Baseball, the Atlanta Falcons, Sports Illustrated, USA Today, Amazon, and Office Depot on a verified pro-Hitler account that encourages antisemitic harassment.

• Holocaust deniers. X placed ads for brands such as The Wall Street Journal, Nokia, FanDuel, and Thermo Fisher on the accounts of antisemites who have denied the Holocaust.

• Leading white nationalist group. X placed ads for Dish, Samsung, and The Wall Street Journal on the verified Twitter account of VDare, a leading white nationalist group.

• Pro-killing of LGBTQ advocates and politicians. X placed ads for MLB, Bayer, Tyson Foods, and eBay on the account of Stew Peters, a white nationalist streamer who uses the social platform to endorse the killings of politicians and LGBTQ advocates.

• Neo-Nazi group. X placed ads for Honeywell, Discovery, National Women's Soccer League, the Pittsburgh Steelers, USA Today, and Manchester City on the verified account of the National Socialist Network, a leading neo-Nazi group.

• Pro-Hitler and Holocaust denier account. X placed ads for major sportsbooks BetMGM, DraftKings, and FanDuel on the verified account that has drawn millions of views for posts that lionize Hitler and deny the Holocaust. The account has also said it's been paid $3,000 this year by X.

• Antisemitic conspiracy theories about 9/11. X placed ads for the NFL, MLB, T-Mobile, and eBay alongside content pushing unhinged conspiracy theories about Jewish people orchestrating the 9/11 attacks.​

It's easy enough to shrug and wonder what anyone expected, because the Muskovite crowd cheering ridiculous pretenses of free speech really has done its best to convince us they believe in this stuff. And from there it's pretty much the same old stupid bully bluster we've heard from supremacists and sympathizers for years. A year ago↑, I suggested it shouldn't cost forty-four billion dollars to learn this lesson, and this time later, either they haven't learned the lesson, or that's just not the point.

To some degree, it looks like the latter.

Elon Musk announced X will file a "thermonuclear lawsuit" on Monday against Media Matters for America after one of its reports prompted multiple corporations to pull their advertising from the billionaire's rebranded social-media platform.

Musk, who owns X, took issue with the liberal media watchdog's story that claimed ads from top corporate brands were running "alongside white nationalist and pro-Nazi content." An official statement from X stated Media Matters "completely misrepresented the real user experience on X," leading to IBM, Apple, Disney, Lionsgate Entertainment, and others boycotting the platform.

"The split second court opens on Monday, X Corp will be filing a thermonuclear lawsuit against Media Matters and ALL those who colluded in this fraudulent attack on our company," Musk posted early Saturday morning on X.

(National Review↱)​

Okay, so, let's think this through: How it started was with some notion about free speech; Musk requires a basic cacophony from which he might filter what he favors and disdains. The full explanation of what Musk is doing ranges into the ridiculous; the petulance is beyond any question of emotional maturity inasmuch as he is a son of wealth and apartheid infuriated by notions of lost glory and stains of dishonor. One way the middle road between asymmetrical political ranges becomes risky arises when one side of the argument is propped up by such significant amounts of insupportable belief. Moreover, historically it is easy enough to run around in circles of failing to learn if we do not account for that lack of support.

And how it's going is that a year after overpaying by as much as seventy-five percent ($19b), Musk's leadership has knocked another $8b out of company value while pretending to develop a one-stop social media complex. As Musk triples down on his fake free-speech evangelism, revenue has not only failed to recover, but the twitboss has gone out of his way to make things worse. A fan of white-supremacist "great replacement" conspiracism, Elon Musk has managed to punch through the noise of an atrocious war in Israel and Palestine to promote the conspiracy theory that Jews are financing the replacement in order to destroy white people. And now he is threatening to sue people for pointing that out.

Again, this is the kind of lesson he could have learned at Sciforums, for free. Or perhaps he thought he could buy and enforce truth. And note what it comes to, i.e., how it's going: "Elon Musk is so mad about all the advertisers fleeing X, he announced he's going to sue Media Matters," Matt Binder↱ explains "and in his statement, he appears to confirm the accuracy of their reports in an attempt to downplay it."

That much is true. Two effects of the X statement are suggestions that advertisers have an obligation to tolerate a requisite minimum association with infamy and harm, that free speech requires them to remain silent unless some abstract, uncertain threshold is achieved; and also that X content policies might, in and of themselves, be a viable inquiry.

Consider the solipsism of it: What Musk and X say makes perfect sense if they define everything. The free speech of cacophony imposes false equivalence, and the only thing anything is allowed to mean is whatever Elon Musk says.

Nobody needs to spend billions to learn this lesson. To the other, Musk would appear to perceive some sort of interest in not learning.
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Notes:

@MattBinder. "Elon Musk is so mad about all the advertisers fleeing X, he announced he's going to sue Media Matters and in his statement, he appears to confirm the accuracy of their reports in an attempt to downplay it good luck with that lawsuit". X. 18 November 2023. Twitter.com. 19 November 2023. https://bit.ly/3SNNUMD

Allyn, Bobby and Emily Olson. "Disney, Comcast and Apple join advertiser exodus from Elon Musk's X over antisemitism". National Public Radio. 18 November 2023. NPR.org. 19 November 2023. https://bit.ly/3QO0DfH

Hananoki, Eric. "As Musk endorses antisemitic conspiracy theory, X has been placing ads for Apple, Bravo, IBM, Oracle, and Xfinity next to pro-Nazi content". Media Matters for America. 18 November 2023. MediaMatters.org. 19 November 2023.https://bit.ly/3upiNwD

—————. "X is placing ads for Amazon, NBA Mexico, NBCUniversal, and others next to content with white nationalist hashtags". Media Matters for America. 17 November 2023. MediaMatters.org. 19 November 2023. https://bit.ly/46ipJsB

Zimmerman, David. "Elon Musk to File ‘Thermonuclear Lawsuit' against Media Matters as Top Advertisers Leave X". National Review. 16 November 2023. NationalReview.com. 19 Nobember 2023. https://bit.ly/3SPES1s

 

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