Left-Wing Voices Are Silenced on Twitter as Far-Right Trolls Advise Elon Musk | Hacker News Reader

Left-Wing Voices Are Silenced on Twitter as Far-Right Trolls Advise Elon Musk

theintercept.com

17 pointshn201713 comments

I have seen several press mentions, by people who have previously interviewed and covered him, say Musk has changed.

Outwardly, he seems like a typical red pilled dude. Except he can buy Twitter. This appeals strongly to the sense of powerlessness of the red pilled dudes who can't afford to Twitter, or even a Tesla.

His progression seems like that of a lot of people, Matt Taibbi and Glenn Greenwald also seem like examples, maybe Matt Yglesias:

1. Liberal Dem 2. Contrarian 3. Double down contrarian 4. Conservative 5. Monarchist

So basically a 2012 democrat? That’s what all of those people are

The "2. Contrarian 3. Double down contrarian" part tracks with conspiracy theorists' need to feel like they have special knowledge the rest of us don't see.

My observation is that the "double down" part is important. If someone is particularly privileged, getting smacked down for having an easily refutable idea is rare. But The Internet typically doesn't care about privilege, so cruel smackdowns effect sheltered rich kids differently. They double down, falsely believing their money or status will cause opponents to change their minds. Opponents do not change their minds, progress to 4. Conservative.

20s Greenwald hasn't written anything that 10s Greenwald would disagree with. The country has changed around him. Remember when the left was against globalization, racial segregation, corporate power, speech control, foreign intervention, and big pharma?

All of these narratives were adopted by corporations in the wake of the occupy movement.

These are no longer values of the American left, as it is now 100% the party of big corporations.

It’s actually really amazing to watch this happen in real time and the lack of self awareness of people.

Imagine thinking you are the “resistance” when your opinion is identical to that of every big bank, every major institution, the military industrial complex, big tech, big pharma, and every major corporation and rich celebrity.

Imagine that.

You are absolutely, totally correct. Watching the class strategy play out in real time has been fascinating.

I would say 3. Libertarian and 5. pro-oligarchy

It is cringeworthy to watch people try to defend it on twitter.

https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1597944281963978752

"Several prominent antifascist organizers and journalists have had their accounts suspended in the past week, after right-wing operatives appealed directly to Musk to ban them and far-right internet trolls flooded Twitter’s complaints system with false reports about terms of service violations. "

Musks ex wife disputes his rationale for suspending Alex Jones. Basically, calling him a liar. He picks and chooses like every ideologue.

> “What I believe happened is that I and other accounts have been mass reported for the last few weeks by a dedicated group of far-right extremists who want to erase archived evidence of their past misdeeds and to neutralize our ability to expose them in the future,” Loder said. “What I suspect happened is that Twitter’s automatic systems flagged my account for some reason and no human being is reviewing these.”

> “Twitter was never a healthy ‘public square’ for most of us. Let’s not rewrite history while eulogizing the hellsite,” Loder wrote on Mastodon on Sunday. “Twitter was a frightening battleground where we managed barely to claw out an uneasy existence amidst the worst violent neo-Nazi extremists who constantly published our home addresses, threatened our kids’ lives, and sent hordes of racist trolls into our mentions.”

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