Algorithm Warfare: How Elon Musk Uses Twitter to Control Brains

georgelakoff.substack.com

4 points·velmu··4 comments

I appreciate the tyopology of persuasive techniques he deploys.

This is nutty. The trump obsession is one thing, but the bigger point is that Musk has basically made an idiot out of himself since he bought Twitter. If he is really trying to effect some kind of right wing mind control, he sucks at it.

Ironically, it plays to the Musk is a genius trope, when it appears (and I really tried to give him the benefit of the doubt) that he's just bad at running the company, not executing some nefarious scheme. But anything's possible

Failing to do so, doesn’t mean that he won’t try. The idea that you can try to use twitter to shape the public discourse is really obvious, and even if you suck, doesn’t mean it’s not a potential danger. I mean, enough people fell for the idea that somehow he is for free speech.

Maybe. Like music, movies and other media, twitter both reflects the times and affects the times. Advertising and other influences do work in the aggregate, otherwise they wouldn't be performed. If you're a Muskie, you're prone to shifting in his direction. And there's a lot of them. If you thought he was a dipshit, nothing's changed.

This all has shown some limits to Musk for sure, but steering his new toy and steering conversations are separate and the piece is much more about the conversations.

Trump is not book-smart but he is people-smart about a significant set of people.

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