#elon the fascist

[freyan2973]

[wilwheaton]

There are a lot of unfortunate similarities between billionaire Elon Musk and former President Donald Trump. Both are petty and small-minded and crave the adulation of some of the most toxic people on the internet. But the most confounding connection hovers over Musk’s administration of X, just as it did over Trump’s White House, which is the question: “Just how much of this is on purpose?” [...] Intention was, and is, less important than the real-world effects of what we’re seeing. Whether due to malevolence or being terrible at his job, Musk has made X into a cesspool for anyone hoping to find the truth. And the reality is that as Musk has become more openly revanchist in his worldview, X has become a platform that is all too willing to let right-wing misinformation spread. It’s a forgoing of responsibility that is having deadly impact in the United Kingdom — and could have similarly disastrous effects if left unchecked during the U.S. election.

Elon Musk and Donald Trump share the most frustrating similarities

Delete Twitter.

[rejectingrepublicans]

Billionaire oligarchs are using their social media platforms to topple governments by spreading misinformation that changes the outcomes of elections. Oligarchs can not be allowed to control our government or any other government.

[alwaysbewoke]

[charlesoberonn]

Elon Musk is in reality what right-wing conspiracy theorists think George Soros is:

Heir to a morally dubious endeavor with ties to a racist historical regime

Conned his way into becoming a billionaire

Responsible for the abuse of children

Owns and controls a lot of media

Seeks to create a vision of humanity's future in his own image

Directly interferes in the politics of the United States to push his own agenda

Is in league with major politicians who he seeks to promote and influence using his wealth and media control

[tomorrowusa]

« Many people have decided that no matter the global reach and breadth of X, it just might not be worth it to empower a bigot like Musk.

Not having the libs to own, after making the behavior such a big part of their lives, has created a vacuum for the right. In that way, the libs have now owned them. »

— Oliver Willis at Daily Kos on why rightwingers are upset that liberals are leaving Twitter/X.

By remaining at Twitter/X you empower the worst forces in society. And you become a pawn to get "owned" by the MAGA racists, misogynists, homophobes, Islamophobes, conspiracy fanatics, anti-Semites, and fascists who have taken over the platform.

The old Twitter is never coming back – no matter how much you want it to. The longer you stay there, the more likely that people will associate you with the Nazis who have infested it.

The best Twitter alternatives worth checking out

[makingdonalddrumpfagain]

[odinsblog]

Musk reactivated the accounts of Brazilian far-right politicians Carla Zambelli, Gustavo Gayer, and Nikolas Ferreira. Ferreira, a Bolsonaro supporter, openly questioned the security of Brazil’s electronic voting machines, even though he won his local legislative race.

“All of these names have been problematic for years on social media,” says Flora Rebello Arduini, campaign director at the nonprofit advocacy organization Ekō. “They've been pushing for the far-right and election misinformation for ages.”

When Musk purchased Twitter in 2022, later renaming it X, many activists in Brazil worried that he would abuse the platform to push his own agenda, Arduini says. “He has unprecedented broadcasting abilities. He is bullying a supreme court justice of a democratic country, and he is showing he will use all the resources he has available to push for whatever favors his personal opinions or his professional ambitions.”

Under Musk, X has become a haven for the far right and disinformation. After taking over, Musk offered amnesty to users who had been banned from the platform, including right-wing influencer Andrew Tate, who, along with his brother, was indicted in Romania on several charges including with rape and human trafficking in June 2023 (he has denied the allegations). Last month, one of Tate's representatives told the BBC that "they categorically reject all charges."

A 2023 study found that hate speech has increased on the platform under Musk’s leadership. The situation in Brazil is just the latest instance of Musk aligning himself with and platforming dangerous, far-right movements around the world, experts tell WIRED. "It's not about Twitter or Brazil. It's about a strategy from the global far right to overcome democracies and democratic institutions around the world," says Nina Santos, a digital democracy researcher at the Brazilian National Institute of Science & Technology who researches the Brazilian far right. “An opinion from an American billionaire should not count more than a democratic institution.”

This also comes as Brazil has continued working to understand and investigate the lead-up to January 8, 2023, when election-denying insurrectionists who refused to accept right-wing president Jair Bolsonaro’s defeat stormed Brazil’s legislature. The TSE, the country’s election court, is a special judicial body that investigates electoral crimes and is part of the mechanism for overseeing the country’s electoral processes overall. The court has been investigating the dissemination of fake news and disinformation that cast doubt on the country’s elections in the months and years leading up to the storming of the legislature on January 8, 2023. Both Arduini and Santos believe that the accounts Musk is refusing to remove are likely connected to the court’s inquiry.

“A life-and-death struggle recently took place in Brazil for the democratic rule of law and against a coup d'état, which is under investigation by this court in compliance with due legal process,” Luís Roberto Barroso, the president of the federal supreme court, said in a statement about Musk’s comments. “Nonconformity against the prevalence of democracy continues to manifest itself in the criminal exploitation of social networks.”

Santos also worries that Musk is setting a precedent that the far right will be protected and promoted on his platform, regardless of local laws or public opinion. “They are trying to use Brazil as a laboratory on how to interfere in local politics and local businesses,” she says. “They are making the case that their decision is more important than the national decision from a state democratic institution.”

Though Musk has claimed to be a free-speech advocate, and X’s public statement on the takedowns asserts that Brazilians are entitled to free speech, the platform’s application of these principles has been uneven at best. In February, on order of the Indian government, X blocked the accounts Hindutva Watch and the India Hate Lab in India, two US-based nonprofits that track incidents of religiously motivated violence perpetrated by supporters of the country’s right-wing government. A 2023 study from the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard found that X complied with more government takedown requests under Musk’s leadership than it had previously.

In March, X blocked the accounts of several prominent researchers and journalists after they identified a well-known neo-Nazi cartoonist, later changing its own terms of service to justify the decision.

—Elon Musk Is Platforming Far-Right Activists in Brazil

[br1ghtestlight]

that being said if people like netanyahu or elon musk could be put to death tomorrow and stop the suffering of millions of people and make the world a better place of course i would agree to that. but in my opinion there's a difference between killing a public figure/politican who caused unimagineable suffering for many and a criminal who is basically a nobody with no influence in the world. and also just because i think it would be a good idea and a way to bring some feeling of justice doesnt mean we should actually just be allowed to kill people. definitely deplatform them and put them in prison for life but idk can we Decide who lives and who dies. is there not a better way to stop people from commiting harm

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

A disappointingly bland statement from the nation's two best known exposé journalists.

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

October 25, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Oct 26, 2024

A bombshell story last night from the Wall Street Journal reported that billionaire Elon Musk, one of the richest men in the world, who is backing the election of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump with a daily million-dollar sweepstakes giveaway and gifts of tens of millions to the campaign, has been in regular contact with Russian president Vladimir Putin since late 2022. Reporters Thomas Grove, Warren P. Strobel, Aruna Viswanatha, Gordon Lubold, and Sam Schechner said that the conversations “touch on personal topics, business and geopolitical tensions.” 

Musk’s SpaceX, which operates the Starlink satellite system, won a $1.8 billion contract with U.S. military and intelligence agencies in 2021. It is the major rocket launcher for NASA and the Pentagon, and Musk has a security clearance; he says it is a top-secret clearance.

Today, NASA administrator Bill Nelson called for an investigation into the story. “If the story is true that there have been multiple conversations between Elon Musk and the president of Russia,” Nelson told Burgess Everett of Semafor, “then I think that would be concerning, particularly for NASA, for the Department of Defense, for some of the intelligence agencies.”

Musk appears to be making a bid for control of the Republican Party for a number of possible reasons, including so he can continue to score federal contracts and because the high tariffs Trump has promised to place on Chinese imports would guarantee that Musk would have leverage in the electrical vehicle market. 

But Musk has competition for control of the party. Today, Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), who lead the establishment Republican faction and the MAGAs, respectively, and thus are usually at loggerheads, issued a joint statement condemning Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris for “labeling [Trump] as a ‘fascist.’” They suggest she is “inviting yet another would-be assassin to try robbing voters of their choice before Election Day.” 

Observers immediately pointed out that, in fact, it is Trump who has repeatedly called Harris a fascist—as well as a Marxist and a communist—and that those calling Trump a fascist are former members of his own administration like former White House chief of staff General John Kelly, or leaders like former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, whom Trump himself appointed to his position and who called Trump “the most dangerous person to this country.”

Harris’s contribution to this discussion was that when CNN’s Anderson Cooper asked Harris directly if she thinks Trump is a fascist at a town hall this week, she answered: “Yes, I do. And I also believe that the people who know him best on this subject should be trusted.” 

Aside from the gaslighting of attacking Harris for something that Trump is the one doing, the statement seemed a calculated attempt to demonstrate Republican solidarity. But it was glaringly obvious that McConnell and Johnson found that solidarity only in attacking Harris. Their statement contained no praise of Trump. 

The struggle over the Republican Party also seemed evident in yesterday’s decision by the billionaire owner of the Los Angeles Times, biotech tycoon Patrick Soon-Shiong, to kill that paper’s planned endorsement of Harris. Choosing not to make an endorsement in the race, Soon-Shiong said that he thought an endorsement would “add to the division” in the country. Elon Musk praised his decision.

Today the Washington Post also decided not to make an endorsement in the presidential race, despite the fact a piece endorsing Harris was already drafted. Publisher William Lewis said the paper was returning to its roots of not endorsing presidential candidates, although it has endorsed candidates for decades and did so in its early years as well. His statement seemed a weak cover for the evident wish of the Washington Post’s owner, Jeff Bezos, to avoid antagonizing Trump.

Bezos gives Musk a run for his money at being the richest man in the world. But while Musk wants high tariffs against China to protect his access to electric vehicle markets, Bezos’s fortune comes from Amazon, and high tariffs would shatter his business. When he was in office, Trump went out of his way to find ways to hurt Amazon to get back at Bezos for unfavorable coverage in the Post. 

Los Angeles Times editorial page editor Mariel Garza, along with journalists Robert Greene and Karin Klein, resigned from the paper after its decision not to endorse Harris, and nearly 2,000 readers canceled their subscriptions. The Washington Post, too, has seen about 2,000 subscribers bow out, and fourteen of the newspaper’s columnists called the decision not to condemn Trump’s threats to the “freedom of the press and the values of the Constitution” “a terrible mistake.” Cartoonist Ann Telnaes published a blacked-out square, playing on the Post’s motto that democracy dies in darkness.

Readers are speaking out against the Washington Post for demonstrating what scholar of authoritarianism Timothy Snyder calls “obeying in advance” the demands of an authoritarian leader (although Washington Post legal journalist Ruth Marcus, who signed the letter calling the decision a terrible mistake, pointed out that the Post itself was publishing the many letters of condemnation). “Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given,” Snyder’s “On Tyranny” reads. “In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do.”

The aftermath of the Post’s decision demonstrated what scholars say will happen after such obeying. Rather than winning favors, such a demonstration of weakness invites further abuse, as anyone who has watched Trump in action ought to know by now. 

Trump’s people pounced, with advisor Stephen Miller posting: “You know the Kamala campaign is sinking when even the Washington Post refuses to endorse.”

Trump then promptly went a step further, claiming that Democrats had taken part in “rampant Cheating and Skullduggery…in the 2020 presidential election” and warning that in 2024, “WHEN I WIN, those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law, which will include long term prison sentences so that this Depravity of Justice does not happen again…. Please beware that this legal exposure extends to Lawyers, Political Operatives, Donors, Illegal Voters, & Corrupt Election Officials. Those involved in unscrupulous behavior will be sought out, caught, and prosecuted at levels, unfortunately, never seen before in our Country.”

Trump’s threats are designed to convince people he is a strongman who will inevitably win the 2024 presidential election. But to do that, he will have to go through the voters, who are demonstrating their enthusiasm for Democratic candidate Harris and her running mate, Minnesota governor Tim Walz.

After the announcement by the Washington Post, others stepped up to endorse Harris. The largest Teamsters union in Texas endorsed Harris before her rally tonight in Houston. In a blistering editorial, the Philadelphia Inquirer endorsed Harris, saying: “America deserves much more than an aspiring autocrat who ignores the law, is running to stay out of prison, and doesn’t care about anyone but himself.” 

Tonight, Trump taped a podcast episode with Joe Rogan in Austin, Texas, hoping to reach Rogan’s large audience. He was still on the ground in Austin when he was supposed to be appearing at a rally in Traverse City, Michigan, and blamed the long taping for the fact he was three hours late to the rally. Tired of waiting, rally attendees streamed out. When he finally arrived, about 47,000 viewers watched the PBS live stream of the rally.

Harris was in Houston, where she took the fight for abortion rights to the heart of a state where an abortion ban has endangered women and driven up the infant mortality rate. People began standing in line before sunrise to get into the rally at the Houston Shell Energy Stadium and filled the 22,000-seat stadium to capacity. About 2.5 million people watched the PBS live stream. 

Harris shared the stage with actor Jessica Alba and music legends Beyoncé and Willie Nelson, who asked the crowd: “Are we ready to say Madam President?”

—

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[freyan2973]

[wilwheaton]

Despite Rogan’s assertions otherwise, there are dozens of tangible and recent examples of Musk’s conservative shift. Just ahead of last year’s midterm elections, he told Twitter users that they should vote Republican (after sharing a Nazi meme). Musk later advocated for Kevin McCarthy to become Speaker of the House. And during a recent trip to Capitol Hill, he only scheduled meetings with Republicans—and wished McCarthy a happy birthday—while ignoring congressional Democrats. Prior to his get-out-the-vote message, meanwhile, he spread a baseless conspiracy theory about Paul Pelosi’s attack that originated in far-right circles. The billionaire edge lord has also openly embraced MAGA tropes, such as whining about the “woke mind virus” and mockingly joking that his preferred pronouns are “Prosecute/Fauci.” (That is, when he’s not tweaking the Twitter algorithm to artificially juice his own engagement and flood users’ feeds with his tweets.) Additionally, Republicans have expressed their ever-growing admiration for the tech giant, going so far as to openly “thank God” that he bought Twitter. Some GOP lawmakers, even as they investigate “government interference” and its “weaponization” of social media, have boasted about talking company strategy with Musk.

Joe Rogan Can’t Figure Out Why People Think Elon Musk Is a ‘Right-Winger’ Now

[thecoolertails]

❌: eggman is elon musk

✅: eggman is walt disney

[aqua0san]

Musk looks like he is either under influence or he has something inside him that he doesn't want to admit (because it's woke)

[tomorrowusa]

Normie users are finally leaving Twitter/X in a more noticeable way.

Journalists begin new exodus from Elon Musk's X

Elon Musk’s social media toilet X is facing a new exodus by journalists and organizations fed up with both the tanking quality of the site and the upcoming changes to its terms of service set to take effect Nov. 15. X’s new service terms require users who wish to sue the company to file in specifically the “U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas or state courts located in Tarrant County, Texas.” These courts are a favorite of conservative activists as they are stocked with Republican appointees. On Wednesday, The Guardian announced it would no longer post on the site, though it would not block X users from sharing its articles. “Social media can be an important tool for news organisations and help us to reach new audiences,” the media outlet writes, “but, at this point, X now plays a diminished role in promoting our work.” Journalist Don Lemon, who is in the midst of a lawsuit with Musk for alleged breach of contract, also posted a statement on Wednesday about leaving the site. “I once believed it was a place for honest debate and discussion, transparency, and free speech, but I now feel it does not serve that purpose,” he wrote.

Bluesky surges as users seek social media alternatives to X

After X, formerly Twitter, saw a record estimated 281,600 accounts deactivated worldwide in just one day on November 6, according to internet traffic analyzer Similarweb, speculation has surged that the best days of Elon Musk's social media platform are behind it.  Other microblogging sites, including Bluesky, have rocketed to the top of app download rankings and courted millions of new users in the week since Donald Trump won the US election. Whether users are permanently leaving X or simply establishing new accounts elsewhere is unclear. But major brands and individuals are citing Musk's substantial financial and rhetorical backing of Trump in the US election, as well as the polarizing nature of the X platform, as the reason for their departures. [ ... ]

Among the reasons cited for departing the platform is the continued increase in negative content on the platform. That includes the increase of toxic content, remarked by The Guardian in its published statement as "the often disturbing content promoted or found on the platform, including far-right conspiracy theories and racism."

So what excuses do you hear from people who still cling to a virulently pro-Trump platform?

[makingdonalddrumpfagain]