You really need to get off of Twitter

[solarbird]

If you're still on Twitter, you really need to leave.

Over the last several days, Elon has continued having extensive online discussions with fascists and far-right authoritarians who want queers dead. The response to the Colorado mass shooting against LGBT people amongst people he is talking to was mostly "good;" the big meme of the day a couple of days ago was the "woodchipper" meme, involving throwing queers into woodchippers.

Since then, he's been restoring more virulently anti-LGBT and white nationalist accounts, while banning antifascist and left accounts at scale.

But he's really opening the floodgates this coming week, pledging a mass restoration of accounts banned for harassment and threats:

The mass return of users who had been banned for such offenses as violent threats, harassment and misinformation will have a significant impact on the platform, experts said. And many questioned how such a resurrection would be handled, given that it’s unclear what Musk means by “egregious spam” and the difficulty of separating out users who have “broken the law,” which vary widely by jurisdiction and country.

“Apple and Google need to seriously start exploring booting Twitter off the app store,” said Alejandra Caraballo, clinical instructor at Harvard Law’s cyberlaw clinic. “What Musk is doing is existentially dangerous for various marginalized communities. It’s like opening the gates of hell in terms of the havoc it will cause. People who engaged in direct targeted harassment can come back and engage in doxing, targeted harassment, vicious bullying, calls for violence, celebration of violence. I can’t even begin to state how dangerous this will be.”

Fundamentally, he's turning it into a font of fascist and christo-fascist disinformation, harassment, and violence.

Which means:

It's time to leave.

Comments

[solarbird]

The Saudis are a much bigger player in international authoritarianism than is generally recognised, and Twitter has been a big pain in the ass for them, as well as for many other authoritarians. The amount of organisation and mobilisation on the platform has been incredibly valuable.

Until now.

[kathmandu]

I see. Sigh.

Thank you for explaining.