Fascism Watch for 30 November 2023: Elon Thinks Not Giving Him Money is Censorship

[solarbird]

The focus on reporting about this absolutely batshit bonkers interview is primarily about Elon telling advertisers not to advertise on Twitter and also to go fuck themselves, and secondarily, it’s like the Japan Times with their article, “Elon Musk says advertiser boycott may kill X.”

Neither are wrong. However, if you watch this interview, a couple of things become very clear very quickly:

1. Elon genuinely thinks that advertisers have a moral or possibly ethical obligation to advertise on Twitter, that not doing so is something for which they will be punished, and
2. Elon thinks not giving him money – via advertising – is censorship, and that’s particularly true if you’re doing it because your ads get placed with Nazis and antisemites, including himself. Not wanting to be associated with those views is censorous in and of itself.

(Also arguably 3: holy shit the man has lost it. But that’s more subjective.)

His thinking here is similar to how American fundamentalists think about rights, in that they’re always right, so what they want is always right and therefore a right in the legal sense, including them having a right to oppress you or make you out and out illegal – and if they don’t have that right, they are being oppressed.

Similarly, Elon is Always Right, so therefore he has a right to whatever he wants, including advertising revenue from people even if they don’t want to be an the fascist hellsite he’s made out of Twitter.

It’s not exactly the same, but it does have the same vaguely psychopathic view of being the true centre of the universe, with everyone else as an accessory; main character syndrome, and all of that. Which he clearly has, in spades.

Regardless, my take on this meltdown – remember that his big plan was to turn Twitter into a fascist disinformation and propaganda fountain and in doing so make money. That plan, remember it? I’ve talked about it a lot, though I don’t always bring the “and make money” part back up. But it’s in my old writings, I promise.

That plan is really, really is not working. It looks like he’s realised that, and so naturally he’s looking for someone else to blame when it fails. That’s important, because as I’ve said since the start, his plan has to fail – preferably spectacularly – or it’ll be repeated over and over again by billionaire fascist after billionaire fascist.

I mean even if it does go down as hard as it deserves, one or another will probably still try again, but they’ll be a lot less interested in trying. And that matters.

So. What else today?

IF YOU MISSED IT: Death finally got Kissinger out of the claw machine. RIP to a great meme, cheers that a war criminal whose continued existence was a daily affront to everything decent has stopped existing.

THIS IS GOOD: Middle schoolers tell Moms for Liberty to ‘stop bullying’ LGBTQ+ youth: ‘Gay is slay’ – hey, the kids really are alright.

LOVE TO SEE IT: Arizona officials charged with conspiring to delay midterm election outcome – the election deniers on the election board get smacked for crimz.

Not a bad day, really.

Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.

Comments

[jessie_c]

holy shit the man has lost it
Doesn't that imply that he had it at one point? Available data doesn't support that conclusion.

[solarbird]

A change in boundary layers is still notable. ^_^

[kathmandu]

I have found your writings on the subject of what Musk and his backers planned to do with Twitter very illuminating.

I've been confused because the plan to drive people away from Twitter and lock it down until it cannot function as the 'public square', thus blocking people from using it to oppose dictators, seems directly opposed to attempting to make money. If they want to shut it almost completely down, they're not getting their money back, let alone making any profits. But he keeps acting desperate for money even while he systematically blocks non-spam, non-paid-troll communication.

[dewline]

Well, whatever His Sinkness' real goals for the Hellbirdsite, I plan to continue to help financially bleed him dry to whatever degree I can. Also, to annoy his cultists by refusing to go away quietly. They can get me kicked out, sure...but I had my account before he decided to hijack the place.

[solarbird]

Being active on Twitter makes, not costs, Elon money.

[solarbird]

He's never been trying to drive people away, other than the legitimate press and the more-effective left activists. (Not all of the latter, even. They need their Endless Two Minute Hate, and so, targets must be available.)

He wants to keep all the people who are low-information/semi-interested at most, because 1) that's the bulk of the money in real life, and 2) they're who he wants to have normalise (and be wooed by) fascism. He wants "NFL twitter" not to be bothered by nazis in their midst, and to listen to their propaganda and accept it as valid information.

That's why he bought Twitter.