this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2023
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The Moral Case for No Longer Engaging With Elon Musk’s X::The former Twitter is incentivizing violent content, which will only become worse to stand out to users.

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[–] [email protected] 117 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (10 children)

I dunno', kinda' sounds similar to, "racism would be over if you'd just shut up about it."

X and Elon don't magically disappear because you choose to ignore them.

[–] [email protected] 71 points 1 year ago (2 children)

And it would be similar to that if racism was a business that survived based on engagement.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I mean... Isn't it? Racism is very self-perpetuating. Especially when it's allowed over other forms of distasteful speech.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don't think so. Racism being self perpetuating means it will exist even if we stop talking about it and will probably just be worse because even well meaning folk can be racist if they're not aware of it.

X on the other hand stops existing if we stop sending it traffic and just let it die.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Nah, self-perpetuating is not the same as spontaneously inevitable. Just like species can go extinct despite all life self-perpetuating in some way.

The people on Lemmy are likely to agree not to use it, and that just makes it more stupid to say, "don't talk about it.", since it won't further its demise at all.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Well, it seems like racism has unfortunately failed to go extinct so I'm not quite sure what you're getting at there but I'm probably missing something.

I don't think everyone has agreed not to use it? The more it gets talked about and spread the more people are drawn to the platform. Why do you think Musk has successfully made sure the site has been in the headlines constantly? I'm not saying we have to all stop talking about it and pretend it doesn't exist. But maybe we don't need multiple articles every day posted across multiple communities.

Anyway, doesn't really matter what I think. It keeps getting posted and upvoted so I guess we'll just have to live with it.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

People are not drawn to the platform in a positive way by talking about it negatively on Lemmy...

It's like you idiots take basic expressions like, "any attention is good attention" and turn it in to a fucking axiom for life. It IS NOT TRUE in all contexts. Fucking grow up and realize generalities are SPECIFICALLY NOT TRUE in all cases. Ever. Generalities are always fucking stupid to use to judge specific occurrences unless it is a quintessential example. Which very VERY few things are quintessential examples of, "any attention is good attention.".

Something that's self-perpetuating doesn't extinguish without being actively stamped out. Noticing it's still around is the most basic observation that means nothing about it except that it's still an existant problem.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I mean sure, people aren't drawn to it in a positive way but advertiser's don't really care how you're drawn as long as you're drawn.

As for the rest of your comment I'm not really sure how to respond to be honest. Doesn't seem to relate to our conversation but good to get off your chest I guess.

Unlike systemic racism though this conversation isn't self perpetuating so I'm going to peace out and let it die like I wish everyone would do with X.

Have a good one and might catch you around in the next post about X. We're overdue for a new one by now I'm sure.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

If you think it isn't, you clearly haven't been paying attention to all of racism in general and hypercapitalist neofascism in particular.

[–] [email protected] 45 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If everyone shuts up about racism, then racism will be worse. If everyone stopped talking about twitter, then twitter will die. It's not the same thing at all. Not even close.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

You are mixing "talking about Twitter" with "being on Twitter". If nobody on Lemmy or Mastodon said a single word about Twitter ever again... it would still outnumber them by hundreds of millions users. I don't like it, but that's still how it is. But consequently, ragging on it is not going to recruit people who left for the Fediverse.

But if you mean making everyone on Twitter to shut up in general, well, easier said than done.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The difference is that racists are usually racist due to a moral stance, not because it makes them money; ignoring them means we'll hear about it less but it won't actually go away. Clickbait/ragebait, on the other hand, isn't a moral viewpoint - it's meant to bring a person money via exposure/engagement, so less engagement leads to less money which leads to less bait because it's no longer working.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

I dunno', you'd find plenty of economic justification if you go back and read why the confederacy got started. Or why Germany went a little crazy in early 1900's...

While it is correct to logically dismiss the actual arguments of rage bait, it is purely foolish to pretend that it has no tangible effects worth counteracting all the same.

To say these things aren't even worth talking about in general is akin stepping aside for bad actors to take over.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It’s not “x” it’s called Twitter.
This is a good case for deadnaming.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Corporate deadnaming is the only good deadnaming.

Facebook also only deserves to be called Meta as a reminder that they rebranded into a failed trend and lost billions because of it.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I dunno. Racism isn’t entirely manifested by one man. He’s just one more bucket of piss in a sea of piss. Fuck him. We can at any time choose to ignore him. Choose to ignore his shit app. He doesn’t matter to any equation, he’s just an annoying rich person struggling with their addiction to child pornography. Wups did I say the silent part out loud. Shit.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

What you say is completely correct for engaging with his platform.

Not about not talking about the rise of bigoted morons in general. That is sticking your head in the sand.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Well kinda, except for these articles that pop now and then in my timeline, I haven't heard of XformerlyTwitter for a while.

It was fun for a few weeks, joking about what bulls**t idea Musk had during the weekend with colleagues, but after a while the joke was a bit repetitive.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

It's not news because he joked about it. It's news because he's flippantly doing it with production.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

While some of the same words appear in these two things, they are nothing alike.

The debate over whether recognizing racism can help us eliminate it has nothing to do with an unhinged billionaire who uses shock tactics to generate PR, and the bottom-feeding publications who give it to him by stoking our disgust.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

No, it's very much similar. You're saying don't even talk about it, when the article is about how it is a corrupted service. A service that at least used to have global reach. If a service is a globally used resource, it's kinda' institutionalized.

Since when did ignoring institutionalized injustice ever fix it? Never. It never gets fixed in the dark.

I understand the concept of not feeding trolls, but do not misjudge and accidentally ask people to ignore villains.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

It’s a corrupted service, therefore it’s a service, therefore it’s an institution, therefore it’s institutionalized injustice….

Feeling a little loose after all that stretching? I guess the policies of every website company in the world now constitute institutionalized injustice. I’ll use that phrase next time I’m appealing the Facebook modbot.

I wouldn’t say we should never talk about Twitter and it’s impact on our world. I will say it is a media circus which is paraded about far, far too often to its corrupt owners benefit. And it needs to have less attention than it is getting like a fire needs less air.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Way to treat an association as an exact replica... I'm trying to put bread crumbs down, not rope them together. Stop pretending you do not know what an alegory is.

If you understand the general topic should not be shunned ... why are you speaking on behalf of shunning it?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

I answered that. Last paragraph. Stop spinning wild extrapolations out of your ass for a second and just read some hard text.