Smearing Vicks Vaporub in masks? Ravers were masking before it was cool (I can’t hear “on X” and think oh, an online platform). But I digress …
This has been a banner month for X. Last week, the social network’s built-in chatbot, Grok, became strangely obsessed with false claims about “white genocide” in South Africa—allegedly because someone made an “unauthorized modification” to its code at 3:15 in the morning. The week prior, Ye (formerly Kanye West) released a single called “Heil Hitler” on the platform. The chorus includes the line “Heil Hitler, they don’t understand the things I say on Twitter.” West has frequently posted anti-Semitic rants on the platform and, at one point back in February, said he identified as a Nazi. (Yesterday on X, West said he was “done with antisemitism,” though he has made such apologies before; in any case, the single has already been viewed tens of millions of times on X.)
So, we literally have a song titled Heil Hitler from a prominent artist. I’m sure it’s not the first one crafted on American soil, just as I’m sure little Nazi rallies happen with some frequency nationwide, as these guys just love getting together and being racist fucks.
The now-cliche Nazi bar analogy gets brought into specific relief:
In July 2020, the Twitter user Michael B. Tager shared an anecdote that went viral. Tager was at “a shitty crustpunk bar” when the gruff bartender kicked out a patron in a “punk uniform”—not because the customer was making a scene, but because he was wearing Nazi paraphernalia. “You have to nip it in the bud immediately,” Tager recounted the bartender as saying. “These guys come in and it’s always a nice, polite one. And you serve them because you don’t want to cause a scene. And then they become a regular and after awhile they bring a friend.” Soon enough, you’re running a Nazi bar.
I’d not heard the origins of the term before, so that was a “fun” thing to learn.
But seriously: What the fuck is going on?
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Somewhat ironically, Musk’s changes have split 𝕏 in two:
- 🔵✔️ The mark of shame crowd: their comments get pushed to the front, they pay to one-up each other and see who can be the loudest Musk kissass.
- ⚪ The no-mark people: don’t try to get noticed, fly under the radar, keep finding each other through keywords, get pretty much ignored by the 🔵✔️ crowd… and are happy with that.
- 🟡✔️ Verified organizations: few, but unfortunately too many, government and business PR teams, trying to one-up everyone, attracting the 🔵✔️ scourge to their posts, which turns them into trash for ⚪ people. Still work for some announcements, but are useless for meaningful discussion.
Don’t get me wrong, the “average” public voice is gone, it’s been replaced by influencer wannabes.
What saves the situation for niche communities, is the BLOCK feature. Just block everyone with a 🔵✔️, follow people you like, and suddenly you find yourself in the Twitter of long ago.
In the Nazi bar analogy, it’s like if Musk put up a Nazi rune shaped stage in the middle of the bar, everyone with a 🔵✔️ armband is fighting each other to get to the mic on the stage… while it’s all enclosed in a soundproof cage, and random people sitting by the walls keep their conversations to themselves.
Lots of people have left 𝕏 for that reason, either because they want a fair chance to get their voice heard, or because even being aware of the stage fight disgusts them, and that’s fine. Some have stayed and keep ignoring the stage fight, while the stage fight ignores them, with the rare notification for… another 🔵✔️ to block. Pretty much nobody tries to infiltrate the ⚪ discussions, because they need a 🔵✔️ to get their voice heard above others, but if they get one, then they get blocked.
This also doesn’t mean there are no Nazis or other awful people among the ⚪ no-marks, but the loudmouths quickly get pulled into the 🔵✔️ cage fight.
Charlie Warzel hasn’t discovered the network effect.
tsk tsk☝️💫
Clearly The Atlantic understands.
Perhaps he can talk to the board about it… :/
Uh, there are plenty of Nazis and tankies on fedi. Chances are you’re using software written by hardcore tankies (Lemmy devs). Not everyone is “in the know”. They just follow their brands and influencers. And most don’t really care, they don’t engage too much, just retweet and like the latest football results or whatever the outrage algo puts in their feed. Most people don’t think deep thoughts about their social media platform.
To be honest, I just stick with Beehaw. I have a .world account (that I’ve not opened in months), but I really don’t make use of federation. I like that this feels more like an old-school site where you recognize most names and reference past interactions. Tech’s fetish for scale inherently means enshittification, whereas a small instance feels like a community.
Sure. Just saying this is federated and you don’t really control where this post ends up.
That’s true of anything posted to the Web, though.
Yeah. On Twitter as well
@Powderhorn @0xtero
Disagree. I’m reading this on Mastodon, having subbed certain topics on Beehaw, and I’m finding federation to be the perfect way to participate in all my interests through one interface. #YourMileageMayVaryI still have my Reddit account(s) for niche areas as well as local news, but I’m an old fart and don’t much care for spending time exploring Lemmy to curate a larger feed after running into frustration on that front after the API imbroglio that led me here. If I want a firehose, Reddit does that just fine (for now). I come to Beehaw to read curated news and relax.
It’s certainly an advantage of the Fediverse that I can use it the way I like, as can you. There’s no “right” way to experience federation.
There’s no “right” way to experience federation.
You’re doing it wrong!!! /s
I have a sh.itjust.works account that I use to join meme communities there and on .world + a few other instances. The comments are a cesspool but the memes are…reasonably dank?
I prefer unreasonably dank memes.
Unfortunately, not everyone even aware of Musk stuff.
I’m Indonesian, and a lot of Indonesian people are using Twitter without even knowing what’s going on with Twitter except for name change.
I usually recommend my friend to join local Misskey or Mastodon instance instead. But its harder when fediverse trending stuff is filled mainly with Western stuff. All existing instance are tends to whether ACG stuff or tech stuff with occasional local/global politics discussion.
It’s a chicken and egg situation.
Not to forget, all Mastodon Indonesia instance are dead around a year after huge Indonesian migration from Twitter. It gives impression that fediverse is not a viable alternative.
I still have three different Twitter account, and all of them have entirely different feed mainly either Japanese ACG stuff, Indonesian local discussion, or to interact with private friends account. Almost all my friends still using Twitter for talking about Indonesian musics, politics, or other pop cultures that unrelated/disconneted from Western fandom.
Any social media is filled with various cultural/societal bubbles. Even fediverse itself is filled with cultural bubbles, mainly Western-sphere, JP-sphere, geek-sphere, or CN-sphere.
As someone who will need to market myself under a pen name soon, I’m not really seeing alternatives they have a youtube like lion-share of the people. I created accounts for Mastodon, Bluesky, and Pixelfed. But, they feel far from adequate. So my plan going forward is to do all those plus twitter even though I loathe it, I got bills to pay.
Some heads up: if you pay for the 🔵✔️ on 𝕏, a lot of people will instantly block you, and your post comments will get filled by other 🔵✔️ people trying to “market themselves”.
You may want to consider creating a second plain account, with proper tags and old fashioned brand building, to increase your reach. Block every 🔵✔️ on that one, to reduce the noise.
you could use some other service as your main channel and only use those to direct people to that other channel. For example when you do some bigger thing. Deny them the content while taking advantage of bigger visibility.
I’ll attempt that when possible.
I still use Twitter (I refuse to call it by any other name) just to see memes and follow some devs from the FOSS world but I use it through proxy and without JavaScript, just visualization
Seriously about also all mainstream social media
I have all Meta domains (that I’m aware of) blocked at the router level. When Facebook went from MySpace 2.0 to a feed that deprioritized posts from friends and acquaintances, I was done. And I’m too old to have ever had interest in Instagram; Twitter has always been a shitshow to my mind. That Facebook and Twitter also played major roles in killing the production of local news did not improve my opinion of either. I was on a group chat with overseas family members on WhatsApp but deleted that as soon as the acquisition was announced.
Oh good call, I should block all of them on my pi-hole
Anyone still on X is a Nazi. Full stop.
Only the Sith believe in absolutes.
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I enjoy watching a dumpster fire once on a while and putting a ♥️ on stuff Elon Musk definitely doesn’t like.
What are people still doing on the Internet? There are Nazis on the Internet.
Do you know how bars get filled with Nazis? Someone notices a Nazi and someone shrieks that everyone’s a Nazi and people leave and let the Nazis take over. It’s fighting the Nazis that keep the Nazis at bay, not running away from them.
Right. But when the bar is owned by a Nazi, your options for pushing them out of the bar becomes a lot more limited.
