this post was submitted on 23 Mar 2024
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He says it so clearly here which makes me wonder how people don't realize it:
How fucked up would it be if your actual town square was owned by a private company?
A private company that is in control of who is allowed to talk and what they are allowed to say. A private company that even decides what you hear and see while walking the square. Meanwhile also shovelling ads in front of you while you try to find the people you actually want to engage with.
"Social" media owned by private corporations is not social. Such media is anti-social, corporate control of public spaces that ought to belong to the people, just like they mostly do in real life.
Ah in this town square metaphor, don't forget the private company's CEO has a megaphone and talks over people, and outright kicks them out of the square if you hurt his feelings.
Maybe his idea of a town square is more like a place for Nuremberg rally events.
All the while being fellated by feline feces, white nationalists, and dox-happy anti-LGBT bigots who celebrate the suicides of oppressed minorities.
Totally on your page, but what you're describing sounds kinda like times square.
I've never been there so don't know really. But it does seem full of ads and not very social either.
You have just invented malls. Hugely damaging to society, but they come with convenient parking and air con.
I quite like the tag line X, the abandoned shopping mall of the internet.
I think it describes it well.
And to top it all off, it's run by this guy in particular.
Considering the teams tasked with containing political opinion manipulation campaigns were the first to go, I think that is exactly what the acquisition boils down to. A license to manipulate and meddle in public discussion for anyone rich or powerful enough (and of a political disposition agreeable to Musk's increasingly GOP/Russia-indoctrinated mind).
It's a "public town square" where the major approvingly smiles as groups of paid shills and remote-controlled opinion pushers insert themselves into discussions and roughen up people they notice going against the opinions they push.
I maintain the Saudis gave Elon the loan, even if he never pays back a dime, to keep another Arab spring from ever happening again.