this post was submitted on 10 Dec 2023
322 points (91.7% liked)

politics

19149 readers
4304 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

  1. Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.

Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.

Example:

  1. Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
  2. Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
  3. No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
  4. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
  5. No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

Register To Vote

Citizenship Resource Center

Congressional Awards Program

Federal Government Agencies

Library of Congress Legislative Resources

The White House

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

News

World News

Business News

Political Discussion

Ask Politics

Military News

Global Politics

Moderate Politics

Progressive Politics

UK Politics

Canadian Politics

Australian Politics

New Zealand Politics

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has had his account on X - formerly Twitter - reinstated by Elon Musk.

Musk asked users to vote in a poll whether or not to lift a Jones ban pre-dating his ownership of the platform, signalling he would honour the result.

Around 70% of roughly two million respondents voted to lift the ban.

Jones is most notorious for falsely claiming the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting, in which 20 children and six adults died, was "staged".

He was ordered to pay $1.5bn (£1.32bn) in damages to family members of the victims, after courts found he had caused them to be subjected to harassment and death threats with his false claims.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] brawleryukon 113 points 11 months ago
[–] [email protected] 72 points 11 months ago (26 children)

If you're still on Twitter, you're a fascist sympathizer, full stop.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Some people are just oblivious. Take my dad, for instance. He told me last week “so Twitter is now called ‘X’!” Uh, yeah, thanks.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Um idk about this blanket statement

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Ehhh Twitter has been pretty friendly to anti-democracy types for years now. January 6th was literally organized on the app and that was way before Musk. At this point I have an extremely hard time believing any regular Tweeter who claims ignorance.

load more comments (24 replies)
[–] [email protected] 68 points 11 months ago (1 children)

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/twitter-users-vote-elon-musk-quit-ceo-poll-rcna62332

A year ago next Monday, Musk asked "Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll". The votes came in, 57.5% to resign, 42.5% to stay. If you're wondering how much he care about polls where he hasn't pre-ordained the outcome.

[–] NotMyOldRedditName 19 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (3 children)

He did step down... he hired a CEO to run day to day.

He was going to do it either way though

[–] [email protected] 20 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Also, don't think that CEO doesn't do whatever the fuck he wants, it's a puppet

[–] NotMyOldRedditName 4 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Probably true, but it wasn't the best choice of example to use above against him.

Edit: misread comment about CEOs gender, you were referring to Elon so I removed the correction.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

Now is a good time to debate following the letter of the law vs the intent of the law.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 66 points 11 months ago (1 children)

"Let's see, how can I make it even shittier.....?" -Elon

[–] [email protected] 18 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Next, he should hire Andrew Tate for a management position

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Is that guy out of Romanian prison yet?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago

I believe he’s been under home detention for a while.

[–] Lifecoach5000 51 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Coincidence that he just also appeared as a guest on Tucker’s show for the first time ever? I think Alex is getting some kind of push somehow/somewhere to spew his bile back into the limelight.

[–] phoneymouse 36 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

I’m sure it’s for the 2024 election… the right is drumming up the crazies to get out and vote for the orange traitor.

[–] Lifecoach5000 7 points 11 months ago

Hmmm I wonder if we’ll see Trump guest on Infowars like he did for the 2016 election.

[–] Catma 9 points 11 months ago

I mean if it happens he is going to have to pay the Sandy Hook families the money he owes. Dude is still on the hook for a cool billion with 2 trials to go.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago

He's been getting a lot of love from Russia, and the GOP and Russia are best friends

[–] RealFknNito 43 points 11 months ago (1 children)

There we go. Now it's officially Truth Social as run by Elon Musk. He could have just bought the actual Truth Social for way less.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

But he got a huge huge audience, which is what the other platforms lack. It was a realy good move if your goals are to try to move social media massively to the right, shut down conversations you don't like, etc.

It may have been expensive, but way cheaper than buying or starting a new platform and trying to get that size of an audience and apparent lock-in/addiction.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I'm convinced he did it for the '24 election. He lost a lot on Twitter, but he stands to gain a lot more if trump wins.

Remember that last election, all major social media sites released a "fact check" on content at the last minute, completely hijacking Trumps strategy of lying about everything.

[–] LEDZeppelin 40 points 11 months ago

Freedom of hate speech

[–] [email protected] 30 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Good, now advertisers have even less reason to spend money on that platform

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] SatanClaws 24 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

On the one hand, it is sad to see what Twitter has become. On the other hand, it is a bit funny, as Truth Social is more likely to fail the more X takes on their userbase. Which is hurting Trump right in the wallet.

[–] EurekaStockade 12 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Twitter has always sucked and destroying it at his own expense is the one good thing Musk has done. He should buy Facebook next.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 11 months ago (6 children)

I see we're still reporting on X as if it retained any kind of importance or significance. Quaint.

[–] jennwiththesea 8 points 11 months ago

I appreciate the heads up that we're going to be hearing from Alex Jones again soon, regardless of who, exactly, has chosen to platform him again. This is awful. He's a hateful, horrible person, and I don't look forward to the conspiracy theories he's going to create again.

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] TrendigOsthyvel 21 points 11 months ago

Just keep adding more water to the ship, please!

[–] [email protected] 20 points 11 months ago

Smells like desperation 😤

[–] garibaldi_biscuit 20 points 11 months ago

Xcho chamber

[–] [email protected] 14 points 11 months ago

I love anything that further sinks the site.

[–] Nurse_Robot 14 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Sometimes I scroll YouTube shorts when I'm bored, and there will always be at LEAST one Alex Jones short that pops up, despite my only engagement being to quickly downvote it and skip it. It drives me crazy

[–] [email protected] 26 points 11 months ago (11 children)

Clicking on the short is engagement.

Downvoting is engagement.

Commenting how much you hate, disagree, or feel stupider for watching, is engagement.

Scrolling past the clip and entirely ignoring it, is not engagement.

So... Don't engage, and remember:

Being happy reduces engagement.

Being angry increases engagement.

The algorithm doesn't care how you feel, just how long it can keep your attention.

load more comments (11 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›