Elon Musk

[Thumpalumpacus]

I ran across this article this morning, and when I got here to post it I figured we could just jam all musk news into one thread. Hopefully this'll serve that purpose.

Elon Musk has restored the X account of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, pointing to a poll on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter that came out in favor of the Infowars host who repeatedly called the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting a hoax.

It poses new uncertainty for advertisers, who have fled X over concerns about hate speech appearing alongside their ads, and is the latest divisive public personality to get back their banned account.

Musk posted a poll on Saturday asking if Jones should be reinstated, with the results showing 70% of those who responded in favor. Early Sunday, Musk tweeted, “The people have spoken and so it shall be.”

A few hours later, Jones’ posts were visible again and he retweeted a post about his video game. He and his Infowars show had been permanently banned in 2018 for abusive behavior.

Musk, who has described himself as a free speech absolutist, said the move was about protecting those rights. In response to a user who posted that “permanent account bans are antithetical to free speech,” Musk wrote, “I find it hard to disagree with this point.”

The billionaire Tesla CEO also tweeted it’s likely that Community Notes — X’s crowd-sourced fact-checking service — “will respond rapidly to any AJ post that needs correction.”

It is a major turnaround for Musk, who previously said he wouldn’t let Jones back on the platform despite repeated calls to do so. Last year, Musk pointed to the death of his first-born child and tweeted, “I have no mercy for anyone who would use the deaths of children for gain, politics or fame.”

https://apnews.com/article/alex-jones-x-...67fbe16372

Y'know, if he bought Twitter deliberately to set out on its destruction, I wouldn't be surprised, because he's doing a damned good job.

[Silver]

The new conservative motto is: Let's see what absurdities we can create to lead to our downfall.

[The Grand Nudger]

There are dozens of explanations, all of them leaving Elmo looking like a dunce. I think he accidentally set it on fire by believing, as many of his type often do, that everyone else secretly agreed with him on a number of ad dollar repellant items. That, as they so often fantasize about at length, were people empowered or given voice they'll all say the thing - and then no one..anywhere...ever...would suffer consequences of any kind for voicing such views again.

[Angrboda]

Musk's approach to free speech reminds me of a quote by H.L.Mencken: “For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple and wrong.”

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I’m trying to work this out, and having precious little luck.

-Advertisers leave X over concerns about hate speech.

-Musk complains vehemently about his loss of ad revenue, and vows to get it back.

-To help accomplish the above, he reinstates the account of the archetype of American hate speech.

Huh?

Boru

[The Grand Nudger]

He also told them to go fuck themselves in between. Multiple times...even as he admitted that advertiser flight is going to kill the company.

I really liked his spin on it though - he insists they think they can blackmail him with money. Him, can you believe it?

[Silver]

Brilliance in an area is not immunity to stupidity regarding other areas.

[The Grand Nudger]

That's certainly true, but I'm not sure what elmo is supposed to have been brilliant at.

Paypal? Created by merger, and they shitcanned his ass.
Tesla? Martin Eberhard and Marc Tappening.
Space X? A welfare queen born out of the failure to buy an icbm from russia lead by a fucking spy.

Elmo is not brilliant, has never been brilliant. Elmo is wealthy, and has always been wealthy. Thankfully...for elmo at least, money buys alot of mythmaking.

[Silver]

In a country that worships capitalism, making money tends to be the only worthy sign of brilliance.

[Silver]

Elon Musk vows to change his AI chatbot after it apparently expressed similar left-wing political views as ChatGPT

Business Insider

LOL