Good post. I note that none of these people who are loudly leaving Twitter ever call for people to leave TikTok. Tiktok is controlled (ultimately) by the Chinese government, is flooded with just as much hate and disinformation as Twitter (just directed at different people) and is so toxic that it's banned in China itself - as the Chinese government don't want its own people exposed to the acid it creates for the West. Yet the Guardian and its ilk still proudly post there, after quitting X...
They're not remotely comparable. Twitter is a space where journalists and politicians meet with the public for political discussion. Would a government ever break important news via TikTok? No. Would a TikTok be embedded into an article about financial deregulation! No. Would a TikTok video lead the news outside of a political advert? No.
It's like comparing the Financial Times with Smash Hits magazine. Superficially they're the same but the reality is they're a similar medium for wildly different markets and with hugely different aims and impact.
This is just outright snobbery and simply tells us all that you don't use Tiktok yourself or understand how it works. More people already get their news from Tiktok than from X/Twitter. The ranking order is:
1. Facebook
2. YouTube
3. Instagram
4. Tiktok
5. X/Twitter
However, Tiktok is growing much faster than all the others and will be 2nd within a few years.
"Even if they held strident conservative views, the widespread image of these platforms as unregulated forums in which hate speech thrives would likely pose questions about the judgement of the colleague and the nature of their views."
** strident conservative ** Bit of an oxymoron there.
** hate speech thrives ** What proportion of the posts on these forums is such?
Agree, that sentence befuddled me. Why would a colleague spending personal time in any legal way cause me to doubt their judgement? Being part of an uncensored social media platform has no implications on capabilities to do their day work.
I think it's reasonable. The Conservative party now are mostly radicals. There's a reason most genuine conservatives left the Conservative party. Because it's a pretty radical, burn it all down, force now.
Look at Republicans. They're about as far from conservative as can be imagined.
And Hate Speech *does* thrive. Go to the 'for you' tab, click a link and see how quickly you can find virulent antisemitism. Especially on one of Musk's own posts.
"Admittedly, X has more viable alternatives than the Labour Party; critics of Musk may sign up to platforms such as Bluesky and Mastodon and, later in his article, Carrigan makes this point. I have joined Bluesky and am happy to see it grow; there is room for more than one platform."
Writing on the social media website Bluesky, she claimed that “my Gen X is so full of f—ing fascists” after last week’s presidential election, in which Mr Trump beat Kamala Harris in a landslide.
" ... Science journal editor resigns after calling Gen X fascists over Trump win" Telegraph16/11/2024
The smart money is currently on Trump and his paraphernalia imploding. It's a bit like all empires except that instead of decades or centuries, though the medium of instant social intercourse, the collapse will be relatively instantaneous. This does not mean that the phenomenon of Trump will go away, Trump will turn out to be an ephemeral birth pang of the revolution that will follow it. To reiterate; the revolution is unstoppable, but its early champions may not fair so well. Historically this has a parallel with the struggle for the Early Medieval kingdoms. Kings came and went with relative rapidity. What followed was not a reversal of what went before, but a maturing of societal structures that are recognisable today.
As for the boycott of Twitter, we can see a pattern of the 'progressives' running for cover. They are running out of safe spaces. I did a post recently about a chap called Mike Watson, a liberal progressive type who left Italy because it was going Right, Rejected his home country of Britain because of Brexit, and is now disappointed that his next stop, Finland, is in a state of 'political darkness'
The trend is clear. The hitherto global hegemony of the left-wing elites is crumbling and the progressives are running for cover. Except that pretty soon, they will run out of liberal havens in which to hide and cover their ears and eyes.
Good post. I note that none of these people who are loudly leaving Twitter ever call for people to leave TikTok. Tiktok is controlled (ultimately) by the Chinese government, is flooded with just as much hate and disinformation as Twitter (just directed at different people) and is so toxic that it's banned in China itself - as the Chinese government don't want its own people exposed to the acid it creates for the West. Yet the Guardian and its ilk still proudly post there, after quitting X...
Very good point - the double standards are grating.
Not really. Superficially it's a good point, but a second's thought exposes its massive fallacies.
It's apples and oranges stuff.
They're not remotely comparable. Twitter is a space where journalists and politicians meet with the public for political discussion. Would a government ever break important news via TikTok? No. Would a TikTok be embedded into an article about financial deregulation! No. Would a TikTok video lead the news outside of a political advert? No.
It's like comparing the Financial Times with Smash Hits magazine. Superficially they're the same but the reality is they're a similar medium for wildly different markets and with hugely different aims and impact.
This is just outright snobbery and simply tells us all that you don't use Tiktok yourself or understand how it works. More people already get their news from Tiktok than from X/Twitter. The ranking order is:
1. Facebook
2. YouTube
3. Instagram
4. Tiktok
5. X/Twitter
However, Tiktok is growing much faster than all the others and will be 2nd within a few years.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradadgate/2024/09/24/in-an-election-year-more-americans-are-using-tiktok-as-a-news-source/
"Even if they held strident conservative views, the widespread image of these platforms as unregulated forums in which hate speech thrives would likely pose questions about the judgement of the colleague and the nature of their views."
** strident conservative ** Bit of an oxymoron there.
** hate speech thrives ** What proportion of the posts on these forums is such?
Yes, this sentence is pretty questionable.
Agree, that sentence befuddled me. Why would a colleague spending personal time in any legal way cause me to doubt their judgement? Being part of an uncensored social media platform has no implications on capabilities to do their day work.
Yes, there are some illiberal undertones.
I think it's reasonable. The Conservative party now are mostly radicals. There's a reason most genuine conservatives left the Conservative party. Because it's a pretty radical, burn it all down, force now.
Look at Republicans. They're about as far from conservative as can be imagined.
And Hate Speech *does* thrive. Go to the 'for you' tab, click a link and see how quickly you can find virulent antisemitism. Especially on one of Musk's own posts.
I mean, if you didn’t give a damn when Twitter was colluding with government agencies to censor germane information, why should you now?
"Admittedly, X has more viable alternatives than the Labour Party; critics of Musk may sign up to platforms such as Bluesky and Mastodon and, later in his article, Carrigan makes this point. I have joined Bluesky and am happy to see it grow; there is room for more than one platform."
Writing on the social media website Bluesky, she claimed that “my Gen X is so full of f—ing fascists” after last week’s presidential election, in which Mr Trump beat Kamala Harris in a landslide.
" ... Science journal editor resigns after calling Gen X fascists over Trump win" Telegraph16/11/2024
The smart money is currently on Trump and his paraphernalia imploding. It's a bit like all empires except that instead of decades or centuries, though the medium of instant social intercourse, the collapse will be relatively instantaneous. This does not mean that the phenomenon of Trump will go away, Trump will turn out to be an ephemeral birth pang of the revolution that will follow it. To reiterate; the revolution is unstoppable, but its early champions may not fair so well. Historically this has a parallel with the struggle for the Early Medieval kingdoms. Kings came and went with relative rapidity. What followed was not a reversal of what went before, but a maturing of societal structures that are recognisable today.
As for the boycott of Twitter, we can see a pattern of the 'progressives' running for cover. They are running out of safe spaces. I did a post recently about a chap called Mike Watson, a liberal progressive type who left Italy because it was going Right, Rejected his home country of Britain because of Brexit, and is now disappointed that his next stop, Finland, is in a state of 'political darkness'
The trend is clear. The hitherto global hegemony of the left-wing elites is crumbling and the progressives are running for cover. Except that pretty soon, they will run out of liberal havens in which to hide and cover their ears and eyes.