The Billionaire Man-Child's Defense of Scott Adams' Racism and the Increase of Antisemitism Under His Watch Are Too Much For Me. It's Time to Stop Wasting Time on His Dumb Website.
I can honestly take or leave Twitter—and Facebook for that matter. Every year for Lent, I take off from social media, excepting “business” reasons to login—needed communications, posting articles, etc. It’s actually quite liberating. If I had to give up anything for good, certainly Twitter would be it—I know next to nobody on the site personally and my postings hardly generate any kind of activity—I’m probably not using it well—I’m too lazy to put in hashtags, etc.
All that said, I do prefer Twitter after Musk than before. I far prefer that users are free to say unpopular, vulgar, or even “so-called racist” things on the site than having some leftist-world-view people filter it before I see it. And I say “so-called racist” content because I am now quite numb to that charge, as I think many are. I am not defending Scott Adams—frankly I knew nothing about it before reading about it here. As I understand from what you’ve reported, he’s already suffering repercussions from his statements—justly or not.
But to say that Musk is defending “racism” by supporting Adams, I think goes too far. I think that Musk is more properly trying to defend free speech, especially when it’s made against something as untouchable as race relations. Again, I don’t claim to know the details of what Adams wrote nor the context, other than he was commenting on a survey. The whole thing seems ridiculous to me—first, the survey itself, and second, taking it seriously and wasting time commenting on its results. (That might be Adam’s chief fault in all this.)
I am also neutral on Musk the man personally—I don’t see him as any great savior of the world, but nor do I see him as a great villain. As far as I know, he’s no better or worse than any of the other heads of social media companies.
"I am not defending Scott Adams—frankly I knew nothing about it before reading about it here."
You should watch the video of Adams before taking a position on this or judging if Musk's response was correct or not. He very much was defending him and not just taking an absurd absolutist free speech position.
"Again, I don’t claim to know the details of what Adams wrote nor the context, other than he was commenting on a survey."
Really get into the details on this first to understand why I'm so angry about it that I'm quitting Twitter, urging others to also, and further revising the strategy I was planning for our publishing company.
"I am also neutral on Musk the man personally—I don’t see him as any great savior of the world, but nor do I see him as a great villain. As far as I know, he’s no better or worse than any of the other heads of social media companies."
He's much worse. Don't ignore how much racism and antisemitism has gone up under his watch. He's also absurdly immature.
Maybe I need to do another post about this. I think Musk's free speech absolutism and others' is simply wrong. They take free speech to the extreme of saying there should be no real public consequences for hateful, evil speech. That isn't what the first amendment is about at all. Free speech means the government has no right to censor speech or regulate it beyond libel and slander. It doesn't mean that private companies can't set standards for how they operate and what they allow to be published on their platform.
I'm not really concerned about the specifics of Adam's case, which I could have made more clear up front. My main point was while I am not an "absolute" free speech person myself, I far prefer it to having someone else deciding for me what's proper and correct to post on the site. The other reasons you give for leaving Twitter, BTW, I think are quite valid--mainly, it's a time waster. However, I'm uneasy when I hear about racism charges because it can be very nebulous. What exactly does it mean that racism and antisemitism has gone up? I'm not sure how that could be quantified accurately, especially depending on what is counted, or not counted, for that matter--as racist. That's my concern.
When you see the video of what Adams said it isn’t nebulous at all. That is why you should really educate yourself about a particular incident before choosing to sound off with an opinion that isn’t informed by all the facts. I agree many charges of racism are overblown but this isn’t at all.
There have been legitimate studies of Twitter’s increase in racism and antisemitism and you should check them out before dismissing them.
Okay, just two more points to clarify--one, "nebulous" wasn't referring to Adams. I was referring to the general charge of racism (going up or down). Two, you are correct that I should review the studies before dismissing them, but I wasn't exactly doing that--I was questioning what they used to make their findings. But as you say, I would need to review them before concluding anything.
I also think that we were talking past one another (as often happens on Twitter). As to my side, I was not appreciating your anger about racism and thus questioning the legitimacy of your premise for leaving Twitter. Guilty as charged. If this was enough for you to quit Twitter, that’s your call. Mea culpa, in other words.
Thanks Alec, I appreciate that. Seriously, though: check out video of what Adams said to see why this was such a big deal that he lost all the newspapers, his syndicator, and his book deal. And why it's so obvious, unambiguous racism. This isn't leftist overreacting. This is something that anyone Left or Right or Center with a basic understanding of racism can see. Thus, the fact that Elon Musk can't see it is just so galling to me that not only am I personally leaving Twitter and advocating others do so also, it's cause me to totally reevaluate and change our social media strategy for this publishing company. I was previously going to be encouraging you and the other authors to spend some time growing your Twitter following and networking there. Now? No more - there are other social networks that will be much more effective for our purposes.
I agree the issue with Scott Adams is a good enough reason to stop feeding Elon Musk attention. He does not need anymore attention. I guess the more he focuses on the money pit that is Twitter the less he is focusing on his other companies which probably will help those other companies do better in his absence, as he shares memes and does his best impression of a 19 year old.
Twitter has been since it's inception likely a net negative. The benefit of celebrities, public figures, aspiring public figures, and semi-famous people having a direct connection to their audiences. Does not outweigh the fact that absolutely horrible people also get a direct connection to their audiences.
Also since the beginning the word count restriction was destine to being the discourse found on Twitter immediately into the gutter. This also seems to make reactionary sentiment much more powerful than anytjing else. It's also nearly impossible to actually moderate the massive site fairly.
Now it seems like it's just a tool for a billionaire who is obsessed with being worshiped by a very particular subset of people.
You are write on the money on all your points. Apart from his bad moral values, Musk is simply bizarrely immature for a man who's been capable of creating such an amazing space company and care company. I used to admire him so much but now no more. His tweeting is just so immature and it totally exposes him.
Yes I want his other companies to succeed, not really Twitter.
I was open to him actually improving Twitter when he bought it and was also open to the idea that maybe he wasn't as immature and attention seeking as I had thought from his previous hijinx...however he has kind of proven to be more immature and more attention seeking than I previously thought.
The sad thing is , with all these public statements and whatnot it's hard from an ego strength perspective to actually admit one is wrong, so it's very likely, just like many people who use Twitter for politics is that he will double and triple down on his current worldview before he ever admits some of the criticism is correct.
That's another problem with social media in general and Twitter in particular. All three public statements continues the trend of conflating ones identity as a person with partisan politics.
I was open to Musk fixing some issues with Twitter. He really hasn't though.
I could care less what people are allowed to say or not say on the internet. I remember how the Internet was before it got all corporate and people found ways to make money off of ads and data collection. It wasn't always a nice place. People can feel free to, not visit sites or read things that they don't like.
The issue with Twitter is that it is a social media platform that is designed to get attention. Everything about it is geared towards pushing a view that is short unexamined and controversial.
You are probably not getting a lot of traction on Twitter because your tweets don't do this.
First off there is a word limit, this alone spurs people into saying short even insulting things to get their point across.
Engagement on Twitter is more likely to happen when someone disagrees with a tweet. So if you say some sort of popular truism in a normal way there isn't going to be many people engaging in what you say. If you say something outlandish insulting or something that simplifies an issue you will get more engagement.
This means that the whole platform prioritizes attention grabbing toxic posts above normal human interaction. That's how they get people on the site, that's how they get engagement and money. Because of the word limit it's difficult to actually get an intelligent point across unless you are linking your tweets to some other site that actually has an article or a more intelligently phrased statement.
Twitter was never intended to be "leftist" or anything like that. It was initially a "free speech" platform like what Elon apparently wants. However over time things like "Oh ISIS has a big presence on the site, people are blaming Twitter for the rise of ISIS" then "Oh that school shooter had lots of tweets no one read about how he was going to shoot up that school then he did...why didn't anyone notice?" And "Foreign governments are spreading disinformation on Twitter, how can this be?" And "People on Twitter are undermining the pandemic response with disinformation tweets."
And slowly through all these concerns Twitter developed a very specific moderation algorithm that tried to make everyone happy. It didn't.
Twitter through it's entire history has not been able to turn much of a profit and had been a money loser this entire time.
What Elon Musk did was kind of reset Twitter and change it's biases. As soon as there is another racist terrorist attack or terrorist group, or some sort of real life event that can be partially traced back to Twitter Musk will get a ton of pressure from advertisers and interest groups to change the moderation.
What he seems to be doing is trying to run the site on a skeleton crew and find other ways to make revenue so that he doesn't have to be as beholden to advertisers to prevent this, so far this hasn't exactly worked.
On top of that Musk himself is weighing in on things like Scott Adams. No one asked Musk to ban Adams from Twitter. Musk is contesting news papers from "canceling" the comic artist. These are other businesses, they can do what they like. I wouldn't want to pay Adams for his comics if I were a likely fledgling newspaper either.
On top of that Twitter is just inherently at it's core a net negative because of what it naturally encourages. So I think it's always the right time to "boycott Twitter." The Adams incident is a good a reason as any, but there are many reasons.
I can honestly take or leave Twitter—and Facebook for that matter. Every year for Lent, I take off from social media, excepting “business” reasons to login—needed communications, posting articles, etc. It’s actually quite liberating. If I had to give up anything for good, certainly Twitter would be it—I know next to nobody on the site personally and my postings hardly generate any kind of activity—I’m probably not using it well—I’m too lazy to put in hashtags, etc.
All that said, I do prefer Twitter after Musk than before. I far prefer that users are free to say unpopular, vulgar, or even “so-called racist” things on the site than having some leftist-world-view people filter it before I see it. And I say “so-called racist” content because I am now quite numb to that charge, as I think many are. I am not defending Scott Adams—frankly I knew nothing about it before reading about it here. As I understand from what you’ve reported, he’s already suffering repercussions from his statements—justly or not.
But to say that Musk is defending “racism” by supporting Adams, I think goes too far. I think that Musk is more properly trying to defend free speech, especially when it’s made against something as untouchable as race relations. Again, I don’t claim to know the details of what Adams wrote nor the context, other than he was commenting on a survey. The whole thing seems ridiculous to me—first, the survey itself, and second, taking it seriously and wasting time commenting on its results. (That might be Adam’s chief fault in all this.)
I am also neutral on Musk the man personally—I don’t see him as any great savior of the world, but nor do I see him as a great villain. As far as I know, he’s no better or worse than any of the other heads of social media companies.
"I am not defending Scott Adams—frankly I knew nothing about it before reading about it here."
You should watch the video of Adams before taking a position on this or judging if Musk's response was correct or not. He very much was defending him and not just taking an absurd absolutist free speech position.
"Again, I don’t claim to know the details of what Adams wrote nor the context, other than he was commenting on a survey."
Really get into the details on this first to understand why I'm so angry about it that I'm quitting Twitter, urging others to also, and further revising the strategy I was planning for our publishing company.
"I am also neutral on Musk the man personally—I don’t see him as any great savior of the world, but nor do I see him as a great villain. As far as I know, he’s no better or worse than any of the other heads of social media companies."
He's much worse. Don't ignore how much racism and antisemitism has gone up under his watch. He's also absurdly immature.
Maybe I need to do another post about this. I think Musk's free speech absolutism and others' is simply wrong. They take free speech to the extreme of saying there should be no real public consequences for hateful, evil speech. That isn't what the first amendment is about at all. Free speech means the government has no right to censor speech or regulate it beyond libel and slander. It doesn't mean that private companies can't set standards for how they operate and what they allow to be published on their platform.
I'm not really concerned about the specifics of Adam's case, which I could have made more clear up front. My main point was while I am not an "absolute" free speech person myself, I far prefer it to having someone else deciding for me what's proper and correct to post on the site. The other reasons you give for leaving Twitter, BTW, I think are quite valid--mainly, it's a time waster. However, I'm uneasy when I hear about racism charges because it can be very nebulous. What exactly does it mean that racism and antisemitism has gone up? I'm not sure how that could be quantified accurately, especially depending on what is counted, or not counted, for that matter--as racist. That's my concern.
When you see the video of what Adams said it isn’t nebulous at all. That is why you should really educate yourself about a particular incident before choosing to sound off with an opinion that isn’t informed by all the facts. I agree many charges of racism are overblown but this isn’t at all.
There have been legitimate studies of Twitter’s increase in racism and antisemitism and you should check them out before dismissing them.
Okay, just two more points to clarify--one, "nebulous" wasn't referring to Adams. I was referring to the general charge of racism (going up or down). Two, you are correct that I should review the studies before dismissing them, but I wasn't exactly doing that--I was questioning what they used to make their findings. But as you say, I would need to review them before concluding anything.
I also think that we were talking past one another (as often happens on Twitter). As to my side, I was not appreciating your anger about racism and thus questioning the legitimacy of your premise for leaving Twitter. Guilty as charged. If this was enough for you to quit Twitter, that’s your call. Mea culpa, in other words.
Thanks Alec, I appreciate that. Seriously, though: check out video of what Adams said to see why this was such a big deal that he lost all the newspapers, his syndicator, and his book deal. And why it's so obvious, unambiguous racism. This isn't leftist overreacting. This is something that anyone Left or Right or Center with a basic understanding of racism can see. Thus, the fact that Elon Musk can't see it is just so galling to me that not only am I personally leaving Twitter and advocating others do so also, it's cause me to totally reevaluate and change our social media strategy for this publishing company. I was previously going to be encouraging you and the other authors to spend some time growing your Twitter following and networking there. Now? No more - there are other social networks that will be much more effective for our purposes.
I agree the issue with Scott Adams is a good enough reason to stop feeding Elon Musk attention. He does not need anymore attention. I guess the more he focuses on the money pit that is Twitter the less he is focusing on his other companies which probably will help those other companies do better in his absence, as he shares memes and does his best impression of a 19 year old.
Twitter has been since it's inception likely a net negative. The benefit of celebrities, public figures, aspiring public figures, and semi-famous people having a direct connection to their audiences. Does not outweigh the fact that absolutely horrible people also get a direct connection to their audiences.
Also since the beginning the word count restriction was destine to being the discourse found on Twitter immediately into the gutter. This also seems to make reactionary sentiment much more powerful than anytjing else. It's also nearly impossible to actually moderate the massive site fairly.
Now it seems like it's just a tool for a billionaire who is obsessed with being worshiped by a very particular subset of people.
You are write on the money on all your points. Apart from his bad moral values, Musk is simply bizarrely immature for a man who's been capable of creating such an amazing space company and care company. I used to admire him so much but now no more. His tweeting is just so immature and it totally exposes him.
Yes I want his other companies to succeed, not really Twitter.
I was open to him actually improving Twitter when he bought it and was also open to the idea that maybe he wasn't as immature and attention seeking as I had thought from his previous hijinx...however he has kind of proven to be more immature and more attention seeking than I previously thought.
The sad thing is , with all these public statements and whatnot it's hard from an ego strength perspective to actually admit one is wrong, so it's very likely, just like many people who use Twitter for politics is that he will double and triple down on his current worldview before he ever admits some of the criticism is correct.
That's another problem with social media in general and Twitter in particular. All three public statements continues the trend of conflating ones identity as a person with partisan politics.
I was open to Musk fixing some issues with Twitter. He really hasn't though.
I could care less what people are allowed to say or not say on the internet. I remember how the Internet was before it got all corporate and people found ways to make money off of ads and data collection. It wasn't always a nice place. People can feel free to, not visit sites or read things that they don't like.
The issue with Twitter is that it is a social media platform that is designed to get attention. Everything about it is geared towards pushing a view that is short unexamined and controversial.
You are probably not getting a lot of traction on Twitter because your tweets don't do this.
First off there is a word limit, this alone spurs people into saying short even insulting things to get their point across.
Engagement on Twitter is more likely to happen when someone disagrees with a tweet. So if you say some sort of popular truism in a normal way there isn't going to be many people engaging in what you say. If you say something outlandish insulting or something that simplifies an issue you will get more engagement.
This means that the whole platform prioritizes attention grabbing toxic posts above normal human interaction. That's how they get people on the site, that's how they get engagement and money. Because of the word limit it's difficult to actually get an intelligent point across unless you are linking your tweets to some other site that actually has an article or a more intelligently phrased statement.
Twitter was never intended to be "leftist" or anything like that. It was initially a "free speech" platform like what Elon apparently wants. However over time things like "Oh ISIS has a big presence on the site, people are blaming Twitter for the rise of ISIS" then "Oh that school shooter had lots of tweets no one read about how he was going to shoot up that school then he did...why didn't anyone notice?" And "Foreign governments are spreading disinformation on Twitter, how can this be?" And "People on Twitter are undermining the pandemic response with disinformation tweets."
And slowly through all these concerns Twitter developed a very specific moderation algorithm that tried to make everyone happy. It didn't.
Twitter through it's entire history has not been able to turn much of a profit and had been a money loser this entire time.
What Elon Musk did was kind of reset Twitter and change it's biases. As soon as there is another racist terrorist attack or terrorist group, or some sort of real life event that can be partially traced back to Twitter Musk will get a ton of pressure from advertisers and interest groups to change the moderation.
What he seems to be doing is trying to run the site on a skeleton crew and find other ways to make revenue so that he doesn't have to be as beholden to advertisers to prevent this, so far this hasn't exactly worked.
On top of that Musk himself is weighing in on things like Scott Adams. No one asked Musk to ban Adams from Twitter. Musk is contesting news papers from "canceling" the comic artist. These are other businesses, they can do what they like. I wouldn't want to pay Adams for his comics if I were a likely fledgling newspaper either.
On top of that Twitter is just inherently at it's core a net negative because of what it naturally encourages. So I think it's always the right time to "boycott Twitter." The Adams incident is a good a reason as any, but there are many reasons.
This is not surprising at all. But we appreciate you Dave for bringing so many horrid things to light. Tempted to follow suit...
I really think you should just focus on your substack and also start thinking of a book to write. I'd be happy to help you figure out both.