Need to let loose a primal scream without collecting footnotes first? Have a sneer percolating in your system but not enough time/energy to make a whole post about it? Go forth and be mid: Welcome to the Stubsack, your first port of call for learning fresh Awful you’ll near-instantly regret.
Any awful.systems sub may be subsneered in this subthread, techtakes or no.
If your sneer seems higher quality than you thought, feel free to cut’n’paste it into its own post — there’s no quota for posting and the bar really isn’t that high.
The post Xitter web has spawned soo many “esoteric” right wing freaks, but there’s no appropriate sneer-space for them. I’m talking redscare-ish, reality challenged “culture critics” who write about everything but understand nothing. I’m talking about reply-guys who make the same 6 tweets about the same 3 subjects. They’re inescapable at this point, yet I don’t see them mocked (as much as they should be)
Like, there was one dude a while back who insisted that women couldn’t be surgeons because they didn’t believe in the moon or in stars? I think each and every one of these guys is uniquely fucked up and if I can’t escape them, I would love to sneer at them.
(Semi-obligatory thanks to @dgerard for starting this)
Atlantic writer: “better dubble down on Twitter huhuhuhhuh”
Calls to disengage from X, now that Elon Musk has turned it into a white-supremacist haven, certainly have a moral appeal. But if this election showed how difficult it is to meaningfully “deplatform” speakers you disagree with, it also demonstrated the danger of ignoring the platforms where they speak. Unfortunately, the only way to change what’s happening in an echo chamber may be to add your own noise.
This is your periodic reminder that Steve Jobs’ widow owns that toilet-paper factory. And that they still pump out hot new singles from hitmakers like David Frum and, occasionally, my personal favorite, Eliot “GW Bush Did Nothing Wrong” Cohen.
My radicalisation just continues and deepens.
What deplatforming actually happened that this writer is referring to? “We didn’t deplatform anyone. Therefore deplatforming bad” ???
“we’ve tried nothing, and nothing is working!” this is going to be such a common refrain
God and thinking about it even a little bit:
Of course deplatforming works, you fuckface! Why did Elon buy twitter if not to secure a platform? It is surprising you managed to write anything at all, you stupid goblin.
what in the absolute fuck
“you shouldn’t do anything that works to resist fascism” is going to be the neoliberal siren call for 4+ years, isn’t it
It doesn’t even fit with the axioms of market logic! If the platform in question has terrible content moderation, primarily generates revenue from profoundly repulsive people, and was intentionally bought out to be used as the central propaganda organ for a destructive political movement… why wouldn’t you leave?! Dude just doesn’t want to admit he’s too lazy to redo his follows elsewhere
It makes sense if you consider that Twitter’s users are essentially creating the product that is sold to advertisers rather than actually buying a product. Leaving Twitter en masse to try and force a policy change isn’t a boycott, it’s a strike. And we know how neoliberalism feels about organized labor.
Unfortunately, the only way to change what’s happening in an echo chamber may be to add your own noise.
imagine writing something like this and considering yourself to be the adult in the room. just a big ol politics understander, writing and writing and none of it means a fucking thing. you get up every morning and somehow the dread doesn’t make you collapse back into bed.
Story from .nl, after Wilders “won” (he got the biggest share of the votes, and quite a lot more than before) the election last year, instantly the amount of horrible posts towards visible muslim people massively intensified (other groups, women, leftwingers and lgbt people (and the various intersections) also got worse replies (which on Dutch twitter always was bad already)). So this advice is so dumb, yes expose your people to more risk and potential burnout. And guess what, as we are a year in and most of Dutch twitter is still on twitter. It doesnt help. (And I cant tell, as switching to bsky has made me realize just how much of a breath of fresh air it is, but to me it feels twitter has gotten worse, but that is more likely explained by me getting better).
E: there is also the ‘they need us more than we need them’ factor. I have not seen rightwing Dutch trolls on bksy yet, Catturd however made the jump (and was promptly banned by everybody).
