For a lot of right-wing people I have spoken to, the Hunter Biden story getting falsely removed for "Russian disinformation" was the last straw. Think of it as a dumb scandal if you want, but the issue was a legitimate news story published by high-profile mainstream news outlets getting removed using counter-disinformation tools. That really damaged Twitter's credibility.
Now they would rather hang out on a site where they don't have to worry about overbearing moderation, at the cost of a handful of nutters talking about Satanic rituals or whatever. I think Musk had a plausible route to getting those users back if he could promise slightly more limited and fair enforcement of the rules.
Is it the fact they don't want anyone to question their belief system? Because that's what I see.
When they are questioned, they martyrize themselves to spark more outrage. (I'm a victim of the woke left!) And then use that as a crutch to deflect further criticism or questions.
If it wasn't Hunter Biden's Laptop, it would be something else, e.g. Pizzagate, Voting Machines, Mail-in Balloting, Fake school shootings, etc.
You can't blame the mainstream media if you're the one that's calling "wolf" over and over without facts.
I don't really think that's the case. We can see the dynamic in action on the Fediverse, a space where anyone can make their own server and moderate it according to their wishes. There are right-wing servers that have created their own walled gardens (Gab, Truth Social), but at the same time the left-wing servers have created server blacklists that include most of the "free speech" servers. Given the option, a lot of people across the political spectrum apparently want hugboxes.
I'm not saying it doesn't happen on the left as well. I'm just saying it's easier to recognize when it does happen on the right. The Dominion v. Fox News lawsuits come to mind here. Parents of Sandy Hook v. Alex Jones, too.
Back around 1991/1992 the Democrats in congress were so convinced there was an October Surprise in the 1980 election. There just wasn't anything there.
Hugboxes don't force you to question your belief system, right? You can go on living in whatever world you want to. But anything coming out of those hugboxes, no one should take seriously, right?
Before social media we would have called much of this stuff "conspiracy theories".
The hard right, and their conspiracy theories about Pizzagate, Voting Machines, Mail-in Balloting and Fake school shootings are crazy and disgraceful, in my opinion. And I lost any respect I might have had for Trump after the aftermath of the 2020 election.
But I'm equally disapproving of the left in their handling of the 2016 election and its aftermath, and the way they represented it as "stolen", as well as their narratives during the BLM "protests" and January 6 "insurrection". Imo, if Trump had really wanted a coup, he would have placed his people in top positions of the armed forces, and used actual armed soldiers. Q-anon and others involved on January 6 did not seem to have anywhere near the kind of organization to carry out an actual coup.
Also, Twitter and outher outlets suppressing (then and even now) the Hunter laptop (not the porn, but the actual evidence of corruption that looked like it involved Joe) made it look super-partisan.
Later on, the partisan divide arround covid, with crazy anti-vaxxers on one side, and similarly irrational support for excessive lockdowns and suppression of the WIV story on the other, it seemed like Twitter was contributing to the excesses of both sides.
The world (and perhaps especially the US) needs a platform where moderates of both sides can meet to discuss their differences, and where moderation is (to the extent it is carried out) applied to the crazy people of BOTH sides when it becomes excessive.
That way, one can hope, it may be possible to separate facts from matters of opinion from outrights falsehoods.
If too many people consistently tow the party line (which many be the case for anyone consistently agreeing with their own side on all issues above), I think a breakup of the USA is inevitable. The result will be one Woke-merica and one Maga-merica, and quite possibly civil war.
When Musk took over, I was hoping he would take the platform in a direction where it would support a moderate centre.
> That way, one can hope, it may be possible to separate facts from matters of opinion from outrights falsehoods.
Jan. 6th was a based on a series of falsehoods. Fox News and several Republican politicians claimed it was a antifa "False Flag" operation the night after it happened.
Fox News downplayed much of the Trump scandals in his presidency. So now turnabout is fair play I guess with the coverage of whatever's on Hunter Biden's laptop? The entire narrative is clouded by Giuliani and company apparently tampering with the data that made it to the NY Post.
> .. and quite possibly civil war.
So we need to restore Trump to the presidency, suspend the constitution, or whatever the right wing demands or there will be violence? Why can't it be just as simple Fox News, Alex Jones, OANN, and Newsmax agreeing to no longer manufacture outrage for ratings?
> So we need to restore Trump to the presidency, suspend the constitution, or whatever the right wing demands or there will be violence?
Not what I'm saying at all, rather the opposite. But if both sides stop interpreting everything coming frome moderates on the other side in the worst possible light, that's a start in mitigating polarization.
> I think the issue is that social media is the most amazing tool for propaganda ever invented.
The Russians realized it in 2016, and the data I've seen indicates that they promoted both Trump and Sanders at the time.
> One of the two political parties learned from that experience rather than wanted to fix it.
Both sides spread a lot of lies and even more half truths both in social media and more traditional media. The loyalists on both sides also both seem unable to spot where their own side is spreading disinformation and propaganda.
Now they would rather hang out on a site where they don't have to worry about overbearing moderation, at the cost of a handful of nutters talking about Satanic rituals or whatever. I think Musk had a plausible route to getting those users back if he could promise slightly more limited and fair enforcement of the rules.