Elon Musk’s X Rebrand Is Toxic Catnip to the Press(politico.com)
politico.com
Elon Musk’s X Rebrand Is Toxic Catnip to the Press
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/07/26/elon-musk-press-twitter-x-00108249
10 comments
I don’t really agree with the article. It basically could be summarized as “if he did nothing with it (I guess) we’d say why isn’t he doing anything, but if he does things that are objectively bad (e.g. rate limiting tweet views for real users), we chastise him for it, what gives!?” The article is missing the obvious scenario where he truly improves the site, increases views, avoids chaotic controversy, improves earnings, etc. He has done a lot and it doesn’t seem (from the outside) to be working, thus the negative press.
It's an important point that Twitter's main relevance comes out of its relationship with the press. That is, if there was some famous incident on Twitter you are much more likely to have read about it in the press than actually having participated in it.
I don't think that's true. The press is notoriously wrong, biased, and late. Most people I know have caught on to this.
I personally haven't used Twitter since 2016 so I can say anything I heard about that happened on Twitter I got second hand. Consider a few examples: for instance, whenever Elon Musk falls out of the news cycle for a few minutes he acts up. Back in the day there was this incident
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/15/elon-musk...
given that this story has been covered repeatedly in the news, both when it happened, at numerous points in the resulting lawsuits, in retrospective stories that recap Musk's erratic behavior over time, etc. I can't believe the incident would be well known at all if it hadn't been amplified off Twitter.
To take another incident there was the time some people were rude to JK Rowling on Twitter and, on Twitter, it would have blown over and people would have moved on to something else. Instead it's become political and Bari Weiss and every other conservative journalist has written at least one story about this incident and they might still be writing about it for a long time to come.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/15/elon-musk...
given that this story has been covered repeatedly in the news, both when it happened, at numerous points in the resulting lawsuits, in retrospective stories that recap Musk's erratic behavior over time, etc. I can't believe the incident would be well known at all if it hadn't been amplified off Twitter.
To take another incident there was the time some people were rude to JK Rowling on Twitter and, on Twitter, it would have blown over and people would have moved on to something else. Instead it's become political and Bari Weiss and every other conservative journalist has written at least one story about this incident and they might still be writing about it for a long time to come.
The news cycle is artificial and mere political theater. None of it is honest. All of it is propaganda. Journalism died when it got into bed with democrats.
Right. Because media outlets and journalists in bed with Republicans definitely don’t engage in lies and propaganda (/s). Or just maybe it has more to do with how they’re now almost entirely owned by large corporations that have their own interests in mind.