Elon Musk to reinstate X account of white nationalist Nick Fuentes(axios.com)
axios.com
Elon Musk to reinstate X account of white nationalist Nick Fuentes
https://www.axios.com/2024/05/03/elon-musk-nick-fuentes-x-account
9 comments
This is not exposing. This is amplifying. There’s a very big difference.
I don't think that is the case. Amplifying would be if X promoted the tweets, or allowing ads of that kind. What exactly is censorship preventing? Is it that normal people would be convinced by this and a larger movement would form? I would hope that there is a lot more than censorship in the way of people adopting bad ideas, with the exception of children, which is what this boils down to... treating the majority as children that need to be protected from certain ideas (which is arguable since the Internet is not safe for children for the most part, but that is a different matter).
I don’t use Twitter anymore, but folks on Reddit are saying that they’re getting recommendations and even push notifications for right wing pundits, despite not being subscribed to anything remotely right wing: https://old.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1cj5jw7/elon_mu...
Well, these days people will call anything that is not far left, the far right, so I'm a bit skeptical on that front. Also the problem in that case is twitter's suggestion algorithm, if there is any, because you can always block and mute anything you don't like. If twitter gets taken over by extreme far right accounts then one of two possibilities is true - the app sucks and most people leave, or if most people stay then most people agree with it. I don't think there is a scenario in which most people do not agree with it, and then they change their minds because the app has a bad suggestion algorithm.
Apparently, the racist ramblings of Fuentes are less harmful for society than tearing down the American flag and replacing it with another flag.
As a non-Twitter-user and amateur sociologist - the twists, turns, and social dynamics of the Elan/X sh*tshow are really interesting to watch.
Is Twitter becoming a Stormfront with Musk as the leader amplifying hate speech and conspiracy theories like Qanon?
The line between not tolerating intolerants and the intolerants themselves is not there. Once you say a certain group of people cannot participate in society because of their ideas, it only takes a small effort for corruption to take over and use that tool against everyone else. It's the same reason a monarchy is a bad idea and has been the cause of many injustices in history.