Election disinformation from Elon Musk is drawing billions of views on X

jeffw@lemmy.worldmod to News@lemmy.world – 400 points –
Election disinformation from Elon Musk is drawing billions of views on X
motherjones.com
47

Election interference charges should be filed...soon?

Give them six years and depending on the election results and whether the SC feels like supporting democracy - after that it’ll be maybe considered that someone might wag their finger about it.

Merrick Garland: 🔥“This is fine”🔥

Adorable that you think billionaires spreading disinformation during an election legally counts as election interference. Is this your first election?

I mean a US president was spreading lies about elections and look where that got him... Up for reelection.

This is what he bought twitter for. This is what he wanted. I hope there aren't any musk stans left who would be reading this, but in cas you're not aware, this is the value of twitter

I read "musk stand" as "musk stains" and you know what? It still works.

"Stan" from the song "Stan" by eminem. Loyal fans to the very end, to the point of being unhealthy

One of my favorite songs! M really makes you feel that extreme mental illness.

I just want to say that he didn’t intend to buy Twitter seriously. He was just blabbing his stupid ass mouth and got called out for it. He didn’t buy it willingly. He was forced to buy it.

Now, he likes to try and make everyone forget that whole fiasco, and actively acts like it was his 4D chess move all along.

Twitter, under Elongated Muskrat, is nothing special any longer. They have people using it, because people refuse to look at alternatives because they’re lazy as fuck. That’s it. Twitter does NOT have power.

When Musk was first buying Twitter, this was one of the things I told people he would do. This was his plan from the beginning and seeing people, especially my friends and coworkers, finally realize this is cathartic and disappointing at the same time.

Just think how outrageous it would have been if Jack Dorsey did the same thing. He probably would have been arrested, or at least dragged to Congress many times.

it pays to be a gov contractor. imo we should have a law gov contractors can't own media companies - a separation of media and state law. Its a conflict of interest

millions of those are humans!

There’s got to be some way of holding him accountable. There’s the saying that if someone who knows the law well enough examined the course of an average person’s day they’d be able to find some law broken if they wanted to. Can we really not do a goddamn thing about this shitbag?

I mean there's always stuff to be done. He's still a bag of meat that dies if it gets run over by a truck. But legal options? Trickier. He has a lot of money and that buys protection.

He didn’t commit treason or election fraud. He didn’t expose national security secrets or endanger government agents. He didn’t kill hundreds of thousands by denying the reality of a pandemic. He doesn’t have a long history of bank fraud or contract fraud or tax fraud.

Anyone can be a jackass, anyone can get so self-centered to the point of self-destructive decisions. Unfortunately this one is propped up by billions of dollars, excessive fame, and his bs is risking what were once visionary companies driving us all toward a better future

Probably mostly Russian troll farms, China troll farms, North Korea troll farms, and I’m sure there are other troll farms.

I’d say it’s safe to ignore.

Advertisers are still fleeing the Nazi bar, because no reputable brand wants their ads next to a tweet from @1488.6mwne that Elon decided to boost.

Who cares, they're all bots

Yeah, but look what’s happening. There’s articles about it effectively “re-tweeting” it to people who don’t even use twitter and we’re talking about it here. His views aren’t just confined to the bots on twitter.

What a coincidence you use the character 'X' to cross out stuff you don't want!

People still use X?

See this same pointless comment in every thread about twitter. Yes, there are an absolute ton of stupid people in the world. Copy pasting this same shitty comment won't change that, but hey that gives you free up votes even though that literally doesn't matter.

As long as shitty people keep making shitty comments that could fuck up this fantastic world, we will continue to resist platforms like X, now controlled by shitty people. Not looking for upvotes, this is Lemmy. So back to your X. Back to your nazi buddies.

How is pretending that X is irrelevant "resisting X"?

If anything, it comes across as if you are trying to hand wave the issue away. Elon Musk is using the platform to manipulate a huge number of people during an election, and you come in implying that nobody uses X.

There are ~335,000,000 monthly active X users. That's a significant captive audience to be on the receiving end of right-wing propaganda.

Anyone insinuating that X is not a popular site, and not a vector for election misinformation to propagate, are themselves spreading misinformation, and are ultimately carrying water for propagandists.

Don't do that.

Noone said it wasn’t a real platform nor popular, it is that we can choose to delete our accounts and not use it because of its owner. Simple, done.

Nobody said anything about deleting accounts or not using Twitter. You're just making shit up.

The comment was "People still use X?", which is clearly a phrased as rhetorical question intended to suggest that people don't use X anymore. Hundreds of millions of people use X, so this is an outright lie. That it is being used to dismiss allegations of widespread disinformation only makes the lie more problematic.

Obviously you are a young’n and have never heard someone be facetious.

I understand that it is facetious, but the humor in the statement is predicated on oft-repeated misinformation. The "just a joke" rhetoric doesn't work on me.

You are defending the use of X which is being used to spread misinformation and my only point is that people should consider NOT using it. I understand that they are using it, which continues to dumbfound me The point is that they are using it and that they should consider not using it!

I'm not defending the use of X, I'm acknowledging the widespread use of X.

I don't understand the exercise in deliberately misinterpreting me. Acting like you're stupid isn't a good look.

Well views, yes. I'm guessing a lot of those are looking for cringe. Still crazy, but I highly doubt the implied claim that he's influencing billions with some kind of truth.