i cannot emphasize enough how much elon musk is very much not killing twitter on purpose. he is not that smart. you are giving him too much credit. he makes cars that melt. a few weeks ago a billionaire imploded several other billionaires and himself in the ocean because of this same brand of born-rich brainworms. destroying a social media site because of a petty, long held grudge over his paypal co-founders not letting him rename that to "X" is not a stretch.

FYI Elon just reinstated an alt-right account that was banned for posting CSEM (child sexual exploitation media) and apparently it's still floating around so people are scrambling to put their content filters back on and hoping for the best. And no, people can't just fucking leave because their livelihoods still depend on it and it's a vital community network for oppressed minorities and Global South countries to avoid government censors, fundraise, share news in real time and have any kind of voice.

It's easy to forget when we're pointing and laughing the extent of sexual predation, social endangerment and fascist violence this fucker is enabling. Don't be derailed into debates about whether or not he's playing 4D chess. What matters is the untold potential this utterly morally bankrupt piece of shit has to victimize the most vulnerable people across the globe.

In case your wondering how things are going over on twitter

Oh also he's coping so fucking hard on the website that he scrubbed the video from because its so embarrassing and pretend8ng it doesn't exist like people aren't linking it directly under rthis reply lmao

If you go to this post on Twitter, Elon Replyguys aren't even backing him up in the comments because this shit is so cringe. He is fighting for his life here.

ASDFGHJKL

Twits found out about this thing called "reading".

Alt included.

I’ve had to block more pornbots in the last 48 hours than I have basically the entire rest of time I’ve spent on Tumblr.

Have they become hungrier or less discerning or what? 

I’m pretty sure they’re pornbots, at least. If they’re twitter refugees still filtering into tumblr then they clearly haven’t taken ANY welcome-to-tumblr advice because it’s all empty blogs with generic underwear/swimsuit model looking headers.

they’re getting more aware of what it takes to look somewhat more likely to be a real person, but it’s still transparent they’re bots fishing for clickthrough. every single one i’ve blocked has a link for a blog description bragging about their top OF percentile. they only have two posts at most, and most are empty. they actually have been going to the trouble of making their header, avatar, and any posts they make be pictures of the same person for the first time i have ever noticed

honestly, if they didn’t all uniformly have a link in their desc that says it goes to an OF page, it would be very difficult to tell

Anyway, I’m going to take a moment to remind folks that we need to report porn bots as SPAM.

Especially with the return of the tit this year, the primary issue has never been the adult content: it’s that these accounts are fake spam. I’ve already been overjoyed and delighted to see SWers returning to Tumblr–real ones, not these mimic weirdos with fake links. Reporting the blog of a porn bot as adult only blurs the avatar and hides the account from searches, but the blog continues to exist and can still be reblogged from if bots are going through the notes on posts. Reporting as spam can fully get the account removed.

I’ve blocked about 10 porn bits in recent days and have one blank blog from this morning I’m not sure if it’s a bot or a person.

Apparently Elmo has been banning bots from Twitter so the bot farms are probably moving to other websites.

Afaik it’s been fixed since, but in his fight against bots he literally blocked entire countries. No joke, Ukrainians couldn’t and still can’t do the two factor authentication, and couldn’t register new accounts because our phone code literally was deleted from the database.

So like. Was it malicious? Who knows. It still was a botched attempt.

Elon wyd

I genuinely wish I could see inside Musk’s head or at least get an explanation for how he was thinking his plans would work out.

Like it’s clear now he is fantastically out of touch with reality but I still really wanna know like, to what degree. Did he think people would accept his ultimatum? Did he genuinely think it would only take like 300 people to keep Twitter running?

I was an intern at SpaceX years ago, back it when it was a much smaller company — after Elon got hair plugs, but before his cult of personality was in full swing. I have some insight to offer here.

Back when I was at SpaceX, Elon was basically a child king. He was an important figurehead who provided the company with the money, power, and PR, but he didn’t have the knowledge or (frankly) maturity to handle day-to-day decision making and everyone knew that. He was surrounded by people whose job was, essentially, to manipulate him into making good decisions.

This tracks really well with this article. I can't even pick a single section to highlight, every line is batshit insane. I can't imagine what it would have been like to come to work and face this.

as much as we joke about scaring off twitter refugees around these parts im like. genuinely sorry to all of ya'll moving over. losing your main platform (especially as an artist/creator) to the incompetence of one of the worst human beings alive sucks major ass

And so quickly, too. 

Every time I post something about Twitter’s descent, by the time I’m done posting, something crazier has happened. Like, yesterday I posted about Musk’s ultimatum email. The deadline was 5pm Thursday. And today it appears there was definitely some kind of mass exodus Thursday afternoon, but of course it’s hard to say exactly how big. 

This being in the Washington Post today isn’t a good sign, though:

How To Download Your Tweets In Case Twitter Shuts Down Permanently

soul nate is famous joke account fyi. but the important thing is that this probably could have happened.

Okay, y'all know I'm tumblr's disaster prep auntie or whatever at this point. And you know what worries me most about Twitter getting its throat slit? How it is going to effect disaster response.

I cannot express how valuable Twitter has become when bad shit starts to happen. It stays up when everything else goes down. It works decently when you only have a shitty signal/connection. It allows first responders to immediately push out quick updates on verified accounts, updates that go straight to people's phones without having to weave through a formal process of pushing out a code red warning.

I was able to track the Troublesome Fire and the Marshall Fire because I had push notifications turned on for the relevant Twitter accounts. Because I was able to scroll the hashtags for those fires to track them. I was able to update friends and family in the area with information the news wasn't giving/wasn't aware of because of how fast those situations evolved.

Then there's the resource sharing. People reaching out and saying "hey, I know you just had to run for your life, come to my house, I have an empty guest room and a hot drink." Or saying "hey, the shelter on 8th accepts pets!" After the Marshall Fire, I was able to help out my dad's coworkers who lost their house by tracking down resources they didn't know about because they aren't on Twitter. I was able to get them heaters because the gas was still out at the one family house that survived, but a winter storm blew in after the fire and they only had a gas furnace. They were able to keep their elderly parents warm because of information I got off of Twitter.

Just.

Gah.

I almost wonder if there would be value in a Twitter style clone that is JUST for news stations, first responders, etc.. Anyone can make an account so they can follow the relevant people, but to actually POST you have to be a verified source of news or first responder.