> propaganda tool for one of the 2 political flavors in the US

I'm not American, but that doesn't reflect what I was seeing on Twitter before I closed my account (mid 2020).

I'm surprised to see a crowd that is supposed to see through the BS of the industry falling for Musk's neutrality and anti-censorship claims... https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2023/5/2/twitter-fulfillin...

Can I simultaneously believe that there were pretty strong Left connections within Twitter (and many other groups, large and small)

AND that Musk's anti-censorship claims are exaggerated at best?

Did you read the Twitter files? Pretty wild stuff.

The persecution fetish many right wingers had over twitter didn't really play with the vast majority of users. Twitter existed for normal people acting normal, not for "lefists".

It existed for advertisers. All the "censorship" being moaned about is because brands would stop advertising on the platform if Twitter couldn't give reasonable guarantees that their ads would not run next to extremely toxic content.

This seems pretty self evident, since most of them left as soon as Musk took over with the promise to stop policing the platform.

> Biden campaign flagged tweets in lead-up to the election

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2022/12/03/elon... is where a summary of the most neutral analysis on this "debate" can be found.

> now that it is known that it was essentially a disgusting totalitarian political censorship and propaganda tool for one of the 2 political flavors in the US.

Everything we've seen from the Twitter threads suggests that they were working with both political parties, and that it's just reporting bias that we only got more details about their dealings with one of the parties. For example, the original data dumps mentioned in passing that there were similar requests coming from the Presidency (Trump, at the time), the "journalist" just chose to focus on the ones coming from Biden's campaign.

> I find it mind blowing that people refer to Twitter as "once great" now that it is known that it was essentially a disgusting totalitarian political censorship and propaganda tool for one of the 2 political flavors in the US.

You're delusional. Twitter before the acquisition was extremely politically neutral and gave extremist right wing voices way more leeway than should be socially acceptable. Post-acquisition has turned it into the 'totalitarian political censorship and propaganda tool' that you're describing, for Musk's personal and political interests, which at the time seem to be ultra-far right.

The fact that the platform is now explicitly transphobic is a case in point. Musk has made transphobia part of his policy position.

> The fact that the platform is now explicitly transphobic is a case in point. Musk has made transphobia part of his policy position.

Hacker News has become Reddit. ${the thing I hate} is racist and transphobic!! And mindless anti-Musk hate.

We should not accept this type of comment ^^^ it is objectively and intellectually dishonest.

I said that Twitter is transphobic because Musk has made transphobic statements and has asserted that they are Twitter policy. And he owns Twitter, so they are Twitter policy. Ergo, Twitter is transphobic. This is not hyperbole; it is a simple statement of fact.

> You're delusional. Twitter before the acquisition was extremely politically neutral and gave extremist right wing voices way more leeway than should be socially acceptable.

LOL wow.. calling somebody else delusional is serious projection! Twitter was far from neutral. It was obvious to any objective skeptic in real-time then supporting evidence such as Twitter Files confirmed it. Twitter was far left of center and used constant censorship against opposing views.

Maybe I’m crazy, but I preferred it when Twitter wasn’t suggesting I follow Nazis and putting their tweets in my feed.

I thought Azov promotion was banned on Twitter?

Blind nationalism has it use.

If the U.S. was invaded I'd rather fascist racist nationalists be dying holding the enemy back than artists and scientists.

Regardless Azov iirc has shed it's 'nazi' roots to become an effective legitimate military unit. Turns out a lot of fascist apparently are cowards.

Anyways your attachment to Azov having nationist roots reveals your Russian bias. And they are fascist nationalist. They've been destroying, raping, and pillaging what they can for purely fascist racist reasons. That makes the Russians the side of the Nazis here fyi.

Twitter was arguably significant in getting Trump to win the primary and hence get elected.