Social media is not journalism.

And yet it has similar, if not greater reach and, therefore, power.

That's one of the reasons Musk acquired Twitter.

How well did that work?

He opted instead to go where the young far-right voters are. That's where he expects to exert power by selecting and shifting messages.

He didn't buy 4chan. He bought Twitter. This isn't a matter of conspiracy theory nonsense. Its just him trying to make more money and misunderstanding the market.

Acquiring 4chan would be much too obvious. Also, it would not give neither plausible deniability nor a varnish of legitimacy to the manoeuvre.

It works very well. Go read on Twitter the accounts that are 'Tesla fanbois' - WholeMarsBlog, Teslanomics etc.

At this point it's a cult and the adulation of Musk and whatever he does or says is good. No doubt Musk loves it.

For example, everybody knows Musk is a pretty much non-existent father. He was called lying about stuff no sane person would even try to lie (like for example that his newborn died in his arms... which his wife denied). And yet, any time he shows his latest child with him, all those cult members are posting pictures, texts etc. praising how a wonderful father Elon is. And he shares and likes these messages !

Well... If you come to think of it, being an absent father is a good thing for all those kids. If I were one, I'd prefer he were on a different planet altogether.

When Twitter enforced their policies on Trump and other right wing posters Republicans complained about “mainstream” media manipulating elections by suppressing their messaging. Those people ought to be consistent and decry Musks’ shenanigans.

What is interesting to me is that the a great many established accounts on Twitter would love to leave the platform due to it being owned by Musk. They don’t/can’t/haven’t left Twitter due to network effects. How long these users remain on Twitter is a measure of the power of Twitter’s entrenched position. The only real policy on Twitter is whatever Musk wants at a given time. No one should expect consistency in policy enforcement on Twitter.

I call bullshit. Anybody can leave Twitter and Facebook at any time. Some don’t only because they don’t know how to operate otherwise. That ignorance is not evidence of platform dominance.

The evidence is that there are lots of people who despise Musk and what he has done to Twitter who still use it. That's what speaks to it's dominance and speaks to the network effects it has.

People said the same stupid things several years ago about Facebook. That is still not evidence of either dominance or vendor lock-in. Its just evidence of either addiction or ignorance of alternatives.

To be clear dominance is where one player owns market majority. That is not Twitter. There is lots of evidence on this. Twitter might dominate Truth Social but it still lags far behind Facebook, TikTok, and probably Instagram.

Vendor lock-in is where the cost to switch to an alternative is supremely expensive, such as rebuilding infrastructure from the ground up. That is radically different than the stupidity of not knowing what your options are.

Too many smart, savvy people who despise Musk stay on the platform for it to be believable that stupidity is the reason.

Non sequitur. Your reasoning is that something must be valid because otherwise stupid things cannot possibly be stupid if reasoned by supposedly smart people. That doesn't make sense.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formal_fallacy

That is not my reasoning. You believe people who despise Musk stay on Twitter because they are too stupid to know of alternatives. You assert this to be true. I believe the reason is something different. We have two opposing beliefs. Neither of us has proof. I believe objective observers will conclude that my reasoning is more likely to be correct. Your belief that it is stupidity that causes people to not go to an alternative platform is not credible is my opinion.

> Those people ought to be consistent

They are extremely consistent in being extremely dishonest.

Every accusation made by the right is a confession.

The ones complaining about media manipulation are the ones manipulating the media.

The ones complaining about coups and violence are the ones attempting coups and committing violence.

The ones complaining about rigged elections are the ones rigging the elections.

The ones complaining about pedophiles and groomers are the ones committing those acts.

Every time. Every. Single. Time.