Conspiracy lunatic thread - people who believe in absurd nonsense are dangerous

Rust

Slightly Off
Citizen
Also gave those execs he fired a $42 million parachute each, due to their contracts. So bravo on him.
 

Dekafox

Fabulously Foxy Dragon
Citizen
It has its actual uses though, DESPITE its own attempts to kill them off. *looks at all the artists who somehow manage to get an audience and sell commissions, while fighting the algorythm the entire time* Hell, there's quite a few artists I'd never have found(and commissioned) if it hadn't been for Twitter. That said I also cut the toxic out of the system as much as I can by actually curating who I follow and avoiding all aspects of algorythm-promoted content as much as possible. It's doable, but it's effort that most people don't care to put in. (And tbf if you get a big enough following, the toxic probably comes looking for you, but that's not the majority.) At this point though pretty much every social media-alike site runs on an algorithm outside Mastodon, so if Twitter does die, I'm hoping the art community as a whole survives and finds its way over there. I'll decide what I want to see, thank you very much, and how I want it ordered.

Funny note from the Twitter usage reports though: Every category of content(since 2020) fell hugely except for crypto and porn, and the same reports mention they don't see crypto as a growth area.
 
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NovaSaber

Well-known member
Citizen
So apparently David Icke (antisemitic originator of the reptilian conspiracy's modern incarnation) thought he could rejoin Twitter and quickly became one of the first people banned under Elon's watch.
 

Ironbite4

Well-known member
Citizen
Apparently Musk's great plan is to charge blue check mark people $20 a month to keep their blue check mark. I think two years is optimistic.

There are 300k verified accounts. Let's be generous and say that only a third of those will pay to keep the check mark. That's an easy $2 million a year if they do that. He's not entirely wrong about that being a decent revenue stream.

Ironbite-too bad it's not going to make him much money.
 

wonko the sane?

You may test that assumption at your convinience.
Citizen
2 million a year won't cover their operating costs. 2 million a year won't cover the cost of coffee in the break room.
 

Pocket

jumbled pile of person
Citizen
It has its actual uses though, DESPITE its own attempts to kill them off. *looks at all the artists who somehow manage to get an audience and sell commissions, while fighting the algorythm the entire time* Hell, there's quite a few artists I'd never have found(and commissioned) if it hadn't been for Twitter.
Once upon a time, there were actually other websites on the internet besides Twitter, many of which were specifically designed to be used for this very thing.

Don't mistake the monopolization of the internet for a necessary evil.
 

Dekafox

Fabulously Foxy Dragon
Citizen
There still are - I never said I only use Twitter for that. But there are artists where that is their site, like some who only use FurAffinity, or some who only use DeviantArt. We don't say the same thing of those sites. There's even a new one launching now, Inkblot. But I'd say the same thing if FA or DA was going down the tubes - they have their uses, and cheering them going under does ignore the legitimate uses of said site.

Don't mistake the use of a site as that site being the only site being used.

In other news, the King Twit has Thanos snapped the staff, eliminating entire departments and teams like the Human Rights department, the one that was trying to push algorithm choice and transparency, and significant chunks of security and possibly the entire PR department. He's also planning to gut infrastructure. And all the while blaming the advertisers that are leaving because of the instability on "activitst groups"(which actually got him fact-checked on his own platform!)

I have to say it's a glorious dumpster fire to watch(popcorn at the ready), but I still wish it had happened to another site because of stuff like this:

*edit*
Also this
 
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Rust

Slightly Off
Citizen
At risk of sounding like an Old Man of the Internet (Which I am)...something else ALWAYS arises. I understand these peoples' concerns, but I remember when independent artists flocked to the likes of DeviantArt and Livejournal. The catastrophic demise of a social media platform is devastating to those who operate on it I get that, but it's not the death knell for peoples' livelihoods they make it seem to be.

Hell, as much as I have grown to loathe all social media, Facebook is always an option.
 

Dekafox

Fabulously Foxy Dragon
Citizen
Facebook is Instagram, which was already referenced above. And honestly I'd love for more to move to FA and the like, since it's much easier to keep up with the art posts on those. Once the purchase completed I know I set up my backups and started watching for where artists are going to be moving to. This all may very well be a good thing in the long run. But there will be pain and hurt that I wish could be avoided for the people that had built up livelihoods around it, not to mention I've seen multiple artists that are trying to ignore what's happening and may very well go down with the ship.

Twitter's existence isn't black or white(if anything, it's chaotic neutral) and while it's great to celebrate the King Twit getting his downfall, and one outlet being used for misinformaiton going away, it doesn't hurt to at least think about the people who are getting hurt by the billionaire trying to break his new toy. (And arguably the fact that the disinfo peddlers will just move to other platforms, but that's another argument entirely.)

(I'm not searching for these, these are literally being shared by the artists I do follow on there)

And they weren't having an easy time even before now:
 
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Pocket

jumbled pile of person
Citizen
There still are - I never said I only use Twitter for that. But there are artists where that is their site, like some who only use FurAffinity, or some who only use DeviantArt. We don't say the same thing of those sites. There's even a new one launching now, Inkblot. But I'd say the same thing if FA or DA was going down the tubes - they have their uses, and cheering them going under does ignore the legitimate uses of said site.
Oh, I'm well aware of that, and I hate it. Like, I guess we've reached the point where the majority of internet users literally grew up in the age of smartphones and apps, signed up for Twitter when they were seven, and have never had any reason to venture outside of that corner of the internet. The thought of even signing up for another website must seem like moving to Australia to them. But there are plenty of Twitter-exclusive artists who don't have that excuse—they used to post other places and then just... stopped. Forcing me to choose between spending a good chunk of my day using and passively supporting the Garbage Dump—and risking contracting whatever brain disease the rest of them have—or losing track of my favorite creators.
 

Dekafox

Fabulously Foxy Dragon
Citizen
I feel ya and can understand that... it does take actual work to make it usable and keep it usable without getting flooded with garbage. Work that not everyone can, wants to, or even should have to do. (That's also why I specifically said they made it work despite itself. ) Honestly, I'd probably feel the same about anything Facebook related, even if I hadn't heard bad things about the Insta algorithm mistreating artists before. Here's hoping that this all works out better in the end for as many as possible, once this is all over.
 

Pale Rider

...and Hell followed with him.
Citizen
FB friend:
I would bet money that Elon Musk is screwing with peoples' Twitter accounts who he doesn't like, but not by outright blocking them. He seems like the kind of asshole who would turn it off and then on again or turn certain features off and then on again, so your account becomes a huge pain in the ass to use but when you complain, he can say "What? You weren't blocked. Look, your account works just fine".
 

Rust

Slightly Off
Citizen
I sympathize with the small time creators, but failure is always an option. The first linked tweet "I may not be able to do this full time any more, and that's terrifying."

That, unfortunately, is life.
 
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Pale Rider

...and Hell followed with him.
Citizen
FB friend:
Is it possible to kill a conspiracy theory?

Unlike scientific theories, conspiracy theories seem immune to disproof by evidence, or by newer and better ideas.

I can only think of a few conspiracy theories that have ever died: the one about Hitler secretly being alive and in Argentina, and the 200mpg carburetor. But those are special cases: Hitler would be 133 years old now so obviously nobody thinks he's alive anymore, secretly or not. And the carburetor is obsolete technology.

Is it possible to kill a conspiracy theory if it isn't based on something that naturally expires over time, like the lifespan of its subject or a piece of technology that goes obsolete?
 


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