The suspensions affected several journalists and commentators, including Texas Observer journalist Steven Monacelli, Ken Klippensten of The Intercept, podcaster Rob Rousseau, and Alan MacLeod of MintPress News. The landing page for their accounts says it’s been suspended, but does not give any explanation as to why. A message on the profiles simply states “X suspends accounts which violate the X rules.”
The ban didn’t just hit journalists either. Several prominent-left leaning accounts were also purged from the website, including the account for the TrueAnon podcast and @zei_squirrel, a cartoon squirrel that tweets media criticism of figures like Glenn Greenwald.
This isn’t the first time the site has banned reporters. In April, it permanently suspended Wired reporter Dell Cameron after he spoke with a hacker who accessed conservative pundit Matt Walsh’s emails. In December of 2022, it suspended the accounts of ten journalists who’d been critical of site owner Elon Musk.
https://gizmodo.com/elon-musk-x-twitter-journalists-banning-spree-1851151593
https://twitter.com/liz_franczak/status/1744712132015370527
Edit: they’re back now
Let’s face it, everyone is still on Twitter, even those who were the loudest about boycotting it back then.
This is not the early 2000s when social media platforms were still carving out their own turfs. This is the terminal stage where a handful of social media companies have already captured the entire market.
The idea that decentralization can somehow topple the central authority is a myth, just like how Bitcoiners continue to believe that their fake currency can somehow topple the central banks.
There is a reason why Marxists talk about seizing the means of production, not creating alternative structures around it.
Actually the CPC was so successful because it did create alternatives to the warlord institutions that folks could rely on, Marxists have always been creating alternative structures around the current order to bypass them.
Also my sibling in sinai, you are posting on the federated alternative to reddit
Land reform was instrumental to unleashing the revolutionary potential of the peasantry, but in the end, the race between the CPC and the KMT to capture the Japanese industries in the Northeast as the Soviets began to withdraw became the most crucial moment that defined the future of the Chinese communist movement.
Mao was famous for saying that he is willing to give up all their existing bases in China, so long as they can capture the Northeast (where the most developed heavy industries built by the Japanese stood), the revolutionary movement would survive. There simply wasn’t enough heavy industries in all the other regions of China combined at the time to sustain an ongoing war with the KMT. Mao was very aware of this fact and was supremely adaptable to the dynamic and changing conditions of the time.
The idea that decentralization can somehow topple the central authority is a myth, just like how Bitcoiners continue to believe that their fake currency can somehow topple the central banks.
Equating free & open equivalents, which just need adoption, to cryptocurrency which has significant flaws doesn’t make sense to me… It costs nothing to switch, there’s no inherent risks involved. It remains to be seen what happens long term with Twitter financially too. Maybe Musk gets another State/DOD bailout or it’s too valuable as propaganda/data collection to some present shareholder, but that’s not decided.
I don’t use any Twitter or equivalents, but I do see screenshots and archive/proxy links to it.
It’s the same reason why Linux is the free and even superior alternative to Windows and Mac, but most people will never use it. There are, of course, adoption, but it will never achieve the critical mass needed to displace the dominant systems. Most people will just follow whatever everyone is using, and the platforms that have already penetrated the entire depth of the market, and have the most capital, will always have a very strong head start against their competitors.
There is a reason why Marxists talk about seizing the means of production, not creating alternative structures around it.
Yeah, so unlike utopians like Lenin, who had crazy delusions about somehow creating institutions that operated in parallel to existing power structures in order to smash the state machinery and retain a mostly-functional society.
