Comment by martin-t
5 days ago
Are links to mastodon still banned on twitter? Because that was a thing after Musk took over. So much for being a free speech absolutist.
You're making the mistake of taking a (communal + antagonistic) narcissist at face value. They are known to lie to suit their current goals and when those goals are achieved, they will lie to suit their new goals, whether the lies are congruent with each other or not.
This is a guy who:
- publicly called a rescuer "pedo guy", then falsely claimed it's a common insult from South Africa
- in a private email called him a "child rapist" and made up allegations of a 12 yo bride
- hired a PI to dig up dirt on him (which failed to corroborate any of his allegations)
Western society really needs to destigmatize discussion of mental illness, including diagnosing public personalities based on their behavior. Give them an opportunity to defend themselves, sure, but at some point, they become a danger to others (usually not to themselves) and should be required to seek treatment or be committed to a mental institution.
It allows links to bsky and Mastodon posts, but it doesn't auto-summarize bsky posts at the moment.
So they backed down, then did the same with signal. It makes negligence less likely though since it's a repeating occurrence.
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> A jury quite quickly ruled against defamation here
Yes, and? That changes nothing about Musk attacking a guy as "pedo" because he wanted to insert himself into the spotlight and went threw a fit when he was told off for that.
Also, as if professionals aren't saying the same thing, or as if he'd voluntarily undergo clinical diagnosis?
I find it worrying how often people try to pass off a court's decision as truth or in this case as proof of something entirely different.
I looked at the guy's link and it actually supports my view even more.
> A JDart, lawyer Alex Spiro explained, meant: a Joke that was badly received, therefore Deleted, with an Apology and then Responsive Tweets to move on from the matter. JDart.
> "Bet ya a signed dollar it's true."
> "Stop defending child rapists."
Given he made up a 12 yo bride and hired a PI to dig up dirt, this also proves Musk lied to the court. I don't know why the jury gave the wrong verdict but I knew only about the original "pedo guy" tweet and the PI this morning and the deeper I dig, even into material posted by his supporters, the worse it gets.
If Elon Musk really as narcissistic as you paint him, he would definitely take credit for these bans, or at least comment on them.
A narcissist wants to be the center of attention, by definition, and you are actually playing his game here. A "legitimate f-up" is the worst for a narcissist, as it would show he is nothing special, and incompetent.
That's why I go with the "legitimate f-up" explanation. There is no clear intent, it lacks flair, and it can just cause a mild controversy at best. Though I am still pissed that it turned out to be something about Elon Musk again and not Twitter/X. As much as a "nanomanager" he likes to call himself, he is not the only one working at Twitter/X, there are still people with some responsibilities there. It is not all a masterplan by Elon Musk.
As for banning links to other platforms like Mastodon, it was mentioned explicitly on the Twitter Support account that "we will no longer allow free promotion of certain social media platforms on Twitter", followed by a list of platforms that included Mastodon, but not Signal. I don't think it is still the case, and I am not aware of anything similar regarding a ban on signal.me links.
> If Elon Musk really as narcissistic as you paint him, he would definitely take credit for these bans, or at least comment on them.
That's like saying a liar will always lie. Real people do not have min-maxed traits, he has obviously non-zero self-control. If it's an action that benefits him in some way but knows will alienate his followers, he is perfectly capable of doing it in secret.
> A narcissist wants to be the center of attention, by definition
Definition of which subtype?
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I never said it was a masterplan or his personal decision. Culture comes from the top (only people with very strong principles will resist and many most likely quit when he took over). All he needed to do is make visible his displeasure at (free) competitors in front of the right people.
He AFAIK also tweeted about not allowing free promotion for mastodon. Which again speaks volumes about how much he values freedom of speech. If a free (as in speech and beer) and decentralized platform can be a credible competitor to twitter - serve the same amount of users but be self repairing and resistant to takeovers - than that would be a win, even if his company would no longer be needed.
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If you take anything from this discussion, please at least look up different types of narcissism. Far too often people reduce them all to the "standard" overt archetype (usually even an overdone caricature of it) and it's hard for victims of other subtypes to convince others what they are dealing with.