Election interference? Musk has removed the blue-check Twitter verification for some state officials with no explanation

[highplainsdem]

Thread from Mueller She wrote. Thread reader page with full thread at https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1821362305906430201.html . First tweet below:

Link to tweet

[Think. Again.]

1. It's past time for anyone of good faith to find a different platform.

[highplainsdem]

2. Biden, Harris and Walz are also on that platform. Are you saying they and all other liberals aren't

"of good faith"?

I hope Musk will be forced to restore those verifications soon.

There is no really good substitute for Twitter, unfortunately. Not yet.

[Think. Again.]

4. C'mon now, I said nothing even remotely like...

"... they and all other liberals aren't of good faith"?

What I specifically said was (and this is copy/pasted)...

It's past time for anyone of good faith to find a different platform.

Please, PLEASE don't try to misrepresnt what ANY poster posts like that.

If you want to defend twitter, go for it, but at least do it honestly.

Peace.

[highplainsdem]

7. You and others are suggesting that liberals should no longer be there - that there's something wrong

with them if they are, since it's "past time" (your words) to leave.

You and others often suggest you're superior, smarter, for not using Twitter.

And I will keep pointing out that liberals (and others of good faith) on Twitter are well aware that Musk has hurt the platform badly. But there is still no good alternative to Twitter. If you don't want to use it, fine. But don't denigrate liberals who do use it - or don't expect to do so, anyway, without getting any pushback. Don't think you're making any of us more aware of how much of a problem Musk is.

[Think. Again.]

10. Stop digging...

And stop pretending I said anything other than..

"It's past time for anyone of good faith to find a different platform."

[highplainsdem]

13. Stop pretending that complaining all the time about liberals and other people of good faith still

using Twitter isn't denigrating them.

What part of "there are no good alternatives" don't you understand?

I wish there were good alternatives. But the alternative platforms are much smaller and have problems of their own. Musk would love to have liberals and other critics of his scatter to smaller platforms. They won't do it. They think they're doing the right thing by not turning the platform over completely to Musk and RW trolls. Apparently you can't understand why. But I believe our Democratic leadership and people like Mueller She Wrote, Robert Reich, Laurence Tribe et alii know what they're doing...and sniping at them from our side, just because they continue to use Twitter, doesn't help.

[Think. Again.]

14. I have literally never done that.

[OneGrassRoot]

15. I get not wanting to abandon it, because it was probably THE most helpful platform...

for various global social justice movements over the years. That last paragraph was the input I was seeking. Thanks.

[OneGrassRoot]

5. Agree. It's very confusing to me...

It's as though right now the main people who are using twitter are 1) fascists and fascist enablers and 2) so many of the people we admire and follow for info, many of whom are leading the charge against Musk.

Of course Musk is messing with everything good. All of the platforms are problematic but, to me, x is the MOST problematic because of Musk. I'll never understand why another viable alternative hasn't been developed over the last five years or so, even if it is deemed liberal or whatever. I so often want to share info from the primary source but won't because all too often it's on x. Sometimes I'll do a screenshot but really resist ever linking to it. I don't see how staying on there is hurting Musk.

[Think. Again.]

6. I agree, I would have thought by now we would have gone many other massaging apps.

I don't understand people's loyalty to one freakish man's plaything.

[highplainsdem]

9. A viable alternative HASN'T developed. And Musk has owned Twitter for only two years, not five.

Liberals staying on there does hurt Musk. Ir's why he's sometimes banned or temporarily suspended them.

Harris's campaign couldn't have been launched nearly as quickly and successfully without Twitter, and she's been using it brilliantly.

[OneGrassRoot]

11. 5 years was arbitrary...

Twitter was becoming a right-wing cesspool long before Musk turbo charged that. And I know it serves as a useful platform for many good people and organizations.

My point is that so many of the people I, at least, follow (higher profile anti-fascist types like Dave Troy, for example) bemoan the influence of twitter, rightfully imo, while on twitter. And Musk frequently fucks with people and orgs who openly criticize him and/or promote policies he dislikes.

I know a viable alternative hasn't been developed. That's what I said. I'm just expressing my confusion as to why since so many good people and orgs are diametrically opposed to the fascist takeover of x.

I'm not really judging people who use it as much as I'm questioning why so many people of influence against all that Musk stands for haven't found or created an alternative. I fully realize creating platforms isn't easy but if it doesn't have to be a money-making venture, a simple feed like twitter could be created for people who oppose what Musk stands for. Like Trump did with Truth Social.

As I said, I want to share a lot of the info that is only found on twitter (VP Harris is using all platforms, thankfully; I dare say TikTok was the MOST influential in the rapidity of people unifying) but won't because I don't want to support anything Musk touches.

[OneGrassRoot]

12. And full disclosure which some may remember, I tried to gather support nearly a decade ago to create an alternative.

This post isn't indicative of my efforts regarding creating an alternative but more of an aha moment about the truth that The Internet is Owned by White Dudes. lolol I didn't read through that thread just now but seem to recall that, as if often the case on DU for me, people missed the point.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10027092022

[highplainsdem]

16. Thanks for the link to that older thread, which I hadn't seen before! Interesting read, and I agree

completely that it often seems as though the internet is owned by white dudes.

I first got online in the mid-1980s and moderated a political forum (also partly on tech) for two years, on a platform dominated by techies, with very few women (if I recall correctly, I was one of only two female moderators). My main troll problem on that platform was a RWer who was very influential there, someone I'd met years earlier and had some problems with (he'd been friendly and very flattering till I made it clear I wasn't going to help him cheat on his wife). He was also a moderator, had his own much larger forum, and wanted me off the platform. He'd been dominating almost all political discussions there, trying to bully liberals into silence. I have zero tolerance for bullies, and I knew how to write and how to debate, and online he couldn't raise his voice. I didn't have military experience, as he had, so I brought in as my comod a new online friend who'd been a Green Beret instructor with combat experience, who was also executive director of an advocacy group on one side of an issue that influential troll was on the other side of and was something of a spokesman for. There were a lot of heated debates (which were always in language appropriate for a family newspaper), which my comod and I won. (My comod was then.working toward a doctorate at Stanford, and he also had experience on debate teams.). The troll whined nonstop about dangerous liberal influences, but he was not able to control my conference, or get my comod and myself kicked off the platform, though he tried (he'd also wanted the mutual friend who'd invited me onto the platform during beta testing kicked off; the troll could've given Trump - whom he later admired - a run for a Champion Snowflake award).

It was my first experience with how RWers online can become wannabe fascists. And I learned you stand up to them and don't cede ground to them.

I do NOT want to see the liberals on Twitter run away to liberal bubbles.

I'm hoping Musk will lose control of Twitter, and the sooner the better. But in the meantime, he should be exposed and opposed, including on Twitter. Especially on Twitter.

[samsingh]

3. musk is a scary, scary thing

[kysrsoze]

8. Muskratfucker's at it again.