President Pee Tape Returns To Twitter?

Is Elon Musk taking Twitter and Mango Mussolini onto the fast lane to Hell?

Yeah, Twitter’s kind of a cesspool. Of that, there’s little doubt. Sure, it has its utility, but it’s also where small-minded Right-wingers go to demonstrate their small-minded bona fides. So you can call someone all sorts of names, make unfounded, baseless claims, hit RETURN- and then walk away and claim victory.

I no longer have much actual use for the platform, having been banned for the stupidest f*****g reason imaginable. I can access it in read-only mode, which is all I need it for, anyway. There are some highly accomplished and intelligent people whose thoughts I enjoy reading- and none of them are named Donald Trump.

Since he was booted off Twitter in early 2021 after using the platform to incite the January 6th insurrection, things have been a bit less idiotic on the world’s verbal cesspool. I consider that a good thing since free speech is never and should never be absolute. Promoting violence, for instance, should never be allowed on social media. Nor should making baseless accusations. Or character assassination.

Those were all things Trump excelled at, something that, were he a private citizen, would have found him banned long before he was. Yet, now that Elon Musk has purchased Twitter (what else is a guy supposed to do with a spare $40+ billion?), he’s making noises about unbanning Trump. I don’t know about you, but I don’t have the words to express what a supremely bad, awful, and horrible idea that is.

Rules? Community Standards? Those are for losers and Liberals.

Donald Trump is now a private citizen. He should be subject to the same “community standards” by which every Twitter user agrees to live. But, as we all know, no matter what Trump does, he manages to live by a set of rules uniquely his own. Let’s face it; laws and rules don’t apply to Donald Trump the way they do to mere mortals like you and me.

And THAT is precisely the problem. Trump expects to be treated differently, and so he conducts himself differently. Billionaires live by different standards, and they look out for one another. It’s like a boy’s club that you and I can’t get into no matter who we know, who we sleep with, or how well we play the game.

One of the Right’s “pet peeves” is their claim that they get censored more than Left-wing voices on Twitter. As a reasonable person might imagine, this claim is total bullshit.

FUNNY. STORY. According to one study, highlighted by More Perfect Union’s Max Berger, “Our results reveal a remarkably consistent trend: In 6 out of 7 countries studied, the mainstream political right enjoys higher algorithmic amplification than the mainstream political left. Consistent with this overall trend, our second set of findings studying the U.S. media landscape revealed that algorithmic amplification favours right-leaning news sources.”

According to another study from the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights, “the claim of anti-conservative animus is itself a form of disinformation: a falsehood with no reliable evidence to support it. No trustworthy large-scale studies have determined that conservative content is being removed for ideological reasons or that searches are being manipulated to favor liberal interests.”

So, yeah, that whole Right-wing “they’re canceling use” thing? SO much whiny, meaningless bullshit. Shocking, I know.

Then again, Conservatives LOVE themselves a good persecution complex, don’t they??

Everything about Musk, though, screams out that he’s one of those guys who thinks his intuitions are more powerful than the facts. And in this case, Musk’s intuitions are all about elevating his own political views and his alt-right buddies.

So, yeah. That’s what’s coming if Musk’s takeover of Twitter becomes final. Donald Trump and an owner who believes, in direct opposition to the available facts, that Twitter is skewed to the left and needs to be fixed. Also just more of what we already get in ridiculously large measure at all times: uninformed spew from an uber-wealthy guy who thinks his money proves his intelligence. Fun times.

IF Elon Musk plans to reinstate Donald Trump’s Twitter “privileges,” then what will he do for those of us who were banned for far less egregious transgressions against the platform’s “Community Standards?” Will people like me be re-instated? Or will it just be Donald Trump because he’s the most prominent name and the biggest jerk?

I don’t care if I’m re-instated or not. Of course, I’d love to be able to tweet and interact again, but the quality of my life doesn’t revolve around tweeting. Besides, if Donald Trump is restored to the platform, will it even be worth participating anymore? Will the fun go out of it if the barbarians take it over?

The problem with Twitter now being owned by one person is that the millions who use the platform now have to live by Elon Musk’s rules and whims. It isn’t easy to see how that will improve things for users. So it might be time for someone to underwrite a competing platform that can co-exist and perhaps even outdo Twitter.

There’s nothing particularly magical or even particularly unique about what Twitter does. It’s an instant messaging system that allows people to communicate in 280-character chunks. There’s no reason someone else couldn’t develop something better or superior to Elon Musk’s new plaything.

No one knows what the future holds for Twitter and its users, and I’m not about to lose sleep over it. However, I know that if Donald Trump is allowed to participate once again, I’m not sure I’m going to want any part of it. And I hardly think I’m alone in that sentiment.

There may be people who hang on his every thought and word. I’m not one of them.