The "Mystery" of Why Musk Bought Twitter
If only there was some kind of pattern...
The day after Musk bought Twitter, he boosted a right-wing conspiracy theory (or two or three) about Paul Pelosi. Twitter began losing advertisers, and money on day one.
But there's no pattern to his behavior.
Since that day, if people looked closely, they'd see that more days than not, Musk is using replies to boost crazy right-wing conspiracy theories, including QAnon nonsense.
But there's no pattern to his behavior.
Eventually, Musk actually apologies for the spreading the Pelosi propaganda… except… he sent his terse apology in a reply to a tweet that repeated part of the same right-wing propaganda.
But there's no pattern to his behavior.
Musk fired the vast majority of his content management team, making it much more difficult to handle complaints about abusive behaviors, trolling, and spam.
But there's no pattern to his behavior.
Musk orchestrated the creation and publication of deeply flawed right-wing propaganda in the Twitter Files, by supplying cherry-picked documents.
But there's no pattern to his behavior.
One of the Twitter Files authors, after being publicly caught in a lie, deleted part of the Twitter files, but then got into a spat with Musk and Musk pushed him off of Twitter.
But there's no pattern to his behavior.
Must took the blue check-mark system of verification (which had issues), and sold it off so that bots and trolls could use it willy-nilly, and previously verified accounts could trivially be impersonated (and were).
But there's no pattern to his behavior.
Musk shut down free access to the API, a tool that had been critical to journalists and researchers to track the power and usage and control of Twitter content.
But there's no pattern to his behavior.
Musk has repeatedly reduced the functionality of links to competing information outlets, sometimes blocking them entirely, sometimes limiting interactions, sometimes adding bogus warnings.
But there's no pattern to his behavior.
Musk labelled NPR as state-affiliated media, and later as government funded, even though both are inaccurate, and other government funded outlets were not similarly labelled. This ultimately forced NPR off the platform (as well as PBS).
But there's no pattern to his behavior.
Musk ended restrictions that had been placed on known Russian propaganda outlets. This resulted in rapid new growth and visibility of these accounts.
But there's no pattern to his behavior.
Musk has interfered with the search engine (including the API) by interfering with search engine results (latest example, “from:mtaibbi” failed to find any tweets from that Twitter Files author that Musk pushed off of Twitter). We don't know of other interference that may have happened and confidence in searches is destroyed.
But there's no pattern to his behavior.
Musk consistently engages in a series of childish behaviors that cause everyone to take him and Twitter less seriously (T*itter, Doge logo, constant trolling).
But there's no pattern to his behavior.
In addition to the Twitter Files author, and NPR, and PBS, lots of other major accounts that were high-value, attracting eyeballs and advertisers, have been pushed away by Musk’s antics.
But there's no pattern to his behavior.
Let me sum up, just in case we can find something.
Promoted conspiracy theories
Reply-tweeted to promote propaganda.
Orchestrated creation of Twitter Files propaganda.
Pushed away many high-value accounts.
API eliminated, resulting in less oversight.
Gave full access back to Russian propagandists.
Alienated users with childish behavior.
Nerfed the only viable method of actually verifying user identities.
Diminished access to alternate sources of information.
Alleged that NPR was run by the government
I just can't shake this feeling that maybe there IS a pattern to his behavior.