Summary

Elon Musk confirmed that X (formerly Twitter) deprioritizes posts containing links, encouraging users to post links in replies instead.

This practice, aimed at keeping users on the platform, has drawn criticism for restricting access to external information and harming media outlets’ traffic.

Past reports revealed X also delayed links to rival platforms and news outlets, prompting concerns about press freedom and revenue impacts.

The Guardian recently left X, labeling it “toxic,” while other media and free speech advocates accuse the platform of enabling disinformation and controlling narratives.

  • resetbypeer@lemmy.world
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    9 days ago

    I am going to ask the rhetorical question. Why the fuck are people still on xitter ?But then again the same question would be why vote Trump ? People are just unfortunately stupid.

    • raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world
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      9 days ago

      I have a … well - for the time being still friend - who is radicalizing himself since the pandemic and it appears it’s 95% due to shitter. I fill people beyond a certain point remain there because it’s like an addiction to their damaged brains :/

  • kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world
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    9 days ago

    Anti-competitive, anti-net-neutral, unethical bullshit from a man for which none of that is surprising. And an incoming FCC chair who will abide, allow and even encourage this sort of thing despite it actively making the net worse for consumers, creators, news outlets, retailers, students, politicians, free speech advocates,… Basically everyone that doesn’t own one of like 10 damn websites or major ISPs.

  • ctkatz@lemmy.ml
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    9 days ago

    so the genius free speech absolutist has rigged his platform so that if journos, news orgs, and content creators post links outside of his platform those posts get buried UNLESS that content is posted on his platform.

    in other words elon wants to own the work produced by others.

    and then he wonders why people are fleeing his nazi echo chamber in droves.

    • octopus_ink@lemmy.ml
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      9 days ago

      and then he wonders why people are fleeing his nazi echo chamber in droves.

      I skipped through the current episode of a podcast I used to like until I realized they were closeted magas just today to see if they’d come to their senses. Nope, it seems they will be dead to me forever.

      However, I had to laugh that one thing I heard them lamenting was that since all the “liberal” people have gone to Bluesky “to cry”, the only people left for conservatives to argue with on X is each other. (And apparently they are doing so quite a lot over Trump’s cabinet choices.)

  • g0nz0li0@lemmy.world
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    9 days ago

    Musk’s replies on Twitter (which I saw on Bluesky lol) are essentially instructions for how you should use Twitter in such a way that benefits and pleases him, even if this is inconvenient for you, the user. Twitter people seem to accept this. Why?

  • Pumpkin Escobar@lemmy.world
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    9 days ago

    Besides the user engagement reasons, it’s pretty obvious why Elon Musk specifically would want people to not check sources. Nothing better for Xitter disinformation campaigns than not having readily available links to other sources.

    What a Xithole.

  • Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works
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    9 days ago

    Just write a description in the main post and put the link in the reply. This just stops lazy linking.

    I agree with Elon’s sentiment in this (though sticking a link in a reply is kind’ve inelegant — imo, Lemmy would be better for this, as it has a separate title and body). This is something that bothers me on Lemmy; I’m not super fond of the practice of simply copy-pasting articles from news sites into posts; it feels very lazy and spammy. Lemmy is under no obligation to repeat the clickbait and misinformation that a news site may be compelled to use. When an article is shared, I think that it should, in general, be used as a source to back up a claim rather than the entire post itself. Posts should be human oriented rather than just an outlet for news spam.