Elon Musk's X pushes Trump tags on all US users
Elon Musk's X pushes Trump tags on all US users
The platform prevents users from blocking or muting the tags, which inorganically appear atop the trending page
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/18147280
X, the social media platform owned by Trump megadonor Elon Musk, is promoting Trump campaign-curated content to all U.S. users, regardless of whether they have opted out of Trump-related content.
On the platform formerly known as Twitter, banner ads for the Trump campaign donning the #Trump2024 tag appear for all U.S. users, even those who’ve blocked words, topics, and hashtags related to the candidate or his campaign or muted the advertiser.
Additionally, the #MAGA tag displays an edited image of the former president from his attempted assassination and the #Trump2024 hashtag displays an American flag.
It is unclear whether the Trump campaign paid for the images on the #Trump2024 and #MAGA tags, though an advertisement for the tag on the site’s trending page reads “Promoted by Team Trump.” As Mashable noted, it is the first time the platform has enabled the image feature to promote a specific political candidate.
Clicking the Trump2024 tag also prompts American flag graphics to flood the screen.
Remember, if you use xshitter in any way, even to follow your favorite progressive celebrities and complain about the platform and write mean tweets about Elon, you are validating the platform. You are putting money in his pocket so that he can continue to donate $45 million per month to conservative superPACs.
The biggest fear I have for the country is seeing peoples inability to just stop using things that are being enshittified that are completely optional. I get people have to bank and shop for food and such but no one needs to be using social media or streaming or any crappy internet stuff.
This is the argument I always see: "But all my friends and favorite content creators are there!"
Okay, get new online friends, and write to your favorite creators that they should switch to Mastodon. Hell, switch to Bluesky. But every interaction is a bit of data, a bit of engagement, that Elon can show to advertisers to entice them to buy multi-million dollar ad packages.
Buying or owning Tesla, or using his bullshit is supporting Trump.
Yup. I call Tesla's "Muskmobiles" and have a lot of contempt for the people driving them. I assume these people are Trumpers.
If people don't want this association, then replace the logo or sell the thing.
I do not have a Tesla but I am considering buying an EV. Teslas are the best EV, especially now that the self driving stuff works. Elon is the only thing steering me elsewhere.
Also, imagine buying one a few years ago and wanting to make the decision based on the technology or the environment. These people make a huge investment, possibly even with good intentions, and buying a new car is not cheap. Cut them a break.
I assume these people are Trumpers.
That's a pretty bad assumption.
Man, I really do feel sorry for the people who are progressive and bought a Tesla and are stuck with ut for whichever reason from back when Musk was still that "quirky but relatable genius billionaire" (quotations because most people now know he never really was that, but a lot still thought it at the time)
Wouldn't this be a great opportunity to flood that hashtag with content that talks about project 2025? Or the Epstein list?
I wouldn't be surprised if melon husk added a filter for those terms.
You know he has, or at least will eventually, if he's dumb enough to be a failure at PsyOps 101... which wouldn't surprise me in the slightest.
He's already deboosting pro-Ukrainian sources, so I wouldn't be surprised...
The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house.
All this simping for him and Trump just announced he's going to destroy the EV credits cause EVs are too expensive. Remind me, isn't oil still to this day subsidized by taxpayers?
That's not a problem because the oil barons are paying Repub leadership directly.
As Musk has proven, it doesn't matter if you're an oil baron or a renewable energies baron; all baron's are dickheads. It's not the field or the damage it does to the world, it's the role at the top itself that creates these megalomaniac dickheads.
Elon: The EV market has soured on me, I'm willing to trade the tax credits for something...
Don: I got just the thing: you can sell SpaceX satellites to the Russians
Elon: Perfect!
sucking sounds resume
I love it when terrible people do terrible things to their own wealth. What I don't love is how after a certain number of billions, you have an infinite wealth cheat code to fuck around with.
Billionaires get so obvious with crap they want, it reminds me of a toddler that really wants his very own formula one racer or artillery piece or nuclear reactor.
And yeah, if it weren't so critically deleterious to the rest of us to let him have it, we'd let him pull a Stockton Rush and blow himself up with mad science.
But the rest of us really don't want to have to clean up after his one party autocracy or suffer through the critical scarcity, the civil war and the holocaust that propagandists will deny for centuries.
When you look upon a billionaire, see them as a bird, trying desperately to feed a cuckoo chick at the cost of their own offspring, only this chick never grows up and flies away, but stays, ever eating, ever growing like a cancer, demanding nourishment forever.
Yeah in the US we pride ourselves on having equal*** voting power, but our vastly unequal purchasing power can be used to override that.
Twitter was never perfect but at one point you could have reasonable back and forths about articles under the posts of the authors who wrote it, who also would chime in occasionally.
I very much believe muskrat buying it made the whole site less intelligent which is honestly a feat in and of itself. It's not lost on me a place where you could directly and reliably contact journalists as an individual is now an arm of right wing propaganda.
And nothing you say gets seen unless you buy a fucking checkmark off of Musk
So glad I use Lemmy and not Twitter
All twitter users are Musk's army, even if they don't think so.
This is election interference.
How so? It's a private Nazi website.
If any private entity spends enough money on a candidate, it's an election contribution.
Election contributions have legal requirements. Musk / Twitter aren't complying with those requirements.
Twitter sells enhanced hashtags and placement on the top of the trending list to advertisers. Now they are donating ad slots to Trump.
Of course, the real question is whether or not anything will be done about it. Churches endorse political stuff all the time, and legally they are supposed to lose their tax exemption over it, but as we all know a Church can straight up call for mass murder of LGBT people, and they don't see any consequences at all...
Elon Musk is a rich industrialist wanting to install a guy that would serve his interests.
If you keep using the shitter site, don't be surprised if you get shit sprayed all over you.
Twitter is for chumps. I blocked it on my home network along with all the other trash. PFBlocker is great.
I have never heard anything good about Twitter. Just the format of following people instead of topics seems like a narcissistic’s dream.
People used it when they shouldn’t have before Elon and people will continue now.
Some just like shitty systems I guess.
I've never had a twitter account. Finally got around to making a Mastodon account and I have no f'ing clue what to do with it.
Same. Made it last week and went. Huh. And bailed back to lemmy. I prefer this type of UI