Is the News Industry akin to a boiling frog in hot water?
Honestly when I read Nieman Lab Jay Rosen post about X axing the headlines and then acknowledging the industry is too much hooked to move out, I ponder and wonder if “the industry” isn’t completely masochistic & openly blind to what X is becoming, to what Musk has allowed and the complacency towards different of extremism, neofascism becoming part of a new normal that even the ones that are supposed to openly denounce it and fight against it, prefer to sit in the mud rather than to teach a lesson to Musk and just, walkout, move out to greener pasture or bluer skyes.
And fair enough, probably many of these journalists have given a try at Mastodon, Bluesky, Post, Threads and what not but the idea (to one I was myself convinced just a few months back, full disclosure) that Twitter is irreplaceable, that this is where things that happen, happen on Twitter or rather X is a falacy.
What makes the beat goes on, is us, we the people, not some lunatic with too much power, bad taste and literally stupid ideas given a platform to reinstate his neofascist friends no, what makes Twitter work, is us, its what we build on it, it’s the countless services and systems that we have built on top to make it where the beat goes on and as the fediverse and Bluesky and others have shown is that we can rebuild elsewhere, we must rebuild elsewhere.
Right now, there isn’t one single reason to stay on X.
X future is a cesspit of disinformation, memes, bullying and outright orgy of degeneration that is orchestrated by a man and a handful of other yes men’s that don’t have the bollocks to say : Elon, this is a bad idea, it will have this or this impact, it won’t create confidence, it will ultimately impact the platform and everything that made Twitter works for 17 years. Musk is surrounded by a bunch of loosy yes man’s and a CEO that could very well be a flower pot that it would be just about the same.
And I think, Journalits, News Organization, Political Parties, Businesses, everyone in the end, at least those with a functioning brain and empathy, we all have the responsibility to think about what we create and where we participate in the digital realm.
And X has decided to go rogue, against developers, organizations, individuals and anything that doesn’t bow to the Musk beat and that my friends, for someone that was born inside a cult organization, where crimes enfolded is a red alert, it’s full on red alert trigger.
it was already unforgivable when Musk took power, it is now a question of integrity, of ethics, of values and it’s a choice everyone, at its own pace will be confronted : how long can you sleep on a lane with literally nazis, far-right enablers, homophobes and Putin dogs in the same bed?
I have made my choice, this post is written on my blog and cross-posted in one shot to Bluesky, Mastodon and Nostr and if other players such as Pebble, Threads, Posts and what not played the open web game instead of their version of a everything app, the Web in 2023 wouldn’t be in such mess and news organizations wouldn’t be at the mercy of a billionaire fanatic swinging the degeneration of democracies “just to see where it leads” even if it is straight to neofascism.
Musk should have been kicked in the nuts much sooner, to even once in his life, be taught a lesson.
he wasn’t and now the descent to hell will just accelerate, because that’s the only doctrine he knows about : fail fast.
So, dear journalists, politicians, organizations, businesses, everyone still on X : what else do you need to understand and digest that you’re not on Twitter anymore?
That you have been taken over, dumped into X and that if you want a real-time environment to work with, it’s up to you to move it elsewhere, Bluesky, Mastodon, Pebble, at the end of the day, the choice you make of staying there while ignoring what it has become and what it will become is a free pass for Elon Musk and his swarm to keep going and be legitimized.
Twitter is dead, X is a dying meteor, you can eject and fly safely to another pod or you can choose to stay on a crashing meteor and document its death and be part of it.