Fuck Elon Musk: Why I'm Now Boycotting Twitter
The Billionaire Man-Child's Defense of Scott Adams' Racism and the Increase of Antisemitism Under His Watch Are Too Much For Me. It's Time to Stop Wasting Time on His Dumb Website.
Click here to check out the first 30 Installments - Volume I - in this series on Antisemitism and Culture. The top 5 most important pieces from this first wave:
What It Means When the Leader of the Republican Party Dines With THREE Antisemites
7 Reasons This Christian Hippie Became a Zealot Against Jew Hatred
This is the 18th installment in Volume II, intended as another 30 pieces exploring the many manifestations of Jew Hatred and the issues surrounding it in America and globally. See the previous articles in this new collection below.
Martin Luther King, Jr: An American Hero and Courageous Zionist Voice
Talking to These Students Gave Me Hope in this Dark, Dark World of War and Hate
Why I Don't Expect the Palestinians Will *Ever* Make Peace with Israel and Thus Gain Statehood
The Antisemitism of Ron Paul's Far Right Anarcho-Capitalist Ideological Cult
When Holocaust Trivialization Manifests in the Wrestling World
2 Numbers Which Reveal the Overwhelming Level of Human Devastation Wrought by the Holocaust
The Deep Depths of Ideological Depravity: Comparing the Holocaust to the Covid-19 Vaccine
Unfortunately, Christian Nationalism Is the Normal, Much More Longstanding Version of Christianity
7 Great Counterculture Authors Who Inspire My Writing and Zionist Activism
Why Twitter & Social Media Are Such a Poison Brew of Antisemitism, Hate, Death, and Lies
The Antisemitism of Noam Chomsky's Far Left Anarcho-Syndicalist Ideological Cult
Why I Make a Point to Avoid Analyzing or Pontificating on Internal Israeli Politics
Joe Rogan: Just a Full-Blown Idiot, Not a Full-Blown Jew Hater... Yet...
How to Revive King & Heschel's Black & Jewish Anti-Racism Prophetic-Activist Partnership
These writings are part of my ongoing effort to overcome my PTSD by forcing myself to try to write and publish something every day commenting on and analyzing current cultural affairs and their impacts on politics, faith, and, well, everything. “Politics is downstream from culture,” the late Andrew Breitbart popularized among conservative bloggers while he was alive. I’d go a step further: Everything is downstream from culture. The cultures you embrace determine who you are and who you become. You become what you worship.
So at the start of February, I published this piece in my ongoing series on Antisemitism and Culture:
In it I wrote this:
I don’t think that necessarily giving up on social media altogether is necessary or the answer - at least not yet. (I realize at some point things may get so bad that I might start advocating for that.) But for now I see social media as akin really to any sort of drug - the difference between medicine and poison is dosage.
Well friends, less than a month later, that day has now come. Twitter’s now owner has revealed himself conclusively as one toxic son-of-a-bitch.
Over the weekend I was stunned - thought not wholly surprised - to see arch-Trump booster Scott Adams, creator of the comic strip “Dilbert,” come out of the closet as a full-blown racist:
Adams effectively encouraged segregation in a shocking rant on YouTube, calling Black Americans a “hate group” and suggesting that White people should “get the hell away” from them.
As one would expect, newspapers are now dropping “Dilbert” en masse, his syndicator is cutting ties, and an upcoming book by him has been cancelled. No surprise, of course.
While I anticipated this evil stupidity would result in the “cancellation” of Adams career, I did not expect any meaningful impact on my own life and daily routine. Who even reads “Dilbert” anymore? I haven’t in decades and never really cared for it that much when I did read the newspaper each morning in high school over 20 years ago. Honestly how hard is it to satirize something as inane as corporate office culture?
But then this story dropped today and my jaw dropped along with it: “Elon Musk tweets support for ‘Dilbert’ creator after racist tirade”:
In response to a tweet about the controversy, Twitter owner Musk said Sunday that the “media is racist.” He didn’t criticize Adams’ comments, and Musk said without evidence that for a “very long time, US media was racist against non-white people, now they’re racist against whites & Asians.”
“Same thing happened with elite colleges & high schools in America,” Musk wrote. “Maybe they can try not being racist.”
Musk later agreed with a tweet saying Adams’ comments “weren’t good” but had an “element of truth” to them. He also accused the media of giving Black victims of police violence disproportionate coverage over White victims of police violence. Black people are more likely to die from police use of force than White people, according to multiple studies.
Here’s more of what Musk tweeted today:
So it’s the position of the second wealthiest man in the world that open racists who advocate segregation should face no consequences and that they should be defended because really “the US media” and “elite colleges” are the ones racist against white people.
Perhaps this should come as no surprise that Twitter’s new owner is a defender of open racists. After all, since he took over the platform, racist hate speech has increased significantly. The same CNN article notes:
The Twitter CEO’s comments come amid an influx of hate speech on his platform. The Center for Countering Digital Hate and the Anti-Defamation League both said in recent reports that the volume of hate speech on Twitter has grown dramatically under Musk’s stewardship.
Specifically, the Center for Countering Digital Hate said that daily use of the n-word under Musk is triple the 2022 average and the use of slurs against gay men and trans persons are up 58% and 62%, respectively. The Anti-Defamation League said in a separate report that its data shows “both an increase in antisemitic content on the platform and a decrease in the moderation of antisemitic posts.”
Here’s some more data from the ADL about the rise in antisemitism on Twitter under Musk.
I knew full well that antisemitism was a huge problem on Twitter before Musk took over and that it remained after he’d started. But I decided to give Musk the benefit of the doubt that he - supposedly one of the world’s most brilliant men - would figure out a way to fix it. I noted approvingly in this series that Musk was working with Zionist Bari Weiss and that he had banned Kanye West.
Well, now it’s more than clear that when confronted with naked, obvious racism Musk will do worse than nothing - he’ll defend it.
I can’t support a man who does this. I can’t enrich him further by looking at ads on his platform or in any way encourage others to participate in it.
So as of today, I am officially boycotting Twitter. And I am encouraging everyone else to do the same. I will leave my account up, and perhaps I may return some day. But for that to happen Musk needs to make abundantly clear that he will not tolerate racism personally and that he will make a serious effort to counter the influx of racism on his platform.
Apart from this simply being a principled stance, I see removing Twitter from my daily life as an entirely positive development in so many ways. It will no longer be a distraction from tasks I should be focusing on instead. It will no longer enflame my emotions by allowing me to stumble into silly “debates” with idiots.
And it will have no real influence on the growth of this Substack and our publishing company. Checking our stats today, the amount of traffic generated by Twitter is marginal and the number of subscriptions it has provided is pathetic. I have long known that this is the case with Twitter - it simply is not good at sending traffic to websites. It never has been. I’ve now disconnected this Substack from my Twitter account.
So it’s time to explore other parts of the web to find new readers for our publication and future books. I think I’m going to start with exploring Substack further. It’s been wonderful connecting with new writers on here.
Goodbye Twitter. We’ve had some fun times, I’ve made a few friends, and I’ve appreciated the kind words of many people as I’ve struggled with this PTSD, but I don’t need you anymore. It’s time to spend my time on more meaningful endeavors.
And as for you, Elon: fuck you.
You have the moral compass and the maturity of a teenage boy. My days of giving you the benefit of the doubt are over. Henceforth every mention of you in my writing will begin with the phrase “amoral racism-apologist, antisemitism-enabler, and man-child” linked to this post.
I can honestly take or leave Twitter—and Facebook for that matter. Every year for Lent, I take off from social media, excepting “business” reasons to login—needed communications, posting articles, etc. It’s actually quite liberating. If I had to give up anything for good, certainly Twitter would be it—I know next to nobody on the site personally and my postings hardly generate any kind of activity—I’m probably not using it well—I’m too lazy to put in hashtags, etc.
All that said, I do prefer Twitter after Musk than before. I far prefer that users are free to say unpopular, vulgar, or even “so-called racist” things on the site than having some leftist-world-view people filter it before I see it. And I say “so-called racist” content because I am now quite numb to that charge, as I think many are. I am not defending Scott Adams—frankly I knew nothing about it before reading about it here. As I understand from what you’ve reported, he’s already suffering repercussions from his statements—justly or not.
But to say that Musk is defending “racism” by supporting Adams, I think goes too far. I think that Musk is more properly trying to defend free speech, especially when it’s made against something as untouchable as race relations. Again, I don’t claim to know the details of what Adams wrote nor the context, other than he was commenting on a survey. The whole thing seems ridiculous to me—first, the survey itself, and second, taking it seriously and wasting time commenting on its results. (That might be Adam’s chief fault in all this.)
I am also neutral on Musk the man personally—I don’t see him as any great savior of the world, but nor do I see him as a great villain. As far as I know, he’s no better or worse than any of the other heads of social media companies.
I agree the issue with Scott Adams is a good enough reason to stop feeding Elon Musk attention. He does not need anymore attention. I guess the more he focuses on the money pit that is Twitter the less he is focusing on his other companies which probably will help those other companies do better in his absence, as he shares memes and does his best impression of a 19 year old.
Twitter has been since it's inception likely a net negative. The benefit of celebrities, public figures, aspiring public figures, and semi-famous people having a direct connection to their audiences. Does not outweigh the fact that absolutely horrible people also get a direct connection to their audiences.
Also since the beginning the word count restriction was destine to being the discourse found on Twitter immediately into the gutter. This also seems to make reactionary sentiment much more powerful than anytjing else. It's also nearly impossible to actually moderate the massive site fairly.
Now it seems like it's just a tool for a billionaire who is obsessed with being worshiped by a very particular subset of people.