Apparently, some people are boycotting Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Threads this week for reasons of Suckerberg zucking up to the Big Orange One. Some people are just leaving those platforms completely.
Look at that: Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Threads. That represents a considerable reach for one person (the first human recipient of a rat penis transplant, according to post factcheck FB, not that that’s relevant). Reach: add to the Zucker-reach that of their spiritual daddy, the Musk-rat.
(Hey, was it a Musk-rat penis transplant that Fuckerberg received?)
And then consider that Bezos, another orange acolyte, owns the Washington Post where employees are protesting and in some cases leaving because of his interference.
Lurking at the Trump ascension like a rotting corpse at a children’s tea party there was Rupert Murdoch. No explanation needed for the presence of this billionaire purveyor of porky pies of a very particular political flavour.
Consider further that the owners of almost every media outlet in the ‘free’ west is owned by billionaires who are aligned with the malign listed above and consider how fucked the information space is.
And now Musk-Trump is going after TikTok. No way can they let a Chinese outfit continue to suck up the data and induce encephalopathy in its American users to their own political ends when Musk-Trump could be sucking up the data and inducing encephalopathy in its American users to their own political ends. And cementing another blockstone in the edifice of their media monopoly.
Not that there’s much information in the information space. Which is, of course, the point of owning it. I’ve given up X-Twitter but kept one anonymous account which I use to peek in from time to time. I know I shouldn’t. It’s like knowing you shouldn’t look into the malfunctioning loos at a British railway station because you know you’ll be revolted and then disappointed in yourself for caving in to the desire to look even when you know what’s going to happen but then doing it anyway. Well that’s X-Twitter and me now. And there’s a reason for mentioning this other than squeezing poo into the story. Twitter is a scary place now. Musk has fixed the algorithm to emphasise his tweets so when you log on, the feed is basically Musk’s deranged announcements. The place is a permanent Nuremberg rally. The federal government is the source of all inflation, goes one tweet. Fact! it concludes. I don’t suppose the goggle-eyed Muskovites even want to know that it isn’t. The ‘free’ market is the source of all inflation. Yar boo sucks! Who cares when we can see Musk throwing Nazi salutes at a presidential inauguration? Who cares when Musk bounces up and down you see his belly and marvel that he truly has no navel because he’s actually a reptile?
Social media, specifially X, Musk repeatedly tells us on X, is the new journalism. Legacy journalism has disgraced itself by demanding verification, facts, rigour and other difficult words. Your own opinion, your feeling, your urge, your brain fart is the New Journalism. That’s all that matters now, what you *think*, what your Taco Bell stuffed gut tells you, which is basically what Musk-Tump just said on the same platform.
Cats help us all!
There’s a chest-crushingly heavy irony in Musk’s pronouncements since most legacy media has already given up on those qualities that used to make journalism journalism. Musk-Trump’s complaints are presumably aimed at any outlet that doesn’t actually toe the party line, like the Des Moines Register, which dared suggest Trump was not omnipotent by publishing a pre-election poll that dared suggest that Trump was not winning, and which is now being sued by the same Trump.
Meanwhile, Musk-Trump is/are swivelling their swivel eyes towards The Rest of the World, and of most relevance to me, Europe, which they are attempting to turn into a basted turkey in the image of their own US supporters.
So that’s happening.
Of course, we’ll each of us decide how to respond to the current situation but continuing to come out to play with the oligarchs doesn’t strike me as sustainable.
Oh, please excuse me while I once again throw out some chaff to get past Facebook’s algorithms: cats, more cats, an excess of cats; chocolate; chocolate cats; cute inconsequential things galore with bows and bells on. Minions, Oompa Loompas, Munchkins, goggled-eyed thralls. Is that enough chaff?