Showing posts with label Elon Musk Twitter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Elon Musk Twitter. Show all posts

May 24, 2023

What's with the Nov. 2022 Elon Musk tweet about Trump which I decided to censor?

  By Hal Brown

I found this tweet from Elon Musk posted on Nov. 20, 2022 in this column by one of my favorite writers, Heather "Digby" Parton of Salon:

Ron DeSantis — like Elon Musk's Twitter — is really the second choice




This is the full illustration in the Elon Musk tweet . Above is the tweet with half the image edited out by me. I'm just trying to avoid Google Blogger posting an adult content warning on this story.
Click above to enlarge. I deleted the blog that led to this
 advisory but kept it on Substack here


Digby writes that "Musk begged Trump to come back to Twitter with vulgar memes like this designed to entice the libertine ex-president..."

Of course we know that Ron DeSantis is announcing that he's running for president on some sort of Twitter broadcast with Elon Musk. It appears that Musk has given up on Trump and is all in on promoting DeSantis.

The tweet shows what Musk thought of Donald Trump back in November. It is juvenile and gross but also seems nonsensical. Again, you can view it here or this won's make any sense to you.

What struck me about the image Musk posted wasn't how it was supposed to depict Trump being tempted into a lascivious encounter with a woman perhaps representing Twitter, or perhaps not, it is difficult to say. 

One thing that struck me as weird is that Trump is depicted looking, if not like Jesus, at least like a monk. Why would Musk think this was funny? Then again, Musk has a convoluted sense of humor but still why would he promote the idea that Trump is Divine? 

The other thing I wonder is why he decided to place the image with the Twitter bird where he did? I can see him deciding not to make the illustration too graphic since it might run afoul of Twitter's guidelines about adult content but it is abundantly clear what the Trump monk is planning to do.

Is the the new way Twitter plans to censor adult images?


On the other hand, maybe he believes entering the realm of Twitter through his tweety bird is akin to revealing in the garden feminine earthly delights over where he rules supreme. 

Foreground public domain Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch

Update:

I discovered that the Milo Manaro, the artist who drew the picture in the Elon Musk tweet was not pleased with his using his art work:
 
Click above to read article

This is what he posted on Instagram:

“I wish Elon Musk would be forced to tweet a thousand times:
“I will never use Milo Manara drawings again without permission. I will never again use Milo Manara’s drawings without permission. I will never again use…”

How about I sue him, asking for $44Bn in compensation? Then I could buy back Twitter and give it back to someone else to manage!

In the illustration in the same place that Musk had the Twitter bird Manara had the following:



February 18, 2023

As a dauntless opinion writer I was tempted to join Truth Social

 By Hal Brown

Above: Truth Social is America's "Big Tent" social media platform that encourages an open, free, and honest global conversation without discriminating on the basis of political ideology.

Currently I depend on various websites to report on what Trump posts on his Truth Social platform. For example Raw Story has a story about a particularly unhinged and wack-a-toon post:

Trump obviously hoped to make money from Truth Social.


He also no doubt wanted bragging rights about how many millions of followers he had there compared to when he was on Twitter.

The failure to achieve these goals have turned out to be irrelevant because Trump now has his own megaphone. He totally controls it. While not everything he posts there is widely shared in the media he can throw random shit at the wall and see what sticks in the media.  

Trump isn't on Twitter. Elon Musk, no doubt wanting him to start tweeting again to boost Twitter's statistics, reinstated him. His most recent tweet is from January 8, 2021 when he was supposedly permanently banned.

I doubt Trump would go back to making Twitter tweets because he has an agreement with Truth Social to post there six hours before he posts anywhere else. Not only that, but he would have to admit that Truth Social failed and Elon Musk had more business acumen than he did.

Just as all major media outlets have staff assigned to watching Fox News and keeping up with other right-wing media, and finding tweets to add to articles which are relevant to the subject being covered, they have staff assigned to monitoring Truth Social. It's nice work if you can get it, and can stand watching Tucker Carlson if you're assigned to Fox News, since you can do it from home.  

I could get on Truth Social for free. I could watch Fox News. I could check out all the online right-wing websites. I probably would come up with ideas for what I hope would be an original and perhaps particularly snarky take on something for this blog.

This would mean devoting a lot of time suffering through watching and reading, to put it bluntly, a lot of crap. I am retired and nobody has decided offer to pay me to do this, plus if they did it would have to be lot of money for me to even agree to devote a few hours a day to doing this.

If I joined the platform, aside from writing about Trump's Truth Social posts, I might wile away some time screwing around with Trump by replying to his posts with over-the-top fawning replies dripping with thinly veiling sarcasm aimed at stroking his ego. I wouldn't be critical of him, what's the fun in that? He'd probably never see my posts. All that would accomplish is trying to see if I could get kicked off the platform and that would only get me a subject for one blog.

The fun of flippant fawning would be to try to get Trump to "re-Truth" (his version of a re-tweet) a reply he thinks is complementary to something he posts when in fact it comes from someone who thinks he might be gullible enough to believe I am a member of his cult.

Therefore, here's my decision: 

Sorry, MSNBC, Raw Story, HUFFPOST, Daily Beast, et. al, I'm not going to accept bundles of cash to be one of your work-from-home right-wing media monitors. Besides, I figure most of you are using interns to do this.

Tempted as I am, I won't join Truth Social, and "truth" be told, part of the reason is that I am a little afraid I might enjoy posting there so much I'd become addicted to this useless endeavor.

Addendum:

Remember this guy?

Truth Social is run by Trump Media & Technology Group, and headed by Devin Nunes. In 2022, Talking Points Memo stated Nunes' remuneration was $750,000 per year.

From Newsweek:  

Devin Nunes' Cow Celebrates Congressman's Resignation 


December 15, 2022

I was writing about Elon Musk being nuts and then Trump posted a Superman video

I was writing about Elon Musk being nuts and then Trump posted a Superman video

Another example of the
Media making megalomania mainstream

by Hal Brown


If I posted this I'd be a candidate for a rubber room at Bellevue:

These are available for free.
.




As an early member of Duty2Warn and a retired psychotherapist I have written a lot about Trump's psychopathology and very little about Elon Musk's because the former was a danger to democracy and the later I viewed as a sideshow even though he got tons of media attention and it become evident how deranged he was.

Update: The idiocy of this is:

"MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT! My official Donald Trump Digital Trading Card collection is here!" the ex-president posted on his Truth Social account. "These limited edition cards feature amazing ART of my Life & Career! Collect all of your favorite Trump Digital Trading Cards, very much like a baseball card, but hopefully much more exciting. Go to collecttrumpcards.com/ & GET YOUR CARDS NOW! Only $99 each!

Presumably the worthless Trump University issued a diploma on paper to their grifted graduates, some of whom paid $35,000 for the Trump Gold Elite" package, which promised personal mentorship from experienced instructors "handpicked by Trump that would make them rich. Sycophant suckers in the card con don't even get something they can frame or stick on the refrigerator.

People are posting images like this from a tooter on Mastodon

Even Fox New news is treating this like it shows Trump to be a fool: 

Trump roasted after 'major announcement' turns out to be digital trading cards

This is how the Murdoch owned NY Post put it:

The 45th president’s new NFT* collection depicts — who else? — himself in various forms of, well, highly virtual reality.

Trump is featured with a chiseled chest wearing a cape, triumphantly riding an elephant and sporting a dapper James Bond-style tuxedo in the cards, according to his announcement on Truth Social.

“Hello everyone, this is Donald Trump, hopefully your favorite president of all time — better than Lincoln, better than Washington, with an important announcement,” Trump said in a tone-deaf video linked to the post. “I’m doing my first official Donald J. Trump NFT collection.”

The former leader of the free world then urged fans to buy the so-called Donald Trump digital trading tokens — which he described as “much like a baseball card” — for “only” $99 each.

*A non-fungible token is a : a unique digital identifier that cannot be copied 

The word I am reading the most frequently to describe this grift is cringeworthy.

HERE'S MY ORIGINAL BLOG STORY

I wasn't planning to write a blog story about Elon Musk today. I just put together an image that I posted on Mastodon for this toot:

Click above to enlarge image


By now if you have been paying attention you know Trump is teasing an announcement with a video on Truth Social showing him opening his shirt to reveal a Superman t-shirt. On "Morning Joe" Joe  reminded viewers that Trump had wanted to open his shirt to show a Superman t-shirt underneath when he left Walter Reed after he had Covid. 

Someone apparently didn't think this was a smart thing to do when so many people were dying of the disease and they managed to dissuade him. This was reported on in the media, The Murdoch NY Post for example.

Yesterday my favorite columnist, Heather "Digby" Parton, wrote 

Elon is the new Trump: But how long can he hold the No. 1 Troll title? on Salon

Thought bubbles added

Today Igor Derysh wrote, also on Salon: 

Free speech warrior Elon Musk bans, vows “legal action” against student for tweeting public info

Musk is so committed to free speech he wants to use the power of the state to suppress public info about him


In Musk and Trump we have two headline hogging people who meet the criteria for being a malignant narcissist. The malignant part is being sociopathic. The narcissism part means that they are so full of themselves that they often behave in ways that are self-defeating. 

Musk and Trump are grandiose narcissists whose lifeblood is getting attention. They have no deeply held political beliefs. They have no empathy for those who they hurt . They will dominate the news for at least the short-term future. 

This will not please people like Jim Jordan, Marjorie Taylor-Greene, Lauren Boebert (story), and Louie Gohmert (story) who hope to have the media spotlight on them when the new Congress convenes.

In the greater scheme of things Elon Musk is irrelevant though his craving for attention has been correctly compared to a toddler's tantrum the same way Trump's antics have.

Trump is only truly relevant in the longer term if he runs for president either as a Republican or an Independent.

Yesterday I wrote in my blog about DeSantis that Trump would be the easier candidate for Biden (or whichever Democrat runs) to beat than the other Republican's who have been mentioned as likely GOP candidates. I wrote:

There is one outcome we can hope for, though we can't to anything to make it happen. This is that Trump loses the primary, whether to DeSantis or anybody else, and decides to run as an Independent. His psychopathology strongly suggests he would do this. He doesn't have any loyalty to the GOP or anyone in it with the exception of his dwindling number of sycophants. 

Doing this keeps him in the public eye until Tuesday, Nov. 7th 2023 when he splits the vote assuring an easy Biden win. He can have his rallies and spew his hate speech and paranoia to his cheering cult.

Ye got media attention for his ludicrous announcement that he's a candidate. 


There's nothing to keep Elon from doing the same thing. He isn't running for president, at least not yet. After all if Ye and do it and Musk knows he isn't the brightest bulb in the pack. Why shouldn't the richest person in the world who could buy Trump many times over and who has reported 155 IQ do the same thing?
"Elect Elon" isn't a bad alliteration but "Make America Musk" might appeal to him as a slogan for a Twitter blue baseball cap.






December 4, 2022

Forego social media and bring back press release

 Forgo social media and bring back the press release


By Hal Brown



Archives on Right >

When it came widely disseminating information before social media there was group email and before that there were newsroom wire services and before that I suppose there was the ticker-tape machine which was used for stock market transactions.


Today even The White House uses social media, especially Twitter, to communicate messages to the media. If they are going to use Twitter I think it is only fair they use other similar platforms like Mastodon and Tribel. For example this is how their latest message seems to have gotten out. I don't know how since it wasn't on their official Twitter account but this is what various media websites have a link to:

I tried to find out where original statement came from. It wasn't a direct tweet from Andrew Bates, it was on his Twitter page as the retweet you see above.  Christopher Cadelgo is a reporter for Politico. It wasn't here either: 

These are their tweets from the prior 19 hours (click to enlarge):



If there's an urgent message that President Biden or White House wants to send there is always the press conference, but there's nothing between that and using the Internet.

If you want to see what the official White House website has to say about what Trump said about suspending the Constitution and try to look at their official website and type in a dot com this is where you go:
Someone obviously figured out that many people would land on this website by mistake and registering the URL was a valuable idea.

When you realize your error and type in dot gov you go to the official website:
Then if you want to find the actual statement which was posted on Twitter you're out of luck because it isn't anywhere to be found where you'd expect it to be:

Trump uses his own version of Twitter, Truth Social, as an alternative to issuing a press release. While Truth Social is an overall failure for Trump it is a success since everything he posts there is covered by the media.

For any government official or entity, any public or private organization or institution, and any individual in the public eye there is an alternative to using the social media platform owned and controlled by Elon Musk even though it currently has the most reach. 

For those wanting to reach the media Wirth a message it would require compiling a group email list, although I would guess some of these are languishing unused in numerous computers. 

Once this is done the same people in charge of posting a tweet to get a statement out to the media could simple send it out as a press release via email.

Of course any organization or individual could still use Twitter but considering that this platform is controlled by Elon Musk I personally would hope that nobody did this. It legitimizes Twitter as a news source and subsidizes the platform which means more money in influence for Musk.

As far as alternatives for those who want to leave Twitter I prefer Mastodon. I wrote abut this here:

Here's my profile.
Individuals, including journalists, are divided over whether or not to leave Twitter. As I write this it is been discussed of Ali Velshi's MSNBC show. You can read "Why I'm Not Leaving Twitter" by Karen Attiah (left below) if you have a Washington Post subscription here.



Ali Velshi expressed mixed feeling about it but said he still uses Twitter and also uses these: 

As an aside, I am actually supportive of having Donald Trump use Truth Social, or if he wants to return to the all embracing arms of Elon Musk, to use Twitter. This is because with either platform he expresses himself without a filter and reveals what he really thinks. He doesn't have handlers urging him to stick to reading what has been prepared for him on a teleprompter. On social media he is his own worst enemy and the nightmare of any defense attorney who is trying to keep him out of jail.

I wonder whether Special Counsel Jack Smith will see this as Trump confessing to sedition:

The right-wing speechwriter Robert Strom just wrote in the highly conservative publication Hot Air that Trump has finally committed political suicide and will never recover:

"It’s like a social science experiment with 350 million participants. Researchers are asking: just how batsh!t crazy does a person have to be to lose 95% of their fans? For some reason, Trump has decided to participate as the experimental subject," Strom added, "There are several obvious things about Trump’s statement that are simply politically stupid. Like, really really stupid. Assuming there were no legal or ethical barriers to either calling a new election or suspending the Constitution (stay with me here, I know that is insane!), it is still politically stupid."

Recent blog stories:





November 7, 2022

HUFFPOST article gave me a chance for shameless promotion of my blog


By Hal Brown

I had nothing in mind to write about this morning until I looked at HUFFPOST and read their lead article:

Days After Laying Off Half The Company, Twitter Asks Some Employees To Come Back

Twitter is reportedly trying to reverse course and hire back dozens of workers it just laid off – continuing the chaos Elon Musk has brought since taking over.



These are the comments I put on HUFFPOST hoping to promote my blog:

As someone who practiced as a psychotherapist for 40 years Musk has intrigued me so I wrote a lot about him on my blog. I can't say this has made me famous but if you do a Google search of Elon Musk and my name my blog comes up as number one. Thank you Elon.

I know this is shameless self promotion, but you are reading this blog so I hope you appreciate my stories. I trust you don't mind my trying to promote it. I like writing and don't think there's anything wrong with having a healthy desire to want to increase the readership.

If do the same search on DuckDuckGo and my blog dominates the top results. In all modesty I have sent Elon priceless therapeutic advice through my comic strip Mired in Muskland but unfortunately for him he hasn't seen it let alone heeded it.

I didn't want to put a direct link in the HUFFPOST comments section because I am not sure whether or not that would violate their rules. I did include two images from the Google and DuckDuckGo searches.

Click the images below to enlarge them.


Most Internet users, about 80%, use Google as their primary search engine but DuckDuckGo which doesn't track your activity to send to advertisers is becoming more popular. If you do the same search there this blog dominates the results. DuckDuckGo is currently advertising on television. 


The search engine market is highly competitive. You can read about the most popular ones here.

Here's how the same search came out on those besides Google and DuckDuckGo among the others on the top six.

Bing is the number two search engine and this blog does very well there at number one and number three.


The blog tops the page there and included a "Mired in Muskland" story.


The Russian search engine has the blog at number one:


I couldn't find the blog on the Chinese search engine. The search blocks pro-democracy websites so that may be the reason. 

14 readers this past week logged onto the blog from China. If any of them are reading this I really like to hear from you. You can use the comment section o the bottom of the page. Of course this goes for the 95 readers in Russia. 

Related:

A Musk tweet and my reply:

This blog has moved to a new address

  This website is migrating Due to a problem with this platform, Google Blogger, I have moved my blog to WordPress and given it a new addres...