Elon Musk turns on Reform UK’s Farage after attacking Labour (X community)

[confused2]

Elon Musk

@elonmusk
You are the media now
6:17 am · 6 Nov 2024
·
106.7M Views

[Syne]

See where he says "you?" He didn't say he was the media. He said everyone, working in tandem, are the media. The collection of individuals are a more honest media than the corporate media running the same lock-step narrative to keep people with power in power. It's the difference between the proletariat and the bourgeois running the public square... which is populated by vastly more of the former.

But most Brits do seem to desire to be cared for by their "betters."

[Yazata]

X is media in much the same way that the telephone is media. X (the company) and Elon (the man) simply provide a communications channel. Just like what is said over the telephone, the content that fills the channel is the product of the multitude of people who use it.

It's true that Elon expresses his opinions on X. But so does Keir Starmer, who has his own X account. So do the would-be opinion-leaders at the Guardian, BBC and MSNBC. How influential all those opinions are is decided by the countless people who read the opinions. Not by a small inbred clique of editors who attempt to define and control "the Narrative" for everyone else.

And it's true that Elon's personal opinions are hugely influential. Tesla, SpaceX, self-driving cars, robots and spaceships do inspire people. He's something of a hero to many of us, the real life Iron Man. (Or as he puts it, Irony Man.)

And his friendship with President Trump has attracted tens of millions of additional people who until recently were excluded from left-dominated establishment media.

I get the feeling that much of the recent criticism of Elon's influence is coming from people (editors, academics, politicians) who feel that their own influence is slipping and who don't like it one bit. They don't like the feeling that they no longer set the agenda for the whole planet. If they can't inspire people with their own ideas and vision, then their Orwellian solution is to try to control the information that the people are allowed to see.

[confused2]

X is media in much the same way that the telephone is media.

Hm. Elon's 'thoughts' reach 100 million on X alone and on this side of the pond we find his 'thoughts' are picked up and amplified by the media here .. his reach is far greater than his immediate followers. There are worries (in the media) that he may be influencing the course of European elections. When Elon thinks the German far right are the only hope for Germany .. the German far right have a history of using gas for things other than cooking Sunday lunch.

What makes X different from (say) Facebook is Elon Musk and the way he's using it. I'd say it has to be understood and accepted as a new thing just like rockets landing tail first. The fact that he can't be stopped makes it pointless to consider whether he should be stopped.

[Yazata]

X is media in much the same way that the telephone is media.

Hm. Elon's 'thoughts' reach 100 million on X alone and on this side of the pond we find his 'thoughts' are picked up and amplified by the media here .. his reach is far greater than his immediate followers.

True. Of course Keir Starmer has an X account of his own and is free to say what he likes. He isn't just some person with an opinion either, he's Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. And he has a media megaphone of his own in the BBC and no end of additional influential media outlets amplifying him.

As I suggested in the post above, I get the feeling that a lot of this is jealousy by people accustomed to steering world opinion themselves, suddenly encountering an equally influential voice in opposition, disagreeing with their preferred view of reality. Editors, academics and politicians who collectively have formed the establishment, the oligarchical always-ruling "uniparty", are not happy with that at all.

There are worries (in the media) that he may be influencing the course of European elections.

I hope he is. That's not "election interference" either, any more than the BBC taking its anti-Trump tone in the recent US election and wearing its pro-Kamala sympathies on its sleeve was election interference. The Economist putting a caricature of Trump as a ranting Mussolini on its cover and one of Germany's major publications flat-out calling him a "fascist" was both factually false and exceedingly hostile (and Trump is not one to forgive and forget) but it wasn't election interference either. It was free speech.

When Elon thinks the German far right are the only hope for Germany .. the German far right have a history of using gas for things other than cooking Sunday lunch.

Perhaps the German uniparty should pay greater attention to why the AfD is growing so rapidly, despite all the propaganda (which you seem to be echoing) that they are Nazis. Why are they attracting voters? Maybe the establishment parties need to listen to those concerns and address them.

Part of the problem in Germany is that after some unpleasant events in the 1930's and 40's, every party to the right of the Christian Democrats was labeled "far right" and verboten. Which left the CDU with all of its political opposition located to its left. And the CDU often responded by sliding further left itself, so as to coopt the positions of the SPD and present itself as the more moderate alternative. Angela Merkel was a master at this. The comfortable assumption was that the right would always stick with the CDU (what other option did they have?) and that the way to win elections was to attract additional voters from the left.

Which leaves all the establishment German political parties in favor of open borders and mass migration, not only for Germany but for the whole EU. But mass migration is increasingly unpopular with the German and European electorates. That leaves anti-migration German voters no choice but to favor the "far right" and be accused of being Nazis.

What makes X different from (say) Facebook is Elon Musk and the way he's using it.

True. That's because people like and agree with what Elon says and does. He's caught people's imaginations, not only with his audacious companies that turn science fiction into reality, but also because he says things that the people already thought but previously weren't allowed to say. That earns him millions of supporters and no end of powerful establishment enemies. Hopefully his friendship with Trump will help him weather the coming storm.

In Facebook's case, I don't think that anyone cares what Mark Zuckerberg thinks to the same extent. That's because he hasn't caught the wave of previously suppressed public opinion as skillfully as both Elon and Trump have done. Maybe Zuck might be able to do it in the future, provided that he has really taken the Red Pill and isn't just making strategic moves to ingratiate himself with the incoming Trump administration.