On January 20th, let‘s leave X so we don’t lose the information war!
David Chavalarias, Translated from Libération TRIBUNE Idées et Débats, 14/11/2024
sexual abuser and financial delinquent has just won the presidential election of the world’s leading nuclear power. This has stunned many. But what should give us pause for thought is not so much the number of pro-Trump voters, which isn’t much greater than when he lost in 2020 (+0.7% of registered voters as of November 14), but the margin of votes that enabled Trump to win (+3 million votes compared to Harris) compared to the hold Elon Musk’s social network has on the American electorate: X, the late-Twitter, has 100 million users in the USA. At the time of the 2022 takeover, these users were more representative of the Harris electorate than of the Trump electorate.
Musk’s electoral strategy is therefore clear: use his hold on this social network to get even a small proportion of its users to change their minds in favor of Trump. Add to this the fact that X is the mainstream media’s source of choice for finding candidate verbatims and observing political trends, and you’ll understand the strategic advantage of owning X.
In acquiring Twitter/X, Musk has pulled off a masterstroke: he has acquired the personal data and information environment of a large proportion of Democratic voters and undecided voters. Several interventions in the platform’s algorithms and design then enabled him to shape Twitter/X in his own image and become master of the beating heart of global information: in the name of “freedom of speech”, moderation no longer applies on this network; accounts once banned for inciting hate, promoting Nazism or identity theft have been reinstated; news feeds have been systemically enriched with toxic content, toxicity being the signature of the Trump team’s speeches; and Musk’s messages and profile are specifically highlighted to users. One fact is clear: from the top of his 200 million followers, Musk’s political messages have amassed over 17 billion views since he rallied behind Donald Trump – more than twice the number of views of all political ads on Twitter!
«Unprecedented moral collapse»
However, Musk and his teams’ messages are anything but informative: they have broadcast fake videos of Kamala Harris without specifying their nature, promoted false information on electoral processes or migrants, organized million-dollar lotteries akin to vote-buying, relayed fraudulent campaigns organized by his teams… Let’s take a closer look at one of these dubious initiatives: a fake Harris campaign site, financed by Musk, caricatured the candidate’s program in such a way as to turn her into a repellent for part of her electorate. For example, the site made it appear that she was encouraging sexual transition among LGBTQIA minors by ensuring “every [LGBTQIA] young person has access to the care they need—without fear of discrimination or parental intervention”. This site was promoted not only on X, but also via massive SMS campaigns, which we can’t rule out using X data for more effective targeting.
The American campaign has thus reached unprecedented levels of sophistication in disinformation and moral collapse, and we can expect, if nothing changes, that European democracies will not withstand this type of environment. Elon Musk has already demonstrated his willingness to interfere in European politics, by promoting the theory of the Great Replacement in Germany, his closeness to Giorgia Meloni or his incitement to civil war during the riots in the UK in the summer of 2024. On January 20, 2025, Trump will be inaugurated, and Musk will have no limits. X will become America’s main propaganda machine. X/Twitter users will then become the cannon fodder for the cognitive warfare of the American far right (and incidentally other foreign powers).
You can’t win a cognitive war on enemy territory. Any use of X now directly or indirectly benefits the mind-conquest program of the alt-intern, the international far-right promoted by the American alt-right and the Kremlin. Let’s stop burying our heads in the sand in the name of our audience. Whatever the cost, we need to regain control of our information spaces.
The good news is that this is relatively easy. Let’s not forget that it’s us, the users, and only us, who make the value of a social network. As Coluche used to say: “All you have to do is stop buying, and it won’t sell anymore”.
On January 20, 2025, we quit X!
The important thing is to keep our audience, our threads, our social capital, so as not to lose their overall social value. To do this, we need to get organized, and that starts now! Between now and January 20, migration tools will enable us to transfer our threads and followers from X to other networks where freedom of speech is guaranteed. To use them, you’ll need to do two things: first, obtain an archive of all your tweets. Ask X for a copy now and keep it safe. And second, get an account on a social network compatible with freedom of expression. Create one now, even if you don’t use it until then. The main alternatives to X are Mastodon and BlueSky, so all you have to do is create an account on each of these platforms to ensure a healthy environment.
To guarantee freedom of speech, a social network must enable three things: control over your data, your audience and the recommendation algorithm. X offers none of these three levers. Mastodon and BlueSky are the main alternatives to date. They’re less popular, so currently less interesting. But with a little coordination, on January 20th, they’ll be at the heart of the news.
Musk doesn’t hesitate to censor content to prevent his users from becoming informed. In 2022, the word “Mastodon” was censored on X to hide the first major user leak. In this second initiative, there will certainly be new counter-fires. To successfully extricate ourselves from toxic digital environments, we need to do so in a coordinated way, preparing the ground in advance and diversifying our actions. On January 20, X sinks at the hands of fascism, but we take back the power. #January20 #HelloQuitX
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