JimCrowChat. Elon Musk’s Social Media Idea?
American oligarch Elon Musk made the news this weekend, using the social media platform his besties love to hate –Twitter– to fuel speculation that he is giving "serious thought" to creating a new social media platform.
It seems as though the blue bird of chit chat has been cracking down on advocates for far-out schemes, spreaders of misinformation, and antisocial behavior in general. Right wingers, always on the look out for opportunities to play the victim, are sure it’s a commie plot.
The reality is that there is little rhyme or reason for the way Twitter runs it show. All kinds of people end up in Twitmo jail for things that are incomprehensible, while openly Nazi trolls ply their trade with little interference.
The big bucks supporters of those exiled who echo sentiments about being free from constraints or consequences for their actions have come up with the idea that somehow a company enforcing its standards is the same as the government oppressing people by taking away constitutional rights.
A handful of right wing hustlers have started competing networks (Rumble, Parler, Gettr), which have mostly failed at attracting a broad audience and engaging those who are merely curious. . Former Rep Devin Nunes ended his career in politics (and losing lawsuits) to shepherd former President Donald Trump’s subscription-based concept into the marketplace of ideas.
The public response to Truth Social has ranged from outrage at clunky and unreliable sign up procedures to unhappiness about a certain former guy who’s not bothering to engage any more, probably because it’s so booooring..
The thing about Musk’s idea is that he started out of the gate by addressing the antisocial, grifters, and racists who resent Twitter’s limitations. And that, friends, is not enough audience to create the critical mass of attention needed to make a new social media platform work.
For a guy who started out as a tech investor, Musk sure doesn’t get what’s happening in social media. People engage with these platforms to be part of a larger community, whether it’s just a geographically extended group of family and friends, or those mutually interested in causes or activities.
Leaving one of the big platforms cuts consumers off from their prior contacts, since Twitter, Facebook, etc. make money on the data they harvest from each and every interaction. In a perfect world there’d be something called data portability, which would mean switching platforms wouldn’t cost users access to their contacts, videos and photos they’d posted, etc.
In the phone business this could mean not being able to communicate with people using other providers. Because there was some competition with both service providers and equipment makers, they quickly learned that letting people keep their phone number and assorted other files was a good idea.
Since Meta/Facebook and Twitter have bought out their potential competitors, they have no motivation to allow customers to move around, which seems like it should be just as important a “freedom” as calling people the N word (and expecting no consequences). Sorry, kids, this is what happens when monopolies run the show.
So, Musk’s only road toward success with a new social media network would lie in a boutique marketing scheme. And since chat isn’t a tangible thing like cars or spaceships, a niche market would have to be based on the underlying beliefs of those who want to use it.
Keeping the audience exclusive might also help, although I’m not sure where the profit could be in such an enterprise.
When it comes to social practices, there are a couple of things Musk has shown to be adept at: exploiting workers based on vague promises of future success and racism. I suspect that people being exploited under these circumstances are usually in denial.
However, the field is wide open for racism. Just take a look at the recent Senate Supreme Court confirmation hearings. Or all the political hay being made of Critical Race Theory. Or the big jump in hate crimes. And the marketing effort that’s been put into making Black Lives Matter something kids check under their beds for every night.
If you’ve looked at the roster of “leaders” at racism enabling organizations, you will have noticed a lot of white hair (and faces).
More old “we’re not racists” are dying every week. Who will replace these men?
Today’s younguns need the kind of wisdom a Newt Gringich could share, and there’s no better place to do it than a social media channel Antifa won’t join. Old school corporations like Well Fargo Bank (which routinely says no to Black homeowners trying to refinance) might be able to do some “wink, wink” advertising. .
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Now that the really ugly reality of Elon Musk’s manufacturing miracle is coming to light since “big gubment” has taken notice of the flagrant racism used by the company as a means of motivating their workforce, there’s no reason for him to hide it anymore.
President Lyndon B. Johnson once said, "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."
Individuals have been suing Tesla for years, and the company has batted away those claims and mostly kept them off the public’s radar. In October, a federal jury awarded $137 million to a Black worker after finding the company turned a blind eye to racial taunts and offensive graffiti.
Claims by higher paid executives and engineers about working conditions and abuse in the company have been silenced by non-disclosure agreements.
Grievances by people on the assembly lines have always been the subject of casual conversations, limited to chatter by a large extent through fear of being blackballed from one of the industries paying decent wages.
Elon Musk had no time for people complaining, telling employees who were targets of racism to get a “thick skin.”
A lawsuit filed earlier this year by California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH), alleges that Black workers in the company’s Fremont factory experienced “rampant racism” that the company left “unchecked for years.”
It’s a crack in the armor and mystique, and the problems are not limited to one location. We’re talking about corporate culture with a capital “C.” There is simply no way the incidents described in the lawsuit and amplified via a Los Angeles Times investigation could have occurred without support from above.
Here are a few snips:
“Three Black former employees described how jobs at the pioneering automaker devolved into personal nightmares due to a pattern of rampant racism and harassment at Tesla’s Fremont, Calif., factory...”
…Tesla’s billionaire chief executive, Elon Musk, would come through the front of the factory “with his entourage,” Chatman said. “They didn’t want a Black face up there,” she said, adding that Latino colleagues were left up front while Black workers were moved to the back…
…During downtime at the factory, when parts or trucks were delayed and line work slowed, only Black workers were ordered to do “general cleaning,” Romby said, getting on their hands and knees to scrub floors and wipe beneath shelves, while white and Latino employees were allowed to take rest breaks…
…Though he feared he might be fired, Jones felt compelled to report the racism to human resources. His first meeting went well, he said. The woman assigned to his department, whom he identified as Tori Tanaka, “seemed to want to help.” (Tanaka, who no longer works at Tesla, could not be reached for comment.) But at the next meeting, there was a different woman who to Jones seemed less concerned. Called in a third time, he was fired.
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Email me at WritetoDougPorter@Gmail.com