I have not been following everything but from what I gather, the FBI was deep in the company and general operations, and the actions on Twitter’s back end also shed light on what is also happening on other major social platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, and so on.
I am on Twitter but I mostly use it to just read and catch up on news. I don’t use it to complain or anything like that. I think I may have tweeted something myself maybe 10 times in the last 3 years. I mainly use forums like this and avoid social media platforms as a whole.
Anyways, what is your take on this whole thing? Do you think this has effected how people view social media giants? Has your opinions of these platforms changed?
The government involvement does not surprise me. One of the biggest reasons I moved away from Windows to Linux is down to privacy. Windows allows back-doors for FBI and government involvement. This is something I want to avoid. I have nothing to hide but I value my privacy. I am not on Twitter. I made an account several years ago and didn’t make much use of it. Knowing this, I won’t be making use of it going forward I can tell you that much.
I never trusted “big tech” as people like to call them. They care too much about profits and pushing the ideas the people who fund them want. This doesn’t shock me at all to learn the FBI was in Twitter HQ and it wouldn’t surprise me to learn they were still there (which they absolutely still are).
It doesn’t matter who “owns” Twitter, they will still find a means to use it as a tool to sway ideas, opinions, politics, and money.
I knew back in like 2010 that the FBI was getting involved with Facebook. Twitter took off around the same time and became mainstream so you know they started getting their feet in the door with that company. Social media (not forums) is a great tool for spreading messages, gaining awareness, meeting new people… but the downsides outweigh the good at this point.
We have issues with privacy, child grooming and pedophilia, orchestrated crime, government spies, and more. All of which can be found on the big social media platforms.
This is likely why there is a bigger push and movement now more so than every for open source. I am all for it. Getting some sort of decentralized setup for the internet space and allowing for people to use things freely without fear of banning or suppression.
Remember when they tried to downplay how big the internet was going to be? Like they thought it was some fad that would never catch on? I remember seeing that all over the news in the mid to late '90s and talking about computers like they were not that big of a deal. I think they underestimated everything and were not prepared so when they go back to try to control things, it is made very obvious.
I looked into this a few years ago with Windows and the backdoors they have and it freaked me out which is why I switched over as well. I know they want to completely control the online space. They have been pushing to do so since 2010 or so.
I haven’t been following everything but I caught something today about it. I guess there was all sorts of tomfoolery happening at HQ, so much so, there was staff actually using other people’s profiles to send out tweets and DMs as well as do all sorts of bans. I guess the mess is still somehow worse than Elon imagined.
I mean if I was a betting man, based on the salaries and workload of the former employees (i.e. 4 hour work weeks and playing with legos), I would say Twitter HQ offices were mostly just laundering money.
It is possible. I mean that wouldn’t be too far from the realm of reality. I see how countries are used to laundry money and you have to figure they use corporations as well.