Rebuilding Rob

Social media has always been a complicated situation. The controversy with Twitter ( now known as X) is not new. During his time in office, President Donald Trump used it not only as a platform to espouse his political views, but also the publicly slam celebrities, and ridicule political leaders, both foreign and domestic, with whom he did not agree. Twitter’s troubles were only exacerbated when Elon Musk bought the company. Musk himself is no stranger to controversy. At best, his political views are controversial; at worst, he is a straight up anti-Semite . Now, though, it seems that Musk may have put his foot in his mouth.

For those of you who don’t know, I am very politically liberal. I am blue state. Someone would probably call me a “snowflake” or say that I am “woke“. However, my conundrum with X formerly Twitter goes way beyond endorsing a political candidate with whom I don’t agree. You can read all about musk’s latest X controversy in this CNBC article.In response, major advertisers, such as Disney, Paramount, IBM and Apple have paused advertising on the social media platform. Meanwhile, Musk is doubling down on his remarks, citing free speech.

I love when ignorant schmucks with no real understanding of the first amendment, let alone, constitutional law, try to justify their words as protected speech.

We do this thing in our society where we assume if someone is wealthy that they automatically MUST be intelligent. people look at Donald Trump, and assume that he must automatically be intelligent due to his success as a businessman. However, reports have come out of the White House during his administration that he refused to read detailed intelligence reports each day. It has been said that his handler had to “break them down into bullet points” for him.

The same could be said about Musk. While he no doubt is an intelligent man – having gone to college for physics, and had success with Internet startups like zip2 and x.com – most of his more recent successes have been built on the backs of more intelligent, innovative people. He simply has the money to hire the best people.

The first amendment does not give Americans the freedom to say anything they please. It does not protect against speech that may present a clear and present danger. It does not give Americans the right to shout fire in a crowded theater; nor does it give Americans the right create hate speech. And it damn sure does not give sitting presidents the right to instigate an insurrection. But that’s another story for another day.…

The fact is, there is no Federal entity regulating the Internet here in the United States. People will tell you that the Internet is protected under the first amendment.. However, the Internet is a global thing. As I mentioned before, the first amendment does not protect people from spreading lies, instilling, violence, or spewing hate language. With zero regulation here in America, the Internet is similar to America’s Old West.

For most of us, the problem with social media has gone beyond discerning fact from fiction. Yes, that’s the issue; but for a lot of people, the Internet is more about affirmation rather than information. Too many people aren’t on the Internet to learn things; rather, they reach out to the Internet to reaffirm their own beliefs.

The head of the Anti-Defamation League made a great point on the CNBC article when he said that had Elon Musk not shared the tweet that he responded to, it would’ve just faded into obscurity, along with thousands, even millions of other such remarks. Musk legitimized those anti-Semitic remarks; just as Donald Trump institutionalized racism during his four years in office.

So what can be done about X? It isn’t going anywhere anytime soon? Musk has more money than God. It’s not as if he’s gonna go broke… Probably ever. I know I personally use an X account in order to plug this blog. Granted, the traffic I get from that is almost nonexistent. So I definitely need to follow this next step…

Stop using X. Immediately.

It’s not the airport. We don’t have to announce that we’re leaving. If you’re a celebrity, like Mick Foley, I could understand making such an announcement as he did however for most of us, it’s not necessary.

Delete the X app from your phone. Immediately.

Even having the app on the phone makes it too tempting to use

Do both of these, but do not close your X account.

Not that I’m all that important, but I don’t really like the idea of closing my account and potentially allowing someone else to pick up the Twitter handle rebuildingrob; let alone the next account that I have under my real name.

We have it within us to render X as a completely irrelevant social media platform. Many years ago, people made it mass exodus away from MySpace. Bonus points if you remember that social media platform.

Thanks for stopping by Rebuilding Rob. All of your views, likes and follows are greatly appreciated! Be sure to follow me on social media as well!

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The article “How do you solve a problem like X (formerly Twitter)?” first appeared on Rebuilding Rob.