X, the social media platform owned by Trump megadonor Elon Musk, is promoting Trump campaign-curated content to all U.S. users, regardless of whether they have opted out of Trump-related content.
On the platform formerly known as Twitter, banner ads for the Trump campaign donning the #Trump2024 tag appear for all U.S. users, even those who’ve blocked words, topics, and hashtags related to the candidate or his campaign or muted the advertiser.
Additionally, the #MAGA tag displays an edited image of the former president from his attempted assassination and the #Trump2024 hashtag displays an American flag.
It is unclear whether the Trump campaign paid for the images on the #Trump2024 and #MAGA tags, though an advertisement for the tag on the site’s trending page reads “Promoted by Team Trump.” As Mashable noted, it is the first time the platform has enabled the image feature to promote a specific political candidate.
Clicking the Trump2024 tag also prompts American flag graphics to flood the screen.
For certain content there really is no alternative. One example would be gaming, almost no studios/developers are on Mastadon.
I do have a gaming-focused Mastadon account and I do use it, but it’s not really comparable.
Oh no, what ever would we do without the tweets from game developers? How How will clickbait articles survive? On the plus side, they’d get a lot less death threats for updates to their games. And we wouldn’t have a new news article for every fucking tweet that gets made.
I see where you are coming from (even if you are being a bit glib), but the reality is such that the vast majority will go with the flow.
And trust me, my hate for Musk is way more than you can imagine. This is serious stuff.
Are you still using Twitter?
Yes, I do.
My national background and the current situation in my country makes Twitter an important source of information (I follow local news sites as well).
I used the gaming as an example as a more neutral topic of conversation.
Then you are part of the problem.
This also works the other way though - once a critical mass moves elsewhere, the mob is quick to follow. I would encourage you to be part of that early snowball that starts the avalanche - be the change.
I already mentioned that I do use Mastadon. You’re preaching to the choir.
As a game developer that has curated my mutual list of fellow developers, I’m saddened by the state of Twitter and genuinely have no alternative. A few folks have left for Threads, Mastodon, and BlueSky, but no community has coalesced on one platform. I would love to leave, but the fact is that if we want to communicate in a similar medium, we have to go where the people are. Right now, the people are still on Twitter.
Indies use twitter to create buzz. Be snide all you like but that’s a big deal for those people.
Write to their social media manager and ask them to mirror their content on a mastadon account so their community can grow with those that no longer use twitter.
I actually did try that twice (in a context where they would have more motivation than a typical dev/studio), no luck.
Don’t get me wrong, I do think we have to move of corporate social networking systems. I started actively using Lemmy about two months ago and I am enjoying it. However, we do have to be realistic about the state of the market.