I had planned to cease using Twitter on 20 January in protest at Trump's election and his promotion of Elon Musk. However, events have overtaken that plan.
It is now quite clear that Elon Musk is a threat to democracy and global economic and political stability. His attitudes also create risk for hundreds of millions, if not billions, of people around the world and any risk of association with anything linked to him has to now be avoided, in my opinion.
As a result, I have decided to cease using my Twitter account from now on. I will not delete it because it includes data on almost 100,000 tweets that I do not want to lose, but I am no longer willing to add to that number while Musk controls that channel and opposes almost everything that I believe in.
I will now use BlueSky as my main social media platform for this type of content, but I also post links to this blog and to my videos on Mastodon.
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I don’t use YouTube but read and value your opinions published here on taxresearch.org.uk.
Perhaps you could reconsider publishing the YouTube transcripts here?
Where?
They are published on this blog.
Thanks – I think I miss the fact that you used to post a link to the transcripts on your blog.
I don’t think I can do that and the vbideo itself on those platforms…
Musk is unpredictable and dangerous. He claims to be on the Autistic Spectrum (Asperger’s Syndrome) so is neuro non- typical which further complicates his increasing political involvement and influence.No two individuals on the Autistic Spectrum present in the same way however there are common traits some of which Musk displays including obsessive behaviour, lack of empathy, inability to form and sustain successful relationships, ineffective and inappropriate social interaction and a lack of awareness of others minds.It is likely that he is absolutely convinced he is always right and he will not be open to influence. And he has got Trumps eat.
I am not sure this is an appropriate argument. Being on the neuro-divergent spectrum is not a problem, nor does it explain anti-social behaviour. To suggest it does is wrong.
I have just come off a call with the Police. My son is autistic and presents both verbal and physical challenging behaviour towards staff and neighbours and towards others he interacts with especially when his chronic anxiety levels are high. Being on the autistic spectrum is hugely problematic in many ways. I have never sought to excuse his behaviour and regard it as unacceptable. My comments are intended to provide context and insight in connection with Musk and I am not seeking to defend or excuse him. If he is non neuro typical he will experience and respond to his situation and the world in a very different way. My son is in his late 30s and I still struggle to understand his very complex and at times challenging behaviour. One of the most difficult behaviours is unpredictablity and very rapid changes in demeanour. I hope this helps to clarify?
I sympathise Werner.
But most neuro-divergent people do not have difficulties in that way. That is my point.
I have autism spectrum condition and I oppose Musk on every issue. The man is dangerous, and exactly how Richard describes him. Musk may possibly be on the autism spectrum, but I suspect something else is the reason for him being so evil. I have a huge amount of empathy (the lack of empathy as an autism diagnosis is something I disagree with). I care more about humanity and the other creatures of this Earth than I do myself!
I am increasingly aware of this issue, as is apaprent here. A lack of empathy is not somthing I see amongst those I know on the autistic spectrum. It is often the exact opposite, which casues stress. I agree with you.
Sorry Richard – long response: publishing is not required, and by now probably no-one is looking but…
I worked at a FE/HE College in the south for about 15 years, in support for students: could be a 16 year old electrician or beauty student, could be a degree student at the HE part doing law or Social Sciences or whatever. That range. My expertise (sic) was working with students with disabilities – physical, mental health, medical and later sensory (I’m a qualified teacher), helping them cope from the academic side, while Counsellors helped from the other side. In the end my team employed a specific and trained person to work with those with Asperger’s and Autism (I know everyone says “spectrum” but it’s really not, nor is a linear or even spherical metaphor useful – the variations are far too great), but I worked with many who had Asperger’s (diagnosed) and were atypical (a Performing Arts student springs to mind) and typical (a 17 year old student with a mild learning difficulty who had managed to get himself contributing to WikiHow on medical matters – people wrote in to him urgently). You are right to shift against the idea anyone neuro-divergent (current terminology – it will be something else in ten years time, but mean the same) is dangerous, but I cannot agree with you with what I take to be your implication that there are not often severe consequences. My example is from the same place but with a member of staff. I was the UCU secretary/chair/bottlewasher etc and a mature lecturer in Civil Engineering was in trouble – he had lost a student[s very important essay (on paper – this was about 2007). He had not found it, so ignored the matter. Trouble. His manager and his manager’s manager were furious, the student was furious, he was in danger of missing the deadline for the qualification (HND). The lecturer was baffled – rough quote “I turned that office inside out, I looked everywhere – it wasn’t there, so there was nothing I could do”. He was not diagnosed Asperger’s etc but I believed clearly was – I invited him to my office and provide two easy chairs for us – he chose to sit on a tall chair looking down at me. Messages to me came on paper, then on scraps of paper, including written in thick felt tip pen (green). I sorted it in the end – the student was okay, the lecturer kept his job (could never see I’d done anything of course), the managers were pacified. Not problematic? Sorry Richard.
Noted.
But I have seen such indifference in collagues who I am quite sure are neurotypcial.
I have to say, I am not sure your case proves much except that there are people who really do not get the meaning of responsibility. They are definitely not all neuro-divergent. By and large I find those who are ND take responsibil;iuty far too seriously, over-thinking it enormously. But not everyone, of course. This is just another spectrum, that’s all.
There was a very soft-ball interview of an obscure past press officer of UKIP and the Brexit Party for Farage (not even Reform), on BBC Radio Scotland GMS this morning. It was supposed to be an interview about Elon Musk, but the interviewee was allowed to turn it into an attack on John Swinney, the SNP and other parties (but not Badenoch or Farage, who was given a free ticket), and Towler obliged by providing an extempore, free Party Political Broadcast for Reform courtesy of the BBC. He appeared to accuse the interviewer, after one question (about grooming, which was slightly blurred by Towler talking across the interviewer), of being more concerned about pursuing the issue of right wing politics than the mass rape of children. There was no response from the interviewer.
I will provide two gems (Towlerisms), that I think provides all you need to know about the genius behind Reform and right wing politics. He claimed the suggested Musk donation to Reform was a “made up story by the Sunday Times”; then almost immediately suggested “it may happen”. But the ripest gem was this: “as a press officer, trust me”. And that is how politics is now done. Policies? There aren’t any. Nobody does anything, anyway. Thinking? There isn’t any; can’t have people thinking, that would never do; you may find that nobody trusts a politician ever again. All you do in politics is point an accusatory finger. And then point it in the opposite direction, in the very next sentence. Contradiction? It doesn’t matter. Nobody will remember. People only listen to propaganda; all they want is confirmation of their worst prejudices.
Flushing out people’s prejudices, and targeting them in the interest of political parties and their vested interests is what digital technology is good at, and what it is for in politics. And that is the politics we now have, and how it is done.
I have heard some soft interviews, particularly of Labour, but also Conservative and LibDem (never SNP) on BBC Scotland, but rarely as soft as this. It isn’t good enough, but the BBC can ‘get away’ with virtually anything. We know that, because however bad the failure, like Saville and the rest; precisely nothing ever happens.
Good for you Richard, and not before time. I follows about eight OSINT people (mainly related to the war in Ukraine) and nearly all have moved to Bluesky. You’re absolutely correct about Musk – as many people are beginning to realise – and his influence will only get worse once Trump takes over. That said, I do agree with the argument put forward by a number of the MSNBC commentators that I follow (e.g. Chris Hayes) that there are so many irreconcilable differences between Trumps MAGA base and the tech (and other) billionaires that he now sides with, that there any honeymoon Trump enjoys will not last long. Indeed we’ve already seen one area of battle – immigration. Add to that the fact that the Republicans only have a small majority in Congress and things are going to get very messy when it comes to getting anything actually done, although there I expect Trump/Musks totalitarian tendencies to come to the fore. There’s going to be an awful lot of people suffering from ‘buyer’s remorse’ that’s for sure.
I hope so
The only chance that people will see through the right wing nonsense is for this to go wrong
@Ivan Horrocks
“There’s going to be an awful lot of people suffering from ‘buyer’s remorse’ that’s for sure”
It has already begun. True MADAts do not like Musk.
Macron said in a speech last night that France might freeze Musks assets and possibly prosecute him for interference in European elections. Starmer made a push back yesterday against Musks ridiculous accusations, European leaders seem to be talking, they need to showtime action.
@Geoff – I feel fairly certain that Michael Hudson is right about Macron (and the rest of European leadership, including the UK) that as we are effectively a country under occupation, despite the blather, they’ll all do what they’re told, against the interests of their voters. Else Germany/EU would maintain Russian gas supplies. Starmer won’t be able to govern for much longer and the UK will be plunged into the same difficulties facing all the other governments in Europe which promote war and austerity.
I am not sure I follow your reasoning
I did a little test on Twitter X search.
Put in the name Nigel, and the first name that comes up is Nigel Farage.
Put in the name Tom, and the second name that comes up is Tommy Robinson.
Put in the name Richard, and the third name that comes up is Richard Tice.
Despite Musk now of the belief that Farage isn’t Far-Right enough, he’s still number one on the search.
And there are many well known Tom’s, but the search comes up with a fascist currently in prison called Tommy at number two.
Of all the Richard’s in the world, Tice comes up number three on a Twitter X search. Seriously?
I suspect that this search return is aimed at British users.
It’s clear the way the wind is blowing at Twitter X. Reports suggest that around 3 million UK Twitter users have left since Musk took over.
I can see why you are moving on.
Thanks
I got the same result for Tice
I have been uncomfortable about your use of Twitter for a long time (I myself walked away from my 12 thousand followers the day Musk took over) though I do understand your need to spread your message, which is important. I’m glad you have finally made the move, though I suspect you have jumped from the frying pan to the fire in supporting BlueSky, another commercially-driven platform.
Perhaps we can now also persuade you to stop burning the planet’s resources with your use of AI? Moral gestures are important.
I live in the real world
If you pursue your arguments I should not blog and definitely not make YouTubes
Being a solitary monk might change things, but I doubt it
So, why give up AI when YouTube will burn more?
Just came across this on Nexta TV (an east European news site I follow). Looks like Zuckerberg is set to go the same way as Musk. Certainly, Facebook etc are set to follow the X model, that’s for sure.
https://x.com/nexta_tv/status/1876629664766341431
This is now being widely reported
Facebook is allowing a conspiracy theory free for all for the far-right
I might have to abandon there as well
A fair point. Given the need to resist current trends to the best of our ability, it’s perhaps unfair to criticise the use of any tool which helps to get the message across. But then, to use your justification, why abandon Twitter? I suppose, in the end we all have to decide where we draw our lines, and inevitably we will all decide differently. Personally, I feel uncomfortable using AI if I can avoid it, but as you point out, maybe that’s not the rational place to draw the line. I wish there were better ways I could help to fix the world.
Twitter is entirely about Musk and the far-right
I don’t think the discussion about Musk’s diagnosis of neurodivergence is relevant. It certainly doesn’t excuse or justify anything. Musk is just a playboy member of a wealthy White South African family who has somehow acquired so much money he now thinks he can buy anyone or anything he chooses, and do as he pleases. He regards everyone and everything as existing solely to serve him. This is pretty typical I expect from someone with his background. You’ll remember his famous tweet when criticised for supporting the Bolivian coup d’etat to get at the country’s lithium: ‘We’ll coup whoever we like’.
A technocrat who believes that technology can give him complete power , he was part of the ‘Great Reset’ conspiracy which sought to take complete control of the planet and everything and everyone on it. He has made no secret of his ideas of implanting chips in peoples’ brains (‘Neurolink), of filling the sky with surveillance satellites so there will be nowhere to hide, of using the internet to capture every possible detail about people and build a worldwide database that the Gestapo would be delighted with. He and his friends at the World Economic Forum would become a world dictatorship. The manifesto of ‘You’ll own nothing and you’ll be happy’ is perfectly clear. And as Charles Windsor said in 2020 the pandemic was the perfect opportunity to introduce the (dystopian) new normal. Musk and his friends, apparently ‘own the science’ and the ‘truth’. Let nobody question that! Everything we did, everywhere we would go, everything we said or even thought would be controlled by him and his friends. Even our money would become mere tokens to be spent as and where we were permitted, in a modern version of the truck system. However this nightmare, thank goodness, is now failing. The truth is coming out, and the perpetrators are becoming increasingly desperate to avoid the inevitable consequences. The whole thing was really an expression of American unipolarism led by the robber barons that have run the US for well over 100 years.
Musk has realised that he is not all-powerful after all. He depends on US government contracts. Trump, like Johnson, were originally installed as clowns to distract and entertain the public while he and his friends got on with the real business of power. The entire apparatus of government in the UK and US was taken over, bought and sold, bullied and blackmailed, and given their instructions through Tufton Street and elsewhere. Nobody dared to speak out. Even the courts jailed the climate protestors when told to. But Trump is not so easily controlled. Unlike May, Johnson, Sunak, Starmer, Harris, Biden etc, Trump will be nobody’s puppet.
Previously trying to stay behind the scenes and play both sides in American politics, the return of Trump frightened him . Musk has also watched the rise of the BRICS countries who are building a future that does not depend on him or America: one of them, South Africa, is where his family are. He builds his stuff in China. He cannot upgrade the power grids fast enough to power it, or force consumer acceptance. The Russians even threatened to take down his Starlink satellites after his intervention in Ukraine. And no doubt Russia and China, not mention his oligarch rivals, will be planning their own Starlink networks to compete with his. Above all, he is as dependent on the oil and gas industry as the rest of globalism. That industry has no intention of allowing its assets to be stranded or to hand over power to Big Pharma or Big Tech. So he just came out in public and joined the Trump campaign, hoping to control him. He also started to do in public what he and his friends have been doing quietly for a long time – fund the fascists, frighten people, divide and rule. Last summer he thought he’d succeeded and happily announced a civil war in the UK, but it didn’t work.
Musk is actually going nowhere. Trump is shrewd and he isn’t going to be anyone’s puppet. He knows that the technocrats of the WEF are on the way out. He is not Musk’s natural ally at all. He keeps his friends close and his enemies closer. He’ll take Musk’s money but as soon as it suits him, I’m sure he’ll throw Musk under a bus- just to prove he can. Even the world’s richest man will be seen as no match for Trump.
I think Musk is – at some level – aware of this. His increasing desperation to prove his own power leads him to throw his money around more and more wildly, trying to cause chaos -mainly in Europe – because in America he can;t afford to upset Trump. Perhaps he thinks we will all come to him as our saviour. But those whom the gods would destroy they first make mad and Musk is a megalomaniac. He almost certainly believes that if he can’t possess the planet, nobody will. He would rather destroy everything and head off to Mars with his followers to ‘start again’. I just hope he takes off before he causes any more destruction – and stays up there. I certainly won’t be joining him.
It is becoming increasingly difficult to find a safe space on social media.
I left Twitter/X in September, leaving behind 5000 followers (small beer to many but still a decent community) and started using Threads, but now they are removing fact checking I fear I will be moving on again. Blue sky seems to be the next step.
However I do feel an element of guilt. If we all leave then the noise in the alt right echo chambers could be come so loud that it drowns out the truth everywhere if it is not challenged.
Even with that in mind I was tired of the abuse and lies a number of right wing activists and groups were telling about me that I can never go back and retain my sanity,
There is a simple rule for surviving social media – which is ignore the comments.
I did on Twitter.
By and large I do on YouTube, although it is a much nicer place, overall.
The only plcae I do not is here.
But I do agree about abandoning Twitter to the right to some degree – because that means the neutrals will only get one view.
Now might be a good time to update your sidebar. You currently have follow me links to your LinkedIn, Mastodon, Twitter, and Instagram.
That is on my agenda
Twitter and Instagram would go