X suspends pro-Nazi account after two brands halt advertising

DeschutesCore

Ars Scholae Palatinae
1,079
It may sound insane but I think there is an ongoing attempt to recruit him. People sent Aurich hate mail. Now it's totally possible it was the misguided doing that but one of the favorite tricks Nazis like to play, especially on Twitter, is pretending to be, say "Antifa" and then proceeding to alienate the middle.

Around 2015, Cernovich paid a certain "Microchip" 5k a month to operate thousands of accounts for this purpose. I know because I impersonated Microchip and DMed the prick who admitted it.

Anyway, point is, Aurich is not a Nazi. He's not even ideologically Nazi adjacent although he might be digitally Nazi adjacent and not know it. Please don't attack him. Ars is one of the very few places I consider to be a relative safe space as strange as it sounds. I have seen the care Aurich has put into moderating trans threads. He is not a Nazi and doesn't tolerate them.
I'm not attacking him at all, just replying to someone else's question.

It's the immediacy of how fast he just shows up and insists we're all delusional and being theatrical. I mean, it IS a forum, so yeah, but the point stands.
 
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-4 (10 / -14)
It's always the main guy. Have there been any authoritarian regimes led by a woman? Marie Antoinette seems closest, but I was wondering if that's something which has happened in the 20th century.
Maybe not always the face of the regime, but being an autocratic despot is not a gendered thing:
Imelda Marcos
Sheikh Hasina (the Wikipedia article on her is incredibly kind and whitewashed, probably because journalists who would edit it to criticize her have a tendency to disappear, or be macheted to death by a mob)

And then plenty of historical queens and empresses who were cruel dictators. Often illegimately as a Dowager Queen.
 
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15 (15 / 0)
I think Musk's goal is to survive another 8 months and wait for that SuperPac money to roll in from advertisement.
Then get really angry about the EU taking 6% of it.

Unless Musk can get Twitter's userbase down low enough that the DSA won't apply to it. I'm not sure if Musk can drive away users that quickly.

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How about "gratuitous gore" coming soon? Seriously, these explanations and differences between them give me creeps.
Oh, that's not coming soon.

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-n...-twitter-adding-concerns-moderation-rcna84190
On a related note, now that Twitter is renamed to X, Elon is no longer 'Chief Twit', is he?

What's his new title? 'Chief Xit'?
I'm just waiting for someone to squeeze him hard enough to pop.

Metaphorically.
 
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17 (17 / 0)
Where else would they go?

Bluesky explicitly does not want accounts like Ars Technica on it. Threads might as well be Facebook for how effective it is at letting anything you post there be seen. It should be clear at this point that Mastodon is not a useful platform for most people.

I'm sure a lot of people would love to abandon Twitter, but other than abandoning the concept of social media entirely, there's nowhere to go.
Perhaps, but then that is the new reality, it's not like a platform with wide and easy reach existing is an inalienable right of humanity. I'm sure the money on the line is non-zero, but then the cost of staying is going up, associating with this crap while pretending it's still OK.

Clinging to the fast sinking ship to scrape every possible coin out of it is not a great look for any organization.

Something, possibly ActivityPub based that is a better fit for wider consumption, will surely come. Those affected, with the means, can invest in making it happen, as some orgs/companies are already trying to do - like making Mastodon itself better.

It's probably easy to armchair this and I don't see how joined at the hip with Twitter some entities are/were, but then again, the reality has changed, and the bird is truly gone, even if there isn't a replacement currently.

Edit: seeing hestermofet's numbers though, yeah. There's no excuse.
 
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19 (19 / 0)
Anyway, point is, Aurich is not a Nazi. He's not even ideologically Nazi adjacent although he might be digitally Nazi adjacent and not know it.
I agree with you on point one and two, but there is definitely a problem with being digitally Nazi adjacent, and emphatically arguing that it's not a big deal, I don't even see any of these Nazis you keep talking about. Even though people point it out to you in every single Twitter frontpage article. Note Aurich's conspicuous absence in this Ars article about Nazis on Twitter. He's aware. He's very, very aware. He just chooses to tell us he's not. Ars is one of the safest spaces on the Internet, but Aurich is not Ars, and the more he doubles down on his position WRT Twitter, the more uncomfortable it becomes.
Please don't attack him.
I think it's perfectly fair for people to attack someone for constantly trying to gaslight us into thinking the Sudetenland Twitter wasn't just annexed by the Nazis.
 
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-2 (14 / -16)
delusional and being theatrical
It can seem that way, no offense. And probably some of it might be because of the sort of gaslighting I mentioned in my previous post, but it's not Aurich who is responsible for that. If you're here on Ars in the comments Xitting on Aurich but not Elmo, I have sus.

Aurich isn't perfect, but I don't think he's lying when he says he sees no Nazis personally on Xitter either. I would take that at face value and ask why instead.
 
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20 (21 / -1)
I agree that not supporting Nazis is difficult. The inconvenience, significant though it is, can often be justified by considering the personal consequences likely to come from living in a world controlled by Nazis. The suffering of others can also factor into your decision making.

I am cut off from my local council, a motorcycle owners club and am last to know about things happening in astrophysics because I won’t give in to people who hate and bully me. But I sleep pretty well.
At the end of the day, you can always choose being a member of a motorcycle club is more important to me than boycotting Nazi businesses that just opened the doors to even more Nazis.
 
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7 (9 / -2)
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By that I meant that Nazis might be trying to mess with him without his knowledge, not the sort of thing you're twisting it into.
The most complicated explanation is always more likely than the simpler explanation that he simply doesn't care that Twitter is replete with Nazis and owned by someone who is a Nazi in all but armband and stupid mustache. I mean, the guy keeps telling us he doesn't care. As long as you don't hang out in the Nazi neighbourhoods, or use a block list, or do X, it's perfectly ok Musk's Twitter is doing nothing about Nazis. Yet you decide it's better to make some conspiracy theory instead of accepting Aurich's plain language excuses at face value for why he's still on Twitter despite the Nazis. But sure, poor Aurich's been duped into thinking there are no Nazis on Twitter by Nazis despite many articles to that effect written by the publication that he is employed by, and we're the ones who are crazy and theatrical.
 
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4 (16 / -12)
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Note Aurich's conspicuous absence in this Ars article about Nazis on Twitter.
Every Xitter article's comments have been a trash fire for years. I don't blame him for avoiding them.
The most complicated explanation is always more likely than the simpler explanation that he simply doesn't care that Twitter is replete with Nazis and owned by someone who is a Nazi in all but armband and stupid mustache. I mean, the guy keeps telling us he doesn't care.
No, that's you projecting. The simplest explanation is, yeah he likely uses a blocklist or something. I think Ars should leave Xitter too, but from a standpoint of damage to Xitter alone I'd consider it a better move to stay, keep pushing (almost exclusively negative) articles about Elon, and make Elmo push the actual ban button. Banning journalists is super bad press. Throttling journalists is bad press even. If you're a regular Joe, 💩 on the keyboard until Elmo bans you. Leaving quietly is what fascists want.

Edit: Elon -> Elmo
 
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12 (15 / -3)
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Every Xitter article's comments have been a trash fire for years. I don't blame him for avoiding them.
FIrst, it's his job to particpate. You know, in order to moderate them. Second, he DOES participate, to keep arguing why he's justified in staying on Twitter despite the Nazis.
No, that's you projecting. The simplest explanation is, yeah he likely uses a blocklist or something.
He doesn't see Nazis, fine. Again, I ask, does he not read the Ars articles detailing all the ways in which Nazis have taken over the platform? And he's still ok with that.
I think Ars should leave Xitter too, but from a standpoint of damage to Xitter alone I'd consider it a better move to stay, keep pushing (almost exclusively negative) articles about Elon, and make Elmo push the actual ban button. Banning journalists is super bad press. Throttling journalists is bad press even. If you're a regular Joe, 💩 on the keyboard until Elmo bans you. Leaving quietly is what fascists want.
I'm not talking about Ars, I'm talking about Aurich's personal account. Which would be fine except he keeps participating in front-page comment threads to tell us there's no problem with being on Twitter despite the Nazis.
 
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-14 (7 / -21)
Because Ars is one of the few organizations writing critically about Xitter and Elmo. Also Aurich is not a fucking Nazi and those who allude to that aren't arguing in good faith.
Did I say Aurich is a Nazi? I explicitly said he is not. To continually claim I am is arguing in bad faith. This is not about Aurich being a Nazi.

JFC dude, your own quote says Aurich and not Ars:
If you're here on Ars in the comments Xitting on Aurich but not Elmo, I have sus.
I know you know the difference, so stop pretending that I don't.

And again, Aurich is NOT Ars. You can criticize one employee's bullshit justifications to continue to use it personally, without making any negative inferences about his employer.
 
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1 (13 / -12)
blah blah blah
Here you are on Ars, on an article that's quite openly critical of Nazis, Xitting on Aurich but not Nazis. And I has a sus.

I know Aurich isn't a Nazi and isn't sympathetic because of how he handles threads worth moderating, which isn't Twitter threads full of drama, outsized personality, and yes, theatrics of every conceivable form.
 
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-15 (6 / -21)
Here you are on Ars, on an article that's quite openly critical of Nazis, Xitting on Aurich but not Nazis. And I has a sus.
Yeah, all my posts in this thread up to this point have been singing the praises of Nazism. :rolleyes:

I don't even know how to respond to such a stupid post.
 
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-6 (9 / -15)
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Uragan

Ars Legatus Legionis
11,391
Is it stupid? Like one of the best ways to mess with a community is to pretend to be one of them and exaggerate the natural human tendency to circular firing squad.

The purity test is far more damaging than open trolling. Likewise attacking the mods for not being pure enough isn't going to earn your side any points with them. Of course that's entirely the point. And I might even be amenable to the idea if I didn't see how carefully he moderated threads concerning the most vulnerable, which, again isn't Twitter posters even if they are very good at pretending.
Who else argued for "purity"? 🤔
 
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6 (9 / -3)

nimelennar

Ars Tribunus Angusticlavius
10,045
Wait, isn't slapstick the lowest form of humor?
I wouldn't think so; it operates on the level of schadenfreude, so you have to put effort into making the audience want to see the character humbled. Take Wile E. Coyote, for example: all he has to do to stop getting hurt is stop hunting the Road Runner. His injuries are all, directly or indirectly, self-inflicted because of that quest.

Or Rincewind, from the Discworld books. He is introduced as greedy, cowardly, and vain. So, when he spends the rest of the first few books bouncing from insult to injury and back again, it's funny. But when he actually earns a moment of heroism, the misfortune that befalls him afterwards isn't funny; it's treated with pathos (until the next story starts, it's made clear that he's okay and still the same old coward, and then he's back to slapstick).

Slapstick has moral complexity, and punning is just playing on coincidence of sounds; I find it hard to rate the former as a lower form of humour than the latter.
 
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17 (17 / 0)
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People I know in the LA aerospace industry are amazed by the sky-high (pun) turnover at Space X, with ex-employees reporting that they will never come back, ever. Space X works because they have a wait-list of applicants eager to get in. Its business model looks more and more like the videogame industry. This is not just X formerly known as Twitter...
Would you have anything reporting on this?

High churn with employees seems to be something of a pattern with Elon's business. Tesla operates like this, and has for a while... as far back as the Model 3 announcement.
This is the first that I am hearing this with SpaceX, but with Starlink (it's adjacent business) the turnover is so bad that it is a joke among the IT world.
Then there is Twitter...
 
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21 (21 / 0)

Old Bitsmasher

Ars Centurion
346
Subscriptor++
It's still useful for those following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Believe it or not, your Twitter experience will be pretty good still if you are aggressively using the Lists feature. Algorithm and tinker-free, straight up chronological lists.
The War Zone is just as useful (albeit with a slight time lag) and has the benefit of informed commentary and no requirement to wade in a cesspool.
 
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16 (16 / 0)

Celery Man

Ars Legatus Legionis
10,060
Aurich has had a lot of Arsians telling him to abandon Twitter since Musk took over.
But the vintage arcade community! You can’t just stop discussing your hobby of collecting big wooden boxes with a TV and computer inside because of little things like “Nazism” or “child porn”!
 
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17 (23 / -6)

graylshaped

Ars Legatus Legionis
68,618
Subscriptor++
I am not going to go on Threads, or Mastodon, or Post, or Blue Sky, or whatever Please Waste Your Time social network flavor of the month is.

The only winning move is not to play. It has sucked out too much of my energy and time, and I now know better.

If you are going to do social networking, the only one worth investing into is LinkedIn - that can have a direct impact on your life.
The Ars forums scratch my social media itch. You do know these forums are social media, one assumes.
 
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26 (26 / 0)
But that's no reason to call this person a Nazi or a fascist. Why does the left have to call everyone they disagree with a Nazi?


/s
---

Edit: I can't believe we've reached the point where a satirical post making fun of the "don't call them Nazis" crowd by saying that about someone literally "celebrating Hitler and the Nazi Party" is indistinguishable from reality.

However, the votes on this post and replies to it seem to tell a different tale, so, for those who need it: I have appended a satire tag.
I think it's alt-right bots. Somehow the downs almost equal the ups every time, and I think the strategy is to make it look like their side is pretty popular but if it goes down to the very bottom no one will see it so they try to keep it "neutrally bouyant". At least that's my interpretation.
 
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But the vintage arcade community! You can’t just stop discussing your hobby of collecting big wooden boxes with a TV and computer inside because of little things like “Nazism” or “child porn”!
Are you Roger Horton? That sounds like an Honest Ad for X(tinct).
 
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-1 (0 / -1)
So, accounts that post spam are now an official type of account? Weird, I heard that Musk was going to stop all the accounts that post spam.
well he will stop all the accounts that are posting spam... when he drives the service into the ground and gets it shutdown. can't have any accounts posting spam if there are no accounts at all.
 
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14 (14 / 0)
If you are supporting the company that supports Nazis, then you are also supporting Nazis.
Yea.

But I can also promise you that, going through you (or my) house I can find things built by slave labor in one form or another. Right off the bat: clothing, shoes, and electronics are likely to contain child labor or forced-labor a-la fox con.

So, yes. Leave Twitter (I'm not on it). Decry their failure to properly shun and block Nazis. Rejoice that advertisers have taken a stand. And then, maybe, use this as a prod to start looking at the behaviors of some of the other companies we give business to. Chick-fil-a finally stopped donating to anti-LGBTQ hate groups in 2021 (though its owner still does). I suspect a lot of us were eating there.

This is not a defense of X or Musk or Nazis. Quite the opposite. Shame on them. Don't give them business. Now, let's start doing more social good by investigating and limiting our business elsewhere. Perhaps we can change the world for the better.
 
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