cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/7435108

Thursday on X (Twitter), all users saw the same pinned topic under the “What’s happening?” sidebar. As part of a “timeline takeover” — which gives advertisers “priority access to logged-in users’ first impression of the day” — conservative media nonprofit PragerU is promoting the hashtag “#DETRANS” to advertise its new film about “the stories of detransitioners.”

      • The problem is that now you’re relying on a platform that’s entirely centered around being a bastion of hate speech. You would be doing the same thing if you based yourself on 4chan or Truth Social. Every moment you stay there and drive traffic through there, you have blood on your hands

        • Bloody hell, I hate this kind of absolutism. For example, Twitter is one of the only spaces online that Sex Workers can promote their content. There was a federated alternative, Switter was the third largest Mastodon instance, but it was forced to shut down. Often these are people who are doing sex work to survive. Transgender people make up a significant proportion of that demographic, as discrimination often precludes us from formal employment.

          But, according to you, those people have blood on their hands huh? People who have to sell their bodies using slurs so they can make rent…

      • So true. A lot of creators are actually very dependent on the accessibility of their content, but also the drama present on twitter. Mastodon takes patience not only from the creators but the users… What if they get bored before they see your content? Thats not good for business.

  • It’s grim. Obviously twitter still holds sway over a lot of people. And spreading malinformed propaganda is bad.

    But it really underlines that anyone with any conscience whatsoever needs to disengage from it. It’s not okay for governments to engage with it. And though I don’t suggest that capital cares has any sort of conscience, but engaging with it has been increasing in cost and decreasing in benefit. NPR recently left, for example, and saw nearly no impact whatsoever. So the cost of leaving is low.

    Ideally people would deny it any money, advertising or otherwise, until it ceases functioning. I suspect Musk will continue to be a delusional asshole for years to come. But at least twitter will be dead and gone.

  • I loved how much trans joy was actually in this movie. If they’re trying to detrans people its like… Wow look at all of these unbelievably happy trans people on youtube and tumblr. But did you know… If you take hormones for medical transition it has permanent effects? 👻

    Like… Yea, yea it does.

    Prager U is starting to look like controlled opposition. Inadvertently putting the highlight on all of this awesome LGBT2SQIA+ content and people.

  • 🤖 I’m a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles:

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    PragerU, which is not a university, aims to “preserve American ideals.” The organization has been criticized for doubting climate change and downplaying the realities of slavery.

    “PragerU has chosen X/Twitter specifically for this campaign, as it is one of the least censored social media platforms,” the organization wrote in a press release.

    PragerU calls the short documentary its “most important” video yet, but extensive research shows that detransitioning is incredibly uncommon.

    In spite of research indicating that these procedures are often life-saving and rarely result in regret, right-wing figures continue to drum up panic around gender-affirming care for LGBTQ+ people.

    X CEO Linda Yaccarino claims that the company will be profitable by 2024, but other evidence shows that the platform’s advertising business continues to suffer.

    As recently as this week, Musk has posted that he believes the word “cis” is a “heterosexual slur,” a personal position that reflects changes made to the company’s content moderation policies under his leadership.


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