nicole

I love Grey and think she is one of the most amazingly talented political writers I have ever known. But I feel compelled to disagree with her on this one. My personal story is why I disagree. Some facts about my X account: 1. I started it in 2016 because I was sick and tired of people libeling Donald Trump as “racist.” (Think what you want about the man, but he has never had a “racist" bone in his body.) 2. On Twitter, I never had more than 2,000 followers. I was never famous. I wrote the exact same stuff I write now, except I was constantly shadow-banned, suspended, suppressed in the algorithm and ultimately permanently suspended the night of the 2020 Biden/Trump debate. I was live-Tweeting the debate and was suddenly shut up, seemingly forever—for no known reason at all. 3. Elon bought Twitter, made it X, and set my account free. After that my writing and my following went through the roof. Elon Musk has reposted me. Vice President Vance has reposted me. I became a genuine author, publishing in real periodicals. I’ve been on many podcasts and radio shows. People read what I write. I get quoted and cited often in major media outlets. All with my little rando pseudonymous account. That would have been IMPOSSIBLE without X. 4. X promised to reward true content creators, and that has been abundantly true for me. I’ve never engagement farmed, I’ve never not produced original, long-form content, I play by the X rules and monetization has, in fact, rewarded me—X pays me enough to live on these days. 5. Yes, bad stuff happens. Once my pseudonym was stripped away, I received death threats. My threads are constantly full of rabid antisemitic hate and a wide variety of insane conspiratorialists. I block people often because of their insanity—usually crazed racists, many of whom are unhappy that I’m married to a strong black woman. The “Lists” feature is broken—I am constantly added to lists of “Pedophiles” and “Racists” and “Nazis.” I have to frequently monitor that and block the list creators to preserve my account. It’s hard work. 6. X is frustratingly opaque on its rules regarding the algorithm and monetization. Making the code visible works for engineers but not the average user—X needs to explain its policies in these areas in high detail and not change them every ten minutes. Creators are being chased away due to this uncertainty. Despite the bad things I mentioned above, X is the closest thing to a true free speech, global town square that has ever existed. Elon means well. Nikita means well. They have pledged to reward high-quality, original content, and they have. Are there still all kinds of nasty warts? Absolutely. But they are striving for constant improvement, even if sometimes their efforts don’t work. Most importantly, they have the strongest (although admittedly imperfect) commitment to free speech of any social media platform to ever exist. I hope Grey reconsiders. We need her ferocious voice. But I felt the need to offer a competing view so that maybe current creators and aspiring creators will not lose hope. The Constitution is full of holes and problems, but it is still the least imperfect system of governance that has ever existed. X also is full of holes and problems, but it is still the least imperfect free speech platform that has ever existed. Please do not lose hope and let’s make X work for all of us, whatever our level of interest.

Are Trump supporters misinformed, ignorant or just plain stupid?

Trevor Noah is 100% correct they are paying for fake trends now Drake Iceman currently has a campaign that’ll pay u if u get 100k views on X, TikTok or IG This not including the Kalshi, Stake, Polymarket etc … as well as what they paying big media pages for fake hype