There’s a scene in the original movie adaptation of H.G. Wells’ novel, The Time Machine, in which the time traveler tries to warn the Eloi not to listen to the call of the Morlocks that is summoning them to become food for the Morlocks. I have been trying to do the same thing, essentially, with regard to Xcrement – my neologism for what was once Twitter before Elon Musk rebranded it with his curiously fetishized “X.”
Maybe because it rhymes with opaque?
This is the first of many sound reasons why Xcrement is something best flushed. – because it’s a sure sign you’re involved with something that is probably not above-board when you aren’t allowed to understand how it works. No one really knows how X works – excepting those behind the curtain, of course. All we get to know is that there is an opaque algorithm that “boosts” the visibility of some but not others, according to criteria that are as impenetrable as the Talmud.
Xcrement is something like an arbitrary deity that one hopes will hear one’s prayers and – perhaps – deign to favor you. It is favor that is ephemeral, too. One day, the things you post on Xcrement are allowed to be seen by the algorithm; the next day, the algorithm frowns and you find you’re talking to the proverbial hand.
Xcrement is fundamentally all about money, not free speech. More precisely, it is set up to be a for-profit narcissism contest by one of the greatest narcissists of our age. Let’s see who can most effectively monetize self-promotion. Make a buck off the rubes by getting as many to “follow” as possible. This is to free speech what bleach in the eyes is to vision. It isn’t free, obviously. Like Musk himself, it is all about extraction – not creating something of value, such as the free dissemination of information.
This goes beyond the vulgar monetization of communication, too.
Xcrement is what Twitter was in that it is a vehicle for limiting communication in the literal sense. What you are reading right now cannot be posted on Xcrement because it is not truncated. Xcrement does not permit anyone to communicate in the way adults once did, because it is not possible to communicate as adults once did when you are limited to a couple of sentences at most. It is almost certainly true that Xcrement/Twitter was originally created in order to diminish adult conversation. Xcrement/Twitter would not allow the preamble to the Declaration of Independence to be posted because it is “too long” for the gnat-like attention span it was created to foster. What’s clearly wanted is a kind of running battle of quips and sound-bites, not thoughtful discussion.
Xcrement is also full of bots, which ought to be warrant enough for humans to retire from the scene. Is there anything more ridiculous – more pathetic – than grow men and women engaging in sound-bite battles with bots? Keep in mind that Xcrement not only allows this, it encourages this. It does nothing to clear the muddied waters – as in, separate the bots from the humans – because it wants the humans wasting their lives “talking” to the bots. It is possible this is because – as some have claimed – Xcrement is using the bots to train the AI that Musk wants to replace the humans. That this could even be a possibility ought to be enough to get people to stay away from Xcrement. 
But they don’t. They continue to play with it – apparently because they are like Charlie Brown and think that maybe this time, Lucy (Musk, the algorithm) will let me kick the football. I’ll be seen! I’ll become an influencer! I’ll make a lot of money! Do you see the common denominator?
Xcrement mirrors its owner’s pathological narcissism and infantilism. Musk – an aging, flabby-faced 50-something guy – still sees himself as a snarky teenager who is going to get lots of “bitches.” This is literally what he recently said, by the way.
That plus “party.”
Thanks, but no.
I’d rather have an intelligent discussion with real people – no matter how many characters it takes and without some opaque algorithm deciding whether it gets “boosted.”
. . .
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The responsible way to use social media is to only use it for gathering information, never disseminating information (unless the info dissemination is done in order to obfuscate your preferences to the AI).
“……it is a vehicle for limiting communication in the literal sense.” -Eric
Nailed it! That is what ALL social media (and all third-party involved electronic communication) is. Facebook; Reddit, smartphones that monitor and store your texts and emails, et al. This is why I have always refused to use socialist media- it is the mechanism by which free speech (and thought; and privacy) is destroyed.
Like voting, participation is to condone and enable that which destroys you.
They dangle the carrot of having an audience, to entice us…..but of what value is an audience if what it sees is a censored version of you; or if what you really say is hidden, and thus you really have no audience, except for your enemies who monitor you and decide what gets to be seen?
Twitter has utility. Normally I agree with you guys, but on this one, not so much. Where else can you simultaneously see your own displacement occurring on three continents? Traditional media will not cover anything showing the systemic collapse unfolding around us; state-approved apparatchiks only regurgitate the scripts handed to them. It won’t be long before Twitter falls to the wrath of AI censors who will examine every post ever made and hunt down the poster decades later, but in the meantime, you can still see what your leaders don’t approve of.
Bots are all over Twitter—that is true—but you can block them, unlike official media which bombards you with the state message.
A local niche news company recently ran a series about “Con Artists and the People Who Promote Them.” https://t2conline.com/con-artists-and-the-people-who-promote-them-part-i-the-fake-nobel-prize/ I met these people and knew the con for a while now. Stepping back, this con is no different from official media, just on a smaller budget. Everything is a con and a fake positioning of what is important. CNBC rah-rahs scam coins and AI. FOX rah-rahs Donny now that he does Adelson’s and Netanyahu’s bidding. CNN, MSNBC, etc., all do the same for the interests that own them. Hollywood has been doing it for over a century.
“Xcrement” should be applied to all of them; only X allows you, for now, to see what you are normally forbidden from seeing. There was a window where alternative news sites and aggregators did the same—Eric Peters Autos was one of them and he is still here—but lawfare and bans crippled many others. Look at what the Drudge Report has become; look at what they did to Infowars. Infowars occasionally ran something interesting; Drudge was the first outside of the regular media. I learned far more from those sites than I had in 16 years of schooling and another decade of media consumption.
I was a latecomer to Twitter/X and only began using it in 2019. The brilliance of a meme or the repost of a video before AI multiplied my understandings—I know it, too, is ending, but I will not forget what I have learned.
You have a point, but I participate in all of that without having an X account, or any other. When something worthwhile pops up on one of these platforms, I usually hear about it indirectly, often via commentary on sites like this one, while avoiding having to sludge through the dreck directly.
I cut my cable TV in 2000 or so, and have never signed up to Facebook, Instagram, X, Reddit, Drudge, Infowars or any other platform, but don’t feel uninformed about the current zeitgeist.
There are plenty of sites who keep up on that shit so we don’t have to. And plenty of sites like this one which allow the free exchange of information and conflict of ideas needed, long may they live. Support them as you are able.
I am not able, unfortunately – child support to the wealthy (new rich husband) mother of my adult children is crippling. But if I ever escape that extortion, Eric is first on my list for a few bucks.
If you allow someone else to take the pain in your stead are you really helping? I get it, you don’t want an account and that’s laudable. It’s wise not to put your personal information into too many databases that can be cross linked. But if you piggyback on a spouse, family or friend who is on X/Instgram/Facebook you’re still implicitly accepting the validity of it’s existence and feeding the beast. I prefer to be active in opposition. If someone gives you a Facebook or X handle tell them directly that you don’t do Facebook and X and that unless they have an alternative way to connect you won’t be doing business with them. The only thing that matters is money and unless the media companies and individuals feel the sting absolutely nothing is going to change.
Staying off social media is good. You don’t want accounts and personal information that can be brokered and cross linked.
If you let someone else, a spouse, friend, family do it and piggyback you’re still accepting the existence of the platform.
When someone tells me a Facebook or X handle I point blank tell them I don’t do social media and ask if they have an alternative way to stay in touch. If they don’t something else I thank them and let them know it’s unfortunate that there’s no way they’re going to get my business.
Everything comes down to money. Unless the media companies and individuals feel the sting in their wallets nothing can or will change.
Yes, I would rather interact with real people, even if we piss each other off at times, and/or disagree. What fun would it be to argue/spar/debate with a stupid, AI demon thing? Hell, in that case, having a conversation with myself would be far more entertaining (ha ha).
I removed Twitter from my life in 2016 after the presidential election had soured the platform so badly for me I just quit. What started out as a nice way to have group conversations with some interesting people became a mess of retweets, bitter sectarian anger and advertising.
I don’t miss it at all.
These days I’m on a small Mastodon server, and I’m very selective with who I follow. Keeps the signal to noise very low. I know I’m probably missing out on some good content on X (it seeps into my life even without trying) but I’m fairly sure I can live without it.
Fact is, all this social media crap has open alternatives. But they won’t get noticed, promoted or are even vilified because the mainstream/government can’t control them. X took a lot of its functionally from APRS, which was developed by amateur radio operators. It started out as an SMS relay service, which is pretty useful. But then it became about followers and ego and revenue. The message no longer mattered, just it if gets noticed.
Time to leave and do your own thing.
Ironic that AX.25 has been dropped from the Linux kernel. Lack of users and no one wants to do the work to maintain it.
https://lists.debian.org/debian-hams/2019/07/msg00035.html
https://daily.hamweekly.com/2026/04/linux-kernel-removes-ax25-hamradio-subsystem-support/
Seems to me a different angle of the same problem this article touches on. Everyone complains but no one does anything about it.
The author’s right, Twitter/X blows. But he’s still on it. Things needs energy to keep going, be that clicks, money, whatever. If people closed their accounts on Facebook and X they would disappear just like Myspace and AOL did before.
To stop those monsters, one-two-three,
Here’s a fresh new way that’s trouble-free,
It’s got Paul Anka’s guarantee.
Just don’t look!
(Guarantee void in Tennessee)
Data over amateur radio is going to take a lot of work to become useful again. I remember the 1200 baud packet network days, that’s what got me interested in ham radio to begin with. It was really interesting to connect to a BBS that was 100 miles away using a small 5-ish Watt HT and a homemade antenna. Of course it took ages to just read a short text bulletin, with 3 digipeater hops to get there.
The fact is, there’s no real way to get beyond that 1200 baud limit without better radios. Commercial manufacturers aren’t going to build them, because the FCC won’t allow them. And there’s little demand from the hams either, having given up on packet for the Internet. But losing AX.25 from the kernel is just fine, all the modern stuff runs in userspace already. And AX.25 is far too constrained for modern data networks, with very small payloads and no real progress on the protocol since the 1990s.
I’m with the others & don’t see the appeal of twitter / x / whatever. This is as close to social media as I get. Thanks to EP for everything he does.
‘Freedom of the press is limited to those with $10 million for a printing press.’ Or something like that. I suspect there’s more going on behind the activities of these platforms than we know.
Thanks for giving us Before-Time anachronisms a place to yap freely, Eric.
Absolutely, cobblestones!
I am a proponent of both free speech and decentralization. I wish more people would disconnect from entities such as Xcrement and spend more time on sites (like this one) that actually do support free speech and aren’t “big box” like Xcrement is.
“spend more time on sites (like this one)”
Indeed!
I love your site and read it, and much of the comments daily, though I don’t post many any more. Rheumatoid arthritis has made my hands near useless, and I just don’t get any thrill from dictation software
Thanks, John!
And – unlike Musk – I’m not a grifter or a bot!
“I’d rather have an intelligent discussion with real people – no matter how many characters it takes and without some opaque algorithm deciding whether it gets ‘boosted’.”
Well said, Eric.
I’ve never seen the ‘allure’ of Twitter and even though I believe the old character limit has now been lifted, the quality of content has not improved.
The same can be said about any of the major ‘social media’ networks.
Even Gab, which prides itself on allegedly ‘allowing free speech’ pushed through a ban on users accessing the site via VPN.
They did have an excuse – apparently they were being pressured to do so by the British government – but that only demonstrates that ANY network or site relying on centralized server infrastructure is and always will be at risk of sudden closure, or at least creeping censorship.
If people truly do want to use social media – and many clearly do – then the only sensible approach is to boycott the ‘Xs’, the Facebooks, the Instagrams, the Goolags and so on.
Decentralized alternatives exist; the only thing they need is more users, so content creators would consider them worthwhile.
As things stand now, the creator’s content, often the result of years of work, may be demonetized and canceled at any time. By an algorithm, or by a bold grifter with fake hair. Take your pick.