Post

How to get URL link on X (Twitter) App

On the Twitter thread, click on or icon on the bottom
Click again on or Share Via icon
Click on Copy Link to Tweet
Paste it above and click "Unroll Thread"!
More info at Twitter Help

Vatnik Soup

@P_Kallioniemi

Aug 28, 2024 • 28 tweets • 21 min read • Read on X

Scrolly

In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce further details about South African-American businessman and social media figure, Elon Musk (@elonmusk). He’s best-known for running companies like Tesla, SpaceX & Twitter/X, and for using the latter for political campaigning.

1/25

In this soup, I will focus on how his social media platform Twitter/X has become a cesspool filled with racism, propaganda & conspiracy theories. Elon himself, living fully in denial, has stated that “X has the truth” & that X is actually “the only place to find the truth”.

2/25

Elon has claimed that X’s community-driven content moderation program, Community Notes, corrects disinformation spread on X. This couldn’t be further from the truth, as most made-up stories are never Community Noted. And if they do, the notes are hardly ever seen by anyone.

3/25

Since Elon fired 80% of engineers who worked on X’s trust and safety, the moderation system on X has been in shambles. Allegedly, the decisions are AI-based and focus on volume - the more reports, the bigger the impact. Also, the bigger the account, the more difficult…

4/25

…it is to suspend, even in case of clear Terms of Service violations. One contributor said that the Notes system is “probably making the disinformation worse.” As of today, the company doesn’t have any full-time staff singularly dedicated to hateful conduct issues globally.
5/25

I have previously written about Elon being a massive social media megaphone, that can sway people’s opinions on basically anything. While garnering this following, he has also stumbled deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories and extreme ideologies.

6/25

His recent pet peeve was the newly elected government in the UK, led by Keir Starmer. According to Elon, UK was a strong opponent of free speech, comparing their laws to those of Soviet Union. But Keir Starmer was a perfect target for Elon’s silly antics also for…

7/25

…another reason: his left-wing politics. In Aug 2024, violent riots erupted all around the UK after a Cardiff resident killed three and injured 10 in a stabbing in Southport, UK. Soon after this, large social media accounts, including Andrew Tate, Tommy Robinson,…

8/25

…and Nigel Farage started spreading disinformation that the attacker was an immigrant who had arrived to UK by boat in 2023. Elon quickly poured gas on the fire by criticizing the UK government for “suppressing free speech” after they arrested people provoking the riots.

9/25

As was mentioned before, most moderation resolutions on X are probably made by its AI, Grok. As any AI model is as good as its training data,Elon has harnessed all user data on X to train the model. This data is collected automatically, which is of course illegal in the EU.
10/25

Even though claiming otherwise, Elon yearns to be liked. After his Superbowl tweet did worse than Joe Biden’s, he pulled 80 engineers from their daily work and made them change the algorithm so that his tweets would be boosted massively and shown to basically everyone.

11/25

Musk claims to be a “free speech absolutist”, which is a massive overstatement. According to El Pais, Elon has approved 83% censorship requests made by countries like India and Turkey. Elon claimed that “we can’t go beyond the laws of a country”, even though he had no…

12/25

…problems in threatening to shut down operations in Brazil after the country’s Supreme Court Judge Alexandre de Moraes ordered X to block certain accounts associated with right-wing former President Jair Bolsonaro who lost the elections in 2022. For some reason,…

13/25

…Elon hasn’t been very vocal about Saudi Arabia condemning a retired Saudi teacher to death over tweets. He also had no problem in selling X user data to a company called Dataminr, thus profiting from the sale of user data for government surveillance purposes.

14/25

For a strong supporter of free speech, Elon sure likes to sue people. According to @Jim_Edwards, Musk has filed at least 23 lawsuits in federal courts since Jul 2023. One of the judges even stated that his litigation was more about “revenge than justice”.

15/25

One of the biggest sources of disinformation on X is Elon himself. As of today, he’s the #54 most Community Noted account, and him sharing a fake newspaper headline posted by the co-leader of far-right party, Britain First, is just one example of bullshit he has promoted.

16/25

Throughout the years, Elon’s political stance has taken a HARD right turn. Today, he’s preaching the dangers of “woke mind virus” and supporting Donald Trump’s candidacy in the 2024 US elections, allegedly even donating him a large sum of money through his America PAC.

17/25

But don’t take my word for it, let’s ask Grok! According to Grok, X has suspended a number of LGTBQ+ accounts, journalists like Steven Monacelli (for stating the real name of far-right cartoonist Stonetoss), Kamala Harris support account and Tesla critic Aaron Greenspan.

18/25

X has also announced partnerships with right-wing influencers Tucker Carlson and Tulsi Gabbard, both rooting for Trump in the 2024 US elections. X also announced partnership with Don Lemon, but this deal was quickly cancelled after Lemon challenged Elon during an interview.
19/25

Previously, Musk has accused Twitter of political bias, but now he’s doing this exact same thing with X. His endorsement of Trump has boosted this bias to overdrive, and today it’s difficult to tell him apart from the other ridiculous MAGA Republican propagandists.

20/25

The most blatant propaganda product from him was the “conversation” on X with Donald Trump. Riddled with technical problems, this political ad was basically Trump praising himself and Elon nodding along, while asking the most lowball questions imaginable.

21/25

Elon also supports the basic MAGA issues like gun rights and religion in his own, strange way. In order to “own the libs”, he changed the water gun emoji back to an actual gun, and criticized the Olympics opening ceremony for being “extremely disrespectful to Christians”.

22/25

During the early days of the full-scale Russo-Ukrainian War, Elon seemed to be strongly supporting the Ukrainian effort. But slowly, he seems to have started agreeing with his old friends and Trump supporters like David Sacks and The Heritage Foundation boys.

23/25

Musk has gone a long way from the guy promoting Tesla’s “LGBTQ equality score” on Twitter to being a hardcore right-winger supporting most authoritarian regimes around the world and calling the US Democrats politics “communism” (and somehow claiming to be “the resistance”).
24/25

For many, Musk pledging to donate 45 million USD per month to Trump’s presidential campaign (and later backtracking) was big news. To me, the more worrying thing is that Elon has adjusted a massive social media platform to benefit Trump and his supporters.

25/25

My book titled “Vatnik Soup - The Ultimate Guide to Russian Disinformation” will be published on 20 Sep 2024, you can now pre-order it from here (comes with extra goodies!):
kleart.dk/webshop/p/vatn…

https://x.com/P_Kallioniemi/status/1672940669978001410

The first Elon Musk #vatniksoup can be found here:

https://x.com/P_Kallioniemi/status/1672940669978001410

https://x.com/P_Kallioniemi/status/1674360288445964288

And the second part, which focuses more on the Russo-Ukrainian War, can be found here:

https://x.com/P_Kallioniemi/status/1674360288445964288

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

More from @P_Kallioniemi

Vatnik Soup

@P_Kallioniemi

Jun 6

In today’s Vatnik Soup, we introduce Vincent Bolloré, a French billionaire and media tycoon. He’s best known for building a powerful media empire and for reshaping editorial lines across French media and publishing, pushing them toward far-right and pro-Kremlin positions.

1/25

Born in 1952 in Boulogne-Billancourt to a family of industrialists, Vincent studied law at Paris Nanterre University. He took over the family business and turned it into a sprawling conglomerate spanning logistics, port infrastructure in Africa, advertising, and media.

2/25

Bolloré’s African logistics empire also became the subject of a long-running corruption investigation in France. Legal proceedings against Vincent Bolloré personally are still ongoing, with a trial planned in December, after a judge refused to approve a plea deal.

3/25

Read 25 tweets

Vatnik Soup

@P_Kallioniemi

Jun 4

In today’s Vatnik Soup, we’ll introduce an American conspiracy theorist, podcaster & antisemite, Candace Owens (@RealCandaceO). She’s best known for spreading conspiracy theories, attacking Ukraine, promoting pro-Kremlin BS, and becoming a favorite of Russian state media.

1/21

Candace started her career as an intern at Vogue magazine but later moved into political commentary. Her early career focused on criticizing Republicans, calling their antics “bat-shit crazy.” In 2016, her blog even published an article about Trump’s penis size.

2/21

That same year, she launched a doxxing website called SocialAutopsy. In response, people began posting Owens’s personal information online. During the controversy, she gained support from figures such as @Nero and @Cernovich. And just like that, she became a conservative.

3/21

Read 23 tweets

Vatnik Soup

@P_Kallioniemi

May 27

In today’s Wumao Soup, we’ll talk about Taiwan, the sovereign country the Chinese Communist Party insists is not a country, but constantly threatens to invade just like a country, while the “antiwar” crowd is eagerly encouraging them to start that war, endangering millions.

1/20

Taiwan is a country, a state. It has its own territory, government, army, police, courts, taxes, passports and elections, just like any other country.

The only difference? Its neighbor, imperialist China, wants to invade it, and other countries try to please the big bully.

2/20

Taiwan’s official name is the Republic of China, or ROC. The ROC was founded in 1912, after the fall of the Qing dynasty. The People’s Republic of China, or PRC, was founded by democidal dictator Mao Zedong and his communist party, in 1949, after fighting against the ROC.

3/20

Read 20 tweets

Vatnik Soup

@P_Kallioniemi

May 25

In today’s Vatnik Soup, we’ll introduce Russian propaganda operations around military targets like Starobilsk. For over a decade, the Kremlin has used similar strategies, combining crisis actors, “independent journalists” and fabricated evidence.

1/13

https://x.com/P_Kallioniemi/status/1611980244252258304

First, let’s go back to 2014. Russia funded separatist groups and sent its mercenaries to Donbas, which led to the creation of two puppet states, Donetsk and Luhansk, governed by Russian propagandists and soldiers like Igor Girkin.

2/13

https://x.com/P_Kallioniemi/status/1611980244252258304

The fake genocide was touted as one of the main reasons for Russia’s war during the early stages of the full-scale invasion, and the claim was made even by Putin himself. Before his mutiny, late Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin said that all this was fabricated bullshit.

3/13

Read 14 tweets

Vatnik Soup

@P_Kallioniemi

May 11

In this 9th Debunk of the Day, we’ll discuss “legitimate military targets”. Russia illegally invaded Ukraine, with no declaration of war, hiding behind a “special military operation”. Yet vatniks & useful idiots pretend Russia has any legitimate or lawful targets in Ukraine.

1/8

https://x.com/P_Kallioniemi/status/1938237244537479275

Russia started the war in 2014 by seizing Crimea with unmarked soldiers, “little green men”. Russians have been waging an undeclared, illegal war with endless war crimes ever since, whether it’s kidnapping of Ukrainian children with genocidal intent…

2/8

https://x.com/P_Kallioniemi/status/1938237244537479275

… the concentration camps for Ukrainians under occupation, conscripting Ukrainians from occupied territories, or the terrorist, deliberate bombing of civilians, including their infamous “double tap” strikes.

So no, Russia does not have any “legitimate targets” in Ukraine.

3/8

Read 8 tweets

Vatnik Soup

@P_Kallioniemi

May 1

In today’s Vatnik Soup, we introduce Hasan Piker, a Turkish-American streamer and millionaire. He’s best known for his champagne socialism, rabid criticism of the US and Israel, support for the Soviet Union and for Chinese and Russian invasions, and for mistreating his dog.

1/20

Born in 1991, Piker grew up in a privileged and well-connected environment. His father held senior roles at big corporations and his uncle, Cenk Uygur, is the founder of The Young Turks media network. He graduated cum laude from Rutgers, a top-tier university in New Jersey.

2/20

His main activity and primary source of income consists of hours-long livestreams on Twitch where he comments on news and yells at videos. He also keeps his dog in place the whole time with a shock collar.

3/20