A Bit of Tedious Drama At Bluesky

Recently I got suspended for four days from Bluesky for posting this:

My suspension is over now. But I believe that returning after a suspension carries with it an implicit promise that I won’t post that, or something like it, again. I won’t make that promise, so I won’t return to Bluesky.

Regarding Suspension

I’ll talk about what I said and why I meant it. But before that, I have three points about being suspended.

First, I’ll repeat what I’ve said many times: Bluesky and other social media platforms can suspend or ban whomever they want for whatever reason they want. Bluesky’s moderation policies are an expression of its free speech and free association rights, as surely as my decision what to post there (or whom to block there). I may think their expressive choices are stupid, but I think a lot of people’s expressive choices are stupid, and so do you. It’s their right.

Second, I have no idea whether this suspension represented a human being’s decision. Bluesky uses automated moderation because it has to. Bluesky couldn’t use human moderation without charging everyone a ludicrous amount to post on Bluesky. I firmly agree with Mike Masnick’s long-standing rule that good content moderation is impossible to do at scale. A number of twerps and anti-anti-Trump mediocrities pretended to be exercised over the post; there’s a good chance that some sort of mass report campaign resulted in an auto-suspension almost two weeks after the fact. I submitted an “appeal,” which may also have been evaluated by machines, or maybe not. It really doesn’t matter: either humans decided on the suspension, or decided not to lift it, or decided to create the system that imposed it automatically.

Third, I’m not a victim. Don’t cry for me, Bluesky. I said what I said deliberately, knowing the risks. I will miss the parasocial relationships with many cool people, but some of those will be rebuilt elsewhere. It’s social media, not life. Moreover, I’m fortunate. I have lots of channels to express myself. I am in a far better position than the average Bluesky user who gets banned for lashing out — most often, lashing out at transphobia, or racism, or other stuff. Bluesky has a moderation mindset (or at least a moderation AI) that views some rando saying “the world would be a better place if Elon Musk were not in it” as being far worse than Elon Musk and people like him encouraging violence and pogroms. I knew what I was getting into.

Regarding Elon Musk and His Ilk

Now, I’ll address the substance of what I said. I meant every word. Moreover, I was right, and most of the outrage is contrived, dishonest, and in bad faith.

The context for the statement was Elon Musk’s ongoing efforts to use Twitter — his extremely powerful and influential toy, the algorithms of which boost his every thought — to incite racial violence against immigrants in the UK. This is not unusual. Elon Musk regularly encourages, by his own posts or boosting other posts, that the right people should use violence against immigrants and against race-traitor whites.

I could argue this point — try to persuade you — but it’s pointless. The possibilities are these: you already know and you’re appalled, you already know and you support it, or you’ll never be persuaded, any more than a Trump supporter can be persuaded that the 2020 election wasn’t stolen.

The other crucial context is that the current leadership of the United States is increasingly intent on promoting white nationalist hostility and clash-of-civilizations narratives to encourage hatred of immigrants everywhere. Whether it’s Pete Hegseth comparing immigration to the D-Day invasion or Trumpists promoting the noxious Camp of the Saints or the administration turning official social media channels into fonts of Nazi iconography, the Trump Administration supports and promotes the same racial narrative as Musk. Once again: either you know it and hate it, know it and love it, or will never acknowledge it.

Elon Musk is the world’s richest man — a trillionaire, briefly, until a market correction. He and his ideology are also supported by the administration of the most powerful nation on Earth. He is immune to normal social, economic, political, or legal limits. He can use his hugely influential platform to encourage pogroms without social, economic, political, or legal consequences.

It’s simply factual to say, as I did, that the only thing that will stop him is dying. Because my medium was a short Bluesky post, I mentioned him being killed. I suppose it would also stop him if he overdosed on Ketamine or choked on a piece of steak or got ass cancer or crashed one of his vehicles or something. But that would make a long post. Though the post has drawn plenty of criticism, nobody has explained to me how I am wrong about the limited circumstances that will stop him from encouraging racial violence.

No, mostly people are upset at the more pungent coda — “If only.” I said that because I think the world will be a better place when Elon Musk — sociopathic trillionaire who wants to watch a race war — is dead. I suppose it would be better if he dies from the ketamine thing. Political violence tends to lead to more political violence, political violence tends to hurt the powerless disproportionately, and political violence is destabilizing — though not, I think, as destabilizing as a politically connected trillionaire using his powerful social media platform to urge genocide. Elon Musk is autistic trillionaire Radio Rwanda.

I find the pearl-clutching over this sentiment profoundly unpersuasive. The United States kills people who “need killing” all the time. We’re on a campaign of killing unidentified guys in boats in the Gulf of Dementia because the government claims they’re drug dealers. We execute lots of people, many of whom did what they were accused of, many of whom have IQs above 70. We shoot protesters. We shoot people on the very thin pretense that they were “threatening” police officers. We kill Iranians — military and civilians — and boast about how we’re going to kill more. We killed Yamamoto and it’s a good thing we did. We didn’t kill Hitler but we helped arrange the circumstances where he killed himself, and nobody shook a scolding little finger at anyone for wishing him dead. Our most popular Founding Father’s most popular quote is “the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

Now, I think people of good faith can disagree about the morality or utility of wishing other human beings dead. I’ve read a few comments that suggest reasoned opposition. But not many. The loudest cries of outrage are from people who will diagnose you with Trump Derangement Syndrome if you object to the ocean of blood I just described. The reaction is largely contrived, mostly in bad faith, and rarely to be taken seriously. The people landing hardest on the fainting couches are in two groups: pro-Trump people who are thrilled that we are extrajudicially executing fishermen in the Gulf, and professional grifters who don’t necessary like the extrajudicial killings but whose entire gimmick is “aren’t those leftists silly and outrageous.” Look, they need to make a living, and they have to base a personality on something.

Pro-Trump people want you to think this oceans of blood and paeans to genocide are all good and praiseworthy, because those are their values. The anti-anti-Trump crowd wants to mock objections to Trumpism, because their dearest value is grift, and they think cringe is worse than fascism. They both demand to be taken seriously, to be respected. I decline. I said what I said.

Bluesky had the right to suspend me for that. I just think they were petty and dumb to do it.

A Postscript Regarding Honesty And Openness

I’ve made an effort for years to be open and honest about things like depression and anxiety, because I know it’s healthier, and because the social stigma around it should be crushed. This incident resulted, as is often the case, in losers mocking me for being crazy, and slightly more pretentious people obliquely referring to my mental heath. This is how I actually discovered, to my shock and pity, that Twitchy still exists and thinks mocking my mental health is worth two whole posts. Again, these people have to eat, I guess. But here’s my point: it turns out that the only people who do it are assholes, the only people who buy it aren’t worth your time, and it doesn’t really make an impact on your life. So be open and honest about mental health, speak up when you need help, and don’t spare much worry for the rabble. You’ll be better for it.

Now, back to rambling through the Cotswolds.