Yeah, I did read the article, and it is exactly why I think it's not organic: are there really that many people interested in Tucker "not 'stating actual facts' about the topics he discusses and is instead engaging in 'exaggeration' and 'non-literal commentary'" Carlson and what would Putin - the dictator of a geopolitically major country, with state media, official and unofficial channels doing go his every bidding for twenty years now - have to say?
Or is that geopolitically major dictatorship preparing to game twitter ahead of a major propaganda push?
You've got to apply a pretty skeptical attitude towards this. Literally everyone associated with this has an incentive to inflate those numbers. For Russia/Putin it's a massive propaganda opportunity to sell the narrative. For Carlson it grants him relevance (somewhat temporarily, it kind of also puts him Musk's pocket too though), and for Musk he would hope the momentum helps the platform.
And this isn't our first rodeo. The article mentions that Mr Beast posted a video that netted him over $250k, but doesn't even bother to menion the second half Mr Beasts tweet - that he doesn't really think that number is representative because advertisers bought ads on it because it was getting traction. My bet is that it's simpler than that - Twitter paid out an eye catching number for the publicity. In the months since then Mr Beast hasn't continued posting, and no one is reporting making good money on the X platform.
I just think it'd be dump at this point to take anything Elon Musk does to market something at face value.
Or, more likely, people want to see the interview of a world leader by a well known and popular journalist, and it being on a site already used by hundreds of millions of people means word spreads easily.
If there weren't such a well documented and transparent history of X/Musk/Russia lying, misleading, bullshitting and manipulating then maybe we would believe that. But I wouldn't advise taking Russia's propagandists at face value.
Tucker Carlson is not, under any definition of the word, a journalist. This was stated under oath by Fox News lawyers themselves. Also, the Kremlin has refused all interviews by journalists (contrary to the lie spouted by Tucker Carlson himself) and is putting in prisons actual journalists.
> in the months since Mr. Beast hasn’t continued posting…
In the one month (Jan 15, 2024) since, he has posted two full length videos he had previously released on Youtube onto X, ‘Train vs Giant Pit’ (two weeks ago) and ‘100 Abandoned Dogs’ (5 days ago). For the sake of an accurate and complete context, those were originally released to Youtube 7 months ago and 1 month ago respectively. Also of note that Mr. Beast is an active user and poster on X regardless of video content.
Readit News
Musk has utterly failed in tamping out bots. Not only that, but it's even worse, with crumbling moderation and wrong incentives backed in.
None of the other stuff matters that much if X has some exclusive content that is of interest on the world stage.
From bots and engagement farms, indeed
Or is that geopolitically major dictatorship preparing to game twitter ahead of a major propaganda push?
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And this isn't our first rodeo. The article mentions that Mr Beast posted a video that netted him over $250k, but doesn't even bother to menion the second half Mr Beasts tweet - that he doesn't really think that number is representative because advertisers bought ads on it because it was getting traction. My bet is that it's simpler than that - Twitter paid out an eye catching number for the publicity. In the months since then Mr Beast hasn't continued posting, and no one is reporting making good money on the X platform.
I just think it'd be dump at this point to take anything Elon Musk does to market something at face value.
In the one month (Jan 15, 2024) since, he has posted two full length videos he had previously released on Youtube onto X, ‘Train vs Giant Pit’ (two weeks ago) and ‘100 Abandoned Dogs’ (5 days ago). For the sake of an accurate and complete context, those were originally released to Youtube 7 months ago and 1 month ago respectively. Also of note that Mr. Beast is an active user and poster on X regardless of video content.
Why did you think something completely different?