I'm on Twitter all day, every day. I was continually told it was littered with neo-Nazis and white supremacists, and this was before Elon Musk bought the platform and it became completely overwhelmed with neo-Nazis and white supremacists. I literally never see neo-Nazis on here; the neo-Nazis are out on the streets in their keffiyehs carrying Palestinian and Hamas flags outside the Democratic National Convention.
Rolling Stone says that hate speech on X is so common that even John Cena, whom everybody loves, follows "toxic influencers."
X Hate Speech Is So Common That Celebs Like John Cena Follow White Nationalists
— Rolling Stone (@RollingStone) August 26, 2024
The actor and wrestler has the hashtag #RiseAboveHate on his profile, but his feed features toxic influencers.
More: https://t.co/w7v6JxUQVQ pic.twitter.com/YYlYMTNkhH
The last I saw of Cena was in Max's "Peacemaker," in which he fought off his father, who was a literal super-villain white supremacist called the White Dragon.
Rolling Stone reports:
Like many famous people, Cena has an X account mainly for promotional purposes: his latest tweets publicize his new Prime Video action-comedy, Jackpot! Unlike most other famous people, however, Cena follows tons of users on the site — more than 850,000 at this point. (Full disclosure: this reporter is one of them.) A handful of big accounts are known to cast such a wide social net, for whatever reason; actor Taye Diggs and broadcaster Soledad O’Brien also follow hundreds of thousands. It stands to reason that none of these individuals can possibly keep up with everything on their feed, and it would also make sense if they followed many of those accounts without carefully vetting their content. It’s likely, too, that social editors or teams are managing these public profiles on the celebrities’ behalf.
…
Cena, of course, is a brand unto himself, just as vulnerable to unwanted associations with toxic elements of the site so long as his mass-following social media strategy continues. If the preponderance of harmful and extremist junk floating around the site isn’t addressed at some point, will highly visible celebrities have to reevaluate the risks of maintaining a presence there? Musk would do well to head off such concerns for the biggest names on X, but his priorities tend to lie elsewhere. Maybe when enough of them delete their accounts, he’ll file another lawsuit.
Hmm … "this reporter is one of them." Is Miles Klee a white supremacist?
Personally, we don't see Cena sitting in front of X reading the posts of 850,000 people. But this is really a hit-piece on Elon Musk, who allows Nazi content to appear next to major advertisers (which was a scam gamed by Media Matters, against which he's filed suit).
Will highly visible celebrities … reevaluate the risk of maintaining a presence there? Rolling Stone does, and they were almost sued out of existence over defamation over a fabricated story. I thought all of the "real" journalists were moving to Mastodon the minute Musk sealed the deal, and yet they're all still here. Then I heard they were all moving to Threads. But they're still here.
Speaking of defamation lawsuits, is Rolling Stone suggesting that Cena is a white supremacist, even with #RiseAboveHate in his profile? Or are they just using his goodwill to trash Musk? Obviously it's the latter.
I literally don't know where reporters like Klee find all of these "problematic" accounts. Like I said, I've been assured X is a cesspool of Nazism and white supremacy — I'm just not seeing it.
Misinformation in Rolling Stone is so common that they keep getting sued, but they're still around to provide awful takes like this one.
— Rita Panahi (@RitaPanahi) August 27, 2024
Imagine using your $130,000 in college debt to comb through the 850,000 accounts John Cena follow pic.twitter.com/hr4AbE239U
— Magills (@magills_) August 26, 2024
Imagine thinking someone with 850k follows is scrutinizing every single one. Maybe focus on real issues instead of fabricating nonsense.
— Clown World ™ 🤡 (@ClownWorld_) August 27, 2024
Jfc imagine the shame you’d feel if you were the parents of the person whose job it is to check who someone follows.
— 🫃🏼💉🇺🇦🥥Hollaria Briden, Esq. (@HollyBriden) August 26, 2024
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