 Literally, every single change that Elon Musk has implemented since taking over Twitter has been incomprehensibly stupid. When it comes to basic functionality and overall usability, everything that he has done has made the platform demonstrably worse. And those who use Twitter know that I'm not being hyperbolic. But on top of that, it's also become a safe haven for bigots as well as Nazis. And most recently, it's become evident that Twitter is now a massive cesspool for misinformation and fake news. Which is sad because Twitter used to actually be an important tool for journalists to deliver up-to-date information. But now that utility is almost gone thanks to Elon Musk for a number of reasons. First and foremost, Elon Musk stopped using software that is supposed to identify misinformation. And to make matters worse, he's recommended accounts that routinely spread misinformation. In a now-deleted tweet, he recommended war monitors and scent defender for users who want up-to-date information on the Israel Gaza war. But as journalist Batbender points out, here's one example of how unreliable the two accounts that Elon Musk promoted are. There was an obvious AI image posted in May depicting an explosion at the Pentagon. This would be very easy to verify. Instead, both accounts immediately shared the fake image in order to go viral. And this is a direct result of the incentive structure that Elon Musk created, where engagement and virality earned you money, but accuracy does not. Now on top of that, someone responded to news that the Israeli Prime Minister told Gazans to leave ahead of his siege and pointed out that there's nowhere for them to go since they're blockaded on all sides. Now one of the accounts that Elon Musk recommended responded saying, better find a boat or get to swimming LOL. Now let me just first point out the obvious. It is utterly despicable to laugh about innocent civilians, most of which are children who are soon going to be bombed to death. That is gross. But as a supposed disseminator of on-the-ground war news regarding this conflict, you would assume that they'd at least know that Gazans also aren't allowed to flee by sea as well, considering the fact that the Israeli Navy is blockading them by sea as well. It's not just the big fence that locks them into Gaza. They also cannot leave via sea. But according to Elon Musk, this is someone who we can trust. But while one of the accounts Elon Musk promoted laughed at Palestinian deaths, the other is viciously anti-semitic. Matt Bender shared these screenshots of the replies saying, mind your own business Jew and go worship a Jew little bro. Yeah. So he promoted one news account that hates Palestinians and the other that hates Jews. I mean, maybe this is his way of giving us a both sides take on this. But obviously he ended up deleting that endorsement of these accounts. But even though he withdrew his endorsement of those two hate-mongering accounts, he still regularly interacts with very hateful accounts on a regular basis. That includes Libs of TikTok, whose tweets have encouraged nearly a dozen bomb threats. And on top of that, he's interacted with Peter Sweden, a Holocaust denier who was fear-mongering about Muslims in Sweden. And on top of that, he interacts with bigoted far-right account and Wokeness, who shared a picture of Muslims in London, calling it a ticking time bomb to which Elon Musk responded, saying demographics is destiny. And as Wild Gears points out, this is straight up neo-Nazi shit. Any company still buying ads on Twitter should be boycotted. And they are absolutely correct about that. But while we're on the subject of ads, Twitter's new ad format makes it so that way a plethora of insane bigoted ads can't be reported or blocked, nor do they disclose the fact that their ads, which by the way is illegal as GoodPoliticGuy and the community notes pointed out. So we've watched the world's richest man devolve into a fascist over the course of a year, and as he goes down, he's taking Twitter with him. Which isn't just sad. It's troubling because this has real-world ramifications, right? His radicalization spells doom for the rest of the world. And journalists are now explaining how difficult it is to get accurate information out in this environment that Elon Musk has fostered because now they're effectively having to compete with verified users spreading fake news and misinformation because that's what gets clicks and engagement. Wired reports, for many reasons, this is the hardest time I've ever had covering a crisis on here, Justin Peden, an OSINT researcher from Alabama known online as the IntelCrab posted on X. Credible links are now photos. On-the-ground news outlets struggle to reach audiences without an expansive blue checkmark. Xenophobic Goons are boosted by the platform's CEO. End Times, folks. When Peden covered the escalation in Gaza in 2021, the sources he was seeing in his feed were from people on the ground or credible news agencies. This weekend, he says verified content or primary sources were virtually impossible to find on X. Boosted by the algorithm that promotes users willing to pay X $8 a month for a premium subscription, posts from those with a blue checkmark shot up to the top of news feeds for people seeking information about the conflict. Rather than being shown verified and fact-checked information, X users were presented with video game footage passed off as footage of a Hamas attack and images of fireworks celebrations in Algeria presented as Israeli strikes on Hamas. There were faked pictures of soccer superstar Ronaldo holding the Palestinian flag while a three-year-old video from the Syrian Civil War repurposed to look like it was taken this weekend. As a result, Peden says that he and his fellow OSINT researchers have to spend their time debunking years-old content rather than verifying and sharing real footage from the conflict. And as this Bloomberg headline puts it, the Israel-Hamas conflict was a test for Musk's X and it failed. And ironically, you wouldn't actually be able to see that headline if that article was shared on Twitter because Elon Musk chose to remove headlines to make the site more aesthetically pleasing. Yeah. So as much as I complained about Twitter before, as a toxic hell site, before Elon Musk took it over, this is one of those situations where you really don't know what you've got till it's gone. Because love it or hate it, Twitter was useful in disseminating accurate information and sure, there were issues with fake news before he took it over. Sure, it was still very toxic as a social media platform. But whatever usefulness it once had is now non-existent thanks to Elon Musk. But to his credit, in destroying Twitter, he also destroyed the myth of meritocracy simultaneously because those who assumed anyone with wealth had to be intelligent are now realizing that our capitalist system isn't as fair as they once thought it was. Because most people, I think, can clearly see that Elon Musk is not a genius. In fact, he's a giant dumbass.