Thursday, June 4, 2026

'Last Week Tonight' examines Twitter for Throwback Thursday

Happy Throwback Thursday! I'm going back a few months for Twitter: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO).

John Oliver discusses how an already flawed Twitter got worse under Elon Musk, how it continues to impact us all, and what it has to do with the 30-40 trillion cells humans are composed of. Or, wait, sorry, Twitter doesn’t have anything to do with the cells. It’s about our understanding of the universe. Maybe. You’ll just have to take that last part up with Elon directly.
Elon Musk's comparison of Twitter prior to his purchase to Wormtongue shows that Peter Thiel isn't the only techbro with J.R.R. Tolkien on his brain. I'm sure they and Alex Karp aren't the only ones.

There's a side effect of Musk turning the blue checks into pay for play instead of an actual verification system. In addition to making it difficult to tell real from imitation/parody accounts, it made a lot of statistics inaccessible without paid verification. I noted that last year: "Twitter/X's analytics are now a service for paid subscribers, and I won't pay to support Elon Musk, so they end up being little better than what I can collect from Bluesky for free."

As for Alex Jones getting his Twitter/X account back, it doesn't change my giving him an honorary Kenny McCormick Memorial Medal for losing at least five accounts because of abuse. No backsies! Besides, his losing Infowars to The Onion is worthy of a Bobo Award, the highest (dis)honor on alt.usenet.kooks.

Donald "Pervert Hoover" Trump apparently taking his cue from Zero Hedge via Musk shows why I'm glad I stopped citing Zero Hedge in 2011 and have blocked Musk, but also Pervert Hoover's susceptibility to conspiracy theories. It turned out that much worse things resulted from Pevert Hoover and his administration paying attention to Musk and the accounts he promoted, like what Bruce Springsteen, Billy Bragg, and the Marsh Family sang about Minneapolis, Minnesota. No wonder Marcy "Emptywheel" Wheeler calls Twitter/X "Xitter" with the X pronounced as sh and "a machine for fascism." This makes me glad I now call Bluesky my primary social media site, where I've gone from zero to 21,849 followers in a little more than 18 months.

Since today is Throwback Thursday, follow over the jump for my most read post about Twitter/X and Bluesky during the 15th year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News along with my top shares on each platform that aren't about holidays that I haven't shared yet.


Steve in Manhattan linked to BBC News asks 'Will Bluesky be able to rival X or Twitter?' A Wayback Wednesday special from May 21, 2025 at Crooks and Liars, helping it earn 371 default and 388 raw page views to rank second overall and first among entries posted during May 2025. It continued earning page views during the blogging year, accruing 576 total raw page views to rank 53rd overall and 37th among entries posted during the 15th year of the blog.


Kamala Harris could run for California Governor on Throwback Thursday earned 4 replies in 1 thread on 28 views, most replies on Twitter/X during April 2025 and year. It also had 3 comments in 2 threads (most comments and threads during year) and 1 reaction on MeWe.


LegalEagle contrasts 'Signal War Plans vs. Hillary's Emails' for Throwback Thursday had 7 likes (most for month and third most for year), 4 reposts, and 5 replies in 2 threads (most threads for month and tied for most threads during year and tied for longest thread during April 2025) on Bluesky

That's a wrap for today. Stay tuned for a return to the News & Doc Emmy Award winners on World Environment Day tomorrow.

Previous posts in this series Previous retrospectives about Twitter/X Previous retrospectives about Bluesky
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