“The culture on X today is remarkably friendly and inclusive. It is a cheerful place.” is probably the single most breathtakingly tone deaf and wildly inaccurate line I have read in tech journalism in literally decades.
@jamesthomson Who wrote that?
@ianRobinson I will give you one guess.
@jamesthomson Marco Arment?
@ianRobinson John Gruber.
@jamesthomson Ah. Thanks. I stopped reading him a few years ago due to his ill-informed writing about the EU. And his name and site are in my filters.
@jamesthomson the guys in the sharp, fancy uniforms are so welcoming!
@jamesthomson Sadly. Another person I can no longer trust and follow. Nazi helpers everywhere. Gonna see how they feel after the next Nürnberg trials
@jamesthomson Gruber’s level of confirmation bias is quite stunning. I wonder what it would take for him to care about other people’s experiences.
@jamesthomson He continues his slow descent into full Dvorak.
@jamesthomson
Your response is far more eloquent than mine was.
@mtconleyuk I was not eloquent when I read the original blog post at 2am.
@jamesthomson all the nazis cheerfully threatening people?
@jamesthomson Like clockwork once a year he'll just produce the worst most pig-headed American exceptionalism and privileged take on something
@jamesthomson It takes a special kind of privilege to ignore what’s going on. To be honest, I didn’t personally experience any of the nasty stuff when I was there. But to know it’s going on and to stay makes you complicit.
@jamesthomson maybe it actually is today since Ukraine bombed more Russian data centre bot factories!
@jamesthomson 100% delusional dude, never heard of him (thk g_d!)
@jamesthomson
Could that be an irrationally exuberant reference to #Ukraine destroying some #Yandex data centers in #Russia, thereby reducing misinformation bot traffic?
@sloanlance I do not think so, no. I doubt the author was aware…
@jamesthomson
This is fine...
@jamesthomson
...and the #Jan6 riot was "filled with love."
@jamesthomson “Working in the ICE IT dept was completely fine actually! Everyone was friendly and cheerful and no-one tried to taser or put ME in a cage”
Oct 12, 2026, 11:42 AM@jamesthomson THAT HASN'T BEEN MY EXPERIENCE SADLY
Oct 12, 2026, 11:51 AM@jamesthomson it’s significantly friendlier and open to opposing views than Mastodon
@ammarmalik If those opposing views are repugnant to me, then I’m not interested.
Oct 12, 2026, 11:57 AM@jamesthomson i mean yeah you’re not going to experience herd mentality on X so not really the platform if that’s what you’re after
@ammarmalik Basically, not interested in the fascism, so yeah.
Oct 12, 2026, 12:02 PM@jamesthomson @viticci have you experienced any fascism since your return to X?
@jamesthomson I’ve been concerned about a few of Gruber’s opinions over the last year or so, but his post today crossed the line for me and I unfollowed him on Social and stopped receiving his RSS feed.
@jamesthomson The heck? Can i have the link to that? I wanna see this in full.
@johann @jamesthomson Ok i red it. To be honest i get the point a bit, but trying to markit x as the solution is extremely ridiculous. Maybe his algorythm works like this, but for most people it doesn't.
@jamesthomson Maybe the people on Mastodon are just… right about it all??
@jamesthomson
> There are hundreds of interesting people and accounts I follow
"If you follow hundreds of people, you're not really following anyone"
--Al Yankovic (I think)
@jamesthomson It really is a “wonderful atmosphere,” especially when checking in—you have to show X your face (: . It feels like some kind of vision # (:
@jamesthomson You mean today as in today?
Because since Ukraine took a couple of Russian Yandex data centers down, the tone of voice on that platform seems to have magically improved. 🤔🤔🤔
Oct 12, 2026, 1:12 PM@jamesthomson I am very worried about @daringfireball
@jamesthomson Xitter can never get back its lost cultural relevance. It used to be that even if you weren't on twitter, you'd see posts, because they were shared widely elsewhere. That doesn't happen so much any more. We've all tuned it out. And somehow knowing that guys like Gruber and John Ternus and Satya Nadella post there doesn't make it better.
@jamesthomson This is a bonkers take.
I mean, I never fully left Twitter because in other countries the terribleness has taken longer to infect it and has been less pervasive but I've completely foregone Twitter in english, which was my primary use of it.
I can't imagine how someone native could have this opinion unless they're being presented with hand-curated timelines to skew perception.
@jamesthomson Some would say that the existence of a Gruber suggests that at least one (1) person on this planet masturbated to the golden trophy that Tim Apple brought to the Oval Office.
Oct 12, 2026, 3:19 PM@jamesthomson As Stephen Fry would say: “Sometimes there just isn’t enough vomit in the world”
💯. Absolute Nazi cesspool.
@jamesthomson How does this align with this?
@frumble I’m not sure it does at all - I don’t think he was writing with that in mind.
@jamesthomson Ah I see, this wasn’t meant as "today’s observation".
Indeed. "Friendly" to who? "Inclusive" of who?
The links throughout the article give a glimpse of who: power and privilege; people who are already on the "in".
Their post is a love letter to those people. 😞
To fascists it might be…
@jamesthomson @Bowreality …and that’s saying a lot!
@jamesthomson He should have added "For a white guy"
@jamesthomson I was just thinking “WTF?!” the whole time I was reading that entry. It almost felt like some weird paid promotion for X.
@jamesthomson It kinda telling how his argument is “Apple executives post there, so it is ok”.
Liars get paid. I hope their bitcoin rots.
@jamesthomson It’s always easy to ignore problematic culture when it’s not impacting you.
I’m sure it’s possible to have a feed in X that isn’t populated with racists, misogynists, and deplorables. Particularly if you don’t read comments on posts or allow the general audience to respond to yours. I’m sure that the people Gruber follows directly don’t engage in that kind of behaviour.
But if you’re not seeing the negative aspects, you’re not looking.
I had a work colleague a couple of decades back who insisted that they had never observed random misogynistic behaviour against women (e.g. catcalling, unwanted groping, and other “mild” sexualised abuse that is not uncommon in public). I’m sure they’ve since changed their mind as they came out as trans about a decade later, but at the time they were totally sincere. They didn’t see it because they weren’t looking and it didn’t impact them.
Oct 13, 2026, 2:45 AM@jamesthomson Years ago, I was already a bit uncomfortable with the way he talked about Samsung, and then he unleashed his verve on EU.
Basically shamlessly essentializing these groups. I mean you can point bad decisions and it is fair.
But his takes on these matters feel like chauvinism, at best.
And let’s be honest there was always some meanness to his prose and it’s a not trait that’s aging well.
@jamesthomson I assume Gruber on Musk payroll now
@jamesthomson
They love it in Kiev.
