Tomorrow is the twelfth annual #PositiveXDay,* the day when we all try to be a bit nicer on the sometimes hellish social media platform. Guido and co-conspirators will be trying to engage even more civilly than normal today with everyone on X…

Maybe tomorrow you could, just for one day, try;

• to have a conversation, not a shouting match, with someone with whom you don’t agree. Caps lock off.
• post about somebody on the other side of a big debate – whose views and perspective you have learnt something from, because of how they engage.
• Share a positive experience of using X – how people rallied around to support you personally, or how it helped you spread the word about something that really mattered.
• Or just join in the discussion and show your support with the #PositiveXDay hashtag.

Social media is a little less angry than it was during the run up to the general election. Use Positive X Day to spark a broader conversation – on X and elsewhere – about how we, as users, can shape the norms that we want on social media. Help spread a bit of civility in these polarised times. X could be a place for the free exchange of information rather than the abuse of political opponents. To share your support just click this link #PositiveXDay

*Formerly Positive Twitter Day.

BBC presenter Gary Lineker has complained that Elon Musk has forced him to “change his habits” when it comes to posting on X, whining to The Independent that “I don’t really post my thoughts now because I think it has become not a very pleasurable experience.” Shame…

Lineker continued his whinge, saying that he can no longer “banter” (whatever that looked like) on the platform thanks to Musk’s changes. A reminder that Lineker was actually suspended from Match of the Day after his Tory bashing diatribe. Perhaps the presenter refraining from parroting his political views has more to do with that than with the tech tycoon…

Trump returned to Twitter last night ahead of his major interview with Elon Musk on the platform. After 42 minutes of delay caused by what Musk called a co-ordinated attack on Twitter, Trump launched into all his favourite topics pretty much unabetted by the billionaire. The main points:

• Trump will return to Butler, where he was almost killed, in October.
• Biden didn’t want to go, it was a coup. He certainly didn’t look happy about it…
• Kamala is avoiding interviews because she can’t have a normal conversation.
• Harris is a “radical left lunatic”. Just look at her tax policies…
• Biden has jacked up inflation to intolerable levels.
• ‘Border tsar’ Harris failed to tackle the border crisis.
• The US is going to build an iron dome.
• Kamala will fail to deal with Jinping, Putin, or Jong-Un who are at the “top of their game.“
• Trump told Putin not to invade Ukraine.

Harris’ team attacked the event’s tech problems and Musk: “Trump’s entire campaign is in service of people like Elon Musk and himself — self-obsessed rich guys who will sell out the middle class and who cannot run a livestream in the year 2024.” Let’s see how she performs when she sits down for an interview…

The newly elected Labour MP Lauren Edwards has deactivated her X account after her apology post for her questionable tweets went viral. She has Elon Musk to thank for that one…

Edwards didn’t just use Twitter to write some eyebrow-raising posts back in the day. Here are a few from her old Facebook page, one of which likens Brown-era Liam Byrne to Stasi head Erich Miekle:

Will her Facebook profile be the next to go?

Labour had a tough day yesterday. First, being forced to suspend their “cut their throats” councillor, then one of their new MPs, Lauren Edwards, had to write an apology for tweets she had posted in 2009. If she thought the fallout after this was going to die down anytime soon, she hasn’t checked Elon Musk’s X page…

pic.twitter.com/QUcsd0LasN

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 9, 2024

It’s a short story that has caught out many public figures in the past: Lauren Edwards MP wrote a series of questionable tweets that have resurfaced, and has had to apologise. Though the tech tycoon, who has nearly 200 million followers isn’t letting the backbencher off the hook that easy. Musk’s prodding of Keir continues, and Guido is behind the tech supremo every tweet of the way…

Elon Musk is doing a great job winding up Britain’s hard left by maintaining freedom of speech on X, formerly Twitter. It hasn’t escaped the notice of some of the platform’s pub bores…

Here’s tin-foil hat merchant and Byline Media supremo Peter Jukes comparing the platform to Nazi occupied Paris. Twitter is as bad as Nazi occupied Paris, of course it is Peter…

I think of Musk’s horrific version of Twitter a bit like Paris under Nazi occupation. Are you going to give up the city and community you were part of? Some of course suck up and collaborate. Others understandably flee. But some stay, and wait and work for liberation

— Peter Jukes (@peterjukes) August 6, 2024

Times Radio‘s Calum Macdonald lamented that the un-policed “town square is burning“. He may be community noted for this one…

Trust the metropolitan elitist Lewis Goodall to have a stab at the platform. Not like he’s got it wrong before…

“If Musk created X now, the way it is, would we in the media use it? No! we wouldn’t touch it a barge pole.”

Are unmediated platforms like X beyond redemption – and should we stop using it?@lewis_goodall | @jonsopel pic.twitter.com/LJZQa97TPl

— The News Agents (@TheNewsAgents) August 6, 2024

Meanwhile leftie lawyer Jessica Simor, supposedly a human rights advocate, is urging Keir Starmer to literally ban Twitter in the UK with a ‘one line bill’ in Parliament:

Pass a short Bill closing Twitter down in the U.K. @Keir_Starmer? There is more than enough reason to do so. One of the richest men in the world is using his platform to cause serious harm – putting lives & communities at risk. @YvetteCooperMP @lisanandy

— Jessica Simor KC (@JMPSimor) August 6, 2024

She has repeatedly advocated for the site to be closed down, which would bring the UK into line with authoritarian states which block the site like China, Iran and North Korea. Would the one line bill be 140 characters or less?