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DNS traffic spiked as Musk–Trump clash boosted Truth Social (+268%) and X (+20%)

30 points

by emot

2 months ago

| past

| 6 comments

| twitter.com

| HN

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Spivak

2 months ago

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It's genuinely the funniest thing that these two grown ass men are writing about each other in what is essentially their own private diaries. The enemies to lovers to enemies story just keeps getting spicier. The fanfic is going to be legendaty.

I hope they each have a picture of each other on their dartboard. I hope Elon takes everything Trump ever game him and launches it into space in a fit of tearful rage.

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CoastalCoder

2 months ago

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It would be funnier if they weren't both trying to destroy my country in various ways.

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mindslight

2 months ago

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Seriously. It's heartening to see some kind of split, but depressing when you see it's just from Musk wanting to thump fundamentalism about tHe dEbT [0]. I guess Musk's excuse for being a true believer is that he was a newcomer to the Republican party? Republicans have been the more profligate spenders of "taxpayer money" for longer than I've been alive. Trump certainly slid right in to his new snake skin, I don't know why Musk couldn't.

But really on reflection I'm back to my original appraisal wondering if it's all just kayfabe with Musk trying to keep the so-called "Libertarian" contingent on board, with monetary inflation part of the destructionist plan just being a minor let down.

[0] Debt denominated in a currency we control is certainly indicative of something, but it isn't nearly as big of a deal as other countries losing confidence in the US. Ergo cutting scientific research, destroying academic institutions, and eliminating foreign policy outreach programs to "save money" actually makes our financial position worse.

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i80and

2 months ago

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It was incredibly fun reading and was very cathartic to see the explosion everybody knew had to eventually happen. At the same time, I don't see any way it all shakes out in a way that betters the country. I think it's likely we end up with a consolidation of Trump's authority.

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esseph

2 months ago

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Trump has 3.5* years. (shrug)

Musk has 40+ ish?

I'm pretty sure who ”wins” in the end.

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sidibe

2 months ago

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I don't think Elon will survive 3.5 years. He's spiraling already and the future is looking bleak for his companies or at least him being in charge of them, I think more than a 50% chance of OD or suicide soon

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arp242

2 months ago

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Musk can't be president, so there's that at least.

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chen_dev

2 months ago

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> writing about each other in what is essentially their own private diaries

And yet, those "diaries" are an incredibly effective way to control the public narrative.

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jampekka

2 months ago

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This. I find it hard to believe that these are really just spur-of-the-moment shitposts. May not be very systematically choreographed (although I wouldn't be surprised if so) but even the stupidest troll plays the audience. People just can't help but feed the trolls.

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sitkack

2 months ago

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They are playing everyone and loving it. They have both never felt better.

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guywithahat

2 months ago

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I mean X is one of the largest social networks on earth, a private diary would be more like using bluesky

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radeeyate

2 months ago

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What was meant is that Elon owns Twitter, while Trump owns Truth Social. These platforms are their "personal diaries."

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itsdrewmiller

2 months ago

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Still one where going against Elon gets you deplatformed though…

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guywithahat

2 months ago

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There are plenty of people who do nothing but hate Elon on that platform. People community notes him all the time

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greyface-

2 months ago

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Thanks, Cloudflare, for the demonstration of the granularity of data collected by 1.1.1.1; this is your periodic reminder to run your own local recursive DNS resolver.

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pss314

2 months ago

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If one is running a pi-hole, then you might want to consider configuring the pi-hole instance with unbound. https://docs.pi-hole.net/guides/dns/unbound/

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declan_roberts

2 months ago

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I bet half of the spikes to truth social were just people trying to verify whether the funny screenshots of Trump truth social posts on x were parody or not. Increasingly hard to tell with Trump!

Example: https://x.com/JigokuCake/status/1930770025205395743

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jaynetics

2 months ago

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That difference in spike sizes is interesting.

I guess hardly anyone outside the US uses Truth Social, so that alone could perhaps explain the different impact of a US event on traffic. Or is there also a lack of organic baseline activity on Truth Social, and people only go there to read Trump's posts?

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TrainedMonkey

2 months ago

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Could also be post embedding because a bunch of news stories that embedded posts from both services. Presumably this would add some constant number of users to both platforms, but X is much bigger so percent wise spike is smaller.

Edit: this is also data by Cloudflare so presumably only users using their DNS service.

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sitkack

2 months ago

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The baserate of either is way off. No one uses Truth Social, the percentage should be like 10_000x

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nurumaik

2 months ago

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I installed truth social just to check which screenshots of trump posts are true

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grudgen

2 months ago

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Orchestrated beef, purely for publicity

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razster

2 months ago

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Here's how I see it: both sides are keeping the public distracted with this "feud." Even major news outlets are treating it like celebrity gossip, with little focus on the real damage being done. I'm not buying into it.

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teaearlgraycold

2 months ago

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I don’t think much will come of it. But I’m sure they are having a legit falling out.

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k310

2 months ago

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The coming together of two very antithetical groups, maga and tech bro's held long enough to get Trump elected, and for crypto bro's to get their desired un-regulation.

Trump got his election and an entree to the unregulated world of crypto, in the hopes of making billions. He needs them no more. Military parades, not trade shows.

But the common thread of racism and hatred of other minority groups is stretched by tech "elitism" (see below) on one hand, and anti-science, anti-intellectual "religious" intolerance on the other. This fight really exposes the rift.

References:

'Reboot' Revealed: Elon Musk's CEO-Dictator Playbook

https://www.thenerdreich.com/reboot-elon-musk-ceo-dictator-d...

Silicon Valley Whistleblowers Warn Elon Musk 'Hijacking' Republicans to Control Entire US Government

https://bylinetimes.com/2025/02/07/silicon-valley-whistleblo...