@Gargron CNN calls it "strange salute".

Yeah, they are all too afraid of retaliation

@Gargron I don’t know about in other countries but apparently here the states? Yes. Yes they are.

@Gargron All English-speaking North American press seems to be covering it this way. Very unhappy the CBC is falling in line, too.

@Gargron I'm sort of shocked the hedge fund media even reported it, actually.

@Gargron
They're all cowards and traitors.

@Gargron

i have only seen this on CBC. Where are the US media?

https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/video/9.6618544

@Gargron people love to make excuses for him because he’s neurodivergent, but an autistic Nazi is still a Nazi

@Gargron I fully support you.
Mankind is stupid and history repeats itself, but we can only become a little less stupid when we realize we are repeating ourselves.

@Gargron

@Gargron yes. they fear retribution. with only so far that i've seen, wired and theguardian flat out calling it a nazi salute.

@Gargron I’m afraid you’re right. Both CDN and US media seem reluctant to call it what it is.

@Gargron Fear and denial is how we got here.

@Gargron Indeed. And all of press are saying the same.

@Gargron It turns out that it was a Not See salute.

@Gargron I just had a professor of journalism full out affirm his unshakable belief that there is a fundamental first amendment right TO SPREAD DISINFORMATION!!! He holds a prestigious chair at a well-known journalism school. THE FOURTH ESTATE IS ALREADY DEAD, FOLKS!

@Gargron

Cowardly is the right word. . . and #obeyinadvance

@Gargron Yes.

The fact that they are cowardly is also how Trump managed to become president despite being a convicted felon.

@Gargron just watched the context (which I generally try to do) and yep, that's a heil if I ever saw one

@Gargron For some odd reason, even with the money mainstream journalism has behind them, they are still afraid of the orange Jabba the Hutt. They are cowards, plain and simple.

@Gargron
CBC being completely despicable and yet somehow better than the other major English national news outlets.
BBC: Elon Musk's gesture at Trump rally draws scrutiny
ABC (Australia): Donald Trump's inauguration featured awkward Elon Musk salute, Melania's fancy hat and a cappella from Carrie Underwood

@Gargron The Anti-Defamation League's tweeted statement is... I'm not sure whether it's disappointing or chilling.

@Gargron

Our main-stream (corporate owned) media has gone into a defensive crouch pretty quickly. But we have many, many other places to get informed. Like Mastodon!

#uspol

@Gargron
I am going to say this. I saw it and what I see is a deeply broken men. Something in that person broke and there is no coming back, no repair. That guy is really fucked up, unhappy, angry, completely broke and the more he pretend to be fine and happy and “successful” the more he shows how fucked up he is.
I would hate myself if I worked for that guy, if I am in a relaitionship with that guy, if I am a family member of that guy or if I’m related to that guy at all.

@Gargron
The big theatre around Elon Musk is to laugh. Donald Trump wants to be a great president but he ..
Elon Musk is a rich man, a super rich man. That´s the only reason why the world is talking about him. Take from every Mastodon user just 2,5 € and look a few years later how much you can earn with a few more ideas. Elon Musk is one of the single people who are having billions. Do you know what he is against fort knox?
That´s politics too when pokliticians not acting, about left or right?

@Gargron Die Nachrichten haben es schon früh gelernt, andere Worte zu benutzen um bestimmte Worte nicht zu nutzen. Im Umschreiben sind sie inzwischen richtig gut geworden. Man will es sich mit den mächtigen ja nicht verscherzen.

@Gargron
Im on it.

@Gargron That is indeed what happened.. it’s just bizarre

@Gargron The CBC is an organ of the Canadian government and is probably reluctant to call the dear friend of the President of their much more powerful southern neighbor a Nazi. Though it's probably not going to matter in the long run anyways, appeasement doesn't work.

@Gargron Americans can't believe that it can happen here so they rationalize everything away.

@Gargron Unfortunately they’re scared of retaliation in the form of defamation lawsuits. https://www.politico.com/news/2024/12/14/trump-abc-stephanopoulos-settlement-00194391

@Gargron

Vichy is what Vichy does.

@Gargron https://ard.social/@tagesschau/113863348971016576

@tagesschau couldn't bring themselves to do it either.

@Gargron just deactivated my X acct for good!

@Gargron is history repeating itself? It started as a democracy back than as well. Are people forgetting what happend or is it just to long since, and the world wants a reset to chaos again? Just thinking.

@Gargron They are cowards.

@Gargron It is not a Nazi salute, of course. And the lying scumbag journalist knows it.

@Gargron

here's AP news talking about fist pumping

first pic is AP app search results for "musk salute" showing fist pump story as the first result

second pic is the page at the top of the results with a paragraph about Musk fist pumping below the video where Musk does the nazi salute

@Gargron ...not surprised...they're all still active on the site.

@Gargron the ADL is also defending him, so let's not pretend that it's just for-profit media, it's the whole machine from top to bottom. Bought and paid for.

@Gargron tell me about it... even Snopes has an article saying "well Musk didn't tell us whether he meant these as Nazi salutes or not... so there's really no way of knowing!".

Gotta trust your own eyes and ears these days above all else.

@Gargron #ElonMuskIsaNazi

@Gargron looks like their video clip only shows the first of the two salutes as well, making it easier to dismiss as 'accidental'. pretty damn disappointed

@Gargron “Corporations are people my friends”

@Gargron

The c/a/n/a/d/a project: nice, but not kind

#antifa #bcpoli #cdnpoli #fascism

@Gargron Because they're in on it. He's daring them to say anything about it, secure in the knowledge they're all complicit or at least too gutless to say otherwise.

@Gargron Its the kind of normalization which has been going on for years and without which we would not be here.

@Gargron

And the ADL is trying to pretend that what we can all see (twice) wasn’t what we saw, too.

Cowards and collaborators, all of them.

@Gargron

Following Alice Weidel's argument that Hitler was a communist, this wasn't a fascist, but communist salute (?)

Just thinking.

@Gargron Starting the best online earning journey involves strategic planning, consistency, and leveraging your skills effectively. Here’s a step-by-step guide:
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@Gargron someone at CBC doesn't want their Tesla bricked?

@Gargron The journalists are probably afraid of being the first up against the wall.

@Gargron The fact he did it twice, once to the crowd and once to the flag, and it was even more blatant the second time is crazy.

No one seems to be talking about the second one, when looks even worse IMHO.

@Gargron Journalist here; that was unambiguously a Nazi salute. It looks like the folks in Trumps orbit get to benefit from NYT style sanewashing now.

@Gargron That's an unnecessary amount of hedging. Surely he was either "accused of making a fascist salute", or "appeared to make a fascist salute".

@Gargron Apparently even ZDF is not willing to straight out call it like that 🤨

@Gargron https://federate.social/@JSto/113864602404731061

@Gargron "If someone says it's raining and another person says it's dry, it's not your job to quote them both, Your job is to look out of the f—-ing window and find out which is true."

@Gargron Saw the same shit from the Guardian. And BILD saying he made a "gesture" lefties are choosing to "interpret as a Nazi salute" :ablobcattrash:
You'd think at least here in Germany everyone would see it for exactly what it is, but nope. We're all fucked

@Gargron

@Gargron Guess the only way for the media to call it what it is would have been for Musk to add "btw it was nazi shit indeed".

@Gargron

@Gargron Yes, they are. In Finland only one media has a headline "Musk made a nazisalute" The rest are talking about a strange salute etc.

Yet again, the Finnish media has difficulties with far-right anyways. Only terrorist are called with the word far-right, otherwise they use softening euphemism.

And look at where we have head on that road - a far-right party in the government. A far-right party, that the Finnish media doesn't call as one. And is even a tad uppset, when foreign media does.

@Gargron
Yes. Too cowardly

@Gargron I don’t think he‘s a Nazi. If they have a feature at all it‘s the lack of anything you could call an ideology. This gesture was just saying „I can do whatever I want, wherever I want, and get away with it“. And he seems to be right. Most of the media ducks away. It‘s systematically pushing the limits, a bit more every day.

@Gargron, one of the biggest #German #newspapers , the #sueddeutsche, merely called it 'caused irritation with a gesture that is reminiscent of the H****r salute'.

#journalismusversagen

It's just strengthened my resolve to do without tech or apps from those companies and to get my news from other sources than mainstream media.

@Gargron I learned a new word( or term) today #broligarchs

@Gargron *It would apart to be the case...* - so yes, and let's take notice!

@Gargron You're lucky they only mentioned the term “fascist”. Here Le Monde (France's biggest daily) talks about “trouble” in its headline and refuses to qualify the gesture without endless circumlocutions.

@Gargron
Italian media say "fascist salute" (quote); others say supposed; Musk italian spokesman says "because he's autistic".
Lies.
Nazi-Fascism is back, hatred and terror will come, again.
#nazifascism #fascism #fascismback #elonmusk #musk #salutofascista

@Gargron

Headlines are tepid, but at least in the article (Guardian) it is more direct:

@Gargron I just posted about that. Unbelievable. https://mastodon.social/@arroz/113865320566741547

@Gargron

It is more like being complicit, esp. when obvious acts of hostility and crime are publicly (!) committed.

@Gargron the concern was always what he could do for one ignorant, rancid fanbase.

@Gargron
Thnx God he's not a communist yet :)

@Gargron He did it again btw

@Gargron In the Netherlands I saw "remarkable gesture" and the term Nazi salute in quotation marks (very popular here to tone things down).

@Gargron yes. Yes they are. I even had to search write hard to find *any* mention of it on the BBC news site this morning.

@Gargron If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and walks like a duck, it is a high probability that you are in fact looking at a duck...

@Gargron When you live in a world full of "Political correctness" and "Cancel culture" that's the type of journalism you get.. Sad but true.

@Gargron Elon Musk often makes bold statements and moves, but they don’t always have a positive impact on his companies or users. Sometimes his actions seem more like experiments rather than serious business management.

@Gargron Nobody was exaggerating, when they saw musk's early behaviour as dangerous. It's getting more and more clear, who he is.
Having an account on "X" has become a statement, since a long time now.
And that statement has become more and more clear.

@Gargron Up to this point, I'd resisted the accusation, because cynicism is its own deeply corrosive agent of cultural destruction and should be avoided.

But I will now. There is no excuse for failing to call this out, and doing so NOW. Any organ that fails to is cowardly, and ultimately complicit.

People of the past gave their lives for the societies and liberties we take for granted now. We must at least be willing to risk some discomfort in respect to their sacrifice, or else it was wasted.

@Gargron
My intellectual reaction to seeing that is neutral.
My emotional response is profound; it causes me to sob and cry every time I see it.
Further, I still have the same emotional reaction to January 6 now as I did then and am suffering this instant.
The fear I felt in November of 2016 proved to be greater than the reality but now I'm more fearful than I've ever been.

@Gargron he didn't just do it once, he did it twice for the people in back.

It's not even being in denial at this point, it's outright supporting it by trying to brush it off.

@Gargron They absolutely are. They are afraid to call it out by name bdcause they don't want to be on the wrong side of the new olgiachs.

@Gargron Of all the shit yesterday, seeing media cover it as an “awkward move that could be interpreted as a not nice gesture” is what angered me the most

@Gargron They are the same journalists who are saying "No genocide in Gaza", so this is expected from them.

@Gargron
It's not just mainstream journalism. The problem seems to be a chronic one. Even the left-liberal Jewish Forward.com writes:
"Elon Musk appears to do Nazi salute at Trump inauguration rally"

I don't know how we ended up in this timwline.

https://forward.com/fast-forward/690427/elon-musk-nazi-salute-trump-inauguration/

@Gargron It's 'cause the ADL endorsed it (the gesture), and they did so presumably because right-wing Israel loves Trump and the ADL loves the IDF. Right-wing Israel loves it when America funds their apartheid and genocide.

@Gargron A very explicit salute, indeed.

@Gargron I'm beginning to understand how paper beats rock now and it makes me sad.

@Gargron meanwhile saying Israel should stop bombing hospitals is "antisemitism"

@Gargron Couldn't find any mention at all in my hometown paper the Seattle Times of the Musk Nazi salute. Mainstream media is utterly failing.

@Gargron In the U.S. mainstream press it's even worse - they are calling it an "odd gesture."

@Gargron wait now, are you claiming then that CBC is NOT mainstream media?

@Gargron Yep ... Under the pretense of "objectivity" and false" balance", the legacy corporate media keep normalizing the sickening behavior of rich and powerful ... that's why people are turning away from them more and more ...