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MAGA vs. Musk: Right-wing critics allege censorship, loss of X badges
A handful of conservative critics of Elon Musk are alleging censorship and claiming they were stripped of their verification badges on X after challenging his views on H-1B visas for highly skilled foreign workers.
Why it matters: The H-1B issue and an X post by Musk ally Vivek Ramaswamy about America's culture of "mediocrity" have sparked an online MAGA civil war over immigration and race. Some supporters of President-elect Trump are now turning on Musk and the tech bros Trump has tapped for key administration roles.
Between the lines: The claims of "censorship" on X are difficult to verify.
- Since Musk purchased Twitter and implemented sweeping staff cuts, it's often been difficult to get answers as to whether or why certain accounts or posts have been minimized. X did not respond to Axios' request for comment.
- Conservatives have long blamed "shadow bans" for censoring them on social media even when there hasn't been explicit proof. However, Musk's X has often been hailed by conservatives as a bastion of free speech.
Driving the news: Trump's conspiracy-minded ally Laura Loomer, New York Young Republican Club president Gavin Wax and InfoWars host Owen Shroyer all said their verification badges disappeared after they criticized Musk's support for H1B visas, railed against Indian culture and attacked Ramaswamy, Musk's DOGE co-chair.
What they're saying: In response to a user who said replies were being hidden from her posts, Loomer stated that there is a "full censorship of my account simply because I called out H-1B visas. This is anti-American behavior by tech oligarchs."
- "Insane that blue checks are being removed from accounts that have been vocal in their criticism of the H1B racket," Wax said.
- "I just lost my verification...was told my account is 'under review,'" Shroyer said.
- Those updates from the three critics were posted around the same time Thursday night. There has been no official response from Musk or X.
The other side: A few hours before those posts, Musk shared in a post that the X "algorithm is trying to maximize unregretted user-seconds."
- "If far more credible, verified subscriber accounts (not bots) mute/block your account compared to those who like your posts, your reach will decline significantly."
- He later said that "any accounts found to be engaged in coordinated attacks to spam target accounts with mute/blocks will themselves be categorized β correctly β as spam."
How it happened: Loomer helped spark the H-1B debate earlier this week by criticizing a Trump appointee's previous support for allowing more highly skilled workers to enter the U.S.
- Musk weighed in Wednesday, saying America had too few "talented" and "motivated" engineers and needed "to recruit top talent wherever they may be."
- Loomer's stream of posts since then has included criticisms of Musk and racist claims about Indian people. She has also been backed up by Trump-world allies like Steve Bannon in her efforts to split Big Tech and MAGA.
- "Loomer is trolling for attention. Ignore," Musk posted on X.
Flashback: Musk has a history of punishing news organizations and journalists he doesn't like, ostensibly for policy violations.
- He threatened to reassign NPR's account handle last year and marked some links to the site as "unsafe" when users click through.
- Musk also removed the verification badge of The New York Times in 2023.
- X also suspended independent journalist Ken Klippenstein's account after he shared Sen. JD Vance's vetting document from the alleged Iranian hack of Trump's campaign.
Go deeper: MAGA civil war breaks out over American "mediocrity" culture
It's prime time for returning stuff at stores. Retailers are still figuring out the best way to handle it.
- This is the busiest time of year for returning holiday gifts.
- Retailers from Amazon to L.L. Bean have adopted a range of return policies.
- Most shoppers consider whether they can make free returns when deciding where to shop.
That unwanted kitchen gadget or too-big sweater someone gave you over the holidays represents a growing problem for retailers.
With the holiday shopping season over, retailers now face return requests from customers at the fastest pace of the year. The days between December 26 and 28 are the busiest for returns, with up to three times more than usual, payments platform Lightspeed Commerce found in a review of returns data collected over the last two years.
The amount of stuff that gets returned has been growing each year, too.
Marcus Shen, the CEO of B-Stock, which resells returned items and other excess merchandise, told Business Insider that his company has seen the volume of returns that it processes grow over the last few years. Some of the most-returned items include clothing, electronics, and toys, Shen said.
The share of goods returned to retailers is expected to reach almost 17% and be worth $890 billion this year, a report from the National Retail Federation, or NRF, found earlier this month. In 2019, it was about 8%.
The growth of e-commerce β and easy return policies at many retailers β has contributed to that explosion of returns, Shen said. Some shoppers even plan on making returns from the start with strategies like bracketing, which is buying multiple sizes or colors of an item with the intent to keep just one and return the others.
"I think that a lot of these very consumer-friendly policies are really a big driver here," Shen said.
Returns represent extra costs for the stores that handle them, whether it's the cost of shipping or marking down the price of the returned item when reselling it.
Many companies try to trim the costs of returns by offering customers incentives to use less costly methods. Earlier this year, for example, Amazon offered customers discounts on groceries if they stopped by an Amazon Fresh store to make a return.
Many retailers offer at least one free way to return a purchase, which often involves customers dropping their return off at a store or other physical location. That usually saves the retailer the cost of shipping the item from a customer's home to a processing center.
Many have also added incentives β or penalties β meant to steer customers toward those options.
Outdoor retailer REI, for instance, recently banned some customers who made frequent returns from doing so in the future. The action targeted a group of customers that had an average return rate of 79% on purchases, REI told ABC in November.
Amazon took a different approach with one of its policies, which tries to preempt returns entirely by letting shoppers on its website know when a product is frequently returned.
Other companies, such as L.L. Bean and GameStop, assess a fee of less than $10 in order to mail something back to them.
"Retailers are responding by investing in a variety of innovative returns options," the NRF said in its report. "But, at the same time, they are facing growing costs for managing and processing returns."
The NRF's report found that 76% of shoppers decide where to shop based on whether the retailer offers free returns.
"Given the priority shoppers place on free returns, retailers have to walk a fine line in implementing these policies," the NRF said in its report.
At the same time, retailers are paying more attention to controlling the costs of processing returns, Shen told BI.
Getting merchandise back to retailers is only part of the challenge: Once a retailer has the item, it has to decide whether to write it off completely or resell it at a discount, either to its own customers or through companies like Shen's.
"It's cash that's sitting on the floor of a warehouse," he said.