#Tweetstorm 14:1-5

[yossarian22c]

Probably the number of accounts banned and messages flagged dropped to zero after Musk laid off most of the content moderation staff. Doesn’t mean it isn’t there, just no one is flagging and identifying it right now.

[Tom]

It would also be a mistake to say that "nothing happened," as well. While Trump has yet to post (probably due to contractual agreements with Truth Social, as noted above), Musk has allowed a number of bigots, fascists, conspiracy theorists, and terrorists back onto the site. Subsequently, advertising revenue and active member counts have both fallen off a cliff.

[Tom]

Also, I could not disagree more with this statement: "their unspoken goal was to champion a public cause rather than to be profitable. That is not good."

That is EXCELLENT. That is RARE and LAUDABLE and we as a society need vastly MORE of it from our corporations. If I don't agree with that public cause, I can choose not to support the corporation by paying for its services -- assuming of course that it has not been able to set up a monopoly. Twitter is manifestly not a monopoly; competitors have sprung up all over. The ones competing purely on the grounds of ideology have largely failed because -- and this is key -- conservatives don't want to hang out anywhere that there aren't any liberals to insult or provoke, and liberals generally aren't interested in hanging out with bigots. (Places like Gab, Parler, and Truth Social will ALWAYS fail as long as they promote themselves as a place for Nazis to come and speak freely, because normal people don't want to chat with Nazis and people who self-identify as the sort of people who chafe under anti-Nazi restrictions are really only interested in insulting non-Nazis under cover of distance and anonymity. They're not on Parler to share pie recipes and cat photos.)

[Fenring]

Tom, it is bad not because they had a social goal, but because they were manipulating the public trust to do it. I agree with you that openly-stated social goals are great, or at least public-mindedness is great. However (a) the shareholders and the SEC need to be told point blank what the medium-long term goals are with no smokescreen, (b) they have to be open and transparent about being a publication rather than an open forum. I have no problem with a left-leaning publication that allows public posting but has a particular agenda. If you want editorial control then knock yourself out. But claiming to be a for-profit company that has no agenda, while actually acting like a non-profit with an agenda, is probably illegal as well as unethical. I am also not advocating for total acceptance of all posts uber-libertarian style. I'm just saying that having a corporate policy that in private is different from the one being stated in public is just playing dirty games of another sort.

[Wayward Son]

The latest report is that Musk has cut in half the Twitter team tackling child sexual abuse on the platform.

Which might not have been too bad except that "lawmakers in the European Union and the U.K. are planning broad-reaching online safety rules that will require social media platforms to better protect children or face significant fines."  Losing the European market and other international markets might affect the value of Twitter somewhat, not to mention bad publicity and such in the U.S.

[msquared]

So he did not eliminate the trafficking of kiddie porn on Twitter, he basically eliminated the people responsible for getting rid of it. So the exact opposite of what Crunch was saying?

So Crunch says Dems are upset that Musk got rid of kiddie porn on Twitter when is seems like they got upset when he made it easier.

Not that Crunch will ever admit to misleading statements, since he almost never supplies back up or proof for them.

[TheDrake]

I'm sure there will be a spin on this, like "well half of the people in that group weren't ACTUALLY working on child protection, they were advancing LGBTQ posts trying to groom kids for gaydom.

[Wayward Son]

Apparently Europe has made it official:

"Twitter will have to implement transparent user policies, significantly reinforce content moderation and protect freedom of speech, tackle disinformation with resolve, and limit targeted advertising," [EU industry chief Thierry Breton] said in the meeting [with Musk].

IOW, do what old Twitter did, but better.

Wonder how that will work out since he granted amnesty to those previously banned? 

[Grant]

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

So after...

After this dude goes on Alex Jones Infowars today....

And talks about how Hitler's "not so bad", or something like that....

At that point where Alex Jones has this look on his face that says "I'm not the craziest SOB in the room anymore"...

People are looooozing their minds.

And then.  Then.  When you gotta ask yourself what the hell this person could do to make it worse.  How could this person dig themselves deeper?

Then.

Then, ladies and gentlemen.  LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL.

Then, Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, tweets a picture of a SWASTICA INSIDE A STAR OF DAVID.




 

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Ftenor.com%2Fview%2Fwait-what-james-franco-the-interview-gif-11616007&psig=AOvVaw06yoroOWnGKLFUBag0tlfl&ust=1670039354871000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CA8QjRxqFwoTCIjVyseD2vsCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAD

THIS MAN

THIS MAN MAKES DONALD TRUMP LOOK LIKE A *censored*ING GENIUS.  No wonder he likes him and has him over to dinner a lot.

I mean, people were already losing their minds over Kanye.  Now, there is this frothing at the mouth that is occurring. 

I mean, there is stupid, and there is mentally ill, and there is hateful, and there is racist and anti-semitism.  But this guy.  This guy here.  This dude has a gift. 

I'm gonna say it.  This dude could actually be President.  He is the only dude I know that can make the news cycle about him, every time, multiple times, and drown out the bandwidth of Il Don.

This guy has proven that he can say the most outrageous *censored*, have every swinging Richard with their hair on fire, and just keep on walking. 

In a world of war, World Cup madness, nuclear threats, economic downturn, out of control inflation, election furor, pandemic disease, and a twice impeached former wannabe dictator running for Prez while under investigation...  in this world, Ye is King.  He is the 5th Horseman. 

Kanye West has proven that the quickest way to fame is to say the most outrageous *censored* imaginable to upset the greatest amount of people.  Pretty soon he's going to be able to run as President of Iran, Saudi Arabia, or the PLO. 

[Fenring]

Haha, well in fairness the swastika of David was probably a tone-deaf attempt to demonstrate universal love of everyone, even including very oppositional groups such as villains and their victims. I think a fair amount of people would actually agree with the proposition that you shouldn't hate anyone, and any Christian should (on paper) agree that all of mankind should be shown love. That being said, any attempt to communicate such a message is (perhaps intentionally) sabotaged when the delivery method is this loaded. One might well imagine a yogi or Buddhist monk making a similar statement about every human having value and so forth, and people would probably nod their heads and accept that this person is trying to move beyond negative emotion. Coming from Kanye we probably can't believe he is engaging in such a project, or any other variety of noble pursuit. It's too bad, too, because it essentially serves to discredit anti-hate notions when a nutjob says them. It's almost like a psy-op designed to make sure no one ever accepts propositions such as these, since they come from a poisoned source. "I like Hitler" is probably not a good way to advocate against demonizing people, and naturally we have to do a triple take to make sure we even heard what we heard. And of course we also have two columns (or more) going, where in the first one he's saying what we might hope he's saying (and this strains credulity), and in another we just conclude that he likes what Hitler did, like, aesthetically, like he'd like to be his buddy.

[msquared]

Well free speech mavin Elon has banned Ye from Twitter.

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/ye-suspended-twitter-swastika-post-082209074.html

[Grant]

Well free speech mavin Elon has banned Ye from Twitter.

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/ye-suspended-twitter-swastika-post-082209074.html

What?  No poll to decide if he should be banned? 

That Vox Populi, Vox Dei crap that Musk is trying to pull is one of the stupider things he's attempted.  The man loses more respect from me daily.  The entire history of populism can be wrapped around that idiotic phrase.  I'd rather go with Alcuin of York's interpretation. 

Nec audiendi qui solent dicere, Vox populi, vox Dei, quum tumultuositas vulgi semper insaniae proxima sit.

"And those people should not be listened to who keep saying the voice of the people is the voice of God, since the riotousness of the crowd is always very close to madness."

Or as Agent K would say, "A person is smart, people are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it". 

Not to mention that polls on Twitter are the most vulnerable aspect of the platform to bots.  And Musk knows this.

[TheDeamon]

Internal Facebook research has shown that "outrageous" emotional claims/positions get the most clicks/views. Love/hate appeal to emotion gets the clicks/followers. So the algorithm designed to keep you engaged on their site promotes them. So the people who put out measured reasoned boring wonky policy posts are largely ignored. People throwing emotional firebombs get the clicks. Its the digital tragedy of the commons.

You needed facebook to tell you that?

The Democrats figured that out back in the late 80's, although it didn't seem to start getting used aggressively until the 1990's. Although I think Madison Avenue had also long-since figured it out by the 80's as well when it came to advertising in general.

When operating in the human sphere, if people have to choose between acting on their emotional responses, or their logical response mechanism, they will almost without fail, choose to opt for the emotional response option.

It's why Snuggles has a teddy bear for it's add campaign(cute/cuddly), likewise for the Pillsbury Dough Boy, and on down the list. It's why advertisers tend to go for either cute/"feel good" ads, or attempts to "wow" the viewer or elicit some other form of quasi-nostalgic response(Auto Insurance, and Car Companies trying to emphasize the joy of driving on the open road).

Or the infamous Democratic appeal to emotion when it comes to basically any social issue. Which is why (pre-Trump) Republicans tend to get hammered on social issues because their preferred responses tend to be more based on economic theories(which you may, or may not, agree with), but as their solutions are logic based rather than "We're going to give you 'free' stuff" or "We're going to enact laws to stop those mean people" they tend to lose those audiences to the Democrats.

[TheDeamon]

Such a great investment.  It might go bankrupt just months after he bought it.

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/musk-says-twitter-could-face-bankruptcy-next-year-report-221322212.html

Well, there's bankruptcy(reorganize/restructure), and then there is bankruptcy(out of business). Time will tell. It is clear the company was fueled entirely by hype, but that is hardly shocking, it's what a great many people suspected to be the case.

In any case, one of Musk's objectives for Twitter was to basically end the company in any case and turn it into a distributed platform. It's just a question of if he can pull that off before the money runs out.

[msquared]

Or the Republicans going for the scare, whether is is Willie Horton back in the day, or the southern border and crime now.

In fact crime scare has been a go to Republican theme for 40+ years.  Notice how the number of pieces on crime on Fox has dropped by half since the mid terms?

[yossarian22c]

...

Or the infamous Democratic appeal to emotion when it comes to basically any social issue. Which is why (pre-Trump) Republicans tend to get hammered on social issues because their preferred responses tend to be more based on economic theories(which you may, or may not, agree with), but as their solutions are logic based rather than "We're going to give you 'free' stuff" or "We're going to enact laws to stop those mean people" they tend to lose those audiences to the Democrats.

Glad you at least qualified pre-Trump. But the Tea Party was all emotion. They didn't have a real agenda. Other than "free stuff" (no taxes). Most the the Gingrich playbook is appeal to emotion, excite the base, wedge issues. The Republican party hasn't had a real agenda except cut taxes (mostly for the rich and corporations) in a long time. Unless you consider who/whatever they are scapegoating at the moment (immigrants, gays, trans, CRT) at the time a real policy position.


The only area I really see Democrats playing to emotions is on racial issues. Its my least favorite part of the party. Government should be about government policy. The government response to discrimination should be: "Do we need better non-discrimination laws? Do we need better police training? Do we need more funding for education?" not "Racists bad!". 

[TheDrake]

Such a great investment.  It might go bankrupt just months after he bought it.

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/musk-says-twitter-could-face-bankruptcy-next-year-report-221322212.html

Well, there's bankruptcy(reorganize/restructure), and then there is bankruptcy(out of business). Time will tell. It is clear the company was fueled entirely by hype, but that is hardly shocking, it's what a great many people suspected to be the case.

In any case, one of Musk's objectives for Twitter was to basically end the company in any case and turn it into a distributed platform. It's just a question of if he can pull that off before the money runs out.

Ha. He didn't buy twitter to turn it into mastodon, which already exists to be a "distributed twitter". You know, the one that Trump's people ripped off for Truth. Interesting that you think his plan was to turn Twitter into a non-profit. That seems like a breach of fiduciary duty to the other investors and lenders unless they are in on it.

[Tom]

as their solutions are logic based

What an incredibly delusional take.

[Ouija Nightmare]

...

Or the infamous Democratic appeal to emotion when it comes to basically any social issue. Which is why (pre-Trump) Republicans tend to get hammered on social issues because their preferred responses tend to be more based on economic theories(which you may, or may not, agree with), but as their solutions are logic based rather than "We're going to give you 'free' stuff" or "We're going to enact laws to stop those mean people" they tend to lose those audiences to the Democrats.

Glad you at least qualified pre-Trump. But the Tea Party was all emotion. They didn't have a real agenda. Other than "free stuff" (no taxes). Most the the Gingrich playbook is appeal to emotion, excite the base, wedge issues. The Republican party hasn't had a real agenda except cut taxes (mostly for the rich and corporations) in a long time. Unless you consider who/whatever they are scapegoating at the moment (immigrants, gays, trans, CRT) at the time a real policy position.


The only area I really see Democrats playing to emotions is on racial issues. Its my least favorite part of the party. Government should be about government policy. The government response to discrimination should be: "Do we need better non-discrimination laws? Do we need better police training? Do we need more funding for education?" not "Racists bad!".

The last time Republicans had a meaningful agenda and a plan forward for America (and not just a dozen ultra wealthy guys was probably Eisenhower. Reagan was just a facade and an actor he played his part pretty well but he wasn’t a leader. Bush Sr was a favorite of mine but probably a victim of changing times in the GOP.

Him being mocked for “Read my lips new new taxes” always irritated me

[Tom]

Bush Sr. was far more of a monster than his son, who was merely the puppet of monsters. He just seemed like a nebbishy grandpa and didn't, unlike Kissinger, exude an aura that made him feel like the sort of guy who'd sit at the head of a long table in a dark room with steepled fingertips, cackling to himself.

[msquared]

Yep Elon is really worried about child porn on Twitter. So worried that he removed the advisory group formed to address that problem, as well as other issues.

https://currently.att.yahoo.com/att/musks-twitter-dissolves-trust-safety-020433682.html?.tsrc=daily_mail&uh_test=1_11

[msquared]

Well Free Speech maverick has banned several journalist.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/elon-musk-ban-journalists-wants-183938356.html

Trump and Musk sure have one thing in common. They can dish it out but can not take it.

[Ouija Nightmare]

Bush Sr. was far more of a monster than his son, who was merely the puppet of monsters. He just seemed like a nebbishy grandpa and didn't, unlike Kissinger, exude an aura that made him feel like the sort of guy who'd sit at the head of a long table in a dark room with steepled fingertips, cackling to himself.

From my view point that depends on how you rank aspiring to hold power cluelessly vs  holding it and using it with purpose.

I don’t necessarily agree with all the choices Bush Sr made but at least he understood consequences of executive action and owned his decisions. I can respect that.

His son was more like a kid playing on the highway. We are still having wrecks years later and I don’t think he understands the role he played in it to this day.

I’m not going to try arguing “good man” though. For a really good man in the Oval Office one of the few that come to mind is Carter.

[msquared]

Well Musk is a man of the People. After taking a poll, he has unbanned most of the journalist.

[LetterRip]

Well Musk is a man of the People. After taking a poll, he has unbanned most of the journalist.

Apparently he kept rerunning the polls even though they gave the same result.

[Ouija Nightmare]

Well Musk is a man of the People. After taking a poll, he has unbanned most of the journalist.

And has now banned those radical hypertext links. I mean really if you let people get away with linking things off site next it’ll be the crazy 90’s again and the rise of the oppressive www.

Free speech my ass

[Fenring]

Hm. Did Twitter previously allow ads or solicitations for other (competing) websites within tweets? I actually don't know the answer to that. And for that matter, would any other for-profit comments section (admittedly a different format) such as news sites allow links to their competitors in the comments?

[msquared]

I think in profiles members often linked to Instagram accounts and such.

[msquared]

Now Elon is asking Twitter members if he should step down and has said he would abide by the decision of the poll.

Let's see what happens.

[LetterRip]

... everyone who voted yes gets booted off ...

He has to realize that he is making lots of dubious decisions, and this gives him a 'graceful' way to exit.  Not sure if he has the will to stay away though...

[NobleHunter]

Hm. Did Twitter previously allow ads or solicitations for other (competing) websites within tweets? I actually don't know the answer to that. And for that matter, would any other for-profit comments section (admittedly a different format) such as news sites allow links to their competitors in the comments?

They did. I've never heard of someone banning links specifically for competitors though that may be a motive for banning links in general (aside from the stated safety and anti-spam measures).

[TheDrake]

Hm. Did Twitter previously allow ads or solicitations for other (competing) websites within tweets? I actually don't know the answer to that. And for that matter, would any other for-profit comments section (admittedly a different format) such as news sites allow links to their competitors in the comments?

You mean like every single tweet in here? https://mobile.twitter.com/truth_socialapp

I see cross links between NY Times and Wapo all the time.

[TheDrake]

A total of 57.5% voted "yes" after Mr Musk asked his 122 million followers whether he should stand down.

I wonder if any of those laid off engineers knew how to write a bot that could evade remaining Twitter safeguards.

[rightleft22]

I want to give Musk the benefit of the doubt. Is their is any method to the 'madness'

[Tom]

Well, yes, in that he's behaving exactly the way you'd expect a spoiled, vain, butt-hurt manchild who thinks he understands how a complicated system works but in reality has been carefully sheltered from actually knowing any real details would act in this situation.

[rightleft22]

I guess intelligence in one are does not translate to intelligence in other areas.
From the outside looking in he appears... what do they  call that now... thirsty. He appears really thirsty for attention.
(not sure who they are but I guess I am now one of them)

Ever sense his attempt his suggestion to help those boys were trapped in the cave were mocked he's seems to have lost 'something'

[Tom]

I don't think he was ever as smart as his hagiographers have tried to make it appear, frankly. Like almost all billionaires and almost all executives, his life is a story of lucky upward failures instead of genuinely brilliant successes.

[NobleHunter]

There's a story going around that both SpaceX and Tesla's company culture revolves around managing Musk and keeping him out of the way of people doing real work. That culture doesn't exist at Twitter and we can see the results.

[TheDrake]

In 2000, the two digital payments firms got merged with each other. However, combining the two firms did not turn out out be very successful. Elon Musk took over as the CEO in April 2000 and was fired in October 2000.

Later, Peter Thiel took over as the CEO of the merged company and the company got rechristened as PayPal in the year June 2001. PayPal launched its first IPO in February 2002 and later eBay purchased it for $1.5 billion. Elon Musk, who still held a stake in PayPal, made a windfall gain of $180 million from the sake and suddenly became super-rich. Later, he would invest this money into other ventures like SpaceX, Tesla and SolarCity.

So, Musk made his initial money because people got him out of the way as well.

[msquared]

Well the Blue verifcation system seems to be a joke.

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/reporter-poses-senator-again-twitter-072201185.html