Elon Musk: Officially a fraud and piece of shit. Official or unofficial war criminal?

[Bateshorn 9,928]

Here's a very niche but excellent example using Nate Silver:

It's post election season and the Nate's get into a twitter slap fight (Nate Silver and Nate Cohn) about why Democrat's under-performed their polling for the 1000th time.  If you are twitter's sales team, you get an insta hard on, because a very upper echelon and marketable part of your coastal audience are going to suddenly open their twitter apps to watch the two nerds argue.  You can sell that shit to advertisers.  Next thing you know, Patagonia on your page advertising the latest and greatest Better Sweater.   Twitter didn't do anything other than find an sell-able opportunity and take advantage.  The Nate's created all the content.  That's why it's absurd to think they will pay for status that doesn't generate income back to them.

[Grade of D as in David 13,253]

1 hour ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

I guess Tesla's Autopilot software is out of beta.  Congrats Autopilot owners!  You've been rewarded.

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/31/elon-musk-has-pulled-more-than-50-tesla-engineers-into-twitter.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's a little on the nose to have autopilot engineers be the ones to crash Tesla.

[immamac 42,857]

wait till you fucking idiots who don't understand the internet and bitch about a free site like surly having ads discover that Bumble costs 49.99 a month. 

[Bateshorn 9,928]

7 minutes ago, immamac said:

wait till you fucking idiots who don't understand the internet and bitch about a free site like surly having ads discover that Bumble costs 49.99 a month. 

Yeah, but pussies undefeated.

[immamac 42,857]

4 minutes ago, longhornmatt said:

Btw, Musk moving employees from publicly traded Tesla where he is CEO to go work for his own private business instead seems rather sketchy from a Tesla fiduciary duty standpoint.   Nothing will come of it, because he already gets away with blatant securities fraud and because Tesla’s shareholders are comprised of too many weird bros who believe Dear Leader can do no wrong.   But it is pretty funny when you think about it.  “Fuck yeah, Elon!   Divert resources from the project used to justify the valuation of the company I actually invested in so you can go get yours on Twitter instead!  Maybe you can take some Tesla employees and have them do your yard work, too!  We will pay for it as long as it makes you happy!”

Tesla isn't paying engineers to work on Twitter. He didn't "move them" he offered them new positions at a new company and accepted their resignation from one and has them gainfully employed at another.

If he just had Tesla resources working on Twitter this would be a problem, but he's not that fucking stupid and neither are 50 really smart engineers who probably make a shitload of money. 

[Neonmoon 38,129]

As a business move, it doesn't make sense for Twitter long term. Elon is deluding the brand for short term revenue gains. The entire point of blue checks is credibility. If anyone can purchase a blue check mark, that means blue checks marks are worthless, undermining your own brand. Blue check marks are exclusive, it's why people want them. If anyone can get them with money, they're not longer desirable. 

I get trying to increase revenue streams, but maybe there are better ways. 

[texasdago 7,573]

6 hours ago, wildcat09 said:

He’s got it figured out now, he’ll just publicly negotiate fees with every user who wants to stay verified:

 

aka advertisers are going to flee the platform

[Brisketexan 105,152]

28 minutes ago, immamac said:

wait till you fucking idiots who don't understand the internet and bitch about a free site like surly having ads discover that Grindr costs 49.99 a month. 

Fixed it for some of y'all.  You know who you are.

[wildcat09 29,354]

38 minutes ago, immamac said:

Tesla isn't paying engineers to work on Twitter. He didn't "move them" he offered them new positions at a new company and accepted their resignation from one and has them gainfully employed at another.

If he just had Tesla resources working on Twitter this would be a problem, but he's not that fucking stupid and neither are 50 really smart engineers who probably make a shitload of money. 

I don't think this is true at all. The CNBC article says the following:

Quote

According to internal records viewed by CNBC, employees from Musk’s other companies are now authorized to work at Twitter, including more than 50 from Tesla, two from the Boring Company (which is building underground tunnels) and one from Neuralink (which is developing a brain-computer interface).

...

It is not immediately clear how Tesla employees are expected to split their schedules between the automaker and Twitter.

Typically, when Tesla employees work for other Elon Musk ventures, usually SpaceX or the Boring Company, they can get paid by the other venture as a consultant. Some of Musk’s employees have full-time roles at more than one of his businesses. For example, Tesla Vice President of Materials Charlie Kuehmann, is concurrently a vice president at SpaceX.

At other times, two Tesla employees told CNBC, workers at the electric automaker are pressured to help with projects at his other companies for no additional pay because it’s seen as good for their careers, or because the work is regarded as helping with a related party transaction or project.

The reporting could be wrong, but it's most likely that they're seconding these employees to Twitter and Twitter is paying Tesla, Boring, and Neuralink for their services. Of course, this being Elon and Twitter already being fucked money-wise, he's probably going to try to make Tesla pay Twitter for it somehow.  Either way, it's probably a pretty gross breach of his fiduciary duties to Tesla, given all the problems they've been having with Autopilot.

[immamac 42,857]

well fuck me, that's just outrageous. Maybe the SEC should do something to Elon Musk...

[Hefeweizen 5,324]

1 hour ago, immamac said:

wait till you fucking idiots who don't understand the internet and bitch about a free site like surly having ads discover that Bumble costs 49.99 a month. 

I was told tree fiddy.

[Francisco 2.0 32,395]

Only 15 mods for nearly 400 million Twitter accounts.  What could possibly go wrong.

 

 

 

Also, disparaging Elon now may warrant a Twitter timeout:

 

 

[Poe It Up 126]

It’s fucking bizarre to see grown men crying about Twitter. 

[MeerkatBong 115]

Bringing back Vine sounds cool.

[mchookem 16,336]

im still glitching over Humble Beast lumping surly with 'the establishment' on previous page lol

['stache 21,817]

23 minutes ago, Poe It Up said:

It’s fucking bizarre to see grown men crying about Twitter. 

I have an account that I never use, so I don't really care much about that side of the situation. The problem is that it's a prime example of the disease that has taken control of our country. There is a large faction that spews hateful rhetoric and dangerous conspiracy theories and claim "free speech" violations when they were dissalowed to do that on the platform. Now one of them is in charge and censoring criticism of this stuff because it was never about "free speech" just their right to be dangerous and violent and silence the "others" who dare deal in facts or at least speak of regular political lies and not the type of stuff that encourages people to try and overthrow the government and beat an 80 year old man with a hammer. That's why this is an issue for many of us who don't really use twitter.

Edited November 1, 2022 by 'stache

[wildcat09 29,354]

30 minutes ago, Poe It Up said:

It’s fucking bizarre to see grown men crying about Twitter. 

He says as he applauds a grown man spending 40+ billion in a temper tantrum because his wife left him and people on Twitter were making fun of him.

[Humble Beast 258]

17 minutes ago, mchookem said:

im still glitching over Humble Beast lumping surly with 'the establishment' on previous page lol

Oh i didn’t mean to do that if that’s how it came across. 
 

4 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

He says as he applauds a grown man spending 40+ billion in a temper tantrum because his wife left him and people on Twitter were making fun of him.

I thought it was because they banned the Babylon Bee?

[Brisketexan 105,152]

19 minutes ago, 'stache said:

Now one of them is in charge and censoring criticism of this stuff because it was never about "free speech" just their right to be dangerous and violent and silence the "others" who dare deal in facts or at least speak of regular political lies and not the type of stuff that encourages people to try and overthrow the government and beat an 80 year old man with a hammer. That's why this is an issue for many of us who don't really use twitter.

This.  This is why Musk's folly merits concern, and it's the part that dishonest trolls completely ignore.

They love to bash "the establishment."  But they never want to acknowledge that "the establishment" -- you know, a functioning state, with a bureaucracy, courts, and basic laws - is what keeps us from experiencing the fucking Purge in real life.  They have zero answer for that.  Because they are trolls who WANT bad outcomes like the Purge.  Fuck 'em.

[Neonmoon 38,129]

Ha didn’t see the follow up. This was great

 

[High Plains Drifter 11,050]

 

nevermind

 

Edited November 1, 2022 by High Plains Drifter

[Poe It Up 126]

29 minutes ago, 'stache said:

I have an account that I never use, so I don't really care much about that side of the situation. The problem is that it's a prime example of the disease that has taken control of our country. There is a large faction that spews hateful rhetoric and dangerous conspiracy theories and claim "free speech" violations when they were dissalowed to do that on the platform. Now one of them is in charge and censoring criticism of this stuff because it was never about "free speech" just their right to be dangerous and violent and silence the "others" who dare deal in facts or at least speak of regular political lies and not the type of stuff that encourages people to try and overthrow the government and beat an 80 year old man with a hammer. That's why this is an issue for many of us who don't really use twitter.

Twitter is a symptom of the disease. It’s users get off by getting on others, like most hall monitors. It’s the most hateful place on the internet. 

21 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

He says as he applauds a grown man spending 40+ billion in a temper tantrum because his wife left him and people on Twitter were making fun of him.

It’s called fuck you money for a reason. 

[Humble Beast 258]

 

['stache 21,817]

1 minute ago, Humble Beast said:

 

And all the n-words you can muster! Hard R and everything! Freedome!

Edited November 1, 2022 by 'stache

[Humble Beast 258]

3 minutes ago, 'stache said:

And all the n-words you can muster! Hard R and everything! Freedome!

Take a deep breath. 

[Brisketexan 105,152]

2 minutes ago, 'stache said:

And all the n-words you can muster! Hard R and everything! Freedome!

I can say whatever I want!  I have Paid Blue Checkmark Immunity!!!!

Seriously.  What an insane ecosystem he has in mind.  Have fun with that.

[Humble Beast 258]

2 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

I can say whatever I want!  I have Paid Blue Checkmark Immunity!!!!

Seriously.  What an insane ecosystem he has in mind.  Have fun with that.

Where does it say that? 

[Chuckie Finster 22,694]

6 minutes ago, Humble Beast said:

 

As I stated in another thread, this is the fastest way to make the website unusable.  In Elon's best case scenario: @AdamSchefter, @AdanSchefter, and @AdamSchefler all pay for their blue check marks.  The latter two can spam fake NFL trades all day and eventually 1) the real Schefter will leave Twitter or 2) users will stop coming to Twitter for breaking NFL news.  Just impossibly dumb.

[Brisketexan 105,152]

1 minute ago, Humble Beast said:

Where does it say that? 

Right under the "I'm a free speech absolutist" bullshit that he has spouted, and already practiced.  After all, it's what you want -- finger to "the establishment" and all that.

[Poe It Up 126]

5 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Right under the "I'm a free speech absolutist" bullshit that he has spouted, and already practiced.  After all, it's what you want -- finger to "the establishment" and all that.

[Humble Beast 258]

9 minutes ago, Chuckie Finster said:

As I stated in another thread, this is the fastest way to make the website unusable.  In Elon's best case scenario: @AdamSchefter, @AdanSchefter, and @AdamSchefler all pay for their blue check marks.  The latter two can spam fake NFL trades all day and eventually 1) the real Schefter will leave Twitter or 2) users will stop coming to Twitter for breaking NFL news.  Just impossibly dumb.

That could be a problem. I’m guessing that some form of ID verification would be utilized.

 

8 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Right under the "I'm a free speech absolutist" bullshit that he has spouted, and already practiced.  After all, it's what you want -- finger to "the establishment" and all that.

Okay, you’re imagining things. Just wanted to clear things up. 
 

There’s a lot of room between “free speech absolutist” and the recent Twitter version that received secret moderation and censorship “suggestions” from the Department of Homeland Security. I suspect it will end more anti-censorship than the screechers here will like, but it will be usable and mostly inoffensive. 

Edited November 1, 2022 by Humble Beast

[Brisketexan 105,152]

1 minute ago, Humble Beast said:

There’s a lot of room between “free speech absolutist” and the recent Twitter version that received secret moderation and censorship “suggestions” from the Department of Homeland Security. I suspect it will end more anti-censorship than the screechers here will like, but it will be usable and mostly inoffensive. 

Stanning for a guy who LITERALLY posted false disinformation (the Paul Pelosi "story" from a known fake source) functionally within moments of acquiring the platform, as you claim that as a VICTORY of "anti-censorship."

That's what a troll does, folks.  Watch what HB does, and realize that he's putting on a troll clinic.  They WANT to be able to freely disseminate desinformatsiya far and wide.  That is their goal.  It is the outcome they want -- an ecosystem that fiercely protects their ability to disseminate lies meant to cause harm.  

['stache 21,817]

24 minutes ago, Humble Beast said:

Take a deep breath. 

It's already happened, dumbass, and its going to get worse. You fucking know it, stop being a contrarian troll. I know it makes you feel smart to take the opposite side of things, but interjecting "well, actually" in the middle of a normal conversation has the opposite effect. 

https://theblackwallsttimes.com/2022/10/31/n-word-usage-surges-after-elon-musk-took-over-twitter/?fbclid=IwAR0OIRyOAcGTROL4r0YVbuzn-k7rT6C9sH-95-Kpv55ODg5d8LotiJep_sI

[SydneyCarton 48,108]

19 minutes ago, Humble Beast said:

That could be a problem. I’m guessing that some form of ID verification would be utilized.

 

Ah, the pinnacle of internet/social media credibility: The AgTag. Send in a pic of your diploma and I'll give you your AgTag Blue Checkmark! Please let this happen, turn Twitter into Texags. Oh wait, that was already what was going to happen anyway. So this is perfect. 
 

Edited November 1, 2022 by SydneyCarton

[Humble Beast 258]

4 minutes ago, 'stache said:

It's already happened, dumbass, and its going to get worse. You fucking know it, stop being a contrarian troll. I know it makes you feel smart to take the opposite side of things, but interjecting "well, actually" in the middle of a normal conversation has the opposite effect. 

https://theblackwallsttimes.com/2022/10/31/n-word-usage-surges-after-elon-musk-took-over-twitter/?fbclid=IwAR0OIRyOAcGTROL4r0YVbuzn-k7rT6C9sH-95-Kpv55ODg5d8LotiJep_sI

Wouldn’t surprise me to learn later that this explosion of hate speech literally the day Twitter shifted owners was due to nefarious actors trying to get just the reaction you’re providing. You think there’s really that many racists that were lying in wait for the opportunity to anonymously post the n word when they can just say it at home? 

 

6 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

Ah, the pinnacle of internet/social media credibility: The AgTag. Send in a pic of your diploma and I'll give you your AgTag Blue Checkmark! Please let this happen, turn Twitter into Texags. Oh wait, that was already what was going to happen anyway. So this is perfect. 
 

Ok this is funny, but I’m pretty sure the legacy blue checkmark system had some form of ID verification.  
 

14 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Stanning for a guy who LITERALLY posted false disinformation (the Paul Pelosi "story" from a known fake source) functionally within moments of acquiring the platform, as you claim that as a VICTORY of "anti-censorship."

That's what a troll does, folks.  Watch what HB does, and realize that he's putting on a troll clinic.  They WANT to be able to freely disseminate desinformatsiya far and wide.  That is their goal.  It is the outcome they want -- an ecosystem that fiercely protects their ability to disseminate lies meant to cause harm.  

Elon was wrong to post it. Should he ban himself?

Again, content moderation is a spectrum. You lean more toward DHS secret censorship model they were using, I lean in the other direction. Elon purchase is move in that direction so I’m good with it. Don’t worry you still have almost all other legacy media to fact check and pursue whatever disinformation they perceive in the Twitterverse. 

['stache 21,817]

1 minute ago, Humble Beast said:

Wouldn’t surprise me to learn later that this explosion of hate speech literally the day Twitter shifted owners was due to nefarious actors trying to get just the reaction you’re providing. You think there’s really that many racists that were lying in wait for the opportunity to anonymously post the n word when they can just say it at home? 

 

Ok, so you are a troll. Thanks for confirming. Goodbye.

[RDCanecutter 26,446]

5 hours ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

I guess Tesla's Autopilot software is out of beta.  Congrats Autopilot owners!  You've been rewarded.

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/31/elon-musk-has-pulled-more-than-50-tesla-engineers-into-twitter.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh great. Now Twitter's gonna run over pedestrians.

[Laxtonto 12,085]

1 hour ago, MeerkatBong said:

Bringing back Vine sounds cool.

With the continued rumblings by a variety of current and former FCC officials, including Bredndan Carr in a recent interview that was published this week, that the US should ban TikTok it would seems to a very advantageous opportunity for Twitter right now.

[mdmost 43,004]

Just say you need money to recoup your investment. This BS about wanting to make the blue checks fair across the board is disingenuous at best. No one cares if some spare has a blue checkmark. You do care if someone you want to trust for news and factual information has a blue check mark. It's why we know to trust or not trust a fake account. 

[RDCanecutter 26,446]

1 hour ago, Humble Beast said:

 

I am not a billionaire bidnessman, but even I know that if you open with a price of $20, then immediately fold down to $8, your audience is just going to stand around listening, waiting for it to hit 48 cents.

[RDCanecutter 26,446]

57 minutes ago, Chuckie Finster said:

As I stated in another thread, this is the fastest way to make the website unusable.  In Elon's best case scenario: @AdamSchefter, @AdanSchefter, and @AdamSchefler all pay for their blue check marks.  The latter two can spam fake NFL trades all day and eventually 1) the real Schefter will leave Twitter or 2) users will stop coming to Twitter for breaking NFL news.  Just impossibly dumb.

Every damn fool who can pull in more than $20/month from whatever they post on Twitter has an incentive to pay for that checkmark.

Edited November 1, 2022 by RDCanecutter

[Francisco 2.0 32,395]

6 minutes ago, RDCanecutter said:

I am not a billionaire bidnessman, but even I know that if you open with a price of $20, then immediately fold down to $8, your audience is just going to stand around listening, waiting for it to hit 48 cents.

 

Nah, Elon will go with the buy one/get one free angle.

Now your main and sock Twitter accounts are both verified!

[aggie08 21,504]

19 minutes ago, Humble Beast said:

Don’t worry you still have almost all other legacy media to fact check and pursue whatever disinformation they perceive in the Twitterverse. 

This is such a fucking stupid sentiment. "If you don't like it, don't use it!" Me not using Twitter didn't stop tens of millions of people from being duped by "dead voters" and "secret ballot deliveries" largely disseminated from their bad faith thought leaders on [checks notes] Twitter.

That outcry led directly to hundreds of "election oversight" changes being forced through in State Houses (exactly what the goal was). Armed jackasses "monitoring" ballot boxes is just the icing on the cake; the real damage is being done behind closed doors, as they continue to find ways to parse out the voters they don't want, or simply overturn an unfavorable outcome.

The shit you want causes irrevocable damage to this country and our future, and you don't care. Because you're an entitled piece of shit.

[MonkeyDoughnut 10,253]

54 minutes ago, Chuckie Finster said:

As I stated in another thread, this is the fastest way to make the website unusable.  In Elon's best case scenario: @AdamSchefter, @AdanSchefter, and @AdamSchefler all pay for their blue check marks.  The latter two can spam fake NFL trades all day and eventually 1) the real Schefter will leave Twitter or 2) users will stop coming to Twitter for breaking NFL news.  Just impossibly dumb.

Of those 3 accounts, I only Follow one of them, I don't care how much fake spam tweets happen on the other accounts. I don't see the problem if you use the platform as intended.  

[MonkeyDoughnut 10,253]

3 minutes ago, aggie08 said:

This is such a fucking stupid sentiment. "If you don't like it, don't use it!" Me not using Twitter didn't stop tens of millions of people from being duped by "dead voters" and "secret ballot deliveries" largely disseminated from their bad faith thought leaders on [checks notes] Twitter.

That outcry led directly to hundreds of "election oversight" changes being forced through in State Houses (exactly what the goal was). Armed jackasses "monitoring" ballot boxes is just the icing on the cake; the real damage is being done behind closed doors, as they continue to find ways to parse out the voters they don't want, or simply overturn an unfavorable outcome.

The shit you want causes irrevocable damage to this country and our future, and you don't care. Because you're an entitled piece of shit.

Whose truth do you want twitter to enforce and should they enforce it before allowing anything to be posted?  You see the problem with what is being asked of twitter right?

[Mrs Whiggins 13,050]

24 minutes ago, Humble Beast said:

Ok this is funny, but I’m pretty sure the legacy blue checkmark system had some form of ID verification. 

Actually it did, and at the risk of going CR, it's a problem with the changeover but perhaps in a different way. The entities who were charged (per FBI/USA v Abouammo, et al) with placing a mole/moles inside Twitter (circa 2015) one of whom used his role as a site reliability engineer to hand over the info used in the verification process are now tied to the company. Even if SA doesn't use the info (which includes email addresses, telephone numbers, last log-in time, etc) there are likely plenty of foreign parties interested in paying for that information to quell dissent, track down individuals wherever they reside, etc and perhaps pay enough to make eight bucks look like a decoy. Musk has ties globally to various countries that might like the new loosey goosey staff he has coming in and it all seems a bit sketch to be paying attention to the celebrity stuff when the data mining stuff seems more of a concern. I don't know that Musk and Thiel ever made up and became besties again, but for all their innovation, they have the shady aura of (tech) wizards gone bad.

[Chuckie Finster 22,694]

1 hour ago, Humble Beast said:

That could be a problem. I’m guessing that some form of ID verification would be utilized.

I agree, some sort of symbol would be useful to indicate who has a verified identity.  Perhaps a checkmark.  Hell, let's make it blue.

[956 Worldwide 34,715]

1 hour ago, Humble Beast said:

Wouldn’t surprise me to learn later that this explosion of hate speech literally the day Twitter shifted owners was due to nefarious actors trying to get just the reaction you’re providing. You think there’s really that many racists that were lying in wait for the opportunity to anonymously post the n word when they can just say it at home? 

 

Ok this is funny, but I’m pretty sure the legacy blue checkmark system had some form of ID verification.  
 

Elon was wrong to post it. Should he ban himself?

Again, content moderation is a spectrum. You lean more toward DHS secret censorship model they were using, I lean in the other direction. Elon purchase is move in that direction so I’m good with it. Don’t worry you still have almost all other legacy media to fact check and pursue whatever disinformation they perceive in the Twitterverse. 

“They weren’t real racists, they were just checking to make sure that the real racists could be racist.” 

[Poe It Up 126]

45 minutes ago, MonkeyDoughnut said:

Whose truth do you want twitter to enforce and should they enforce it before allowing anything to be posted?  You see the problem with what is being asked of twitter right?

We’re witnessing a full blown tantrum. They’re fully sprawled out in the checkout aisle, legs and arms hitting the floor in anger because they lost their favorite toy. There’s no reasoning to be had at this point. 

[Anastasis 23,474]

8 hours ago, Homercles said:

Oh look you’re blaming the media.  That’s less surprising than Humble/whoeverdafuck getting dunked on by an Aggie. 

Algo-based social media is a fucking cancer on our society. 

 

Social Media and Mental Health

Abstract

The diffusion of social media coincided with a worsening of mental health conditions among adolescents and young adults in the United States, giving rise to speculation that social media might be detrimental to mental health. In this paper, we provide quasi-experimental estimates of the impact of social media on mental health by leveraging a unique natural experiment: the staggered introduction of Facebook across U.S. colleges. Our analysis couples data on student mental health around the years of Facebook's expansion with a generalized difference-in-differences empirical strategy. We find that the roll-out of Facebook at a college increased symptoms of poor mental health, especially depression. We also find that, among students predicted to be most susceptible to mental illness, the introduction of Facebook led to increased utilization of mental healthcare services. Lastly, we find that, after the introduction of Facebook, students were more likely to report experiencing impairments to academic performance resulting from poor mental health. Additional evidence on mechanisms suggests that the results are due to Facebook fostering unfavorable social comparisons.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3919760