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

[Humble Beast 258]

1 hour 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.

People get duped by all kinds of bullshit from blue checkmark Twitter all the time. Going down the list is all kinds of CR so I’ll just pass. 
 

You don’t like that there will be less moderation/censorship. Fine. I guess you’ll need to build your own social network. 

[Brisketexan 105580]

1 hour 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?

Whose truth?  THE truth.  I don't think we should have a social media ecosystem that allows and rewards demonstrably FALSE information, aimed at fomenting open discord (and undeniably at this time, violence).  Such as, as just one wacky example, the utterly false story about Paul Pelosi being assaulted by his gay lover.  Or the utterly false story about the 2020 election being stolen by italian satellites and shit.

Yes, I do see the problem of what is being asked of Twitter, what has been asked of Twitter, and will be asked of Twitter.  The question is....does ELON really see that problem?  I don't think he does.  I think that he thinks that either 1) weeding out disinformation is super easy, the only reason it hasn't been done well before is because a superbraingenius like him wasn't on the job, or 3) weeding it out isn't important, and people will WANT to participate in an ecosystem that looks more like Parler.  Either way, I think he's wrong.  I think he let his arrogance write a check that his ass can't cash.

[aggie08 21588]

1 hour 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?

Dude, the example I used is about as cut and dry as it gets. There was only one truth. Once that was proven beyond a shadow of any doubt, shouldn't users--especially those from positions of power and authority--be penalized in some fashion for continuing to spread the lies, now clearly declaring themselves bad faith actors? At least in a community that isn't a total cesspool like the alternatives.

Again, I don't use Twitter, so I'm honestly asking: what sincere voices are being unfairly silenced by the previous management? It's an extremely low bar to be on Twitter. EXTREMELY low. So far, Elon has released an insurrectionist state rep and a batshit crazy doctor from Twitter jail. Cool? As an outsider looking in, this just feels like justification to amplify fringe conspiracies.

There are plenty of other more shady sites for that shit.

 

[Buzzrock 15026]

[TriStone 1724]

34 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Such as, as just one wacky example, the utterly false story about Paul Pelosi being assaulted by his gay lover.

This is the one that really galls me.  Even a cursory glance at that dude makes it clear he's MAGA as fuck and this was absolutely a politically motivated attack.

[Brisketexan 105580]

1 minute ago, TriStone said:

This is the one that really galls me.  Even a cursory glance at that dude makes it clear he's MAGA as fuck and this was absolutely a politically motivated attack.

You should take a look into the MAGA ecosystem/echo chamber.  I have a glimpse into it via some old friends on FB (I peruse, but don't really post, except Astros stuff these days).  One of them would post the gay lover bit, and the others would chime in.  Then, they'd wander into discussing Pizzagate as a real thing, and on and on.  There is an entire ecosystem of people trafficking in absolutely batshit crap that is either demonstrably false or has no supporting evidence at all.

And their right to disseminate this shit, amplify it, and employ the gullible to, oh, I don't know, attempt to violently overthrow the US government on January 6th (just to pick a date at random) is what the trolls and Elon fanbois are championing.  They are trash people selling trash, and Elon is happy to tote it for him because he's a narcissist who loves the attention and fawning.  Bad news for you, Elon fanbois -- there's nothing special about you gargling Elon's balls.  If he thought he could get them gargled in superior fashion by people who argued that all Twitter content should champion vegan values, he'd be cozying up to them to get their fawning instead.  You're just today's willing mouth.

[Buzzrock 15026]

This is the one that really galls me.  Even a cursory glance at that dude makes it clear he's MAGA as fuck and this was absolutely a politically motivated attack.

“Put me on the jury your honor, I can tell if someone is guilty just by lookin at him!”

[TriStone 1724]

You jest, but few situations are so clear as this one.  Just look at the dude's history.

[Sawbonz 27781]

3 hours 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? 

[Humble Beast 258]

19 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

You should take a look into the MAGA ecosystem/echo chamber.  I have a glimpse into it via some old friends on FB (I peruse, but don't really post, except Astros stuff these days).  One of them would post the gay lover bit, and the others would chime in.  Then, they'd wander into discussing Pizzagate as a real thing, and on and on.  There is an entire ecosystem of people trafficking in absolutely batshit crap that is either demonstrably false or has no supporting evidence at all.

 

 

[Goredho 17512]

I'll give Elon credit for one thing, he's doing more than his fair share in exposing which members of our society would happily destroy the current order of our society.

I am sure unrelatedly, but why do all these far right Surly ideologues keep showing up under different usernames?

[mchookem 16524]

4 hours 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?

the fact that question is even asked nowadays...

[mchookem 16524]

2 hours ago, Buzzrock said:

 

 

[aggie08 21588]

55 minutes ago, mchookem said:

the fact that question is even asked nowadays...

Me thinks MonkeyDoughnut may be one of the ~30% of Americans who, among the right crowd with a few drinks in them, will tell you all about their neighbor who knows a guy whose cousin deleted security footage from his polling station.

Seriously though: I just want an answer for what interesting, sincere voices were being silenced on Twitter. You have to actively try to get banned from what I can tell. Candace Owens and Dan fucking Bongingo managed to keep their accounts going strong. It's clearly a very, very low bar.

Or is this really about one specific dude getting banned, hurting feelings nation-wide, leading to this however-many-month-long tantrum?

The cynic in me can take a guess at the answer, but I'm legitimately curious.

[Humble Beast 258]

9 minutes ago, aggie08 said:

Me thinks MonkeyDoughnut may be one of the ~30% of Americans who, among the right crowd with a few drinks in them, will tell you all about their neighbor who knows a guy whose cousin deleted security footage from his polling station.

Seriously though: I just want an answer for what interesting, sincere voices were being silenced on Twitter. You have to actively try to get banned from what I can tell. Candace Owens and Dan fucking Bongingo managed to keep their accounts going strong. It's clearly a very, very low bar.

Or is this really about one specific dude getting banned, hurting feelings nation-wide, leading to this however-many-month-long tantrum?

The cynic in me can take a guess at the answer, but I'm legitimately curious.

It’s much more about legit stories getting throttled down or otherwise wrongly refuted with great confidence. 
 

I don’t really give a shit about Alex Jones or Trump getting kicked off honestly. It’s more of the key stories falsely dismissed or bullshit getting amplified. Besides Trump getting kicked off, that is why blue check Twitter is mad. Their bullshit was amplified. 

[Bama Chick 28596]

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?

“Whose truth”????

That, right there in two stupid words, is the fucking problem.

There is NO SUCH THING as multiple truths.

Truth is truth.

Pretending like it isn’t is what disinformation is all about.

COVID-19 vaccines don’t alter your DNA or contain microchips. Demons don’t cause STDs. A Houston “physician” posted those “truths” on Twitter and was rightfully banned from the platform.

Musk reinstated her account yesterday.

Morons celebrated and screeched and crowed about the return of truth and free speech.

Truth is truth and pretending otherwise under the guise of free thinking and shallow pontificating about the market place of ideas is how dangerous morons blindly attempt to synthesize complex topics.

[MonkeyDoughnut 10448]

19 minutes ago, aggie08 said:

Me thinks MonkeyDoughnut may be one of the ~30% of Americans who, among the right crowd with a few drinks in them, will tell you all about their neighbor who knows a guy whose cousin deleted security footage from his polling station.

Seriously though: I just want an answer for what interesting, sincere voices were being silenced on Twitter. You have to actively try to get banned from what I can tell. Candace Owens and Dan fucking Bongingo managed to keep their accounts going strong. It's clearly a very, very low bar.

Or is this really about one specific dude getting banned, hurting feelings nation-wide, leading to this however-many-month-long tantrum?

The cynic in me can take a guess at the answer, but I'm legitimately curious.

I'm more of a realist that knows if there are 500 million tweets on an average day, twitter would have to subjectively decide who to target to even look to ban. My opinion is that is dangerous and gives twitter, the company way too much power.  I don't think there is a way for twitter to get rid of misinformation.

My take - reader beware, information on twitter doesn't mean its true. Quoting something from twitter still doesn't make it true.

Your take - twitter information is the truth, any blatantly false information will be removed from twitter as soon as possible.

By taking your stance you are indirectly giving credence to false information on twitter before it is taken down which is impossible to do in real time. What about hacked accounts? Still ban the person or have to prove it was/wasn't them first?

[Nivek 17042]

Whose truth?  THE truth.  I don't think we should have a social media ecosystem that allows and rewards demonstrably FALSE information, aimed at fomenting open discord (and undeniably at this time, violence).  Such as, as just one wacky example, the utterly false story about Paul Pelosi being assaulted by his gay lover.  Or the utterly false story about the 2020 election being stolen by italian satellites and shit.
Yes, I do see the problem of what is being asked of Twitter, what has been asked of Twitter, and will be asked of Twitter.  The question is....does ELON really see that problem?  I don't think he does.  I think that he thinks that either 1) weeding out disinformation is super easy, the only reason it hasn't been done well before is because a superbraingenius like him wasn't on the job, or 3) weeding it out isn't important, and people will WANT to participate in an ecosystem that looks more like Parler.  Either way, I think he's wrong.  I think he let his arrogance write a check that his ass can't cash.

Needs to be governed by the FCC. Unregulated fake news has long been used to incite violence.

[MonkeyDoughnut 10448]

14 minutes ago, Bama Chick said:

“Whose truth”????

That, right there in two stupid words, is the fucking problem.

There is NO SUCH THING as multiple truths.

Truth is truth.

Pretending like it isn’t is what disinformation is all about.

COVID-19 vaccines don’t alter your DNA or contain microchips. Demons don’t cause STDs. A Houston “physician” posted those “truths” on Twitter and was rightfully banned from the platform.

Musk reinstated her account yesterday.

Morons celebrated and screeched and crowed about the return of truth and free speech.

Truth is truth and pretending otherwise under the guise of free thinking and shallow pontificating about the market place of ideas is how dangerous morons blindly attempt to synthesize complex topics.

Just picking on one here but the COVID-19 vaccines don't alter your DNA truth... It's been decided that these guys "lie" and don't tell the truth and it should never have been allowed:

  80 year old Rudolf Jaenisch is a Professor of Biology at MIT and a founding member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research. He is a pioneer of transgenic science, in which an animal’s genetic makeup is altered.  Awards: Wolf Prize in Medicine, Massry Prize, National Medal of Science for Biological Sciences, Robert Koch Medal and Award

   Richard Young also of MIT, Recognized among top 50 leaders in science, technology and business by Scientific American (2006), Elected member of the National Academy of Sciences (2012), Elected member of the National Academy of Medicine (2019)

I'm going to need to know how Twitter should have banned them or their information for spreading misinformation on their field they are considered experts in.

Shouldn't we be welcoming their input? Isn't that how science works? Postulate something, show your research, have others look to prove or disprove it?

 

There are no absolute truths in science, so yes there are such things as multiple truths, we just may not know it yet.

[aggie08 21588]

25 minutes ago, MonkeyDoughnut said:

I'm more of a realist that knows if there are 500 million tweets on an average day, twitter would have to subjectively decide who to target to even look to ban. My opinion is that is dangerous and gives twitter, the company way too much power.  I don't think there is a way for twitter to get rid of misinformation.

My take - reader beware, information on twitter doesn't mean its true. Quoting something from twitter still doesn't make it true.

Your take - twitter information is the truth, any blatantly false information will be removed from twitter as soon as possible.

By taking your stance you are indirectly giving credence to false information on twitter before it is taken down which is impossible to do in real time. What about hacked accounts? Still ban the person or have to prove it was/wasn't them first?

Where did I say that? Who the hell is saying that Twitter should only exist if it contains gospel truths? That's absurd and a red herring. Frankly, NO ONE should be getting their news from Twitter, but I understand society's need for immediacy. Because of need to be first--and most people acting in the own self-interest--social media will always be chalk full of biases, half-truths and misinformation. But what about the habitual line-steppers? The ones repeatedly, purposefully posting straight up, unequivocal, dangerous lies from positions of authority? Like the ones Elon just let back on? 

As far as I know, Twitter never had a one stroke and you're out system. You had to really fucking earn it.

Edited November 2, 2022 by aggie08

[Sawbonz 27781]

15 minutes ago, MonkeyDoughnut said:

Just picking on one here but the COVID-19 vaccines don't alter your DNA truth... It's been decided that these guys "lie" and don't tell the truth and it should never have been allowed:

  80 year old Rudolf Jaenisch is a Professor of Biology at MIT and a founding member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research. He is a pioneer of transgenic science, in which an animal’s genetic makeup is altered.  Awards: Wolf Prize in Medicine, Massry Prize, National Medal of Science for Biological Sciences, Robert Koch Medal and Award

   Richard Young also of MIT, Recognized among top 50 leaders in science, technology and business by Scientific American (2006), Elected member of the National Academy of Sciences (2012), Elected member of the National Academy of Medicine (2019)

I'm going to need to know how Twitter should have banned them or their information for spreading misinformation on their field they are considered experts in.

Shouldn't we be welcoming their input? Isn't that how science works? Postulate something, show your research, have others look to prove or disprove it?

 

There are no absolute truths in science, so yes there are such things as multiple truths, we just may not know it yet.

What the fuck are you talking about

[Bama Chick 28596]

Just picking on one here but the COVID-19 vaccines don't alter your DNA truth... It's been decided that these guys "lie" and don't tell the truth and it should never have been allowed:
  80 year old Rudolf Jaenisch is a Professor of Biology at MIT and a founding member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research. He is a pioneer of transgenic science, in which an animal’s genetic makeup is altered.  Awards: Wolf Prize in Medicine, Massry Prize, National Medal of Science for Biological Sciences, Robert Koch Medal and Award
   Richard Young also of MIT, Recognized among top 50 leaders in science, technology and business by Scientific American (2006), Elected member of the National Academy of Sciences (2012), Elected member of the National Academy of Medicine (2019)
I'm going to need to know how Twitter should have banned them or their information for spreading misinformation on their field they are considered experts in.
Shouldn't we be welcoming their input? Isn't that how science works? Postulate something, show your research, have others look to prove or disprove it?
 
There are no absolute truths in science, so yes there are such things as multiple truths, we just may not know it yet.

Oh my god, you’re an absolute pelican.

Quit flooding the zone with bullshittery.

Do demons cause STDs?

Do vaccines contain microchips?

Did Italian satellites change votes in 2020?

Are there space lasers controlled by Jews?

Did Paul Pelsoi get bashed in the head by a secret gay lover?

Should reporters be thrown in jail and threatened with rape if a certain orange asshole disagrees with them?

No matter how much pseudo intellectual horseshit you throw out in order to pollute the discussion, truth is truth.

Here’s some truth - your posts perfectly illustrate that your nonsense is what dumb people think smart people sound like.

[MonkeyDoughnut 10448]

9 minutes ago, aggie08 said:

Where did I say that? Who the hell is saying that Twitter should only exist if it contains gospel truths? That's absurd and a red herring. Frankly, NO ONE should be getting their news from Twitter, but I understand society's need for immediacy. Because of need to be first--and most people acting in the own self-interest--social media will always be chalk full of biases, half-truths and misinformation. But what about the habitual line-steppers? The ones repeatedly, purposefully posting straight up, unequivocal, dangerous lies from positions of authority? Like the ones Elon just let back on? 

As far as I know, Twitter never had a one stroke and you're out system. You had to really fucking earn it.

 

I didn't think there was anyone reinstated yet (outside of normal temporary bans) per Elon.  Was there someone?

 

 

 

[Bama Chick 28596]

 
I didn't think there was anyone reinstated yet (outside of normal temporary bans) per Elon.  Was there someone?
 
 
 

Yes.



Election denier and present at the Capitol on 1/6



Houston physician who claims vaccines are deadly and demons cause STDs.

[Gravy Train 975]

1 hour ago, aggie08 said:

Me thinks MonkeyDoughnut may be one of the ~30% of Americans who, among the right crowd with a few drinks in them, will tell you all about their neighbor who knows a guy whose cousin deleted security footage from his polling station.

Seriously though: I just want an answer for what interesting, sincere voices were being silenced on Twitter. You have to actively try to get banned from what I can tell. Candace Owens and Dan fucking Bongingo managed to keep their accounts going strong. It's clearly a very, very low bar.

Or is this really about one specific dude getting banned, hurting feelings nation-wide, leading to this however-many-month-long tantrum?

The cynic in me can take a guess at the answer, but I'm legitimately curious.

I got neg-bombed for this in the Nancy Pelosi thread (from the typical CR intellectually-void types), but the Twitter accounts @NancyTracker and @TrialTracker were suspended in early December.  The 'NancyTracker' account was established by those in finance and capital management industries, tracking sources of equities trading and insider trading accusations of congress members.  Nancy's trades were already followed by Jr. Wall Street Analysts building memes on their Instagram pages, pissed that SEC regulations prevented them from trading activity, but others were well doxxed.  The 'TrialTracker' account was providing updates from the Ghislane Maxwell trial.

Since Elon's takeover, 'Nancy Tracker' has been restored and established under a new account:

[Gravy Train 975]

For a peek at where we're going with this, in the potential to return our social media platforms to open protocols, and content creation restored to personal ownership, I see Jack Dorsey crossed this bridge well before Elon's takeover.  It also provides credence to the dogshit-investment-grade-asset Elon acquired, the concepts behind Web3 are valid and supported:

https://news.yahoo.com/bluesky-potential-twitter-alternative-being-111738532.html?soc_src=social-sh&soc_trk=tw&tsrc=twtr'

Quote

Mr Dorsey believes that this approach could solve Big Tech's free speech problem. By bringing so much of the internet under their control, social media giants have made themselves responsible for policing the speech of the entire world. Yet nobody can write a single set of rules that will please millions or billions of people across the world, let alone enforce such rules consistently.

"Twitter started as a protocol. It should never have been a company. That was the original sin," said Mr Dorsey in a private text message to Mr Musk this March.

He added that such a protocol would need to be funded but not owned by some kind of foundation. Any "centralised entity" that decides how the protocol will work or what speech should be banned would simply be a weak point for advertisers and governments to lean on.

According to veteran tech writer Mike Masnick, who has been cited by Mr Dorsey as a key inspiration, this would not only create a new ecosystem of third-party filtering and recommendation systems but also reduce the pressure to be global speech cops.

So Dorsey and team have been working on a new social media platform, using open protocols, called "BlueSky."  It kicked off in 2019, and builds a new, decentralized social media protocol.  That protocol is essential for core function, but also allows a user to 'port' content from one platform to another, as if your one post could be presented in textual transcription in one app, linked to a voice recording in another, linked to a video on a different platform... because those alternate platforms have also adopted the new standard.

This is what Web3 should be, but we're a long ways off from "neutralizing" content ownership out of the host-ecosystem, and into an open-air medium that all platforms agree to adopt.  It will also be the absolute ruin of Facebook products as we currently know them.

https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/19/23412482/bluesky-at-protocol-decentralized-twitter-social-networks-app

Quote

Bluesky, the project started within Twitter to create a decentralized social network, announced it’s getting closer to actually shipping an app. “Closer” is the operative word here, though. Bluesky only announced that it is building an app, that it’ll be called Bluesky, and that it will “be a portal to the world of possibility on top of the AT Protocol.” We still don’t have a release date, a feature list, or much of anything else.

The AT Protocol is the real news for Bluesky. The whole idea behind the project was to separate social apps and social networks — to let people use the same back end and data but build and use their own apps on top of it. “It will allow [Twitter] to access and contribute to a much larger corpus of public conversation, focus our efforts on building open recommendation algorithms which promote healthy conversation, and will force us to be far more innovative than in the past,” Twitter’s then-CEO Jack Dorsey said in 2019 when Bluesky was first announced. The AT Protocol, it appears, will be the underlying technology that powers all these apps in the future.

The AT Protocol website is still fairly sparse, but it offers three reasons the decentralized future of social might be the right one: “federated social,” which allows users to use many apps on top of one service; “algorithmic choice,” which lets them decide how that information is presented; and “portable accounts,” meaning you could move your stuff from one app to another without losing your content or social graph. Bluesky’s blog post also mentioned performance as a possible future upside, saying, “We’ve made it a priority to build for fast loading at large scales.”

There is one problem with this, in that Congress already knows about it.  Your weight of tinfoil hat may vary, but let's assume they WILL have controlling interest of the same underlying protocol.  Thumb to page 40 of the transcription from the Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, dated March 25, 2021:  https://www.congress.gov/117/meeting/house/111407/documents/HHRG-117-IF16-Transcript-20210325.pdf

Quote

If instead we woke up tomorrow and decided to ask the government to tell us what content to take down or leave up, we may end up with a service that couldn't be used to question the government. This is a reality in many countries today, and is against the right of an individual. This would also have the effect of putting enormous resource requirements on businesses and services, which would further entrench only those who are able to afford it. Smaller businesses would not be able to compete, and all activity would be centralized into very few businesses. So how do we resolve these two viewpoints? One way is to create shared protocols. Social media has proven itself important enough to be worthy of an internet protocol, one that a company like Twitter can contribute to and compete on creating experiences people love to use. We started work on such a protocol, which we call Blue Sky. It intends to act as a decentralized, open source social media protocol, not owned by any single company or organization. Any developer around the world can help develop it, just as any company can access its services. But does an open protocol address the concerns raised here? Greater transparency is the strongest benefit.

Wikipedia background on the 'BlueSky' protocol initiative: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluesky_(protocol)

[Gravy Train 975]

9 hours ago, Laxtonto said:

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.

Right on.

https://www.axios.com/2022/11/01/interview-fcc-commissioner-says-government-should-ban-tiktok

Quote

The Council on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS) should take action to ban TikTok, Brendan Carr, one of five commissioners at the Federal Communications Commission, told Axios in an interview.

Why it matters: It's the strongest language Carr has used to date to urge action on TikTok. With more than 200 million downloads in the U.S. alone, the popular app is becoming a form of critical information infrastructure — making the app's ownership by a Chinese parent company a target of growing national security concern.

The FCC has no authority to regulate TikTok directly, but Congress previously acted after Carr voiced concerns about Chinese telecom companies, including Huawei.
State of play: TikTok is currently in negotiations with CFIUS, an interagency committee that conducts national security reviews of foreign companies' deals, to determine whether it can be divested by Chinese parent company ByteDance to an American company and remain operational in the United States.

The New York Times reported in September that a deal was taking shape but not yet in its final form and that Department of Justice official Lisa Monaco was concerned the deal did not provide sufficient insulation from Beijing.
A Republican-controlled Congress could try to scrap any deal viewed as too easy on China.
What he's saying: "I don’t believe there is a path forward for anything other than a ban," Carr said, citing recent revelations about how TikTok and ByteDance handle U.S. user data.

Carr highlighted concerns about U.S. data flowing back to China and the risk of a state actor using TikTok to covertly influence political processes in the United States.
There simply isn't "a world in which you could come up with sufficient protection on the data that you could have sufficient confidence that it’s not finding its way back into the hands of the [Chinese Communist Party]," Carr said.
Carr sent letters to Apple and Google in June asking the companies to remove the apps from their stores due to concerns about data flowing back to China.
What TikTok is saying: "Commissioner Carr has no role in the confidential discussions with the U.S. government related to TikTok and appears to be expressing views independent of his role as an FCC commissioner," a TikTok spokesperson told Axios in a statement.

"We are confident that we are on a path to reaching an agreement with the U.S. Government that will satisfy all reasonable national security concerns."
TikTok supports the passage of national data privacy legislation that applies to all companies, the spokesperson added.
What's happening: A series of recent reports have challenged TikTok's claims that U.S. user data is secure because it is stored outside of China and that the company does not comply with Chinese government content moderation requirements.

China-based engineers working at TikTok accessed nonpublic U.S. user information, including phone numbers and birthdays, BuzzFeed reported in June.
ByteDance, which is based in China, instructed employees to push pro-Beijing messaging to U.S. users of a news app, BuzzFeed reported in July. Bytedance said it did not do this.
ByteDance planned to use TikTok to collect information about certain U.S. users, according to a Forbes report published last month.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilybaker-white/2022/10/20/tiktok-bytedance-surveillance-american-user-data/?sh=416023e16c2d

Quote

A China-based team at TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, planned to use the TikTok app to monitor the personal location of some specific American citizens, according to materials reviewed by Forbes.

The team behind the monitoring project — ByteDance’s Internal Audit and Risk Control department — is led by Beijing-based executive Song Ye, who reports to ByteDance cofounder and CEO Rubo Liang.

The team primarily conducts investigations into potential misconduct by current and former ByteDance employees. But in at least two cases, the Internal Audit team also planned to collect TikTok data about the location of a U.S. citizen who had never had an employment relationship with the company, the materials show. It is unclear from the materials whether data about these Americans was actually collected; however, the plan was for a Beijing-based ByteDance team to obtain location data from U.S. users’ devices.

TikTok spokesperson Maureen Shanahan said that TikTok collects approximate location information based on users’ IP addresses to “among other things, help show relevant content and ads to users, comply with applicable laws, and detect and prevent fraud and inauthentic behavior."

But the material reviewed by Forbes indicates that ByteDance's Internal Audit team was planning to use this location information to surveil individual American citizens, not to target ads or any of these other purposes. Forbes is not disclosing the nature and purpose of the planned surveillance referenced in the materials in order to protect sources. TikTok and ByteDance did not answer questions about whether Internal Audit has specifically targeted any members of the U.S. government, activists, public figures or journalists.

TikTok is reportedly close to signing a contract with the Treasury Department’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which evaluates the national security risks posed by companies of foreign ownership, and has been investigating whether the company’s Chinese ownership could enable the Chinese government to access personal information about U.S. TikTok users. (Disclosure: In a past life, I held policy positions at Facebook and Spotify.)

In September, President Biden signed an executive order enumerating specific risks that CFIUS should consider when assessing companies of foreign ownership. The order, which states that it intends to “emphasize . . . the risks presented by foreign adversaries’ access to data of United States persons,” focuses specifically on foreign companies’ potential use of data “for the surveillance, tracing, tracking, and targeting of individuals or groups of individuals, with potential adverse impacts on national security.”

 

[Buzzrock 15026]

There’s a pretty easy solution: don’t get your news and politics from social media.

[DigglerontheHoof 21283]

6 minutes ago, Buzzrock said:

There’s a pretty easy solution: don’t get your news and politics from social media.

You mean like every trumpkin and right wing nut does?

[GW Hayduke 1953]

8 hours ago, MonkeyDoughnut said:

Just picking on one here but the COVID-19 vaccines don't alter your DNA truth... It's been decided that these guys "lie" and don't tell the truth and it should never have been allowed:

  80 year old Rudolf Jaenisch is a Professor of Biology at MIT and a founding member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research. He is a pioneer of transgenic science, in which an animal’s genetic makeup is altered.  Awards: Wolf Prize in Medicine, Massry Prize, National Medal of Science for Biological Sciences, Robert Koch Medal and Award

   Richard Young also of MIT, Recognized among top 50 leaders in science, technology and business by Scientific American (2006), Elected member of the National Academy of Sciences (2012), Elected member of the National Academy of Medicine (2019)

I'm going to need to know how Twitter should have banned them or their information for spreading misinformation on their field they are considered experts in.

Shouldn't we be welcoming their input? Isn't that how science works? Postulate something, show your research, have others look to prove or disprove it?

 

There are no absolute truths in science, so yes there are such things as multiple truths, we just may not know it yet.

The research conducted by those two scientists did not show that Covid vaccines alter DNA. We should welcome their input, but we shouldn't welcome misinformation about their research.  https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-coronavirus-vaccines/fact-check-controversial-mit-study-does-not-show-that-mrna-vaccines-alter-dna-idUSL1N2PK1DC

Here is Jaenisch's institute's twitter account. https://twitter.com/WhiteheadInst

Here is Young's twitter account. https://twitter.com/youngricka

Those two scientists were not banned or censored on twitter.

 

 

[MonkeyDoughnut 10448]

8 minutes ago, GW Hayduke said:

The research conducted by those two scientists did not show that Covid vaccines alter DNA. We should welcome their input, but we shouldn't welcome misinformation about their research.  https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-coronavirus-vaccines/fact-check-controversial-mit-study-does-not-show-that-mrna-vaccines-alter-dna-idUSL1N2PK1DC

Here is Jaenisch's institute's twitter account. https://twitter.com/WhiteheadInst

Here is Young's twitter account. https://twitter.com/youngricka

Those two scientists were not banned or censored on twitter.

 

 

100% agree. Just was just showing how slippery the truth can be.

Like which religion are we going with as being the "truth" so we know which ones are spreading misinformation.

[Homercles 10206]

8 hours ago, Bama Chick said:

Did Italian satellites change votes in 2020?

[GW Hayduke 1953]

13 minutes ago, MonkeyDoughnut said:

was just showing how slippery the truth can

But the truth in that case wasn't slippery.  There was the research and researchers, which were not censored, and then there was the misinformation surrounding that research, which hopefully was and is being censored.

[Laxtonto 12640]

7 hours ago, Gravy Train said:

Right on.

https://www.axios.com/2022/11/01/interview-fcc-commissioner-says-government-should-ban-tiktok

https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilybaker-white/2022/10/20/tiktok-bytedance-surveillance-american-user-data/?sh=416023e16c2d

 

So far the twitter purchase, from a long term profitability standpoint, looks like it will continue to hinge on individual monetization to divest from advertising (since no one knows how many people are actually on there it is hard to set prices on reach) and the potential to fill the hole in the market if somehow the fed does get around to banning TikTok.

 

People will complain about the approaches to monetization at the individual user level, but how else do you suggest Twitter increase revenue ?

[TwiceHorn 31686]

By making such an issue out of the number of legitimate users (vs. bots) for valuation purposes, Musk has now made the value proposition of twitter advertising more suspect than it probably was previously.

[Bateshorn 9958]

For all the people screaming about about TEH VILLAGE SQUARE!!!!  WE TWEET, YOU DECIDE!!! and subtly bitching about how people can’t be racist/antisemitic/antiLGTBQ onnline and that’s a violation of their free speech, you seem to be missing a really important point:

The vast bulk of users don’t want that. They don’t want racists and shit flingers polluting the public square. People are looking for their special interest and a few chuckles. Content moderation is as much about quality of experience as it is about “freedom of speech” (which isn’t a thing on a privately held website, where you don’t have to participate if you don’t like it.
 

if immamac just let people say whatever the fuck they wanted in this site, it would become polluted to the point of failure.  

[NoName 16621]

21 hours ago, texasdago said:

aka advertisers are going to flee the platform

IPG recommending a pause on spend @ twitter is a monumental deal. happened last week but i just now saw it. 

https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/twitter-advertising-interpublic-group-pause-spending-1235419896/

 

Quote

 

Interpublic Group, the advertising giant, has advised clients that work with its large Mediabrands ad-buying group to “pause” spending on Twitter for the next week, according to a person familiar with the matter. Executives at the media-investment firm want to get more clarity, this person says, on Twitter’s trust and safety policies, as well as its “organizational capability” under Musk, the new owner. Musk last week closed a $44 billion deal to acquire Twitter.

...

Interpublic’s Mediabrands represents top advertisers including American Express and Johnson & Johnson. among dozens of others. The company helps guide some $40 billion in media spending across the globe.

 

also decapitating your marketing group (CMO, head of ads and who knows how many other people) on day 1 is an interesting decision.

[Humble Beast 258]

 

 

 

[ChiTownDoc 21225]

20 minutes ago, Bateshorn said:

if immamac just let people say whatever the fuck they wanted in this site, it would become polluted to the point of failure.  

So like Helobius to the baseball forum?

[Pig Bellmont 8755]

30 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

By making such an issue out of the number of legitimate users (vs. bots) for valuation purposes, Musk has now made the value proposition of twitter advertising more suspect than it probably was previously.

Worse - this ability to buy verification will fuck the product. The blue check meant the author was the actual person. Now Russia or the Saudi’s just have to pay $96 per year per user to flood the zone with blue check accounts just feeding misinformation. It also simultaneously punishes content creators. It’d be one thing if you’re trying to follow Kendall Jenner, but it’s a whole other thing increasing influence of foreign actors in shaping public opinion prior to elections 

[Laxtonto 12640]

2 minutes ago, Pig Bellmont said:

Worse - this ability to buy verification will fuck the product. The blue check meant the author was the actual person. Now Russia or the Saudi’s just have to pay $96 per year per user to flood the zone with blue check accounts just feeding misinformation. It also simultaneously punishes content creators. It’d be one thing if you’re trying to follow Kendall Jenner, but it’s a whole other thing increasing influence of foreign actors in shaping public opinion prior to elections 

The problem with the blue checkmark is that the argument that the blue checkmark was always right begun to permeate Twitter from a content moderation standpoint and therefore people abused it.  The real issue isn't the bluecheckmark it is how people equate the bluecheckmark to true expertise on any subject when their subject matter expertise is extremely limited.

Why for instance people like Tucker Carlson and Rachel Maddow provided blue checkmarks if this was about subject matter expertise? Neither of these people are "experts" on anything but instead are there for commentary. Same way with a variety of entertainers and sports stars. Why are nonexpert in a particular fields ever allowed to be thought leaders in anything but their own field? If the blue checkmark is about verification, then why is a paid service less that requires payment and identity verification worse than the old system?

I have always been a fan of the idea of every possible user could pay for being an authorized account, but I feel that $8 a month is a bit of a higher price point than I think will catch on. If you pay say $2 a month, then you get access to "X" funcitons. That way you generate revenue and help curtail the bots. Add everyone as a blue checkmark that pays and then later allow people to apply for expert status later and limited their expertise to an individual field.

[Bateshorn 9958]

21 minutes ago, ChiTownDoc said:

So like Helobius to the baseball forum?

Other than occasionally wandering into the Red Sox thread, I would never deem to roll around in that pig sty.

 

Edited November 2, 2022 by Bateshorn

[Bateshorn 9958]

4 minutes ago, Laxtonto said:

The problem with the blue checkmark is that the argument that the blue checkmark was always right begun to permeate Twitter from a content moderation standpoint and therefore people abused it.  The real issue isn't the bluecheckmark it is how people equate the bluecheckmark to true expertise on any subject when their subject matter expertise is extremely limited.

Why for instance people like Tucker Carlson and Rachel Maddow provided blue checkmarks if this was about subject matter expertise? Neither of these people are "experts" on anything but instead are there for commentary. Same way with a variety of entertainers and sports stars. Why are nonexpert in a particular fields ever allowed to be thought leaders in anything but their own field? If the blue checkmark is about verification, then why is a paid service less that requires payment and identity verification worse than the old system?

I have always been a fan of the idea of every possible user could pay for being an authorized account, but I feel that $8 a month is a bit of a higher price point than I think will catch on. If you pay say $2 a month, then you get access to "X" funcitons. That way you generate revenue and help curtail the bots. Add everyone as a blue checkmark that pays and then later allow people to apply for expert status later and limited their expertise to an individual field.

I'm not sure I would equate the blue check mark with expertise.  I read Nate Silver for statistics content.  But when he starts opining about Covid trends or the vaccine, I just roll my eyes and close the tab. But I know for a fact it's actually Nate Silver that I am scoffing at.

The second thing you posted is where Twitter could monetize effectively: Making the experience better.  I basically quite twitter except for a few political things for my job because it's such a misery inducing experience if you aren't an expert with Tweetdeck, which is pretty much for addicts and as I understand it, only kinda/sorta works.  I want to filter out the garbage my self so that I get the chuckles from some of the old Deadspin hands (like Clue Heywood) that I enjoy, while also being able to specifically sort and read all the politically content I need. The rest is just flotsam. If you can get it so the feeds are easily sorted and stacked, then what the fuck do I care if Dan Bongino wants to tweet about how shooting bleach in your balls cures cancer and democracy?

[crash_davis 23158]

This is comical that at in 2022 we have to openly entertain made up shit, lies, and racists shit as "divergent views" all under the guise of "free speech". This is a failed society. There's no honor in truth and integrity anymore. 

This again reaffirms my belief that if you are hiding behind "free speech", you are a fucking idiot who is a liar and/or a racist. The idiots in power are too scared or are complicit in promoting lies and racist shit.

We have the "democracy" we deserve.

[tbone_ 14260]

This is comical that at in 2022 we have to openly entertain made up shit, lies, and racists shit as "divergent views" all under the guise of "free speech". This is a failed society. There's no honor in truth and integrity anymore. 
This again reaffirms my belief that if you are hiding behind "free speech", you are a fucking idiot who is a liar and/or a racist. The idiots in power are too scared or are complicit in promoting lies and racist shit.
We have the "democracy" we deserve.

Democracy was never going to work. It’s a great idea but humans are too flawed to execute it.

Social media just exacerbates that. Never made sense to me why people don’t realize that. When the archeologists are digging us up in a thousand years and trying to figure out where we went wrong like we do the Greeks and Romans, they’re going to say, wait, these fools invented technology that gave every moron on the planet a voice? WTF would you ever do that?

[Bateshorn 9958]

It really does boil down to the fact that 25% of the population wants to use the N word and if they can't, they'll burn society to the ground.

[Brisketexan 105580]

1 hour ago, Bateshorn said:

For all the people screaming about about TEH VILLAGE SQUARE!!!!  WE TWEET, YOU DECIDE!!! and subtly bitching about how people can’t be racist/antisemitic/antiLGTBQ onnline and that’s a violation of their free speech, you seem to be missing a really important point:

The vast bulk of users don’t want that. They don’t want racists and shit flingers polluting the public square. People are looking for their special interest and a few chuckles. Content moderation is as much about quality of experience as it is about “freedom of speech” (which isn’t a thing on a privately held website, where you don’t have to participate if you don’t like it.
 

if immamac just let people say whatever the fuck they wanted in this site, it would become polluted to the point of failure.  

This is the thing that Elon hasn't fully realized (although it seems like it's starting to dawn on him).  Being a "free speech absolutist" = letting Twitter turn into 4chan or the scat site.  Which only a very small subset of sick fucks (badmofo) is interested in populating.  BUT....moderating and prohibiting the exact kind of bullshit that would turn it into 4chan (the insane lies, conspiracy theories, and racism-fueled tropes of the alt-right) will get him yelled at for "CENSORSHIP!"

Elon may, someday, figure out that you can't have it both ways.  You can't have a shit-flinging free-for-all AND have a site that is populated by a broad spectrum of users.  To make a site usable, you have to piss some people off.  Those people are mostly extremist nutbar pieces of shit, so it's actually not as bad an issue as his ego is making it out to be.

40 minutes ago, Humble Beast said:

 

 

 

Sounds like CENSORSHIP!  He will be slammed for this approach by the alt-right.  See my post above.  He thinks he can have his cake and eat it too.  He is fucking around.  He will find out.

6 minutes ago, crash_davis said:

This is comical that at in 2022 we have to openly entertain made up shit, lies, and racists shit as "divergent views" all under the guise of "free speech". This is a failed society. There's no honor in truth and integrity anymore. 

This again reaffirms my belief that if you are hiding behind "free speech", you are a fucking idiot who is a liar and/or a racist. The idiots in power are too scared or are complicit in promoting lies and racist shit.

We have the "democracy" we deserve.

That's what the "NO CENSORSHIP!" crowd is championing, with zero ambiguity.  It's like creationists yelling "teach the controversy!"  There is no fucking controversy when it comes to biological science.  There is the present state of scientific study and thought.  There is also a multitude of religious beliefs.  There is no controversy, one is separate from the other.  But yelling that creationism IS scientific, based solely on a fringe take of one of the world's religions, is a falsehood.  Fuck 'em.  Fuck the liars.

[Brisketexan 105580]

8 minutes ago, Bateshorn said:

It really does boil down to the fact that 25% of the population wants to use the N word and if they can't, they'll burn society to the ground.

As @Ghost of LL once said, "I never realized how badly electing a black man president would break the brains of half the country."  Or something to that effect.

[HenryJames 66284]

9 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Sounds like CENSORSHIP!  He will be slammed for this approach by the alt-right.  See my post above.  He thinks he can have his cake and eat it too.  He is fucking around.  He will find out.

The nuts are already attacking him in the replies.

[crash_davis 23158]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/trumpisdead-is-trending-on-twitter-after-a-verified-user-apparently-decided-to-test-moderation-of-the-platform-under-elon-musks-reign/ar-AA13Drly

#TrumpisDead

edit: Tweet is still up.

 

Edited November 2, 2022 by crash_davis