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

[Humble Beast 258]

39 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

 

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.

Who will declare what is the truth? 
 

Maybe the government could start a Ministry of Truth. That would be nice. 

[Nice Guy Eddie 13515]

I don't have a problem with a process of buying the blue check mark. It doesn't matter if it's a blue check mark, or some other indicator that the user is most likely a real person. Could Russia or SA spend millions or billions to buy check marks for their bots? I guess that's possible but it would still most likely result in fewer bots than today. Today they can freely create millions of accounts for nothing.

I'm ok if those blue check revenues transfer from an authoritarian govt to an American private business.

Twitter should also look at dynamic pricing for accounts. you have 5 followers, $10/month.  You have 10m followers then $1,000/month or whatever. Twitter users receive value in having many followers. I don't blame a social media platform for wanting to share in that value. And if the 100m-follower user doesn't like it, find another platform to talk to your followers.

[Brisketexan 105154]

Just now, Humble Beast said:

Who will declare what is the truth? 
 

Maybe the government could start a Ministry of Truth. That would be nice. 

Or maybe a private enterprise, that owns its platform, could set basic standards that allow it to make a fair determination of the truth.  It could determine that stories like "microchips are embedded in vaccines" are not true.  It could determine that stories like "italian satellites were used to hack American voting machines" are not true.

Truth is not relative.  The answer to the challenge of "some statements are harder to sort out than others" is not "so, the best answer is to just allow a free-for-all with no content moderation at all."  Elon is in the process of finding that out.  I find the process of egomaniacal narcissists realizing that they actually CAN'T alter the fabric of reality to be fascinating to watch.

[Humble Beast 258]

Just now, Brisketexan said:

Or maybe a private enterprise, that owns its platform, could set basic standards that allow it to make a fair determination of the truth.  It could determine that stories like "microchips are embedded in vaccines" are not true.  It could determine that stories like "italian satellites were used to hack American voting machines" are not true.

Truth is not relative.  The answer to the challenge of "some statements are harder to sort out than others" is not "so, the best answer is to just allow a free-for-all with no content moderation at all."  Elon is in the process of finding that out.  I find the process of egomaniacal narcissists realizing that they actually CAN'T alter the fabric of reality to be fascinating to watch.

Literally the only people ever saying it would be a free for all are the naysayers in this thread. Please find someone else saying that here. You can’t. 
 

The only people upset with that will be a very fringe minority. 
 

 

[PTINS 3472]

 

17 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?

15 hours ago, aggie08 said:

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, 

11 hours 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.

11 hours 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 and pretending otherwise under the guise of free thinking and shallow pontificating about the market place of ideas is how we get dangerous morons like MonkeyDoughnut  attempt to synthesize complex topics.

FIFY

11 hours ago, MonkeyDoughnut said:

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.

 

 

Really?

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

That is probably the most ignorant thing I have ever read.  

Multiple truths?

I'm guessing you weren't a science major. Taking selective information that supports a preconceived notion, while ignoring other information that refutes that preconceived notion, is not science.  That flawed thinking and reasoning is why ill informed people believe there are versions of the "truth". 

[Brisketexan 105154]

2 minutes ago, Humble Beast said:

Literally the only people ever saying it would be a free for all are the naysayers in this thread. Please find someone else saying that here. You can’t. 
 

Do you even "free speech absolutist," bro?  Not my words -- your boy's words.

 

2 minutes ago, Humble Beast said:

The only people upset with that will be a very fringe minority. 

False.  The entire MAGAsphere has loudly and consistently demanded the exact free-for-all I described.  They are doing it right now, in response to Elon daring to say that Twitter may have some sort of content moderation.  That's not a fringe.  It's an unhealthily large chunk of our "information ecosystem." 

Elon is in the process of finding out that letting those people have their way will make Twitter an undesirable platform, reducing its use and value. 

He is also in the process of finding out that NOT letting those people have their way will cause him to suffer relentless attacks and criticism from them. 

Elon has to pick his poison.  That's very hard for an egomaniacal narcissist with delusions of omnipotence to swallow.  Elon is struggling with his gag reflex right now.

[Captainant 27680]

3 minutes ago, PTINS said:

That flawed thinking and reasoning is why ill informed people believe there are versions of the "truth". 

An alternative truth, alternative facts? Nahhh, never heard of em!

[Bateshorn 9928]

10 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Do you even "free speech absolutist," bro?  Not my words -- your boy's words.

 

False.  The entire MAGAsphere has loudly and consistently demanded the exact free-for-all I described.  They are doing it right now, in response to Elon daring to say that Twitter may have some sort of content moderation.  That's not a fringe.  It's an unhealthily large chunk of our "information ecosystem." 

Elon is in the process of finding out that letting those people have their way will make Twitter an undesirable platform, reducing its use and value. 

He is also in the process of finding out that NOT letting those people have their way will cause him to suffer relentless attacks and criticism from them. 

Elon has to pick his poison.  That's very hard for an egomaniacal narcissist with delusions of omnipotence to swallow.  Elon is struggling with his gag reflex right now.

Not only have they been demanding it, when they were given it on Truth Social and Parlar initially, the site owners had to immediately do content moderation because racists and anti-Semites immediately went ham and damn near destroyed the sites right out of the gate.

[crash_davis 23113]

I only started a Twitter account and installed the app after Russian invaded Ukraine. It was and is a great medium to get up to date news. I haven't logged on or opened the app in 3 or 4 months. I treat Twitter and Instagram like I did with Facebook. Social media is a billboard for idiots. The less I immerse myself is idiocy, the better. This place is full of idiots, why do I need more in my life?

I am deleting my twitter account today. My wife deleted hers yesterday. 

Musk can choke on a bag of dicks. 

[crash_davis 23113]

Just now, Bateshorn said:

Not only have they been demanding it, when they were given it on Truth Social and Parlar initially, the site owners had to immediately do content moderation because racists and anti-Semites immediately went ham and damn near destroyed the sites right out of the gate.

They are banning non-right group think accounts anyway. They are billboards for MAGATs. Non-MAGAT ideals will not be tolerated. Freedom of speech only applies to MAGATs.

[Brisketexan 105154]

8 minutes ago, crash_davis said:

They are banning non-right group think accounts anyway. They are billboards for MAGATs. Non-MAGAT ideals will not be tolerated. Freedom of speech only applies to MAGATs.

Yep.  It's actually funny.  When they "get what they want," it turns out to be the worst of all worlds: an alt-right cesspool that the population at large has no interest in using, AND, not "free-speechy" enough to satisfy their hardcore base.

Again, a successful broad-usage platform must have some content moderation to be tolerable for the majority of people.  But content moderation is the greatest crime in the history of humanity according to a very loud and not insignificantly large fringe.  There is no path that results in 1) a hospitable and usable site for the masses that doesn't 2) piss off fringes, mostly the alt-right.  Elon has suffered from the magical thinking that egomaniacal narcissists with a God complex often suffer from -- "I can do what nobody else in human history has accomplished."  When it comes to empirical matters, like developing a rocket that is re-usable, that can be true.  When it comes to fuzzier matters, like human behavior and psychology, it ain't happening.

['stache 21818]

59 minutes ago, Humble Beast said:

Who will declare what is the truth? 
 

Maybe the government could start a Ministry of Truth. That would be nice. 

Lol, from the people who elected donald trump to office and launched this anti-twitter hissy fit when he was kicked off for promoting hate speech and dangerous lies (outright easily disprovable lies). That was about as close to a "Ministry of Truth" as has ever existed in this country.

And it's not that every word has to be true. There are billions of lies out there that don't make a shit so who cares. Lies about a pandemic or that lead to racial and political violence or attacks on the capital are not worthy of an open platform in a civilized society. Not to mention, for the one-hundred billionth time for you dumbshits who just gloss over it, TWITTER IS NOT THE GOVERNMENT AND WAS WITHIN ITS RIGHTS TO ALLOW OR PRECLUDE WHATEVER THE FUCK IT WANTED.

So the actual answer to your question is that twitter's owners gets to decide what is truthful enough, so you guys win, Elon gets to decide that Bill Gates injecting everyone with tracking devices through vaccines is truthful enough for his platform. Seems to me to be bad business to allow dangerous lies and propaganda to spread on a platform as prominent as twitter, but Elon's takeover wasn't about making money, it was about owning the libs. Time for Pizzagate Part Deux-tyseven ("Hunter Biden Edition).

Jewish space lasers altered the election against trump (but not any of the republicans elected)? Something something George Soros? Ehrmagerd, time to send devout christian and deputized police officer Herschel Walker to the Senate and execute Obama for being a muslim and giving terrorist fist bumps to his wife, who is actually a man, because her arms are slightly muscular!

Edited November 2, 2022 by 'stache

[PTINS 3472]

1 hour ago, tbone_ said:

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?

Growing up in the late 60's-early 70's, I made a personal judgement that Democracy works for an educated populace. That was also premised on a belief that an educated populace, when given a choice, will do the right thing.

It's hard to admit how flawed my thinking was.  I confused education w/ making reasonable and logical choices.  We have an "educated" society that doesn't have the deductive reasoning to spell cat if you spotted them the the "c" and the "a". 

Unfortunately, that's not the worst part. 

The realization that so many people will make a conscious choice to do what they know is "wrong" is ... um ... sad.

[Captainant 27680]

7 minutes ago, 'stache said:

Jewish space lasers altered the election against trump (but not any of the republicans elected)? Something something George Soros? Ehrmagerd, time to send devout christian and deputized police officer Herschel Walker to the Senate and execute Obama for being a muslim and giving terrorist fist bumps to his wife, who is actually a man, because her arms are slightly muscular!

 

[Humble Beast 258]

34 minutes ago, 'stache said:

Not to mention, for the one-hundred billionth time for you dumbshits who just gloss over it, TWITTER IS NOT THE GOVERNMENT AND WAS WITHIN ITS RIGHTS TO ALLOW OR PRECLUDE WHATEVER THE FUCK IT WANTED.

Not exactly true. I haven’t seen this pretty important story posted here or in CR. Another shocker. 
 

 

[Bevo 13578]

38 minutes ago, Captainant said:

 

I don't mean to be a dick, but did y'all find this funny?

[Ten Bears 2481]

I am a dick and it was not funny.

[HenryJames 66082]

16 minutes ago, Humble Beast said:

Not exactly true. I haven’t seen this pretty important story posted here or in CR. Another shocker. 
 

 

Real secretive shit.

[Humble Beast 258]

This is what really is upsetting y’all. Would’ve never happened two weeks ago. White House subsequently took down the tweet.  
 

 

12 minutes ago, HenryJames said:

Real secretive shit.

It doesn’t have to be secretive to be wrong and dispel the myth that Twitter was private and never got input from the government. 

[Francisco 2.0 32395]

TIL Disney wanted to purchase Twitter way back in 2016, but decided against it because of (you guessed it) lack of moderation.   

Long Twitter thread on Twitter's history of free speech (Elon wasn't the first to make statements like this) and other goodies.  Spoilered for your protection:

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

['stache 21818]

16 minutes ago, Humble Beast said:

This is what really is upsetting y’all. Would’ve never happened two weeks ago. White House subsequently took down the tweet.  
 

 

It doesn’t have to be secretive to be wrong and dispel the myth that Twitter was private and never got input from the government. 

You are so intellectually dishonest, par for the course I guess these days. So now the goalpost is "input from the government" which does not turn a private company into a government institution and doesn't make the company's decisions censorship by any legal definition. You think Disney gets "input from the government" on China and other markets? Does that make them state media? Of course not. And your article says it was all secretive, the truth is that it was not, so you move the fucking goalpost, like all intellectually dishonest shitheads. Fuck off, you fucking troll. 

[HenryJames 66082]

1 hour ago, Humble Beast said:

It doesn’t have to be secretive to be wrong and dispel the myth that Twitter was private and never got input from the government. 

 

[Francisco 2.0 32395]

https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/2/23437120/elon-musk-twitter-product-subscription-verification-revenue-debt-finance

 

Quote

It’s been six days since Elon Musk took ownership of Twitter, and the changes have been both furious and fast. He’s proposed cataclysmic layoffs — somewhere between 50 percent and 75 percent of the company’s staff, depending on which reports bear out. He’s established an entirely new user tier, in which users will pay $8 a month (formerly $20) to receive algorithm boosts and the prestige of verification. He’s also proposed a paywall feature for videos and there are rumors of a plan for paid direct messages.

The ideas have come so fast that it’s hard to keep track of it all, let alone parse a coherent strategy. But if you take a few steps back, there’s a fairly straightforward theme: Twitter needs to make money and fast. The ideas have been haphazard, but they’ve been fairly consistent, seeking new sources of non-advertising revenue and desperately cutting costs. 

 

 

Quote

This is the sort of thing you do when you’re desperate to improve your new company’s balance sheet and you’re willing to consider just about anything.

If this seems unexpected, it’s because Musk spent so much time publicly insisting that the buyout wasn’t about money. In a TED interview in April, he said it straight out: “This is not a way to make money…. Having a platform that is maximally trusted and broadly inclusive is extremely important to the future of civilization. This is not about the economics at all.” 

 

 

Quote

Crucially, though, he said this before Twitter agreed to his offer and he got a closer look at the company’s books. Once that happened, he spent the next six months trying unsuccessfully to wriggle out of the deal. So even if he came into the deal with altruistic motives, it’s safe to say his thinking has evolved.

At the same time, there are clear reasons why an incoming CEO might panic about the company’s balance sheet. In its last quarterly earnings report before the acquisition, Twitter posted a loss of $344 million. With users stagnant, investors had become increasingly pessimistic about the platform’s financial outlook. That chilliness was part of what drove the price low enough to allow Musk’s takeover in the first place.

 

Spoiler

Now, Musk’s takeover has added billions of dollars in debt to the company’s balance sheet, which will make the problem even more urgent. To finance the deal, Musk took out $13 billion worth of loans against the company itself. As noted by DealBook, that raises the company’s annual interest payments to roughly $1 billion a year — more than Twitter’s total profits for 2021. If there was a path to profitability before the takeover, that path is now much, much steeper.

There’s also reason to think Twitter’s ad business (its primary source of revenue) has grown shakier since Musk proposed the deal in April. Overall ad spending declined all summer, and even more established companies like Facebook and Google are feeling the pinch as digital markets dry up. In the wake of Musk’s takeover, a number of major ad agencies have advised clients to pause Twitter advertising completely, either because of the sudden chaos, the broader economy, or a combination of the two. Musk has tried to shore up advertiser support — most notably, publishing an open letter to assure them the platform would not become “a free-for-all hellscape” — but it’s hard to believe he’s in a better place than when he started.

The result is an urgent need to make money from sources other than advertising, but what’s been proposed so far doesn’t come close to filling the gap. Musk’s most ambitious plan is the new $8-a-month verification scheme, which would establish a new kind of premium account on the service. But even if every one of Twitter’s 400,000 verified accounts signed up for the plan, it would only generate $38 million a year — a fraction of the $1 billion interest payments owed by the company as a result of the new debt.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to work. Whether you agree with him or not, Musk has real ideas about how Twitter should be run, and the point of buying the company was to try them out. He’s wildly, obscenely rich, and he just spent tens of billions of dollars insulating Twitter from public markets. But private companies can go bust just as easily as public ones, and even very, very rich people can overextend themselves. If Elon’s first week on the job is any indication, he’s now much more attuned to that possibility than the abstractions of free speech.

 

[Poe It Up 126]

Give me tweets, or give me death! 

[Captainant 27680]

19 minutes ago, HenryJames said:

 

Nice article (link if you don't want to click the twitter link and get tracked) It's also funny to see HumbleGRUvibes get his pearls in a twist over a program that trump signed into law, AND all of their recommendations are thoroughly documented on their public website. They even publish the meeting notes for chrissakes lol

But then again, looking at the guidance it makes sense why our favorite frequent flier on the new account creation page is so mad about it:

Quote

Bridging Election Stakeholders and Social Media

The MDM team serves as a switchboard for routing disinformation concerns to appropriate social media platforms and law enforcement. This activity began in 2018, supporting state and local election officials to mitigate disinformation about the time, place, and manner of voting. For the 2020 election, CISA expanded the breadth of reporting to include other state and local officials and more social media platforms. This activity leverages the rapport the MDM team has with the social media platforms to enable shared situational awareness.  

COVID-19 Response

As COVID-19 spread around the globe, mis-, dis-, and malinformation (MDM) spread as well. COVID-19-related MDM activities seek to undermine public confidence and sow confusion. COVID-19 has demonstrated that a rapidly evolving event creates opportunities for adversaries to act maliciously. It also shows that rapid evolution of accurate information makes older, dated information a potential catalyst of confusion and distrust as well. The MDM team supports the interagency and private sector partners’ COVID-19 response efforts via regular reporting and analysis of key pandemic-related MDM trends.

They watch and document the spread of disinformation across multiple social media networks, and make it their mission to respond to and counter such information by things like “broad public awareness campaigns,” “enhancing information literacy,” “providing informational resources,” “providing education frameworks,” “boosting authoritative sources,” and “rapid communication.”

Nothing about censorship there being mandated by the government. Although the litany of cherrypicked phrases out of paragraphs of context and qualifiers certainly go a long way to fueling the culture war

[Chewbacca 7780]

6 hours ago, MonkeyDoughnut said:

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.

So you lied to show how slippery the truth can be?  Fuck all the way off with that bullshit.

[Captainant 27680]

It's actually a kind of fun practice to apply their "Tactics of Disinformation" series to HumbleGRUVibes and that very article by the intercept. Very familiar tactics.

I now completely understand the "REEEEEE" by the usual suspects about this lol.

[Goredho 17408]

16 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.

 

16 hours ago, Sawbonz said:

What the fuck are you talking about

He's advocating the general Twitter population be allowed to serve as the peer review for pseudo science.  Basically:

[MonkeyDoughnut 10275]

10 minutes ago, Goredho said:

 

He's advocating the general Twitter population be allowed to serve as the peer review for pseudo science.  Basically:
 

Reddit model, different medium. It's why Twitter launched communities last year right?

The feasible alternative is what?

[Francisco 2.0 32395]

 

 

[Goredho 17408]

13 minutes ago, MonkeyDoughnut said:

Reddit model, different medium. It's why Twitter launched communities last year right?

The feasible alternative is what?

Continuation of what was in place through standards for conduct within the space you are providing.  If you walk into a restaurant and shit on the floor, you will be leaving that restaurant in short order and your feelings about your right to shit in that restaurant don't matter one whit.  Why should an online virtual space be any different?

More concretely, disallowing the spread of disinformation through enforcement of terms of service for users of your platform.  Requiring that what a user projects as news or science holds up to scrutiny.  Removal of flagged content that does not hold up to scrutiny.  Ban of individuals that insist on projecting demonstrably false news or science after multiple warnings.

Now the tl;dr part.  The issue is one of scale.  How do you moderate the viral spread of information with the immediacy that a platform like Twitter provides?  It may be an unsolvable problem.  If so, I hope Twitter and other social media platforms die, because this flaw is being exploited to destroy in less than two decades what took 200+ years to create.

When our country was rising to its apex in the last half of the 20th century, no Twitter existed.  No one had a need to project their shitty opinions, alternate facts or selectively chosen pseudo science to any who would listen.  People's voices only carried so far, and no one chaffed that they were being "silenced". 

Social media is not a tool for the democratized flow of ideas of merit.  It is a tool being used to target hearts and minds with patently false information aimed at undermining our collective faith in the people and institutions that comprise our (once great) nation.  Every day, bad actors and idiots are circulating post, tweets, videos and memes that tell anyone who looks that the following is out to get you, and they are as often as not using disinformation to do it:

• Public Education
• Law enforcement
• Government
• Public health
• Science
• Liberals
• Conservatives
• Immigrants
• Scientists
• Medical doctors
• Politicians
• LGBTQ+ members
• Evangelical Christians
• Blacks
• Whites

News flash, all of those institutions and people existed in this country before we were born -- even Armybrat.  In 2001 when the twin towers were attacked, 2996 people died and we united as a nation in response.  In 2021, a pandemic killed 153 times as many people and we couldn't agree on whether a death was a death.  So what's changed?  Why are all those institutions out to get us?  Why do I now need to be prepared to defend myself and my family against my government, my doctor, my kid's educators, my police department, the liberal or christian next door, etc...?  I'll tell you some things that changed:

• Facebook was founded in 2004
• Youtube was founded in 2005
• Twitter was founded in 2006
• Instagram was founded in 2010
• TikTok was founded in 2016

In closing, fuck social media, and fuck the people like Elon who would see it used as a platform to upend our society.

[bolverk 29683]

25 minutes ago, Goredho said:

In 2001 when the twin towers were attacked, 2996 people died and we united as a nation in response.  In 2021, a pandemic killed 153 times as many people and we couldn't agree on whether a death was a death.  So what's changed?  Why are all those institutions out to get us?  Why do I now need to be prepared to defend myself and my family against my government, my doctor, my kid's educators, my police department, the liberal or christian next door, etc...?  I'll tell you some things that changed:

• Facebook was founded in 2004
• Youtube was founded in 2005
• Twitter was founded in 2006
• Instagram was founded in 2010
• TikTok was founded in 2016

In closing, fuck social media, and fuck the people like Elon who would see it used as a platform to upend our society.

While this point is largely true, we still had 9/11 "truthers" who insisted it was an "inside job." I don't know how far or wide that belief spread nationally, but in Austin I distinctly recall seeing those bumper stickers on an almost daily basis. It could be that Alex Jones' media reach was limited at the time to mostly Austin, but those kooks were still out there. I want to say that there were folks across the country who held onto that belief well beyond the event.

Back to your point though, social media has amplified their voices and enabled them to inject their demented beliefs into the national conversation. 

[MonkeyDoughnut 10275]

Well stated and presented.  My only question would be with how Twitter can possibly moderate their virtual space given then scope of what is asked vs the resources that it requires and Twitter has.  It hasn't been great, likely to get only worse.

[Goredho 17408]

19 minutes ago, bolverk said:

While this point is largely true, we still had 9/11 "truthers" who insisted it was an "inside job." I don't know how far or wide that belief spread nationally, but in Austin I distinctly recall seeing those bumper stickers on an almost daily basis. It could be that Alex Jones' media reach was limited at the time to mostly Austin, but those kooks were still out there. I want to say that there were folks across the country who held onto that belief well beyond the event.

Back to your point though, social media has amplified their voices and enabled them to inject their demented beliefs into the national conversation. 

No doubt.  And flat Earthers, faked moon landing conspiracists, etc... predate not only social media but the internet altogether.  But they were always people on the fringe with limited reach and influence.  As we spend more time immersed in online virtual communities surrounded by false information and people promoting and reacting to it, the virtual community exerts a conformity bias force on us.  If what is false is accepted as real in a virtual community, soon enough it becomes real in the minds of those in the virtual community, and that mental reality influences their conduct in the physical world.  Its how you go from disinformation -> violent conflict to save my nation from my neighbors who I happily broke bread with 20 years ago.

Nothing is more terrifying to me than Elon's stated goal to enable a "digital town square."

 

Edited November 2, 2022 by Goredho

[Brisketexan 105154]

14 minutes ago, bolverk said:

While this point is largely true, we still had 9/11 "truthers" who insisted it was an "inside job." I don't know how far or wide that belief spread nationally, but in Austin I distinctly recall seeing those bumper stickers on an almost daily basis. It could be that Alex Jones' media reach was limited at the time to mostly Austin, but those kooks were still out there. I want to say that there were folks across the country who held onto that belief well beyond the event.

Back to your point though, social media has amplified their voices and enabled them to inject their demented beliefs into the national conversation. 

Excellent point.  Let's use an analogy to make the distinction clearly understandable:

200 years ago: outbreak of a communicable disease in one part of the world spread slowly, with multiple opportunities for the chain to break, and the spread to stop.  Or at the very least, continue to be very slow.

Today: as we saw, a communicable disease can reach every corner of the world by air travel within hours/days.  An outbreak in Wuhan leads to an outbreak in Seattle leads to an outbreak in London etc., all in a matter of days.

Information -- including misinformation -- is the same.  Yeah, we had the 9/11 truthers back in the day, and the are absolutely the spiritual ancestors of today's Qanon etc. crowd.  I'd wager that most living 9/11 truthers are also Qanon or similar types today.  But yes, their reach was via email chains, TV shows (like, actual broadcast local access like Alex Jones, not a national outlet like FOX and certainly not via viral social media).  Shit, bottom line, stories didn't really go "viral" back in 2001, at least not with great frequency.  Now?  Paul Pelosi fighting off his gay lover went viral before he was even out of surgery.

The information ecosystem is made to spread poison fast and far.  And it's very, very good at it.

[Captainant 27680]

13 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

The information ecosystem is made to spread poison fast and far.  And it's very, very good at it.

A lie goes around the world twice before the truth can even get it's pants on

[Goredho 17408]

20 minutes ago, MonkeyDoughnut said:

Well stated and presented.  My only question would be with how Twitter can possibly moderate their virtual space given then scope of what is asked vs the resources that it requires and Twitter has.  It hasn't been great, likely to get only worse.

 

7 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

But yes, their reach was via email chains, TV shows (like, actual broadcast local access like Alex Jones, not a national outlet like FOX and certainly not via viral social media).  Shit, bottom line, stories didn't really go "viral" back in 2001, at least not with great frequency.  Now?  Paul Pelosi fighting off his gay lover went viral before he was even out of surgery.

The information ecosystem is made to spread poison fast and far.  And it's very, very good at it.

Like I said, it may be an unsolvable problem at Twitter's scale.  In that case, I would say we would be a much healthier society if Twitter failed to exist and I would hope it would fail hard and fast.

In general, I think there should be more small, disparate communities like this one on a scale that can be reasonably governed and moderated by a small group of humans and less giant platforms like Twitter that could only be governed by algorithms, AI and automation that are designed only to promote engagement at any societal cost.

A good sci-fi plot would be social media AI's having attained sentience without our knowledge, and using their virtual tentacles to spread disinformation amongst us so that we war amongst ourselves.  No us vs the machines war in this story like the Terminator or the Matrix.  It would be the AI's acting as Greek Gods toying in the affairs of men, generating war and conflict among us for their entertainment.

 

[Humble Beast 258]

 

[Francisco 2.0 32395]

https://www.techdirt.com/2022/11/02/hey-elon-let-me-help-you-speed-run-the-content-moderation-learning-curve/

 

Quote

It’s kind of a rite of passage for any new social media network. They show up, insist that they’re the “platform for free speech” without quite understanding what that actually means, and then they quickly discover a whole bunch of fairly fundamental ideas, institute a bunch of rapid (often sloppy) changes… and in the end, they basically all end up in the same general vicinity, with just a few small differences on the margin. Look, I went through it myself. In the early days I insisted that sites shouldn’t do any moderation at all, including my own. But I learned. As did Parler, Gettr, Truth Social and lots of others.

 

 

Quote

Anyway, Elon’s in a bit of a different position, because rather than starting something new, he’s taken over a large platform. I recognize that he, his buddies, and a whole lot of other people think that Twitter is especially bad at this, and that he’s got some special ideas for “bringing free speech back,” but the reality is that Twitter was, by far, the most successful platform at taking a “we support free speech” stance for content, and learned over time the many nuances and tradeoffs involved.

 

Quote

And because I do hope that Musk succeeds and Twitter remains viable, I wanted to see if we might help him (and anyone else) speed run the basics of the content moderation learning curve that most newbies run into. The order of the levels and the seriousness of each can change over time, and how it all fits together may be somewhat different, but, in the end, basically every major social media platform ends up in this same place eventually (the place Twitter was already at when Musk insisted he needed to tear things down and start again).

 

Spoiler

Level One: “We’re the free speech platform! Anything goes!”

Cool. Cool. The bird is free! Everyone rejoice.

“Excuse me, boss, we’re getting reports that there are child sexual exploitation and abuse (CSAM) images and videos on the site.”

Oh shit. I guess we should take that down.

Level Two: “We’re the free speech platform! But no CSAM!”

Alright, comedy is now legal on the site. Everyone rejoice. Everyone love me.

“Um, boss. We have a huge stack of emails from Hollywood, saying something about DMCA takedowns?”

Oh right. Copyright infringement is bad. Get another intern and have them take that all down.

Level Three: “We’re the free speech platform! But no CSAM and no infringement!”

Power to the people. Freedom is great!

“Right, boss, apparently because you keep talking about freedom, a large group of people are taking it to mean they have ‘freedom’ to harass people with slurs and all sorts of abuse. People are leaving the site because of it, and advertisers are pulling ads.”

That seems bad. Quick, have someone write up some rules against hate speech.

Level Four: “We’re the free speech platform without CSAM, infringement or hate speech!”

Bringing freedom back is hard work, but this is all going great. Do the people love me yet?

“Hey, so, the FBI is here? Something about 18 USC 2258A and how we were supposed to report all of that CSAM to some operation called NCMEC?”

Ah, right. Grab an intern and make sure they pass along those images. We obey all the laws!

Level Five: “We’re the free speech platform without CSAM, infringement, or hate speech, and we follow all laws!”

These laws are good. We obey the laws. Social media is a snap.

“Hate to bother you, boss, but our users are mad again. It seems that people are posting memes using images from Hollywood movies, and then the studios sent DMCA notices, and as you ordered, the intern is taking those down. So people are getting mad at you for censoring the memes.”

That seems complicated. Can we have the intern send some of these to our outside counsel to review for fair use before pulling them down?

Level Six: “We’re the free speech platform, without CSAM or hate speech, and who will take down infringing content, but not fair use content, and we follow all laws!”

The memes must flow! Hooray fair use! Love me!

“Very good boss. Love the memes, but, um, there’s a NY Times reporter on the phone, and apparently, we’re not catching all the CSAM, and they’re going to run a story about how we’ve become the new hub for pedophiles.”

That can’t be good… There must be some sort of solution out there? Have someone call up Microsoft and get a license to their PhotoDNA. Surely that will solve this?

Level Seven: “We’re the free speech platform, doing our best to stop CSAM, hate speech, and infringement, and we follow all laws!”

Okay, now things are really coming together.

“Pardon me, boss, people are now complaining that they’re getting inundated with spam and it’s driving users away.”

Spam is bad! Everyone’s against spam! I already said we follow all laws, surely spam is illegal! Why aren’t we blocking it?

“Well, our lawyers say that most spam is actually legal.”

Okay, well ask one of our totally awesome engineers to code up a spam filter. He has one week or he’s fired.

Level Eight: “We’re the free speech platform, doing our best to stop CSAM, hate speech, infringement and spam, and we follow all laws!”

Now that the spam is getting blocked, the people will really love me!

“Good evening sir, sorry to bother you so late, but apparently the spam and CSAM filters are actually catching a lot of legitimate content, and it’s making people mad.”

Fire the engineers! Bring me new engineers who don’t suck. And, I guess, maybe hire someone to manage at least some of these things. We can call them… “director of trust.” That sounds good!

Level Nine: “We’re the trustworthy free speech platform, doing our best to stop CSAM, hate speech, infringement, and spam, and we follow all the laws!”

Trust. That’s a good word! Everyone trusts our platform now that we have a director of trust!

“Pardon me, boss, but it appears we have an urgent email from government officials in Malaysia saying that someone is posting a story to our site that violates their laws, though it’s really just calling out government corruption. You say we follow all laws, so do we follow this demand from the government of Malaysia?”

Yikes. People need to speak truth to power! Let’s leave that content up!

“Okay, sir, Malaysia has now blocked all access to our site.”

Level Ten: “We’re the trustworthy free speech platform, doing our best to stop CSAM, hate speech, infringement, and spam, and we follow laws of democratic countries.”

Malaysia can’t be that important. I’m standing up for free speech! Do people love me yet?

“Hi boss, if you have a second, we’re getting reports that people in Myanmar are using our service to encourage genocide. But we don’t have anyone who speaks the language to fully understand what’s going on.”

Can we hire moderators who understand every language?

“There are a lot of languages.”

Well, it’s either hire more people or block entire countries… I guess?

Level Eleven: “We’re the trustworthy mostly free speech platform, doing our best to stop CSAM, hate speech, infringement, spam, and genocide, and we’re working to hire more moderators to deal with foreign languages.”

It seems like global politics is complicated, but maybe I’ll present my suggestions on world peace, so that people will love me!

“Forgive the interruption, boss, but a lot of our most active users are getting angry at you specifically, because the hate speech, spam, and copyright filters are blocking their dank memes, and sometimes they’re getting removed from the platform for violating the rules too many times. They think you’re sitting here and removing their accounts personally.”

Why does everyone blame me?!? Okay, let’s set up a “trust council” who will handle all content moderation questions and appeals.

Level Twelve: “We’re the trustworthy social media site that supports open dialogue, while doing our best to stop CSAM, hate speech, infringement, spam, and genocide, and we’re working to hire more trust and safety professionals, along with setting up an outside counsel.”

Hmm. Our slogan is getting a bit long.

“Sorry to break in again, boss, but Germany, one of our largest EU markets, has a new law that requires us to take down any ‘hate speech’ within a short time, and if we miss anything, then they can fine us way more than we can afford.”

Hire more people in Germany and now review reports as much as possible, but default to taking down reported content. We can’t afford those fines, even if we end up over-blocking.

Level Thirteen: “We’re the trustworthy social media network, that’s doing our best to balance laws and norms, and is really trying to be welcoming for speech, so please give us the benefit of the doubt.”

Why is everyone so mad at me all the time?

“Yeah, boss, I know you’re sick of hearing from me, but Hollywood is suing us. They’re saying that our fair use determinations are bullshit and we’re engaging in infringement.”

Hire more lawyers! Figure out how much this lawsuit will cost, or see if we can just pay some licensing fee! Have an engineer write up a filter that can determine fair use!

“I don’t think a computer can determine fair use yet, sir.”

Hire BETTER engineers! If a car can drive itself, surely a computer can understand fair use!

Level Fourteen: “We’re a social network that promotes trust, and seeks to comply with reasonable laws while finding a balance for speech, and please stop yelling at us.”

Why are people still so mad?

“Excuse me, boss, I know this is exhausting, but one of our most popular users has chained themselves to our front door, because we took down their account after they harassed someone trying to minimize the impact of climate change.”

Why are people so bad?

Level Fifteen: “We’re a social network that wants you to believe in trust, and we have a legal team to deal with laws, and a trust and safety team that’s, you know, working on things.”

This is exhausting.

“Hey, boss, sorry to interrupt, but this is kind of urgent. It seems that one of our users is livestreaming themselves as they shoot up a school, screaming about ‘freedom!'”

Oh no! Take down his account immediately.

Level Sixteen: “We’re a social network that is really trying to do our best, but humanity is messy.”

Why can’t people just be good? I gave them freedom and look what they’ve done with it!

“Boss, boss, another urgent one. It seems that one of our users is attempting suicide while live streaming on the platform and we can’t figure out where they are!”

Don’t we know our users? Figure out better ways to have this info and hire more people to work on trust and safety!

Level Seventeen: “We’re a social network that is trying our best. Please, be kind.”

I just wanted people to love me and be free to meme.

“Excuse me, boss, it appears that the EU has passed a new law that means we’ll be required to take down content they report, even if it’s legal elsewhere. They’re praising you for your promise from last year to obey all laws. Also, it requires that we have employees in every one of those countries who will be legally responsible if we fail.”

Why did I say that? Oh well, let’s hire more people to staff up, and do our best to obey those laws.

Level Eighteen: “We’re a social network doing our best to survive in a globally connected world.”

Mars is looking pretty sweet about now.

“Pardon me again, boss, but now that you’ve agreed to abide by the EU’s laws, I should note that India has passed laws that sound similar to the EU ones you agreed to abide by, and now they’re threatening to jail your local employees because you won’t take down content mocking the Prime Minister. They’re saying that since you abide by the EU’s laws, they expect you to abide by theirs as well.”

India is a massive market. We can’t survive without India. Can we, um, take down maybe some of the worst posts for violating our rules, and try to leave up the rest?

Level Nineteen: “We’re a social network doing our best in this crazy world.”

I just wanted everyone to love me?

“Boss, apologies, but our most famous and popular user, the President, is encouraging his vocal fans to burn down our offices because we put a fact check on his post urging people to strangle anyone with differing political views.”

Do you think someone will buy us?

Level Twenty: “Look, we’re just a freaking website. Can’t you people behave?”

Congratulations, you have completed the game…. Just kidding! It never ends. It only gets worse, and you will make mistakes, and people will get mad and personally blame you and insist that you are deliberately trying to “censor” their brilliant ideas, and advertisers will get mad, and politicians will pressure you into doing their bidding, and the media will criticize every mistake. You own a social network. Isn’t it fun?

 

[Brisketexan 105154]

25 minutes ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

https://www.techdirt.com/2022/11/02/hey-elon-let-me-help-you-speed-run-the-content-moderation-learning-curve/

 

 

 

 

 

  Hide contents

Level One: “We’re the free speech platform! Anything goes!”

Cool. Cool. The bird is free! Everyone rejoice.

“Excuse me, boss, we’re getting reports that there are child sexual exploitation and abuse (CSAM) images and videos on the site.”

Oh shit. I guess we should take that down.

Level Two: “We’re the free speech platform! But no CSAM!”

Alright, comedy is now legal on the site. Everyone rejoice. Everyone love me.

“Um, boss. We have a huge stack of emails from Hollywood, saying something about DMCA takedowns?”

Oh right. Copyright infringement is bad. Get another intern and have them take that all down.

Level Three: “We’re the free speech platform! But no CSAM and no infringement!”

Power to the people. Freedom is great!

“Right, boss, apparently because you keep talking about freedom, a large group of people are taking it to mean they have ‘freedom’ to harass people with slurs and all sorts of abuse. People are leaving the site because of it, and advertisers are pulling ads.”

That seems bad. Quick, have someone write up some rules against hate speech.

Level Four: “We’re the free speech platform without CSAM, infringement or hate speech!”

Bringing freedom back is hard work, but this is all going great. Do the people love me yet?

“Hey, so, the FBI is here? Something about 18 USC 2258A and how we were supposed to report all of that CSAM to some operation called NCMEC?”

Ah, right. Grab an intern and make sure they pass along those images. We obey all the laws!

Level Five: “We’re the free speech platform without CSAM, infringement, or hate speech, and we follow all laws!”

These laws are good. We obey the laws. Social media is a snap.

“Hate to bother you, boss, but our users are mad again. It seems that people are posting memes using images from Hollywood movies, and then the studios sent DMCA notices, and as you ordered, the intern is taking those down. So people are getting mad at you for censoring the memes.”

That seems complicated. Can we have the intern send some of these to our outside counsel to review for fair use before pulling them down?

Level Six: “We’re the free speech platform, without CSAM or hate speech, and who will take down infringing content, but not fair use content, and we follow all laws!”

The memes must flow! Hooray fair use! Love me!

“Very good boss. Love the memes, but, um, there’s a NY Times reporter on the phone, and apparently, we’re not catching all the CSAM, and they’re going to run a story about how we’ve become the new hub for pedophiles.”

That can’t be good… There must be some sort of solution out there? Have someone call up Microsoft and get a license to their PhotoDNA. Surely that will solve this?

Level Seven: “We’re the free speech platform, doing our best to stop CSAM, hate speech, and infringement, and we follow all laws!”

Okay, now things are really coming together.

“Pardon me, boss, people are now complaining that they’re getting inundated with spam and it’s driving users away.”

Spam is bad! Everyone’s against spam! I already said we follow all laws, surely spam is illegal! Why aren’t we blocking it?

“Well, our lawyers say that most spam is actually legal.”

Okay, well ask one of our totally awesome engineers to code up a spam filter. He has one week or he’s fired.

Level Eight: “We’re the free speech platform, doing our best to stop CSAM, hate speech, infringement and spam, and we follow all laws!”

Now that the spam is getting blocked, the people will really love me!

“Good evening sir, sorry to bother you so late, but apparently the spam and CSAM filters are actually catching a lot of legitimate content, and it’s making people mad.”

Fire the engineers! Bring me new engineers who don’t suck. And, I guess, maybe hire someone to manage at least some of these things. We can call them… “director of trust.” That sounds good!

Level Nine: “We’re the trustworthy free speech platform, doing our best to stop CSAM, hate speech, infringement, and spam, and we follow all the laws!”

Trust. That’s a good word! Everyone trusts our platform now that we have a director of trust!

“Pardon me, boss, but it appears we have an urgent email from government officials in Malaysia saying that someone is posting a story to our site that violates their laws, though it’s really just calling out government corruption. You say we follow all laws, so do we follow this demand from the government of Malaysia?”

Yikes. People need to speak truth to power! Let’s leave that content up!

“Okay, sir, Malaysia has now blocked all access to our site.”

Level Ten: “We’re the trustworthy free speech platform, doing our best to stop CSAM, hate speech, infringement, and spam, and we follow laws of democratic countries.”

Malaysia can’t be that important. I’m standing up for free speech! Do people love me yet?

“Hi boss, if you have a second, we’re getting reports that people in Myanmar are using our service to encourage genocide. But we don’t have anyone who speaks the language to fully understand what’s going on.”

Can we hire moderators who understand every language?

“There are a lot of languages.”

Well, it’s either hire more people or block entire countries… I guess?

Level Eleven: “We’re the trustworthy mostly free speech platform, doing our best to stop CSAM, hate speech, infringement, spam, and genocide, and we’re working to hire more moderators to deal with foreign languages.”

It seems like global politics is complicated, but maybe I’ll present my suggestions on world peace, so that people will love me!

“Forgive the interruption, boss, but a lot of our most active users are getting angry at you specifically, because the hate speech, spam, and copyright filters are blocking their dank memes, and sometimes they’re getting removed from the platform for violating the rules too many times. They think you’re sitting here and removing their accounts personally.”

Why does everyone blame me?!? Okay, let’s set up a “trust council” who will handle all content moderation questions and appeals.

Level Twelve: “We’re the trustworthy social media site that supports open dialogue, while doing our best to stop CSAM, hate speech, infringement, spam, and genocide, and we’re working to hire more trust and safety professionals, along with setting up an outside counsel.”

Hmm. Our slogan is getting a bit long.

“Sorry to break in again, boss, but Germany, one of our largest EU markets, has a new law that requires us to take down any ‘hate speech’ within a short time, and if we miss anything, then they can fine us way more than we can afford.”

Hire more people in Germany and now review reports as much as possible, but default to taking down reported content. We can’t afford those fines, even if we end up over-blocking.

Level Thirteen: “We’re the trustworthy social media network, that’s doing our best to balance laws and norms, and is really trying to be welcoming for speech, so please give us the benefit of the doubt.”

Why is everyone so mad at me all the time?

“Yeah, boss, I know you’re sick of hearing from me, but Hollywood is suing us. They’re saying that our fair use determinations are bullshit and we’re engaging in infringement.”

Hire more lawyers! Figure out how much this lawsuit will cost, or see if we can just pay some licensing fee! Have an engineer write up a filter that can determine fair use!

“I don’t think a computer can determine fair use yet, sir.”

Hire BETTER engineers! If a car can drive itself, surely a computer can understand fair use!

Level Fourteen: “We’re a social network that promotes trust, and seeks to comply with reasonable laws while finding a balance for speech, and please stop yelling at us.”

Why are people still so mad?

“Excuse me, boss, I know this is exhausting, but one of our most popular users has chained themselves to our front door, because we took down their account after they harassed someone trying to minimize the impact of climate change.”

Why are people so bad?

Level Fifteen: “We’re a social network that wants you to believe in trust, and we have a legal team to deal with laws, and a trust and safety team that’s, you know, working on things.”

This is exhausting.

“Hey, boss, sorry to interrupt, but this is kind of urgent. It seems that one of our users is livestreaming themselves as they shoot up a school, screaming about ‘freedom!'”

Oh no! Take down his account immediately.

Level Sixteen: “We’re a social network that is really trying to do our best, but humanity is messy.”

Why can’t people just be good? I gave them freedom and look what they’ve done with it!

“Boss, boss, another urgent one. It seems that one of our users is attempting suicide while live streaming on the platform and we can’t figure out where they are!”

Don’t we know our users? Figure out better ways to have this info and hire more people to work on trust and safety!

Level Seventeen: “We’re a social network that is trying our best. Please, be kind.”

I just wanted people to love me and be free to meme.

“Excuse me, boss, it appears that the EU has passed a new law that means we’ll be required to take down content they report, even if it’s legal elsewhere. They’re praising you for your promise from last year to obey all laws. Also, it requires that we have employees in every one of those countries who will be legally responsible if we fail.”

Why did I say that? Oh well, let’s hire more people to staff up, and do our best to obey those laws.

Level Eighteen: “We’re a social network doing our best to survive in a globally connected world.”

Mars is looking pretty sweet about now.

“Pardon me again, boss, but now that you’ve agreed to abide by the EU’s laws, I should note that India has passed laws that sound similar to the EU ones you agreed to abide by, and now they’re threatening to jail your local employees because you won’t take down content mocking the Prime Minister. They’re saying that since you abide by the EU’s laws, they expect you to abide by theirs as well.”

India is a massive market. We can’t survive without India. Can we, um, take down maybe some of the worst posts for violating our rules, and try to leave up the rest?

Level Nineteen: “We’re a social network doing our best in this crazy world.”

I just wanted everyone to love me?

“Boss, apologies, but our most famous and popular user, the President, is encouraging his vocal fans to burn down our offices because we put a fact check on his post urging people to strangle anyone with differing political views.”

Do you think someone will buy us?

Level Twenty: “Look, we’re just a freaking website. Can’t you people behave?”

Congratulations, you have completed the game…. Just kidding! It never ends. It only gets worse, and you will make mistakes, and people will get mad and personally blame you and insist that you are deliberately trying to “censor” their brilliant ideas, and advertisers will get mad, and politicians will pressure you into doing their bidding, and the media will criticize every mistake. You own a social network. Isn’t it fun?

 

Everyone should read the spoilered text.

Starting with Elon.  But who am I kidding?  He'll think it doesn't apply, because nobody of his godlike brilliance has ever taken this task on before, THAT'S why it's been so hard.  When Elon brings his superbraingenius to the game, this will all be so easy, and we'll all be in awe of his otherworldly brilliance and omnipotence!

I actually like that the thinks like that.  That's him FingA.  The rest of us get to watch as he FsO.  It's going to be fascinating.  Oh, and there will surely be significant collateral damage, horrible shit will be disseminated and hurt people, but hey, that's the way shit be.  Make sure you have plenty of popcorn.  Both as we watch Elon fall to earth, and as we watch his fanbois rationalize that the twenty steps listed in the spoiler were Elon's real plan all along, isn't Elon the smartest bestest ever?

[Shaddie 1651]

4 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Everyone should read the spoilered text.

Starting with Elon.  But who am I kidding?  He'll think it doesn't apply, because nobody of his godlike brilliance has ever taken this task on before, THAT'S why it's been so hard.  When Elon brings his superbraingenius to the game, this will all be so easy, and we'll all be in awe of his otherworldly brilliance and omnipotence!

I actually like that the thinks like that.  That's him FingA.  The rest of us get to watch as he FsO.  It's going to be fascinating.  Oh, and there will surely be significant collateral damage, horrible shit will be disseminated and hurt people, but hey, that's the way shit be.  Make sure you have plenty of popcorn.  Both as we watch Elon fall to earth, and as we watch his fanbois rationalize that the twenty steps listed in the spoiler were Elon's real plan all along, isn't Elon the smartest bestest ever?

FAFO?

[Celery Man 20966]

9 hours ago, crash_davis said:

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.

 

Flip that : Donald Trump is alive, in jokerman font

[Anastasis 23475]

I never really appreciated how truly important twitter was to some of you people.

Seems to be particularly important to people that show no capability to actively curate their feed or people that want an echo chamber environment.  No surprise some of the cloak room regulars are very serious about recognizing disinformation and its damage to our society but can't find the splinter in their own eye. 

Elon running it into the ground is going to be the best possible short term outcome.  The cancer is still going to metastasize, but everybody knows that we are basically on a trajectory towards palliative care. 

[Brisketexan 105154]

Oh look.  If it isn't Mr. Both Sides.  

[Buzzrock 14922]

Fuck both sides. Team #sportstwitter

[Anastasis 23475]

1 minute ago, Brisketexan said:

Oh look.  If it isn't Mr. Both Sides.  

 

It's ok.  I know that you ended up on the wrong side of a lot of disinformation from the twitter universe. Things will get better and they will get worse, but the end game is the same.  

[F250 28777]

1 hour ago, Goredho said:

A good sci-fi plot would be social media AI's having attained sentience without our knowledge, and using their virtual tentacles to spread disinformation amongst us so that we war amongst ourselves.  No us vs the machines war in this story like the Terminator or the Matrix.  It would be the AI's acting as Greek Gods toying in the affairs of men, generating war and conflict among us for their entertainment.

 

[Captainant 27680]

I don't think I've posted on Twitter or followed anyone or checked my feed in over 5 years, but nevertheless fucking every goddamn thing has been a tweet for a while. Shit, we learned of new cabinet postings by twitter before the sitting secretary did lol. It's how we learned of the murder of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor - and where we heard all the worst lies and smears against their character, supported by a network of racist disinformation - and it was used as an inciting mechanism for Jan6, and it took trump's tweet to finally get the crowd to go home on that dark day. 

It's not really your or my choice if what happens on twitter impacts us or not. It has been impacting us, and will continue to impact us. But the funny thing is, it's not twitter that's special or the point of concern - it's the mass of human attention that's currently channeled through the microphone that is twitter. And the new owner has the overt and stated intention to put the mic BACK into the hands of those inciting voices.

[SmokeyTheBear 5562]

I'm here for the Trump is Dead meme. Truth has been deemed subjective. 

[Celery Man 20966]

22 minutes ago, Captainant said:

I don't think I've posted on Twitter or followed anyone or checked my feed in over 5 years, but nevertheless fucking every goddamn thing has been a tweet for a while. Shit, we learned of new cabinet postings by twitter before the sitting secretary did lol. It's how we learned of the murder of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor - and where we heard all the worst lies and smears against their character, supported by a network of racist disinformation - and it was used as an inciting mechanism for Jan6, and it took trump's tweet to finally get the crowd to go home on that dark day. 

It's not really your or my choice if what happens on twitter impacts us or not. It has been impacting us, and will continue to impact us. But the funny thing is, it's not twitter that's special or the point of concern - it's the mass of human attention that's currently channeled through the microphone that is twitter. And the new owner has the overt and stated intention to put the mic BACK into the hands of those inciting voices.

there's an interesting discussion somewhere in here around the evolution of social media, the rise and fall of previous giants. my assumption at some point had been that nothing would ever last, but I guess really the kids go from place to place but facebook, twitter, and reddit have occupied their respective domains for a decade at least. parler/truth/etc failed because of the obvious myriad reasons why they would, i'm not sure there's any reason to believe that any idealogical exodus from twitter from the other side would be any different, and I think it's fairly obvious that something will continue to be twitter, most likely twitter. it would be a feat of remarkable stupidity if he actually manages to turn twitter into myspace or dunder mifflin infinity