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

[NoName 16351]

27 minutes ago, MonkeyDoughnut said:

It's the expense and difficulty in setting up tens of thousands of verifiable payment accounts that is the purpose of it, not the actual $1 amount. I have to think it will indeed have an impact.

saw someone on hacker news? talking about how they implemented a similar type of concept with $1 a year and saw their bot #s plummet because of this basically - the difficulty. they said they had a 0.01% stripe chargeback rate for either the last quarter or 23YTD

i think it will have an impact. plus it gives him an in to have "XPAY" and try to compete with paypal/venmo/etc (no thank you)

that said, they will lose MILLIONS of accounts over it. it's dumb and will torpedo any value the company has because then they will have to report out how many actual views/counts for their ads, which will also plummet.

 

its a good concept but a terrible actual idea for this company.

[MonkeyDoughnut 10232]

3 minutes ago, NoName said:

saw someone on hacker news? talking about how they implemented a similar type of concept with $1 a year and saw their bot #s plummet because of this basically - the difficulty. they said they had a 0.01% stripe chargeback rate for either the last quarter or 23YTD

i think it will have an impact. plus it gives him an in to have "XPAY" and try to compete with paypal/venmo/etc (no thank you)

that said, they will lose MILLIONS of accounts over it. it's dumb and will torpedo any value the company has because then they will have to report out how many actual views/counts for their ads, which will also plummet.

 

its a good concept but a terrible actual idea for this company.

Agreed, but that is a short term view of a company concerned with making money now. Elon has the advantage of not caring short term. Lots of people will always feel the "old" twitter is better, but long term those aren't the people he wants using twitter. To me the current Middle East conflict is supporting his point on fake news. Why should it be up to X employees to determine fake or not when the masses will quickly determine and verify it on their own. 

[NoName 16351]

15 minutes ago, MonkeyDoughnut said:

Agreed, but that is a short term view of a company concerned with making money now. Elon has the advantage of not caring short term. Lots of people will always feel the "old" twitter is better, but long term those aren't the people he wants using twitter. To me the current Middle East conflict is supporting his point on fake news. Why should it be up to X employees to determine fake or not when the masses will quickly determine and verify it on their own. 

if only there was a way to identify if people were actually who they said they were and, idk, identify them as such. it wouldn't have to be a perfect system, just one that worked most of the time or for most situations. then those more trustworthy people - maybe you could identify them with a checkmark of some sort - could amplify the actually accurate/correct information posted by the unknown people who post on the platform? and if those check marked people amplified misinformation you would then take away that mark? or you could outsource that mark to a company who hired them and in theory vetted that they were trustworthy journalists or people working for that organization?

hey twitter's logo was blue - let's give them a blue check? maybe they would work!

-

the old twitter was better, full stop. you had more diverse voices, more voices in general, more actual voices worth listening to, it had less disinformation (if you think it didn't you never were on it for an actual event like the Israel/Hamas war), it had global brand recognition up there with any web 2.0 company on the planet and even my dad knew what a "tweet" was.

there is no one out here saying "well, it's better now" - because it isn't, and that's a fact across the board. you have more disinformation, you have more people pretending to be actual people you care about, you have people posting for clicks so they get paid more at some point in the future (since they now get paid based on impressions), you have bots still all over the place - but now they are "verified" so you can't tell who is who. you re-platformed actual nazis, you re-platformed people who had been banned for racism and violence.

if Musk didn't want to be involved with one of the basic things of any website/company (deleting misinformation) then maybe he shouldn't have purchased a website/company on the internet. or he should have purchased it and not immediately broken it. or made it worse when it came to amplifying disinformation. or re-platformed a bunch of people who have a long history of sharing disinformation.

also, this is flat our wrong:

Quote

Elon has the advantage of not caring short term.

he loaded them up with debt as part of the purchase, and they have $1 to $1.5 billion a year that has to be paid. Elon isn't paying that out of his pocket.

if he didn't care short term he wouldn't have fired that many of their staff across the board, would have had much more targeted layoffs and reduced the brain drain lost from legacy twitter code.

everything he did since hiring the company, breaking leases, not paying people, not paying vendors, closing data centers, charging users, etc all shows that he cares deeply about it making money short term.

[MonkeyDoughnut 10232]

49 minutes ago, NoName said:

if only there was a way to identify if people were actually who they said they were and, idk, identify them as such. it wouldn't have to be a perfect system, just one that worked most of the time or for most situations. then those more trustworthy people - maybe you could identify them with a checkmark of some sort - could amplify the actually accurate/correct information posted by the unknown people who post on the platform? and if those check marked people amplified misinformation you would then take away that mark? or you could outsource that mark to a company who hired them and in theory vetted that they were trustworthy journalists or people working for that organization?

hey twitter's logo was blue - let's give them a blue check? maybe they would work!

-

the old twitter was better, full stop. you had more diverse voices, more voices in general, more actual voices worth listening to, it had less disinformation (if you think it didn't you never were on it for an actual event like the Israel/Hamas war), it had global brand recognition up there with any web 2.0 company on the planet and even my dad knew what a "tweet" was.

there is no one out here saying "well, it's better now" - because it isn't, and that's a fact across the board. you have more disinformation, you have more people pretending to be actual people you care about, you have people posting for clicks so they get paid more at some point in the future (since they now get paid based on impressions), you have bots still all over the place - but now they are "verified" so you can't tell who is who. you re-platformed actual nazis, you re-platformed people who had been banned for racism and violence.

if Musk didn't want to be involved with one of the basic things of any website/company (deleting misinformation) then maybe he shouldn't have purchased a website/company on the internet. or he should have purchased it and not immediately broken it. or made it worse when it came to amplifying disinformation. or re-platformed a bunch of people who have a long history of sharing disinformation.

also, this is flat our wrong:

he loaded them up with debt as part of the purchase, and they have $1 to $1.5 billion a year that has to be paid. Elon isn't paying that out of his pocket.

if he didn't care short term he wouldn't have fired that many of their staff across the board, would have had much more targeted layoffs and reduced the brain drain lost from legacy twitter code.

everything he did since hiring the company, breaking leases, not paying people, not paying vendors, closing data centers, charging users, etc all shows that he cares deeply about it making money short term.

I'm not a heavy consumer and don't have a presence to speak of, but I guess I saw the verified celebrity/known person blue mark as just gatekeeping much like news companies of old and today. You got/get the news and the version of the news they want to convey in the light they choose to convey it.  Nothing wrong with that but I don't feel they should on that alone be above others covering the same story/information.  I've got a cultivated list of people I personally like or choose to trust, but that's based on my opinion of them. 

As for Musk caring, I meant he doesn't need to worry about growing profits, but certainly needed to make the company sustainable in the short term. It appears he's done that with cuts and continued its growth in face of competition.

[Ted Lange 16084]

The difference now is any idiot with $8 gets a check AND boosted no matter how terrible they are.   James239872347 shouldn't have the same identification as the NYT, WSJ, ABC, or Fox.    He certainly shouldn't be getting promoted, which the platform does now.

[NoName 16351]

4 minutes ago, MonkeyDoughnut said:

I'm not a heavy consumer and don't have a presence to speak of, but I guess I saw the verified celebrity/known person blue mark as just gatekeeping much like news companies of old and today. You got/get the news and the version of the news they want to convey in the light they choose to convey it.  Nothing wrong with that but I don't feel they should on that alone be above others covering the same story/information.  I've got a cultivated list of people I personally like or choose to trust, but that's based on my opinion of them. 

As for Musk caring, I meant he doesn't need to worry about growing profits, but certainly needed to make the company sustainable in the short term. It appears he's done that with cuts and continued its growth in face of competition.

gatekeeping? come on dude. it was a system that worked decently well for 10+ years and was put in place because of people impersonating others - specifically Tony La Russa of all people.

was it perfect? absolutely not. but was it significantly better than we see today? yes. Twitter went from THE SINGULAR PLACE TO GO when news was breaking - be it sports, politics, disasters, war, literally anything where you went and felt reasonably confident in what you were seeing if a check mark was saying it to an absolute shitshow of people posting bad information on accident or on purpose, straight up click bait, information that is irrelevant or has been proven wrong in the hours since the initial comment was made, etc

if you think twitter is better now than it was before Nov 2022 idk what to say. there is no single way with how i use it where it is better. literally none - 3rd party apps gone, lists broken/don't work, verification is terrible, bots everywhere, misinformation is rampant (almost like nuking your trust dept is a bad move?), removing headlines from posts because you think the "esthetics" are better.

blue checks were not alone on covering a story - the rise of the entire OSINT category happened on twitter. but before you could have some level of confidence in what you read. now i have next to none. accounts are literally paid on views/impressions so it's gone all clickbait and misinformation central.

twitter from a user experience right now is worse than it was pre acquisition.

Quote

As for Musk caring, I meant he doesn't need to worry about growing profits, but certainly needed to make the company sustainable in the short term. It appears he's done that with cuts and continued its growth in face of competition.

yeah, that's not the case. they were close to sustainable with their existing revenue flow and making minimal changes to it would have absolutely led to them being financially sustainable. but he loaded it up with over a billion dollars PER YEAR in debt service.

he nuked their ad business, because he has no understanding of the product he purchased. he doesn't understand the tool. he doesn't understand the product. he doesn't understand the users. he doesn't understand what it is and isn't. he doesn't understand who the audience is. he doesn't get it.

he says a bunch of wild tech shit that may make sense in some places - like cars, idk a lot about them but sure. TSLA has worked out. but he has said a bunch of wild shit post acquisition that i do know something about and it's very clear to anyone who knows anything about this that he is out of his element entirely. he doesn't know what he is talking about at all and thinks that speaking in techno mumbo jumbo and using a lot of buzz words makes him sound smarter than he is.

he's now owned twitter for almost exactly 12 months. what's happened from a product standpoint in the last 12 months. have they rewritten the tech stack he said they had to? nope. have they rewritten their periscope code for video and livestreaming? nope. have they found a way to make their algorithm better to serve you what you want to see on "for you"? nope. have they done some work to bring up legacy code to something more clear and usable for future changes? nope. have they made it easier to discover useful lists and new accounts to you? nope. maybe they changed the color scheme? naw, they just made "dark mode" the main one and kept the blue accents.

across the board cuts to your leadership team, product team, support team, marketing group, trust and verification team, infrastructure team, HR, customer service and sales/ad team was beyond dumb.

they haven't even migrated twitter to X, not even from a website standpoint. literally x.com forwards you to twitter.com/home. so what are all these employees doing now even lol

no one else in the universe would have paid $44b for something then killed the revenue stream that made up 89% of the company's total revenue. NO ONE. it's one of the dumbest leadership moves i have ever even heard of.

i haven't even touched on the abject failure of their rebrand, which will be discussed with any rebranding until the end of time. they took a very well known brand and logo and nuked it in favor of a unicode letter, a trademark nightmare (something like 900-1000 companies in the US alone already own an X trademark) and even now months later 70% of users (per AdAge/Harris poll) still call it Twitter - and their brand loyalty dropped from #47 to #92. they can't even effectively scrub their own support services of the twitter name.

[atomheartbevo 89648]

5 hours ago, DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt said:

lol $1 annually. 

That'll fix it.

2 hours ago, MonkeyDoughnut said:

It's the expense and difficulty in setting up tens of thousands of verifiable payment accounts that is the purpose of it, not the actual $1 amount. I have to think it will indeed have an impact.

It can be done (it's done on a large scale with the bot farmers in various online games already, with far more complex and larger financial transactions), and more importantly, it's data that can be sold to advertisers.

[Deej 76759]

On 10/7/2023 at 8:40 AM, Neonmoon said:

I think you’re discounting all the customers who just to be hardcore edgelords 

Childhood memories of the playground by my house. 

 

[NoName 16351]

Techcrunch: One year post-acquisition, X traffic and monthly active users are in decline, report claims

Quote

According to data from market intelligence firm Similarweb, X’s global website traffic was down 14% year-over-year in September, and U.S. traffic was down by 19%. On mobile devices in the U.S., performance had also declined 17.8% year-over-year, based on monthly active users on iOS and Android.

+
 

Quote

 

Although the U.S. accounts for roughly a quarter of X’s web traffic, other countries also saw declines in web traffic, including the U.K. (-11.6%), France (-13.4%), Germany (-17.9%) and Australia (-17.5%).

The report notes that September was not just a fluke, either, as declines in usage were visible in long-term trends as well. When comparing the first nine months of 2023 with the same period in 2022, Simiarweb found X’s website traffic was down 11.6% year-over-year in the U.S. and down by 7% worldwide.  Mobile app usage in the U.S. was also down by 12.8% during that same period of time.

 

overall there is a trend, but one of these is not like the other in losses:

+

Quote

In addition, Similarweb’s analysis touches on the declining importance of X in the news ecosystem, noting that three years ago, The New York Times would receive 3-4% of its traffic from Twitter, but that’s now down to less than 1%.

good news though lol
 

Quote

 

Though the report doesn’t include much good news for X, it did admit that the app seems to have staying power.

“…somehow the X / Twitter audience has eroded but not evaporated,” wrote Similarweb’s Senior Insights Manager David Carr.

 

full text:

 

 

Spoiler

One year post-acquisition, X traffic and monthly active users are in decline, report claims

Sarah Perez@sarahpereztc / 11:56 AM CDT•October 17, 2023

 

Image Credits: Bryce Durbin / TechCrunch

Despite proclamations from X CEO Linda Yaccarino that usage of the social network was at an all-time high this summer, a new report is throwing cold water on those claims, saying that X usage has actually declined on all fronts, across both web and mobile. According to data from market intelligence firm Similarweb, X’s global website traffic was down 14% year-over-year in September, and U.S. traffic was down by 19%. On mobile devices in the U.S., performance had also declined 17.8% year-over-year, based on monthly active users on iOS and Android.

 

Image Credits: Similarweb

 

Although the U.S. accounts for roughly a quarter of X’s web traffic, other countries also saw declines in web traffic, including the U.K. (-11.6%), France (-13.4%), Germany (-17.9%) and Australia (-17.5%).

The report notes that September was not just a fluke, either, as declines in usage were visible in long-term trends as well. When comparing the first nine months of 2023 with the same period in 2022, Simiarweb found X’s website traffic was down 11.6% year-over-year in the U.S. and down by 7% worldwide.  Mobile app usage in the U.S. was also down by 12.8% during that same period of time.

 

However, there is one bright spot for X…or rather its owner, Elon Musk. Traffic to Musk’s profile page on the site was up 96% year-over-year as of last month.

 

Image Credits: Similarweb

 

The firm’s estimates are determined by machine learning algorithms powered by millions of websites and apps’ first-party analytics, including through its own consumer products that measure device traffic data as well as through partnerships with other companies, including ISPs, other measurement firms and demand-side platforms. Its methodology on mobile devices relies heavily on Android data, however, because of the tighter restrictions Apple places on its App Store and data privacy.

 

Still, even with a glimpse into Android data, you can get a sense of how well X is faring. On that front, Similarweb notes that X mobile app usage worldwide was down by 14.8% on Android, compared with the -17.8% drop in the U.S. across iOS and Android.

The report also indicates that X’s declines are part of a broader shift, as web traffic to the top 100 social networks and online communities the firm tracks were also down by 3.7% in September, save TikTok, which grew 22.8% on a global basis. Facebook web traffic, for example, was down 10.4%.

 

Image Credits: Similarweb

 

 

Image Credits: Similarweb

 

On mobile, the same trend was true, but X’s monthly active users declined by 17.8% in September, compared with Facebook and Instagram, down by 8% and 3.7%, respectively.

 

Image Credits: Similarweb

 

In addition, Similarweb’s analysis touches on the declining importance of X in the news ecosystem, noting that three years ago, The New York Times would receive 3-4% of its traffic from Twitter, but that’s now down to less than 1%. Of course, X began throttling links to the Times in August, along with other competitors like Bluesky and Threads. This week, X was accused of throttling Patreon links as well.

 

But in reality, Twitter’s importance to news publishers has always been overstated. News may have broken on Twitter but it was never a significant traffic source. In fact, NPR left the platform six months ago after Musk began labeling it and other outlets as “state-affiliated media.” A recent report from Nieman indicates NPR’s loss of traffic from leaving X has been “negligible” — traffic only dropped by a single percentage point, where it used to account for just under 2% of overall traffic.

Though the report doesn’t include much good news for X, it did admit that the app seems to have staying power.

“…somehow the X / Twitter audience has eroded but not evaporated,” wrote Similarweb’s Senior Insights Manager David Carr.

That’s worth noting, given the increased competition from new competitors like Bluesky, Post, Pebble, Spill, Mastodon and Threads.

 

X would likely dispute Similarweb’s findings, as its execs have only touted traffic increases, not declines. The company recently told TechCrunch that X sees 500 million posts per day, including original content, replies and reposts, and noted that X generates 100 billion impressions per day. Yaccarino also shared other figures at an event in October, noting that people are spending 14% more time on X, with a 20% increase in consuming video, and that 1.5 million sign up for X daily, up 4% year-over-year.

X did not respond to requests for comment.

 

[Neonmoon 38129]

 

[atomheartbevo 89648]

41 minutes ago, Neonmoon said:

*Elon Musk Quotes*

Elon Musk fanbois: FAKE NEWS

[NoName 16351]

its perfect

 

[Captainant 27653]

20 minutes ago, NoName said:

its perfect

 

Hot: deepfried memes

Not: refried memes

[DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt 12301]

17 hours ago, NoName said:

Techcrunch: One year post-acquisition, X traffic and monthly active users are in decline, report claims

+
 

overall there is a trend, but one of these is not like the other in losses:

+

good news though lol
 

full text:

 

 

  Hide contents

One year post-acquisition, X traffic and monthly active users are in decline, report claims

Sarah Perez@sarahpereztc / 11:56 AM CDT•October 17, 2023

 

 

Image Credits: Bryce Durbin / TechCrunch

Despite proclamations from X CEO Linda Yaccarino that usage of the social network was at an all-time high this summer, a new report is throwing cold water on those claims, saying that X usage has actually declined on all fronts, across both web and mobile. According to data from market intelligence firm Similarweb, X’s global website traffic was down 14% year-over-year in September, and U.S. traffic was down by 19%. On mobile devices in the U.S., performance had also declined 17.8% year-over-year, based on monthly active users on iOS and Android.

 

Image Credits: Similarweb

 

Although the U.S. accounts for roughly a quarter of X’s web traffic, other countries also saw declines in web traffic, including the U.K. (-11.6%), France (-13.4%), Germany (-17.9%) and Australia (-17.5%).

The report notes that September was not just a fluke, either, as declines in usage were visible in long-term trends as well. When comparing the first nine months of 2023 with the same period in 2022, Simiarweb found X’s website traffic was down 11.6% year-over-year in the U.S. and down by 7% worldwide.  Mobile app usage in the U.S. was also down by 12.8% during that same period of time.

 

However, there is one bright spot for X…or rather its owner, Elon Musk. Traffic to Musk’s profile page on the site was up 96% year-over-year as of last month.

 

Image Credits: Similarweb

 

The firm’s estimates are determined by machine learning algorithms powered by millions of websites and apps’ first-party analytics, including through its own consumer products that measure device traffic data as well as through partnerships with other companies, including ISPs, other measurement firms and demand-side platforms. Its methodology on mobile devices relies heavily on Android data, however, because of the tighter restrictions Apple places on its App Store and data privacy.

 

Still, even with a glimpse into Android data, you can get a sense of how well X is faring. On that front, Similarweb notes that X mobile app usage worldwide was down by 14.8% on Android, compared with the -17.8% drop in the U.S. across iOS and Android.

The report also indicates that X’s declines are part of a broader shift, as web traffic to the top 100 social networks and online communities the firm tracks were also down by 3.7% in September, save TikTok, which grew 22.8% on a global basis. Facebook web traffic, for example, was down 10.4%.

 

Image Credits: Similarweb

 

 

Image Credits: Similarweb

 

On mobile, the same trend was true, but X’s monthly active users declined by 17.8% in September, compared with Facebook and Instagram, down by 8% and 3.7%, respectively.

 

Image Credits: Similarweb

 

In addition, Similarweb’s analysis touches on the declining importance of X in the news ecosystem, noting that three years ago, The New York Times would receive 3-4% of its traffic from Twitter, but that’s now down to less than 1%. Of course, X began throttling links to the Times in August, along with other competitors like Bluesky and Threads. This week, X was accused of throttling Patreon links as well.

 

But in reality, Twitter’s importance to news publishers has always been overstated. News may have broken on Twitter but it was never a significant traffic source. In fact, NPR left the platform six months ago after Musk began labeling it and other outlets as “state-affiliated media.” A recent report from Nieman indicates NPR’s loss of traffic from leaving X has been “negligible” — traffic only dropped by a single percentage point, where it used to account for just under 2% of overall traffic.

Though the report doesn’t include much good news for X, it did admit that the app seems to have staying power.

“…somehow the X / Twitter audience has eroded but not evaporated,” wrote Similarweb’s Senior Insights Manager David Carr.

That’s worth noting, given the increased competition from new competitors like Bluesky, Post, Pebble, Spill, Mastodon and Threads.

 

X would likely dispute Similarweb’s findings, as its execs have only touted traffic increases, not declines. The company recently told TechCrunch that X sees 500 million posts per day, including original content, replies and reposts, and noted that X generates 100 billion impressions per day. Yaccarino also shared other figures at an event in October, noting that people are spending 14% more time on X, with a 20% increase in consuming video, and that 1.5 million sign up for X daily, up 4% year-over-year.

X did not respond to requests for comment.

 

The meat of this is that Twitter's reach/audience is declining overall but Elon's reach has doubled. So, his plan is working.

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7 minutes ago, DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt said:

The meat of this is that Twitter's reach/audience is declining overall but Elon's reach has doubled. So, his plan is working.

And he's going to charge people $1 to use it, so he'll be raking in possibly dozens of millions of dollars on a $44 billion purchase.

[Lurch 5930]

My view may be different from that of the rest of you because I have a significant Twitter presence, but I think that anything they can do to keep spam / advertising bs out of their Network will ultimately result in positive engagement.

Meant to tell you that threads recommend your account to me about a week ago

[Brisketexan 105095]

20 minutes ago, Lurch said:

Meant to tell you that threads recommend your account to me about a week ago

Yeah, me too!  Wait....Hornius's account is "Belinda the Naughty Housewife," right?

[Hornius Emeritus 12457]

29 minutes ago, Lurch said:

Meant to tell you that threads recommend your account to me about a week ago

Well I hope you kept your wits about you and said hell no! 😄

[Chopper 17230]

I guess (somehow) there's still some "Elon means well" deluded trash on here.

 

Quote

 

Neither X nor Musk responded to requests for comment.

In April, after Musk bought the company for $44 billion, X ended its years-old system of giving badges to politicians, journalists and other public figures whose identity it had verified. Replacing it was a pay-for-play scheme extending blue badges to any individual who pays $8 a month and gold badges to any “verified organization” that pays at least $1,000 a month.

After the Times declined to pay the fee, Musk tweeted support for its badge to be immediately removed and the Times became the first major account to lose verification. Later in April, X reinstated the badge for the Times and other big accounts, including for those who declined to pay or said they didn’t want it.

Neither the Times nor The Post has ever paid the fee, according to people familiar with both organizations.

The verification system change has made it more challenging for users to seek out official or authoritative information during major news events. A study released Thursday by the media-rating service NewsGuard found that 74 percent of the worst Israel-Gaza misinformation on X had been spread by paid-for blue “verified” accounts.

Musk has repeatedly attacked the Times, saying in August that the news organization supports “calls for genocide” and that “if ever there was a time to cancel that publication, it is now.”

Within days of that post, X had implemented a five-second delay for clicks to the Times’ website. After The Post reported on the delay, X removed it for the Times without explanation but kept it in place for other X competitors, including Facebook, Instagram, Substack and Bluesky, according to a technical analysis from the news outlet The Markup.

Even without the delay, traffic to the Times’ website from X links has plunged roughly 50 percent since August, according to a person familiar with the change.

That steep drop outpaces an industry-wide slowdown in referrals to top news sites from X and Facebook this year, according to industry data from the analytics firm Similarweb first reported by Axios.

On Wednesday, Musk echoed a comment from the far-right influencer Ian Miles Cheong, who in March shared a fake manifesto falsely attributed to a Nashville school shooter, saying the Times had “uncritically regurgitated propaganda” and laughed off a criticism that Musk had removed features making it possible to tell real journalists from fakes. Musk replied, “'Real journalists’ lmaooo.”

The Times runs the 25th most-followed account on X, according to data from the social media analytics firm Social Blade.

Earlier this month, X removed headlines from news articles and other links on the platform and demoted posts with links in its recommendation system — two moves that a Cardiff University professor told The Post were “part of a larger trend toward making Twitter/X more difficult for news organizations to use.” Musk said his goal was to maximize the time people spent on X and said “there is less time spent if people click away.”

In the months since Musk bought X, the social media site has cut back on content moderation, suspended journalists, reinstated neo-Nazis and threatened to file defamation lawsuits against critics such as the Anti-Defamation League. The platform has also shed users and advertisers.

In April, NPR became the first major news organization to stop using the platform after its account was labeled as “state-affiliated media.” In the six months since, NPR’s website traffic has dropped by only 1 percent, according to an internal memo first shared by the news journal Nieman Reports.

 

 

[Chopper 17230]

I was listening to the most recent of Athlon Cover 2's cfb podcast, and the hosts went on an unexpected rant about twitter. How it used to be a great thing to open and watch cfb games with on Saturdays, but now it's only fake hot russian chicks and almost nothing else besides crap. The abridged version: "Used to be a fun place. Now it sucks." I mention it because it seems like one of the most high profile groups to still use twitter as their primary social media spot are sports reporters

[Pig Bellmont 8712]

A few sports writers from the Athletic have started to migrate to Threads, hopefully that trend picks up. 
 

Taking away verification from legacy news media will drive them all off the platform- especially when stats are out showing how NPR didn’t take a real hit In engagement for leaving. I’m convinced he’s intentionally trying to kill the website 

[Ted Lange 16084]

If/once credible media outlets and people realize they are no longer getting much out of posting on twitter and abandon ship, twitter is left with catturd and the other $8 a month shitposting trolls.   That’s when twitter finally collapses and becomes a a 44 billion dollar Spirit Halloween. 

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1 hour ago, Pig Bellmont said:

Taking away verification from legacy news media will drive them all off the platform- especially when stats are out showing how NPR didn’t take a real hit In engagement for leaving. I’m convinced he’s intentionally trying to kill the website 

At times it feels like he's trying to kill the platform. At other times, it feels like he just wants to try and make his view on things be The One True View. Drive away the media orgs that he doesn't like (and that dare to criticize him).

His drive to financially reward those who are trying to get stuff to go viral so they get the nice check from him is what's going to ultimately do him in. I'm seeing fake bullshit all the time now, and Israel/Hamas has just brought it way out into the open, but it was already building up.  It's only a matter of time until people are driving viral bullshit on there to fuck with the Stockmarket (whether to make money or for the lulz) or trying to start panics over fake news to get the views/likes and/or because they are trolling.

[Tonesky 934]

52 minutes ago, Ted Lange said:

If/once credible media outlets and people realize they are no longer getting much out of posting on twitter and abandon ship, twitter is left with catturd …. 

So, Shaggy Twitter. 

[safe sex 11709]

1 hour ago, atomheartbevo said:

At other times, it feels like he just wants to try and make his view on things be The One True View. Drive away the media orgs that he doesn't like (and that dare to criticize him).

[atomheartbevo 89648]

Wait, Tesla stock has lost $30 in less than 48 hours?

Or did I read the charts wrong.

[NoName 16351]

two new tiers of "X Premium" launching soon lol

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/20/elon-musk-x-formerly-twitter-to-launch-two-new-subscription-tiers.html

also they are floating the whole "let's exit Europe its only 9% of our user base and we don't want to comply with the DSA requests" which is absolutely incredible.

"only" 9%? lol

also, oopsie

Verified Accounts on Musk’s X Spread 74 Percent of Israel-Hamas War Misinformation

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/elon-musk-x-74-percent-israel-hamas-war-misinformation-1234858609/

Quote

 

A NewsGuard analysis, shared with Adweek, found that X’s “verified” users, who are required to pay a fee for the blue check, promoted 74 precent of the platform’s most viral, false claims related to the ongoing war.

Utilizing a combination of human and artificial intelligence, NewsGuard reviewed the top 250 posts on X containing misinformation that received the most likes, reposts, replies and bookmarks since the start of the conflict on Oct. 7. The analysis found that 186 accounts of the 250, 74 percent, had been verified.

Posts spreading false claims gained 1,349,979 likes, reposts, replies and bookmarks, and in one week, were viewed by more than 100 million people globally, per NewsGuard. Among 10 false narratives promoted by the verified accounts were the fabricated claims that Ukraine was providing weapons to Hamas and that an Israeli senior official had been captured by Hamas.

“This is another nail in the coffin for X in terms of deteriorating advertisers’ trust,” Ruben Schreurs, chief strategy officer at independent marketing and media consultancy Ebiquity, told Adweek. “And they’re enforcing their decision not to return to X.”

Meta, TikTok, and YouTube have also been affected by the influx unchecked misinformation, with all four companies, including X, receiving warnings from the European Commission that the spread of misinformation, as well as violent and hateful content, may place them in violation of the EU’s Digital Services Act.

 

https://www.adweek.com/media/verified-accounts-x-spread-wartime-misinformation/

Quote

“That decision [to let people pay for verification] turned out to be a boon for bad actors sharing misinformation about the Israel-Hamas war,” according to NewsGuard.

 

[NoName 16351]

29 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

Wait, Tesla stock has lost $30 in less than 48 hours?

Or did I read the charts wrong.

https://electrek.co/2023/10/19/tesla-tsla-tumbles-disastrous-elon-musk-conference-call/

Quote

 

I was personally disappointed in the conference call. First, we missed the first half of Musk’s opening statement because he was muted.

But that’s not the worst part. The worst part was that Tesla unmuted him, but they didn’t tell him. He didn’t restart his statement; he just continued as if nothing happened. And then it happened again halfway through the call.

It’s not the first time I’ve been worried about Musk being surrounded by yes men who are too afraid to give him bad news, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this is an example of that.

Secondly, I was disappointed by Musk skating around important questions. For example, he was asked a critical question about Tesla’s plan to eventually take legal responsibility for FSD; instead of responding, the CEO complained about people “already believing that Tesla has the responsibility” because they are suing the company, then claiming that Tesla achieved “baby AGI,” which is not an answer at all.

Lastly, he spent about half the call complaining about macroeconomics and interest rates, which I know are having a big impact on Tesla’s business right now, but it’s not a good look to complain a ton about something completely outside of the company’s power and then not answer questions that are within the company’s power.

It also feels like Musk is pushing this high interest issue too much. It has an undeniable impact, but it’s certainly not the only issue with demand because Tesla has reduced prices more over the last year than what it needed to keep monthly payments at the same price despite interest rate increases.

I shared my thoughts on this yesterday:

It does feel like Musk is spending too much time on X and stuck in his superfan-controlled feedback loop.

 

 

full text of that tweet:

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2023/10/elon-musk-talks-tesla-we-dug-our-own-grave-with-the-cybertruck/

 

Quote

 

Do people actually want big electric pickup trucks?

Whether demand exists for that many Cybertrucks remains to be proven. Electric pickups from other brands are barely making a dent in America's enormous appetite for big trucks, and debate currently rages among those who track these things. Are high sales prices and limited towing ranges turning off potential buyers? Or are production problems and therefore minimal supplies to blame?

Anecdotes are growing about unsold Ford F-150 Lightnings on dealer lots, and General Motors' ongoing inability to make Ultium battery cells at anything approaching scale has kept the gargantuan Hummer EV's deliveries at a relative trickle. Right now, Rivian appears to be the market leader—with 14,374 R1Ts delivered during the first three quarters of 2023, it beat Ford's cheaper F-150 by more than 2,000 units.

As for the Tesla, unlike its other four models, the plus-sized Cybertruck has little appeal to drivers in Europe or China, and that promised sub-$40,000 price promise evaporated last year. Currently, the Tesla Cybertruck page has no pricing other than a $100 deposit and no way to configure a truck.

 

https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/18/23923218/elon-musk-q3-tesla-earnings-work-from-home

 

Quote

 

On Tesla’s Q3 earnings call, CEO Elon Musk said people who work from home take advantage of the people who cannot work from home and are “detached from reality.” In the middle of talking about rising interest rates and their effect on the affordability of vehicles, Musk launched into a discussion about “Marie Antoinette” vibes of the person he describes asking why doesn’t everyone work from home.

“Like... what about all the people that have to come to the factory and and build the cars? What about all of the people that have to go to to the restaurant and make your food, and deliver your food? It’s like, what are you talking about...”

Musk carried on, saying “Why did I sleep in the factory so many times? Because it mattered,” referring to lowering the costs of a Tesla. He’d been asked how he thought about price elasticity in the current macroenvironment.

In a CNBC interview earlier this year, Musk called remote work “morally wrong” and argued it’s unfair to those who can’t have the option, like food delivery workers. “Get off the goddamn moral high horse with the work-from-home bullshit,” Musk said at the time. Last year, Musk said work from home was “no longer acceptable” at Tesla and issued requirements for 40-hour work weeks in office.

 

funny comment from reddit about the RTO/work from home stuff

>So, given Musk again ranted about work from home, are we to believe he does not actually work at Tesla basically ever anymore? Because he's never there.

another good comment:

>There is not a single mention of the Tesla Semi in the Q3 Call. A product which had a delivery event in december 2022. Still not a single delivery to a customer.

while they have had some deliveries to Pepsi those are basically marketing, Pepsi didn't "pay" for those from what I understand.

 

edit: we are absolutely going to have a "hes been microdosing since Grimes broke up with him" article come out in the next 12 months, followed up weeks later by an article about how he moved from microdosing to more recreational doses over time. there is zero chance this guy is not on something. him going off script and that shitshow of a conference call is yet another high profile example of something being different about the guy vs like 3 years ago.

 

Edited October 20, 2023 by NoName

[texasdago 7570]

13 hours ago, Pig Bellmont said:

A few sports writers from the Athletic have started to migrate to Threads, hopefully that trend picks up. 
 

Taking away verification from legacy news media will drive them all off the platform- especially when stats are out showing how NPR didn’t take a real hit In engagement for leaving. I’m convinced he’s intentionally trying to kill the website 

...and I'm finding my engagement on Threads is higher than it ever was on Twitter... you can tell the activity is picking up, its starting to cover breaking news more effectively and the algorithm does a good job of feeding up content suggestions that you would like.  Better than Twitter.  Not to mention that the community seems to be active in policing itself and blocking trolls/aholes.  I like it.

[Chopper 17230]

Thanks to @NoNamefor providing the insider take on the earnings call. The one mainstream news article I read about it made zero mention of the phone muting nor the nonsensical and evasive answers. Muskovy was "made" by the MSM. They fawned over him for years and to a large extent continue to do so, or at the very least they provide cover for him. It's remarkable how resentful he is of the MSM now after they made him into a genius business person who "invented" Tesla and helped "create" paypal.

Twitter's currently in discussions with the banks that funded Muskovy's purchase of the company about the heavy debt load and whether Twitter is in compliance with its loan agreements and even whether they will default. I wonder if his decision to lash out at the NYT was a reaction to the banks being less agreeable than what Muskovy was hoping for - allowing him to buy his own debt for pennies on the dollar.

 

[NoName 16351]

42 minutes ago, Chopper said:

Thanks to @NoNamefor providing the insider take on the earnings call. The one mainstream news article I read about it made zero mention of the phone muting nor the nonsensical and evasive answers. Muskovy was "made" by the MSM. They fawned over him for years and to a large extent continue to do so, or at the very least they provide cover for him. It's remarkable how resentful he is of the MSM now after they made him into a genius business person who "invented" Tesla and helped "create" paypal.

Twitter's currently in discussions with the banks that funded Muskovy's purchase of the company about the heavy debt load and whether Twitter is in compliance with its loan agreements and even whether they will default. I wonder if his decision to lash out at the NYT was a reaction to the banks being less agreeable than what Muskovy was hoping for - allowing him to buy his own debt for pennies on the dollar.

 

yeah, i missed the mute stuff until reddit/articles. didn't see jack about it on TWTR of course

[wackawacka 177]

I would not trust my safety to this guy at all. I am shocked people still will buy Tesla given his instability.

[Goredho 17399]

5 minutes ago, wackawacka said:

I would not trust my safety to this guy at all. I am shocked people still will buy Tesla given his instability.

Yep, the only difference between Musk and that OceanGate titanic sub CEO is that Musk caught the wave of opportunity formed with the birth of the intardnet.

 

 

 

 

Well, I guess that's not the ONLY difference between them.

[texasdago 7570]

55 minutes ago, wackawacka said:

I would not trust my safety to this guy at all. I am shocked people still will buy Tesla given his instability.

There is literally no limit to what he just might approve in order to get a product out regardless of whether it is effective or safe.

[atomheartbevo 89648]

3 hours ago, wackawacka said:

I would not trust my safety to this guy at all. I am shocked people still will buy Tesla given his instability.

I don't, there seems to be this Beverly Hills doctor who is constantly in all of the twitter threads pointing at wrinkly skin, so maybe twitter doctors are a thing.

[atomheartbevo 89648]

On 10/20/2023 at 9:58 AM, texasdago said:

...and I'm finding my engagement on Threads is higher than it ever was on Twitter... you can tell the activity is picking up, its starting to cover breaking news more effectively and the algorithm does a good job of feeding up content suggestions that you would like.  Better than Twitter.  Not to mention that the community seems to be active in policing itself and blocking trolls/aholes.  I like it.

And I know that Meta is trying to figure out its identity while trying to thread the needle on ramping up moderation and dealing (or not) with massive amounts of misinformation (hence temporarily blocking COVID stuff), but I don't think Meta will have a choice in the matter - I'm seeing more activity on Threads among the people on there, and I'm seeing more breaking news.  Twitter is driving people and organizations away and Threads is probably going to be the place where they end up.  Blue Sky isn't doing what it needs to be doing to divert those people its way, and Mastodon, fairly or not, has a nerdy image that it can't shake.

[atomheartbevo 89648]

[Brisketexan 105095]

I don't, there seems to be this Beverly Hills doctor who is constantly in all of the twitter threads pointing at wrinkly skin, so maybe twitter doctors are a thing.

What I like is that 90% of the posts I check out (almost always a link from here on either the Ukraine war or Israel/Gaza) are promptly followed by a cascade of posts offering 1) some new crypto scam (“Brozel Filbert, CEO of Cryptobankbroforreal is giving away free Bitcoin shares to the first 5,000 people to retweet to thank them for their support!”) or 2) some sort of medical quackery (“Dr Rosenrosen finally reveals the 5 foods you should never eat! #4 will blow your mind! His new tonic will solve it all!”)
It’s such a shit platform. Sure, there’s good stuff in there. Like a diamond in a pen full of pig shit.

[Underdog 28611]

I guess posting HANG HIM! gets you a 12hr timeout.  LOL. 

[Chopper 17230]

Business Insider with more earnings call reporting. Not a great article but worth it for the headline.

 

Quote

It's now clear that Tesla's third-quarter earnings call on Wednesday didn't exactly go as expected.  

CEO Elon Musk acted like "a little baby," financial analyst and YouTuber Kevin Paffrath recently told Yahoo Finance. He also described the call as "terrible" and said Musk was "almost in tears" at one point.

"For a leader to cry about the economy rather than funneling that and coming up with a plan is pathetic," said Paffrath, who has almost 1.9 million subscribers on his Meet Kevin YouTube channel, and owns Tesla stock. 

Paffrath pointed to Musk's comments on Tesla's gigafactory in Mexico as an example. The $10 billion endeavor, which Musk confirmed during a meeting with investors in March, would be the company's sixth and most expensive factory to date.

Musk suggested at one point on the call that he was delaying the factory in light of rising interest rates, which make borrowing more expensive. "If interest rates remain high or if they go even higher, it's that much harder for people to buy the car. They simply can't afford it," Musk said, pointing to the impact on monthly car loan payments.  

But Paffrath slammed Musk's response, saying the Tesla CEO was "afraid," and suggested that Musk should negotiate a better deal with the Mexican government or potentially "advertise to higher-income areas." Paffrath has previously called on Tesla to promote its products to non-fans.

"We need to know the light is at the end of the tunnel rather than hearing a complaining CEO who's not actually providing that path," he told Yahoo Finance.

 

 

 

Edited October 22, 2023 by Chopper

[atomheartbevo 89648]

This whole subscription model that they are implementing for anybody wanting to use twitter....it's going to be the nail in the coffin for many people who will finally go elsewhere (because they won't have a choice, unless they want to pay Elmo).  Many will still pay because it's important to their business for the time being.

But Musk's fanbois....while a bunch of them paid their $8 and are verified (or their moms paid), I have a feeling that those who could afford to/wanted to give him money already did, and plenty might feel a little betrayed that the man they champion as the richest and bestest man in the whole world needs their money.

[Storm the Field 5294]

 

[Al Bundy's Napoleon Hand 13581]

Cybertruck passes Pop N' Fresh test.

Game changer.

[Ted Lange 16084]

If The Godfather had only taken place in 2035 when Cybertuck is available, Sonny would still be alive.

[Brisketexan 105095]

29 minutes ago, Storm the Field said:

 

Is the competition trying to sell armored MRAPs for use in Fallujah?  No?  Then how does this make a shit?  Because that looks like fucking horizontal hail damage, meaning an insurance claim, so how is that a fucking win?  How many people do you expect to be shooting at you?  And WTF were they shooting?  Those look like they were hit with balls, not bullets....did Elmo piss off Archie and Jughead and the gang with slingshots?

[Al Bundy's Napoleon Hand 13581]

Just don't poke the windows.

[Ted Lange 16084]

[DigglerontheHoof 21186]

JFC, what a piece of shit. 

[F250 28767]

22 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

And WTF were they shooting?  Those look like they were hit with balls, not bullets....did Elmo piss off Archie and Jughead and the gang with slingshots?

Allegedly, they used a Tommy gun. I am curious how the door would hold up to an AR-15 firing. 223 into it since that is what all the psychos use to kill people.

[atomheartbevo 89648]

Normally I wouldn't link to any website that insists on light gray text on white backgrounds, but..

https://www.cip.uw.edu/2023/10/20/new-elites-twitter-x-most-influential-accounts-hamas-israel/

"Since the first news of the attack on Israel by Hamas, we have seen anecdotal reports from users of X (formerly Twitter) that the platform has become less useful for surfacing verified news and more generally disorienting. Through a novel data collection process we identify highly influential accounts in the Hamas/Israel discourse on X that comprise the most dominant English-language news sources on Twitter for the event. In this Center for an Informed Public rapid research report, we compare these accounts to traditional news sources and find on average they have far fewer subscribers while achieving far greater views, are of more recent popularity, and show a greater posting frequency. Most of the accounts also use video and images frequently, framed in emotional ways. Strikingly, many of these accounts have received prior promotion from X owner Elon Musk, either through direct recommendation or through Musk’s account replying to their content, which may explain some of their dominance of “news twitter.”

With seven accounts racking up a cumulative 1.6 billion tweet views over three days of posts, our analysis points to a new crisis twitter that is faster, more disorienting, and potentially more shaped by Musk himself."

---

Gizmodo had a decent summary for once:

Quote

Indeed, X’s New Elites are all verified users, and several have a reputation for posting misinformation, including @sentdefender, @spectatorindex, and @WarMonitors. According to the report, the New Elites tweet in a style that erases context, spreads disturbing imagery, and adds to the emotionally charged nature of discussions surrounding the situation in Gaza.

Quote

However, the researchers say the broader problem is a question about what counts as “news” in the modern social media landscape. “The issue here isn’t misinformation — though misinformation can be involved. The issue is what the news environment looks like,” said Mike Caulfield, a research scientist at the University of Washington and the report’s lead author. “There’s really two different visions of what that news environment should be. Our report shows that one of those visions has become dominant on X.”