Musk is a charismatic leader and his businesses are generally doing well. Twitter may also. It is too early to know. Can't see why anyone would quit now.
Musk is a charismatic leader and his businesses are generally doing well. Twitter may also. It is too early to know. Can't see why anyone would quit now.
Maybe because the new owner has publicly said he wants to downsize the company by 75% and has instituted an 84 hour work week, among other things? Seems pretty reasonable to not want to work for a guy who says and does these things.
If I knew my company was about to be downsized and thought there was any hope of a redundancy payout, I'd probably stick around for a while.Musk is a charismatic leader and his businesses are generally doing well. Twitter may also. It is too early to know. Can't see why anyone would quit now.
Maybe because the new owner has publicly said he wants to downsize the company by 75% and has instituted an 84 hour work week, among other things? Seems pretty reasonable to not want to work for a guy who says and does these things.
At first I thought the thread was directed at Twitter users, of which I am not one, leaving en masse, but I see it's about employees?Is that worth starting another thread for, or should we just add it in to this topic? I read a bit about Mastodon over the weekend and am going to set up an account to see what it's like. Jack Dorsey is also working on something new, called Bluesky, I think but it sounds like it's only in development at the moment.
Musk is a charismatic leader and his businesses are generally doing well. Twitter may also. It is too early to know. Can't see why anyone would quit now.
Maybe because the new owner has publicly said he wants to downsize the company by 75% and has instituted an 84 hour work week, among other things? Seems pretty reasonable to not want to work for a guy who says and does these things.
Musk is a charismatic leader and his businesses are generally doing well. Twitter may also. It is too early to know. Can't see why anyone would quit now.
Maybe because the new owner has publicly said he wants to downsize the company by 75% and has instituted an 84 hour work week, among other things? Seems pretty reasonable to not want to work for a guy who says and does these things.
I wonder if the board and top CEO's who were responsible for forcing Elon to buy the company after he attempted to back out, realized that the person they forced to buy the company(possibly against his will), would then become their boss with the ability to fire them?
sometimes public companies would be better off getting acquired, but that would rarely make their CEOs better off, unless they got paid. Earlier this year, Parag Agrawal had a good job as CEO of Twitter. He got paid well, he got to boss people around, it was nice. Then Elon Musk came along and said, more or less in so many words, “I want to buy Twitter and fire the CEO as rudely as possible.” Agrawal might quite reasonably have said, no, I like my job, I like getting paid, I like being the boss, I don’t like people being rude and firing me. And then, as the CEO of Twitter, he could have tried to prevent the merger. It might not have worked: Musk could have (and almost did) put in a hostile bid to try to buy Twitter without the CEO’s approval; hostile bids do sometimes succeed. But in general if a CEO wants to block a deal, that makes it harder to do the deal.
But the deal was clearly (especially in hindsight) really good for Twitter’s shareholders: They got $54.20 per share, which is way more than the shares would otherwise be worth. And Twitter’s board had set up incentives so that, if a deal came along that was good for shareholders but bad for Agrawal, Agrawal would say yes. The incentive is that Agrawal would get fired rudely, but he’d get a big check to make up for it.
With Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, we’re heading off executive firings, lay-offs, and now mandatory 84 hour workweeks on top of all the other changes to service, moderation, etc. The people who founded Twitter are gone. The management and culture are going to go through radical changes, and it very much sounds like it’s going to be for the worse. So my question is… why don’t people just leave en masse? Twitter could basically be shut down, and Musk would have nothing of value with no people to run it. Why stay through this mess?
if someone told me - new CEO, new initiatives, work 12 hours a day continuously, I'd just put in whatever hours I was willing to do and see where it went.
Even if I didn't have FU money, it's be a hard no and I'd bet on getting unemployment if fired for not doing it.
I wonder if the board and top CEO's who were responsible for forcing Elon to buy the company after he attempted to back out, realized that the person they forced to buy the company(possibly against his will), would then become their boss with the ability to fire them?
That s a big part of why CEOs typically have "golden parachutes" written into their contracts. To align their interests better with the interests of the (former) public shareholders. Quoting Matt Levine:Quotesometimes public companies would be better off getting acquired, but that would rarely make their CEOs better off, unless they got paid. Earlier this year, Parag Agrawal had a good job as CEO of Twitter. He got paid well, he got to boss people around, it was nice. Then Elon Musk came along and said, more or less in so many words, “I want to buy Twitter and fire the CEO as rudely as possible.” Agrawal might quite reasonably have said, no, I like my job, I like getting paid, I like being the boss, I don’t like people being rude and firing me. And then, as the CEO of Twitter, he could have tried to prevent the merger. It might not have worked: Musk could have (and almost did) put in a hostile bid to try to buy Twitter without the CEO’s approval; hostile bids do sometimes succeed. But in general if a CEO wants to block a deal, that makes it harder to do the deal.
But the deal was clearly (especially in hindsight) really good for Twitter’s shareholders: They got $54.20 per share, which is way more than the shares would otherwise be worth. And Twitter’s board had set up incentives so that, if a deal came along that was good for shareholders but bad for Agrawal, Agrawal would say yes. The incentive is that Agrawal would get fired rudely, but he’d get a big check to make up for it.
Why aren't people leaving?
Simple. A lot of people don't leave miserable jobs until they become absolutely untenable.
People aren't rational, they're rationalizing. And nothing makes people rationalize more than fear, change, and fear of change.
Why aren't people leaving?
Simple. A lot of people don't leave miserable jobs until they become absolutely untenable.
People aren't rational, they're rationalizing. And nothing makes people rationalize more than fear, change, and fear of change.
Young me without responsibilities would have even found it exciting to work in that environment. Present day me can barely keep all my responsibilities under control with 40 hours of work a week. Seems like the plan is to weed out all the expensive experienced people and keep the cheap labor to get costs under control. Pretty standard takeover plan.
I'm not an active Twitter user, but I do occasionally visit the site if there's breaking news that interests me.
I would be willing to bet replacing 75% of the workforce with AI will significantly improve the output of the company as a whole.
The $8/month to keep verified status seems like a smart move. It's not financially burdensome to the majority of verified accounts. A quick google search says there are 420,000 verified accounts. If half of them opt to pay $8/month, that's a quick $20MM annual profit with no added expense.
Musk wouldn't have bought Twitter if he didn't see it benefitting him in the long run. He knows how to provide customers with a superior product, so I wouldn't be surprised to see a Twitter IPO for 5x once his improvements are fully in place. Everything you're seeing in the media now is hyped up to get clicks and Musk as the villain is going to get far more attention than Musk as the hero.
AI has a documented problem with racism and bias, plus sometimes just nonsensical results.
AI has a documented problem with racism and bias, plus sometimes just nonsensical results.
"AI" isn't a monolithic entity.
Humans have a documented problem with math (after all most two-year-olds cannot do long division). But I'd still trust a trained accountant to do my taxes.
I'm not an active Twitter user, but I do occasionally visit the site if there's breaking news that interests me.I've been following the blue check mark discussion on Twitter as it evolves. It's no longer going to be about verified status, at all. That's what the uproar is over - the $8 badge is just something you pay for, with supposed perk benefits above the unpaid "peasants" (Elon's term). Most on Twitter want some kind of "verified status", so that we know the CDC account is actually the official CDC and not a parody account. There's been some hand-waving that Twitter will come up with some other "official" tag for govt, etc., accounts, but no real details to date - unlike the oddly ad hoc rolling out of the $8 badge in random tweets between Elon and Stephen King.
I would be willing to bet replacing 75% of the workforce with AI will significantly improve the output of the company as a whole.
The $8/month to keep verified status seems like a smart move. It's not financially burdensome to the majority of verified accounts. A quick google search says there are 420,000 verified accounts. If half of them opt to pay $8/month, that's a quick $20MM annual profit with no added expense.
Musk wouldn't have bought Twitter if he didn't see it benefitting him in the long run. He knows how to provide customers with a superior product, so I wouldn't be surprised to see a Twitter IPO for 5x once his improvements are fully in place. Everything you're seeing in the media now is hyped up to get clicks and Musk as the villain is going to get far more attention than Musk as the hero.
AI has a documented problem with racism and bias, plus sometimes just nonsensical results. It's one thing if the AI output is getting reviewed by humans, but if unfiltered AI is doing content moderation, etc on a social media site - that's going to cause problems. FB got in hot water at some point over moderation and they had to pull in a 3rd party to advise. I don't think its actually easy to run a large social media site, especially when you've got politics involved.
AI has a documented problem with racism and bias, plus sometimes just nonsensical results. It's one thing if the AI output is getting reviewed by humans, but if unfiltered AI is doing content moderation, etc on a social media site - that's going to cause problems. FB got in hot water at some point over moderation and they had to pull in a 3rd party to advise. I don't think its actually easy to run a large social media site, especially when you've got politics involved.
Could be bad datasets for the models to train on? Bad inputs lead to bad outputs.
The problem is finding good AND sufficient datasets to cover all scenarios.
Then there's massaging the data before feeding it to the bots for their yoga. Om nom nom.
On March 23, 2016, Microsoft released Tay to the public on Twitter. At first, Tay engaged harmlessly with her growing number of followers with banter and lame jokes. But after only a few hours, Tay started tweeting highly offensive things, such as: “I f@#%&*# hate feminists and they should all die and burn in hell” or “Bush did 9/11 and Hitler would have done a better job…”
Twitter is also a horrendously bloated org. From what i hear from friends who work there, downsizing isn't a bad idea. It's also not unusual for new owners to replace execs after a buyout, especially in a hostile takeover.
1) Eliminate the competition. Twitter and other social media sites have already eliminated most paid journalists' jobs. There is now virtually no competition for people and organizations to get their messages out besides Twitter.
If anyone can take a technology that currently has flaws and find a way to make it work, my money is on Musk.
1) Eliminate the competition. Twitter and other social media sites have already eliminated most paid journalists' jobs. There is now virtually no competition for people and organizations to get their messages out besides Twitter.
Is this right though?
There's been some hand-waving that Twitter will come up with some other "official" tag for govt, etc., accounts, but no real details to date - unlike the oddly ad hoc rolling out of the $8 badge in random tweets between Elon and Stephen King.This is kind of how Elon works. I've heard from friends at Tesla that more than once they have had to develop a new feature after Elon posted about it on twitter.
Um, you were saying about AI not necessarily being racist and otherwise biased?
https://gizmodo.com/twitter-layoffs-elon-musk-ai-ethics-1849743051
Getting rid of the people who's job it is to try to make sure the AI isn't racist doesn't seem like a good start.
If Elon brings in a wider range of content moderators to minimize group think, I would consider this beneficial.That seems pretty difficult. For example, how do you minimize group think when a major political party's platform is a claim they have zero credible evidence to support?
Um, you were saying about AI not necessarily being racist and otherwise biased?
https://gizmodo.com/twitter-layoffs-elon-musk-ai-ethics-1849743051
Getting rid of the people who's job it is to try to make sure the AI isn't racist doesn't seem like a good start.
So your view is that an example of a human being doing bad things should make us more willing to trust human moderators?
Sure seems like humans have a demonstrated history of disregarding ethics.
Um, you were saying about AI not necessarily being racist and otherwise biased?
https://gizmodo.com/twitter-layoffs-elon-musk-ai-ethics-1849743051
Getting rid of the people who's job it is to try to make sure the AI isn't racist doesn't seem like a good start.
So your view is that an example of a human being doing bad things should make us more willing to trust human moderators?
Sure seems like humans have a demonstrated history of disregarding ethics.
Human beings are not monoliths.
AI is cool and everything, but I don't think it's automatically a net positive. I also don't think we know all the harms that are going to result. A human being can pull the power plug if necessary. If you let AI go, without people overseeing it and at least trying to prevent the bad stuff from happening, then bad stuff is going to happen. Is a human overseer perfect? No. But its better than nothing.
Um, you were saying about AI not necessarily being racist and otherwise biased?
https://gizmodo.com/twitter-layoffs-elon-musk-ai-ethics-1849743051
Getting rid of the people who's job it is to try to make sure the AI isn't racist doesn't seem like a good start.
So your view is that an example of a human being doing bad things should make us more willing to trust human moderators?
Sure seems like humans have a demonstrated history of disregarding ethics.
Human beings are not monoliths.
Neither are artificial intelligences. <-- which was my original point.
I agree with you that there is clearly a difference in how you and I think about the world. You are taking the negatives behaviors of some specific entities and generalizing them to assert that all entities with a set of characteristics must exhibit those same negative behaviors.QuoteAI is cool and everything, but I don't think it's automatically a net positive. I also don't think we know all the harms that are going to result. A human being can pull the power plug if necessary. If you let AI go, without people overseeing it and at least trying to prevent the bad stuff from happening, then bad stuff is going to happen. Is a human overseer perfect? No. But its better than nothing.
I think maybe you know different human beings than I do. I think humans are cool and all, but in lots of situations humans aren't automatically a net positive. When we let humans go without some sort of oversight bad stuff can and does happen. We have thousands of years of recorded history demonstrating all the bad stuff humans do, starting with murder and war, progressing to genocide, and throwing in nuclear meltdowns exacerbated by (human) operator error.
Would AI moderation be perfect? No. It'll make mistakes. But it's better than nothing. And given how much bias and racism humans have been demonstrated to exhibit -- and how much harm (human moderated) social media seems to done to our democracy -- the status quo clearly is not sustainable.
It's a lot more nuanced than human = bad and AI = good.
Left to its own devices, AI generates a lot of outputs that we would consider highly racist or would otherwise offend our value systems. In situations like mortgage lending, AI will generate outcomes that violate fair lending laws, even if race is not an input.
It's a lot more nuanced than human = bad and AI = good.
I'm perfectly happy to agree with you on this.
My argument above is an exercise in creating a mirror image of the argument that was being made both another that 1) AI is a monolith and 2) human = good and AI = bad.
Left to its own devices, AI generates a lot of outputs that we would consider highly racist or would otherwise offend our value systems. In situations like mortgage lending, AI will generate outcomes that violate fair lending laws, even if race is not an input.
Edit: This is another example. Some AI models, trained with some datasets, will have racially disparate outcomes in their recommendations on mortgage lending decisions. I completely agree.
But there is a big jump from this to "AI is necessarily racist".
And again. This isn't unique to AI models or even worse in AI models than having humans do the same work (which is typically the data used to train models). For example, look at how human beings appraise houses based on the race of the people who show them around the house and the race of the people in photos hanging in the house. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/18/realestate/housing-discrimination-maryland.html
It's a lot more nuanced than human = bad and AI = good.
I'm perfectly happy to agree with you on this.
My argument above is an exercise in creating a mirror image of the argument that was being made both another that 1) AI is a monolith and 2) human = good and AI = bad.
Left to its own devices, AI generates a lot of outputs that we would consider highly racist or would otherwise offend our value systems. In situations like mortgage lending, AI will generate outcomes that violate fair lending laws, even if race is not an input.
Edit: This is another example. Some AI models, trained with some datasets, will have racially disparate outcomes in their recommendations on mortgage lending decisions. I completely agree.
But there is a big jump from this to "AI is necessarily racist".
And again. This isn't unique to AI models or even worse in AI models than having humans do the same work (which is typically the data used to train models). For example, look at how human beings appraise houses based on the race of the people who show them around the house and the race of the people in photos hanging in the house. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/18/realestate/housing-discrimination-maryland.html
In the context of content moderation, I would suspect that AI is highly useful in pointing human moderators to the right topics to review, but is nearly useless in making independent moderation decisions.
In the context of content moderation, I would suspect that AI is highly useful in pointing human moderators to the right topics to review, but is nearly useless in making independent moderation decisions.
It's a lot more nuanced than human = bad and AI = good.
I'm perfectly happy to agree with you on this.
My argument above is an exercise in creating a mirror image of the argument that was being made both another that 1) AI is a monolith and 2) human = good and AI = bad.
Left to its own devices, AI generates a lot of outputs that we would consider highly racist or would otherwise offend our value systems. In situations like mortgage lending, AI will generate outcomes that violate fair lending laws, even if race is not an input.
Edit: This is another example. Some AI models, trained with some datasets, will have racially disparate outcomes in their recommendations on mortgage lending decisions. I completely agree.
But there is a big jump from this to "AI is necessarily racist".
And again. This isn't unique to AI models or even worse in AI models than having humans do the same work (which is typically the data used to train models). For example, look at how human beings appraise houses based on the race of the people who show them around the house and the race of the people in photos hanging in the house. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/18/realestate/housing-discrimination-maryland.html
In the context of content moderation, I would suspect that AI is highly useful in pointing human moderators to the right topics to review, but is nearly useless in making independent moderation decisions.
Maybe? I mean "tons of people are using the rude n-word and c-word" could make it into the poorly filtered data set as "this is fine" or as "nope, flag that".
My prediction is that Twitter will be a business school case study in the quickest way to make $44B evaporate.
Musk has put himself in a situation where he's a guaranteed loser.
He's promised the right "absolute free speech". Or at least the far right has interpreted it that way. Anything he does to moderate content will now be considered a betrayal. Even keeping Donald Trump banned will be considered a betrayal.
It seems a decent number of users on the left are already fed up and leaving the platform. It may or may not be a full trend, but it could turn into one. Network effects work in reverse too. Just ask MySpace.
And the digital advertising market is cooling pretty rapidly anyways. Advertisers are already broadly pulling back on their spending and don't need much incentive to move their money to different platforms. Major brands would pull the plug if content moderation is even perceived to loosen up. And Twitter probably just fired most of the team needed to keep up with their existing content moderation anyways.
And Musk put enough debt on the buy-out to pretty much wipe out Twitter's existing cash-flow. It's just a question of whether the revenue declines are more or less than the savings from firing 3,500 people.
Maybe? I mean "tons of people are using the rude n-word and c-word" could make it into the poorly filtered data set as "this is fine" or as "nope, flag that".
Maybe? I mean "tons of people are using the rude n-word and c-word" could make it into the poorly filtered data set as "this is fine" or as "nope, flag that".
And AI is probably bad at some of the more subtle social usage of certain words. Some groups, and even geographies, get a free pass on both of those words. I generally refrain from using the C word while in North America, but not elsewhere.
Maybe? I mean "tons of people are using the rude n-word and c-word" could make it into the poorly filtered data set as "this is fine" or as "nope, flag that".
And AI is probably bad at some of the more subtle social usage of certain words. Some groups, and even geographies, get a free pass on both of those words. I generally refrain from using the C word while in North America, but not elsewhere.
I'm not a programmer myself, but I did work at a startup circa 2008-2009 that was solving some of these problems for a different industry. Somewhere between 20-30% of the staff had PhD's in theoretical mathematics, linguistics, or nuero-linguistic programing. Probably 60%+ had master's degrees in similar fields.
We had some fascinating discussions, although I was way too dumb for many of them.
A lot of these problems have since been "solved" in different and automated ways. But here's a hypothetical problem that automated systems would come up against:
1. Person X says something horrible that would result in an account suspension.
2. Person Y reiterates post X, but isn't clear if they support it or are shaming the original post.
3. Person Z reshares the content to point out that it is undesirable and should result in platform penalties.
All three of these people shared the same content. Now go try and tell a computer how to tell differentiate between the acceptable and unacceptable posts.
At my startup, we had software that could help with this type of problem. But it wasn't a program you'd let loose on the data unsupervised. You would have to train it, validate it, and have real people reviewing the decisions. At best, you could get to something that was semi-automated.
Maybe? I mean "tons of people are using the rude n-word and c-word" could make it into the poorly filtered data set as "this is fine" or as "nope, flag that".
And AI is probably bad at some of the more subtle social usage of certain words. Some groups, and even geographies, get a free pass on both of those words. I generally refrain from using the C word while in North America, but not elsewhere.
I'm not a programmer myself, but I did work at a startup circa 2008-2009 that was solving some of these problems for a different industry. Somewhere between 20-30% of the staff had PhD's in theoretical mathematics, linguistics, or nuero-linguistic programing. Probably 60%+ had master's degrees in similar fields.
We had some fascinating discussions, although I was way too dumb for many of them.
A lot of these problems have since been "solved" in different and automated ways. But here's a hypothetical problem that automated systems would come up against:
1. Person X says something horrible that would result in an account suspension.
2. Person Y reiterates post X, but isn't clear if they support it or are shaming the original post.
3. Person Z reshares the content to point out that it is undesirable and should result in platform penalties.
All three of these people shared the same content. Now go try and tell a computer how to tell differentiate between the acceptable and unacceptable posts.
At my startup, we had software that could help with this type of problem. But it wasn't a program you'd let loose on the data unsupervised. You would have to train it, validate it, and have real people reviewing the decisions. At best, you could get to something that was semi-automated.
In theory, wouldn't the AI operate faster than person Y can respond to or even read the content by person X?
Also, wouldn't the presence of AI change the culture so that people wouldn't feel the need to challenge such statements for the few minutes they are up, and wouldn't want to take the risk of being flagged themselves? Current culture is that "Someone is WRONG on the Internet and I Have to Fix It or Else it'll Be There Forever!"
This is something I happen to have a fair bit of knowledge about.It's a lot more nuanced than human = bad and AI = good.
I'm perfectly happy to agree with you on this.
My argument above is an exercise in creating a mirror image of the argument that was being made both another that 1) AI is a monolith and 2) human = good and AI = bad.
Left to its own devices, AI generates a lot of outputs that we would consider highly racist or would otherwise offend our value systems. In situations like mortgage lending, AI will generate outcomes that violate fair lending laws, even if race is not an input.
Edit: This is another example. Some AI models, trained with some datasets, will have racially disparate outcomes in their recommendations on mortgage lending decisions. I completely agree.
But there is a big jump from this to "AI is necessarily racist".
And again. This isn't unique to AI models or even worse in AI models than having humans do the same work (which is typically the data used to train models). For example, look at how human beings appraise houses based on the race of the people who show them around the house and the race of the people in photos hanging in the house. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/18/realestate/housing-discrimination-maryland.html
This is something I happen to have a fair bit of knowledge about.
What's implied in your comment is that it's a problem with the training datasets in these cases.
Which is absolutely true (along with factor creation and filtering, amongst other things). One of the biggest issues that exists in creating appropriate training sets, is that they are, by their very nature, biased. The biases may very well be unintended. In many circumstances, they may be considered to be unavoidable or acceptable (and in many cases, depending on what you're decisioning, this may be an appropriate call).
Where you have data, those biases can be measured and understood - whether they are ignored, controlled for, or eliminated is often a trade-off between ethics and financial realities. Where there is a data gap bias (ie a group of individuals whose data is severely underrepresented or even completely unrepresented in the training data), this can become an intractable problem very quickly. By definition, ML models hunt for anomalies and treat them differently. If you look like a data gap, you will be treated differently, and almost certainly, adversely.
Even 'universal' datasets suffer from this. Models built solely on census data, probably the most 'universal' datasets out there, are often notoriously biased against the homeless. They are data gaps in the training set.
It's not the algorithm's fault - modelers will often talk about 'garbage in, garbage out' as a mantra against poor quality data. But it's equally true that 'bias in, means bias out'. And I've never, ever seen a dataset that controls for data gap bias. I remain skeptical that it's even possible for one to exist. Your post implies that this should be happening as a matter of course - I'll challenge that and suggest that if you have a solution for this problem, you'd better patent it, because you will be a billionaire if you do.
So if none of the datasets out there are truly unbiased, and the algorithms are incapable of assessing 'data gap bias', then the algorithm built will necessarily be biased. Because you can't dissociate the AI decisioning from the data is was built from, then the AI is biased.
Depending on the context, significant data gap biases exist for certain races, the homeless, women, minors, people escaping domestic violence, those in witness protection, immigrants, LGBTQI+ and seniors. Oh, and people named Karen (quite seriously!)...
I guess I am looking at it from a European and not US-centric view. I am used to working internationally and find a variety of views helpful, as hardly anything is ever "either this or that".If Elon brings in a wider range of content moderators to minimize group think, I would consider this beneficial.That seems pretty difficult. For example, how do you minimize group think when a major political party's platform is a claim they have zero credible evidence to support?
According to musk (so take it for what it is worth), twitter was losing $4M/day (https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1588671155766194176). However, last quarter twitter was still a public company and they reported losing $344M in three months. Roughly $1.4B annually so $1.5B seems plausible.
Twitter laid off 3,700 people. The big tech company I'm most familiar with uses $400k as a rule of thumb for their total annual cost of a silicon valley based FTE. If that rule of thumb also applies to twitter laying off 3,700 people would save $1.5B/year. That would put twitter back at roughly break even and puts their annual burn rate at approximately where it was in Q2 of 2021 and the total number of twitter employees at roughly where it was in 2018 (https://www.statista.com/statistics/272140/employees-of-twitter/).
Of course that doesn't leave twitter any buffer to absorb either 1) advertiser boycotts or 2) the $1B/year in additional debt service payments owed as part of Musk's leveraged buyout without going back into the red.
According to musk (so take it for what it is worth), twitter was losing $4M/day (https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1588671155766194176). However, last quarter twitter was still a public company and they reported losing $344M in three months. Roughly $1.4B annually so $1.5B seems plausible.There is also the assumption in there that the 3,700 people weren't bringing any additional value to the company. Cutting them will certainly have an impact on revenue eventually which means more cuts have to be made.
Twitter laid off 3,700 people. The big tech company I'm most familiar with uses $400k as a rule of thumb for their total annual cost of a silicon valley based FTE. If that rule of thumb also applies to twitter laying off 3,700 people would save $1.5B/year. That would put twitter back at roughly break even and puts their annual burn rate at approximately where it was in Q2 of 2021 and the total number of twitter employees at roughly where it was in 2018 (https://www.statista.com/statistics/272140/employees-of-twitter/).
Of course that doesn't leave twitter any buffer to absorb either 1) advertiser boycotts or 2) the $1B/year in additional debt service payments owed as part of Musk's leveraged buyout without going back into the red.
According to musk (so take it for what it is worth), twitter was losing $4M/day (https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1588671155766194176). However, last quarter twitter was still a public company and they reported losing $344M in three months. Roughly $1.4B annually so $1.5B seems plausible.There is also the assumption in there that the 3,700 people weren't bringing any additional value to the company. Cutting them will certainly have an impact on revenue eventually which means more cuts have to be made.
Twitter laid off 3,700 people. The big tech company I'm most familiar with uses $400k as a rule of thumb for their total annual cost of a silicon valley based FTE. If that rule of thumb also applies to twitter laying off 3,700 people would save $1.5B/year. That would put twitter back at roughly break even and puts their annual burn rate at approximately where it was in Q2 of 2021 and the total number of twitter employees at roughly where it was in 2018 (https://www.statista.com/statistics/272140/employees-of-twitter/).
Of course that doesn't leave twitter any buffer to absorb either 1) advertiser boycotts or 2) the $1B/year in additional debt service payments owed as part of Musk's leveraged buyout without going back into the red.
Also, a layoff of that size (along with Elon's public personality) will make it hard to recruit people if they do want to hire. Now they will have to pay more while picking from a smaller pool of candidates as "Twitter" will not be the selling point it used to be.
Somewhat related, I work for another high profile tech company that also did layoffs last week, and let me tell you, the internal vibes are not good. The younger grads especially are taking it pretty hard.
It's quite different from the Twitter case because:
- it was handled extremely well
- the severance is excellent
- the business case for doing the layoffs is strong
Yet it still blows big time for everyone, even those who weren't cut. Barely any work got done in the days following the announcement.
The edit button was never a techical issue but a policy one. As with many other non-changes. You might find them wrong, but that doesn't make the engineers bad.
Though I admit that 3000 is an awful lot for a better chat server. Mastodon definitely had less ;)
Which brings me to the main point why I think you are wrong. The worth of twitter is in it's users and that it is the only (widely known) type of it's kind, at least in the "West".
But even so about 1/3 of the regularily active people I follow have opened up mastodon accounts in the last week. It readily admit my bubble is heavy on people prone to do such a thing (privacy advocates, netpolicy nerds etc.), but I also have seen several people who definitely don't fall into that category, like artists.
People are ready to go, and even if they don't, they certainly won't pay for the Blue. Which means their tweets will be ranked very very badly.
Especially for the artists that is a huge thing.
I hold up my opinion that Musk is on a good way to make Twitter a company that is worth 1/10th of what he paid for it.
Twitter started in 2006, I joined in 2008, Musk in 2009. In all those years the only impactful improvements to the platform I saw was going from 140-280 characters. blue check marks, and adding (limited) video. People have been begging for a edit button since the beginning. People who think Elon has no idea what he is doing aren't paying attention. I'd argue that other than Donald Trump, nobody has been a more successful Twitter user than Elon Musk. His 115 million followers, dwarfs the number of followers of previous Richest Man in the world, like Bezos or Gates.
Elon makes plenty of juvenile, offensive, half-baked, and some just stupid tweets, although not has many as Trump has done.This is an incredibly low benchmark to use haha.
Finally, Twitter was ridiculously overstaffed, they had 1,500 involved in moderation and amazing 3,023 engineers. In contrast, SpaceX has 12,000 employees with I'm guessing a similar 3,000-4,000 engineers. By any metric SpaceX engineers have made an order of magnitude more innovations than Twitter engineers. To paraphrase Churchill about Twitter engineers. Never in the course of engineering history, have so many, done so little, for so long.Those are 2 very different businesses. I don't think you can begin to compare them like that.
Finally, Twitter was ridiculously overstaffed, they had 1,500 involved in moderation and amazing 3,023 engineers. In contrast, SpaceX has 12,000 employees with I'm guessing a similar 3,000-4,000 engineers. By any metric SpaceX engineers have made an order of magnitude more innovations than Twitter engineers. To paraphrase Churchill about Twitter engineers. Never in the course of engineering history, have so many, done so little, for so long.Those are 2 very different businesses. I don't think you can begin to compare them like that.
Twitter started in 2006, I joined in 2008, Musk in 2009. In all those years the only impactful improvements to the platform I saw was going from 140-280 characters. blue check marks, and adding (limited) video. People have been begging for a edit button since the beginning. People who think Elon has no idea what he is doing aren't paying attention. I'd argue that other than Donald Trump, nobody has been a more successful Twitter user than Elon Musk. His 115 million followers, dwarfs the number of followers of previous Richest Man in the world, like Bezos or Gates.
But I think I joined roughly the same time as you and thinking back on it the service has changed a lot more than that in the last 14 years.
When I first joined retweets weren't officially supported the way they are today. Someone would just write "RT @SomeUser Text of original tweet". And it was a lot time after "official" retweets became a thing that quote tweeting was added as an option. Embedding even still photos wasn't originally supported people would link out to third-party image hosting. They also rewrote their whole backend from Ruby on Rails to Scala/Java to fix scaling problems.
A bunch of their "innovation" in recent years has been in how to show people tweets in their timeline that keep them engaged and scrolling (a person who one of your followers once liked replied to a tweet so we're showing it in your timeline). I'd argue that has actually made the use experience a lot worse (although at least the simply chronological view is still an option). Anyway. Like I said, not disagreeing with your conclusion. It was just interesting to remember what twitter has and hasn't changed in that long period of time.
The laid off employees who put their names on layoffs.fyi (http://layoffs.fyi/) are currently being bombarded by series A/B/C startups who are still hiring. It's not clear how long that's going to last.
They will struggle to get jobs that pay close to what Twitter was paying them, because that tier of company has mostly stopped hiring. Goodbye cushy $350k comp package for 6 years of engineering experience, hello industry average $175k.
A lot of people are very quick to declare that what Elon Musk is doing is an unmitigated disaster, when the dude is quite possibly the most successful serial entrepreneur the world has ever seen. It could very well be a total disaster, but it's way too early to tell.
Meta Platforms Inc. is planning to begin large-scale layoffs this week, according to people familiar with the matter, in what could be the largest round in a recent spate of tech job cuts after the industry’s rapid growth during the pandemic.
The layoffs are expected to affect many thousands of employees and an announcement is planned to come as soon as Wednesday, according to the people. Meta reported more than 87,000 employees at the end of September.
The $8/month to keep verified status seems like a smart move. It's not financially burdensome to the majority of verified accounts. A quick google search says there are 420,000 verified accounts. If half of them opt to pay $8/month, that's a quick $20MM annual profit with no added expense.
Musk wouldn't have bought Twitter if he didn't see it benefitting him in the long run. He knows how to provide customers with a superior product, so I wouldn't be surprised to see a Twitter IPO for 5x once his improvements are fully in place. Everything you're seeing in the media now is hyped up to get clicks and Musk as the villain is going to get far more attention than Musk as the hero.
Just saw the Meta (unconfirmed) leak, and frankly can't say I'm surprised. There have been industry rumors for months, performance reviews are being ratcheted upwards, and morale is low. I heard from a couple people a few days ago that work travel for employees was being canceled on short notice, and that's rarely a good sign.The laid off employees who put their names on layoffs.fyi (http://layoffs.fyi/) are currently being bombarded by series A/B/C startups who are still hiring. It's not clear how long that's going to last.
They will struggle to get jobs that pay close to what Twitter was paying them, because that tier of company has mostly stopped hiring. Goodbye cushy $350k comp package for 6 years of engineering experience, hello industry average $175k.
A lot of people are very quick to declare that what Elon Musk is doing is an unmitigated disaster, when the dude is quite possibly the most successful serial entrepreneur the world has ever seen. It could very well be a total disaster, but it's way too early to tell.
Did you see the news about Meta (https://www.wsj.com/articles/meta-is-preparing-to-notify-employees-of-large-scale-layoffs-this-week-11667767794)?QuoteMeta Platforms Inc. is planning to begin large-scale layoffs this week, according to people familiar with the matter, in what could be the largest round in a recent spate of tech job cuts after the industry’s rapid growth during the pandemic.
The layoffs are expected to affect many thousands of employees and an announcement is planned to come as soon as Wednesday, according to the people. Meta reported more than 87,000 employees at the end of September.
I'm guessing Meta is also in the tier of company paying people $300k+ salaries, so there may be even more people competing for the same jobs the laid off twitter folks are being approached about.
Agreed with your last point. Will be interesting to wait and see how things turn out. I'm grateful to not have my own livelihood riding on the outcome though.
Did you see the news about Meta (https://www.wsj.com/articles/meta-is-preparing-to-notify-employees-of-large-scale-layoffs-this-week-11667767794)?QuoteMeta Platforms Inc. is planning to begin large-scale layoffs this week, according to people familiar with the matter, in what could be the largest round in a recent spate of tech job cuts after the industry’s rapid growth during the pandemic.
The layoffs are expected to affect many thousands of employees and an announcement is planned to come as soon as Wednesday, according to the people. Meta reported more than 87,000 employees at the end of September.
I'm guessing Meta is also in the tier of company paying people $300k+ salaries, so there may be even more people competing for the same jobs the laid off twitter folks are being approached about.
Agreed with your last point. Will be interesting to wait and see how things turn out. I'm grateful to not have my own livelihood riding on the outcome though.
I recommend reading this open letter to Zuck from a couple weeks ago (https://medium.com/@alt.cap/time-to-get-fit-an-open-letter-from-altimeter-to-mark-zuckerberg-and-the-meta-board-of-392d94e80a18). Technically it's just one dude's opinion about one company, but there is a huge subtext. A lot of industry signs that his broader point is taken very seriously by the entire industry.
That comparisn is so wrong on so many levels ;)Sure, but by comparison Wikipedia has less than 300 staff including contractors AFAIK.Finally, Twitter was ridiculously overstaffed, they had 1,500 involved in moderation and amazing 3,023 engineers. In contrast, SpaceX has 12,000 employees with I'm guessing a similar 3,000-4,000 engineers. By any metric SpaceX engineers have made an order of magnitude more innovations than Twitter engineers. To paraphrase Churchill about Twitter engineers. Never in the course of engineering history, have so many, done so little, for so long.Those are 2 very different businesses. I don't think you can begin to compare them like that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikimedia_Foundation
I'm not sure that Twitter actually needs 3k engineers. But maybe? We'll see.
The edit button was never a techical issue but a policy one. As with many other non-changes. You might find them wrong, but that doesn't make the engineers bad.I set up a mastodon account at the weekend (on the mastodon.ie instance, there was lots of fun and games over the weekend as a big part of Irish twitter moved over). Of course lots of people in twitter's Dublin office just lost or will be losing their jobs, so there's a fair amount of solidarity for them involved.
Though I admit that 3000 is an awful lot for a better chat server. Mastodon definitely had less ;)
Which brings me to the main point why I think you are wrong. The worth of twitter is in it's users and that it is the only (widely known) type of it's kind, at least in the "West".
But even so about 1/3 of the regularily active people I follow have opened up mastodon accounts in the last week. It readily admit my bubble is heavy on people prone to do such a thing (privacy advocates, netpolicy nerds etc.), but I also have seen several people who definitely don't fall into that category, like artists.
People are ready to go, and even if they don't, they certainly won't pay for the Blue. Which means their tweets will be ranked very very badly.
Especially for the artists that is a huge thing.
I hold up my opinion that Musk is on a good way to make Twitter a company that is worth 1/10th of what he paid for it.
That comparisn is so wrong on so many levels ;)
First of all you are not comparing to Wikipedia, you are comparing to the Wikimedia Foundation. Those two are very emphatically 2 different things. So much that afaik even today, even though many want it, even though they have enough money, the Foundation has not paid a single staffer to write anything on Wikipedia, not even fact-checking about people (like did he really had an affair and other potentionally harmful things).
And actually the biggest problem for Wikipedia is getting writers. Part of it is that the tech is still very newbie-unfriendly and another part is the "unfriendly" male dominated athmospere.
First of all you are not comparing to Wikipedia, you are comparing to the Wikimedia Foundation. Those two are very emphatically 2 different things. So much that afaik even today, even though many want it, even though they have enough money, the Foundation has not paid a single staffer to write anything on Wikipedia, not even fact-checking about people (like did he really had an affair and other potentionally harmful things).Sure, but by comparison Wikipedia has less than 300 staff including contractors AFAIK.Finally, Twitter was ridiculously overstaffed, they had 1,500 involved in moderation and amazing 3,023 engineers. In contrast, SpaceX has 12,000 employees with I'm guessing a similar 3,000-4,000 engineers. By any metric SpaceX engineers have made an order of magnitude more innovations than Twitter engineers. To paraphrase Churchill about Twitter engineers. Never in the course of engineering history, have so many, done so little, for so long.Those are 2 very different businesses. I don't think you can begin to compare them like that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikimedia_Foundation
I'm not sure that Twitter actually needs 3k engineers. But maybe? We'll see.
And actually the biggest problem for Wikipedia is getting writers. Part of it is that the tech is still very newbie-unfriendly and another part is the "unfriendly" male dominated athmospere.
Does anyone find it odd that Musk is fully endorsing Republicans after saying that Twitter needed to be politically neutral?
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/musk-recommends-voting-republicans-us-midterm-elections-tweet-2022-11-07/ (https://www.reuters.com/world/us/musk-recommends-voting-republicans-us-midterm-elections-tweet-2022-11-07/)
Does anyone find it odd that Musk is fully endorsing Republicans after saying that Twitter needed to be politically neutral?No, he has done so before. And he give a shit about what he said yesterday anyway.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/musk-recommends-voting-republicans-us-midterm-elections-tweet-2022-11-07/ (https://www.reuters.com/world/us/musk-recommends-voting-republicans-us-midterm-elections-tweet-2022-11-07/)
Does anyone find it odd that Musk is fully endorsing Republicans after saying that Twitter needed to be politically neutral?
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/musk-recommends-voting-republicans-us-midterm-elections-tweet-2022-11-07/ (https://www.reuters.com/world/us/musk-recommends-voting-republicans-us-midterm-elections-tweet-2022-11-07/)
I think his behavior can be explained in one of two ways:
1. He is completely unaware how his actions are being perceived.
2. He saw how much eyeball-share Donald Trump added to Twitter from 2016-2020, and he is trying to recreate that experience on the platform by emulating Trump's antics in his own way.
Given how much attention we're giving him even in our little remote corner of the internet, I'm voting for option #2.
Does anyone find it odd that Musk is fully endorsing Republicans after saying that Twitter needed to be politically neutral?
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/musk-recommends-voting-republicans-us-midterm-elections-tweet-2022-11-07/ (https://www.reuters.com/world/us/musk-recommends-voting-republicans-us-midterm-elections-tweet-2022-11-07/)
I think his behavior can be explained in one of two ways:
1. He is completely unaware how his actions are being perceived.
2. He saw how much eyeball-share Donald Trump added to Twitter from 2016-2020, and he is trying to recreate that experience on the platform by emulating Trump's antics in his own way.
Given how much attention we're giving him even in our little remote corner of the internet, I'm voting for option #2.
Is Twitter getting more users?
I noticed that over half of the tweets I saw in my (employer acct) feed today were labeled "liked" or retweeted by Elon Musk. Very surprising.Does anyone find it odd that Musk is fully endorsing Republicans after saying that Twitter needed to be politically neutral?
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/musk-recommends-voting-republicans-us-midterm-elections-tweet-2022-11-07/ (https://www.reuters.com/world/us/musk-recommends-voting-republicans-us-midterm-elections-tweet-2022-11-07/)
I think his behavior can be explained in one of two ways:
1. He is completely unaware how his actions are being perceived.
2. He saw how much eyeball-share Donald Trump added to Twitter from 2016-2020, and he is trying to recreate that experience on the platform by emulating Trump's antics in his own way.
Given how much attention we're giving him even in our little remote corner of the internet, I'm voting for option #2.
Is Twitter getting more users?
They're losing users. I saw one estimate by a tracking firm at around 1M users out of 400M IIRC.
But that doesn't mean they're not getting more engagement from other users. Just think of how many are now religiously checking what Elon said next. And maybe they'll just get stuck in a doomscroll while they're at it. These are the metrics that matter in social media.
I'm still fully believe that this is a loser plan. But there is a logic to it if you follow how social media makes money.
Section 230 can never be repealed. It would instantly obliterate every tech company subject to US jurisdiction.
For sure! But realistically you can't go much further than "best effort" policies that rely on imperfect automation and human reports. There are enough available eyeballs in the world to do much better.Section 230 can never be repealed. It would instantly obliterate every tech company subject to US jurisdiction.
But it could be heavily amended. There's lots of daylight between "tech bears no responsibility for anything on their platforms" and "tech is fully responsible for every rando's comments".
Section 230 can never be repealed. It would instantly obliterate every tech company subject to US jurisdiction.
I agree @scottish , it would obliterate the attention economy companies which arguably make people's lives worse rather than better. It would also accelerate AI R&D because scalable, free moderators would be the only way to run a social media platform.Section 230 can never be repealed. It would instantly obliterate every tech company subject to US jurisdiction.
You have a narrow view of tech companies. It would obliterate facebook, youtube, and twitter, but there are lots of tech companies that aren't based on Web 2.0.
I agree @scottish , it would obliterate the attention economy companies which arguably make people's lives worse rather than better. It would also accelerate AI R&D because scalable, free moderators would be the only way to run a social media platform.Section 230 can never be repealed. It would instantly obliterate every tech company subject to US jurisdiction.
You have a narrow view of tech companies. It would obliterate facebook, youtube, and twitter, but there are lots of tech companies that aren't based on Web 2.0.
It would obliterate every product that stores data from customers and publishes it in some fashion, which is basically all of them.I agree @scottish , it would obliterate the attention economy companies which arguably make people's lives worse rather than better. It would also accelerate AI R&D because scalable, free moderators would be the only way to run a social media platform.Section 230 can never be repealed. It would instantly obliterate every tech company subject to US jurisdiction.
You have a narrow view of tech companies. It would obliterate facebook, youtube, and twitter, but there are lots of tech companies that aren't based on Web 2.0.
Section 230 can never be repealed. It would instantly obliterate every tech company subject to US jurisdiction.Not to let it get too US-centric, the EU has pushed for more responsibility. In very stupid ways (e.g. upload filter), since it is mostly pushed by conservatives, but the EU is still a very important market for all those companies, so they will adhere.
Meta is laying off 11,000 people today (https://about.fb.com/news/2022/11/mark-zuckerberg-layoff-message-to-employees/). 3x the side of the twitter layoffs although smaller ones as a proportion of their total employees.
“"Please note that Twitter will do lots of dumb things in coming months," Musk wrote today. "We will keep what works & change what doesn't."”
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/11/musk-led-twitter-rolls-out-new-official-tags-removes-them-hours-later/
At the moment it looks more like "can't decide if A or B" as people get officialed, unofficialed and back.Quote“"Please note that Twitter will do lots of dumb things in coming months," Musk wrote today. "We will keep what works & change what doesn't."”
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/11/musk-led-twitter-rolls-out-new-official-tags-removes-them-hours-later/
unstable platform coming, with A/B testing in production.
They can always #LearnToWeldMeta is laying off 11,000 people today (https://about.fb.com/news/2022/11/mark-zuckerberg-layoff-message-to-employees/). 3x the side of the twitter layoffs although smaller ones as a proportion of their total employees.
I think a lot of tech is bloated with coasting employees and dumb investments by executives, lots of heads will roll in the downturn.
Big brands including General Motors, United Airlines, the cereal maker General Mills and others have paused buying ads on Twitter as they watch whether Musk‘s past comments that he is a “free speech absolutist” will lead to a rise in hate speech and divisive content on the platform.
Musk said during the call that he was still planning a moderation council that would tackle inappropriate content and consider account reinstatements, but it would take “a few months” to assemble. He said it would be advisory and “not a command council”.
They can always #LearnToWeldMeta is laying off 11,000 people today (https://about.fb.com/news/2022/11/mark-zuckerberg-layoff-message-to-employees/). 3x the side of the twitter layoffs although smaller ones as a proportion of their total employees.
I think a lot of tech is bloated with coasting employees and dumb investments by executives, lots of heads will roll in the downturn.
I think Lone Skum is trying to create the mother of all tax loss harvests with his latest missive.If setting up a new moderation system was his plan, why did he lay off all the moderators? Perhaps he'll go all-in on AI and hope it works.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/nov/10/elon-musk-scraps-twitter-work-home-staff
Not giving much confidence to the big brands advertising via Twitter:QuoteBig brands including General Motors, United Airlines, the cereal maker General Mills and others have paused buying ads on Twitter as they watch whether Musk‘s past comments that he is a “free speech absolutist” will lead to a rise in hate speech and divisive content on the platform.QuoteMusk said during the call that he was still planning a moderation council that would tackle inappropriate content and consider account reinstatements, but it would take “a few months” to assemble. He said it would be advisory and “not a command council”.
Stepping over a dollar/pound to pick up a dime/penny. Keeping the big money players away while begging for$20$8$7.99 per month. $3.50 or $4.20 coming?
I think Lone Skum is trying to create the mother of all tax loss harvests with his latest missive.If setting up a new moderation system was his plan, why did he lay off all the moderators? Perhaps he'll go all-in on AI and hope it works.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/nov/10/elon-musk-scraps-twitter-work-home-staff
Not giving much confidence to the big brands advertising via Twitter:QuoteBig brands including General Motors, United Airlines, the cereal maker General Mills and others have paused buying ads on Twitter as they watch whether Musk‘s past comments that he is a “free speech absolutist” will lead to a rise in hate speech and divisive content on the platform.QuoteMusk said during the call that he was still planning a moderation council that would tackle inappropriate content and consider account reinstatements, but it would take “a few months” to assemble. He said it would be advisory and “not a command council”.
Stepping over a dollar/pound to pick up a dime/penny. Keeping the big money players away while begging for$20$8$7.99 per month. $3.50 or $4.20 coming?
Stepping over a dollar/pound to pick up a dime/penny. Keeping the big money players away while begging for$20$8$7.99 per month. $3.50 or $4.20 coming?
Hmm. No WFH for twitter employees, minimum 40 hrs a week in the office unless Musk personally OKs the request: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/nov/10/elon-musk-scraps-twitter-work-home-staff (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/nov/10/elon-musk-scraps-twitter-work-home-staff)
And, since the top three security officials have left the company employees are now being asked to figure out on their own if Twitter is meeting federal privacy regulations. And if these regulations are not followed, will result in billions of dollars of fines for the company. Yikes.
Musk must be a heck of a genius . . . because my own average intelligence brain can't see how he's doing anything but running this company right into the ground.
Hmm. No WFH for twitter employees, minimum 40 hrs a week in the office unless Musk personally OKs the request:Why should he do other than with Tesla??
Hopefully they will be doing something more productive than burning $5B/year trying to figure out how to put legs onto the Zuckerberg avatarThey can always #LearnToWeldMeta is laying off 11,000 people today (https://about.fb.com/news/2022/11/mark-zuckerberg-layoff-message-to-employees/). 3x the side of the twitter layoffs although smaller ones as a proportion of their total employees.
I think a lot of tech is bloated with coasting employees and dumb investments by executives, lots of heads will roll in the downturn.
They'll find another tech gig faster before they learn to weld (which is a useful skill). Some may have waited to get all their monies and expecting the cull command, happily walking away with fat wallets.
I’m wondering if someone knowledgeable about stock trades can put credence to this idea that he camouflaged his $4B Tesla stock exit* with this purchase of Twitter and then he’s using Twitter as collateral for the financing rather than his stock purchases, meaning his fortune is not at risk. Is that correct?
1, look how fast he managed to get all those people to sign up for $8/month accounts (of course we don’t know how many that is).
There was a major stock vest that occurred on November 1st at Twitter. A lot of employees walked away flush with cash:They can always #LearnToWeldMeta is laying off 11,000 people today (https://about.fb.com/news/2022/11/mark-zuckerberg-layoff-message-to-employees/). 3x the side of the twitter layoffs although smaller ones as a proportion of their total employees.
I think a lot of tech is bloated with coasting employees and dumb investments by executives, lots of heads will roll in the downturn.
They'll find another tech gig faster before they learn to weld (which is a useful skill). Some may have waited to get all their monies and expecting the cull command, happily walking away with fat wallets.
https://twitter.com/Geoffbowser2/status/1590755641894744065
Engineers now having to become compliance officers.
This claims to be the transcript of the first "come in half an hour" all hands meeting at twitter by Musk:
https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/10/23452196/elon-musk-twitter-employee-meeting-q-and-a
I haven't read it so far. It's also long. But I guess it still interestes some people here ;)
This claims to be the transcript of the first "come in half an hour" all hands meeting at twitter by Musk:
https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/10/23452196/elon-musk-twitter-employee-meeting-q-and-a
I haven't read it so far. It's also long. But I guess it still interestes some people here ;)
it seems that he's talking a combo paypal 2.0, venmo, cashapp, wise (transferwise), etc.
providing financial services, ability to pay, purchase goods, debit cards, loans, move money, all via twitter.
And also each verified subscriber to fork out $8/month, with secure verification done using your iphone/android device.
And a better algorithm to show interesting tweets, etc.
All in all, get you glued in more to twitter, less to tiktok, youtube. And more screen time...
Yes, sounds like he want to do a second Paypal, just without selling it this time.This claims to be the transcript of the first "come in half an hour" all hands meeting at twitter by Musk:
https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/10/23452196/elon-musk-twitter-employee-meeting-q-and-a
I haven't read it so far. It's also long. But I guess it still interestes some people here ;)
it seems that he's talking a combo paypal 2.0, venmo, cashapp, wise (transferwise), etc.
providing financial services, ability to pay, purchase goods, debit cards, loans, move money, all via twitter.
And also each verified subscriber to fork out $8/month, with secure verification done using your iphone/android device.
And a better algorithm to show interesting tweets, etc.
All in all, get you glued in more to twitter, less to tiktok, youtube. And more screen time...
Yes, sounds like he want to do a second Paypal, just without selling it this time.This claims to be the transcript of the first "come in half an hour" all hands meeting at twitter by Musk:
https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/10/23452196/elon-musk-twitter-employee-meeting-q-and-a
I haven't read it so far. It's also long. But I guess it still interestes some people here ;)
it seems that he's talking a combo paypal 2.0, venmo, cashapp, wise (transferwise), etc.
providing financial services, ability to pay, purchase goods, debit cards, loans, move money, all via twitter.
And also each verified subscriber to fork out $8/month, with secure verification done using your iphone/android device.
And a better algorithm to show interesting tweets, etc.
All in all, get you glued in more to twitter, less to tiktok, youtube. And more screen time...
It's really good for him that nobody tried that before. Except Applepay, Facebook, Alipay...
I mean it's not like it is impossible, but it would also mean Twitter is no longer Twitter. Even though he likes it so much? And what about Free Speech? I didn't find anything about that in there. Maybe because it is of no interst to him as long as it's free like free beer?
He may also run into problems down the road if after gutting his legal, moderation, and compliance departments Twitter starts doing things that run afoul of US or EU laws.Not so far down the road, though. The Irish Data Protection Office (DPO) is already asking questions. See bottom half of this article (https://www.rte.ie/news/2022/1111/1335514-twitter/)
Sounds to me like he's trying to make the next WeChat.Yes, sounds like he want to do a second Paypal, just without selling it this time.This claims to be the transcript of the first "come in half an hour" all hands meeting at twitter by Musk:
https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/10/23452196/elon-musk-twitter-employee-meeting-q-and-a
I haven't read it so far. It's also long. But I guess it still interestes some people here ;)
it seems that he's talking a combo paypal 2.0, venmo, cashapp, wise (transferwise), etc.
providing financial services, ability to pay, purchase goods, debit cards, loans, move money, all via twitter.
And also each verified subscriber to fork out $8/month, with secure verification done using your iphone/android device.
And a better algorithm to show interesting tweets, etc.
All in all, get you glued in more to twitter, less to tiktok, youtube. And more screen time...
It's really good for him that nobody tried that before. Except Applepay, Facebook, Alipay...
I mean it's not like it is impossible, but it would also mean Twitter is no longer Twitter. Even though he likes it so much? And what about Free Speech? I didn't find anything about that in there. Maybe because it is of no interst to him as long as it's free like free beer?
Yes, sounds like he want to do a second Paypal, just without selling it this time.
It's really good for him that nobody tried that before. Except Applepay, Facebook, Alipay...
I mean it's not like it is impossible, but it would also mean Twitter is no longer Twitter. Even though he likes it so much? And what about Free Speech? I didn't find anything about that in there. Maybe because it is of no interst to him as long as it's free like free beer?
Well, I can definitively state that being on Twitter, at least if you're paying attention to and looking for this stuff and have the mindset for it, is absolutely hilarious right now. There's a number of hilarious troll accounts. Yes, it could cause real problems, but for right now, the absurdness is spectacular.
then the Tesla parody account, Tesla (@TeslaReal) tweeted "electric cars will solve the problem that our CEO created by sabotaging the california high speed rail"
Well, I can definitively state that being on Twitter, at least if you're paying attention to and looking for this stuff and have the mindset for it, is absolutely hilarious right now. There's a number of hilarious troll accounts. Yes, it could cause real problems, but for right now, the absurdness is spectacular.
Eli Lily is not pleased with the "verified" account that posted that insulin was now please.
and then there's this one (sorry, can't post the link, it's on my phone):
Chiquita (@ChiquitaBrands) tweeted "We've just overthrown the government of Brazil."
and then...
Chiquita (@Chiquita) tweeted "We apologize to those who have been served a misleading message from a fake Chiquita account. We have not overthrown a government since 1954."
then the Tesla parody account, Tesla (@TeslaReal) tweeted "electric cars will solve the problem that our CEO created by sabotaging the california high speed rail"
It's chaos. But very funny chaos in some cases.
PSA: The Irish Data Protection Office is a big reason why all those companies are there. Not that long ago it consisted of one office, with one worker. Half-day.He may also run into problems down the road if after gutting his legal, moderation, and compliance departments Twitter starts doing things that run afoul of US or EU laws.Not so far down the road, though. The Irish Data Protection Office (DPO) is already asking questions. See bottom half of this article (https://www.rte.ie/news/2022/1111/1335514-twitter/)
Chiquita (@Chiquita) tweeted "We apologize to those who have been served a misleading message from a fake Chiquita account. We have not overthrown a government since 1954."Oh, now I am tempted to do a fake CIA account and write stuff like "No, we didn't fake Biden's election win. We only do that in other countries. The NSA is responsible for the US."
Stepping over a dollar/pound to pick up a dime/penny. Keeping the big money players away while begging for$20$8$7.99 per month. $3.50 or $4.20 coming?
The only way to end the spiral was to revoke paid verification, it seems, but it's hard to imagine Musk has regained control of the platform by rolling back his first big idea to monetize Twitter.
Stepping over a dollar/pound to pick up a dime/penny. Keeping the big money players away while begging for$20$8$7.99 per month. $3.50 or $4.20 coming?
TBH I didn't see this coming, watching this dumpster fire with 50 gal drums of popcorn.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/11/twitter-quietly-drops-8-paid-verification-tricking-people-not-ok-musk-says/QuoteThe only way to end the spiral was to revoke paid verification, it seems, but it's hard to imagine Musk has regained control of the platform by rolling back his first big idea to monetize Twitter.
Hard to get all the tweety birds back into the cage once they've been let out. The only solution is to burn it all down.
That's part of why it was so important to have a full managment team and staff there. If that isn't the case anymore then each individual EU country might be in a position to follow up on GDPR issues.PSA: The Irish Data Protection Office is a big reason why all those companies are there. Not that long ago it consisted of one office, with one worker. Half-day.He may also run into problems down the road if after gutting his legal, moderation, and compliance departments Twitter starts doing things that run afoul of US or EU laws.Not so far down the road, though. The Irish Data Protection Office (DPO) is already asking questions. See bottom half of this article (https://www.rte.ie/news/2022/1111/1335514-twitter/)
Stepping over a dollar/pound to pick up a dime/penny. Keeping the big money players away while begging for$20$8$7.99 per month. $3.50 or $4.20 coming?
TBH I didn't see this coming, watching this dumpster fire with 50 gal drums of popcorn.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/11/twitter-quietly-drops-8-paid-verification-tricking-people-not-ok-musk-says/QuoteThe only way to end the spiral was to revoke paid verification, it seems, but it's hard to imagine Musk has regained control of the platform by rolling back his first big idea to monetize Twitter.
Hard to get all the tweety birds back into the cage once they've been let out. The only solution is to burn it all down.
Scrapping the new verification system also included removing existing blue checks.
https://twitter.com/zoeschiffer/status/1591152301817102336 (https://twitter.com/zoeschiffer/status/1591152301817102336)
https://twitter.com/mmasnick/status/1591127924497076224 (https://twitter.com/mmasnick/status/1591127924497076224)
The layoffs continue without any side effects whatsoever.
Apparently Musk is floating the idea of turning Twitter into an online payment processing service as a means to generate revenue from a source that isn't ads. This guy is all over the map. At this point it's hard to imagine a scenario where this doesn't end poorly. Part of me wonders if there could be some Plan B strategy in Musk being able to write off billions in losses against future personal income if the company is forced to declare bankruptcy.
Musk has talked about the potential for bankruptcy at pretty much at all of his companies; it's just something he does, maybe to "motivate" the troops.Apparently Musk is floating the idea of turning Twitter into an online payment processing service as a means to generate revenue from a source that isn't ads. This guy is all over the map. At this point it's hard to imagine a scenario where this doesn't end poorly. Part of me wonders if there could be some Plan B strategy in Musk being able to write off billions in losses against future personal income if the company is forced to declare bankruptcy.
He's already announced that Twitter could declare bankruptcy next year. So yeah, it's highly likely that he has already worked out how a bankruptcy would be beneficial for him, and that's why he is razing it and seeing what happens.
Either some kind of Phoenix rises from the ashes, or he has a contingency for it's bankruptcy, or both. Either way, he might be fucking nuts, but he's not stupid.
I just think the chance of him producing an outcome that the public is at all happy with os incredibly slim. I just don't think that matters to him.
Apparently Musk is floating the idea of turning Twitter into an online payment processing service as a means to generate revenue from a source that isn't ads. This guy is all over the map. At this point it's hard to imagine a scenario where this doesn't end poorly. Part of me wonders if there could be some Plan B strategy in Musk being able to write off billions in losses against future personal income if the company is forced to declare bankruptcy.
He's already announced that Twitter could declare bankruptcy next year. So yeah, it's highly likely that he has already worked out how a bankruptcy would be beneficial for him, and that's why he is razing it and seeing what happens.
Either some kind of Phoenix rises from the ashes, or he has a contingency for it's bankruptcy, or both. Either way, he might be fucking nuts, but he's not stupid.
I just think the chance of him producing an outcome that the public is at all happy with os incredibly slim. I just don't think that matters to him.
This guy is all over the map. At this point it's hard to imagine a scenario where this doesn't end poorly.
He could have just spent the billion dollar back-out penalty and saved himself a lot of money.That's not what the 1B breakup fee is for, it only applies in a narrow set of circumstances. The prevailing legal view among people who have been following this saga is that under the merger agreement that was negotiated, "I changed my mind" ain't one of those circumstances. Otherwise he'd have happily done it. When Twitter sued him in court, it was requesting the whole 44B, not just 1B.
Apparently Musk is floating the idea of turning Twitter into an online payment processing service as a means to generate revenue from a source that isn't ads. This guy is all over the map. At this point it's hard to imagine a scenario where this doesn't end poorly. Part of me wonders if there could be some Plan B strategy in Musk being able to write off billions in losses against future personal income if the company is forced to declare bankruptcy.
He's already announced that Twitter could declare bankruptcy next year. So yeah, it's highly likely that he has already worked out how a bankruptcy would be beneficial for him, and that's why he is razing it and seeing what happens.
Either some kind of Phoenix rises from the ashes, or he has a contingency for it's bankruptcy, or both. Either way, he might be fucking nuts, but he's not stupid.
I just think the chance of him producing an outcome that the public is at all happy with os incredibly slim. I just don't think that matters to him.
He did get forced into buying Twitter so there is some stupidity there. Well, maybe maturity or arrogance issues.
It's never a good idea to spend $1000 to save $238 on taxes but, if you're forced to spend that $1000, you might as well use it to your advantage. In this case, he might be able to use a loss carryback to cover his 2021 taxes.
Don't make the error of using the twitter website (or app) pure. It's nonsense. Absolute horror. Plastered with ad tweets and algorhythmic served "engaging" tweets, aka "the other side".This guy is all over the map. At this point it's hard to imagine a scenario where this doesn't end poorly.
Doesn't seem like it would be any great loss to society if Twitter did just go away either. I have an account, and there have been a couple times here and there where it was useful. Mostly though it's another way to mindlessly scroll and lose time I should be spending on more valuable pursuits.
This guy is all over the map. At this point it's hard to imagine a scenario where this doesn't end poorly.
Doesn't seem like it would be any great loss to society if Twitter did just go away either. I have an account, and there have been a couple times here and there where it was useful. Mostly though it's another way to mindlessly scroll and lose time I should be spending on more valuable pursuits.
How are your popcorn reserves?
Elon announced to close down those 80% useless microservies.
As a modern person he seems to think SMS are a part of the past, so 2FA per SMS was shut down.
As a German right at the start of the carnival season, that is a clear case for a Tataa-Tataa-Tataaaaa!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n67YJ7ICh_Q
He could have just spent the billion dollar back-out penalty and saved himself a lot of money.
He could have just spent the billion dollar back-out penalty and saved himself a lot of money.
Can any software engineers comment on the Twitter exchange that was posted yesterday or today where Musk fired a software engineer for contradicting him when he claimed that too many remote procedure calls (RPC) were causing the Android Twitter app to be slow in certain countries? The software engineer said that was false but then he also said something weird about advertiser spend that didn’t seem to make sense.Both statements can be true. It's very possible that the app itself only makes, say, 5 or 6 RPCs, but each of those underlying services themselves make their own RPCs, themselves hitting services that make also their own RPCs, etc. This is called a fan-out and can either be a sign that something is deeply wrong, or that it's the best option given the constraints. Or anything in between.
https://twitter.com/pwnallthethings/status/1591961758675382272?s=46&t=DFKVENLcY5lFQTmp9MxmaQ
But it’s just amazing to see this chaos play out in real time.
What did he close down? microservices to do what?
Thanks for the explanation.QuoteWhat did he close down? microservices to do what?
One of them was for two-factor authentication (via SMS I think)
Thanks for the explanation.QuoteWhat did he close down? microservices to do what?
One of them was for two-factor authentication (via SMS I think)
I expect the reality is less that Musk made a conscious decision to turn down these services, and more that certain services are experiencing normal levels of technical instability and the entire team of folks who knows how to fix it has been laid off or resigned. I've seen numerous tweets from employees who survived the layoff and are on their fifth manager in as many days, or who are now holding the pager for a service that they know very little about. I get the sense that Musk believes a site like Twitter is much simpler than it is, and that it should be able to stay up and running with very little human intervention. Neither thing is true.
A bunch more technical details here…
A bunch more technical details here…
Free speech and speaking truth to power certainly seems important to Musk.
There are so many cautionary tales in all of this but one of them that’s perhaps relevant for people on this forum is “smartest person in the room“ syndrome. Highly professional (and powerful/rich) people who have succeeded in one area must take care that they do not become insufferable fools everywhere else.
There are so many cautionary tales in all of this but one of them that’s perhaps relevant for people on this forum is “smartest person in the room“ syndrome. Highly professional (and powerful/rich) people who have succeeded in one area must take care that they do not become insufferable fools everywhere else.
I'm reading the book The Smartest Men in the Room about the rise and fall of enron, this seems very on point. Besides their accounting fraud, they were just doing dumb stuff in industries they knew nothing about because they really truly believed they were smarter than everyone else.
It gets better… I love how this guy just opens up a chrome browser and chats with the CEO 😂. I mean this right here is some form of democratization. Or maybe it’s bike shedding. Imagine if we could do this with polluting industries or city planners. And then get them to make instantaneous changes.
Yes and there is a lot more technical detail about graphQL (similar to the RPC fanning out explanation above) and yes it was the android app so browser may not be relevant but anyway there’s a priceless thread on it on Reddit if you’re interested in this kind of stuff — lots of funny comments.
This is really giving me flashbacks to my corporate job because honestly I dealt with complete idiots like this who had risen beyond their level of incompetence all the time. Men and women. And they would lead by fiat and you would see everyone scrambling to interpret a completely nonsensical, novel rule which at some later point would be summarily reversed. And everyone would scramble again. I had to get out.
Yes and there is a lot more technical detail about graphQL (similar to the RPC fanning out explanation above) and yes it was the android app so browser may not be relevant but anyway there’s a priceless thread on it on Reddit if you’re interested in this kind of stuff — lots of funny comments.
This is really giving me flashbacks to my corporate job because honestly I dealt with complete idiots like this who had risen beyond their level of incompetence all the time. Men and women. And they would lead by fiat and you would see everyone scrambling to interpret a completely nonsensical, novel rule which at some later point would be summarily reversed. And everyone would scramble again. I had to get out.
I will say, watching Elon Musk in his Twitter takeover has told me pretty much everything I need to know about trusting his self-driving cars.
Is there anyone here who owned Twitter stock through the acquisition? Did the money appear in your account right after delisting on 10/27?afaik it takes roughly two weeks for money from deleted stocks to appear. Never had it myself though and of course with the hilarious US banking system it might be 2 month because they only send it out in handwritten cheques.
It looks like the last traded price was $53.35, a significant discount if one was getting $54.20 a week or two later. However, if the money doesn't arrive for months, it wasn't the greatest deal.
Ligma & Johnson hired back !
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1592618665933156352?s=46&t=1Hl5b-J3X7rS0wAFwUzWRA
Ligma & Johnson hired back !
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1592618665933156352?s=46&t=1Hl5b-J3X7rS0wAFwUzWRA
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fhoeb_rXEAMyv-w?format=jpg&name=900x900)
That is the face of an employee who has totally forgiven the firing, and is not currently looking for a new job.
Ligma & Johnson hired back !
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1592618665933156352?s=46&t=1Hl5b-J3X7rS0wAFwUzWRA
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fhoeb_rXEAMyv-w?format=jpg&name=900x900)
That is the face of an employee who has totally forgiven the firing, and is not currently looking for a new job.
I can't tell is this is some next level humor or if you're unaware that these are the two guys who pretended to be twitter employees who were laid off and got the media to buy in (https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/28/23428775/twitter-fake-employee-layoff-rahul-ligma-elon-musk).
If it's the former apologies for letting the joke woosh over my head.
If Elon bought outstanding stock, then employees with stock holdings at time of acquisition would have been bought out. But what happens to values of stock awards that were made to employees after the acquisition closed?
Here’s why I ask… For a a long term employee with significant vested options, a nice profit was available at the acquisition. For shorter tenure employees (or any employees) with options that vested after the acquisition, are any newly vested options now worthless?
If Elon bought outstanding stock, then employees with stock holdings at time of acquisition would have been bought out. But what happens to values of stock awards that were made to employees after the acquisition closed?
Here’s why I ask… For a a long term employee with significant vested options, a nice profit was available at the acquisition. For shorter tenure employees (or any employees) with options that vested after the acquisition, are any newly vested options now worthless?
I have decent knowledge of equity comp plans, but am not a true subject matter expert. Some of this question is probably best answered by a SME.
The real answer will depend on how Twitter's board handles equity comp. Twitter likely had some type of ESPP or other direct stock ownership plan before the acquisition. It's most common for public companies to use a direct share ownership program while private companies will use an option plan. This isn't a law, just the most common scenario.
On the acquisition date, Elon Musk purchased every single outstanding share, whether owned by an employee or anyone else. The equity comp plan likely would have been terminated as of the acquisition date, so any unvested shares would be forfeit. The board should have approved some new equity comp plan plan effective as of the acquisition date. This would most likely be an option (ESOP) plan.
The challenge is that options need to be issued at fair-market-value (FMV) for the shares. This isn't legally required, but it's a massive tax headache for employees if you do anything other than FMV. As of a few weeks ago, the FMV was $44B. The whole world knows the company isn't worth $44B, but that's how the accountants look at it until they get a new external valuation (409a). So Twitter is likely giving out options that are effectively worthless. Or they realized they're worthless and are giving cash bonuses instead.
Oh. Hahah, I had no idea!
I hear they all got an ultimatum last night to sign some kind of all-in hard work pledge or take 3 months severance...sounds like an easy way to get three months' pay to me and a no-brainer.
I hear they all got an ultimatum last night to sign some kind of all-in hard work pledge or take 3 months severance...sounds like an easy way to get three months' pay to me and a no-brainer.
CNBC has the email. (https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/16/elon-musk-demands-twitter-staff-commit-to-long-hours-or-leave.html)
Wonder how many people will take the severance.
What is the point of having people "opt in" with that email?. It's not like they can't opt in and then be only "kind hardcore" and let the chips fall where they may. Or opt in and then bail in 5 weeks when they finally secure another job offer. Or anything else.
What is the point of having people "opt in" with that email?. It's not like they can't opt in and then be only "kind hardcore" and let the chips fall where they may. Or opt in and then bail in 5 weeks when they finally secure another job offer. Or anything else.
I think it's kinda smart. It's a way of doing layoffs without doing layoffs - he's offering people who don't really want to be there (and are probably looking for other jobs anyway) a cash bonus to leave now. Theoretically it would reduce the number of people leaving later which would translate into more stability/predictability for release dates and features.
It's the kind of thing he should have started with after the takeover rather than massive across the board layoffs and random firings.
What is the point of having people "opt in" with that email?. It's not like they can't opt in and then be only "kind hardcore" and let the chips fall where they may. Or opt in and then bail in 5 weeks when they finally secure another job offer. Or anything else.
I think it's kinda smart. It's a way of doing layoffs without doing layoffs - he's offering people who don't really want to be there (and are probably looking for other jobs anyway) a cash bonus to leave now. Theoretically it would reduce the number of people leaving later which would translate into more stability/predictability for release dates and features.
It's the kind of thing he should have started with after the takeover rather than massive across the board layoffs and random firings.
What is the point of having people "opt in" with that email?. It's not like they can't opt in and then be only "kind hardcore" and let the chips fall where they may. Or opt in and then bail in 5 weeks when they finally secure another job offer. Or anything else.
I think it's kinda smart. It's a way of doing layoffs without doing layoffs - he's offering people who don't really want to be there (and are probably looking for other jobs anyway) a cash bonus to leave now. Theoretically it would reduce the number of people leaving later which would translate into more stability/predictability for release dates and features.
It's the kind of thing he should have started with after the takeover rather than massive across the board layoffs and random firings.
I imagine there is also a fair bit of psychological weight resting on the difference between "I chose this" and "this was forced upon me."
There is a reason a lot of the best practices for things like brain washing focus on the subject making small choices voluntarily that slowly lead down a path to a different world view. Details below the spoiler tag.Spoiler: show
So... Musk sets the editorial direction of a future Twitter that algorithmically adapts to your preferences and simultaneously trains us all to comply with what Twitter asks them to do. What could go wrong?What is the point of having people "opt in" with that email?. It's not like they can't opt in and then be only "kind hardcore" and let the chips fall where they may. Or opt in and then bail in 5 weeks when they finally secure another job offer. Or anything else.
I think it's kinda smart. It's a way of doing layoffs without doing layoffs - he's offering people who don't really want to be there (and are probably looking for other jobs anyway) a cash bonus to leave now. Theoretically it would reduce the number of people leaving later which would translate into more stability/predictability for release dates and features.
It's the kind of thing he should have started with after the takeover rather than massive across the board layoffs and random firings.
I imagine there is also a fair bit of psychological weight resting on the difference between "I chose this" and "this was forced upon me."
There is a reason a lot of the best practices for things like brain washing focus on the subject making small choices voluntarily that slowly lead down a path to a different world view. Details below the spoiler tag.Spoiler: show
Lol, oh it's not "a bit" it's very blatant. This is *exactly* what he's trying to do.
What is the point of having people "opt in" with that email?. It's not like they can't opt in and then be only "kind hardcore" and let the chips fall where they may. Or opt in and then bail in 5 weeks when they finally secure another job offer. Or anything else.
I think it's kinda smart. It's a way of doing layoffs without doing layoffs - he's offering people who don't really want to be there (and are probably looking for other jobs anyway) a cash bonus to leave now. Theoretically it would reduce the number of people leaving later which would translate into more stability/predictability for release dates and features.
It's the kind of thing he should have started with after the takeover rather than massive across the board layoffs and random firings.
There's also a psychological aspect to it. The ones who accept will be more likely to work longer hours simply because they agreed to his vision and opted in. Only the cynics will opt in and quiet quit while they look for another job.
Legally speaking, how do Twitter workers know that saying they want to be laid off will in fact result in getting severance vs. choosing to quit?
Lays off a bunch of people with no regard to their function. Then asks the remaining people to commit to working "long hours"? Yeah, that's going to be a no from me.
I can't imagine the headache people are going to have trying to recruit people to join Twitter in a month or two. Not a single person is going to show up for the interview when they hear it is with twitter.
I can think of three groups of people for whom that would not be the case:4) Cautious or intrigued people taking the wait-and-see approach
1) Elon Musk fanboys,
2) People here on H1-B visas who were recently laid off from another big tech company and have 60 days to find a new visa sponsor or else leave the country.
3) People who have every right to remain here but failed to save an emergency fund.
I expect most of the people agreeing to this change to "hardcore" working conditions for no additional salary are also in one of those three groups.
Sounds like a supermajority of remaining employees (https://twitter.com/kyliebytes/status/1593391167718113280) decided they didn't want to work in an "extremely hardcore" manner at this time. Perhaps will be less than 1,000 workers remaining.
Yeah, I totally get the motivation to work for a high-risk high-reward company. I just don't see that in today's Twitter though. It's a pretty mature product, owned by someone who seems to be highly motivated by cost cutting. The potential upside just doesn't seem like it's likely to be there for most of these employees the same as it might be at an actual startup. They're signing up to work long hours for a boss who knows he's right about everything and won't accept anyone telling him otherwise, and maybe if everything goes perfectly they get a nice bonus at the end of the year. I'd take the three months' severance.Yeah, I know a few people who joined tech startups and worked the crazy hours. Most were given stock options and joined with the mentality of either being rich or unemployed in 5 years.
It would be hard to work 70h weeks in dirty cubicles for Elon Musk, for no stock options, and with your best coworkers gone, when the unemployment rate is 3.7%. Imagine all your former coworkers are posting on LinkedIn about how they're grabbing up all the available jobs at fast-growing, fun cultured or WFH startups offering stock options. Those who stay have to be thinking about their recession survival game plan and whether they'll be able to leave later. They'll have to think about whether their career plan involves taking 5 a.m. phone calls from a deranged billionaire asking why you aren't in the office I sent the meeting invite three hours ago.Yeah, I totally get the motivation to work for a high-risk high-reward company. I just don't see that in today's Twitter though. It's a pretty mature product, owned by someone who seems to be highly motivated by cost cutting. The potential upside just doesn't seem like it's likely to be there for most of these employees the same as it might be at an actual startup. They're signing up to work long hours for a boss who knows he's right about everything and won't accept anyone telling him otherwise, and maybe if everything goes perfectly they get a nice bonus at the end of the year. I'd take the three months' severance.Yeah, I know a few people who joined tech startups and worked the crazy hours. Most were given stock options and joined with the mentality of either being rich or unemployed in 5 years.
What is the point of having people "opt in" with that email?. It's not like they can't opt in and then be only "kind hardcore" and let the chips fall where they may. Or opt in and then bail in 5 weeks when they finally secure another job offer. Or anything else.
I think it's kinda smart. It's a way of doing layoffs without doing layoffs - he's offering people who don't really want to be there (and are probably looking for other jobs anyway) a cash bonus to leave now. Theoretically it would reduce the number of people leaving later which would translate into more stability/predictability for release dates and features.
It's the kind of thing he should have started with after the takeover rather than massive across the board layoffs and random firings.
With Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, we’reheading offhearing of executive firings, lay-offs, and now mandatory 84 hour workweeks on top of all the other changes to service, moderation, etc. The people who founded Twitter are gone. The management and culture are going to go through radical changes, and it very much sounds like it’s going to be for the worse. So my question is… why don’t people just leave en masse? Twitter could basically be shut down, and Musk would have nothing of value with no people to run it. Why stay through this mess?
What is the point of having people "opt in" with that email?. It's not like they can't opt in and then be only "kind hardcore" and let the chips fall where they may. Or opt in and then bail in 5 weeks when they finally secure another job offer. Or anything else.
I think it's kinda smart. It's a way of doing layoffs without doing layoffs - he's offering people who don't really want to be there (and are probably looking for other jobs anyway) a cash bonus to leave now. Theoretically it would reduce the number of people leaving later which would translate into more stability/predictability for release dates and features.
It's the kind of thing he should have started with after the takeover rather than massive across the board layoffs and random firings.
It's the worst kind of layoff, especially in engineering. The best engineers know their worth and generally don't view "extremely hardcore" as working long days and weekends (in reality, hardcoreness is more about difficulty and complexity). Sure, there's a time and place for long hours, but not as normal operating procedure. While some great engineers may want grueling hours, from what I can tell this was not previously part of Twitter's culture, so it's unlikely that the interviewing and hiring process selected for this. Therefore relatively few of the key engineers that keep the lights on are likely to stick around and will jump ship to a place that's not batshit crazy. This leaves mediocre and/or desperate engineers who will sign on out of fear. It's a terrible way to conduct layoffs because it tends to reduce the overall quality of the workforce.
I think I'm starting to understand now why Tesla continues to struggle with build quality.
One of the funnier things about this is that no one is really sure who's even left because most of HR is gone too.I bet somebody pulls a Milton, and stays on the payroll for years after their layoff.
Hmm, didn't Milton burn the place down?One of the funnier things about this is that no one is really sure who's even left because most of HR is gone too.I bet somebody pulls a Milton, and stays on the payroll for years after their layoff.
Hmm, didn't Milton burn the place down?One of the funnier things about this is that no one is really sure who's even left because most of HR is gone too.I bet somebody pulls a Milton, and stays on the payroll for years after their layoff.
Hmm, didn't Milton burn the place down?One of the funnier things about this is that no one is really sure who's even left because most of HR is gone too.I bet somebody pulls a Milton, and stays on the payroll for years after their layoff.
He did, but only after they "fixed the glitch" that was keeping him on the payroll. In the case of twitter, sounds like most of the payroll department left, too.
What is the point of having people "opt in" with that email?. It's not like they can't opt in and then be only "kind hardcore" and let the chips fall where they may. Or opt in and then bail in 5 weeks when they finally secure another job offer. Or anything else.
I think it's kinda smart. It's a way of doing layoffs without doing layoffs - he's offering people who don't really want to be there (and are probably looking for other jobs anyway) a cash bonus to leave now. Theoretically it would reduce the number of people leaving later which would translate into more stability/predictability for release dates and features.
It's the kind of thing he should have started with after the takeover rather than massive across the board layoffs and random firings.
It's the worst kind of layoff, especially in engineering. The best engineers know their worth and generally don't view "extremely hardcore" as working long days and weekends (in reality, hardcoreness is more about difficulty and complexity). Sure, there's a time and place for long hours, but not as normal operating procedure. While some great engineers may want grueling hours, from what I can tell this was not previously part of Twitter's culture, so it's unlikely that the interviewing and hiring process selected for this. Therefore relatively few of the key engineers that keep the lights on are likely to stick around and will jump ship to a place that's not batshit crazy. This leaves mediocre and/or desperate engineers who will sign on out of fear. It's a terrible way to conduct layoffs because it tends to reduce the overall quality of the workforce.
I think I'm starting to understand now why Tesla continues to struggle with build quality.
Musk obviously didn't want to keep the best engineers though. The decrees about work from home and randomly firing people who correct his mistakes is evidence of that. He was attempting to select only for blind loyalty and exploitability. . . and that kind of layoff is good for those particular characteristics. I think the trouble he's walking into right now is that there aren't enough exploitable/blindly loyal employees to keep the company working.
Twitter has never had that, which is why it has always been famous in the Valley for its lazy and unmotivated employees.
Twitter has never had that, which is why it has always been famous in the Valley for its lazy and unmotivated employees.
I keep reading this lately but hadn't heard of it before this saga. Did I miss this discussion on hackernews and reddit? Was this discussed on blind?
It's not like I've been super involved the past few years...did they become super lazy recently, more so than the other high flying tech companies?
Twitter has never had that, which is why it has always been famous in the Valley for its lazy and unmotivated employees.
I keep reading this lately but hadn't heard of it before this saga. Did I miss this discussion on hackernews and reddit? Was this discussed on blind?
It's not like I've been super involved the past few years...did they become super lazy recently, more so than the other high flying tech companies?
Work for a large tech company in the valley, & do a lot of hiring. I don't think this is a thing. We've hired plenty of great folks from Twitter.
Agreed. I just don't see it as a smart move. I'm not a fan of Musk or Twitter -- if he manages to destroy $44B while killing Twitter I won't shed any tears. This may even be good for society, especially if he tarnishes his "personal brand" in the process. I'm completely over egotistical tech leaders with messiah complexes.
Allegedly the (last?) guy responsible for the badges was fired a few hours before all badges were deactivated and nobody was able to go into HQ.
Don't know if it's true, but the fact I am totally ok believing it shows how bad the situation is ;)
I think the trouble he's walking into right now is that there aren't enough exploitable/blindly loyal employees to keep the company working.
The way I see it, Elon paid $44B for Twitter’s established user base and market share. I don’t understand how the company can continue to move forward with its existing legacy infrastructure, given how many of the employees have departed. The knowledge base required to operate and develop within the current infrastructure has been obliterated.The people I know that worked at Tesla all burned out within 3 years. That is not good when your business is hardware with long lifecycles. Tesla's quality and launch execution are symptoms of the lack of stability within the company.
That being said, I think this may be what Elon wants. The old Twitter was a bloated and lazy company, both in terms of their infrastructure and employee base. To bring Twitter into the next decade, the entire thing needs to be burned down and rebuilt from scratch. Elon would have had an easier job doing this if he just started his own social media company, but then he wouldn’t have Twitter’s user base and market share. Twitter is one of those companies that just got there first and established itself, and by doing so is almost impossible to replace no matter how bloated, lazy, and lacking in vision it may have become.
Elon is going to have to create a very compelling vision for his new Twitter if he wants to be able to hire people willing to work “hardcore” hours though. Tesla and SpaceX both have top-notch technology and extremely compelling visions, which is why their employees are willing to work that hard. Twitter has never had that, which is why it has always been famous in the Valley for its lazy and unmotivated employees.
So for Elon to succeed here, he needs to do the following:
1. Communicate a clear and compelling vision for the new Twitter so that he can attract the kind of “hardcore” engineers he wants to hire.
2. Keep the existing infrastructure running well enough to avoid losing the established user base and market share.
3. Build out a whole new infrastructure for the new Twitter which will eventually replace the old one.
It will be extremely difficult to achieve this but Elon Musk does seem motivated enough to pull it off. I’m worried about #1 though, as nothing he has communicated about his vision for the new Twitter has been clear or compelling.
Furthermore, all of this fits perfectly into Elon’s established MO. He identifies a lucrative industry that has become weak and bloated, and finds a better way to do it. Then he moves into the industry, builds a younger, leaner, and more capable company, disrupts the old players, and takes over the industry. The process has already been done twice with SpaceX and Tesla. Twitter is an interesting case because Elon is disrupting it internally rather than externally, and Twitter’s business is lucrative in political power rather than profits. But it’s still essentially the same process being put into motion at Twitter as what Elon already did in the space and automotive industries.
Allegedly the (last?) guy responsible for the badges was fired a few hours before all badges were deactivated and nobody was able to go into HQ.
Don't know if it's true, but the fact I am totally ok believing it shows how bad the situation is ;)
This was from a humor account. The reports about the HR department being wiped out might be true.I think the trouble he's walking into right now is that there aren't enough exploitable/blindly loyal employees to keep the company working.
The rumors from last night are that the core of the current employee base are visa holders who must retain their employment.
Allegedly the (last?) guy responsible for the badges was fired a few hours before all badges were deactivated and nobody was able to go into HQ.
Don't know if it's true, but the fact I am totally ok believing it shows how bad the situation is ;)
This was from a humor account. The reports about the HR department being wiped out might be true.I think the trouble he's walking into right now is that there aren't enough exploitable/blindly loyal employees to keep the company working.
The rumors from last night are that the core of the current employee base are visa holders who must retain their employment.
Musk was recently praising Chinese workers and heavily criticized US workers.
I'm really curious what will happen next, if Twitter survives or comes back and if there will be a larger proportion of foreign workers as a result. It's possible.
It's all very curious, that's for sure.
If I was CEO I might move the company out of high-cost locations too, but there are cleaner ways to offshore than what Musk is doing. Will they even be able to file taxes?Allegedly the (last?) guy responsible for the badges was fired a few hours before all badges were deactivated and nobody was able to go into HQ.
Don't know if it's true, but the fact I am totally ok believing it shows how bad the situation is ;)
This was from a humor account. The reports about the HR department being wiped out might be true.I think the trouble he's walking into right now is that there aren't enough exploitable/blindly loyal employees to keep the company working.
The rumors from last night are that the core of the current employee base are visa holders who must retain their employment.
Musk was recently praising Chinese workers and heavily criticized US workers.
I'm really curious what will happen next, if Twitter survives or comes back and if there will be a larger proportion of foreign workers as a result. It's possible.
It's all very curious, that's for sure.
A lot of US tech companies already have a large proportion of foreign workers, usually as contractors. It would not surprise me at all if Twitter survived and also has a larger proportion of foreign workers afterwards and becomes a much leaner company under Elon.
Musk has effectively infinite money . . . like 200 billion or so, right? Maybe there was no plan and he just wanted there to not be a twitter any more. 44 billion seems like a lot to those of us broke people, but would you even care about the money if you had 150 billion or so left after blowing it?
Musk has effectively infinite money . . . like 200 billion or so, right? Maybe there was no plan and he just wanted there to not be a twitter any more. 44 billion seems like a lot to those of us broke people, but would you even care about the money if you had 150 billion or so left after blowing it?
Musk has effectively infinite money . . . like 200 billion or so, right? Maybe there was no plan and he just wanted there to not be a twitter any more. 44 billion seems like a lot to those of us broke people, but would you even care about the money if you had 150 billion or so left after blowing it?
Elon Musk encourages Twitter engineers to fly in for in-person meetings -email
Fri, November 18, 2022, 11:52 AM
By Hyunjoo Jin
(Reuters) -Elon Musk on Friday asked any remaining Twitter employees who write software code to report to the 10th floor of the office in San Francisco by early afternoon, according to an email reviewed by Reuters.
The billionaire said in a follow-up email: "If possible, I would appreciate it if you could fly to SF to be present in person," adding he would be at the company's headquarters until midnight and would return Saturday morning.
He said the engineers should report at 2 p.m. on Friday.
The emails came a day after hundreds of Twitter employees were estimated to have decided to leave the beleaguered social media company following a Thursday deadline from Musk that staffers sign up for "long hours at high intensity."
The exodus adds to the rapid change and chaos that have marked Musk's first three weeks as Twitter's owner, during which the company's headcount had already been more than halved by layoffs and other departures to around 3,700.
Twitter told employees on Thursday that it would close its offices and cut badge access until Monday, according to two sources. Reuters could not immediately confirm whether the headquarters reopened.
As of midday Friday, the company had not yet cut off access to company systems for employees who had declined to accept Musk's offer, two other sources told Reuters.
One of those sources also said the company was planning to shut down one of Twitter's three main U.S. data centers, at the SMF1 facility near Sacramento, for cost-saving reasons.
Amid the changes, Moody's withdrew its B1 credit rating for Twitter, saying it had "insufficient or otherwise inadequate information to support the maintenance of the rating."
A White House official also weighed in, saying Twitter should tell Americans how the company was protecting their data.
In his emails on Friday, Musk ordered employees to email him a summary of what their software code has "achieved" in the past six months, "along with up to 10 screenshots of the most salient lines of code."
"There will be short, technical interviews that allow me to better understand the Twitter tech stack," Musk wrote in one of the emails.
Musk said earlier this week that some Tesla engineers were assisting in evaluating Twitter's engineering teams, but he said it was on a "voluntary basis" and "after hours."
He said he would try to speak with remote employees by video, and that only people who could not physically get to the company's headquarters or have a family emergency would be excused.
In his first email to Twitter employees this month, Musk said: "We are also changing Twitter policy such that remote work is no longer allowed, unless you have a specific exception."
"Managers will send the exceptions lists to me for review and approval."
Musk wrote on Twitter late on Thursday that he was not worried about resignations as "the best people are staying."
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1593767953706921985?s=46&t=U1IAZMdYsQx2YXISPkiEOg
Going to be an interesting 24 hours.
Deleted. What did it say?https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1593767953706921985?s=46&t=U1IAZMdYsQx2YXISPkiEOg
Going to be an interesting 24 hours.
The way I see it, Elon paid $44B for Twitter’s established user base and market share. I don’t understand how the company can continue to move forward with its existing legacy infrastructure, given how many of the employees have departed. The knowledge base required to operate and develop within the current infrastructure has been obliterated.
That being said, I think this may be what Elon wants. The old Twitter was a bloated and lazy company, both in terms of their infrastructure and employee base. To bring Twitter into the next decade, the entire thing needs to be burned down and rebuilt from scratch. Elon would have had an easier job doing this if he just started his own social media company, but then he wouldn’t have Twitter’s user base and market share. Twitter is one of those companies that just got there first and established itself, and by doing so is almost impossible to replace no matter how bloated, lazy, and lacking in vision it may have become.
Elon is going to have to create a very compelling vision for his new Twitter if he wants to be able to hire people willing to work “hardcore” hours though. Tesla and SpaceX both have top-notch technology and extremely compelling visions, which is why their employees are willing to work that hard. Twitter has never had that, which is why it has always been famous in the Valley for its lazy and unmotivated employees.
So for Elon to succeed here, he needs to do the following:
1. Communicate a clear and compelling vision for the new Twitter so that he can attract the kind of “hardcore” engineers he wants to hire.
2. Keep the existing infrastructure running well enough to avoid losing the established user base and market share.
3. Build out a whole new infrastructure for the new Twitter which will eventually replace the old one.
It will be extremely difficult to achieve this but Elon Musk does seem motivated enough to pull it off. I’m worried about #1 though, as nothing he has communicated about his vision for the new Twitter has been clear or compelling.
Furthermore, all of this fits perfectly into Elon’s established MO. He identifies a lucrative industry that has become weak and bloated, and finds a better way to do it. Then he moves into the industry, builds a younger, leaner, and more capable company, disrupts the old players, and takes over the industry. The process has already been done twice with SpaceX and Tesla. Twitter is an interesting case because Elon is disrupting it internally rather than externally, and Twitter’s business is lucrative in political power rather than profits. But it’s still essentially the same process being put into motion at Twitter as what Elon already did in the space and automotive industries.
The way I see it, Elon paid $44B for Twitter’s established user base and market share. I don’t understand how the company can continue to move forward with its existing legacy infrastructure, given how many of the employees have departed. The knowledge base required to operate and develop within the current infrastructure has been obliterated.
That being said, I think this may be what Elon wants. The old Twitter was a bloated and lazy company, both in terms of their infrastructure and employee base. To bring Twitter into the next decade, the entire thing needs to be burned down and rebuilt from scratch. Elon would have had an easier job doing this if he just started his own social media company, but then he wouldn’t have Twitter’s user base and market share. Twitter is one of those companies that just got there first and established itself, and by doing so is almost impossible to replace no matter how bloated, lazy, and lacking in vision it may have become.
Elon is going to have to create a very compelling vision for his new Twitter if he wants to be able to hire people willing to work “hardcore” hours though. Tesla and SpaceX both have top-notch technology and extremely compelling visions, which is why their employees are willing to work that hard. Twitter has never had that, which is why it has always been famous in the Valley for its lazy and unmotivated employees.
So for Elon to succeed here, he needs to do the following:
1. Communicate a clear and compelling vision for the new Twitter so that he can attract the kind of “hardcore” engineers he wants to hire.
2. Keep the existing infrastructure running well enough to avoid losing the established user base and market share.
3. Build out a whole new infrastructure for the new Twitter which will eventually replace the old one.
It will be extremely difficult to achieve this but Elon Musk does seem motivated enough to pull it off. I’m worried about #1 though, as nothing he has communicated about his vision for the new Twitter has been clear or compelling.
Furthermore, all of this fits perfectly into Elon’s established MO. He identifies a lucrative industry that has become weak and bloated, and finds a better way to do it. Then he moves into the industry, builds a younger, leaner, and more capable company, disrupts the old players, and takes over the industry. The process has already been done twice with SpaceX and Tesla. Twitter is an interesting case because Elon is disrupting it internally rather than externally, and Twitter’s business is lucrative in political power rather than profits. But it’s still essentially the same process being put into motion at Twitter as what Elon already did in the space and automotive industries.
This is a good example of people who think they understand how to build an application the scale of Twitter but have never done so.
It's not as simple as many people seem to think (Elon and yourself included) and I suspect the world is going to find out just how complicated it actually is to build and operate an application of Twitter's scale.
This is a good example of people who think they understand how to build an application the scale of Twitter but have never done so.
It's not as simple as many people seem to think (Elon and yourself included) and I suspect the world is going to find out just how complicated it actually is to build and operate an application of Twitter's scale.
This is a good example of people who think they understand how to build an application the scale of Twitter but have never done so.
It's not as simple as many people seem to think (Elon and yourself included) and I suspect the world is going to find out just how complicated it actually is to build and operate an application of Twitter's scale.
Oh, I don’t think it’s going to be easy for them. I agree that the company has lost so much knowledge that it is going to be extremely difficult to keep the existing system running and perhaps impossible to develop new software on the existing system. That’s why I think their only option at this point is to keep the old thing running *somehow* and start anew.
This is a good example of people who think they understand how to build an application the scale of Twitter but have never done so.
It's not as simple as many people seem to think (Elon and yourself included) and I suspect the world is going to find out just how complicated it actually is to build and operate an application of Twitter's scale.
Oh, I don’t think it’s going to be easy for them. I agree that the company has lost so much knowledge that it is going to be extremely difficult to keep the existing system running and perhaps impossible to develop new software on the existing system. That’s why I think their only option at this point is to keep the old thing running *somehow* and start anew.
But that's my point. You make it sound like this is a trivial thing to do.
Spinning up an application the scale of Twitter isn't something you casually decide to do and pull off in a short period of time with a fraction the original folks.
Spinning up an application the scale of Twitter isn't something you casually decide to do and pull off in a short period of time with a fraction the original folks.
Hw many did it reach?Spinning up an application the scale of Twitter isn't something you casually decide to do and pull off in a short period of time with a fraction the original folks.
In support of this, look how much trouble Truth Social had in scaling to a tiny fraction of twitter's user base without being constantly overloaded. And that was after building off an existing open source twitter like infrastructure. Truth social is (or at least was initially) running Mastadon with custom branding.
Hw many did it reach?Spinning up an application the scale of Twitter isn't something you casually decide to do and pull off in a short period of time with a fraction the original folks.
In support of this, look how much trouble Truth Social had in scaling to a tiny fraction of twitter's user base without being constantly overloaded. And that was after building off an existing open source twitter like infrastructure. Truth social is (or at least was initially) running Mastadon with custom branding.
Because Matodon has doubled now - to 2 million I read - and I wonder how it scales up? Especially since it's afaik all run on private money and goodwill.
Hw many did it reach?Spinning up an application the scale of Twitter isn't something you casually decide to do and pull off in a short period of time with a fraction the original folks.
In support of this, look how much trouble Truth Social had in scaling to a tiny fraction of twitter's user base without being constantly overloaded. And that was after building off an existing open source twitter like infrastructure. Truth social is (or at least was initially) running Mastadon with custom branding.
Because Matodon has doubled now - to 2 million I read - and I wonder how it scales up? Especially since it's afaik all run on private money and goodwill.
Well, that's not even 1% of Twitter's daily users assuming all 2MN of those folks are actually using it as much as daily Twitter users do.
Jeez, when I joined only a couple of weeks ago, the mastodon.social instance had maybe 20k active users, if that, and now I see that it has 240k 😳 -- 12x growth. Still, the #MastoDaoine Mastodon.ie instance grew at *many times* that rate -- from around 155 active users then to *18k* now -- that's *116 times* its size at end of Oct. 🤯🤯🤯
Trump, Ye, and Tate are back.That seems to his intenttion with downrating non-payers so their tweets "don't appear until you activly search for them".
Given that a lot of advertisers have already fled, will they return if they're advertising next to Tate's misogynistic comments about sexual assault victims?
Or maybe Elon makes Twitter a pay-to-post platform?
if that is happening, makes quite the hypocrite. Needs to amend his statement "unrestricted free speech*" *for those who pay. Everyone else f* off.Trump, Ye, and Tate are back.That seems to his intenttion with downrating non-payers so their tweets "don't appear until you activly search for them".
Given that a lot of advertisers have already fled, will they return if they're advertising next to Tate's misogynistic comments about sexual assault victims?
Or maybe Elon makes Twitter a pay-to-post platform?
if that is happening, makes quite the hypocrite. Needs to amend his statement "unrestricted free speech*" *for those who pay. Everyone else f* off.Trump, Ye, and Tate are back.That seems to his intenttion with downrating non-payers so their tweets "don't appear until you activly search for them".
Given that a lot of advertisers have already fled, will they return if they're advertising next to Tate's misogynistic comments about sexual assault victims?
Or maybe Elon makes Twitter a pay-to-post platform?
Everyone knows Teslas are very hard to extinguish when they catch fire, though. It's not quite as good as candles burning for 8 nights.
Everyone knows Teslas are very hard to extinguish when they catch fire, though. It's not quite as good as candles burning for 8 nights.
I did not know, but you aren't joking. They really are hard to put out. Wow.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/06/22/tesla-fire-sacramento/
Everyone knows Teslas are very hard to extinguish when they catch fire, though. It's not quite as good as candles burning for 8 nights.
I did not know, but you aren't joking. They really are hard to put out. Wow.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/06/22/tesla-fire-sacramento/
That is true vor every battery. Electric cars just have bigger ones. It's one of the things firefighters have been complaining about, especially those with tunnels. I mean you can't even use water to stop the fire, and the rain in the tunnel when there is a fire makes it a very dangerous area.
Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFP) batteries are much more chemically stable, way less prone to thermal runaway. Also better for the environment and more cycles. Hopefully more BEVs move to LFP even though the energy density is lower.
The ones in China. Though I think Germany will be too?Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFP) batteries are much more chemically stable, way less prone to thermal runaway. Also better for the environment and more cycles. Hopefully more BEVs move to LFP even though the energy density is lower.
The most recent news I read (last spring) was that Tesla was already producing about 50% of their total vehicles with LFP batteries (https://electrek.co/2022/04/22/tesla-using-cobalt-free-lfp-batteries-in-half-new-cars-produced/). Definitely seems like a move in the right direction.
Surprise!
Looks like the Right Wingers take over to decide what is Free Speech and whatnot, and left accounts (like someone who identified an capitol attacker) are suspended.
https://theintercept.com/2022/11/29/elon-musk-twitter-andy-ngo-antifascist/
Hmm. I'm always curious when people start talking about 'free speech'. Pretty often they're concerned about 'free speech for the things that I want to hear' and unconcerned about limiting speech that they don't. Seems like this is the type of 'free speech' that Musk meant when taking over Twitter.
Surprise!
Looks like the Right Wingers take over to decide what is Free Speech and whatnot, and left accounts (like someone who identified an capitol attacker) are suspended.
https://theintercept.com/2022/11/29/elon-musk-twitter-andy-ngo-antifascist/
Despite his lofty declarations, Musk has a track record of silencing his critics. To give one example, a former employee of Tesla was fired for raising safety concerns about a Tesla autopilot function on his YouTube channel. This strikes at the core of Musk’s incongruity on the issue. From a legal standpoint, that action had nothing to do with free speech law. And yet the former employee’s words are exactly the sort of “free speech” Musk claims to be crusading for.
Definitely not a "free speech absolutist." But he did say that Twitter wasn't going to be a free for all, however, how he's actually going to handle it will be interesting.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2022/12/02/elon-musk-suspends-yes-twitter-account-after-swastika-post.html
Definitely not a "free speech absolutist." But he did say that Twitter wasn't going to be a free for all, however, how he's actually going to handle it will be interesting.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2022/12/02/elon-musk-suspends-yes-twitter-account-after-swastika-post.html
I think you're assuming that there will be rules, consistency and some sort of logical guiding principle.
I assume the opposite. People complaining and second guessing erratic and inconsistent moderation decisions generates outrage, which generates more Twitter usage. This is now considered a feature and not a bug.
Probably less than come in from the right wingers. Though that is a tentativly quit. I guess many are still qaiting to see how bad it will be or are simply in different (regional or topical) circles. If the only thing you are interested in are cat pictures you might not even see a difference.Definitely not a "free speech absolutist." But he did say that Twitter wasn't going to be a free for all, however, how he's actually going to handle it will be interesting.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2022/12/02/elon-musk-suspends-yes-twitter-account-after-swastika-post.html
I think you're assuming that there will be rules, consistency and some sort of logical guiding principle.
I assume the opposite. People complaining and second guessing erratic and inconsistent moderation decisions generates outrage, which generates more Twitter usage. This is now considered a feature and not a bug.
Does this increased Twitter usage result in increased revenue, especially when a significant number of advertisers (apparently 50+ of the top 100) have paused/stopped/cancelled use of the platform?
And there's almost-zero content moderation. (Tim Apple probably slapped some sense into Elon in his backyard, so we saw that posturing tweet as a result. And then there's the Europeans itching to put some reins on him...) And now the Kanye latest in this twitter soap opera.
Is there a way to know how many users have quit twitter since the purchase?
Legally speaking, how do Twitter workers know that saying they want to be laid off will in fact result in getting severance vs. choosing to quit?
Definitely not a "free speech absolutist." But he did say that Twitter wasn't going to be a free for all, however, how he's actually going to handle it will be interesting.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2022/12/02/elon-musk-suspends-yes-twitter-account-after-swastika-post.html
I think you're assuming that there will be rules, consistency and some sort of logical guiding principle.
I assume the opposite. People complaining and second guessing erratic and inconsistent moderation decisions generates outrage, which generates more Twitter usage. This is now considered a feature and not a bug.
Does this increased Twitter usage result in increased revenue, especially when a significant number of advertisers (apparently 50+ of the top 100) have paused/stopped/cancelled use of the platform?
And there's almost-zero content moderation. (Tim Apple probably slapped some sense into Elon in his backyard, so we saw that posturing tweet as a result. And then there's the Europeans itching to put some reins on him...) And now the Kanye latest in this twitter soap opera.
Is there a way to know how many users have quit twitter since the purchase?
Probably less than come in from the right wingers. Though that is a tentativly quit. I guess many are still qaiting to see how bad it will be or are simply in different (regional or topical) circles. If the only thing you are interested in are cat pictures you might not even see a difference.Definitely not a "free speech absolutist." But he did say that Twitter wasn't going to be a free for all, however, how he's actually going to handle it will be interesting.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2022/12/02/elon-musk-suspends-yes-twitter-account-after-swastika-post.html
I think you're assuming that there will be rules, consistency and some sort of logical guiding principle.
I assume the opposite. People complaining and second guessing erratic and inconsistent moderation decisions generates outrage, which generates more Twitter usage. This is now considered a feature and not a bug.
Does this increased Twitter usage result in increased revenue, especially when a significant number of advertisers (apparently 50+ of the top 100) have paused/stopped/cancelled use of the platform?
And there's almost-zero content moderation. (Tim Apple probably slapped some sense into Elon in his backyard, so we saw that posturing tweet as a result. And then there's the Europeans itching to put some reins on him...) And now the Kanye latest in this twitter soap opera.
Is there a way to know how many users have quit twitter since the purchase?
The recent performance art of Ye and Musk's strong negative reaction to it (as well as not reinstating Alex Jones's twitter account) suggests that Musk is not a free speech absolutist as claimed and perhaps is factoring in reputational and financial damage into his decisions at Twitter. Meet the new boss, a better memer, but fundamentally the same as the old boss.Definitely not a "free speech absolutist." But he did say that Twitter wasn't going to be a free for all, however, how he's actually going to handle it will be interesting.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2022/12/02/elon-musk-suspends-yes-twitter-account-after-swastika-post.html
I think you're assuming that there will be rules, consistency and some sort of logical guiding principle.
I assume the opposite. People complaining and second guessing erratic and inconsistent moderation decisions generates outrage, which generates more Twitter usage. This is now considered a feature and not a bug.
Does this increased Twitter usage result in increased revenue, especially when a significant number of advertisers (apparently 50+ of the top 100) have paused/stopped/cancelled use of the platform?
And there's almost-zero content moderation. (Tim Apple probably slapped some sense into Elon in his backyard, so we saw that posturing tweet as a result. And then there's the Europeans itching to put some reins on him...) And now the Kanye latest in this twitter soap opera.
Is there a way to know how many users have quit twitter since the purchase?
While I have no crystal ball into why this is the case, Musk clearly has zero interest in retaining advertisers. His actions speak louder than any of his (inconsistent) words ever could. He clearly has some vision for Twitter that doesn't include major advertising revenue.
Either that, or he'll pull a Foxnews and walk back the crazy just enough to get advertisers back at some point.
The recent performance art of Ye and Musk's strong negative reaction to it (as well as not reinstating Alex Jones's twitter account) suggests that Musk is not a free speech absolutist as claimed and perhaps is factoring in reputational and financial damage into his decisions at Twitter.
The recent performance art of Ye and Musk's strong negative reaction to it (as well as not reinstating Alex Jones's twitter account) suggests that Musk is not a free speech absolutist as claimed and perhaps is factoring in reputational and financial damage into his decisions at Twitter.
It would be a great improvement for Elon Musk if he would consider the reputational and financial damage of what gets said on his platform--most importantly, what he himself says. In the past, Elon has shown zero regard for the reputational and financial damage of things he has said, and has managed to ruin his reputation as a result.
I wonder if owning Twitter could teach Elon some important lessons about free speech and optics? As owner and CEO of Twitter, he has become responsible for people who say even crazier things than him. Now that he has to ban people like Alex Jones and Ye for saying stupid shit, maybe Elon will start watching what he says? This is a chance for him to be more of the adult in the room now that he has such increased responsibilities. At the very least, Elon seems to have quickly learned that "free speech absolutism" is infeasible.
But this is Elon we are talking about so who knows?
What makes Musk Musk is his rather uncompromising nature, but Ye and and Alex Jones broke him (then Ye incredibly broke Alex Jones on his own show!). Ye wins this round, though at great personal cost. I do find what Ye is doing interesting in the same way a horse running into a burning barn is fascinating. This has been worth at least a dozen Michael-Jackson-eating-popcorn memes.The recent performance art of Ye and Musk's strong negative reaction to it (as well as not reinstating Alex Jones's twitter account) suggests that Musk is not a free speech absolutist as claimed and perhaps is factoring in reputational and financial damage into his decisions at Twitter.
It would be a great improvement for Elon Musk if he would consider the reputational and financial damage of what gets said on his platform--most importantly, what he himself says. In the past, Elon has shown zero regard for the reputational and financial damage of things he has said, and has managed to ruin his reputation as a result.
I wonder if owning Twitter could teach Elon some important lessons about free speech and optics? As owner and CEO of Twitter, he has become responsible for people who say even crazier things than him. Now that he has to ban people like Alex Jones and Ye for saying stupid shit, maybe Elon will start watching what he says? This is a chance for him to be more of the adult in the room now that he has such increased responsibilities. At the very least, Elon seems to have quickly learned that "free speech absolutism" is infeasible.
But this is Elon we are talking about so who knows?
The point is: forget the marketplace of ideas. Forget the secular interregnum. It’s over: even if you personally are still among the number mumbling about civil debate and tolerance, you’re surrounded by a growing array of factions who don’t play by those rules.
Sacred values become institutionalised as sacred, when true believers pull out all the stops to make that happen. And we’re back in an age of true believers. The phrase ‘post-liberal’ usually refers to an amiable, tweedy, vaguely Catholic-adjacent longing for a future of greater civic cohesion, underwritten by soft social conservatism; but the real post-liberal age is already here. And it’s not the tweedy vision. It’s a new era of schismatic, dogmatic, heretic-punishing religious war.
In actually existing post-liberalism, your worldview will be granted as much space as you’re willing to fight for, and no more. Blasphemy is dead; long live blasphemy. Plan accordingly.
Two weeks ago people were talking about twitting having only days left before the system came apart from losing too many key people and too much institutional knowledge. So far the site still seems to be running and we're seeing minor changes and tweaks so I don't think it's a case of just having working code on production servers and everyone left is just praying, not touching it and not making any sudden movements.
The wheels could still come off tomorrow. And it wouldn't surprise me if the stability we've seen so far has come at the expense of an awful lot of all-nighters from an awful lot of extremely stressed engineers. However, it it still seems worth taking a moment to note that the tech side of twitter* is holding up better than it was widely portrayed/forecast even a week ago.
*Policy side is a whole separate discussion.
Two weeks ago people were talking about twitting having only days left before the system came apart from losing too many key people and too much institutional knowledge. So far the site still seems to be running and we're seeing minor changes and tweaks so I don't think it's a case of just having working code on production servers and everyone left is just praying, not touching it and not making any sudden movements.
The wheels could still come off tomorrow. And it wouldn't surprise me if the stability we've seen so far has come at the expense of an awful lot of all-nighters from an awful lot of extremely stressed engineers. However, it it still seems worth taking a moment to note that the tech side of twitter* is holding up better than it was widely portrayed/forecast even a week ago.
*Policy side is a whole separate discussion.
I don't think too many people who know much about software development/maintenance were predicting an immediate twitter implosion. Losing the large numbers of experienced people like twitter did isn't like popping a balloon. It's a slow leak. Unless twitter was massively and grossly overstaffed (which is possible) it will manifest in time with eventual outages, fewer software updates, mistakes that take down the service when updates are rolled out due to poor testing, bugs that don't get fixed, etc. if Musk doesn't replace the missing people. (This isn't just with software either - there are many coming regulatory problems resulting from the firing of all the people in charge of compliance).
A Twitter employee wrote into Ask A Manager. I'm so glad I don't work there.That was an excellent read. I suspect EM wants to turn Twitter into an unregulated, unmanged thing like the blockchain, and his vision is for the machine itself to do all the minimal work necessary without much human guidance - like a Tesla factory. That minimal work does not include moderation, account verification, or any censorship because Musk is wagering that Twitter's advertisers will continue selling ads on the platform regardless of how much it starts to resemble Telegram or 8-chan.
https://www.askamanager.org/2022/12/update-i-work-at-twitter-what-do-i-do.html
One good change in the last few days. Twitter no longer tries to force you into creating an account by blocking content when simply reading tweets.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzkreBMHUFY (One day I will learn how to change a link's text without typing in the the HTML code myself, assuming there's a way to do that with the forum's buttons, but today is not that day.)
Quotehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzkreBMHUFY (One day I will learn how to change a link's text without typing in the the HTML code myself, assuming there's a way to do that with the forum's buttons, but today is not that day.)
Why, just why, just why…. An ugly fraternity of petulant wealthy complainers… ironically, I don’t even hate billionaires, I consider them to be similar to the millionaires of my childhood (cue Robin Leach). But I do dislike these guys for their “rules for thee not me” attitude and myopic lack of humanity and fairness. And unfortunately, despite being a Chappelle fan… this is not it Dave.
Quotehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzkreBMHUFY (One day I will learn how to change a link's text without typing in the the HTML code myself, assuming there's a way to do that with the forum's buttons, but today is not that day.)
Why, just why, just why…. An ugly fraternity of petulant wealthy complainers… ironically, I don’t even hate billionaires, I consider them to be similar to the millionaires of my childhood (cue Robin Leach). But I do dislike these guys for their “rules for thee not me” attitude and myopic lack of humanity and fairness. And unfortunately, despite being a Chappelle fan… this is not it Dave.
Old Chappelle would kick New Chappelle and slap him on the head, to remind him he forgot himself.
Old was full of witty insightful social observations. New has become a pandering fool. He tried to be Carlin, but the wealth changed him. (I'm rich, bitch)
Each subsequent Netflix special was worse than previous, IMHO. It seems the more he was paid, the less effort he had to put into it. The hunger is gone.
And the cherry on top of whoring himself out to Lone Skum.
And none of the fucktards understand the concept offree speechfreeze peach.
One very stark framing of what is going on with (un)civil discourse was provided by Mary Harrington (https://reactionaryfeminist.substack.com/p/blasphemy-is-dead-long-live-blasphemy) recently, where she concludes:QuoteThe point is: forget the marketplace of ideas. Forget the secular interregnum. It’s over: even if you personally are still among the number mumbling about civil debate and tolerance, you’re surrounded by a growing array of factions who don’t play by those rules.
Sacred values become institutionalised as sacred, when true believers pull out all the stops to make that happen. And we’re back in an age of true believers. The phrase ‘post-liberal’ usually refers to an amiable, tweedy, vaguely Catholic-adjacent longing for a future of greater civic cohesion, underwritten by soft social conservatism; but the real post-liberal age is already here. And it’s not the tweedy vision. It’s a new era of schismatic, dogmatic, heretic-punishing religious war.
In actually existing post-liberalism, your worldview will be granted as much space as you’re willing to fight for, and no more. Blasphemy is dead; long live blasphemy. Plan accordingly.
Twitter’s leaders have also discussed the consequences of denying severance payments to thousands of people who have been laid off since the takeover, two people familiar with the talks said.
Quotehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzkreBMHUFY (One day I will learn how to change a link's text without typing in the the HTML code myself, assuming there's a way to do that with the forum's buttons, but today is not that day.)
Why, just why, just why…. An ugly fraternity of petulant wealthy complainers… ironically, I don’t even hate billionaires, I consider them to be similar to the millionaires of my childhood (cue Robin Leach). But I do dislike these guys for their “rules for thee not me” attitude and myopic lack of humanity and fairness. And unfortunately, despite being a Chappelle fan… this is not it Dave.
Old Chappelle would kick New Chappelle and slap him on the head, to remind him he forgot himself.
Old was full of witty insightful social observations. New has become a pandering fool. He tried to be Carlin, but the wealth changed him. (I'm rich, bitch)
Each subsequent Netflix special was worse than previous, IMHO. It seems the more he was paid, the less effort he had to put into it. The hunger is gone.
And the cherry on top of whoring himself out to Lone Skum.
And none of the fucktards understand the concept offree speechfreeze peach.
While I agree with much of your assessment on Chapelle, the bolded is an absolutely disgusting term. Maybe you don't know how offensive so many people find it, in which case you now do. Or maybe you don't care because it's more important to use a word you find fun than to treat other people decently. I hope it's the former.
Quotehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzkreBMHUFY (One day I will learn how to change a link's text without typing in the the HTML code myself, assuming there's a way to do that with the forum's buttons, but today is not that day.)
Why, just why, just why…. An ugly fraternity of petulant wealthy complainers… ironically, I don’t even hate billionaires, I consider them to be similar to the millionaires of my childhood (cue Robin Leach). But I do dislike these guys for their “rules for thee not me” attitude and myopic lack of humanity and fairness. And unfortunately, despite being a Chappelle fan… this is not it Dave.
Old Chappelle would kick New Chappelle and slap him on the head, to remind him he forgot himself.
Old was full of witty insightful social observations. New has become a pandering fool. He tried to be Carlin, but the wealth changed him. (I'm rich, bitch)
Each subsequent Netflix special was worse than previous, IMHO. It seems the more he was paid, the less effort he had to put into it. The hunger is gone.
And the cherry on top of whoring himself out to Lone Skum.
And none of the fucktards understand the concept offree speechfreeze peach.
While I agree with much of your assessment on Chapelle, the bolded is an absolutely disgusting term. Maybe you don't know how offensive so many people find it, in which case you now do. Or maybe you don't care because it's more important to use a word you find fun than to treat other people decently. I hope it's the former.
Noun
fucktard (plural fucktards)
(derogatory, slang, vulgar) An extraordinarily stupid person.
source: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fucktard
noun pejorative, slang, vulgar An extraordinarily stupid person, especially one that causes harm.
source: https://www.wordnik.com/words/fucktard
also: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=%7C-%7C%20fucktard%22
Why would I treat Musk or New Chappelle decently? There's no justification (for me). I'm not a Musk fanboy or own any of his products, and New Chappelle's latest whoring out and shitting on his audience garners no respect.
In case it wasn't clear, my comment was specific to those two.
Musk: everyone must return to the office
Employees who did find lack of seats/desks.
Also Musk: Vee vill not pay rent!
Engineers: confused looks. That is an error in all languages, human and computer.
This guy is slow burning, so much that I've been having to stock up on popcorn.
Please, just stop. The term is offense not because you're directing it at Musk, but rather because of its etymology. That you've directed it at Musk is even more offensive to those with mental disabilities as they are now unfairly lumped in together with a pompous megalomaniac.
Etymology
Blend of fucking + retard or fuck + -tard
Please, just stop. The term is offense not because you're directing it at Musk, but rather because of its etymology. That you've directed it at Musk is even more offensive to those with mental disabilities as they are now unfairly lumped in together with a pompous megalomaniac.Quote from: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fucktardEtymology
Blend of fucking + retard or fuck + -tard
Please, just stop. The term is offense not because you're directing it at Musk, but rather because of its etymology. That you've directed it at Musk is even more offensive to those with mental disabilities as they are now unfairly lumped in together with a pompous megalomaniac.Quote from: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fucktardEtymology
Blend of fucking + retard or fuck + -tard
The word retard is not limited to define persons with mental disabilities.
Per https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/retard:
1. a holding back or slowing down : retardation (e.g. physics - reduction of speed without actual stopping)
2. offensive : a person affected with intellectual disability
3. informal + offensive : a foolish or stupid person
The retard in fucktard refers to #3.
Musk: everyone must return to the office
Employees who did find lack of seats/desks.
Also Musk: Vee vill not pay rent!
Engineers: confused looks. That is an error in all languages, human and computer.
This guy is slow burning, so much that I've been having to stock up on popcorn.
C'mon, don't get defensive about it. We all know that using "retard" disparages someone with a mental disability.
Quotehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzkreBMHUFY (One day I will learn how to change a link's text without typing in the the HTML code myself, assuming there's a way to do that with the forum's buttons, but today is not that day.)
Why, just why, just why…. An ugly fraternity of petulant wealthy complainers… ironically, I don’t even hate billionaires, I consider them to be similar to the millionaires of my childhood (cue Robin Leach). But I do dislike these guys for their “rules for thee not me” attitude and myopic lack of humanity and fairness. And unfortunately, despite being a Chappelle fan… this is not it Dave.
Old Chappelle would kick New Chappelle and slap him on the head, to remind him he forgot himself.
Old was full of witty insightful social observations. New has become a pandering fool. He tried to be Carlin, but the wealth changed him. (I'm rich, bitch)
Each subsequent Netflix special was worse than previous, IMHO. It seems the more he was paid, the less effort he had to put into it. The hunger is gone.
And the cherry on top of whoring himself out to Lone Skum.
And none of the fucktards understand the concept offree speechfreeze peach.
While I agree with much of your assessment on Chapelle, the bolded is an absolutely disgusting term. Maybe you don't know how offensive so many people find it, in which case you now do. Or maybe you don't care because it's more important to use a word you find fun than to treat other people decently. I hope it's the former.
Noun
fucktard (plural fucktards)
(derogatory, slang, vulgar) An extraordinarily stupid person.
source: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fucktard
noun pejorative, slang, vulgar An extraordinarily stupid person, especially one that causes harm.
source: https://www.wordnik.com/words/fucktard
also: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=%7C-%7C%20fucktard%22
Why would I treat Musk or New Chappelle decently? There's no justification (for me). I'm not a Musk fanboy or own any of his products, and New Chappelle's latest whoring out and shitting on his audience garners no respect.
In case it wasn't clear, my comment was specific to those two.
Is the term we are looking for... "Dumb f-ck"?No, it's Musk. He's dumb as a Musk that Musk.
It might be a while before the banks backing Twitter see a profit.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-11-10/twitter-loans-get-bid-at-60-cents-as-banks-sound-out-investors (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-11-10/twitter-loans-get-bid-at-60-cents-as-banks-sound-out-investors)
https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/musks-banks-book-twitter-loan-losses-avoid-big-hits-sources-2022-12-14/ (https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/musks-banks-book-twitter-loan-losses-avoid-big-hits-sources-2022-12-14/)
Someone made the point that Musk could buy back his own debt at that discount...might be a good idea!It might be a while before the banks backing Twitter see a profit.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-11-10/twitter-loans-get-bid-at-60-cents-as-banks-sound-out-investors (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-11-10/twitter-loans-get-bid-at-60-cents-as-banks-sound-out-investors)
https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/musks-banks-book-twitter-loan-losses-avoid-big-hits-sources-2022-12-14/ (https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/musks-banks-book-twitter-loan-losses-avoid-big-hits-sources-2022-12-14/)
banks don't care, too big to fail
Someone made the point that Musk could buy back his own debt at that discount...might be a good idea!
Here's an interesting theory about the kind of ideas going through Musk's head. If true, then he's trying to reduce Twitter down to a level of management he can personally supervise. It also means Tesla might soon see the same sort of management layoffs Musk is doing at Twitter.
https://www.vox.com/23505311/elon-musk-twitter-managerial-woke-james-burnham (https://www.vox.com/23505311/elon-musk-twitter-managerial-woke-james-burnham)
Here's an interesting theory about the kind of ideas going through Musk's head. If true, then he's trying to reduce Twitter down to a level of management he can personally supervise. It also means Tesla might soon see the same sort of management layoffs Musk is doing at Twitter.
https://www.vox.com/23505311/elon-musk-twitter-managerial-woke-james-burnham (https://www.vox.com/23505311/elon-musk-twitter-managerial-woke-james-burnham)
Here's an interesting theory about the kind of ideas going through Musk's head. If true, then he's trying to reduce Twitter down to a level of management he can personally supervise. It also means Tesla might soon see the same sort of management layoffs Musk is doing at Twitter.
https://www.vox.com/23505311/elon-musk-twitter-managerial-woke-james-burnham (https://www.vox.com/23505311/elon-musk-twitter-managerial-woke-james-burnham)
Doesn't he have shit to do??
Doesn't he have shit to do??
No.
He transitioned from being a hands-on engineer to being a vague 'big picture idea guy' upper management type a long while back.
Doesn't he have shit to do??
No.
He transitioned from being a hands-on engineer to being a vague 'big picture idea guy' upper management type a long while back.
Yeah, and doesn't micromanaging a social media site take away from that?
I mean, personally managing a site like this would take A LOT of nitpicky, time consuming work. Wouldn't a "big picture" guy want to operate more as a "hand of God" kind of force where well paid, loyal executives oversee the actual running of the business?
If I were a "big thinker" I wouldn't want to be bogged down like that. If he's supposed to be so brilliant and future-thinking, isn't running Twitter a huge waste of his time?
I just don't see the rationale.
Doesn't he have shit to do??
No.
He transitioned from being a hands-on engineer to being a vague 'big picture idea guy' upper management type a long while back.
Yeah, and doesn't micromanaging a social media site take away from that?
I mean, personally managing a site like this would take A LOT of nitpicky, time consuming work. Wouldn't a "big picture" guy want to operate more as a "hand of God" kind of force where well paid, loyal executives oversee the actual running of the business?
If I were a "big thinker" I wouldn't want to be bogged down like that. If he's supposed to be so brilliant and future-thinking, isn't running Twitter a huge waste of his time?
I just don't see the rationale.
Perhaps the rationale (according to the book's ideology) is that Musk already feels he has lost control of his Tesla, SpaceX, etc. empires because the sheer complexity of those businesses requires multiple layers of "woke" management. Management was already running things for him, which is why he didn't "have shit to do" and has been posting on Twitter all day for the past 3-5 years. Musk apparently doesn't like the feeling of being the least educated or informed person in the room, which he is when in meetings with engineers, software designers with modern skills, finance people, lawyers, etc.
So Musk grabbed up Twitter because in his mind it could be run as a barebones, unmoderated service with a skeleton crew. Unlike more complex business models or publicly traded companies, a privatized Twitter was simple enough not to require a lot of managerial layers. He'll get it down to about 1,000 employees, micromanage everything, and fire his directors every few years as a matter of principle.
Doesn't he have shit to do??
No.
He transitioned from being a hands-on engineer to being a vague 'big picture idea guy' upper management type a long while back.
Yeah, and doesn't micromanaging a social media site take away from that?
I mean, personally managing a site like this would take A LOT of nitpicky, time consuming work. Wouldn't a "big picture" guy want to operate more as a "hand of God" kind of force where well paid, loyal executives oversee the actual running of the business?
If I were a "big thinker" I wouldn't want to be bogged down like that. If he's supposed to be so brilliant and future-thinking, isn't running Twitter a huge waste of his time?
I just don't see the rationale.
Perhaps the rationale (according to the book's ideology) is that Musk already feels he has lost control of his Tesla, SpaceX, etc. empires because the sheer complexity of those businesses requires multiple layers of "woke" management. Management was already running things for him, which is why he didn't "have shit to do" and has been posting on Twitter all day for the past 3-5 years. Musk apparently doesn't like the feeling of being the least educated or informed person in the room, which he is when in meetings with engineers, software designers with modern skills, finance people, lawyers, etc.
So Musk grabbed up Twitter because in his mind it could be run as a barebones, unmoderated service with a skeleton crew. Unlike more complex business models or publicly traded companies, a privatized Twitter was simple enough not to require a lot of managerial layers. He'll get it down to about 1,000 employees, micromanage everything, and fire his directors every few years as a matter of principle.
That still sounds to me like a miserable, miserable waste of time and energy.
One of the strengths of twitter was the ability to share news quickly. Banning the journalists really seems counter productive. The only reason I'm on twitter is for (Ukraine) news. Lose that, and I'm gone. Musk really is dumb. First he bought twitter for way more than its worth, now he's driving it into the ground.
What a mess. I so appreciate the updates in this thread so I don’t have to pay close attention myself…
Hey, choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life. Who are we to tell Elon Musk what he likes doing?
Hey, choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life. Who are we to tell Elon Musk what he likes doing?
I have a very hard time believing that micromanaging Twitter is what Musk loves, but hey, I don't actually know the guy. I know a few people who have pay-for-play met him, but I couldn't possibly guess what makes the guy tick.
Who knows, maybe his days of big world changing talk are over and all he wants to do is manage a social media company.
Hey, choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life. Who are we to tell Elon Musk what he likes doing?
I have a very hard time believing that micromanaging Twitter is what Musk loves, but hey, I don't actually know the guy. I know a few people who have pay-for-play met him, but I couldn't possibly guess what makes the guy tick.
Who knows, maybe his days of big world changing talk are over and all he wants to do is manage a social media company.
I saw a commenter on Reddit say something like, "Elon Musk is the CEO of three companies and has ten kids, and he spends more time shitposting on Twitter than most unemployed people."
There is no 4D chess or rationale. He is addicted to the service.
There is no 4D chess or rationale. He is addicted to the service.
This is the most insightful comment in this thread. Some users think Twitter is the entire universe. They can interact with great thinkers and captains of industry. Some users just follow along. And most people don't care at all.
Musk is in the first group. He thinks it is really important and wants to run the Entire Universe. But it isn't really that important and the best features can be easily replicated on other platforms. Or better yet, skipped.
Here is an article trying very, very, very hard to profile Musk's current moves as somehow mysteriously brilliant and somehow connecting his Twitter obsession with his mission to get people to Mars.
The article just leaves me scratching my head more.
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-63871980
Here is an article trying very, very, very hard to profile Musk's current moves as somehow mysteriously brilliant and somehow connecting his Twitter obsession with his mission to get people to Mars.
The article just leaves me scratching my head more.
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-63871980
Why does the media engage in this type of mythmaking. The 80 hour work weeks, sleeping in the office, extreme hardcore programming, conflating wealth and intellect. It's just celebrity worship.
His goal to colonize mars is rooted in white European colonialism. A belief that we have the right, perhaps even a calling, to spread our version of what it means to be human. Musk isn't talking about bringing an agrarian society to mars (which is how most humans have lived for most of human history). No, he wants to bring his vision of a neolibertarian tech utopia to mars, which is contributing to making Earth uninhabitable. It's not good enough to ruin one planet, we must ruin others! And then this gets painted as altruistic, such that sacrificing your family and personal life on the alter of Elon's ego is for the good of humanity, when he's the one getting rich. /rant
His goal to colonize mars is rooted in white European colonialism. A belief that we have the right, perhaps even a calling, to spread our version of what it means to be human. Musk isn't talking about bringing an agrarian society to mars (which is how most humans have lived for most of human history). No, he wants to bring his vision of a neolibertarian tech utopia to mars, which is contributing to making Earth uninhabitable. It's not good enough to ruin one planet, we must ruin others! And then this gets painted as altruistic, such that sacrificing your family and personal life on the alter of Elon's ego is for the good of humanity, when he's the one getting rich. /rant
Why does the media engage in this type of mythmaking. The 80 hour work weeks, sleeping in the office, extreme hardcore programming, conflating wealth and intellect. It's just celebrity worship.
His goal to colonize mars is rooted in white European colonialism. A belief that we have the right, perhaps even a calling, to spread our version of what it means to be human. Musk isn't talking about bringing an agrarian society to mars (which is how most humans have lived for most of human history). No, he wants to bring his vision of a neolibertarian tech utopia to mars, which is contributing to making Earth uninhabitable. It's not good enough to ruin one planet, we must ruin others! And then this gets painted as altruistic, such that sacrificing your family and personal life on the alter of Elon's ego is for the good of humanity, when he's the one getting rich. /rant
Exploration (of which space is just the natural next step) is some of the coolest shit we do as a species.
His goal to colonize mars is rooted in white European colonialism. A belief that we have the right, perhaps even a calling, to spread our version of what it means to be human. Musk isn't talking about bringing an agrarian society to mars (which is how most humans have lived for most of human history). No, he wants to bring his vision of a neolibertarian tech utopia to mars, which is contributing to making Earth uninhabitable. It's not good enough to ruin one planet, we must ruin others! And then this gets painted as altruistic, such that sacrificing your family and personal life on the alter of Elon's ego is for the good of humanity, when he's the one getting rich. /rant
I'm OK with that really. This planet has a finite lifespan ahead of it even if we do care for it. If we burn it up earlier in the process than it would have on its own while we're becoming an interstellar species allowing us to find newer worlds, that's fine.
Exploration (of which space is just the natural next step) is some of the coolest shit we do as a species.
We're do seem to be hardwired to believe this. Because we habitually destroy and destabilize the environment around us, without exploration and constant moving from place to place we would have died in piles of our own filth long ago as a species.
Exploration (of which space is just the natural next step) is some of the coolest shit we do as a species.
We're do seem to be hardwired to believe this. Because we habitually destroy and destabilize the environment around us, without exploration and constant moving from place to place we would have died in piles of our own filth long ago as a species.
bingo. Pre agrarian societies many places across the globe we practiced some form of slash and burn agriculture. We could do that because groups of people were mobile, could move to yet another piece of land and let the burned land lay fallow until it regained some productivity. The Masai move their herds, as their herds eat all the grass, to the point it can't sustain the herd, and the herd is moved to new land. That area then eventually grows trees, which attracts elephants who then eat the trees. The new treeless area then can grow grass again.
The point it, it may BE engrained in us to be searching for new land because of probabably hundreds of thousands of years of similar practices. The problem is, there are too many people to allow anything other than industrial farming (which has it's own limitations, we are running into). And Mars is not earth.
Don't get me wrong. I grew up reading science fiction, and find all those stories very compelling. But I guess I don't feel like we deserve to start colonizing other areas, or sacrifice the earth for plans to travel to other stars, unless we are able to solve our current environmental problems here on earth. That's everything from deforestation, degradation of the soil, dropping of water table, accumulation of plastics throughout the chain of life from largest to microbe-level, and of course climate change. It may require a radical re-thinking of what it means to be human, and of human society. That is a far more radical, and interesting goal, than shooting yet another rocket into space, or even scraping some kind of habitation at a staggering cost (resources, time, energy) of a small group of humans on Mars ala biosphere 3.
Supposedly Elon posted a poll asking whether or not he should step down. I'm so sick of hearing about Elon Musk, but I'll admit I'm curious about the result (as far as I can tell, you can't view the vote tally unless you have a Twitter account).
Supposedly Elon posted a poll asking whether or not he should step down. I'm so sick of hearing about Elon Musk, but I'll admit I'm curious about the result (as far as I can tell, you can't view the vote tally unless you have a Twitter account)."Yes" is currently leading 57.9 to 42.1
Supposedly Elon posted a poll asking whether or not he should step down. I'm so sick of hearing about Elon Musk, but I'll admit I'm curious about the result (as far as I can tell, you can't view the vote tally unless you have a Twitter account)."Yes" is currently leading 57.9 to 42.1
Supposedly Elon posted a poll asking whether or not he should step down. I'm so sick of hearing about Elon Musk, but I'll admit I'm curious about the result (as far as I can tell, you can't view the vote tally unless you have a Twitter account)."Yes" is currently leading 57.9 to 42.1
Vox Populi, Vox Dei.
12+ million votes, not bad. There are countries with less voters at a national election.Supposedly Elon posted a poll asking whether or not he should step down. I'm so sick of hearing about Elon Musk, but I'll admit I'm curious about the result (as far as I can tell, you can't view the vote tally unless you have a Twitter account)."Yes" is currently leading 57.9 to 42.1
Vox Populi, Vox Dei.
Since these seem like impossibilities, I suspect he relocates Twitter to Texas, hires all new management, and leaves it as an unmoderated cesspool like Telegraph or Parlor.
Since these seem like impossibilities, I suspect he relocates Twitter to Texas, hires all new management, and leaves it as an unmoderated cesspool like Telegraph or Parlor.
I wonder how long journalists will stay on Twitter. Plenty are clutching their free-speech-pearls right now, but many have used it to develop a personal platform largely independent of their employers/outlets. They're not going to give that up unless Twitter becomes totally untenable, or their audience leaves.
Since these seem like impossibilities, I suspect he relocates Twitter to Texas, hires all new management, and leaves it as an unmoderated cesspool like Telegraph or Parlor.
I wonder how long journalists will stay on Twitter. Plenty are clutching their free-speech-pearls right now, but many have used it to develop a personal platform largely independent of their employers/outlets. They're not going to give that up unless Twitter becomes totally untenable, or their audience leaves.
So much of "the news" is a repetition of what influential people said on Twitter. This is a much easier way to create content than, say, digging through files to spot corruption, or interviewing people to talk about false criminal convictions. It seems like both (a) there are very few real journalists anymore, and (b) journalists have no other way to create content economically enough to be paid for by clickbait wages other than to just report what people said on Twitter.
Yes, and even the best-resourced papers don't even seem ashamed of it anymore. Plenty of "analysis" (that vague growing category between reporting and editorializing) is transparently motivated by Twitter conversations in both the NYT and WSJ.
I recall that a few/10 years ago the Chicago Tribune laid off most of their photographers and gave their reporters iPhones to take pictures. There was lots of talk of the death of photography because now any old reporter could take a good enough picture for the front page. What we didn't realize was actually happening was few people were going to bother leaving their desks to report, much less take pictures. The pictures were just a visual manifestation of the new third hand sedentary journalism.
When some significant and newsworthy event happens most places other than NYC or DC -- I'm thinking in particular things like natural disasters/big fires/etc -- the way some articles are written seems a bit weird/strange until you realize that in a surprising number of cases it is being written by a reporter somewhere else in the world who maybe watched a live streamed press conference, read a press release (if relavant) and searched for some people tweeting about the event but never actually talked to anyone personally to get new information to go into the article.
So much of "the news" is a repetition of what influential people said on Twitter. This is a much easier way to create content than, say, digging through files to spot corruption, or interviewing people to talk about false criminal convictions. It seems like both (a) there are very few real journalists anymore, and (b) journalists have no other way to create content economically enough to be paid for by clickbait wages other than to just report what people said on Twitter.
When some significant and newsworthy event happens most places other than NYC or DC -- I'm thinking in particular things like natural disasters/big fires/etc -- the way some articles are written seems a bit weird/strange until you realize that in a surprising number of cases it is being written by a reporter somewhere else in the world who maybe watched a live streamed press conference, read a press release (if relavant) and searched for some people tweeting about the event but never actually talked to anyone personally to get new information to go into the article.
Yes, and the irony is that while social media promised to "give people a voice," it's empowered a class of blowhards at the expense of the average person on the street. If news is really just social media aggregation and sifting, then what's the point of walking down the street while the flood waters recede talking to the people hauling out wet couches and carpets? Those folks are much less present in the news of 2022 than they were in 2002.
So much of "the news" is a repetition of what influential people said on Twitter. This is a much easier way to create content than, say, digging through files to spot corruption, or interviewing people to talk about false criminal convictions. It seems like both (a) there are very few real journalists anymore, and (b) journalists have no other way to create content economically enough to be paid for by clickbait wages other than to just report what people said on Twitter.
Outside of the top handful of best-resourced papers, a whole lot of what passes for "investigative journalism" is really 23 year olds doing drive-by hit pieces of public figures and offices with evidence from searchable public records scaffolded onto existing narratives often gleaned from social media.
My wife is in the sort of work where there's a reporter assigned, at least in part, to write stories about what she and her colleagues are doing. In her 12 years in her current role, there have been four or five reporters covering their beat. She has never met a single one, or even seen one to her knowledge, in spite of the vast majority of her office's work being done in open settings during normal business hours.
What appears to happen is that a controversy pops up, and their reporter will go back through public records over the past 3, 5, 10 years with keyword searches. Then whatever they turn up gets cobbled onto the existing narrative of controversy to show that some major problem exists. Then they pull a quote from some friendly c-list source advancing their theory of a problem/corruption/conspiracy, don't interview the subjects of the story, and the "investigation" is all buttoned up and gets rolled out as a series over multiple Sundays. My wife's office will then never hear the name of that reporter again. A year or two later some new grad gets assigned to their beat to do the same thing.
What's happening isn't the boring work of sitting outside committee meeting rooms, cultivating sources, figuring out the institutional quirks, or any of that antiquated reporting skill. Instead, it's trying to dig up the most sensational dirt possible in the least amount of time in order to punch your ticket out of this regional city and onto the staff of a national publication before you turn 25.
The character of news has fundamentally changed in that it's not really contextualized observation, but decontextualized searching for evidence for existing narratives that will sell both the paper and yourself.
But I do think on balance the empowerment of citizen and open source journalism on social media (mainly Twitter I think?) has been a good thing.
Ah, I am getting fat from the popcorn!
Guess the poll didn't work as intended, so Elon didn't talk about it for a while... until:
There is a saying in German... closest I guess is "2 have found each other".
Twitter itself was an incredibly addictive service (I was addicted) whose main purpose is to provide intellectual outrage porn. Being upset by the service means the service itself is working well as it captures your data.
Twitter itself was an incredibly addictive service (I was addicted) whose main purpose is to provide intellectual outrage porn. Being upset by the service means the service itself is working well as it captures your data.
This is such a good way to describe Twitter. I stopped using it a while ago, before the Musk takeover, and I really noticed how much better I feel when I spend less time there (and on social media in general).
Twitter itself was an incredibly addictive service (I was addicted) whose main purpose is to provide intellectual outrage porn. Being upset by the service means the service itself is working well as it captures your data.
This is such a good way to describe Twitter. I stopped using it a while ago, before the Musk takeover, and I really noticed how much better I feel when I spend less time there (and on social media in general).
It's getting noticeably worse. The reasonable people are continuing to disappear and the amount of extremist material (from both sides) that keeps popping up is crazy.
Example of dickwad behavior: Dmitry Medvedev posted a horrific thread predicting the fall of Europe, the “Fourth Reich”, civil war in the US, Musk as US president, the end of the Euro and US dollar, and ended it by wishing Anglo Saxon swine a Merry Xmas. To which Musk replied “epic thread!” A few hours later he backtracked and said the thread was ridiculous because it hadn’t considered AI and green energy.
So I looked up who this Medvedev guy was…. He was the president and prime minister of Russia and is current head of security.
Medvedev: Seems like everyone wants to make the most wild and absurd predictions for the next year. Here's my try. In 2023, the Fourth Reich will send squadrons of flying pigs to bomb Britain and start World War 3! Poland will be repartitioned!
Elon: Lol this is epic
Idiots: OMG how can you promote such an evil threatening post about flying pigs and Nazis, this is truly proof that you are evil
Elon: Well actually, the prediction is clearly inaccurate because the flying pigs don't account for the advent of sustainable energy
Idiots: The only flaw you found in Medvedev's horrifying threat to the world was a lack of sustainable energy? More proof that you are evil!!!
Elon: *laughing face emoji*
Example of dickwad behavior: Dmitry Medvedev posted a horrific thread predicting the fall of Europe, the “Fourth Reich”, civil war in the US, Musk as US president, the end of the Euro and US dollar, and ended it by wishing Anglo Saxon swine a Merry Xmas. To which Musk replied “epic thread!” A few hours later he backtracked and said the thread was ridiculous because it hadn’t considered AI and green energy.
So I looked up who this Medvedev guy was…. He was the president and prime minister of Russia and is current head of security.
Sorry, but this is such a good example of manufactured outrage. ... That entire Twitter thread was a joke!
There are plenty of examples that you can point to where Elon wasn't being a good person (pedo guy? covid will be gone next month? my pronouns are prosecute Fauci?), but this isn't one of them. It just goes to show that in this age of the Internet, literally everything you say can and will be used against you. It reminds me of how the media was so eager to generate outrage for anything Trump did, even though some few of his policies were actually quite sensible, such as the decision to ban incoming flights from China at the beginning of Covid. But they even attempted to generate outrage over that, because it was Trump.
I don’t mind his sense of humor and I do think he’s a victim of lazy media at this point. But like Trump it’s a symbiotic relationship that he himself created and benefits from.
But hey I’m reassured that people think these superrich guys joking while people die due to their actions is funny. Reminds me of something Neill Blomkamp would parody.
The number of active users on the Mastodon social network has dropped more than 30% since the peak and is continuing a slow decline, according to the latest data posted on its website. There were about 1.8 million active users in the first week of January, down from over 2.5 million in early December.
It's interesting to see that Mastodon usage appears to be dropping (slowly) back down (https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2023/jan/08/elon-musk-drove-more-than-a-million-people-to-mastodon-but-many-arent-sticking-around).QuoteThe number of active users on the Mastodon social network has dropped more than 30% since the peak and is continuing a slow decline, according to the latest data posted on its website. There were about 1.8 million active users in the first week of January, down from over 2.5 million in early December.
Are those 700,000 people going back to twitter? Are they kicking the habit entirely and spending more time talking to people face to face or walking outside? Was this a temporary surge of people who weren't ever that active on social media but got excited about making a statement by jumping from twitter to mastadon but now don't have the habit of posting much?
Holding together large scale social media site is extremely difficult and requires a lot of dedicated resources and painful trade-offs.
Holding together large scale social media site is extremely difficult and requires a lot of dedicated resources and painful trade-offs.
Not according to Musk.
Holding together large scale social media site is extremely difficult and requires a lot of dedicated resources and painful trade-offs.
Not according to Musk.
I know you're being tongue-in-cheek. But that's the problem with Tech people seeing everything as solvable by an algorithm. Social media moderation is largely a people/societal problem. AI just pushes the judgement calls/trade-offs to the AI training.
Holding together large scale social media site is extremely difficult and requires a lot of dedicated resources and painful trade-offs.
Not according to Musk.
I know you're being tongue-in-cheek. But that's the problem with Tech people seeing everything as solvable by an algorithm. Social media moderation is largely a people/societal problem. AI just pushes the judgement calls/trade-offs to the AI training.
Isn't that how the Elongated one is going to make twitter profitable? Replace the moderators with a neural network and voila, instant cost savings.
While both companies flail, Musk remains glued to his feed. It was an outcome Alicia predicted back in April when Musk first floated the idea of buying the company. “He’s too interested in seeking attention,” she said. “Twitter is a very, a very dangerous drug for anybody who has that personality.”
https://www.theverge.com/23551060/elon-musk-twitter-takeover-layoffs-workplace-salute-emojiThis raises interesting questions.
Very well-written and produced article (animated graphics and an animated wealth-o-meter on the left of the article). Skimmed a fair bit since I already know almost all these details. However this bit at the end, a quote from an anonymized engineer who was laid off from Twitter, reflects my opinion about the addictive nature of the product.QuoteWhile both companies flail, Musk remains glued to his feed. It was an outcome Alicia predicted back in April when Musk first floated the idea of buying the company. “He’s too interested in seeking attention,” she said. “Twitter is a very, a very dangerous drug for anybody who has that personality.”
I'm old enough to remember when you predicted in this very thread the imminent collapse of Twitter. Do you ever, like, sit back and reflect on your predictions?Holding together large scale social media site is extremely difficult and requires a lot of dedicated resources and painful trade-offs.
Not according to Musk.
I'm old enough to remember when you predicted in this very thread the imminent collapse of Twitter. Do you ever, like, sit back and reflect on your predictions?Holding together large scale social media site is extremely difficult and requires a lot of dedicated resources and painful trade-offs.
Not according to Musk.
We're now 3 months later. Maybe you should perhaps give some credit to the guy who has repeatedly proven he can run and exponentially grow extremely successful businesses?
Maybe you should perhaps give some credit to the guy who has repeatedly proven he can run and exponentially grow extremely successful businesses?
I also have doubts he does much actual work as CEO for SpaceX, Neuralink, Solar City, or The Boring Company.
Think about it. If Musk spent only two hours per day doing some nominal duty (like sitting in on one meeting and reading emails) for all the 5 non-Twitter companies he is CEO of, that would be ten hours. I've never heard of an actual CEO job that could be done in 2 hours per day, or even 8 hours per day.
SpaceX has an extraordinarily capable leader in Glenn Shotwell. I think Musk is the "Chief Engineering Officer" at SpaceX.
SpaceX has an extraordinarily capable leader in Glenn Shotwell. I think Musk is the "Chief Engineering Officer" at SpaceX.
Gwynne Shotwell. She's a woman. Call me pedantic.
Ah yes, he's not really a CEO, he's just the face of the company and the real execs call the shots. He's not really the founder, just an investor who got lucky and pushed the real genius out. This one mediocre guy manages to have a string of ventures fall into his lap one after the other for 20+ years without doing any of the real work himself.
I too would have fared similarly under the right circumstances.
Ah yes, he's not really a CEO, he's just the face of the company and the real execs call the shots. He's not really the founder, just an investor who got lucky and pushed the real genius out. This one mediocre guy manages to have a string of ventures fall into his lap one after the other for 20+ years without doing any of the real work himself.
I too would have fared similarly under the right circumstances.
Ah yes, he's not really a CEO, he's just the face of the company and the real execs call the shots. He's not really the founder, just an investor who got lucky and pushed the real genius out. This one mediocre guy manages to have a string of ventures fall into his lap one after the other for 20+ years without doing any of the real work himself.
I too would have fared similarly under the right circumstances.
Two of the key factors that determines success are knowing when to delegate and being able to hire the right people (both identifying the right people and being able to convince them to come work for you).
If Musk really was working as the day-to-day CEO of SpaceX, and NeuralLink, and The Boring Company, and somehow was running Solar City as a separate company and being the CEO of that too, it would indicate that he either wasn't able to hire good people or wasn't willing/able to let things go when someone else could do an equally good (or better job) of management than he could.
Ah yes, he's not really a CEO, he's just the face of the company and the real execs call the shots. He's not really the founder, just an investor who got lucky and pushed the real genius out. This one mediocre guy manages to have a string of ventures fall into his lap one after the other for 20+ years without doing any of the real work himself.
I too would have fared similarly under the right circumstances.
Two of the key factors that determines success are knowing when to delegate and being able to hire the right people (both identifying the right people and being able to convince them to come work for you).
If Musk really was working as the day-to-day CEO of SpaceX, and NeuralLink, and The Boring Company, and somehow was running Solar City as a separate company and being the CEO of that too, it would indicate that he either wasn't able to hire good people or wasn't willing/able to let things go when someone else could do an equally good (or better job) of management than he could.
Maybe there's a master plan for twitter that I'm not smart enough to see...
...So far, all the information that has come out about his time at twitter seems to be pretty bad. It's all the more strange because of his past successes.
“As the adage goes, ‘you ship your org chart,’” said one current employee. “It’s chaos here right now, so we’re shipping chaos.”
Interviews with current Twitter employees paint a picture of a deeply troubled workplace, where Musk’s whim-based approach to product management leaves workers scrambling to implement new features even as the core service falls apart. The disarray makes it less likely that Musk will ever recoup the $44 billion he spent to buy Twitter, and may hasten its decline into insolvency.
Talk about shooting the messenger. The more I read about Musk's management style, the more astonished I am that he's gotten even as far as he has.
It's sad how much bluster and litigation have let him get away with.
Yes, I have read that two times before also. Similar with sickness.Talk about shooting the messenger. The more I read about Musk's management style, the more astonished I am that he's gotten even as far as he has.
My wife had a friend that left Tesla corporate when she got pregnant. While they had a maternity leave policy on paper, it was pretty clear that actually taking the leave would destroy any possibility of future promotions. Although I got this mostly second-hand through my wife.
It's sad how much bluster and litigation have let him get away with.
Musk is still tweeting dots to find out why they get more attention than his attention seeking rants.
Help him find out the truth! Like and repost his dots so he sees that people don't like his shit! Or, more likely, see him explode like one of his rockets!
But where is the fun in that?????Musk is still tweeting dots to find out why they get more attention than his attention seeking rants.
Help him find out the truth! Like and repost his dots so he sees that people don't like his shit! Or, more likely, see him explode like one of his rockets!
Even better, you could just ignore him altogether.
Hahahaha. Okay I guess the remaining engineers at twitter give Musk what he wanted (i.e. higher view counts on his tweets).That's stage 4 narcissism!
Of the several hundred people I follow apparently two follow Elon Musk and now the top two tweets in my feed are random tweets of his neither of them interacted with based simply on "person X and person Y follow Elon Musk". Each tweet shows millions of views which would make sense if the engineers pinned them to the top of the feeds of every twitter user who follows anyone who follows Elon Musk.
Hahahaha. Okay I guess the remaining engineers at twitter give Musk what he wanted (i.e. higher view counts on his tweets).
Of the several hundred people I follow apparently two follow Elon Musk and now the top two tweets in my feed are random tweets of his neither of them interacted with based simply on "person X and person Y follow Elon Musk". Each tweet shows millions of views which would make sense if the engineers pinned them to the top of the feeds of every twitter user who follows anyone who follows Elon Musk.
Elon Musk wants the same as the Ukrainian artillery: more reach.
Citizen Kane is a relevant story, to be sure, but how is he in all of us? The point then and now is how an oligarch seeks to control mass media.
Jan Böhmermann (famous German satirist) just tweeted, and I admit I chocked a bit on that:QuoteElon Musk wants the same as the Ukrainian artillery: more reach.
By the end of March, Twitter will disable Two-Factor Authentication through SMS except for paid users. Musk claims its because Twitter was paying excessive fees to telecoms for fake authentication messages.
https://twitter.com/tittertakeover/status/1626781483435188226 (https://twitter.com/tittertakeover/status/1626781483435188226)
https://www.twitter.com/racheltobac/status/1626760590629933057 (https://www.twitter.com/racheltobac/status/1626760590629933057)
https://twitter.com/racheltobac/status/1626775287546671106 (https://twitter.com/racheltobac/status/1626775287546671106)
Other 2FA still works and those SMS (10% fraud or not) are costing the company money.
Well, just don't use 2FA then?Other 2FA still works and those SMS (10% fraud or not) are costing the company money.
Sure, but I logged on after a long absence and it was the Elon Musk show in there. For something I already don't use very much, and is now objectively worse, it wasn't worth the effort to set up the other 2FA methods. Besides, when a company starts limiting security options to save (or make, in this case) money that's a pretty strong cue for me to get out.
Well, just don't use 2FA then?Other 2FA still works and those SMS (10% fraud or not) are costing the company money.
Sure, but I logged on after a long absence and it was the Elon Musk show in there. For something I already don't use very much, and is now objectively worse, it wasn't worth the effort to set up the other 2FA methods. Besides, when a company starts limiting security options to save (or make, in this case) money that's a pretty strong cue for me to get out.
I have never done that. Because why? Worst case is that someone uses my account to post porn and the account gets blocked for a while.
Well, just don't use 2FA then?Other 2FA still works and those SMS (10% fraud or not) are costing the company money.
Sure, but I logged on after a long absence and it was the Elon Musk show in there. For something I already don't use very much, and is now objectively worse, it wasn't worth the effort to set up the other 2FA methods. Besides, when a company starts limiting security options to save (or make, in this case) money that's a pretty strong cue for me to get out.
I have never done that. Because why? Worst case is that someone uses my account to post porn and the account gets blocked for a while.
LOL, why do you care? I wasn't really into Twitter, this was just the final push I needed to deactivate my account. No thanks, don't want it!
Apparently Mark Zuckerberg thought Elon's paid Twitter verification was such a good idea that he wants in on it too! Fascinating.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/19/meta-is-rolling-out-a-new-paid-verification-subscription-service-for-instagram-and-facebook-users.html
Apparently Mark Zuckerberg thought Elon's paid Twitter verification was such a good idea that he wants in on it too! Fascinating.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/19/meta-is-rolling-out-a-new-paid-verification-subscription-service-for-instagram-and-facebook-users.html
That is indeed interesting. Anything that breaks social media's dependence on ad revenue, and the resulting incentive to maximize user engagement vs maximize user happiness, is probably good for our country and world in the long term.
That said, facebook's program seems to be a bit different in that they'll at least require checking people's government ID. So the signal of a facebook verified badge may be worth significantly more than a twitter verified badge that just means "I payed a little money."
Apparently Mark Zuckerberg thought Elon's paid Twitter verification was such a good idea that he wants in on it too! Fascinating.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/19/meta-is-rolling-out-a-new-paid-verification-subscription-service-for-instagram-and-facebook-users.html
That is indeed interesting. Anything that breaks social media's dependence on ad revenue, and the resulting incentive to maximize user engagement vs maximize user happiness, is probably good for our country and world in the long term.
That said, facebook's program seems to be a bit different in that they'll at least require checking people's government ID. So the signal of a facebook verified badge may be worth significantly more than a twitter verified badge that just means "I payed a little money."
So you get to pay Zuckerman to give him access to your government issued credentials? That sounds like a deal... for Facebook, not the users.
It's even worse!Apparently Mark Zuckerberg thought Elon's paid Twitter verification was such a good idea that he wants in on it too! Fascinating.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/19/meta-is-rolling-out-a-new-paid-verification-subscription-service-for-instagram-and-facebook-users.html
That is indeed interesting. Anything that breaks social media's dependence on ad revenue, and the resulting incentive to maximize user engagement vs maximize user happiness, is probably good for our country and world in the long term.
That said, facebook's program seems to be a bit different in that they'll at least require checking people's government ID. So the signal of a facebook verified badge may be worth significantly more than a twitter verified badge that just means "I payed a little money."
So you get to pay Zuckerman to give him access to your government issued credentials? That sounds like a deal... for Facebook, not the users.
I can't, for me, see any advantage, so I'm having a hard time seeing why droves of people would do this? And if droves don't, then wouldn't it have no value?People are paying thousands for an timepiece stripped to their wrists. Or tens of thousands on trucks, and you ask for advantages?
It's even worse!Apparently Mark Zuckerberg thought Elon's paid Twitter verification was such a good idea that he wants in on it too! Fascinating.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/19/meta-is-rolling-out-a-new-paid-verification-subscription-service-for-instagram-and-facebook-users.html
That is indeed interesting. Anything that breaks social media's dependence on ad revenue, and the resulting incentive to maximize user engagement vs maximize user happiness, is probably good for our country and world in the long term.
That said, facebook's program seems to be a bit different in that they'll at least require checking people's government ID. So the signal of a facebook verified badge may be worth significantly more than a twitter verified badge that just means "I payed a little money."
So you get to pay Zuckerman to give him access to your government issued credentials? That sounds like a deal... for Facebook, not the users.
Now we have to throw away the sentence: If you aren't paying for it, you are the product.QuoteI can't, for me, see any advantage, so I'm having a hard time seeing why droves of people would do this? And if droves don't, then wouldn't it have no value?People are paying thousands for an timepiece stripped to their wrists. Or tens of thousands on trucks, and you ask for advantages?
There ARE droves of people that will pay money for everything that pats or pads their Ego.
people do use their overhyped, overpriced apple trinkets to show off
people do use their overhyped, overpriced apple trinkets to show off
Okay...but how would being verified on FB amount to "showing off"??
That would like showing off that you pay for a Netflix account. How would this impress anyone??
people do use their overhyped, overpriced apple trinkets to show off
Okay...but how would being verified on FB amount to "showing off"??
That would like showing off that you pay for a Netflix account. How would this impress anyone??
I don’t know because I’m not on FB. But I know a ton of people who buy and sell on Facebook marketplace. Is this less status and more to provide a level of security for that? If it shows I’m buying from a verified neighbor, I may be more willing to transact.
I have never used FB marketplace. I like the anonymity of Craigslist. If I were to use FB for selling things I’d probably have to have a whole new profile because I don’t want strangers buying my crap from me knowing where I live and seeing all my ancient family pix and thirst traps leftover from when I used to go on FB.
Word on the investing street is this Meta move is a huge mistake. The whole website is a clusterfuck of dark patterns.
it's the internet, no one really knows if one's really a dog
No, your picture background is not transparent. What are you hiding behind it? That you are a frog?it's the internet, no one really knows if one's really a dog
Literally everyone knows I'm a weird looking black cat. I have always been transparent about that.
There wasn't much incentive to set up a false identity, though, unless you were a spy or money launderer.
There wasn't much incentive to set up a false identity, though, unless you were a spy or money launderer.
You are vastly underestimating the breadth of reasons why someone might wish to become someone else. Spies and money launderers are likely the minority.
If you do genealogy research, you will periodically come across men who were married and had children in some east coast state. Then they went west, leaving said wife and children back home. And they were never heard from again. Except now, researchers can find these men. They stayed out west, married, and had children. They didn't need to change their names and identities because the technology of the day meant that they could easily and effectively disappear with no consequences.
Prostitutes. Trans people. Criminals such as thieves and murderers. People with toxic, abusive, or overbearing family. People who significantly angered powerful people. The list goes on - there were a lot of people who for some reason or another wanted a new identity. It used to be fairly easy to disappear and become someone else.
There wasn't much incentive to set up a false identity, though, unless you were a spy or money launderer.
You are vastly underestimating the breadth of reasons why someone might wish to become someone else. Spies and money launderers are likely the minority.
If you do genealogy research, you will periodically come across men who were married and had children in some east coast state. Then they went west, leaving said wife and children back home. And they were never heard from again. Except now, researchers can find these men. They stayed out west, married, and had children. They didn't need to change their names and identities because the technology of the day meant that they could easily and effectively disappear with no consequences.
Prostitutes. Trans people. Criminals such as thieves and murderers. People with toxic, abusive, or overbearing family. People who significantly angered powerful people. The list goes on - there were a lot of people who for some reason or another wanted a new identity. It used to be fairly easy to disappear and become someone else.
I suppose I can combine our statements and say something like "back in the day, the people creating aliases for themselves were not using those aliases for fraud, slander, etc. that would piss off powerful policymakers."
There wasn't much incentive to set up a false identity, though, unless you were a spy or money launderer.
You are vastly underestimating the breadth of reasons why someone might wish to become someone else. Spies and money launderers are likely the minority.
If you do genealogy research, you will periodically come across men who were married and had children in some east coast state. Then they went west, leaving said wife and children back home. And they were never heard from again. Except now, researchers can find these men. They stayed out west, married, and had children. They didn't need to change their names and identities because the technology of the day meant that they could easily and effectively disappear with no consequences.
Prostitutes. Trans people. Criminals such as thieves and murderers. People with toxic, abusive, or overbearing family. People who significantly angered powerful people. The list goes on - there were a lot of people who for some reason or another wanted a new identity. It used to be fairly easy to disappear and become someone else.
I suppose I can combine our statements and say something like "back in the day, the people creating aliases for themselves were not using those aliases for fraud, slander, etc. that would piss off powerful policymakers."
That would be a minority, yes.
----
On topic - Twitter suspended the accounts of some German journalists. https://tech.hindustantimes.com/tech/news/germany-on-twitter-suspensions-we-have-a-problem-twitter-71671185813312.html
The context I saw, but can not confirm, is that these accounts had posted about Russia's abduction of Ukrainian children prior to the suspension.
Regardless, I seem to remember that Musk tried to fire employees in Germany and was unsuccessful due to German labor laws. So I can't imagine that Musk is going to get the benefit of the doubt from German authorities. It'll be interesting if they take action.
I guess we might be hearing A LOT more details about what's actually happened at Twitter soon
https://fortune.com/2023/02/23/elon-musk-labor-unions-nlrb-biden-administration-severance-benefits-non-disparagement-gag-rule/
I guess we might be hearing A LOT more details about what's actually happened at Twitter soon
https://fortune.com/2023/02/23/elon-musk-labor-unions-nlrb-biden-administration-severance-benefits-non-disparagement-gag-rule/
I heard about that decision yesterday, but wasn't clear if it only applied to union members or all employees. If just union members, it may not impact Musk all that much as I imagine he doesn't have any/many union employees at Twitter. Haven't read the actual opinion.
How can it be even possible to think you could do that? Forbid people to say something about a company?I guess we might be hearing A LOT more details about what's actually happened at Twitter soon
https://fortune.com/2023/02/23/elon-musk-labor-unions-nlrb-biden-administration-severance-benefits-non-disparagement-gag-rule/
I heard about that decision yesterday, but wasn't clear if it only applied to union members or all employees. If just union members, it may not impact Musk all that much as I imagine he doesn't have any/many union employees at Twitter. Haven't read the actual opinion.
How can it be even possible to think you could do that? Forbid people to say something about a company?I guess we might be hearing A LOT more details about what's actually happened at Twitter soon
https://fortune.com/2023/02/23/elon-musk-labor-unions-nlrb-biden-administration-severance-benefits-non-disparagement-gag-rule/
I heard about that decision yesterday, but wasn't clear if it only applied to union members or all employees. If just union members, it may not impact Musk all that much as I imagine he doesn't have any/many union employees at Twitter. Haven't read the actual opinion.
Either they lie, then you can sue them. Or they don't lie, in which case...????????
How can it be even possible to think you could do that? Forbid people to say something about a company?I guess we might be hearing A LOT more details about what's actually happened at Twitter soon
https://fortune.com/2023/02/23/elon-musk-labor-unions-nlrb-biden-administration-severance-benefits-non-disparagement-gag-rule/
I heard about that decision yesterday, but wasn't clear if it only applied to union members or all employees. If just union members, it may not impact Musk all that much as I imagine he doesn't have any/many union employees at Twitter. Haven't read the actual opinion.
Either they lie, then you can sue them. Or they don't lie, in which case...????????
Except Non-Disclosure Agreements are pretty common, so I'm having trouble figuring out how this is different. Is it just because there is a quid pro quo? Because many NDAs seem to include that and seem to be legal. As part of a sexual assault civil settlement, for example, the party agrees to not speak out, and also gets eleventy million dollars. So as part of a settlement, why can't the party agrees to not speak out, and also get 6 months pay?
Or is it because these are right to which the workers are legally entitled regardless, so you can't then try to use that as leverage for an NDA. Like, you can't say, "hey, we will pay you minimum wage and not subject you to unsafe working conditions forbidden by law, but only is you sign this NDA," because you already have to do those things?
How can it be even possible to think you could do that? Forbid people to say something about a company?I guess we might be hearing A LOT more details about what's actually happened at Twitter soon
https://fortune.com/2023/02/23/elon-musk-labor-unions-nlrb-biden-administration-severance-benefits-non-disparagement-gag-rule/
I heard about that decision yesterday, but wasn't clear if it only applied to union members or all employees. If just union members, it may not impact Musk all that much as I imagine he doesn't have any/many union employees at Twitter. Haven't read the actual opinion.
Either they lie, then you can sue them. Or they don't lie, in which case...????????
Except Non-Disclosure Agreements are pretty common, so I'm having trouble figuring out how this is different. Is it just because there is a quid pro quo? Because many NDAs seem to include that and seem to be legal. As part of a sexual assault civil settlement, for example, the party agrees to not speak out, and also gets eleventy million dollars. So as part of a settlement, why can't the party agrees to not speak out, and also get 6 months pay?
Or is it because these are right to which the workers are legally entitled regardless, so you can't then try to use that as leverage for an NDA. Like, you can't say, "hey, we will pay you minimum wage and not subject you to unsafe working conditions forbidden by law, but only is you sign this NDA," because you already have to do those things?
That's different though. Workers are entitled to severance, so tagging an NDA onto it is probably why it's illegal.
If someone settles, they are not admitting to owing that person anything. They aren't paying them for the offense committed, they are paying for the case to be dropped and not talked about. They are literally buying silence and innocence. The person they pay isn't legally entitled to that particular money otherwise.
Severance is an entitlement based on their work history with the company, so I can see why in some jurisdictions it would be illegal to tether silence to that unless they signed a contract in the first place that commits everyone to an NDA when they leave. Assuming of course that that's even legal in that jurisdiction.
How can it be even possible to think you could do that? Forbid people to say something about a company?I guess we might be hearing A LOT more details about what's actually happened at Twitter soon
https://fortune.com/2023/02/23/elon-musk-labor-unions-nlrb-biden-administration-severance-benefits-non-disparagement-gag-rule/
I heard about that decision yesterday, but wasn't clear if it only applied to union members or all employees. If just union members, it may not impact Musk all that much as I imagine he doesn't have any/many union employees at Twitter. Haven't read the actual opinion.
Either they lie, then you can sue them. Or they don't lie, in which case...????????
Except Non-Disclosure Agreements are pretty common, so I'm having trouble figuring out how this is different. Is it just because there is a quid pro quo? Because many NDAs seem to include that and seem to be legal. As part of a sexual assault civil settlement, for example, the party agrees to not speak out, and also gets eleventy million dollars. So as part of a settlement, why can't the party agrees to not speak out, and also get 6 months pay?
Or is it because these are right to which the workers are legally entitled regardless, so you can't then try to use that as leverage for an NDA. Like, you can't say, "hey, we will pay you minimum wage and not subject you to unsafe working conditions forbidden by law, but only is you sign this NDA," because you already have to do those things?
That's different though. Workers are entitled to severance, so tagging an NDA onto it is probably why it's illegal.
If someone settles, they are not admitting to owing that person anything. They aren't paying them for the offense committed, they are paying for the case to be dropped and not talked about. They are literally buying silence and innocence. The person they pay isn't legally entitled to that particular money otherwise.
Severance is an entitlement based on their work history with the company, so I can see why in some jurisdictions it would be illegal to tether silence to that unless they signed a contract in the first place that commits everyone to an NDA when they leave. Assuming of course that that's even legal in that jurisdiction.
How can it be even possible to think you could do that? Forbid people to say something about a company?I guess we might be hearing A LOT more details about what's actually happened at Twitter soon
https://fortune.com/2023/02/23/elon-musk-labor-unions-nlrb-biden-administration-severance-benefits-non-disparagement-gag-rule/
I heard about that decision yesterday, but wasn't clear if it only applied to union members or all employees. If just union members, it may not impact Musk all that much as I imagine he doesn't have any/many union employees at Twitter. Haven't read the actual opinion.
Either they lie, then you can sue them. Or they don't lie, in which case...????????
Except Non-Disclosure Agreements are pretty common, so I'm having trouble figuring out how this is different. Is it just because there is a quid pro quo? Because many NDAs seem to include that and seem to be legal. As part of a sexual assault civil settlement, for example, the party agrees to not speak out, and also gets eleventy million dollars. So as part of a settlement, why can't the party agrees to not speak out, and also get 6 months pay?
Or is it because these are right to which the workers are legally entitled regardless, so you can't then try to use that as leverage for an NDA. Like, you can't say, "hey, we will pay you minimum wage and not subject you to unsafe working conditions forbidden by law, but only is you sign this NDA," because you already have to do those things?
That's different though. Workers are entitled to severance, so tagging an NDA onto it is probably why it's illegal.
If someone settles, they are not admitting to owing that person anything. They aren't paying them for the offense committed, they are paying for the case to be dropped and not talked about. They are literally buying silence and innocence. The person they pay isn't legally entitled to that particular money otherwise.
Severance is an entitlement based on their work history with the company, so I can see why in some jurisdictions it would be illegal to tether silence to that unless they signed a contract in the first place that commits everyone to an NDA when they leave. Assuming of course that that's even legal in that jurisdiction.
@Villanelle, companies very frequently include "gag" or non-disparagement clauses into severance or other types of settlement agreements with employees or former employees in order to prevent skeletons from coming out/bad PR or encouraging other employees to sue as well (copycat), etc. Companies also don't want employees from knowing exactly how much money they've offered, as that could impact negotiations in future cases.
Yes, the argument is that you can't deter employees from giving up statutorily protected rights under NLRA by offering money: https://www.nlrb.gov/news-outreach/news-story/board-rules-that-employers-may-not-offer-severance-agreements-requiring
How can it be even possible to think you could do that? Forbid people to say something about a company?I guess we might be hearing A LOT more details about what's actually happened at Twitter soon
https://fortune.com/2023/02/23/elon-musk-labor-unions-nlrb-biden-administration-severance-benefits-non-disparagement-gag-rule/
I heard about that decision yesterday, but wasn't clear if it only applied to union members or all employees. If just union members, it may not impact Musk all that much as I imagine he doesn't have any/many union employees at Twitter. Haven't read the actual opinion.
Either they lie, then you can sue them. Or they don't lie, in which case...????????
Except Non-Disclosure Agreements are pretty common, so I'm having trouble figuring out how this is different. Is it just because there is a quid pro quo? Because many NDAs seem to include that and seem to be legal. As part of a sexual assault civil settlement, for example, the party agrees to not speak out, and also gets eleventy million dollars. So as part of a settlement, why can't the party agrees to not speak out, and also get 6 months pay?
Or is it because these are right to which the workers are legally entitled regardless, so you can't then try to use that as leverage for an NDA. Like, you can't say, "hey, we will pay you minimum wage and not subject you to unsafe working conditions forbidden by law, but only is you sign this NDA," because you already have to do those things?
That's different though. Workers are entitled to severance, so tagging an NDA onto it is probably why it's illegal.
If someone settles, they are not admitting to owing that person anything. They aren't paying them for the offense committed, they are paying for the case to be dropped and not talked about. They are literally buying silence and innocence. The person they pay isn't legally entitled to that particular money otherwise.
Severance is an entitlement based on their work history with the company, so I can see why in some jurisdictions it would be illegal to tether silence to that unless they signed a contract in the first place that commits everyone to an NDA when they leave. Assuming of course that that's even legal in that jurisdiction.
@Villanelle, companies very frequently include "gag" or non-disparagement clauses into severance or other types of settlement agreements with employees or former employees in order to prevent skeletons from coming out/bad PR or encouraging other employees to sue as well (copycat), etc. Companies also don't want employees from knowing exactly how much money they've offered, as that could impact negotiations in future cases.
Yes, the argument is that you can't deter employees from giving up statutorily protected rights under NLRA by offering money: https://www.nlrb.gov/news-outreach/news-story/board-rules-that-employers-may-not-offer-severance-agreements-requiring
Yes, what I'm having trouble understanding is why a civil settlement can include an NDA or "gag", but a severance offer can't.
Yes, what I'm having trouble understanding is why a civil settlement can include an NDA or "gag", but a severance offer can't.
I would imagine it's because as I said earlier. The specific purpose of a civil settlement is an agreement to pretend as if the matter never existed. The party getting the money for that settlement is theoretically entitled to nothing unless they go to court and prove their case. They aren't being paid for what was done to them, they are being paid to essentially agree that nothing is worth litigating.
Legally, a settlement amounts to a good will gesture, there is no legal obligation to give that money.
But a severance is an entitlement in a lot of places, especially if this applies specifically to union jobs. Severance is an exchange for leaving a job without cause. If the employee is entitled to severance, then you can't just throw on additional requirements to what they're already entitled to.
Like, could I start throwing in clauses that people can only get their severance if they agree to paint my house? I can't make their receipt of something their entitled to contingent on my wants as their soon-to-be former employer.
But I don't know about jurisdictions that don't require any severance. That's why some clarify about the whole union thing is important. Unions usually negotiate mandatory severance, so that would make perfect sense that nothing could be added on for union job severance.
As for places that don't require severance, why do any companies pay it then?
This article is a bit clearer and seems to imply across the board illegality. It talks about how this could seriously impact severance negotiations in the future.
Which makes sense if the main incentive for a lot of these companies to even offer severance is to silence people.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/22/success/severance-agreements-rule-change-from-nlrb/index.html
I wanted to make one comment though about not needing severance because of unemployment benefits being available. We have both unemployement benefits here AND legal obligations for severance. Severance is primarily a deterrent for employers not firing staff without cause, and we have very strict laws about firing for cause here.
It's a whole different kettle of fish when employers can just leave people jobless at will with no consequences.
This article is a bit clearer and seems to imply across the board illegality. It talks about how this could seriously impact severance negotiations in the future.
Which makes sense if the main incentive for a lot of these companies to even offer severance is to silence people.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/22/success/severance-agreements-rule-change-from-nlrb/index.html
I wanted to make one comment though about not needing severance because of unemployment benefits being available. We have both unemployement benefits here AND legal obligations for severance. Severance is primarily a deterrent for employers not firing staff without cause, and we have very strict laws about firing for cause here.
It's a whole different kettle of fish when employers can just leave people jobless at will with no consequences.
I'm not following this. Can you elaborate?
UI in the USA kind of is the consequence to an employer for just leaving people jobless with no consequences. Their UI insurance rates increase. It's not a huge consequence, but it's something. To be clear, I recognize that severance is usually much more generous that UI payments. It's also something that goes largely to high wage earns. McDonald's franchise or the corner flower shop likely gives a couple week's notice, if the employees are lucky, and that's it.
Yes, it's not the best system for workers, and unsurprisingly the US's "free market" has some downsides. Go figure.
In my state UI maxes out at $451/week, taxable, for 26 weeks in my state.
What’s interesting about these tech layoffs is that the employees were going from six figure salaries in some cases to the equivalent of a low-wage job. The “insurance” is not going to cover their mortgage, much less their luxury SUV payments.
This article is a bit clearer and seems to imply across the board illegality. It talks about how this could seriously impact severance negotiations in the future.
Which makes sense if the main incentive for a lot of these companies to even offer severance is to silence people.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/22/success/severance-agreements-rule-change-from-nlrb/index.html
I wanted to make one comment though about not needing severance because of unemployment benefits being available. We have both unemployement benefits here AND legal obligations for severance. Severance is primarily a deterrent for employers not firing staff without cause, and we have very strict laws about firing for cause here.
It's a whole different kettle of fish when employers can just leave people jobless at will with no consequences.
This article is a bit clearer and seems to imply across the board illegality. It talks about how this could seriously impact severance negotiations in the future.
Which makes sense if the main incentive for a lot of these companies to even offer severance is to silence people.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/22/success/severance-agreements-rule-change-from-nlrb/index.html
I wanted to make one comment though about not needing severance because of unemployment benefits being available. We have both unemployement benefits here AND legal obligations for severance. Severance is primarily a deterrent for employers not firing staff without cause, and we have very strict laws about firing for cause here.
It's a whole different kettle of fish when employers can just leave people jobless at will with no consequences.
Yep, so the language I quoted above from Section 7 of the NLRA that is applicable in this situation is about the right to join a union, collectively bargain, etc. So it'd make sense that it would apply to all employers, rather than just unionized employees, because any employee could want to create a union and they don't want a chilling effect on it.
And yes, the US sucks in that it's largely at-will employment so companies can and do fire people for no reason at all as long as it's not an illegal reason such as discrimination. There are minimal consequences for that behavior (current employees may be distressed by the tactic and quicker to go, unemployment rates will go up if it happens often, bad PR on job sites such as glassdoor).
The combo of at-will employment and being dependent on keeping your job to have health insurance is a fucking insane combo.
This article is a bit clearer and seems to imply across the board illegality. It talks about how this could seriously impact severance negotiations in the future.
Which makes sense if the main incentive for a lot of these companies to even offer severance is to silence people.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/22/success/severance-agreements-rule-change-from-nlrb/index.html
I wanted to make one comment though about not needing severance because of unemployment benefits being available. We have both unemployement benefits here AND legal obligations for severance. Severance is primarily a deterrent for employers not firing staff without cause, and we have very strict laws about firing for cause here.
It's a whole different kettle of fish when employers can just leave people jobless at will with no consequences.
I'm not following this. Can you elaborate?
UI in the USA kind of is the consequence to an employer for just leaving people jobless with no consequences. Their UI insurance rates increase. It's not a huge consequence, but it's something. To be clear, I recognize that severance is usually much more generous that UI payments. It's also something that goes largely to high wage earns. McDonald's franchise or the corner flower shop likely gives a couple week's notice, if the employees are lucky, and that's it.
Yes, it's not the best system for workers, and unsurprisingly the US's "free market" has some downsides. Go figure.
I'm not sure what to elaborate. Our systems might be a little different in terms of (un)employment insurance premiums for the employer. We call it EI not UI up here.
My point was that it was earlier said that severance wasn't needed because there's unemployment insurance. I was saying that up here we don't have severance in lieu of (un)employment insurance, we have both. So for me, it doesn't necessarily follow that having one means the other isn't needed, because in my world it's never been an either or.
An important little detail:This article is a bit clearer and seems to imply across the board illegality. It talks about how this could seriously impact severance negotiations in the future.
Which makes sense if the main incentive for a lot of these companies to even offer severance is to silence people.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/22/success/severance-agreements-rule-change-from-nlrb/index.html
I wanted to make one comment though about not needing severance because of unemployment benefits being available. We have both unemployement benefits here AND legal obligations for severance. Severance is primarily a deterrent for employers not firing staff without cause, and we have very strict laws about firing for cause here.
It's a whole different kettle of fish when employers can just leave people jobless at will with no consequences.
I'm not following this. Can you elaborate?
UI in the USA kind of is the consequence to an employer for just leaving people jobless with no consequences. Their UI insurance rates increase. It's not a huge consequence, but it's something. To be clear, I recognize that severance is usually much more generous that UI payments. It's also something that goes largely to high wage earns. McDonald's franchise or the corner flower shop likely gives a couple week's notice, if the employees are lucky, and that's it.
Yes, it's not the best system for workers, and unsurprisingly the US's "free market" has some downsides. Go figure.
I'm not sure what to elaborate. Our systems might be a little different in terms of (un)employment insurance premiums for the employer. We call it EI not UI up here.
My point was that it was earlier said that severance wasn't needed because there's unemployment insurance. I was saying that up here we don't have severance in lieu of (un)employment insurance, we have both. So for me, it doesn't necessarily follow that having one means the other isn't needed, because in my world it's never been an either or.
Ah, got it.
Yes, in the US, someone who gets both is certainly better off and severance is almost always more generous than Unemployment. My earlier comment was just saying that the form of guaranteed assistance when you lose your job in the US is the UI system, and severance is not legally required and is entirely optional. (Optional to offer, but of course if it is in a legally binding contract, it is no longer optional.)
An important little detail:
In my state, one cannot receive both UI and severance at the same time. While this means one's UI period starts later and ends later, it also means one cannot live off of both sources of income at the same time.
Thus, by offering a severance package, employers can deter their former employees from making a UI claim for a while - possibly enough time so they find another job and never file a UI claim. If they never file a UI claim, the employer's UI premiums don't go up.
Msuk probably thought his programmers would be slacking off too much with a tool named slack.
In a bid to cut costs, Twitter cut off Slack. Or maybe the accounts payable person was fired because Jira was yanked too.Twitter management is looking less and less like the masterwork of a business genius and more like a bunch of random directives impulsively flung at people during meetings. There's zero respect for institutional knowledge, possibly talented people, processes honed over years of careful lean analysis, or even the basic tooling like Slack or Jira.
https://www.theverge.com/2023/2/24/23613288/twitter-slack-jira-outages-performance-degradation
Someone realized that bug and feature tracking was essential for a company developing software; Jira was restored.
On the mental illness angle, I have to go back to the early days of this thread when I noted Jaron Lanier’s essay on Twitter Sickness (something like that). I’ve seen it happen so much with YouTubers too, where they seem to start out interesting and unconventional, but with fame become desperately click-baity and extremist, pandering to their worst fans.THat has nothing to to with twitter or youtube. That is just the medium. A preacher in the church or a newspaper writer would be the same. Or for that matter any other "public" position. Attention whores are real and have always been.
I don't think the attention whores have ever had tools like YT or Twitter though.On the mental illness angle, I have to go back to the early days of this thread when I noted Jaron Lanier’s essay on Twitter Sickness (something like that). I’ve seen it happen so much with YouTubers too, where they seem to start out interesting and unconventional, but with fame become desperately click-baity and extremist, pandering to their worst fans.THat has nothing to to with twitter or youtube. That is just the medium. A preacher in the church or a newspaper writer would be the same. Or for that matter any other "public" position. Attention whores are real and have always been.
On the mental illness angle, I have to go back to the early days of this thread when I noted Jaron Lanier’s essay on Twitter Sickness (something like that). I’ve seen it happen so much with YouTubers too, where they seem to start out interesting and unconventional, but with fame become desperately click-baity and extremist, pandering to their worst fans.
It’s not just the influencers and politicians. I see it in friends and acquaintances on regular old social media. It gets kind of tiresome, and I wonder if they actually believe their own BS. (I think they do.)
In the latest episode of Twitter's labor relations, one of the 200 recently terminated had this experience with the boss:
https://twitter.com/mattbinder/status/1632942281362636801?s=46&t=Op3umXgaP1ZJVKqCZmKwNQ (https://twitter.com/mattbinder/status/1632942281362636801?s=46&t=Op3umXgaP1ZJVKqCZmKwNQ)
https://twitter.com/dsquareddigest/status/1633117991880597507 (https://twitter.com/dsquareddigest/status/1633117991880597507)
https://techcrunch.com/2021/01/06/twitter-acquihires-creative-agency-ueno-to-help-design-new-products/ (https://techcrunch.com/2021/01/06/twitter-acquihires-creative-agency-ueno-to-help-design-new-products/)
https://www.icelandreview.com/news/haraldur-thorleifsson-sweeps-person-of-the-year-awards/ (https://www.icelandreview.com/news/haraldur-thorleifsson-sweeps-person-of-the-year-awards/)
From what I've gathered, this guy sold his company to Twitter two years ago with an agreement that he'd stay on to help out drawing down his buyout as a salary (if fired he gets the balance). I haven't been able to find the total buyout price, but it appears to be at least $8.5million. Musk fired him in the last round that I mentioned, and the guy went public with him to discuss since he was locked out of his computer and nobody contacted him until after this Tweet discussion. It quickly turned into a flame war with Musk trying to shame him for his disability-caused alleged lack of productivity. Lots of chatter today about just how much Musk is on the hook for as far as this guy's buyout package, potential lawsuit for disability discrimination, and if he'll try to stiff this guy like he's done with other labor disputes.
https://www.twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1633240643727138824 (https://www.twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1633240643727138824)
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1633253950198624257 (https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1633253950198624257)
Update
Another comment noted that perhaps Musk didn’t know what Figma (legit web design tool) was and thought it was a play on Ligma (frat humor).
But yeah wow goes to show there are amounts of money that cause him to change his behavior after all. I mean makes sense considering he was auctioning office furniture.
Even in his apology he can’t take full ownership, says “he was told” stuff when clearly he was just reacting to a tweet.
Another comment noted that perhaps Musk didn’t know what Figma (legit web design tool) was and thought it was a play on Ligma (frat humor).
But yeah wow goes to show there are amounts of money that cause him to change his behavior after all. I mean makes sense considering he was auctioning office furniture.
Even in his apology he can’t take full ownership, says “he was told” stuff when clearly he was just reacting to a tweet.
I imagine the board is fine with it, they had the duty to push for the sale. But I wonder about Jack, and the Saudi investors etc. Also in Musk’s texts during discovery for the trial there was that interchange with his ex-wife where she begged him to destroy it. However I don’t think there’s a plan, he’s just impulsive, erratic, and addicted to the app.
Also so many high-profile legal cases make it clear, DON’T TEXT incriminating info. Man!
Well I logged off permanently after Elon purchased, so someone needs to let me know when it finally crashes.The last estimate I read is half a year until Twitter can no longer run. But that is all and everything "Kaffeesatzleserei", as we Germans would say (reading coffee grounds).
https://archive.li/s1L15 (https://archive.li/s1L15)
Former managers alleging "Musk asked us to name our best employees, and then replaced us with them."
In addition to Twitter not paying rent, it's also not paying its Amazon Web Services bill ($70 million)
Corporate credit card bills not being paid, and the card holders being hounded by the bank. Supervisors and Accounting staff nonexistent to fix this.
Most of the surviving staff are H1B visa holders and likely stuck working 12 hour days
Change Management is nonexistent. Code is changed on Musk's whim, and then everyone must scramble to fix the fallout.
In the latest episode of Twitter's labor relations, one of the 200 recently terminated had this experience with the boss:
https://twitter.com/mattbinder/status/1632942281362636801?s=46&t=Op3umXgaP1ZJVKqCZmKwNQ (https://twitter.com/mattbinder/status/1632942281362636801?s=46&t=Op3umXgaP1ZJVKqCZmKwNQ)
https://twitter.com/dsquareddigest/status/1633117991880597507 (https://twitter.com/dsquareddigest/status/1633117991880597507)
https://techcrunch.com/2021/01/06/twitter-acquihires-creative-agency-ueno-to-help-design-new-products/ (https://techcrunch.com/2021/01/06/twitter-acquihires-creative-agency-ueno-to-help-design-new-products/)
https://www.icelandreview.com/news/haraldur-thorleifsson-sweeps-person-of-the-year-awards/ (https://www.icelandreview.com/news/haraldur-thorleifsson-sweeps-person-of-the-year-awards/)
From what I've gathered, this guy sold his company to Twitter two years ago with an agreement that he'd stay on to help out drawing down his buyout as a salary (if fired he gets the balance). I haven't been able to find the total buyout price, but it appears to be at least $8.5million. Musk fired him in the last round that I mentioned, and the guy went public with him to discuss since he was locked out of his computer and nobody contacted him until after this Tweet discussion. It quickly turned into a flame war with Musk trying to shame him for his disability-caused alleged lack of productivity. Lots of chatter today about just how much Musk is on the hook for as far as this guy's buyout package, potential lawsuit for disability discrimination, and if he'll try to stiff this guy like he's done with other labor disputes.
The employee, Haraldur Thorleifsson, suffers from muscular dystrophy and he's still out there working even though he struggles to use a keyboard and mouse. And Musk is shaming him... what a complete dumpster fire. Much respect to Mr Thorleifsson, he's 10x the man Musk will ever be.
In the latest episode of Twitter's labor relations, one of the 200 recently terminated had this experience with the boss:
https://twitter.com/mattbinder/status/1632942281362636801?s=46&t=Op3umXgaP1ZJVKqCZmKwNQ (https://twitter.com/mattbinder/status/1632942281362636801?s=46&t=Op3umXgaP1ZJVKqCZmKwNQ)
https://twitter.com/dsquareddigest/status/1633117991880597507 (https://twitter.com/dsquareddigest/status/1633117991880597507)
https://techcrunch.com/2021/01/06/twitter-acquihires-creative-agency-ueno-to-help-design-new-products/ (https://techcrunch.com/2021/01/06/twitter-acquihires-creative-agency-ueno-to-help-design-new-products/)
https://www.icelandreview.com/news/haraldur-thorleifsson-sweeps-person-of-the-year-awards/ (https://www.icelandreview.com/news/haraldur-thorleifsson-sweeps-person-of-the-year-awards/)
From what I've gathered, this guy sold his company to Twitter two years ago with an agreement that he'd stay on to help out drawing down his buyout as a salary (if fired he gets the balance). I haven't been able to find the total buyout price, but it appears to be at least $8.5million. Musk fired him in the last round that I mentioned, and the guy went public with him to discuss since he was locked out of his computer and nobody contacted him until after this Tweet discussion. It quickly turned into a flame war with Musk trying to shame him for his disability-caused alleged lack of productivity. Lots of chatter today about just how much Musk is on the hook for as far as this guy's buyout package, potential lawsuit for disability discrimination, and if he'll try to stiff this guy like he's done with other labor disputes.
The employee, Haraldur Thorleifsson, suffers from muscular dystrophy and he's still out there working even though he struggles to use a keyboard and mouse. And Musk is shaming him... what a complete dumpster fire. Much respect to Mr Thorleifsson, he's 10x the man Musk will ever be.
This story is so weird and sorta makes me sympathetic to Musk. This Haraldur character has a 100 million dollar contract with Twitter. Yeah, that's right, he sold his company to twitter for 100 millions dollars. So I've never had a contract that big so maybe not going through legal is totally normal. What is he doing asking contractual questions via twitter? he's trying to stir it up and everyone is going for it!
In the latest episode of Twitter's labor relations, one of the 200 recently terminated had this experience with the boss:
https://twitter.com/mattbinder/status/1632942281362636801?s=46&t=Op3umXgaP1ZJVKqCZmKwNQ (https://twitter.com/mattbinder/status/1632942281362636801?s=46&t=Op3umXgaP1ZJVKqCZmKwNQ)
https://twitter.com/dsquareddigest/status/1633117991880597507 (https://twitter.com/dsquareddigest/status/1633117991880597507)
https://techcrunch.com/2021/01/06/twitter-acquihires-creative-agency-ueno-to-help-design-new-products/ (https://techcrunch.com/2021/01/06/twitter-acquihires-creative-agency-ueno-to-help-design-new-products/)
https://www.icelandreview.com/news/haraldur-thorleifsson-sweeps-person-of-the-year-awards/ (https://www.icelandreview.com/news/haraldur-thorleifsson-sweeps-person-of-the-year-awards/)
From what I've gathered, this guy sold his company to Twitter two years ago with an agreement that he'd stay on to help out drawing down his buyout as a salary (if fired he gets the balance). I haven't been able to find the total buyout price, but it appears to be at least $8.5million. Musk fired him in the last round that I mentioned, and the guy went public with him to discuss since he was locked out of his computer and nobody contacted him until after this Tweet discussion. It quickly turned into a flame war with Musk trying to shame him for his disability-caused alleged lack of productivity. Lots of chatter today about just how much Musk is on the hook for as far as this guy's buyout package, potential lawsuit for disability discrimination, and if he'll try to stiff this guy like he's done with other labor disputes.
The employee, Haraldur Thorleifsson, suffers from muscular dystrophy and he's still out there working even though he struggles to use a keyboard and mouse. And Musk is shaming him... what a complete dumpster fire. Much respect to Mr Thorleifsson, he's 10x the man Musk will ever be.
This story is so weird and sorta makes me sympathetic to Musk. This Haraldur character has a 100 million dollar contract with Twitter. Yeah, that's right, he sold his company to twitter for 100 millions dollars. So I've never had a contract that big so maybe not going through legal is totally normal. What is he doing asking contractual questions via twitter? he's trying to stir it up and everyone is going for it!
Musk fired most of twitter's HR, and the few employees remaining were not able to tell Thorleifsson if he was still hired, 9 days after his work access was cut to his computer. Given the ongoing technical problems for workers (like failing to pay Jira and Slack bills and having these services cut off), in combination with no information from HR he wasn't sure what was going on The company is being so badly run by Musk that there really wasn't anywhere else to turn.
Seems silly to feel bad for the ridiculous situation that Musk created for himself, and then worsened by being a giant asshole.
In the latest episode of Twitter's labor relations, one of the 200 recently terminated had this experience with the boss:
https://twitter.com/mattbinder/status/1632942281362636801?s=46&t=Op3umXgaP1ZJVKqCZmKwNQ (https://twitter.com/mattbinder/status/1632942281362636801?s=46&t=Op3umXgaP1ZJVKqCZmKwNQ)
https://twitter.com/dsquareddigest/status/1633117991880597507 (https://twitter.com/dsquareddigest/status/1633117991880597507)
https://techcrunch.com/2021/01/06/twitter-acquihires-creative-agency-ueno-to-help-design-new-products/ (https://techcrunch.com/2021/01/06/twitter-acquihires-creative-agency-ueno-to-help-design-new-products/)
https://www.icelandreview.com/news/haraldur-thorleifsson-sweeps-person-of-the-year-awards/ (https://www.icelandreview.com/news/haraldur-thorleifsson-sweeps-person-of-the-year-awards/)
From what I've gathered, this guy sold his company to Twitter two years ago with an agreement that he'd stay on to help out drawing down his buyout as a salary (if fired he gets the balance). I haven't been able to find the total buyout price, but it appears to be at least $8.5million. Musk fired him in the last round that I mentioned, and the guy went public with him to discuss since he was locked out of his computer and nobody contacted him until after this Tweet discussion. It quickly turned into a flame war with Musk trying to shame him for his disability-caused alleged lack of productivity. Lots of chatter today about just how much Musk is on the hook for as far as this guy's buyout package, potential lawsuit for disability discrimination, and if he'll try to stiff this guy like he's done with other labor disputes.
The employee, Haraldur Thorleifsson, suffers from muscular dystrophy and he's still out there working even though he struggles to use a keyboard and mouse. And Musk is shaming him... what a complete dumpster fire. Much respect to Mr Thorleifsson, he's 10x the man Musk will ever be.
This story is so weird and sorta makes me sympathetic to Musk. This Haraldur character has a 100 million dollar contract with Twitter. Yeah, that's right, he sold his company to twitter for 100 millions dollars. So I've never had a contract that big so maybe not going through legal is totally normal. What is he doing asking contractual questions via twitter? he's trying to stir it up and everyone is going for it!
Musk fired most of twitter's HR, and the few employees remaining were not able to tell Thorleifsson if he was still hired, 9 days after his work access was cut to his computer. Given the ongoing technical problems for workers (like failing to pay Jira and Slack bills and having these services cut off), in combination with no information from HR he wasn't sure what was going on The company is being so badly run by Musk that there really wasn't anywhere else to turn.
Seems silly to feel bad for the ridiculous situation that Musk created for himself, and then worsened by being a giant asshole.
Big buyout contracts are not handled by HR. (HR being mostly idiots and a handful of sycophants.) This guy must have had other high level contacts. He's also got his lawyers from the buyout deal. It's just weird.
Big buyout contracts are not handled by HR. (HR being mostly idiots and a handful of sycophants.) This guy must have had other high level contacts. He's also got his lawyers from the buyout deal. It's just weird.
Big buyout contracts are not handled by HR. (HR being mostly idiots and a handful of sycophants.) This guy must have had other high level contacts. He's also got his lawyers from the buyout deal. It's just weird.
Thorleifsson was not asking for 100 million though. He was an employee. He specifically asked to receive his payout in the form of salary when twitter bought his company because he wanted to keep doing the job that he loved. As part of his employment contract, he was to be paid the 100 million only if fired - something that HR would certainly have known. Assuming they hadn't been fired by Musk.
You see, Halli Thorleifsson isn’t your regular office drone. Aside from being a noted philanthropist and 2022 Icelandic Person of the Year (awarded by RUV), he’s the founder of a creative technology services company known as Ueno.
Back in early 2021, Thorleifsson sold Ueno to Twitter with the purchase price scheduled to be paid incrementally in the form of an ongoing salary to maximise the tax he could offer Iceland; a decision the great man opted for as a “thank you” to his home country’s disability benefits.
Big buyout contracts are not handled by HR. (HR being mostly idiots and a handful of sycophants.) This guy must have had other high level contacts. He's also got his lawyers from the buyout deal. It's just weird.
Thorleifsson was not asking for 100 million though. He was an employee. He specifically asked to receive his payout in the form of salary when twitter bought his company because he wanted to keep doing the job that he loved. As part of his employment contract, he was to be paid the 100 million only if fired - something that HR would certainly have known. Assuming they hadn't been fired by Musk.
It's even better than that, the guy's a national hero in Iceland, literally -QuoteYou see, Halli Thorleifsson isn’t your regular office drone. Aside from being a noted philanthropist and 2022 Icelandic Person of the Year (awarded by RUV), he’s the founder of a creative technology services company known as Ueno.
Back in early 2021, Thorleifsson sold Ueno to Twitter with the purchase price scheduled to be paid incrementally in the form of an ongoing salary to maximise the tax he could offer Iceland; a decision the great man opted for as a “thank you” to his home country’s disability benefits.
https://www.bosshunting.com.au/hustle/elon-musk-firing-halli-thorleifsson-twitter-100-million-mistake/ (https://www.bosshunting.com.au/hustle/elon-musk-firing-halli-thorleifsson-twitter-100-million-mistake/)
This is a textbook example of public sentiment going against a guy previously considered unassailable… For me the best example of how the barrage of bad news reflected actual man-on-the-street sentiment was the boos at the Musk appearance at the San Francisco Dave Chappelle show. That had to be a show filled with exactly the demographic Musk used to appeal to, heavily male, willing to laugh at “wokeness”, able to spend upwards of $200 on comedy tickets, probably even a large percentage of Tesla owners...I agree. The Musk stans are being drowned out, or converting to the other side. The "genius" facade has a Twitter-sized hole in it, and his rule breaker image now looks a lot more like narcissism and entitlement.
There is a lot of unpredictable magic in how this sentiment goes… see Trump (from cringe to president), Gore (“I invented the Internet”), Howard Dean (“Dean scream” — how that was able to derail him is really crazy). But some do come back from it (Mike Tyson, Martha Stewart, Nixon?). I’m not saying the catch phrases are real in the case of Dean and Gore, just that it’s amazing how one person can be painted in the press as bad/annoying and another can do no wrong.
https://archive.li/s1L15 (https://archive.li/s1L15)
Former managers alleging "Musk asked us to name our best employees, and then replaced us with them."
In addition to Twitter not paying rent, it's also not paying its Amazon Web Services bill ($70 million)
Corporate credit card bills not being paid, and the card holders being hounded by the bank. Supervisors and Accounting staff nonexistent to fix this.
Most of the surviving staff are H1B visa holders and likely stuck working 12 hour days
Change Management is nonexistent. Code is changed on Musk's whim, and then everyone must scramble to fix the fallout.
I am woefully ignorant about this kind of tech stuff--but does the bolded mean that somehow Amazon supplies the internet service for Twitter? Like, if Amazon turned this off, Twitter as a web entity would just... stop?
This is a textbook example of public sentiment going against a guy previously considered unassailable… For me the best example of how the barrage of bad news reflected actual man-on-the-street sentiment was the boos at the Musk appearance at the San Francisco Dave Chappelle show. That had to be a show filled with exactly the demographic Musk used to appeal to, heavily male, willing to laugh at “wokeness”, able to spend upwards of $200 on comedy tickets, probably even a large percentage of Tesla owners...I agree. The Musk stans are being drowned out, or converting to the other side. The "genius" facade has a Twitter-sized hole in it, and his rule breaker image now looks a lot more like narcissism and entitlement.
There is a lot of unpredictable magic in how this sentiment goes… see Trump (from cringe to president), Gore (“I invented the Internet”), Howard Dean (“Dean scream” — how that was able to derail him is really crazy). But some do come back from it (Mike Tyson, Martha Stewart, Nixon?). I’m not saying the catch phrases are real in the case of Dean and Gore, just that it’s amazing how one person can be painted in the press as bad/annoying and another can do no wrong.
Equally amazing is how public sentiment trails along with whatever the influencers are saying. We trust the influencers to tell us which strangers are the good people and then we trust them again to tell us those same people are now the bad ones. Why are some people still fans of Kanye West, given all that he did, but Howard Dean got run out of town on a rail for being made into a TV meme?
I don't quite buy the evil villain narrative. I just think he's someone who has amassed so much wealth and power that he doesn't feel the need to listen to any criticism.
I wonder what the Twitter Board feels about their decision to force him to go through with the sale now?
Agreed. The phrase "power corrupts" is often misunderstood to mean people in power will inevitably start taking bribes or something. I suggest a better understanding is that power corrupts the thought process, the social feedback mechanism which keeps us in alignment with cultural norms, relationships between people, and one's ability to obtain and process accurate information.This is a textbook example of public sentiment going against a guy previously considered unassailable… For me the best example of how the barrage of bad news reflected actual man-on-the-street sentiment was the boos at the Musk appearance at the San Francisco Dave Chappelle show. That had to be a show filled with exactly the demographic Musk used to appeal to, heavily male, willing to laugh at “wokeness”, able to spend upwards of $200 on comedy tickets, probably even a large percentage of Tesla owners...I agree. The Musk stans are being drowned out, or converting to the other side. The "genius" facade has a Twitter-sized hole in it, and his rule breaker image now looks a lot more like narcissism and entitlement.
There is a lot of unpredictable magic in how this sentiment goes… see Trump (from cringe to president), Gore (“I invented the Internet”), Howard Dean (“Dean scream” — how that was able to derail him is really crazy). But some do come back from it (Mike Tyson, Martha Stewart, Nixon?). I’m not saying the catch phrases are real in the case of Dean and Gore, just that it’s amazing how one person can be painted in the press as bad/annoying and another can do no wrong.
Equally amazing is how public sentiment trails along with whatever the influencers are saying. We trust the influencers to tell us which strangers are the good people and then we trust them again to tell us those same people are now the bad ones. Why are some people still fans of Kanye West, given all that he did, but Howard Dean got run out of town on a rail for being made into a TV meme?
IDK. He's the richest person in the world and holds enormous influence. I really keep hoping it's just bad coverage and missteps and that he'll grow and mature into the tech world leader role that he's positioned to be, but I don't need influencers to tell me that calling employees useless because they're disabled is a dumbfuck move.
I didn't really buy the ultra genius narrative and I don't quite buy the evil villain narrative. I just think he's someone who has amassed so much wealth and power that he doesn't feel the need to listen to any criticism.
As I was saying in another thread, sustained success takes a village, it takes a combo of hype people and sober second opinions, and I've seen enough hugely successful people fail because they started feeling like they no longer needed their sober second opinions, and that's exactly how Musk seems to be behaving.
People in huge power need to make so many decisions and if they start insulating themselves against valid criticism, their entire world views can get warped, and a lot of persecution fantasy sets in, which we are seeing.
Now, his early success was so massive, he may be just too big to fail. So I don't know what happens when the person is an economy unto themselves.
For me, I was personally profoundly disappointed in him when he had this massive opportunity to step up as a world leader during the pandemic and instead he went full-on whiny bitch. That to me signaled that something has gone very wrong with who he is choosing to take advice from, if anyone at this point.
The air at the top gets very thin and people's thinking can get extremely strange when left up there alone for too long.
I suspect they feel Twitter is not their problem any more, and that they've done something heroic for extracting more shareholder value out of Twitter than was ever otherwise going to happen. Twitter shareholders hit the lottery when Musk agreed to buy the company for far more than it was worth, right before an economic slowdown, and just as the company's economic problems were coming into view. They managed to execute just in time. Twitter would have been a $20 stock today if Musk hadn't paid over fifty dollars a share. That's a win!I wonder what the Twitter Board feels about their decision to force him to go through with the sale now?They probably still love it. They got Elon to pay way above market value.
I don't quite buy the evil villain narrative. I just think he's someone who has amassed so much wealth and power that he doesn't feel the need to listen to any criticism.
The thing is, when you're divorced from reality in that way while also controlling monumental amounts of power/wealth it's all but inevitable that you will become an evil villain. We all have asshole impulses that need the occasional scolding to keep in check. Without listening to the scolding you start to go off the deep end.
Category is: shit every employer knows not to do in response to a settlement conflict with an employee with a disability
Agreed. The phrase "power corrupts" is often misunderstood to mean people in power will inevitably start taking bribes or something. I suggest a better understanding is that power corrupts the thought process, the social feedback mechanism which keeps us in alignment with cultural norms, relationships between people, and one's ability to obtain and process accurate information.This is a textbook example of public sentiment going against a guy previously considered unassailable… For me the best example of how the barrage of bad news reflected actual man-on-the-street sentiment was the boos at the Musk appearance at the San Francisco Dave Chappelle show. That had to be a show filled with exactly the demographic Musk used to appeal to, heavily male, willing to laugh at “wokeness”, able to spend upwards of $200 on comedy tickets, probably even a large percentage of Tesla owners...I agree. The Musk stans are being drowned out, or converting to the other side. The "genius" facade has a Twitter-sized hole in it, and his rule breaker image now looks a lot more like narcissism and entitlement.
There is a lot of unpredictable magic in how this sentiment goes… see Trump (from cringe to president), Gore (“I invented the Internet”), Howard Dean (“Dean scream” — how that was able to derail him is really crazy). But some do come back from it (Mike Tyson, Martha Stewart, Nixon?). I’m not saying the catch phrases are real in the case of Dean and Gore, just that it’s amazing how one person can be painted in the press as bad/annoying and another can do no wrong.
Equally amazing is how public sentiment trails along with whatever the influencers are saying. We trust the influencers to tell us which strangers are the good people and then we trust them again to tell us those same people are now the bad ones. Why are some people still fans of Kanye West, given all that he did, but Howard Dean got run out of town on a rail for being made into a TV meme?
IDK. He's the richest person in the world and holds enormous influence. I really keep hoping it's just bad coverage and missteps and that he'll grow and mature into the tech world leader role that he's positioned to be, but I don't need influencers to tell me that calling employees useless because they're disabled is a dumbfuck move.
I didn't really buy the ultra genius narrative and I don't quite buy the evil villain narrative. I just think he's someone who has amassed so much wealth and power that he doesn't feel the need to listen to any criticism.
As I was saying in another thread, sustained success takes a village, it takes a combo of hype people and sober second opinions, and I've seen enough hugely successful people fail because they started feeling like they no longer needed their sober second opinions, and that's exactly how Musk seems to be behaving.
People in huge power need to make so many decisions and if they start insulating themselves against valid criticism, their entire world views can get warped, and a lot of persecution fantasy sets in, which we are seeing.
Now, his early success was so massive, he may be just too big to fail. So I don't know what happens when the person is an economy unto themselves.
For me, I was personally profoundly disappointed in him when he had this massive opportunity to step up as a world leader during the pandemic and instead he went full-on whiny bitch. That to me signaled that something has gone very wrong with who he is choosing to take advice from, if anyone at this point.
The air at the top gets very thin and people's thinking can get extremely strange when left up there alone for too long.
Dictators tend to lead their nations into disastrous errors for all these reasons (Hitler attacking Russia, Stalin's trust of Hitler plus his agricultural program, Mao's great leap, Zimbabwe under Mugabe, Putin...). Meanwhile the nations which make the best decisions over time tend to feature dissolution of power via Parliaments and relatively weak presidents/prime ministers.
Watch someone with a swarm of unconditional fans and yes-man advisors. They will fall in the end. The funny thing is how few people in positions of influence and power figure out how this natural process leads to ruin.I suspect they feel Twitter is not their problem any more, and that they've done something heroic for extracting more shareholder value out of Twitter than was ever otherwise going to happen. Twitter shareholders hit the lottery when Musk agreed to buy the company for far more than it was worth, right before an economic slowdown, and just as the company's economic problems were coming into view. They managed to execute just in time. Twitter would have been a $20 stock today if Musk hadn't paid over fifty dollars a share. That's a win!I wonder what the Twitter Board feels about their decision to force him to go through with the sale now?They probably still love it. They got Elon to pay way above market value.
In a sense they did do something heroic for knocking Musk off his high horse and showing him to be fallible.
That's why maintaining solid counsel is so important, it keeps people in power from getting too warped and fucked up.
That's why maintaining solid counsel is so important, it keeps people in power from getting too warped and fucked up.
I may be biased, but one sign things are messed up is likely that the lawyers are leaving. I have yet to post my most recent job departure story, which had multiple new stories about various issues, but there were serious leadership problems. At some point you wash your hands of the mess.
That's why maintaining solid counsel is so important, it keeps people in power from getting too warped and fucked up.
I may be biased, but one sign things are messed up is likely that the lawyers are leaving. I have yet to post my most recent job departure story, which had multiple new stories about various issues, but there were serious leadership problems. At some point you wash your hands of the mess.
Yeah, it's really bad when the people you pay just for advice start bailing on you. Lawyers will stick around for literally anyone as long as they L.I.S.T.E.N.
Watch someone with a swarm of unconditional fans and yes-man advisors. They will fall in the end. The funny thing is how few people in positions of influence and power figure out how this natural process leads to ruin.Oh, they know it. But they are smart enough to avoid it. They think.
I don't quite buy the evil villain narrative. I just think he's someone who has amassed so much wealth and power that he doesn't feel the need to listen to any criticism.
The thing is, when you're divorced from reality in that way while also controlling monumental amounts of power/wealth it's all but inevitable that you will become an evil villain. We all have asshole impulses that need the occasional scolding to keep in check. Without listening to the scolding you start to go off the deep end.
Oh, you mean the slave that when an victorious general came home in a triumph, had to whisper that into the general's ears while he received the applause of the masses?I don't quite buy the evil villain narrative. I just think he's someone who has amassed so much wealth and power that he doesn't feel the need to listen to any criticism.
The thing is, when you're divorced from reality in that way while also controlling monumental amounts of power/wealth it's all but inevitable that you will become an evil villain. We all have asshole impulses that need the occasional scolding to keep in check. Without listening to the scolding you start to go off the deep end.
"Remember thou art mortal!"
Roman emperors had someone to tell them that... I bet a lot of CEOs would benefit from it too, not just Musk.
Elsewhere, Musk is drawing on experience from his own equity investors in the deal.
Pablo Mendoza, a managing director at Dubai-based Vy Capital, which provided $700 million to the $44 billion takeover, has been working along with Silicon Valley entrepreneur Suril Kantaria, who founded health insurance tech platform Savvy, to assess what to do with existing vendors, according to five people familiar with the situation.
In some cases, the pair have focused on renegotiating existing contracts that were mandatory, or in other cases, they have simply terminated deals.
When telling vendors that the company does not plan on paying them, Mendoza has often resorted to pleading with them that his job is on the line, another person said. Nevertheless, he has enjoyed relative success, negotiating down some bills by between 50 and 90 percent in some cases, the person added. Mendoza declined to comment.
Kantaria, meanwhile, also worked with James Musk to close one of Twitter’s three data centers. That move was hailed as a major win by Musk at the Morgan Stanley investor conference, but critics argue it could contribute to technical instability on the platform.
Another person in Musk’s inner circle is Omead Afshar, a longtime Tesla executive who once led the company’s Gigafactory in Austin, Texas. He joined late last year but was quick to earn the nickname “the Elon whisperer” among staffers because of his ability to read the mood of the mercurial billionaire.
At Twitter, Afshar is now helping solve “the biggest, stickiest issues at the company,” including cutting infrastructure costs, people said. Recently he has been involved in tense negotiations over large cloud spending contracts with Amazon and Google, two people said. Musk said at the investor conference that cloud spending was now down 40 percent.
NPR and PBS quitting Twitter over being labeled "government sponsored media" which lumps them in with authoritarian propaganda channels. NPR receives 1% of its funding from the US government while other news sites around the world which are heavily funded or influenced by their governments have yet to receive that tag.
NPR and PBS quitting Twitter over being labeled "government sponsored media" which lumps them in with authoritarian propaganda channels. NPR receives 1% of its funding from the US government while other news sites around the world which are heavily funded or influenced by their governments have yet to receive that tag.
And Twitter is censoring anti-Modi tweets in India and, possibly, worldwide.
Don't bite the hand that controls where you can build factories and sell cars.
NPR and PBS quitting Twitter over being labeled "government sponsored media" which lumps them in with authoritarian propaganda channels. NPR receives 1% of its funding from the US government while other news sites around the world which are heavily funded or influenced by their governments have yet to receive that tag.I hope they also start labeling "profit oriented company funded" soon!
NPR and PBS quitting Twitter over being labeled "government sponsored media" which lumps them in with authoritarian propaganda channels. NPR receives 1% of its funding from the US government while other news sites around the world which are heavily funded or influenced by their governments have yet to receive that tag.How much government subsidy $ does Tesla get I wonder?
NPR and PBS quitting Twitter over being labeled "government sponsored media" which lumps them in with authoritarian propaganda channels. NPR receives 1% of its funding from the US government while other news sites around the world which are heavily funded or influenced by their governments have yet to receive that tag.How much government subsidy $ does Tesla get I wonder?
I’d suffocate it with a pillow if I could.
QuoteI’d suffocate it with a pillow if I could.
Do it!! :-D
Between Twitter being owned by a loco billionaire censorist and AI taking over social media, I predict the next phase of the Internet is coming soon. Pinterest is overrun with AI-generated content, it’s crazy to see — and not very interesting, which is why social media will die.
Facebook was a simplification of MySpace, Twitter was a simplification of Facebook, and TikTok is a simplification of Twitter
QuoteFacebook was a simplification of MySpace, Twitter was a simplification of Facebook, and TikTok is a simplification of Twitter
Very astute! Never thought of it quite that way. You’re right, MySpace let you customize the look of your page in a way that FB eliminated.
I don't know what the fuck TikTok is, I downloaded it and watched videos for about 3 minutes and felt like throwing my phone across the room.
I don't know what the fuck TikTok is, I downloaded it and watched videos for about 3 minutes and felt like throwing my phone across the room.
Sounds like you know exactly what the fuck TikTok is then. :D
No, it's supposed to make your brain melt, so that you can be easily formed by ads. For those who have a good working model that IS painful, but that is coincidental.I don't know what the fuck TikTok is, I downloaded it and watched videos for about 3 minutes and felt like throwing my phone across the room.
Sounds like you know exactly what the fuck TikTok is then. :D
So it's supposed to be that unpleasant?
I don't think it's going away, but it will increasingly be seen as trash by the people who are resistant. Culture will split into products and non-users. The non-users will take over business, politics, sports, academe, and any other spaces requiring actual achievement. The products will blame the non-users for everything that's wrong with their lives and the world, while the non-users will blame social media.
No, it's supposed to make your brain melt, so that you can be easily formed by ads. For those who have a good working model that IS painful, but that is coincidental.I don't know what the fuck TikTok is, I downloaded it and watched videos for about 3 minutes and felt like throwing my phone across the room.
Sounds like you know exactly what the fuck TikTok is then. :D
So it's supposed to be that unpleasant?
You didn't give its algorithm enough time to react to your behavior, to find out what you dwell over and feed you more and more such things until you're interested in every little video.No, it's supposed to make your brain melt, so that you can be easily formed by ads. For those who have a good working model that IS painful, but that is coincidental.I don't know what the fuck TikTok is, I downloaded it and watched videos for about 3 minutes and felt like throwing my phone across the room.
Sounds like you know exactly what the fuck TikTok is then. :D
So it's supposed to be that unpleasant?
Fascinating...but I still don't get it.
I legitimately don't understand how people can watch it. At first I thought maybe it was a young people thing, y'know digital natives and all, and maybe their interaction with internet content is just fundamentally different.
But DH's 53 year old frat buddy has gotten super into TikTok and tries to have these involved conversations with us about how amazing it is, and now I'm just more confused.
Granted, his frat buddy has the attention span of a fruit fly and the maturity of a 9 year old, so maybe it makes perfect sense.
Granted, his frat buddy has the attention span of a fruit fly and the maturity of a 9 year old, so maybe it makes perfect sense.
You didn't give its algorithm enough time to react to your behavior, to find out what you dwell over and feed you more and more such things until you're interested in every little video.No, it's supposed to make your brain melt, so that you can be easily formed by ads. For those who have a good working model that IS painful, but that is coincidental.I don't know what the fuck TikTok is, I downloaded it and watched videos for about 3 minutes and felt like throwing my phone across the room.
Sounds like you know exactly what the fuck TikTok is then. :D
So it's supposed to be that unpleasant?
Fascinating...but I still don't get it.
I legitimately don't understand how people can watch it. At first I thought maybe it was a young people thing, y'know digital natives and all, and maybe their interaction with internet content is just fundamentally different.
But DH's 53 year old frat buddy has gotten super into TikTok and tries to have these involved conversations with us about how amazing it is, and now I'm just more confused.
Granted, his frat buddy has the attention span of a fruit fly and the maturity of a 9 year old, so maybe it makes perfect sense.
It's the equivalent of smoking meth once, deciding you don't like the taste, and stopping before the addiction takes hold. You did something stupid in trying it, but you got lucky anyway.
You didn't give its algorithm enough time to react to your behavior, to find out what you dwell over and feed you more and more such things until you're interested in every little video.Well, I can't say about Tiktok because I never tried it, but I looked at Youtube shorts, which is officially their try to copy it.
It's the equivalent of smoking meth once, deciding you don't like the taste, and stopping before the addiction takes hold. You did something stupid in trying it, but you got lucky anyway.
I suspect Musk will move on from his Twitter debacle soon.
The new shiny fad/object is AI! Elon's branding of TruthGPT sounds a lot like Trump's Truth Social. Yes, it's obviously "truth" because the name says so.
https://www.cnet.com/tech/elon-musk-says-truthgpt-will-be-a-maximum-truth-seeking-ai/ (https://www.cnet.com/tech/elon-musk-says-truthgpt-will-be-a-maximum-truth-seeking-ai/)
So the checkmark system is now in effect.
If you apply for a golden checkmark and Twitter denies you, they keep your $1000 deposit.
A lot of new and legacy accounts are displaying checkmarks despite not having paid for the new one including dead celebrities.
Stephen King said he didn't pay for his, and Musk chimes in saying he comped his along with a handful of other people.
There either is or will be settings that will hide the checkmark.
A number of parody or fraudulent accounts appeared with checkmarks giving people the impression that paying the fee is the only hurdle to verification.
This is also a problem since the algorithm favors accounts with the checkmarks.
And of course Musk thinks the chaos this is creating is hilarious.
I suspect Musk will move on from his Twitter debacle soon.
The new shiny fad/object is AI! Elon's branding of TruthGPT sounds a lot like Trump's Truth Social. Yes, it's obviously "truth" because the name says so.
https://www.cnet.com/tech/elon-musk-says-truthgpt-will-be-a-maximum-truth-seeking-ai/ (https://www.cnet.com/tech/elon-musk-says-truthgpt-will-be-a-maximum-truth-seeking-ai/)
Truth™, an Elon Musk digital product specializing in "free speech absolutism" strategies for suppressing dissent.
Coming soon!
Conservative twitter is now angry at celebs for not paying $8/mth to a billionaire. ??The right ingers here "joke" about left accounts (now having a check) being Nazi since a few days ago one of the biggest wrote that Nazis etc. use the checkmark and do you want to be a companion of that?
I hope for this woman's sake that she's got a thick skin. She's going to take a lot of crap from people because they hate Musk/Twitter and it will spill over onto her.
I hope for this woman's sake that she's got a thick skin. She's going to take a lot of crap from people because they hate Musk/Twitter and it will spill over onto her.
She'll also have to take shit from Musk. Once he's not in charge, he'll have someone to blame for any failure.
I hope for this woman's sake that she's got a thick skin. She's going to take a lot of crap from people because they hate Musk/Twitter and it will spill over onto her.
She'll also have to take shit from Musk. Once he's not in charge, he'll have someone to blame for any failure.
Didn't Musk's genius skyrocket Twitter to success though?
That means his CEO will be almost solely focused on the business, which Yaccarino is certainly qualified for. She already runs a multi-billion-dollar ads business and is well respected among the cohort of CMOs who need to be convinced to spend on the platform again. Importantly, I’m told that she and Musk also see eye to eye politically.
“She’s tough as fucking nails and she’s always wanted this job,” a former colleague says. “It’s perfect.”
If I had to guess, the reason Musk didn’t announce the name is because of unfortunate timing on Yaccarino’s end. NBCU is slated to give its annual Upfront presentation to advertisers on Monday, which Yaccarino is apparently in rehearsals for today. Awkward!
Update May 12th, 10:15AM ET: NBCU has announced that Yaccarino is leaving the company effective immediately.
I was going to say this is a textbook glass-cliff scenario, but @Daley beat me to it.
Musk has utterly mismanaged Twitter. He's buzzsawed its employees, trashed its reputation, and scared away all its advertisers... and now he's handing the smoldering ashes over to a woman.
If she pulls off a miracle and turns the company around, Musk can just kick her out and take over again. If she fails, Musk can dump all the blame on her. He'll say he could have saved Twitter, but those meanie SJW liberals forced him to step back and put an unqualified female in charge.
Did you even read that after you wrote it? Let's unpack this one at a time:
"utterly mismanaged" - followed his game plan; whether you agree with it or not doesn't make it mismanagement
"buzzsawed its employees" - part of the game plan, the place wasn't going to give him ROI with it's bloated workforce
"trashed its reputation" - and that reputation was...
"scared away all its advertisers" - that's just a false statement
"handing the smoldering ashes over to a woman" - you make it sound like he's purposely setting up some poor, dumb woman for failure;
You and Daley should get together and write a movie because you sure are good at writing fictional narratives.DADDY MUSK SENPAI, NOTICE ME!
Quote"trashed its reputation" - and that reputation was...
Well, for one thing, a haven for free speech....
Quote"trashed its reputation" - and that reputation was...
Well, for one thing, a haven for free speech....
Unless you're a conservative. Or just anyone who dares to question the narrative.
In response to intense pressure from policy makers and the public, technology companies have enacted a range of policies aimed at reducing the spread of misinformation online. The enforcement of these policies has, however, led to technology companies being regularly accused of political bias. We argue that even under politically neutral anti-misinformation policies, such political asymmetries in enforcement should be expected, as there is a political asymmetry in the sharing of misinformation. We support this argument with an analysis of Twitter data from 9,000 politically active users during the U.S. 2020 presidential election. While Republicans were indeed substantially more likely to be suspended than Democrats, the Republicans also shared far more links to low quality news sites – even when news quality was determined by politically-balanced groups of laypeople, or groups of only Republicans – and were estimated to have a far higher likelihood of being bots. We also find widespread evidence of ideological asymmetries when analyzing sharing intentions data from 8,597 people across 16 countries. These results demonstrate that social media platforms face a trade-off between effectively reducing the spread of misinformation and maintaining political balance in enforcement.https://psyarxiv.com/ay9q5 (https://psyarxiv.com/ay9q5)
I find it interesting that Musk has rallied so hard against corporate media for a long time now but yet has chosen a corporate media executive to become CEO of Twitter. Not what I would expect as his first choice!
On the eve of an election in Turkey, Mr. Free Speech Absolutist obeys an eleventh-hour demand from the Turkish government to censor tweets that are critical of Erdogan:
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/05/twitter-musk-censors-turkey-election-erdogan
Musk has called himself a “free speech absolutist,” and has committed to bolstering freedom of expression on the platform. But he has also said he wants Twitter to follow local laws in the countries where it operates. “There’s this deep tension in the way that Elon Musk has talked about how he’s going to run the platform,” says Evelyn Douek, an assistant professor at Stanford Law whose research focuses on online speech. “His proclamations about being a free speech platform would suggest standing up to authoritarians, who are the biggest threat to free speech. But he has also said he will obey local laws—which in many areas of the world, means being far more restrictive than Twitter’s current content moderation rules.”
On the eve of an election in Turkey, Mr. Free Speech Absolutist obeys an eleventh-hour demand from the Turkish government to censor tweets that are critical of Erdogan:
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/05/twitter-musk-censors-turkey-election-erdogan
In Elon’s defense, he has always maintained that Twitter will obey the laws of the countries in which it operates:
https://time.com/6230338/twitter-india-elon-musk-free-speech/QuoteMusk has called himself a “free speech absolutist,” and has committed to bolstering freedom of expression on the platform. But he has also said he wants Twitter to follow local laws in the countries where it operates. “There’s this deep tension in the way that Elon Musk has talked about how he’s going to run the platform,” says Evelyn Douek, an assistant professor at Stanford Law whose research focuses on online speech. “His proclamations about being a free speech platform would suggest standing up to authoritarians, who are the biggest threat to free speech. But he has also said he will obey local laws—which in many areas of the world, means being far more restrictive than Twitter’s current content moderation rules.”
On the eve of an election in Turkey, Mr. Free Speech Absolutist obeys an eleventh-hour demand from the Turkish government to censor tweets that are critical of Erdogan:
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/05/twitter-musk-censors-turkey-election-erdogan
In Elon’s defense, he has always maintained that Twitter will obey the laws of the countries in which it operates:
https://time.com/6230338/twitter-india-elon-musk-free-speech/QuoteMusk has called himself a “free speech absolutist,” and has committed to bolstering freedom of expression on the platform. But he has also said he wants Twitter to follow local laws in the countries where it operates. “There’s this deep tension in the way that Elon Musk has talked about how he’s going to run the platform,” says Evelyn Douek, an assistant professor at Stanford Law whose research focuses on online speech. “His proclamations about being a free speech platform would suggest standing up to authoritarians, who are the biggest threat to free speech. But he has also said he will obey local laws—which in many areas of the world, means being far more restrictive than Twitter’s current content moderation rules.”
I mean . . . he also shrank Twitter's regulatory compliance teams to the point that they're not able to follow the laws that the FTC and GDPR require. So it really sounds like everything else that has happened at Twitter - Musk just does whatever makes himself happy.
On the eve of an election in Turkey, Mr. Free Speech Absolutist obeys an eleventh-hour demand from the Turkish government to censor tweets that are critical of Erdogan:
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/05/twitter-musk-censors-turkey-election-erdogan
In Elon’s defense, he has always maintained that Twitter will obey the laws of the countries in which it operates:
https://time.com/6230338/twitter-india-elon-musk-free-speech/QuoteMusk has called himself a “free speech absolutist,” and has committed to bolstering freedom of expression on the platform. But he has also said he wants Twitter to follow local laws in the countries where it operates. “There’s this deep tension in the way that Elon Musk has talked about how he’s going to run the platform,” says Evelyn Douek, an assistant professor at Stanford Law whose research focuses on online speech. “His proclamations about being a free speech platform would suggest standing up to authoritarians, who are the biggest threat to free speech. But he has also said he will obey local laws—which in many areas of the world, means being far more restrictive than Twitter’s current content moderation rules.”
I mean . . . he also shrank Twitter's regulatory compliance teams to the point that they're not able to follow the laws that the FTC and GDPR require. So it really sounds like everything else that has happened at Twitter - Musk just does whatever makes himself happy.
I have to ask the question. Was there anyone at Twitter remaining that even has the knowledge base to understand whether Erdogan’s demand was legal or illegal under Turkish law?
That’s the crux of the issue. Countries have different frameworks for deciding what is legal or not.
It’s one thing if Twitter censored something based on a court order and established law. It’s VERY different if Twitter caved to an illegal demand to censor information. I don’t claim to understand Turkish law on the matter.
Let’s try a closer to home hypothetical. What if Florida’s legislature passed a law requiring Twitter to censor anything critical of DeSantis? It would be the law in Florida the moment it was signed. How should Twitter respond? Should they throw up their hands and claim it’s the law?
On the eve of an election in Turkey, Mr. Free Speech Absolutist obeys an eleventh-hour demand from the Turkish government to censor tweets that are critical of Erdogan:
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/05/twitter-musk-censors-turkey-election-erdogan
In Elon’s defense, he has always maintained that Twitter will obey the laws of the countries in which it operates:
https://time.com/6230338/twitter-india-elon-musk-free-speech/QuoteMusk has called himself a “free speech absolutist,” and has committed to bolstering freedom of expression on the platform. But he has also said he wants Twitter to follow local laws in the countries where it operates. “There’s this deep tension in the way that Elon Musk has talked about how he’s going to run the platform,” says Evelyn Douek, an assistant professor at Stanford Law whose research focuses on online speech. “His proclamations about being a free speech platform would suggest standing up to authoritarians, who are the biggest threat to free speech. But he has also said he will obey local laws—which in many areas of the world, means being far more restrictive than Twitter’s current content moderation rules.”
I mean . . . he also shrank Twitter's regulatory compliance teams to the point that they're not able to follow the laws that the FTC and GDPR require. So it really sounds like everything else that has happened at Twitter - Musk just does whatever makes himself happy.
I have to ask the question. Was there anyone at Twitter remaining that even has the knowledge base to understand whether Erdogan’s demand was legal or illegal under Turkish law?
That’s the crux of the issue. Countries have different frameworks for deciding what is legal or not.
It’s one thing if Twitter censored something based on a court order and established law. It’s VERY different if Twitter caved to an illegal demand to censor information. I don’t claim to understand Turkish law on the matter.
Let’s try a closer to home hypothetical. What if Florida’s legislature passed a law requiring Twitter to censor anything critical of DeSantis? It would be the law in Florida the moment it was signed. How should Twitter respond? Should they throw up their hands and claim it’s the law?
Twitter under Musk would do what DeSantis wants . . . because that's in line with what Musk wants. As we've seen, legality and freedom of speech are not at all important when they conflict with his personal desires.
"They say that if you stand for nothing, you’ll fall for anything. So today, I’m drawing a line in the sand and standing up for free speech. Let every enemy of freedom know, let every would-be tyrant be warned, and let every petty dictator take notice: If you want Twitter to censor its users, just send me an email."
The good news is that twitter seems to be fine since the Elon Musk and Ron DeStanis interview/presidential announcement went off without a hitch...
edit for link: https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/24/tech/twitter-desantis-meltdown/index.html (https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/24/tech/twitter-desantis-meltdown/index.html)
"call him an attention-seeker, even pigeonhole him as right wing."The good news is that twitter seems to be fine since the Elon Musk and Ron DeStanis interview/presidential announcement went off without a hitch...
edit for link: https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/24/tech/twitter-desantis-meltdown/index.html (https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/24/tech/twitter-desantis-meltdown/index.html)
Apparently, you only mock him because you fail to understand him.
https://www.thestreet.com/technology/elon-musk-sends-a-loud-message-to-the-world
"call him an attention-seeker, even pigeonhole him as right wing."The good news is that twitter seems to be fine since the Elon Musk and Ron DeStanis interview/presidential announcement went off without a hitch...
edit for link: https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/24/tech/twitter-desantis-meltdown/index.html (https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/24/tech/twitter-desantis-meltdown/index.html)
Apparently, you only mock him because you fail to understand him.
https://www.thestreet.com/technology/elon-musk-sends-a-loud-message-to-the-world
WOW! That cognitive dissonance pain was so big it jumped over to me and I was unable to read further. And here I thought "Soros hates humanity" Musk was a communist! How can anyone think otherwise???
Twitter maintains - or at least used to - regional offices in most if its markets incl regional legal assessments (I know this for EU, I expect this to hold true also for Middle-East, but maybe s.o. from that region can confirm). I guess they are able to check back w/ US HQ but running EMEA market and legal regional experts (and lobbyist) is pretty much standard for tech firms - I used to deal w/ quite a few if these guys in one of my previous jobs.
I have to ask the question. Was there anyone at Twitter remaining that even has the knowledge base to understand whether Erdogan’s demand was legal or illegal under Turkish law?
That’s the crux of the issue. Countries have different frameworks for deciding what is legal or not.
Fidelity has marked down its investment in Twitter for the third time. It now estimates that Twitter is worth one-third of what Musk paid for it seven months ago:
https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/twitter-worth-musk-paid-fall-fidelity-marks-investment-99723540
Fidelity has marked down its investment in Twitter for the third time. It now estimates that Twitter is worth one-third of what Musk paid for it seven months ago:
https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/twitter-worth-musk-paid-fall-fidelity-marks-investment-99723540
still over-valued. real value somewhere between buck-fiddy and tree-fiddy. That's USD 1.50-3.50, for those who speak English. :p
https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/twitter-employee-lawsuit-v/e5d27a60a7b7d51e/full.pdf (https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/twitter-employee-lawsuit-v/e5d27a60a7b7d51e/full.pdf)
Latest lawsuit against Musk. Musk firing executives and withholding their severances, refusing to pay rent on real estate, refusing to pay termination fees on contracts, refusing to pay supply vendors, and ordering the construction/alteration of the internal spaces in violation of state building codes.
https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/twitter-employee-lawsuit-v/e5d27a60a7b7d51e/full.pdf (https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/twitter-employee-lawsuit-v/e5d27a60a7b7d51e/full.pdf)
Latest lawsuit against Musk. Musk firing executives and withholding their severances, refusing to pay rent on real estate, refusing to pay termination fees on contracts, refusing to pay supply vendors, and ordering the construction/alteration of the internal spaces in violation of state building codes.
No wonder he gets along with Trump so well.
Both Killian and Hawkins were told that for Musk, the fact that Twitter was
legally or contractually obligated to pay a particular sum would be irrelevant to the decision of
whether to actually pay it when that amount came due that Musk operated on a zero cost
basis and that Twitter would therefore simply decide afresh, for each significant expense,
whether or not it wanted to pay what it owed.
Isn't this usually the point where most companies are forced into bankruptcy? Perhaps both Trump and Musk are exploiting a legal system that is no longer capable of forcing debtors to pay their creditors or liquidate. I.e. if their lawyers can hold things up effectively forever, they can outlive their liabilities or their creditors. Maybe this is the new longtermism?https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/twitter-employee-lawsuit-v/e5d27a60a7b7d51e/full.pdf (https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/twitter-employee-lawsuit-v/e5d27a60a7b7d51e/full.pdf)
Latest lawsuit against Musk. Musk firing executives and withholding their severances, refusing to pay rent on real estate, refusing to pay termination fees on contracts, refusing to pay supply vendors, and ordering the construction/alteration of the internal spaces in violation of state building codes.
No wonder he gets along with Trump so well.QuoteBoth Killian and Hawkins were told that for Musk, the fact that Twitter was
legally or contractually obligated to pay a particular sum would be irrelevant to the decision of
whether to actually pay it when that amount came due that Musk operated on a zero cost
basis and that Twitter would therefore simply decide afresh, for each significant expense,
whether or not it wanted to pay what it owed.
Musk's business acumen and genius appears to know no bounds.
Musk's business acumen and genius appears to know no bounds.
Isn't this usually the point where most companies are forced into bankruptcy? Perhaps both Trump and Musk are exploiting a legal system that is no longer capable of forcing debtors to pay their creditors or liquidate. I.e. if their lawyers can hold things up effectively forever, they can outlive their liabilities or their creditors. Maybe this is the new longtermism?
Musk's business acumen and genius appears to know no bounds.
He is the richest person in the world and has successfully run two companies valued at 100 billion+ for 15-25 years (including the #9 by market cap in the US) - so yes, I would say he's pretty good at business by any objective measure.
Businesses break contracts all the time. It may not be the morally right thing to do, but as far as legality goes, that will be decided in court.
Sounds very libertarian for me. Which he seems to be based on his tweets and conspiracy theories.Musk's business acumen and genius appears to know no bounds.
He is the richest person in the world and has successfully run two companies valued at 100 billion+ for 15-25 years (including the #9 by market cap in the US) - so yes, I would say he's pretty good at business by any objective measure.
Businesses break contracts all the time. It may not be the morally right thing to do, but as far as legality goes, that will be decided in court.
Are we counting stealing company resources on the list of objective measurements? He's being accused of not paying his employees, not paying bills, and taking essentially free labor from a publicly traded company to work at one of his pet projects.
Twitter, which is owned by the richest man on earth, is being evicted from its Colorado office for failure to pay rent:
https://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-being-evicted-from-colorado-office-not-paying-rent-report-2023-6?op=1
In what might be another blow to the stability of Twitter's trust and safety efforts, the company has allegedly stopped paying for Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services (AWS), which host tools that support the platform's safety measures, Platformer reported this weekend.
Not paying rent leads to offices being closed, which is Elon's 4D chess move to fire employees because they aren't "coming to the office".Isn't your normal place of work written in your contract in the US?
Also, Twitter might be stiffing bigger companies (https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/06/musk-stiffing-google-could-unleash-yet-more-abuse-on-twitter-report-says/):QuoteIn what might be another blow to the stability of Twitter's trust and safety efforts, the company has allegedly stopped paying for Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services (AWS), which host tools that support the platform's safety measures, Platformer reported this weekend.
No platform safety tools, no need for content moderation. Muh freeze peach!
Musk claims it was because some companies started scraping all their publicly facing data and it was overwhelming their servers. However, it seems like limiting the IP addresses accessing thousands of pages would be pretty straightforward.
Elon Tweeting that view caps slowly rising.Nobody can access those links :D
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1675214274627530754 (https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1675214274627530754)
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1675260424109928449 (https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1675260424109928449)
If I had to guess, they're gradually restoring capacity because of this Google issue.
Elon Musk himself hit his own rate limits... while reading people's replies about rate limits. I believe current limits are 500 (unverified) and 1000 (verified).Wouldn't ChatGPT's views be exponentially higher than a human user though? The limits put in place were very low if that was the issue they were trying to solve. They have all the user viewing data so this type of limit should have been invisible to end users if their target was competitors downloading extreme amounts of data.
ChatGPT is fueled by downloading everything on Twitter, Reddit, and other websites. I suspect ChatGPT and other AI bots are increasing the amount of downloading ("scraping"). That in turn increases Twitter's costs (bandwidth, and more servers to handle more traffic)... but how does ChatGPT benefit Twitter? I think the lack of benefit, versus rising cost, is why Twitter is imposing rate limits. I know Reddit is also taking action, but I haven't followed that closely (and some areas are protesting, so the outcome remains to be seen).
Elon Musk himself hit his own rate limits... while reading people's replies about rate limits. I believe current limits are 500 (unverified) and 1000 (verified).
ChatGPT is fueled by downloading everything on Twitter, Reddit, and other websites. I suspect ChatGPT and other AI bots are increasing the amount of downloading ("scraping"). That in turn increases Twitter's costs (bandwidth, and more servers to handle more traffic)... but how does ChatGPT benefit Twitter? I think the lack of benefit, versus rising cost, is why Twitter is imposing rate limits. I know Reddit is also taking action, but I haven't followed that closely (and some areas are protesting, so the outcome remains to be seen).
Recall that Musk tried to get out of buying Twitter when he learned how many accounts were bots. The rationale was that there were a lot fewer actual eyeballs to advertise to, so when advertisers wise up to this fact they'll have less willingness to pay for Twitter ads.
Musk's problem with scraper bots might have a similar rationale. They may only account for a few accounts, but they could over time account for a large percentage of ad impressions, eroding the value of the ad platform.
Why should ChatGPT download TBs of data more than once? There is no profit in it, only cost.Doesn't that ignore the cost of a software engineer to make the scraper avoid old data? ChatGPT was created by OpenAI, which is located in San Francisco. A quick search says the average software engineer in SF gets paid $20,000 per month. Amazon Web Services charges $170/month per TB of bandwidth. I suspect saving bandwidth is not a cost effective use of a software engineer's time.
Of course, as I said, they might scrape new data, but again that means every tweet get's read once. I don't know how many tweets are send each day, but I am sure on average each gets read at least a 100 times by human users.
Musk said hundreds of organizations or more were scraping Twitter data "extremely aggressively," affecting user experience.https://cybernews.com/news/twitter-blocks-non-users-reading-tweets-ai-scraping/
Shortly, we will begin enforcing the previously announced, updated API rate limitshttps://www.reddit.com/r/redditdev/comments/14nbw6g/updated_rate_limits_going_into_effect_over_the/
"We absolutely will take legal action against those who stole our data & look forward to seeing them in court, which is (optimistically) 2 to 3 years from now," he said.https://cybernews.com/news/twitter-blocks-non-users-reading-tweets-ai-scraping/
A second problem - where is the "new data" section of Wikipedia?
I always see new content added to existing pages. When you visit a page, you get everything together - the old data and new data. It's not clear how you would scrape Wikipedia and only download new content. There may be solutions for Reddit or Twitter, but those solutions require additional effort and testing by a software engineer paid $1,000 a day to save $170 per TB.
but those solutions require additional effort and testing by a software engineer paid $1,000 a day to save $170 per TB.Does Wikipedia still sell itself on DVD?
That's a really good starting point, with only changed pages. When I clicked the "diff" link for a controverisal political figure, I wasn't just shown the difference. I was shown the difference at the top of the complete page. So the new and old content are still mixed, but you can avoid unchanged parts of Wikipedia since the prior visit / crawl. I have no idea how often OpenAI crawled / crawls Wikipedia.A second problem - where is the "new data" section of Wikipedia?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:RecentChanges?hidebots=1&hidecategorization=1&hideWikibase=1&namespace=0&limit=500&days=30&urlversion=2
Dozens of pages edited every minute. It's truly a marvelous human achievement.
Meta smells blood, launches "Threads" app to compete with the currently weakened Twitter.Zuckerberg is a bit of a robot, no? The picture I get is of thrashing around like the end of the original Terminator.
And ChatGPT does not need the newest data - it will be weeks if not month until the training is finished anyway, a few hours more or less don't make a difference.Maybe today, they could sell a hard drive worth? Latest I found was a 2019 estimate that Wikipedia takes 5TB of disk space. Fastest business plans in San Francisco (OpenAI's locatioN) are 5000 Mbps, or 0.625 GB/sec. So maybe 3 hours to download all of Wikipedia on a business internet plan.but those solutions require additional effort and testing by a software engineer paid $1,000 a day to save $170 per TB.Does Wikipedia still sell itself on DVD?
Since ChatGPT only uses text, it's a remarkebly small size. They could buy a DVD and get it in the post 2 days later for a few bucks without any webtraffic or complicated algos. Now THAT is efficiency!
Yeah, 5TB with pictures, thats why I was mentioning them. In pure text (and without cangelog) 5TB would be billions of books. Literally several billion of them. The bible (not the smallest of books) in epub is a mere 1,6MB and html pushes that up to 4,4MB ( https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10 )Meta smells blood, launches "Threads" app to compete with the currently weakened Twitter.Zuckerberg is a bit of a robot, no? The picture I get is of thrashing around like the end of the original Terminator.And ChatGPT does not need the newest data - it will be weeks if not month until the training is finished anyway, a few hours more or less don't make a difference.Maybe today, they could sell a hard drive worth? Latest I found was a 2019 estimate that Wikipedia takes 5TB of disk space. Fastest business plans in San Francisco (OpenAI's locatioN) are 5000 Mbps, or 0.625 GB/sec. So maybe 3 hours to download all of Wikipedia on a business internet plan.but those solutions require additional effort and testing by a software engineer paid $1,000 a day to save $170 per TB.Does Wikipedia still sell itself on DVD?
Since ChatGPT only uses text, it's a remarkebly small size. They could buy a DVD and get it in the post 2 days later for a few bucks without any webtraffic or complicated algos. Now THAT is efficiency!
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mirroring_Wikimedia_project_XML_dumps/estimates
Meta smells blood, launches "Threads" app to compete with the currently weakened Twitter.
https://abcnews.go.com/Business/threads-meta-owned-app-set-twitter/story?id=100659749 (https://abcnews.go.com/Business/threads-meta-owned-app-set-twitter/story?id=100659749)
I was actually hoping for a cage fight. What we got instead was more social media fragmentation.
Meta smells blood, launches "Threads" app to compete with the currently weakened Twitter.
https://abcnews.go.com/Business/threads-meta-owned-app-set-twitter/story?id=100659749 (https://abcnews.go.com/Business/threads-meta-owned-app-set-twitter/story?id=100659749)
I was actually hoping for a cage fight. What we got instead was more social media fragmentation.
wait was the zuckerberg - musk fight cancelled? Who backed out?
Meta smells blood, launches "Threads" app to compete with the currently weakened Twitter.
https://abcnews.go.com/Business/threads-meta-owned-app-set-twitter/story?id=100659749 (https://abcnews.go.com/Business/threads-meta-owned-app-set-twitter/story?id=100659749)
I was actually hoping for a cage fight. What we got instead was more social media fragmentation.
wait was the zuckerberg - musk fight cancelled? Who backed out?
Musk's mother stepped in and stopped it.
Meta smells blood, launches "Threads" app to compete with the currently weakened Twitter.
https://abcnews.go.com/Business/threads-meta-owned-app-set-twitter/story?id=100659749 (https://abcnews.go.com/Business/threads-meta-owned-app-set-twitter/story?id=100659749)
I was actually hoping for a cage fight. What we got instead was more social media fragmentation.
wait was the zuckerberg - musk fight cancelled? Who backed out?
Musk's mother stepped in and stopped it.
Zuckerberg is legitimately training and competing in Brazilian jiu jitsu. My money's on him in a fight.
Meta smells blood, launches "Threads" app to compete with the currently weakened Twitter.
https://abcnews.go.com/Business/threads-meta-owned-app-set-twitter/story?id=100659749 (https://abcnews.go.com/Business/threads-meta-owned-app-set-twitter/story?id=100659749)
I was actually hoping for a cage fight. What we got instead was more social media fragmentation.
wait was the zuckerberg - musk fight cancelled? Who backed out?
Musk's mother stepped in and stopped it.
Zuckerberg is legitimately training and competing in Brazilian jiu jitsu. My money's on him in a fight.
Elon's supermodel mummy said he's not allowed to fight young (Silicon) Valley boys trained in non-European fighting methods. Have to maintain that apartheid xenophobia. Got to maintain those cultivated standards and reputation.
My money's on Zuck too. But I was hoping Elon would land a couple of good punches and kicks too.
Talked the talk, yet to walk the walk. Good 'ol fashioned pugilism between capitalism's elite would probably draw the largest crowd. Livestream it on social media, bypassing the MSM.
'Tis a pity that it'd get limited views on Twitter due to the current tweet viewing restriction policy by the UberTwit.
Couldn't basically anyone with a passing familiarity with coding write a clone of twitter?You mean something like Mastodon? (btw. me: https://mastodon.social/@LennStar )
Plus, Truth Social is an obvious Twitter clone. Why aren't they being sued?Probably because that one worked so bad (at least at start) Elon thought about buying the real one :D
C'mon Elon. Are these employees you fired useless dead weight losers, or geniuses who know the most intricate workings of Twitter and can easily duplicate it? Pick a lane.
Couldn't basically anyone with a passing familiarity with coding write a clone of twitter? It's not particularly complex as far as I can tell. Hell, the old BBS systems from the 80s and early 90s were pretty much the same thing, if you set aside the need to call in one or two at a time on a modem.
When people predicted twitter would stop working when Musk fired a bunch of people I thought that was silly. It's equally silly to think Twitter would be hard to clone without inside knowledge.
Plus, Truth Social is an obvious Twitter clone. Why aren't they being sued?
-W
Pretty good comment here (https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/6/23786127/twitter-lawsuit-threat-meta-threads-app?commentID=fd2d8d96-fff9-4cf1-bb9f-c2b7069004c3) on Twitter's functions.Can someone explain to me why it's not illegal to make a copycat, but illegal to make a copycat with workers fired from the original?
I would like to apologize for firing these geniuses. Their immense talent will no doubt be of great use elsewhere.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 15, 2022
Pretty good comment here (https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/6/23786127/twitter-lawsuit-threat-meta-threads-app?commentID=fd2d8d96-fff9-4cf1-bb9f-c2b7069004c3) on Twitter's functions.Can someone explain to me why it's not illegal to make a copycat, but illegal to make a copycat with workers fired from the original?
If there are any contractual obligations to not spill company secrets, than it's the employee's responsibility to not do this, not the company, because the company per definition cannot know if X is a "bound secret" or not.
Couldn't basically anyone with a passing familiarity with coding write a clone of twitter? It's not particularly complex as far as I can tell. Hell, the old BBS systems from the 80s and early 90s were pretty much the same thing, if you set aside the need to call in one or two at a time on a modem.The basic functionality of Twitter is pretty trivial, yes. Where it gets complicated (and expensive) is scaling it up to 100+ million users. Then you have to build up the server infrastructure and optimize code to deliver content in milliseconds.
Couldn't basically anyone with a passing familiarity with coding write a clone of twitter?
Plus, Truth Social is an obvious Twitter clone. Why aren't they being sued?
Is hiring someone that another company fired without cause really considered 'poaching' employees? I always thought that 'poaching' implied a concerted effort to lure employees away.
I'd agree it should be relatively straightforward for *facebook* to do a clone of twitter. They aren't just anybody though...
and Facebook does seem to have done it fairly quickly.
I'm beginning to think Elon doesn't know how to run a social media company... just a hunch...
Meta smells blood, launches "Threads" app to compete with the currently weakened Twitter.
https://abcnews.go.com/Business/threads-meta-owned-app-set-twitter/story?id=100659749 (https://abcnews.go.com/Business/threads-meta-owned-app-set-twitter/story?id=100659749)
I was actually hoping for a cage fight. What we got instead was more social media fragmentation.
wait was the zuckerberg - musk fight cancelled? Who backed out?
Musk's mother stepped in and stopped it.
Zuckerberg is legitimately training and competing in Brazilian jiu jitsu. My money's on him in a fight.
Elon's supermodel mummy said he's not allowed to fight young (Silicon) Valley boys trained in non-European fighting methods. Have to maintain that apartheid xenophobia. Got to maintain those cultivated standards and reputation.
My money's on Zuck too. But I was hoping Elon would land a couple of good punches and kicks too.
Talked the talk, yet to walk the walk. Good 'ol fashioned pugilism between capitalism's elite would probably draw the largest crowd. Livestream it on social media, bypassing the MSM.
'Tis a pity that it'd get limited views on Twitter due to the current tweet viewing restriction policy by the UberTwit.
Fight needs to be held on neutral turf, Myspace will host
(https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2023/05/09/TELEMMGLPICT000335030194_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqqVzuuqpFlyLIwiB6NTmJwfSVWeZ_vEN7c6bHu2jJnT8.jpeg?imwidth=200)(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FuGKO1yWcAEiQra.jpg:large)
ETA: I thought you guys just made this up until I googled
I've wondered for a while now if Musk is secretly trying to long con everyone by killing Twitter. I have no idea why he would want to do such a thing but so many of his actions seem overly destructive that it's the only conclusion I could come up with.
In the last week it looks like he is now rebranding Twitter to X and will be getting rid of all the birds. I feel like this is the equivalent of taking a dying animal outback and shooting it in the head. Changing a widely known brand and logo to something nondescript and indistinctive seems so damaging that I don't know how the product would survive it.
Maybe he secretly wants a $54 billion tax write off? I'm at a loss.
yeah this rebrand thing is so insanely insane that the only option, that any reasonable person can think of, is that he is intentionally killing twitter for some unknown reason.He doesn't have a controlling interest in Tesla or SpaceX anymore does he? They also seem like very well established companies that essentially don't need him anymore. Though, I suppose the same could have been said for Twitter before he bought it.
Or this is what he's actually like and it was just better hidden when he was only worth 2 billion. I wonder if Tesla shareholders are going to demand he be replaced as CEO, this isn't good for the Tesla brand either.
I've wondered for a while now if Musk is secretly trying to long con everyone by killing Twitter. I have no idea why he would want to do such a thing but so many of his actions seem overly destructive that it's the only conclusion I could come up with.
In the last week it looks like he is now rebranding Twitter to X and will be getting rid of all the birds. I feel like this is the equivalent of taking a dying animal outback and shooting it in the head. Changing a widely known brand and logo to something nondescript and indistinctive seems so damaging that I don't know how the product would survive it.
Maybe he secretly wants a $54 billion tax write off? I'm at a loss.
Now that Twitter is officially X, what do we replace the corporate verb-form "tweet" with? If I may be so bold as to propose a replacement...Um... I think the answer is yes and of course there will be a lot of seXting
"I'm live X-creting this event!"
"Did you see the latest X-cretion from [person]?"
"I spend most of my time swiping X-crement while on the can."
Remember, too, this is the same clown who deliberately named Tesla car models the S, 3, X, and Y.
Remember, too, this is the same clown who deliberately named Tesla car models the S, 3, X, and Y.
OMG how did I never notice this before?
The operative word is schadenfreude.At the moment it's more Schadenfreudevorfreude. (The happiness before, just banged together with Schadenfreude.)
I have no idea how this will play out financially for Elon. All I'm saying is that I expect to see the platform functionality improve more over the next 2 years than the last 14. At some point, for enough features and low enough price point $5 or $8 I'll consider upgrading.
The operative word is schadenfreude.At the moment it's more Schadenfreudevorfreude. (The happiness before, just banged together with Schadenfreude.)
I've wondered for a while now if Musk is secretly trying to long con everyone by killing Twitter. I have no idea why he would want to do such a thing but so many of his actions seem overly destructive that it's the only conclusion I could come up with.
In the last week it looks like he is now rebranding Twitter to X and will be getting rid of all the birds. I feel like this is the equivalent of taking a dying animal outback and shooting it in the head. Changing a widely known brand and logo to something nondescript and indistinctive seems so damaging that I don't know how the product would survive it.
Maybe he secretly wants a $54 billion tax write off? I'm at a loss.
I'm not really a Musk watcher myself. The Twitter rebrand showed up in my news feed and it seemed so insane I felt compelled to post here. I don't even use Twitter so it's not going to impact my life if it goes away. Just one of those things I see an say, "How about that?"I've wondered for a while now if Musk is secretly trying to long con everyone by killing Twitter. I have no idea why he would want to do such a thing but so many of his actions seem overly destructive that it's the only conclusion I could come up with.
In the last week it looks like he is now rebranding Twitter to X and will be getting rid of all the birds. I feel like this is the equivalent of taking a dying animal outback and shooting it in the head. Changing a widely known brand and logo to something nondescript and indistinctive seems so damaging that I don't know how the product would survive it.
Maybe he secretly wants a $54 billion tax write off? I'm at a loss.
I'm so tired of the oxygen being sucked by Elon, so my response is:
(https://i2.wp.com/nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/06/melania-jacket-dont-care-do-you.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&ssl=1)
It has been 9/24 months since Musk started 'improving' Twitter. In that time there have been significant functional losses to the service, large losses of advertising revenue, a huge slew of very expensive lawsuits (which seem to be slam dunks against the company) from improperly compensated employee layoffs, a huge slew of lawsuits from unpaid debtors, a large number of serious competitors entering the market, and a bizarre rebranding exercise that appears poised to further damage.
It has been 9/24 months since Musk started 'improving' Twitter. In that time there have been significant functional losses to the service, large losses of advertising revenue, a huge slew of very expensive lawsuits (which seem to be slam dunks against the company) from improperly compensated employee layoffs, a huge slew of lawsuits from unpaid debtors, a large number of serious competitors entering the market, and a bizarre rebranding exercise that appears poised to further damage.
Don't forget the addition of a CEO who appears to be indistinguishable from an AI press secretary. Seriously, Elon still controls the company's finances, branding, technology, and HR decisions. What is there for her to do exactly?
According to the Wall Street Journal, #TwitterX sent emails to advertisers this week, warning them that »beginning Aug. 7, brands’ accounts will lose their #verification—a gold check mark that indicates their account truly represents their #brand—if they haven’t spent at least $1,000 on #ads in the previous 30 days or $6,000 on ads in the previous 180 days, according to the email.«
https://archive.li/sGYgS
Saw this on Mastodon:
Twitter --> X
Tweets --> Xcrements ?
Also, X trying hard on extortion from corporate customers:QuoteAccording to the Wall Street Journal, #TwitterX sent emails to advertisers this week, warning them that »beginning Aug. 7, brands’ accounts will lose their #verification—a gold check mark that indicates their account truly represents their #brand—if they haven’t spent at least $1,000 on #ads in the previous 30 days or $6,000 on ads in the previous 180 days, according to the email.«
https://archive.li/sGYgS
I just saw this and thought it summed up the twitter mess nicely.It's pining for the woods!
That there is a Norwegian Blue. It’s pining for the fjords.I just saw this and thought it summed up the twitter mess nicely.It's pining for the woods!
Oh, wow!
We Germans have a saying: That will hit like bomb.
Does that saying exist in the US too?
Oh, wow!
We Germans have a saying: That will hit like bomb.
Does that saying exist in the US too?
Oh, wow!
We Germans have a saying: That will hit like bomb.
Does that saying exist in the US too?
A comparable American idiom might be "that will go over like a lead balloon" or "like a fart in church".
https://fxtwitter.com/realchrisjbeale/status/1685353135236403200 (https://fxtwitter.com/realchrisjbeale/status/1685353135236403200)... but the url is stil... twitter.com
This is Twitter's new sign on the HQ. No permit to take the old one down, put this thing up (and it may have been erected by employees rather than qualified workers), signs on top of buildings in SF are illegal, and there may be some historic building rules in play as well. And this is on top of other municipal ordinances that Musk is accused of violating regarding the engineering of the building. I really have to wonder where the building's landlord is in all of this.
https://twitter.com/ChrisO_wiki/status/1685381217967915008?s=20 (https://twitter.com/ChrisO_wiki/status/1685381217967915008?s=20)
Somehow Musk (as a tenant) is denying access to the building for inspectors. Seems easy enough to get a warrant and a couple of cops to force the issue.
https://twitter.com/MattBinder/status/1685705113812242433 (https://twitter.com/MattBinder/status/1685705113812242433)
Somehow Musk (as a tenant) is denying access to the building for inspectors. Seems easy enough to get a warrant and a couple of cops to force the issue.
https://twitter.com/MattBinder/status/1685705113812242433 (https://twitter.com/MattBinder/status/1685705113812242433)
Yep, nothing like the threat of deadly force to enforce municipal sign regulations.
This is other narcissistic maniac who doesn’t think normal rules apply to him. The inspector needs to call the police, enter the building, disable the sign, and arrest and charge and prosecute anyone who gets in their way. We live in a society of rules. In a democracy, we have a voice in those rules. When people don’t follow the rules, there need to be consequences.
Elon is free to destroy Twitter/X if that’s what he wants - good luck with those creditors, by the way - but for me, this sign BS is a step too far.
BTW, if I was a neighbor, I’d be buying a parabolic mirror or several, and then reflecting that light back on the source or on someone who could be annoyed enough to do something about it.
BTW, if I was a neighbor, I’d be buying a parabolic mirror or several, and then reflecting that light back on the source or on someone who could be annoyed enough to do something about it.
Popcorn makers must have such a stressy time!
You know that verified check mark? That became "twitter blue" aka the "you are a right extremist paying idiot" shame mark, now renamed "X blue"?
You can now hide it.
nomnomnomnomnom
Yep! It's fantastic, right?Popcorn makers must have such a stressy time!
You know that verified check mark? That became "twitter blue" aka the "you are a right extremist paying idiot" shame mark, now renamed "X blue"?
You can now hide it.
nomnomnomnomnom
Wait...what?
You can pay for a verified check mark and then hide the check mark you paid for???
I took that example because I just saw a stat that Dems and Reps are now divided by their "believe" in science. If that graph is not faked, it's probably the biggest and fastest change in party views ever (except maybe wars).
I would not count "the economy" as a party view. Or did they change the view on the existence of it? I mean political views not whatever is in the news (or twitterfeed) today.I took that example because I just saw a stat that Dems and Reps are now divided by their "believe" in science. If that graph is not faked, it's probably the biggest and fastest change in party views ever (except maybe wars).
People and party's views on topics can change really rapidly.
Check out how fast republicans went from viewing the economy as bad to viewing it as good at the start of 2017, a year in which nothing much changed with the US economy.
I would not count "the economy" as a party view. Or did they change the view on the existence of it? I mean political views not whatever is in the news (or twitterfeed) today.I took that example because I just saw a stat that Dems and Reps are now divided by their "believe" in science. If that graph is not faked, it's probably the biggest and fastest change in party views ever (except maybe wars).
People and party's views on topics can change really rapidly.
Check out how fast republicans went from viewing the economy as bad to viewing it as good at the start of 2017, a year in which nothing much changed with the US economy.
You know, abortion, should we have a fence to Mexico, is it ok to tax rich people more, that is a political view. The state of the economy is not. Though I admit it looks like it is so in the US.
btw. that graph without the question means nearly nothing. As it is the case in most cases were people are asked (also where/how they were asked is important).
You know, abortion, should we have a fence to Mexico, is it ok to tax rich people more, that is a political view. The state of the economy is not. Though I admit it looks like it is so in the US.
People and party's views on topics can change really rapidly.
Check out how fast republicans went from viewing the economy as bad to viewing it as good at the start of 2017, a year in which nothing much changed with the US economy.
And while smaller in size, you can see a really noticeable change in opposite direction from democrats, again in a year in which nothing much changed in the US economy.
(https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2019/07/PP_2019.07.25_Trump-economy_0-01.png)
People hear a headline number like the economy grew 3% this quarter (typically GDP growth) or unemployment rose to 6% or inflation is at 5%. Most people don't analyze things any deeper than that. How are they doing personally? Do they have a job? Did they get a raise? Is the cost of gas or electricity up? Do groceries cost more?
The Fed also asked Americans how they felt about the local and national economy. And though the number of Americans who said that they personally were “doing at least okay” actually rose slightly from 2019 to 2021, their evaluation of the national economy plummeted in that time frame. If this graph were a bumper sticker, it would read: EVERYTHING IS TERRIBLE, BUT I'M FINE.
Wow, so the takeaway is something like, "Democrats always think the economy sucks no matter what since Clinton. Republicans think the economy is awesome any time there's a Republican president, and awful every time there's a Democrat."
Ever since Elon Musk announced Linda Yaccarino was stepping into the role of Twitter CEO in May, a lot of people have been wondering why she took the job and what she actually does when Musk still holds so much sway over the company. That was only renewed earlier this month when Musk insulted her authority once again by tweeting that CEO is a “fake title.”
She’s been dogged by claims she’s little more than a figurehead while Musk holds the real power as executive chairman and chief technology officer. He consistently tweets out major decisions, like the recent hasty (and sloppy) rebranding of Twitter as X, only for her to send delayed tweets praising his shambolic leadership.
What does Linda Yaccarino, the alleged CEO of Twitter, actually do?QuoteEver since Elon Musk announced Linda Yaccarino was stepping into the role of Twitter CEO in May, a lot of people have been wondering why she took the job and what she actually does when Musk still holds so much sway over the company. That was only renewed earlier this month when Musk insulted her authority once again by tweeting that CEO is a “fake title.”
She’s been dogged by claims she’s little more than a figurehead while Musk holds the real power as executive chairman and chief technology officer. He consistently tweets out major decisions, like the recent hasty (and sloppy) rebranding of Twitter as X, only for her to send delayed tweets praising his shambolic leadership.
https://www.disconnect.blog/p/why-did-linda-yaccarino-join-twitter
Just so you know Musk decided on a whim to remove the "block" function. I wonder if the CEO knew it before theThe irony of removing this feature being that the app will no longer qualify for the Google or Apple app store. The ability to block users is a required feature of social media apps in both stores. Go on with your bad self, Elon!tweeteXcrement?
Just so you know Musk decided on a whim to remove the "block" function. I wonder if the CEO knew it before theThe irony of removing this feature being that the app will no longer qualify for the Google or Apple app store. The ability to block users is a required feature of social media apps in both stores. Go on with your bad self, Elon!tweeteXcrement?
Just so you know Musk decided on a whim to remove the "block" function. I wonder if the CEO knew it before theThe irony of removing this feature being that the app will no longer qualify for the Google or Apple app store. The ability to block users is a required feature of social media apps in both stores. Go on with your bad self, Elon!tweeteXcrement?
Wait...does that mean that Elon himself can no longer block people? Isn't he, like, the king of blocking folks who say things he doesn't like?But more importantly, no one can block *him* anymore.
Wait...does that mean that Elon himself can no longer block people? Isn't he, like, the king of blocking folks who say things he doesn't like?But more importantly, no one can block *him* anymore.
LennStar, for my app, at the top of the screen there are two buttons: "For You" and "Following"Oh yes, Why didn't I see that?
The "For You" tab sounds very much like what you describe. But if I switch over to "Following" I get a simple chronological order display oftweetsxeetsposts from the people I follow on the website-formerly-known-as-twitter. No trending posts or random stuff inserted from people I don't follow. Very much the way any single column within a tweetdeck display would be arranged.
Do you have a similar pair of buttons at the top of your app?
I'm also sad to be losing access to tweetdeck. It was a much more efficient interface.
X glitch wipes out most pictures and links tweeted before December 2014 (https://www.theverge.com/2023/8/20/23838823/twitter-x-deleted-pictures-links-2014-metadata-t-co-shortener)Must be one of those useless microservices.
Pretty fun blocking people who complain that blocking is going away.
How does the medicine taste?
Wait...so is he saying that no one can block people but him???
I'm confused...
Wait...so is he saying that no one can block people but him???
I'm confused...
I think it’s something along the lines of “I’m having a conversation about blocking, but you can’t participate in it, because you are blocked. How does that feel?”
Apparently the blocking thing is about replying to public tweets. It doesn’t have to do with the ability to hide people you don’t like from your news feed, or block people from sending you private messages. That functionality isn’t changing.
I think it’s important to actually understand what blocking means in this context, because when I first read about this issue I thought it meant Elon wanted to take away the ability to block people from showing up in your news feed, which turned out not to be true.
Can you block your content so specific people can't see it? For example, could I still set my Twitter so that an unstable Ex who stalked me, broke into my home, and tracked me for years couldn't see my tweets? Or do I, simply by choosing to use Xwitter, necessarily open up my life (as much as it is represented in Xwitter) to him?
btw. since we all know social media has a libaral bias, Elon seems to be working on it:
X just suggested me - in one box - I should follow:
- The top AfD (right extremist party) woman in the Bundestag
- the former AfD top in the Berlin state parliament
- a journalist where I don't know if he is in the AfD but he is a CoVid conspiracy theorist and writer for an right extremist magazine, so that is a mere formality.
As far as I remember I have never talked to them, I might have comment-retweeted the first person once or twice in the last years to point out how even more stupid that was.
So let's see... Putin chooses "Z" as the symbol for his genocidal invasion of Ukraine, which is half a swastika.
Musk chooses "X" as the symbol for his nazi/AfD-boosting propaganda machine, which is also half a swastika.
btw. since we all know social media has a libaral bias, Elon seems to be working on it:
X just suggested me - in one box - I should follow:
- The top AfD (right extremist party) woman in the Bundestag
- the former AfD top in the Berlin state parliament
- a journalist where I don't know if he is in the AfD but he is a CoVid conspiracy theorist and writer for an right extremist magazine, so that is a mere formality.
As far as I remember I have never talked to them, I might have comment-retweeted the first person once or twice in the last years to point out how even more stupid that was.
Weirdly FB suddenly started recommending almost exclusively alt right/conspiracy theory pages to me, just out of nowhere, and no matter how many I block, it's still recommending them, but now it's added gamer pages. It's really, really weird.
So let's see... Putin chooses "Z" as the symbol for his genocidal invasion of Ukraine, which is half a swastika.
Musk chooses "X" as the symbol for his nazi/AfD-boosting propaganda machine, which is also half a swastika.
So let's see... Putin chooses "Z" as the symbol for his genocidal invasion of Ukraine, which is half a swastika.
Musk chooses "X" as the symbol for his nazi/AfD-boosting propaganda machine, which is also half a swastika.
Oh come on, Elon’s been doing (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/X.com_(bank)) the X thing (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX) for the last 24 years, do you really think the X name has something to do with Nazi propaganda?
So let's see... Putin chooses "Z" as the symbol for his genocidal invasion of Ukraine, which is half a swastika.
Musk chooses "X" as the symbol for his nazi/AfD-boosting propaganda machine, which is also half a swastika.
Oh come on, Elon’s been doing (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/X.com_(bank)) the X thing (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX) for the last 24 years, do you really think the X name has something to do with Nazi propaganda?
Yeah, for Elon it’s just some sort of weird adolescent fixation with X being an “edgy” or “cool” letter that he never outgrew.
The Teslas being named S-3-X-Y is not an accident. The board overruled him and didn't allow him to name the 3 an E.
btw. since we all know social media has a libaral bias, Elon seems to be working on it:
X just suggested me - in one box - I should follow:
- The top AfD (right extremist party) woman in the Bundestag
- the former AfD top in the Berlin state parliament
- a journalist where I don't know if he is in the AfD but he is a CoVid conspiracy theorist and writer for an right extremist magazine, so that is a mere formality.
As far as I remember I have never talked to them, I might have comment-retweeted the first person once or twice in the last years to point out how even more stupid that was.
Weirdly FB suddenly started recommending almost exclusively alt right/conspiracy theory pages to me, just out of nowhere, and no matter how many I block, it's still recommending them, but now it's added gamer pages. It's really, really weird.
In many cases, gamer influences are a soft introduction to extremist propaganda, so that makes sense that this would be coming up. Gaming content is a nice platform to access impressionable young people.
The gamers might be because it's gamescom, but that does not explain the amount.
Oh, I totally understand why I'm getting gamer sites along with my alt-right/conspiracy sites. That's not what I find weird, what I find weird is that I'm getting these sites all over my FB all of a sudden after many, many years of never seeing them before.
I am the very last person who wants to see this shit and I have no one in my friends group who is into this stuff. It's really weird that I'm suddenly flooded with it out of nowhere and it's not going away no matter how many pages and people I block.
If I block one, I'll get a nearly identical one with a nearly identical name, and so on and so forth with endless pages with similar names and similar content. No matter what I do, the AI seems to just refuse to believe that I don't want this crap in my feed.
Oh, I totally understand why I'm getting gamer sites along with my alt-right/conspiracy sites. That's not what I find weird, what I find weird is that I'm getting these sites all over my FB all of a sudden after many, many years of never seeing them before.
I am the very last person who wants to see this shit and I have no one in my friends group who is into this stuff. It's really weird that I'm suddenly flooded with it out of nowhere and it's not going away no matter how many pages and people I block.
If I block one, I'll get a nearly identical one with a nearly identical name, and so on and so forth with endless pages with similar names and similar content. No matter what I do, the AI seems to just refuse to believe that I don't want this crap in my feed.
My FB feed in the last few months is a bunch of pages about stuff like history and geography (which I am interested in) interspersed with random "entertainment" pages (All Things British Royals, People Incorrectly Correcting Other People, Super News Supes, etc.) that are dumb stuff I don't care about. I rarely get any ads (might be because I'm on a desktop and haven't had FB installed on a phone in 5-10 years). And the remaining 30-40% is posts from people I actually know or a handful of groups/pages I do follow.
I think their algorithm is really struggling since I interact with so little on FB - I mainly go to check a couple of private groups about business stuff and see if any real people I know posted anything in the last week or so. So when I stop scrolling for 3 or 4 seconds on something the algorithm grabs onto that data point even though I may have just looked long enough to see what it was and decided I didn't care about it. It looks like they try to suggest about 10 new groups near the top of my feed and after I scroll past that they give up and just show me things from friends or pages I follow with a handful of sponsored posts mixed in.
There's a big overlap between the people who spend their time gaming or fucking around on the internet all day and the people who are susceptible to claims that minorities/women/their democracy are oppressing them.
For such people to believe the truth would involve self-accountability, and nobody's a fan of that.
Oh, I totally understand why I'm getting gamer sites along with my alt-right/conspiracy sites. That's not what I find weird, what I find weird is that I'm getting these sites all over my FB all of a sudden after many, many years of never seeing them before.
I am the very last person who wants to see this shit and I have no one in my friends group who is into this stuff. It's really weird that I'm suddenly flooded with it out of nowhere and it's not going away no matter how many pages and people I block.
If I block one, I'll get a nearly identical one with a nearly identical name, and so on and so forth with endless pages with similar names and similar content. No matter what I do, the AI seems to just refuse to believe that I don't want this crap in my feed.
My FB feed in the last few months is a bunch of pages about stuff like history and geography (which I am interested in) interspersed with random "entertainment" pages (All Things British Royals, People Incorrectly Correcting Other People, Super News Supes, etc.) that are dumb stuff I don't care about. I rarely get any ads (might be because I'm on a desktop and haven't had FB installed on a phone in 5-10 years). And the remaining 30-40% is posts from people I actually know or a handful of groups/pages I do follow.
I think their algorithm is really struggling since I interact with so little on FB - I mainly go to check a couple of private groups about business stuff and see if any real people I know posted anything in the last week or so. So when I stop scrolling for 3 or 4 seconds on something the algorithm grabs onto that data point even though I may have just looked long enough to see what it was and decided I didn't care about it. It looks like they try to suggest about 10 new groups near the top of my feed and after I scroll past that they give up and just show me things from friends or pages I follow with a handful of sponsored posts mixed in.
I hate to say it, but those "random" things? They're probably ads.
Oh, I totally understand why I'm getting gamer sites along with my alt-right/conspiracy sites. That's not what I find weird, what I find weird is that I'm getting these sites all over my FB all of a sudden after many, many years of never seeing them before.
I am the very last person who wants to see this shit and I have no one in my friends group who is into this stuff. It's really weird that I'm suddenly flooded with it out of nowhere and it's not going away no matter how many pages and people I block.
If I block one, I'll get a nearly identical one with a nearly identical name, and so on and so forth with endless pages with similar names and similar content. No matter what I do, the AI seems to just refuse to believe that I don't want this crap in my feed.
My FB feed in the last few months is a bunch of pages about stuff like history and geography (which I am interested in) interspersed with random "entertainment" pages (All Things British Royals, People Incorrectly Correcting Other People, Super News Supes, etc.) that are dumb stuff I don't care about. I rarely get any ads (might be because I'm on a desktop and haven't had FB installed on a phone in 5-10 years). And the remaining 30-40% is posts from people I actually know or a handful of groups/pages I do follow.
I think their algorithm is really struggling since I interact with so little on FB - I mainly go to check a couple of private groups about business stuff and see if any real people I know posted anything in the last week or so. So when I stop scrolling for 3 or 4 seconds on something the algorithm grabs onto that data point even though I may have just looked long enough to see what it was and decided I didn't care about it. It looks like they try to suggest about 10 new groups near the top of my feed and after I scroll past that they give up and just show me things from friends or pages I follow with a handful of sponsored posts mixed in.
I hate to say it, but those "random" things? They're probably ads.
No, there's no "Sponsored" tag on any of them. They're all FB groups and there's a message above each one that says "suggested for you".
I just scrolled my FB feed for a few minutes and I got two ads and zero of these suggested groups.
Oh, I totally understand why I'm getting gamer sites along with my alt-right/conspiracy sites. That's not what I find weird, what I find weird is that I'm getting these sites all over my FB all of a sudden after many, many years of never seeing them before.
I am the very last person who wants to see this shit and I have no one in my friends group who is into this stuff. It's really weird that I'm suddenly flooded with it out of nowhere and it's not going away no matter how many pages and people I block.
If I block one, I'll get a nearly identical one with a nearly identical name, and so on and so forth with endless pages with similar names and similar content. No matter what I do, the AI seems to just refuse to believe that I don't want this crap in my feed.
My FB feed in the last few months is a bunch of pages about stuff like history and geography (which I am interested in) interspersed with random "entertainment" pages (All Things British Royals, People Incorrectly Correcting Other People, Super News Supes, etc.) that are dumb stuff I don't care about. I rarely get any ads (might be because I'm on a desktop and haven't had FB installed on a phone in 5-10 years). And the remaining 30-40% is posts from people I actually know or a handful of groups/pages I do follow.
I think their algorithm is really struggling since I interact with so little on FB - I mainly go to check a couple of private groups about business stuff and see if any real people I know posted anything in the last week or so. So when I stop scrolling for 3 or 4 seconds on something the algorithm grabs onto that data point even though I may have just looked long enough to see what it was and decided I didn't care about it. It looks like they try to suggest about 10 new groups near the top of my feed and after I scroll past that they give up and just show me things from friends or pages I follow with a handful of sponsored posts mixed in.
I hate to say it, but those "random" things? They're probably ads.
No, there's no "Sponsored" tag on any of them. They're all FB groups and there's a message above each one that says "suggested for you".
I just scrolled my FB feed for a few minutes and I got two ads and zero of these suggested groups.
Speaking as someone who runs FB ads… they don’t always have a “sponsored” tag. You would be surprised how many things are ads on FB.
Lol, hey, does everyone remember when Musk started hanging out with Kanye and everyone was like "whoa dude, maybe don't hang out with the crazy guy with all of the offensive conspiracy theories." Turns out they were competing for the title.
You can't make this shit up.
Just a quick reminder for liberal Jews who voted to destroy America & Israel because you believed false narratives! Let's hope you learned from your mistake & make better choices moving forward! Happy New Year!...I'm feeling mighty uncomfortable. I'm not even Jewish, but I have ties and connections with the local Jewish community in my city, and I know the shockwaves of concern rippling through them right now. There is a pit in my stomach that just leaves me on edge.
You can't make this shit up.
Between that and the latest Truth Social posted update (https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-ominous-warning-jews-1827703) from its inglorious criminal in chief that was literally released during Rosh Hashanah, reading, and I quote...QuoteJust a quick reminder for liberal Jews who voted to destroy America & Israel because you believed false narratives! Let's hope you learned from your mistake & make better choices moving forward! Happy New Year!...I'm feeling mighty uncomfortable. I'm not even Jewish, but I have ties and connections with the local Jewish community in my city, and I know the shockwaves of concern rippling through them right now. There is a pit in my stomach that just leaves me on edge.
You can't make this shit up.
Between that and the latest Truth Social posted update (https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-ominous-warning-jews-1827703) from its inglorious criminal in chief that was literally released during Rosh Hashanah, reading, and I quote...QuoteJust a quick reminder for liberal Jews who voted to destroy America & Israel because you believed false narratives! Let's hope you learned from your mistake & make better choices moving forward! Happy New Year!...I'm feeling mighty uncomfortable. I'm not even Jewish, but I have ties and connections with the local Jewish community in my city, and I know the shockwaves of concern rippling through them right now. There is a pit in my stomach that just leaves me on edge.
I am Jewish, and I can confidently say that my only superpower is having rare genetic conditions and racists giving me way too much credit for influence that I don't have.
I can say with certainty that I'll never own a Tesla.^^^
You can't make this shit up.
Between that and the latest Truth Social posted update (https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-ominous-warning-jews-1827703) from its inglorious criminal in chief that was literally released during Rosh Hashanah, reading, and I quote...QuoteJust a quick reminder for liberal Jews who voted to destroy America & Israel because you believed false narratives! Let's hope you learned from your mistake & make better choices moving forward! Happy New Year!...I'm feeling mighty uncomfortable. I'm not even Jewish, but I have ties and connections with the local Jewish community in my city, and I know the shockwaves of concern rippling through them right now. There is a pit in my stomach that just leaves me on edge.
I am Jewish, and I can confidently say that my only superpower is having rare genetic conditions and racists giving me way too much credit for influence that I don't have.
Sounds about right. The closest I've ever witnessed to superpowers on my end is the ability to lift a Torah scroll without tearing it, fasting a half dozen times a year, and figuring out how to get a hair clip to fasten a kippah to less than half an inch of hair. How this somehow translates to world domination is beyond me.
Seriously, though... the rise in high profile antisemitism lately is starting to get a little nuts.
You can't make this shit up.
Between that and the latest Truth Social posted update (https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-ominous-warning-jews-1827703) from its inglorious criminal in chief that was literally released during Rosh Hashanah, reading, and I quote...QuoteJust a quick reminder for liberal Jews who voted to destroy America & Israel because you believed false narratives! Let's hope you learned from your mistake & make better choices moving forward! Happy New Year!...I'm feeling mighty uncomfortable. I'm not even Jewish, but I have ties and connections with the local Jewish community in my city, and I know the shockwaves of concern rippling through them right now. There is a pit in my stomach that just leaves me on edge.
I am Jewish, and I can confidently say that my only superpower is having rare genetic conditions and racists giving me way too much credit for influence that I don't have.
Sounds about right. The closest I've ever witnessed to superpowers on my end is the ability to lift a Torah scroll without tearing it, fasting a half dozen times a year, and figuring out how to get a hair clip to fasten a kippah to less than half an inch of hair. How this somehow translates to world domination is beyond me.
Seriously, though... the rise in high profile antisemitism lately is starting to get a little nuts.
It's fucking crazy. And it's just...okay.
I mean yeah, some deals get squashed, and some mean articles are written, but there's less fuss made about it than there was about Florence Pugh's gall of having small breasts and showing her nipples.
People are saying shit literally straight from the Hitler playbook and folks are like "oh Elon, tell us more about Mars you silly nut."
Between the secret space lasers and controlling all the world's financial systems it's weird that you guys keep letting these people say this stuff. I appreciate your dedication to preserving free speech. :P
And the trouble with repeating this crap in the media is people become inured to it. I’ve had to explain to my grown kids, for example, that it IS antisemitic to “observe” that “Jewish people control media/Hollywood/banks.” Sort of like the recent Dave Chappelle line on the topic, saying that “you can’t say” that there sure are a lot of Jews in Hollywood. You can say whatever you like, Dave. But ask yourself what exactly it is you’re trying to say.
Because, what utility does this “information” have (were it even true)? Men “control” the construction industry, for example, and certain ethnicities got a foothold in some industry and kept it. Is that due to a nefarious cabal or tradition or ability or a combination of factors? Are there exclusionary practices that keep women out of the CEO suite and white guys under 6 feet out of the NBA? Sure, but there used to be many more.
Above all, I AM SICK & TIRED OF billionaires blaming people far less powerful than them! What kind of manly man walks around whining and name-calling and blaming???!!!! WTF!!!!
...
And the trouble with repeating this crap in the media is people become inured to it. I’ve had to explain to my grown kids, for example, that it IS antisemitic to “observe” that “Jewish people control media/Hollywood/banks.” Sort of like the recent Dave Chappelle line on the topic, saying that “you can’t say” that there sure are a lot of Jews in Hollywood. You can say whatever you like, Dave. But ask yourself what exactly it is you’re trying to say.
Because, what utility does this “information” have (were it even true)? Men “control” the construction industry, for example, and certain ethnicities got a foothold in some industry and kept it. Is that due to a nefarious cabal or tradition or ability or a combination of factors? Are there exclusionary practices that keep women out of the CEO suite and white guys under 6 feet out of the NBA? Sure, but there used to be many more.
Above all, I AM SICK & TIRED OF billionaires blaming people far less powerful than them! What kind of manly man walks around whining and name-calling and blaming???!!!! WTF!!!!
(Sorry for the shouting, just got some bad news, channeling rage via Internet LOL).
Above all, I AM SICK & TIRED OF billionaires blaming people far less powerful than them! What kind of manly man walks around whining and name-calling and blaming???!!!! WTF!!!!What's interesting is that any self-help book will tell you that to be more effective you need to quit whining and to quit using other people as excuses. If you believe multi-millionaires and billionaires are in some ways more functional and productive than the rest of us, then you would expect them to be the most self-accountable, like the self-help books say.
Above all, I AM SICK & TIRED OF billionaires blaming people far less powerful than them! What kind of manly man walks around whining and name-calling and blaming???!!!! WTF!!!!What's interesting is that any self-help book will tell you that to be more effective you need to quit whining and to quit using other people as excuses. If you believe multi-millionaires and billionaires are in some ways more functional and productive than the rest of us, then you would expect them to be the most self-accountable, like the self-help books say.
Instead, we see several people with elite levels of wealth using the less wealthy as an excuse for their dissatisfaction, playing childish games with name-calling and tribalism, and generally thinking more like dysfunctional people.
Possibilities:
1) It's less about how they actually think and more about how their audience responds. In this light, Musk is like a gangsta rapper or a country music singer, spewing instructions on how to be dysfunctional to an audience which likes exactly that message. They don't have to agree people should live or think in the way advocated by their entertainment - they're just trying to be popular.
2) It is no longer necessary to be functional when one is a rich venture capitalist. You don't have to make carefully considered decisions, cultivate a positive organizational culture, manage people successfully, or reverse course when the results debunk expectations. You have managers and executives employed to do such things for you, and it is impossible for the money to ever run out. With nothing left to do, the world becomes a playground, the people and institutions around you become toys, and the mind is allowed to devolve to a childish and impulsive way of thinking. An increasing level of competency is required to reach the elite levels of business performance until one reaches the point where competency suddenly doesn't matter at all.
3) Selection bias means we only hear from the billionaires or millionaires who are the most viral internet users. Anyone who spends hours on Twitter or whatnot is probably not using their time effectively, per the performance improvement books and common sense. So the people contributing the most content on the social internet are probably the least effective or least self-accountable people. Thus, among the rich and famous, we'll necessarily only see social media posts from the absolute most dysfunctional people in that population. The more functional 99.9% of executives are busy doing more productive things and thinking in a self-accountable way.
That's an interesting point. Sort of like how the only people who play the lottery are the ones who are bad at math or bad at money.Above all, I AM SICK & TIRED OF billionaires blaming people far less powerful than them! What kind of manly man walks around whining and name-calling and blaming???!!!! WTF!!!!What's interesting is that any self-help book will tell you that to be more effective you need to quit whining and to quit using other people as excuses. If you believe multi-millionaires and billionaires are in some ways more functional and productive than the rest of us, then you would expect them to be the most self-accountable, like the self-help books say.
Instead, we see several people with elite levels of wealth using the less wealthy as an excuse for their dissatisfaction, playing childish games with name-calling and tribalism, and generally thinking more like dysfunctional people.
Possibilities:
1) It's less about how they actually think and more about how their audience responds. In this light, Musk is like a gangsta rapper or a country music singer, spewing instructions on how to be dysfunctional to an audience which likes exactly that message. They don't have to agree people should live or think in the way advocated by their entertainment - they're just trying to be popular.
2) It is no longer necessary to be functional when one is a rich venture capitalist. You don't have to make carefully considered decisions, cultivate a positive organizational culture, manage people successfully, or reverse course when the results debunk expectations. You have managers and executives employed to do such things for you, and it is impossible for the money to ever run out. With nothing left to do, the world becomes a playground, the people and institutions around you become toys, and the mind is allowed to devolve to a childish and impulsive way of thinking. An increasing level of competency is required to reach the elite levels of business performance until one reaches the point where competency suddenly doesn't matter at all.
3) Selection bias means we only hear from the billionaires or millionaires who are the most viral internet users. Anyone who spends hours on Twitter or whatnot is probably not using their time effectively, per the performance improvement books and common sense. So the people contributing the most content on the social internet are probably the least effective or least self-accountable people. Thus, among the rich and famous, we'll necessarily only see social media posts from the absolute most dysfunctional people in that population. The more functional 99.9% of executives are busy doing more productive things and thinking in a self-accountable way.
You're equating business success with general success.
It's often takes a fucking deranged psyche to become extraordinarily successful in business.
I personally have walked away from business deals that would have made me phenomenally wealthy because I knew they would horribly erode my general quality of life and sense of well being.
I read a great piece that I think I posted about earlier outlining Musk's batshit crazy server move and the deranged reasoning behind it. How his other companies have had to learn from the beginning how to manage him and his maniacal urgency, how to drip feed him information so that he doesn't hear anything as a "no."
To be as successful as Musk, you have to be rather unhinged and have a poor relationship with personal responsibility, otherwise you would have the common sense to listen to smarter people who tell you no.
The judgement error is assuming that this is how to be successful. It isn't, most of the time this type of pathology will lead to failure, but on rare occasions, an absolutely batshit crazy person will strike the exact right combination of bold moves and outperform everyone else because they are incapable of understanding their own limitations and obstacles.
Pair the right kind of crazy with the right kind of clever at the right time in history and you get spectacular results...at least for awhile.
Some of these fucking lunatics learn over time, get humbled, and are forced to refine their perspectives and approaches as the stakes they've created for themselves get bigger: see Bill Gates, a notorious fucking psychopath who learned to play better with others.
Unfortunately, Musk's business success has actually amplified his mental issues and as the stakes get bigger, he's doubling down harder on the more radical aspects of his approach that have worked for him in the past.
Early business success actually selects for fucking deranged folk with mental health issues. Most sane folks aren't willing to go through what the path to major success takes from you, and aren't willing to take the extraordinary risk of failure along the way.
It almost takes a delusional sense of self to even be willing to take such huge bets on oneself, because the chances are that you will not succeed.
As much as there is brilliance and hard work behind success, there is also an enormous element of luck and timing.
One thing that has stood out to me in studying history is that almost all great accomplishments of note in humankind could have easily just been the ramblings of crazy people had the circumstances been a bit different.
You have to understand society's losers to really grasp how many of them are not meaningfully different from society's winners.
It's just that the losers are seen as nuts and the winners are seen as visionaries in retrospect, but A LOT of ideas of the losers were just as plausible as the ideas of the winners.
That's not to say that all crazy folks could be great successes, obviously not. But for every Musk, there's someone just as smart, just as driven, just as creative, just as willing to take insane chances, working with just as much of a clue about what could be accomplished, and who didn't manage to make anything work out and probably lost everything along the way.
And for each of those types, there are more who are just as smart, just as driven, but have the self-preservation instinct to take fewer impossible risks and just live a more normal life of some high accomplishment at a more reasonable scale.
Musk isn't crazy despite being successful, his success is largely a product of him being fucking crazy.
It is apophenia - the experience of a more or less profound insight as a response to BS.
MAGA and other fascist movements ultimately are part of an ongoing epidemic of apophenia that has pushed many into (literal) psychosis:When the human tendency to detect patterns goes too far
‘Apophenia’ is reflected in pleasant and troubling experiences alike – from seeing faces in clouds to conspiracy beliefs
Shayla Love 19 SEPTEMBER 2023
It is apophenia - the experience of a more or less profound insight as a response to BS.
MAGA and other fascist movements ultimately are part of an ongoing epidemic of apophenia that has pushed many into (literal) psychosis:When the human tendency to detect patterns goes too far
‘Apophenia’ is reflected in pleasant and troubling experiences alike – from seeing faces in clouds to conspiracy beliefs
Shayla Love 19 SEPTEMBER 2023
This reminded me of this gem: http://wisdomofchopra.com/
What's interesting is that any self-help book will tell you that to be more effective you need to quit whining and to quit using other people as excuses. If you believe multi-millionaires and billionaires are in some ways more functional and productive than the rest of us, then you would expect them to be the most self-accountable, like the self-help books say.
Instead, we see several people with elite levels of wealth using the less wealthy as an excuse for their dissatisfaction, playing childish games with name-calling and tribalism, and generally thinking more like dysfunctional people.
Possibilities:
1) It's less about how they actually think and more about how their audience responds. In this light, Musk is like a gangsta rapper or a country music singer, spewing instructions on how to be dysfunctional to an audience which likes exactly that message. They don't have to agree people should live or think in the way advocated by their entertainment - they're just trying to be popular.
2) It is no longer necessary to be functional when one is a rich venture capitalist. You don't have to make carefully considered decisions, cultivate a positive organizational culture, manage people successfully, or reverse course when the results debunk expectations. You have managers and executives employed to do such things for you, and it is impossible for the money to ever run out. With nothing left to do, the world becomes a playground, the people and institutions around you become toys, and the mind is allowed to devolve to a childish and impulsive way of thinking. An increasing level of competency is required to reach the elite levels of business performance until one reaches the point where competency suddenly doesn't matter at all.
3) Selection bias means we only hear from the billionaires or millionaires who are the most viral internet users. Anyone who spends hours on Twitter or whatnot is probably not using their time effectively, per the performance improvement books and common sense. So the people contributing the most content on the social internet are probably the least effective or least self-accountable people. Thus, among the rich and famous, we'll necessarily only see social media posts from the absolute most dysfunctional people in that population. The more functional 99.9% of executives are busy doing more productive things and thinking in a self-accountable way.
How do you kill a social media platform in the least amount of time? Charge people to use it. It will be interesting to see if this actually happens. I also find it amusing that apparently the data isn't available to meaningfully compare the number of users to before he bought the company.
https://techcrunch.com/2023/09/18/elon-musk-says-x-will-charge-users-a-small-monthly-payment-to-use-its-service/
Making people pay to tweet should be the nail in the coffin for #Twitter; but then again I thought turning it into a glorified Parler would've been that nail already. As they say, the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.
QuoteMaking people pay to tweet should be the nail in the coffin for #Twitter; but then again I thought turning it into a glorified Parler would've been that nail already. As they say, the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.
source: https://mastodon.social/@Gargron/111095676859387527
(bolded part by me)
Since Musk is using OPM (Saudi/MBS) money, irrationality could exist into infinity.
Kinda seems to me that a universal fee is going to make the problem worse, not better.
If everyone had to pay to use Twitter, there'd be a mass exodus of ordinary users who aren't getting any real value that would justify paying for it. Meanwhile, the spambots will be making their owners money, so those accounts would actually have the most incentive to stick around.
Kinda seems to me that a universal fee is going to make the problem worse, not better.
If everyone had to pay to use Twitter, there'd be a mass exodus of ordinary users who aren't getting any real value that would justify paying for it. Meanwhile, the spambots will be making their owners money, so those accounts would actually have the most incentive to stick around.
Musk has been screaming about bots since he first tried to wiggle out of the deal.
I don't take anything he says about bots at face value, they're just his go-to scapegoat for everything that is wrong with this whole deal from day one.
No matter what happens, it's not his fault. It because of the bots...and apparently now the Jews too.
Kinda seems to me that a universal fee is going to make the problem worse, not better.
If everyone had to pay to use Twitter, there'd be a mass exodus of ordinary users who aren't getting any real value that would justify paying for it. Meanwhile, the spambots will be making their owners money, so those accounts would actually have the most incentive to stick around.
Musk has been screaming about bots since he first tried to wiggle out of the deal.
I don't take anything he says about bots at face value, they're just his go-to scapegoat for everything that is wrong with this whole deal from day one.
No matter what happens, it's not his fault. It because of the bots...and apparently now the Jews too.
Will he blame Jewish bots next?
Kinda seems to me that a universal fee is going to make the problem worse, not better.
If everyone had to pay to use Twitter, there'd be a mass exodus of ordinary users who aren't getting any real value that would justify paying for it. Meanwhile, the spambots will be making their owners money, so those accounts would actually have the most incentive to stick around.
Musk has been screaming about bots since he first tried to wiggle out of the deal.
I don't take anything he says about bots at face value, they're just his go-to scapegoat for everything that is wrong with this whole deal from day one.
No matter what happens, it's not his fault. It because of the bots...and apparently now the Jews too.
Will he blame Jewish bots next?
How do you think the bots got on the internet to begin with. They were beamed in with space lasers. And who owns the space lasers??? It all points back to the truth. Open your eyes sheeple!
And who owns the space lasers?Starlink satellites with space lasers for optical intra-satellite communication...
Social media has always depended on bots and artificial traffic to inflate celebrity or important accounts. Reddit used bots extensively to create an appearance of popularity.
I also didn’t get how the fact that an LLM can quickly become racist if not given guardrails is a problem for a social network where racist humans are not given guardrails. Wouldn’t it all just be more of the same? Since, IMHO, extremism in social media is driven by clicks, it might even make it less profitable. Oh, is that the reason?
Social media has always depended on bots and artificial traffic to inflate celebrity or important accounts. Reddit used bots extensively to create an appearance of popularity.
I also didn’t get how the fact that an LLM can quickly become racist if not given guardrails is a problem for a social network where racist humans are not given guardrails. Wouldn’t it all just be more of the same? Since, IMHO, extremism in social media is driven by clicks, it might even make it less profitable. Oh, is that the reason?
LLM-powered bots impersonating real people are different from traffic simulating and other dumb bots. Musk’s worry about AI bots is different from his issues with bots at the time he was buying Twitter - that was about inflated value due to non-LLM bots.
LLM-powered bots could be used to construct synthetic bigots, Nazis etc.
Without content management weeding out bigots, Nazis etc. a social network is vulnerable to infiltration by LLM-powered bots.
I have not seen any indication that LLM-powered Nazi-bots are already active on Twitter/X but that is only a matter of time.
Once that happens, a place without guardrails that is crawling with synthetic nutters is like a fully automated surveillance facility for real bigots, Nazis etc.
Once the nutters find out about that, their paranoia is going to kick in big time - they are already worrying about informants, FBI infiltrators and whatnot.
I think it is only a matter of time until a convincing LLM-powered bot runs synthetic right wing radicals on Twitter/X. It is also the lowest bar around as the main weakness of LLMs is that they are not tethered to reality and neither is the nutter discourse on the right - a natural match.
If it were me, I would probably start out with letting a bunch of synthetic anti-vaxxers loose.
And as for profitability of social media, it is the ad revenue that generates the profits; and real and synthetic right wingers are toxic for legitimate companies.
Not even Fox News can make much money from advertising.
First of all, the demographics of the right are not interesting, then they have been picked over by grifters already, and that's why the ads in right wing media are mostly for gold, crypto and frighteningly ugly collectibles.
I think the bot swarms could be used to create cover for the humans. How will the FBI identify terrorism threats when there are tens of millions of bot accounts on Parlor, 4 Chan, 8 Chan, Reddit, or X all parroting talking points and making fake plans? What happens when someone unleashes a million pedophile bots trading files and creating cover for the real correspondence, creating a needle-in-the-haystack situation for law enforcement to find the humans behind it?Social media has always depended on bots and artificial traffic to inflate celebrity or important accounts. Reddit used bots extensively to create an appearance of popularity.
I also didn’t get how the fact that an LLM can quickly become racist if not given guardrails is a problem for a social network where racist humans are not given guardrails. Wouldn’t it all just be more of the same? Since, IMHO, extremism in social media is driven by clicks, it might even make it less profitable. Oh, is that the reason?
LLM-powered bots impersonating real people are different from traffic simulating and other dumb bots. Musk’s worry about AI bots is different from his issues with bots at the time he was buying Twitter - that was about inflated value due to non-LLM bots.
LLM-powered bots could be used to construct synthetic bigots, Nazis etc.
Without content management weeding out bigots, Nazis etc. a social network is vulnerable to infiltration by LLM-powered bots.
I have not seen any indication that LLM-powered Nazi-bots are already active on Twitter/X but that is only a matter of time.
Once that happens, a place without guardrails that is crawling with synthetic nutters is like a fully automated surveillance facility for real bigots, Nazis etc.
Once the nutters find out about that, their paranoia is going to kick in big time - they are already worrying about informants, FBI infiltrators and whatnot.
I think it is only a matter of time until a convincing LLM-powered bot runs synthetic right wing radicals on Twitter/X. It is also the lowest bar around as the main weakness of LLMs is that they are not tethered to reality and neither is the nutter discourse on the right - a natural match.
If it were me, I would probably start out with letting a bunch of synthetic anti-vaxxers loose.
And as for profitability of social media, it is the ad revenue that generates the profits; and real and synthetic right wingers are toxic for legitimate companies.
Not even Fox News can make much money from advertising.
First of all, the demographics of the right are not interesting, then they have been picked over by grifters already, and that's why the ads in right wing media are mostly for gold, crypto and frighteningly ugly collectibles.
Social media has always depended on bots and artificial traffic to inflate celebrity or important accounts. Reddit used bots extensively to create an appearance of popularity.
I also didn’t get how the fact that an LLM can quickly become racist if not given guardrails is a problem for a social network where racist humans are not given guardrails. Wouldn’t it all just be more of the same? Since, IMHO, extremism in social media is driven by clicks, it might even make it less profitable. Oh, is that the reason?
LLM-powered bots impersonating real people are different from traffic simulating and other dumb bots. Musk’s worry about AI bots is different from his issues with bots at the time he was buying Twitter - that was about inflated value due to non-LLM bots.
LLM-powered bots could be used to construct synthetic bigots, Nazis etc.
Without content management weeding out bigots, Nazis etc. a social network is vulnerable to infiltration by LLM-powered bots.
I have not seen any indication that LLM-powered Nazi-bots are already active on Twitter/X but that is only a matter of time.
Once that happens, a place without guardrails that is crawling with synthetic nutters is like a fully automated surveillance facility for real bigots, Nazis etc.
Once the nutters find out about that, their paranoia is going to kick in big time - they are already worrying about informants, FBI infiltrators and whatnot.
I think it is only a matter of time until a convincing LLM-powered bot runs synthetic right wing radicals on Twitter/X. It is also the lowest bar around as the main weakness of LLMs is that they are not tethered to reality and neither is the nutter discourse on the right - a natural match.
If it were me, I would probably start out with letting a bunch of synthetic anti-vaxxers loose.
And as for profitability of social media, it is the ad revenue that generates the profits; and real and synthetic right wingers are toxic for legitimate companies.
Not even Fox News can make much money from advertising.
First of all, the demographics of the right are not interesting, then they have been picked over by grifters already, and that's why the ads in right wing media are mostly for gold, crypto and frighteningly ugly collectibles.
Help me understand this, please. Why is the bolded a problem for Twitter? Sure, there would be a lot of [read: even more] crazy, icky stuff being posted. But Twitter doesn't care if humans post anti-vax stuff, so what would it matter if humans *and* LLM-bots were post it? And why would anti-vaxers care that the account that Owned the Libs about vaccines is not a live human? I'm not tracking why this is problematic, from the standpoint of a site that doesn't care if pretty gross and dangerous stuff is shared on it.
Social media has always depended on bots and artificial traffic to inflate celebrity or important accounts. Reddit used bots extensively to create an appearance of popularity.
I also didn’t get how the fact that an LLM can quickly become racist if not given guardrails is a problem for a social network where racist humans are not given guardrails. Wouldn’t it all just be more of the same? Since, IMHO, extremism in social media is driven by clicks, it might even make it less profitable. Oh, is that the reason?
LLM-powered bots impersonating real people are different from traffic simulating and other dumb bots. Musk’s worry about AI bots is different from his issues with bots at the time he was buying Twitter - that was about inflated value due to non-LLM bots.
LLM-powered bots could be used to construct synthetic bigots, Nazis etc.
Without content management weeding out bigots, Nazis etc. a social network is vulnerable to infiltration by LLM-powered bots.
I have not seen any indication that LLM-powered Nazi-bots are already active on Twitter/X but that is only a matter of time.
Once that happens, a place without guardrails that is crawling with synthetic nutters is like a fully automated surveillance facility for real bigots, Nazis etc.
Once the nutters find out about that, their paranoia is going to kick in big time - they are already worrying about informants, FBI infiltrators and whatnot.
I think it is only a matter of time until a convincing LLM-powered bot runs synthetic right wing radicals on Twitter/X. It is also the lowest bar around as the main weakness of LLMs is that they are not tethered to reality and neither is the nutter discourse on the right - a natural match.
If it were me, I would probably start out with letting a bunch of synthetic anti-vaxxers loose.
And as for profitability of social media, it is the ad revenue that generates the profits; and real and synthetic right wingers are toxic for legitimate companies.
Not even Fox News can make much money from advertising.
First of all, the demographics of the right are not interesting, then they have been picked over by grifters already, and that's why the ads in right wing media are mostly for gold, crypto and frighteningly ugly collectibles.
Help me understand this, please. Why is the bolded a problem for Twitter? Sure, there would be a lot of [read: even more] crazy, icky stuff being posted. But Twitter doesn't care if humans post anti-vax stuff, so what would it matter if humans *and* LLM-bots were post it? And why would anti-vaxers care that the account that Owned the Libs about vaccines is not a live human? I'm not tracking why this is problematic, from the standpoint of a site that doesn't care if pretty gross and dangerous stuff is shared on it.
Twitter/X is going down the tubes because advertisers are fleeing the place because it has turned into a right wing/neo-fascist sewer in parts.
Advertisers cannot rely on content moderation keeping their ads away from sewer content.
LLM-powered bots impersonating real right wing radicals simply add to the problem.
Musk has this, completely wrongheaded, idea that one can let right wing extremism freewheel along and still make money from advertising.
The reality is that advertisers are already leaving - and the idiot now blames the ones who are calling him out on him giving a megaphone to extremists.
He apparently is unaware that his Twitter/X’s goose is already cooked even without LLM-powered bots having reached their potential yet.
He is persisting in the belief that there is a viable business opportunity, relying on ad revenue, for a social network without suppression of the extremist discourse, but there is none.
The LLM-powered bots he has latched on as a major threat are just another manifestation of his persistent narrative that everything with Twitter/X would be just fine if only the bots could be taken out of the picture.
At this point, it really looks a bit like perseverance in the face of hard to refute evidence that Musk´s politics and management are causing the demise of the platform.
Perseverance can be a manifestation of mental health issues but also a political strategy of repeating falsehoods until doubt is sowed in the public mind.
I put my money on mental health in Musk’s case.
(The bolded is just how I would go about introducing a synthetic player. Part of it is that I know a little bit about the subject and also that it is a relatively small amount of training required for the LLM. But that's just where I would start (more out of convenience and for proof of concept than anything): a synthetic anti-vaxxer.)
It's just that the losers are seen as nuts and the winners are seen as visionaries in retrospect, but A LOT of ideas of the losers were just as plausible as the ideas of the winners.Just as example: Both electric cars and starlink existed as protoypes in Germany years before Musk. There was just a lack of maniacs financing them.
1) Musk is right and we all start paying user fees for the privilege of using social media. This is not as radical an idea as it initially seems, considering all the internet services people already pay subscription fees to use, and most people's utter dependence on these platforms. It also fits with an old model of internet businesses where freeware is used to gain market share and network effects, and then the costs are recouped later.What you mean is "enshittification", and it ends with the (near) death of the platform.
It because of the bots...and apparently now the Jews too.If an AI is a Jew, and you "kill" it, are you an antisemite?
Quote1) Musk is right and we all start paying user fees for the privilege of using social media. This is not as radical an idea as it initially seems, considering all the internet services people already pay subscription fees to use, and most people's utter dependence on these platforms. It also fits with an old model of internet businesses where freeware is used to gain market share and network effects, and then the costs are recouped later.What you mean is "enshittification", and it ends with the (near) death of the platform.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/mar/11/users-advertisers-we-are-all-trapped-in-the-enshittification-of-the-internet
And SpaceX success comes mostly from 2 things: A) Musk not in involved in the daily running of it and B) not doing a lot of the safety stuff NASA does.
And SpaceX success comes mostly from 2 things: A) Musk not in involved in the daily running of it and B) not doing a lot of the safety stuff NASA does.
To add to your point, when Musk does get involved in operational stuff, he makes absolutely terrible decisions.
Like this year, when SpaceX was launching its Starship for the first time, Musk decided that the launch pad wouldn't have a flame diverter or a water deluge system, both of which NASA uses. He made that decision to save money, against the recommendations of his engineers.
Because they didn't have the flame diverter, the blast of the engines destroyed the pad underneath the ship. Giant chunks of debris smashed into the Starship from underneath, damaging its engines. That caused it to start tumbling uncontrollably in mid-flight, forcing the ground crew to trigger its self-destruct:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/22/2165317/-A-Starship-Post-mortem-Why-the-giant-rocket-failed-and-why-it-s-Elon-Musk-s-fault
And SpaceX success comes mostly from 2 things: A) Musk not in involved in the daily running of it and B) not doing a lot of the safety stuff NASA does.
To add to your point, when Musk does get involved in operational stuff, he makes absolutely terrible decisions.
Like this year, when SpaceX was launching its Starship for the first time, Musk decided that the launch pad wouldn't have a flame diverter or a water deluge system, both of which NASA uses. He made that decision to save money, against the recommendations of his engineers.
Because they didn't have the flame diverter, the blast of the engines destroyed the pad underneath the ship. Giant chunks of debris smashed into the Starship from underneath, damaging its engines. That caused it to start tumbling uncontrollably in mid-flight, forcing the ground crew to trigger its self-destruct:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/22/2165317/-A-Starship-Post-mortem-Why-the-giant-rocket-failed-and-why-it-s-Elon-Musk-s-fault
I thought I had posted this article, but I hadn't.
He did the exact same thing with moving Twitter's servers.
He refused to believe the experts who said his way couldn't be done safely, he refused to listen, did it a batshit crazy way, and fucked everything up.
It doesn't matter that he later admitted it was a mistake, that's the scary part about Musk, he considers his mistakes to be a normal byproduct of the way he does business.
He thinks it's a strength that he doesn't listen to "experts" and doesn't think the rules apply to his decisions. Because this approach has gained him so much success so far, he genuinely believes that these occasional mistakes are acceptable fallout.
The articles explains though that at his other companies, the management came up alongside him, they developed systems to try and manage him and contain him from the beginning. They figured out how to communicate with him while minimally setting him off.
Twitter wasn't run that way, so it wasn't equipped to handle Musk at all. He doesn't trust anyone there, so his default is to assume they're all full of shit and that his maniacal ideas for saving money are always smarter than theirs, which is a recipe for disaster.
He engages in a lot of what I call "why can't they just?" thinking.
I'm a medical professional and DH is a senior government policy guy, so we're constantly inundated with "why can't they just?" questions from people. The basis of "why can't they just?" questions is that when you don't understand the complexity of something, the solutions seem really obvious.
Like "why are donor organs so hard to get? People die every day. Why can't they just harvest those organs and give them to people??"
The dumber you are about a subject, the simpler the answers to problems seem.
Musk thinks a dumb "why can't they just?" question like "why can't they just unscrew the Twitter servers and throw them into rented moving trucks and fucking move them?" and instead of grasping that he doesn't know enough to know why it's a bad idea, he just tears like a madman into where the servers are and starts unscrewing and unplugging things and throwing them in the back of rental trucks.
He doesn't register his "why can't they just?" questions as a sign of his own ignorance, he registers them as a sign of his own genius.
Refusing to accept the limitations of what is expertly understood to be "reality" is what he sees as his strength, and the fact that it sometimes doesn't work out is seen as the cost of doing genius business.
And as long as he was making gobs of money, not killing too many people, and constantly being lauded as a genius in the press, he was actually pretty justified in believing this. When the whole world tells you that your thinking is genius, why wouldn't you believe it?
It's unfathomably dangerous though to have someone with that much money and power who thinks that his greatest strength is NOT listening to expert analysis.
It's one thing to believe that there must be inefficiencies in extant systems, it's another to believe that your "why can't they just?" ignorant thinking is actually genius.
The scary part is that it means that he doesn't, he can't, learn from his mistakes.
ETA: as someone who has put A LOT of things into A LOT of brains, I'm pretty horrified that Neuralink is going ahead with human trials.
A medical device for *inside* the brain from the guy who is famous for rejecting expert safety information...sure, sounds like a great idea.
https://futurism.com/neoscope/terrible-things-monkeys-neuralink-implants
And SpaceX success comes mostly from 2 things: A) Musk not in involved in the daily running of it and B) not doing a lot of the safety stuff NASA does.
To add to your point, when Musk does get involved in operational stuff, he makes absolutely terrible decisions.
Like this year, when SpaceX was launching its Starship for the first time, Musk decided that the launch pad wouldn't have a flame diverter or a water deluge system, both of which NASA uses. He made that decision to save money, against the recommendations of his engineers.
Because they didn't have the flame diverter, the blast of the engines destroyed the pad underneath the ship. Giant chunks of debris smashed into the Starship from underneath, damaging its engines. That caused it to start tumbling uncontrollably in mid-flight, forcing the ground crew to trigger its self-destruct:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/22/2165317/-A-Starship-Post-mortem-Why-the-giant-rocket-failed-and-why-it-s-Elon-Musk-s-fault
I thought I had posted this article, but I hadn't.
He did the exact same thing with moving Twitter's servers.
He refused to believe the experts who said his way couldn't be done safely, he refused to listen, did it a batshit crazy way, and fucked everything up.
It doesn't matter that he later admitted it was a mistake, that's the scary part about Musk, he considers his mistakes to be a normal byproduct of the way he does business.
He thinks it's a strength that he doesn't listen to "experts" and doesn't think the rules apply to his decisions. Because this approach has gained him so much success so far, he genuinely believes that these occasional mistakes are acceptable fallout.
The articles explains though that at his other companies, the management came up alongside him, they developed systems to try and manage him and contain him from the beginning. They figured out how to communicate with him while minimally setting him off.
Twitter wasn't run that way, so it wasn't equipped to handle Musk at all. He doesn't trust anyone there, so his default is to assume they're all full of shit and that his maniacal ideas for saving money are always smarter than theirs, which is a recipe for disaster.
He engages in a lot of what I call "why can't they just?" thinking.
I'm a medical professional and DH is a senior government policy guy, so we're constantly inundated with "why can't they just?" questions from people. The basis of "why can't they just?" questions is that when you don't understand the complexity of something, the solutions seem really obvious.
Like "why are donor organs so hard to get? People die every day. Why can't they just harvest those organs and give them to people??"
The dumber you are about a subject, the simpler the answers to problems seem.
Musk thinks a dumb "why can't they just?" question like "why can't they just unscrew the Twitter servers and throw them into rented moving trucks and fucking move them?" and instead of grasping that he doesn't know enough to know why it's a bad idea, he just tears like a madman into where the servers are and starts unscrewing and unplugging things and throwing them in the back of rental trucks.
He doesn't register his "why can't they just?" questions as a sign of his own ignorance, he registers them as a sign of his own genius.
Refusing to accept the limitations of what is expertly understood to be "reality" is what he sees as his strength, and the fact that it sometimes doesn't work out is seen as the cost of doing genius business.
And as long as he was making gobs of money, not killing too many people, and constantly being lauded as a genius in the press, he was actually pretty justified in believing this. When the whole world tells you that your thinking is genius, why wouldn't you believe it?
It's unfathomably dangerous though to have someone with that much money and power who thinks that his greatest strength is NOT listening to expert analysis.
It's one thing to believe that there must be inefficiencies in extant systems, it's another to believe that your "why can't they just?" ignorant thinking is actually genius.
The scary part is that it means that he doesn't, he can't, learn from his mistakes.
ETA: as someone who has put A LOT of things into A LOT of brains, I'm pretty horrified that Neuralink is going ahead with human trials.
A medical device for *inside* the brain from the guy who is famous for rejecting expert safety information...sure, sounds like a great idea.
https://futurism.com/neoscope/terrible-things-monkeys-neuralink-implants
Musk is so much like Trump. It is really bizarre.
...
Musk is so much like Trump. It is really bizarre.
I can't stand Musk, but I wonder if he is afraid of Putin killing him over Starlink if he didn't put on a big pro-Russian show? Putin has demonstrated this ability time and time again, even on foreign soil.Good point. And we keep asking "why can't the billionaires be a bit braver or defend democracy?"
Monthly U.S. ad revenue at social media platform X has declined at least 55% year-over-year each month since billionaire Elon Musk bought the company formerly known as Twitter in October 2022, according to third-party data provided to Reuters.
...U.S. ad revenue dropped by 78% in December 2022 compared with the same month the previous year, the steepest monthly decline since the acquisition, according to ad analytics firm Guideline, which tracks advertising spending data from major ad agencies.
Ad revenue in August, the latest data available from Guideline, declined 60% year-over-year. X declined to comment on the data.
Musk has previously acknowledged that the platform has taken a hit on revenue and has blamed activists for pressuring advertisers. Last month, he accused the Anti-Defamation League of being the primary cause behind a 60% decline in U.S. ad revenue, though he did not provide a time frame.
Not interested in looking for it, but I really wonder if he's got a mental illness, or if its all personality/environment based. The manic phase of bipolar for example could result in similar actions.
Not interested in looking for it, but I really wonder if he's got a mental illness, or if its all personality/environment based. The manic phase of bipolar for example could result in similar actions.
He does seem like a very stable genius.
The multiple baby mamas drama is soooo gross and messy. The latest lawsuit by Grimes saying he’s not letting her see their surrogate-made son.
That and the blaming and tantruming.
If this guy were my boss I’d run screaming away from the company.
Social media has always depended on bots and artificial traffic to inflate celebrity or important accounts. Reddit used bots extensively to create an appearance of popularity.
I also didn’t get how the fact that an LLM can quickly become racist if not given guardrails is a problem for a social network where racist humans are not given guardrails. Wouldn’t it all just be more of the same? Since, IMHO, extremism in social media is driven by clicks, it might even make it less profitable. Oh, is that the reason?
LLM-powered bots impersonating real people are different from traffic simulating and other dumb bots. Musk’s worry about AI bots is different from his issues with bots at the time he was buying Twitter - that was about inflated value due to non-LLM bots.
LLM-powered bots could be used to construct synthetic bigots, Nazis etc.
Without content management weeding out bigots, Nazis etc. a social network is vulnerable to infiltration by LLM-powered bots.
I have not seen any indication that LLM-powered Nazi-bots are already active on Twitter/X but that is only a matter of time.
Once that happens, a place without guardrails that is crawling with synthetic nutters is like a fully automated surveillance facility for real bigots, Nazis etc.
Once the nutters find out about that, their paranoia is going to kick in big time - they are already worrying about informants, FBI infiltrators and whatnot.
I think it is only a matter of time until a convincing LLM-powered bot runs synthetic right wing radicals on Twitter/X. It is also the lowest bar around as the main weakness of LLMs is that they are not tethered to reality and neither is the nutter discourse on the right - a natural match.
If it were me, I would probably start out with letting a bunch of synthetic anti-vaxxers loose.
And as for profitability of social media, it is the ad revenue that generates the profits; and real and synthetic right wingers are toxic for legitimate companies.
Not even Fox News can make much money from advertising.
First of all, the demographics of the right are not interesting, then they have been picked over by grifters already, and that's why the ads in right wing media are mostly for gold, crypto and frighteningly ugly collectibles.
Help me understand this, please. Why is the bolded a problem for Twitter? Sure, there would be a lot of [read: even more] crazy, icky stuff being posted. But Twitter doesn't care if humans post anti-vax stuff, so what would it matter if humans *and* LLM-bots were post it? And why would anti-vaxers care that the account that Owned the Libs about vaccines is not a live human? I'm not tracking why this is problematic, from the standpoint of a site that doesn't care if pretty gross and dangerous stuff is shared on it.
Twitter/X is going down the tubes because advertisers are fleeing the place because it has turned into a right wing/neo-fascist sewer in parts.
Advertisers cannot rely on content moderation keeping their ads away from sewer content.
LLM-powered bots impersonating real right wing radicals simply add to the problem.
Musk has this, completely wrongheaded, idea that one can let right wing extremism freewheel along and still make money from advertising.
The reality is that advertisers are already leaving - and the idiot now blames the ones who are calling him out on him giving a megaphone to extremists.
He apparently is unaware that his Twitter/X’s goose is already cooked even without LLM-powered bots having reached their potential yet.
He is persisting in the belief that there is a viable business opportunity, relying on ad revenue, for a social network without suppression of the extremist discourse, but there is none.
The LLM-powered bots he has latched on as a major threat are just another manifestation of his persistent narrative that everything with Twitter/X would be just fine if only the bots could be taken out of the picture.
At this point, it really looks a bit like perseverance in the face of hard to refute evidence that Musk´s politics and management are causing the demise of the platform.
Perseverance can be a manifestation of mental health issues but also a political strategy of repeating falsehoods until doubt is sowed in the public mind.
I put my money on mental health in Musk’s case.
(The bolded is just how I would go about introducing a synthetic player. Part of it is that I know a little bit about the subject and also that it is a relatively small amount of training required for the LLM. But that's just where I would start (more out of convenience and for proof of concept than anything): a synthetic anti-vaxxer.)
Ah, I misunderstood entirely. That makes perfect sense. Thanks.
https://mashable.com/article/twitter-x-new-clickbait-ad-format
Twitter is rolling out a new kind of advertisement. They aren't sponsored tweets that can be liked, retweeted or muted like any other tweet, as used to be the case. They're just plain old banner ads, plunked into the middle of your timeline, that can't be interacted with except to click on them.
That's just a change, albeit an annoying one. But everyone who sees these says they're "chumbox" ads - the low-quality clickbait that appears on content farms. You know, "The liberal doctor elites don't want you to know about these six magic root vegetables that cure diabetes"... that sort of thing.
It's another example of how badly Elon has mismanaged Twitter, that this is now the highest quality of advertiser he can get on board.
https://mashable.com/article/twitter-x-new-clickbait-ad-format
Twitter is rolling out a new kind of advertisement. They aren't sponsored tweets that can be liked, retweeted or muted like any other tweet, as used to be the case. They're just plain old banner ads, plunked into the middle of your timeline, that can't be interacted with except to click on them.
That's just a change, albeit an annoying one. But everyone who sees these says they're "chumbox" ads - the low-quality clickbait that appears on content farms. You know, "The liberal doctor elites don't want you to know about these six magic root vegetables that cure diabetes"... that sort of thing.
It's another example of how badly Elon has mismanaged Twitter, that this is now the highest quality of advertiser he can get on board.
In the post, Musk charges that “ADL seems responsible for most of our revenue loss” and adds, “I don’t see any scenario where they’re responsible for less than 10% of the value destruction, so around $4 billion.”
... In Musk’s reckoning, the ADL singlehandedly vaporized roughly $4 billion in X’s “value,” and that $4 billion accounts for around 10% of the entire decline in the franchise’s worth. That formula puts the total fall at $40 billion. Since Musk and partners paid $44 billion including debt, he’s implying that the platform would now change hands for $4 billion (the $44 billion purchase price minus the $40 billion in “value destruction”), for a drop of 90%. In effect, he’s saying that the $31 billion he and his partners invested in equity is totally gone, and a big portion of the debt from provided by the cream of Wall Street sits far underwater.
...
Musk is so much like Trump. It is really bizarre.
And not even taking over and demolishing Twitter was this Putin-loving moron's own idea.
It looks like that he was egged on by a Trumpworld figure to buy and transform Twitter into a Nazi bullhorn and burning a shitload of money in the process.
A truly original thinker that Elon Musk, just like his buddy president Bleach: /sWhat was Elon Musk’s strategy for Twitter?
A year after the world's richest man acquired the social media platform, a game plan published by a fired Trump White House staffer provides a clue.
Musk’s purchase of Twitter, the 3,000-word anonymous article said, would amount to a “declaration of war against the Globalist American Empire.” The sender of the texts was offering Musk, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO, a playbook for the takeover and transformation of Twitter. As the anniversary of Musk's purchase approaches, the identity of the sender remains unknown.
The three texts were sent on April 4, 2022. In the nearly 18 months since then, many of the decisions Musk made after he bought Twitter appear to have closely followed that road map, up to and including his ongoing attacks against the Anti-Defamation League, a nonprofit organization founded by Jewish Americans to counter discrimination.
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/was-elon-musks-strategy-twitter-rcna118490
And here is some more evidence for Musk's propaganda activities in favor of violent autocracies and enemies of the US.
So yes, Elon Musk is a virulent antisemite and neo-Nazi propagandist who also acts as a Russian asset:
Pekka Kallioniemi
@P_Kallioniemi
Jun 25 • 25 tweets • 13 min read Twitter logo Read on Twitter
In today's #vatniksoup, I'll introduce an American businessman and social media figure, Elon Musk (@elonmusk). He's best-known for being the wealthiest man in the world, running companies like Tesla Inc., SpaceX and Twitter, and for parroting Kremlin's propaganda narratives.
Part 1
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1672940669978001410.html
Part 2
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1674360288445964288.html
Bonus Starlink:
Pekka Kallioniemi
@P_Kallioniemi
Jun 26 • 24 tweets • 9 min read Twitter logo Read on Twitter
In today's #vatniksoup, I'll talk about Starlink. First I thought I would just add this to the second part of the @elonmusk soup, but it is such a complex topic that I think it requires a thread of its own.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1673395390534631424.html
Joke's on the EU, they have no revenue!
Joke's on the EU, they have no revenue!
But would he enjoy being blacked out?
Musk might love the opportunity to be cancel-martyred by the libs of Europe. It would be his excuse for the collapse of Twitter under his watch.Would anyone even notice over there at this point, outside of the nazis?Joke's on the EU, they have no revenue!But would he enjoy being blacked out?
Hey, I still watch this live!Joke's on the EU, they have no revenue!
But would he enjoy being blacked out?
Would anyone even notice over there at this point, outside of the nazis?
Joke's on the EU, they have no revenue!
But would he enjoy being blacked out?
There is now a European Union reaction to free speech/unchecked stochastic terrorist activities on Twitter/X. /sEU warns Elon Musk over ‘disinformation’ on X about Hamas attack
Failing to moderate content such as fake news could incur fine of 6% of X revenues or EU blackout under new laws
Lisa O'Carroll in Brussels
Tue 10 Oct 2023
“Public media and civil society organisations widely report instances of fake and manipulated images and facts circulating on your platform in the EU, such as repurposed old images of unrelated armed conflicts or military footage that actually originated from video games. This appears to be manifestly false or misleading information,” he said.
“Let me remind you that the Digital Services Act sets very precise obligations regarding content moderation,” Breton said, adding that changes in X’s public interest policies raised questions about his compliance to the new rules.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/oct/10/eu-warns-elon-musk-over-disinformation-about-hamas-attack-on-x
Fortunately, regression toward the mean assures that that Elmo's offspring will, more likely than not, on average be less twisted and smarter than Elmo himself.
Fortunately, regression toward the mean assures that that Elmo's offspring will, more likely than not, on average be less twisted and smarter than Elmo himself.
Oh I'm not too concerned about his children, he doesn't actually seem all that interested in them, nor do I think they feature much in terms of his succession planning.
They're just collateral damage so far.
But for sure some of the new up and coming billionaires who worships Musk and has Thiel whispering sweet nothings in their ears are likely to buy into this whole fertility as a crisis thing and have read a lot of Jordan Peterson and really double down on forced monogamy and forced fertility as a moral imperative.
As a woman who very vocally has never wanted children, I have to say that certain patterns of talk are starting to make me uncomfortable in ways that I never anticipated being an issue.
Fortunately, regression toward the mean assures that that Elmo's offspring will, more likely than not, on average be less twisted and smarter than Elmo himself.
Oh I'm not too concerned about his children, he doesn't actually seem all that interested in them, nor do I think they feature much in terms of his succession planning.
They're just collateral damage so far.
But for sure some of the new up and coming billionaires who worships Musk and has Thiel whispering sweet nothings in their ears are likely to buy into this whole fertility as a crisis thing and have read a lot of Jordan Peterson and really double down on forced monogamy and forced fertility as a moral imperative.
As a woman who very vocally has never wanted children, I have to say that certain patterns of talk are starting to make me uncomfortable in ways that I never anticipated being an issue.
Well it is Nazi talk, so being uncomfortable with that kind of drivel is a perfectly normal reaction.
Musk is not an original thinker and all that talk about the fertility crisis is really just echoes of eugenics and the SS program "Lebensborn".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebensborn
Fortunately, regression toward the mean assures that that Elmo's offspring will, more likely than not, on average be less twisted and smarter than Elmo himself.
Oh I'm not too concerned about his children, he doesn't actually seem all that interested in them, nor do I think they feature much in terms of his succession planning.
They're just collateral damage so far.
But for sure some of the new up and coming billionaires who worships Musk and has Thiel whispering sweet nothings in their ears are likely to buy into this whole fertility as a crisis thing and have read a lot of Jordan Peterson and really double down on forced monogamy and forced fertility as a moral imperative.
As a woman who very vocally has never wanted children, I have to say that certain patterns of talk are starting to make me uncomfortable in ways that I never anticipated being an issue.
Well it is Nazi talk, so being uncomfortable with that kind of drivel is a perfectly normal reaction.
Musk is not an original thinker and all that talk about the fertility crisis is really just echoes of eugenics and the SS program "Lebensborn".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebensborn
Oh for sure.
The book The Tragedy of Heterosexuality covers the history of marriage in North America really well and how white supremacist propaganda makes up so much of the foundation of our modern conceptualization of heterosexual relationships.
Musk is definitely not an original thinker and it's not hard to see his influences when he speaks.
With rave reviews from the likes of Bitch Magazine and Pink News, I'm sure it's a very reasoned and well balanced book [sarcasm].
Here's an excerpt from one of the top customer reviews: Her case for the tragedy of heterosexuality is made from a non-random survey of relationship self-help books, “pick-up artist” workshops, celebrity couples’ tweets, memes, and a survey of her straight-bashing friends. But the vast majority of straight individuals don’t engage with relationship self-help books and very few men pay for pick-up workshops (it stands to reason that only those for whom heterosexuality isn’t working out consume such products); and memes and tweets are not representative of individuals’ hearts and minds (or vice versa). Her focus is on the unrepresentative and pathological fringe, but she never acknowledges this. It is bizarre to me that she would generalize from these, but if you subscribe to the view that we’re all just vesicles of culture and “there’s nothing outside the text,” or if you don’t actually ask a representative sample of individuals how they feel and think, maybe such conclusions seem justified.
To be clear, I do not intend to minimize the destructiveness of misogyny or defend heteropatriarchy. But as a scholar who has published regularly in the fields of relationships and stereotyping, I want to emphasize that her cherry-picked data are at odds with the scientific consensus: a seriously problematic minority aside, most straight men and women actually like their romantic partners and feel warmly toward the “opposite” sex.
Sounds like there were many moral/ethical missteps in her "research" to get to the book's conclusion. As an academic myself, I enjoy reading a well researched topic. I will not be partaking in this book, nor would I feel comfortable recommending it to others interested in the topic.
With rave reviews from the likes of Bitch Magazine and Pink News, I'm sure it's a very reasoned and well balanced book [sarcasm].
Here's an excerpt from one of the top customer reviews: Her case for the tragedy of heterosexuality is made from a non-random survey of relationship self-help books, “pick-up artist” workshops, celebrity couples’ tweets, memes, and a survey of her straight-bashing friends. But the vast majority of straight individuals don’t engage with relationship self-help books and very few men pay for pick-up workshops (it stands to reason that only those for whom heterosexuality isn’t working out consume such products); and memes and tweets are not representative of individuals’ hearts and minds (or vice versa). Her focus is on the unrepresentative and pathological fringe, but she never acknowledges this. It is bizarre to me that she would generalize from these, but if you subscribe to the view that we’re all just vesicles of culture and “there’s nothing outside the text,” or if you don’t actually ask a representative sample of individuals how they feel and think, maybe such conclusions seem justified.
To be clear, I do not intend to minimize the destructiveness of misogyny or defend heteropatriarchy. But as a scholar who has published regularly in the fields of relationships and stereotyping, I want to emphasize that her cherry-picked data are at odds with the scientific consensus: a seriously problematic minority aside, most straight men and women actually like their romantic partners and feel warmly toward the “opposite” sex.
Sounds like there were many moral/ethical missteps in her "research" to get to the book's conclusion. As an academic myself, I enjoy reading a well researched topic. I will not be partaking in this book, nor would I feel comfortable recommending it to others interested in the topic.
Interesting, having read the book I enjoyed the section on history and it sent me down a path of reviewing a lot of the history she covered. There are basically two sections to the book, a historical review and then more of her personal perspective on the present.
I was able to see her personal perspective on the present as her personal perspective, but enjoyed a lot of the history.
To be fair, it's also well reviewed by The New York Times, Sage Journals, Georgetown University, Cambridge University Press, etc, etc, not just feminist sources. As a former academic myself I felt pretty comfortable reading it after seeing the caliber of reviews it had.
I also didn't consider the content of the book to be overly radical, it was pretty tame in its conclusions in general, IMO. But my whole point in mentioning it was that it discusses the history that white supremacy played in our modern conceptualization of marriage.
ETA: this review from Georgetown Kennedy Institute of Ethics covers pretty much everything stated in the book and the research sources for the history
https://kiej.georgetown.edu/jane-ward-the-tragedy-of-heterosexuality-nyu-press-2020/
First off, let me apologize for coming off snarky. I see now that you were referring to the historical aspect of the book and I am sure there are pieces of the book that are well-written and useful. I will attempt to read the Georgetown review you linked this afternoon.
I'm in Canada where we have a very different banking system from the US. I'm curious if some Americans can maybe weigh in on if a Musky banking alternative might actually be something people want???
My prediction: if he manages to install some kind of financial service, he'll immediately run afoul of PCI-DSS and US/EU banking regulations because he has no compliance staff. They'll raise hell and take him to court, but he'll take to the airwaves and say "no, no, this is totally something different. The rules don't apply to me."
Remember this is the same guy who over the last year has pretty much said "if you want me to pay my bills or follow regulations you're going to have to sue me first."
Sure, let's give him access to our money.
So we already don't know who is on the other side of the Tweet because his identify verification/pay-to-play system is broken, there are few moderations/filters on content, he wants to handle people's money, and start a dating service all on the same platform? Can you see where these concepts might intersect disastrously?
But then X would have to become not just a payment system, which really isn't needed, we have plenty of those. It would have to become some kind of bank. And banking is ALL about regulations and arcane rules.
It just sounds to me like the Fyre Festival or Theranos or WeWork of banking. Some grand idea that's going to quickly start falling apart because it's not actually possible and no amount of yelling at staff or claiming to be "innovating" will make it possible. And in the end *something* will be delivered, but it will cost a fortune to get there and the end product won't be useful.
I wonder how X will do cheques.
The whole banking system of the US is a mystery to me as a German.
But the biggest mystery to me is why your banks still don't have zero-cost 1 day transactions like the EU has. Of course that's partly for profit reasons, but I can't see a reason why they can't do it cheaper than Paypal (and likely X will be) or at the same speed (I am not even talking about both, because even in Germany many banks want money for insta-transfers.).
Musk is talking about a roadmap he created for PayPal back in 2000. Because nothing in banking has changed in the past 23 years? Obviously not online banking, peer to peer payments, high yield savings accounts, and massive regulations behind it all.
I struggle to see the value proposition he's bringing too. I wonder if his team even has a clue. Then again, do we want to take bets on what percentage of those on the team currently will make it to the end of 2024 expected release of this amazing revamp of all things banking?
That said, as I was confidently writing up this post about how the USA has a ridiculous number of banks, I read that Germany has almost 1,400, the most of any country in the EU by far (Poland is next with <600). So the USA could certainly learn something from how Germany was able to get that many banks all on board with systems that enable free single day money transfers.Don't forget that I said EU. I have no idea how many there are, but it sounds like the EU beats the USA in numbers.
Musk and his fanbois are true believers in tech based hyper-libertarianism. For them, everything is a technology problem. Which means regulations and other policy concerns are part of the problem because these slow/inhibit innovation.Yes. I always have to think of little children saying "Everyone should just be friends, then there would be no war!" when I hear their "Everyone should just get rid of governments, and everything would be better for everyone!"
That said, as I was confidently writing up this post about how the USA has a ridiculous number of banks, I read that Germany has almost 1,400, the most of any country in the EU by far (Poland is next with <600). So the USA could certainly learn something from how Germany was able to get that many banks all on board with systems that enable free single day money transfers.Don't forget that I said EU. I have no idea how many there are, but it sounds like the EU beats the USA in numbers.
I wonder how X will do cheques.
The whole banking system of the US is a mystery to me as a German.
But the biggest mystery to me is why your banks still don't have zero-cost 1 day transactions like the EU has. Of course that's partly for profit reasons, but I can't see a reason why they can't do it cheaper than Paypal (and likely X will be) or at the same speed (I am not even talking about both, because even in Germany many banks want money for insta-transfers.).
But I don't know a ton about it other than droves of people being unbanked, issues with transferring money (why???), and stuff like that. So I was wondering if there was actually an untapped market for a streamlined, universally accessible online service that maybe, possibly, the team at Twitter who are not at all bankers, could maybe, possibly, magically invent??
It seems like if the banking systems in the US are that messy that there would actually be a demand for a tech solution, no?
There is absolutely demand and there are a lot of companies already operating in the same space. Two of the bigger examples I can think of are Venmo (which I just found out in googling as I wrote this post, was bought by paypal years ago) and Zelle. Both tech solution around the extreme difficulty of transferring money person-to-person via the conventional banking system.
There is absolutely demand and there are a lot of companies already operating in the same space. Two of the bigger examples I can think of are Venmo (which I just found out in googling as I wrote this post, was bought by paypal years ago) and Zelle. Both tech solution around the extreme difficulty of transferring money person-to-person via the conventional banking system.
There's also the FedNow system, which is just starting to roll out. It sounds like it's going to become the official way to do instant payments and transfers. As usual, the U.S. is years behind the rest of the world.
Even so, it further undermines the rationale for Musk believing he can turn Twitter into a banking app. There's no unmet demand for this, and there's no problem it solves. He's just recycling the last actual idea he had.
Even so, it further undermines the rationale for Musk believing he can turn Twitter into a banking app. There's no unmet demand for this, and there's no problem it solves. He's just recycling the last actual idea he had.
Even so, it further undermines the rationale for Musk believing he can turn Twitter into a banking app. There's no unmet demand for this, and there's no problem it solves. He's just recycling the last actual idea he had.
Please don't put me in the position of defending Elon Musk by going to the best feeling blanket condemnations whether or not they make sense.
Elon Musk hasn't worked at Paypal since 2000, so presumably any actual idea he had about payments business models to be recycled would be from around that era (e.g. the 20th century)
Elon Musk has demonstrably had at least one actual idea since 2000: "I bet we can build and launch rockets for a lot less money than Russia charges to launch things into space."
IDK… in the US anyone can get a checking account with a debit card they can use anywhere for a near-instant transaction. Maybe 5-10 seconds?
Otherwise, credit cards are available to anyone with a pulse. These are immediate and better than free, because many of them pay you to do transactions, with cash back or travel points. And the more you use these cards, the higher your credit score, which makes insurance, mortgages, loans, other cards with higher perks, and jobs easier to get.
I am paid hundreds of USD per year for using the not-at-all inconvenient status quo. So “free” and “instant” would be a net downgrade. That’s not to say people won’t move to phone based services, because it’s another excuse to play with a phone, but there’s not some awful suffering going on that is reducing Americans’ ability to spend their entire paychecks quickly enough.
IDK… in the US anyone can get a checking account with a debit card they can use anywhere for a near-instant transaction. Maybe 5-10 seconds?
Otherwise, credit cards are available to anyone with a pulse. These are immediate and better than free, because many of them pay you to do transactions, with cash back or travel points. And the more you use these cards, the higher your credit score, which makes insurance, mortgages, loans, other cards with higher perks, and jobs easier to get.
I am paid hundreds of USD per year for using the not-at-all inconvenient status quo. So “free” and “instant” would be a net downgrade. That’s not to say people won’t move to phone based services, because it’s another excuse to play with a phone, but there’s not some awful suffering going on that is reducing Americans’ ability to spend their entire paychecks quickly enough.
Is something like Venmo different than what is being discussed here?
IDK… in the US anyone can get a checking account with a debit card they can use anywhere for a near-instant transaction. Maybe 5-10 seconds?
Otherwise, credit cards are available to anyone with a pulse. These are immediate and better than free, because many of them pay you to do transactions, with cash back or travel points. And the more you use these cards, the higher your credit score, which makes insurance, mortgages, loans, other cards with higher perks, and jobs easier to get.
I am paid hundreds of USD per year for using the not-at-all inconvenient status quo. So “free” and “instant” would be a net downgrade. That’s not to say people won’t move to phone based services, because it’s another excuse to play with a phone, but there’s not some awful suffering going on that is reducing Americans’ ability to spend their entire paychecks quickly enough.
Is something like Venmo different than what is being discussed here?
And Zelle, Paypal, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and various other options. The US doesn't have a unified "everything app" because there's lots of market competition. See also the classic xkcd comic about how standards proliferate
(https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/standards.png)
IDK… in the US anyone can get a checking account with a debit card they can use anywhere for a near-instant transaction. Maybe 5-10 seconds?
Otherwise, credit cards are available to anyone with a pulse. These are immediate and better than free, because many of them pay you to do transactions, with cash back or travel points. And the more you use these cards, the higher your credit score, which makes insurance, mortgages, loans, other cards with higher perks, and jobs easier to get.
I am paid hundreds of USD per year for using the not-at-all inconvenient status quo. So “free” and “instant” would be a net downgrade. That’s not to say people won’t move to phone based services, because it’s another excuse to play with a phone, but there’s not some awful suffering going on that is reducing Americans’ ability to spend their entire paychecks quickly enough.
Is something like Venmo different than what is being discussed here?
And Zelle, Paypal, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and various other options. The US doesn't have a unified "everything app" because there's lots of market competition. See also the classic xkcd comic about how standards proliferate
(https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/standards.png)
To clarify, none of your actual banks offer payment systems?
Like you can't log into your bank and send someone money??
Even so, it further undermines the rationale for Musk believing he can turn Twitter into a banking app. There's no unmet demand for this, and there's no problem it solves. He's just recycling the last actual idea he had.
Please don't put me in the position of defending Elon Musk by going to the best feeling blanket condemnations whether or not they make sense.
Elon Musk hasn't worked at Paypal since 2000, so presumably any actual idea he had about payments business models to be recycled would be from around that era (e.g. the 20th century)
Elon Musk has demonstrably had at least one actual idea since 2000: "I bet we can build and launch rockets for a lot less money than Russia charges to launch things into space."
Even so, it further undermines the rationale for Musk believing he can turn Twitter into a banking app. There's no unmet demand for this, and there's no problem it solves. He's just recycling the last actual idea he had.
Please don't put me in the position of defending Elon Musk by going to the best feeling blanket condemnations whether or not they make sense.
Elon Musk hasn't worked at Paypal since 2000, so presumably any actual idea he had about payments business models to be recycled would be from around that era (e.g. the 20th century)
Elon Musk has demonstrably had at least one actual idea since 2000: "I bet we can build and launch rockets for a lot less money than Russia charges to launch things into space."
My mistake, you're right. I thought Musk was just an early investor in SpaceX, but he actually was one of the founders. I was confusing it with Tesla.
I've learned more useful info here than any other place on the internet.
I can send people money from my US bank via Zelle. Friends and family, small businesses, whatever. But that's only if I want to send *from* my bank for some reason (which is almost never the case).
I can send people money from my US bank via Zelle. Friends and family, small businesses, whatever. But that's only if I want to send *from* my bank for some reason (which is almost never the case).
Another Canadian asking another basic question here. Why would you not want to send from your bank? I do it all the time with e-transfers. I transfer both to people and to small organizations. A lot of clubs/non-profits are set up to receive payment with e-transfer. It is secure, and it sure beats sending a cheque, or using PayPal. It works to and from any Canadian bank.
I can send people money from my US bank via Zelle. Friends and family, small businesses, whatever. But that's only if I want to send *from* my bank for some reason (which is almost never the case).
Another Canadian asking another basic question here. Why would you not want to send from your bank? I do it all the time with e-transfers. I transfer both to people and to small organizations. A lot of clubs/non-profits are set up to receive payment with e-transfer. It is secure, and it sure beats sending a cheque, or using PayPal. It works to and from any Canadian bank.
It's not that I don't want to, I just don't very often because there are so many other ways to pay/send money. And it's not always up to me, depends on what the person or merchant is using. A single standard would be an improvement, such as the new FedNow, but this is really something that must be specified at a regulatory/governmental level, not Musk trying to shoehorn banking into a social media app.
To clarify, none of your actual banks offer payment systems?
Like you can't log into your bank and send someone money??
Note that I've never lived outside the US, but based on what I've heard I'm envisioning you all have a system where a friend can tell you their account number and you can log into your bank's website, type in that number and the amount you want to send them, and it just works.EURO is legal currency. Everyone is manadated to accept it. So you log in to your bank, choose "SEPA-Transfer" (Single European Payment Area I think), put in their account number, put in the amount, press send and that's it. (well, 2FA ususally there)
I can send people money from my US bank via Zelle. Friends and family, small businesses, whatever. But that's only if I want to send *from* my bank for some reason (which is almost never the case).
Another Canadian asking another basic question here. Why would you not want to send from your bank? I do it all the time with e-transfers. I transfer both to people and to small organizations. A lot of clubs/non-profits are set up to receive payment with e-transfer. It is secure, and it sure beats sending a cheque, or using PayPal. It works to and from any Canadian bank.
It's not that I don't want to, I just don't very often because there are so many other ways to pay/send money. And it's not always up to me, depends on what the person or merchant is using. A single standard would be an improvement, such as the new FedNow, but this is really something that must be specified at a regulatory/governmental level, not Musk trying to shoehorn banking into a social media app.
Aah, that makes weird sense. Here credit/debit is usual for businesses, and e-transfers take care of most of the rest. e-transfers are pretty standard here. And lots of bills can be paid through on-line banking - I pay almost all of mine that way.
I know the banking in New Zealand and Australia was easy when I was there in 2019/2020, but we are all 3 relatively low population countries. What is the banking like in the UK, or the large population European countries? Because the US banking system seems to give the excuse of large population for all the banks that barely talk with each other, but the Europeans posting on the forums don't seem to have the same issues.
Quickly, easily, without regard to what bank the recipient uses, and without regard to what third-party services they've signed up for? Nope!Canada:
Note that I've never lived outside the US, but based on what I've heard I'm envisioning you all have a system where a friend can tell you their account number and you can log into your bank's website, type in that number and the amount you want to send them, and it just works.
To clarify, none of your actual banks offer payment systems?
Like you can't log into your bank and send someone money??
Quickly, easily, without regard to what bank the recipient uses, and without regard to what third-party services they've signed up for? Nope!
Note that I've never lived outside the US, but based on what I've heard I'm envisioning you all have a system where a friend can tell you their account number and you can log into your bank's website, type in that number and the amount you want to send them, and it just works.
I've learned more useful info here than any other place on the internet.
I've learned more here than any of my degrees. Or, at least I remember more of what I've learned here than I have from my degrees, lol.
One thing that maybe should be mentioned - those email money transfers are probably the most dangerous thing that our banking system allows. A few years ago our bank lost my banking information (along with a lot of other people) when they were hacked. They didn't tell me this of course, so I didn't know there was a need to change all my passwords. So one morning I logged in to our bank account and noticed that a couple email money transfers had been sent to random gmail addresses - one at just before midnight the day before, and one after midnight that day. All told it was about eight grand. And then we were hit with service charges because some automatic payments weren't able to go through.
I immediately contacted the bank and asked them to stop/reverse the transfer. They told me it wasn't possible to do - the money was gone with no way of tracing it or ever getting it back. After a couple months of wrangling back and forth they did refund me . . . but it was eye opening.
One thing that maybe should be mentioned - those email money transfers are probably the most dangerous thing that our banking system allows. A few years ago our bank lost my banking information (along with a lot of other people) when they were hacked. They didn't tell me this of course, so I didn't know there was a need to change all my passwords. So one morning I logged in to our bank account and noticed that a couple email money transfers had been sent to random gmail addresses - one at just before midnight the day before, and one after midnight that day. All told it was about eight grand. And then we were hit with service charges because some automatic payments weren't able to go through.
I immediately contacted the bank and asked them to stop/reverse the transfer. They told me it wasn't possible to do - the money was gone with no way of tracing it or ever getting it back. After a couple months of wrangling back and forth they did refund me . . . but it was eye opening.
Yeah, good point, but for any non Canadian reading this, we do have maximums on what can be transferred in a given day.
So Elon Musk may end up with something useful for Americans, but the rest of us don't need it.
So Elon Musk may end up with something useful for Americans, but the rest of us don't need it.
I disagree. He's just going to add to existing fragmentation. Of course he'd like to be the platform that handles all banking and payments for the US. This is a thing with Elon: Twitter us struggling (now worth perhaps $19B, down from the $44B he paid), so he's talking up grandiose plans that could in theory rescue his bad investment. Not gonna happen. The only way this happens in the US is if the feds get behind a single standard (like FedNow) that allows for seamless interoperability between different vendors. If this is what happens, Twitter could participate in this network, but it would be one among many players.
One thing that maybe should be mentioned - those email money transfers are probably the most dangerous thing that our banking system allows. A few years ago our bank lost my banking information (along with a lot of other people) when they were hacked. They didn't tell me this of course, so I didn't know there was a need to change all my passwords. So one morning I logged in to our bank account and noticed that a couple email money transfers had been sent to random gmail addresses - one at just before midnight the day before, and one after midnight that day. All told it was about eight grand. And then we were hit with service charges because some automatic payments weren't able to go through.
I immediately contacted the bank and asked them to stop/reverse the transfer. They told me it wasn't possible to do - the money was gone with no way of tracing it or ever getting it back. After a couple months of wrangling back and forth they did refund me . . . but it was eye opening.
Yeah, good point, but for any non Canadian reading this, we do have maximums on what can be transferred in a given day.
Yeah, I think that's why there was the weird timing of the transfers from my account. They were trying to extract the most possible before alerting anyone.
So Elon Musk may end up with something useful for Americans, but the rest of us don't need it.
I disagree. He's just going to add to existing fragmentation. Of course he'd like to be the platform that handles all banking and payments for the US. This is a thing with Elon: Twitter us struggling (now worth perhaps $19B, down from the $44B he paid), so he's talking up grandiose plans that could in theory rescue his bad investment. Not gonna happen. The only way this happens in the US is if the feds get behind a single standard (like FedNow) that allows for seamless interoperability between different vendors. If this is what happens, Twitter could participate in this network, but it would be one among many players.
That is why I said "may". But my main point was, the US is the only G20 country that has such a fragmented banking system, so the rest of us just don't need it.
According to the NYT the new stock valuation package values X at 19 billion.Still a suspicious number unless checked and verified by at least 2 independent external auditors.
When your banking system is still based on antiquated COBAL language software, that makes all the new stuff kinda hard to do. Especially since my understanding is they don't teach COBAL to new programmers anymore. There are reasons why the US banking system is as messed up as it is.
Anyone recommend a book on early paypal? I vaguely remember hearing about this, but my accountant brain wants a new book. Heck, send me your accounting fraud book recommendations. I've read the Enron and Bernie Madoff ones. I'm cool with the technical ones as long as they're well written.
When your banking system is still based on antiquated COBAL language software, that makes all the new stuff kinda hard to do. Especially since my understanding is they don't teach COBAL to new programmers anymore. There are reasons why the US banking system is as messed up as it is.Afaik most of the German banks also still run on COBOL (or even older) systems. So no excuses there.
When your banking system is still based on antiquated COBAL language software, that makes all the new stuff kinda hard to do. Especially since my understanding is they don't teach COBAL to new programmers anymore. There are reasons why the US banking system is as messed up as it is.Afaik most of the German banks also still run on COBOL (or even older) systems. So no excuses there.
When your banking system is still based on antiquated COBAL language software, that makes all the new stuff kinda hard to do. Especially since my understanding is they don't teach COBAL to new programmers anymore. There are reasons why the US banking system is as messed up as it is.Afaik most of the German banks also still run on COBOL (or even older) systems. So no excuses there.
I have some friends working in the Canadian banking system. My understanding is that we're just starting to modernize from similarly ancient systems.
When your banking system is still based on antiquated COBAL language software, that makes all the new stuff kinda hard to do. Especially since my understanding is they don't teach COBAL to new programmers anymore. There are reasons why the US banking system is as messed up as it is.Afaik most of the German banks also still run on COBOL (or even older) systems. So no excuses there.
I have some friends working in the Canadian banking system. My understanding is that we're just starting to modernize from similarly ancient systems.
Lol, yeah, I don't think anything about our banking system is "advances" lol. As I mentioned already, we got our e-transfer system in 2003 and it only just slightly updated recently to do auto-deposits.
We're not exactly ahead of the curve in terms of banking tech, we just don't barriers to adoption of tech.
When your banking system is still based on antiquated COBAL language software, that makes all the new stuff kinda hard to do. Especially since my understanding is they don't teach COBAL to new programmers anymore. There are reasons why the US banking system is as messed up as it is.Afaik most of the German banks also still run on COBOL (or even older) systems. So no excuses there.
I have some friends working in the Canadian banking system. My understanding is that we're just starting to modernize from similarly ancient systems.
Lol, yeah, I don't think anything about our banking system is "advances" lol. As I mentioned already, we got our e-transfer system in 2003 and it only just slightly updated recently to do auto-deposits.
We're not exactly ahead of the curve in terms of banking tech, we just don't barriers to adoption of tech.
I didn't say COBAL was the ONLY reason. But it doesn't help. And honestly, I wouldn't be too smug regardless of where you are unless you've looked under the hood of how it all works. The little that I know suggests that worldwide it's a bit of a house of cards.
The thing with some of these legacy systems (in both nuclear and banking) is . . . you don't really need a new or complicated programming language. Once your software is working and proven there's no advantage at all to changing things over. It's just a risk and expense for almost no reward. It's often cheaper to just completely train a new guy from the ground up if you need some maintenance work done.(https://th.bing.com/th/id/OIP.5mjbzEht7xXJGdu4OxC2UQHaEa?w=318&h=190&c=7&r=0&o=5&pid=1.7)
When your banking system is still based on antiquated COBAL language software, that makes all the new stuff kinda hard to do. Especially since my understanding is they don't teach COBAL to new programmers anymore. There are reasons why the US banking system is as messed up as it is.Afaik most of the German banks also still run on COBOL (or even older) systems. So no excuses there.
I have some friends working in the Canadian banking system. My understanding is that we're just starting to modernize from similarly ancient systems.
Lol, yeah, I don't think anything about our banking system is "advances" lol. As I mentioned already, we got our e-transfer system in 2003 and it only just slightly updated recently to do auto-deposits.
We're not exactly ahead of the curve in terms of banking tech, we just don't barriers to adoption of tech.
I didn't say COBAL was the ONLY reason. But it doesn't help. And honestly, I wouldn't be too smug regardless of where you are unless you've looked under the hood of how it all works. The little that I know suggests that worldwide it's a bit of a house of cards.
Cesspool isn't worth more than $3.50.
According to the NYT the new stock valuation package values X at 19 billion.Still a suspicious number unless checked and verified by at least 2 independent external auditors.
Cesspool isn't worth more than $3.50.
X is still losing millions daily, next quarterly valuation will be less than $19B.
According to the NYT the new stock valuation package values X at 19 billion.Still a suspicious number unless checked and verified by at least 2 independent external auditors.
Cesspool isn't worth more than $3.50.
X is still losing millions daily, next quarterly valuation will be less than $19B.
It's an evaluation he made himself based on stock options he's offering employees. So yeah, entirely made up without external evaluation.
Well, I'm pretty sure the SEC has him on speed dil at this point based on prior shenanigans.According to the NYT the new stock valuation package values X at 19 billion.Still a suspicious number unless checked and verified by at least 2 independent external auditors.
Cesspool isn't worth more than $3.50.
X is still losing millions daily, next quarterly valuation will be less than $19B.
It's an evaluation he made himself based on stock options he's offering employees. So yeah, entirely made up without external evaluation.
Is this type of self-evaluation standard for this kind of situation? If he's grossly overestimating the valuation, couldn't that be fraud?
Getting one of these appraisals done establishes a safe harbor from various tax penalties that could be assessed to the employees and shareholders in case of an audit. Musk would be foolish to just make up a number himself.I am imagining the accountants Musk fired whipping up huge batches of popcorn right now.
Musk would be foolish to...
Musk would be foolish to...
I think it's well-established at this point that just because something is foolish doesn't mean he won't do it.
An X post Wednesday afternoon said: “Jewish communties (sic) have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them.” The post also referenced “hordes of minorities” flooding Western countries, a popular antisemitic conspiracy theory.
In response, Musk said: “You have said the actual truth.”
Just going to leave this one here:
https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/15/media/elon-musk-antisemitism-white-people/index.htmlQuoteAn X post Wednesday afternoon said: “Jewish communties (sic) have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them.” The post also referenced “hordes of minorities” flooding Western countries, a popular antisemitic conspiracy theory.
In response, Musk said: “You have said the actual truth.”
Just going to leave this one here:
https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/15/media/elon-musk-antisemitism-white-people/index.htmlQuoteAn X post Wednesday afternoon said: “Jewish communties (sic) have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them.” The post also referenced “hordes of minorities” flooding Western countries, a popular antisemitic conspiracy theory.
In response, Musk said: “You have said the actual truth.”
Musk isn't selling me any cars or spaceship rides when he talks.
Wait, aren't most Jewish people white? He's saying they're creating anti-white racism against themselves?Ethnicity is whatever we invent it to be.
Just going to leave this one here:
https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/15/media/elon-musk-antisemitism-white-people/index.htmlQuoteAn X post Wednesday afternoon said: “Jewish communties (sic) have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them.” The post also referenced “hordes of minorities” flooding Western countries, a popular antisemitic conspiracy theory.
In response, Musk said: “You have said the actual truth.”
Musk isn't selling me any cars or spaceship rides when he talks.
Imagine the kind of utopia he plans to create on Mars . . . well away from pesky Earth laws about racism.
Wait, aren't most Jewish people white?
Racists will never terraform Mars because doing so would require the cooperation of tens of millions of people all working together and sharing some set of values. The concept of continually dividing people into good and bad invented ethnicities never stops, and creates too much division to muster such a corporate army. This is why even the most conservative corporations have diversity, equity, and inclusion functions, because otherwise the racists and misogynists would destroy the organization's unity from the inside out.Just going to leave this one here:
https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/15/media/elon-musk-antisemitism-white-people/index.htmlQuoteAn X post Wednesday afternoon said: “Jewish communties (sic) have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them.” The post also referenced “hordes of minorities” flooding Western countries, a popular antisemitic conspiracy theory.
In response, Musk said: “You have said the actual truth.”
Musk isn't selling me any cars or spaceship rides when he talks.
Imagine the kind of utopia he plans to create on Mars . . . well away from pesky Earth laws about racism.
Given how likely success is of his terraforming trip and colony, along with the sorts of people he'd be attracting to his space utopia... I see no downside. It's got real Golgafrinchan "B" Ark vibes to it with a higher quality, self selecting, voluntary population.
Racists will never terraform Mars because doing so would require the cooperation of tens of millions of people all working together and sharing some set of values. The concept of continually dividing people into good and bad invented ethnicities never stops, and creates too much division to muster such a corporate army. This is why even the most conservative corporations have diversity, equity, and inclusion functions, because otherwise the racists and misogynists would destroy the organization's unity from the inside out.Just going to leave this one here:
https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/15/media/elon-musk-antisemitism-white-people/index.htmlQuoteAn X post Wednesday afternoon said: “Jewish communties (sic) have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them.” The post also referenced “hordes of minorities” flooding Western countries, a popular antisemitic conspiracy theory.
In response, Musk said: “You have said the actual truth.”
Musk isn't selling me any cars or spaceship rides when he talks.
Imagine the kind of utopia he plans to create on Mars . . . well away from pesky Earth laws about racism.
Given how likely success is of his terraforming trip and colony, along with the sorts of people he'd be attracting to his space utopia... I see no downside. It's got real Golgafrinchan "B" Ark vibes to it with a higher quality, self selecting, voluntary population.
Wait, aren't most Jewish people white? He's saying they're creating anti-white racism against themselves?
Wait, aren't most Jewish people white? He's saying they're creating anti-white racism against themselves?
From The Atlantic
"These are rough sketches of two camps, concentrated at the margins of U.S. political culture. On the extreme right, Jews are seen as impure—a faux-white race that has tainted America. And on the extreme left, Jews are seen as part of a white-majority establishment that seeks to dominate people of color. Taken together, these attacks raise an interesting question: Are Jews white? “Jewish identity in America is inherently paradoxical and contradictory,” says Eric Goldstein, an associate professor of history at Emory University."
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/12/are-jews-white/509453/
One thing I can tell you for certain is that the moment people find out I'm Jewish, the first thing they say is generally "you don't look Jewish," meaning that I look like their conceptualization of "white" not "Jewish."
Musks new naked antisemitism is just so incredibly lazy. He's supposed to be such a visionary, such a futurist, and he's falling back on one of the oldest fucking, done to death (pun intended) tropes that we know of: it's the Jews' fault.
But what do we expect from the loser who didn't let staff wear safety gear in his presence because he doesn't like bright colours??
That's why Italians and Irish weren't considered white for a long time in American history, either.Well Italians are the shabby rest of the Roman Empire that fell because they mixed in too much African slaves and whatnot. Even Jews!!!
Find some tiny difference between people - attached vs detatched earlobes, chin proportion, curly vs straight hair - and that can be used as shorthand to define who is good and bad. The specifics don't matter because there will always be some specific thing.Wait, aren't most Jewish people white? He's saying they're creating anti-white racism against themselves?
From The Atlantic
"These are rough sketches of two camps, concentrated at the margins of U.S. political culture. On the extreme right, Jews are seen as impure—a faux-white race that has tainted America. And on the extreme left, Jews are seen as part of a white-majority establishment that seeks to dominate people of color. Taken together, these attacks raise an interesting question: Are Jews white? “Jewish identity in America is inherently paradoxical and contradictory,” says Eric Goldstein, an associate professor of history at Emory University."
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/12/are-jews-white/509453/
One thing I can tell you for certain is that the moment people find out I'm Jewish, the first thing they say is generally "you don't look Jewish," meaning that I look like their conceptualization of "white" not "Jewish."
Musks new naked antisemitism is just so incredibly lazy. He's supposed to be such a visionary, such a futurist, and he's falling back on one of the oldest fucking, done to death (pun intended) tropes that we know of: it's the Jews' fault.
But what do we expect from the loser who didn't let staff wear safety gear in his presence because he doesn't like bright colours??
I kind of like that in recent years there has been so much inter-marriage between different people that it's often difficult to tell where someone's roots are just by glancing at their face. My wife and I are a mixed race couple. Among my close friends the majority of them are mixed race couples. It makes me hope that with enough integration and time at least some of the race issues will simply go away because we won't have clear lines to discriminate on.
But if we're using some sort of bizarre purity standard rather than physical features, that kinda smashes that hope.
Big advertisers jumping ship after Musk's anti-Semitism alignment. Could this be the final nail in the coffin?
Big advertisers jumping ship after Musk's anti-Semitism alignment. Could this be the final nail in the coffin?
Guess we know what the X is going to evolve into.
Guess we know what the X is going to evolve into.
Yep, just draw four little lines on the tips of the X, and you’re good to go.
Guess we know what the X is going to evolve into.
Yep, just draw four little lines on the tips of the X, and you’re good to go.
Well actually, it's a Nordic rune guys. Ugh, woke snowflake libtards will take offense to anything these days! #FREESPEECH #BLOODANDSOIL
Guess we know what the X is going to evolve into.
Yep, just draw four little lines on the tips of the X, and you’re good to go.
Well actually, it's a Nordic rune guys. Ugh, woke snowflake libtards will take offense to anything these days! #FREESPEECH #BLOODANDSOIL
I don't think you can pin it down to one area.
Wasn't it originally Sumerian or something? It is such a easy motif to weave it shows up in a lot of ancient fabrics.
Definitely still widely used in India, including the Indian/Hindu expat community. Use it in contexts including celebrating or blessing a new car which can cause all sorts of weirdness in the USA.
Definitely still widely used in India, including the Indian/Hindu expat community. Use it in contexts including celebrating or blessing a new car which can cause all sorts of weirdness in the USA.
Yep. I was a teaching assistant for computer science in grad school, we were doing a lesson on image processing, and my co-TA (from India) put in the Hindu swastika as one of the test images given out to the class. The image is seen as very inoffensive and even good in her culture, but in the West it just breaks peoples' brains when you use it. The image got a number of complaints, and the professor had to spend a few minutes explaining this cultural difference in his next lecture.
Definitely still widely used in India, including the Indian/Hindu expat community. Use it in contexts including celebrating or blessing a new car which can cause all sorts of weirdness in the USA.
Yep. I was a teaching assistant for computer science in grad school, we were doing a lesson on image processing, and my co-TA (from India) put in the Hindu swastika as one of the test images given out to the class. The image is seen as very inoffensive and even good in her culture, but in the West it just breaks peoples' brains when you use it. The image got a number of complaints, and the professor had to spend a few minutes explaining this cultural difference in his next lecture.
That just brought back memories. In undergrad at a Florida public university, some of the Indian grad students (teaching assistants) would have a swastika sticker on a diary, or calculator, or on a backpack. This was late 90s to early 2000s. Major freakout by mostly white students. When the university admins sent a mass email out to the student body, the response by the student council was that incoming foreign students from India should be told to not display this symbol and assimilate. Thus accomodating the xenophobes.
Makes perfect sense as many Americans don't even know much of their country's history and cultures (many eliminated thru genocide on natives), so they'd struggle to comprehend foreign cultures.
Guess we know what the X is going to evolve into.
Just going to leave this one here:
https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/15/media/elon-musk-antisemitism-white-people/index.htmlQuoteAn X post Wednesday afternoon said: “Jewish communties (sic) have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them.” The post also referenced “hordes of minorities” flooding Western countries, a popular antisemitic conspiracy theory.
In response, Musk said: “You have said the actual truth.”
Musk isn't selling me any cars or spaceship rides when he talks.
Imagine the kind of utopia he plans to create on Mars . . . well away from pesky Earth laws about racism.
At least now we know what Musk and Kanye were bonding over when they were mutually masturbating each other all over social media.
I read that around that time was when Kanye really got vocally into antisemitism and Jewish conspiracies and was going on pro Hitler at Adidas meetings.
So you know that's exactly the "genius" shit that they were talking about at the time.
At least now we know what Musk and Kanye were bonding over when they were mutually masturbating each other all over social media.
I read that around that time was when Kanye really got vocally into antisemitism and Jewish conspiracies and was going on pro Hitler at Adidas meetings.
So you know that's exactly the "genius" shit that they were talking about at the time.
Surely Kayne knows that Hitler would have sent Kayne to his doom had they been alive in the same time and place?
Real LeopardsAteMyFace shit.At least now we know what Musk and Kanye were bonding over when they were mutually masturbating each other all over social media.
I read that around that time was when Kanye really got vocally into antisemitism and Jewish conspiracies and was going on pro Hitler at Adidas meetings.
So you know that's exactly the "genius" shit that they were talking about at the time.
Surely Kayne knows that Hitler would have sent Kayne to his doom had they been alive in the same time and place?
Hitler might even have pushed a nasty fate for Musk. Plenty of children with autism ended up in the "special children's wards", where they were murdered. I'm not sure where Aspergers would have ended up on that scale, but it seems entirely plausible that both Ye and Xusk would have ended up murdered at the hands of Hitler and his policies.
Big advertisers jumping ship after Musk's anti-Semitism alignment. Could this be the final nail in the coffin?
I am surprised that Twitter hasn't collapsed already. MySpace disintegrated pretty quickly as I recall when Facebook became a thing. But yeah, you're probably right, everyone will flood back in once the storm has passed.
*Remember being a friend of Tom? Perhaps only for those of us of a certain age.
I just wanted to share that while I was browsing Black Friday deals for comfy bras, I noted that the new "X" logo happens to be nearly identical to the logo for the most well known period panty company. Apparently Knix trademarked a bunch of similar X symbols.
https://www.google.com/search?q=knix+logo&client=ms-android-rogers-ca-rvc3&sca_esv=585104753&tbm=isch&prmd=isvn&sxsrf=AM9HkKlkgjRiR4RsM3WKRhXOzaVhe4I15A:1700849787389&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwit0pKbn92CAxW4FVkFHdFTDkwQ_AUoAXoECAIQAQ&biw=412&bih=759&dpr=2.63#imgrc=m-TvQJN20NQ2BM
Might get interesting when X becomes the payment processor for everything and seller for everything.I just wanted to share that while I was browsing Black Friday deals for comfy bras, I noted that the new "X" logo happens to be nearly identical to the logo for the most well known period panty company. Apparently Knix trademarked a bunch of similar X symbols.
https://www.google.com/search?q=knix+logo&client=ms-android-rogers-ca-rvc3&sca_esv=585104753&tbm=isch&prmd=isvn&sxsrf=AM9HkKlkgjRiR4RsM3WKRhXOzaVhe4I15A:1700849787389&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwit0pKbn92CAxW4FVkFHdFTDkwQ_AUoAXoECAIQAQ&biw=412&bih=759&dpr=2.63#imgrc=m-TvQJN20NQ2BM
Probably a non-issue since trademarks are for specific types of products or services. For example, there is a trademark for the word Nike from a Swedish company for MECHANICAL AND HYDRAULIC LIFTING JACKS, HYDRAULIC PISTONS, HYDRAULIC PRESSES, HAND-DRIVEN AND MOTOR-DRIVEN HIGH PRESSURE PUMPS because it's in a completely different industry/product from Nike apparel/athletic equipment and there's no reasonable risk of consumers mistaking the two.
Knix has trademarks for International Class 25 which includes: Body shapers; Hosiery; Leggings; Leotards; Lingerie; Underwear (none of the aforesaid relating to or promoting the sport of basketball) no exactly the type of products that could be confused for a social media company.
I just wanted to share that while I was browsing Black Friday deals for comfy bras, I noted that the new "X" logo happens to be nearly identical to the logo for the most well known period panty company. Apparently Knix trademarked a bunch of similar X symbols.
https://www.google.com/search?q=knix+logo&client=ms-android-rogers-ca-rvc3&sca_esv=585104753&tbm=isch&prmd=isvn&sxsrf=AM9HkKlkgjRiR4RsM3WKRhXOzaVhe4I15A:1700849787389&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwit0pKbn92CAxW4FVkFHdFTDkwQ_AUoAXoECAIQAQ&biw=412&bih=759&dpr=2.63#imgrc=m-TvQJN20NQ2BM
Probably a non-issue since trademarks are for specific types of products or services. For example, there is a trademark for the word Nike from a Swedish company for MECHANICAL AND HYDRAULIC LIFTING JACKS, HYDRAULIC PISTONS, HYDRAULIC PRESSES, HAND-DRIVEN AND MOTOR-DRIVEN HIGH PRESSURE PUMPS because it's in a completely different industry/product from Nike apparel/athletic equipment and there's no reasonable risk of consumers mistaking the two.
Knix has trademarks for International Class 25 which includes: Body shapers; Hosiery; Leggings; Leotards; Lingerie; Underwear (none of the aforesaid relating to or promoting the sport of basketball) no exactly the type of products that could be confused for a social media company.
It’s bleeding edge technology…I just wanted to share that while I was browsing Black Friday deals for comfy bras, I noted that the new "X" logo happens to be nearly identical to the logo for the most well known period panty company. Apparently Knix trademarked a bunch of similar X symbols.
https://www.google.com/search?q=knix+logo&client=ms-android-rogers-ca-rvc3&sca_esv=585104753&tbm=isch&prmd=isvn&sxsrf=AM9HkKlkgjRiR4RsM3WKRhXOzaVhe4I15A:1700849787389&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwit0pKbn92CAxW4FVkFHdFTDkwQ_AUoAXoECAIQAQ&biw=412&bih=759&dpr=2.63#imgrc=m-TvQJN20NQ2BM
Probably a non-issue since trademarks are for specific types of products or services. For example, there is a trademark for the word Nike from a Swedish company for MECHANICAL AND HYDRAULIC LIFTING JACKS, HYDRAULIC PISTONS, HYDRAULIC PRESSES, HAND-DRIVEN AND MOTOR-DRIVEN HIGH PRESSURE PUMPS because it's in a completely different industry/product from Nike apparel/athletic equipment and there's no reasonable risk of consumers mistaking the two.
Knix has trademarks for International Class 25 which includes: Body shapers; Hosiery; Leggings; Leotards; Lingerie; Underwear (none of the aforesaid relating to or promoting the sport of basketball) no exactly the type of products that could be confused for a social media company.
That wasn't really my point.
I thought it was funny that he chose a symbol that looks a hell of a lot like a period panty brand. It just made me chuckle.
Now every time I see the X logo, I'm doing to think of menstruation.
“I hope they stop. Don’t advertise,” Musk told interviewer Andrew Ross Sorkin. “If somebody is going to try to blackmail me with advertising, blackmail me with money, go fuck yourself. Go fuck yourself. Is that clear? I hope it is.” He singled out Disney CEO Bob Iger, who discussed not wanting Disney to be affiliated with Musk while on stage earlier in the day. “Hey Bob, if you’re in the audience.”
Today, Elon told his advertisers to go fuck themselves, live on CNBC. Twice! You can see the host holding the bridge of his nose right after like.....
https://twitter.com/iFightForKids/status/1729993619883315271
He really knows how to up the ante!
I think he's well beyond the "cocaine will help!" stage.Today, Elon told his advertisers to go fuck themselves, live on CNBC. Twice! You can see the host holding the bridge of his nose right after like.....
https://twitter.com/iFightForKids/status/1729993619883315271
He really knows how to up the ante!
And because he's always looking to outdo himself:
https://vxtwitter.com/jd_durkin/status/1729989951998083569 (https://vxtwitter.com/jd_durkin/status/1729989951998083569)
I was just about to post the same thing. I'm sure this is some kind of eleven-dimensional chess from a big-brain business genius, right?
https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/29/23981928/elon-musk-ad-boycott-go-fuck-yourself-destroy-xQuote“I hope they stop. Don’t advertise,” Musk told interviewer Andrew Ross Sorkin. “If somebody is going to try to blackmail me with advertising, blackmail me with money, go fuck yourself. Go fuck yourself. Is that clear? I hope it is.” He singled out Disney CEO Bob Iger, who discussed not wanting Disney to be affiliated with Musk while on stage earlier in the day. “Hey Bob, if you’re in the audience.”
At this point, I half-believe Musk has given up any hope of turning Twitter around, and he's just entertaining himself by seeing how much crazy shit he can pull before the company burns to the ground.
Great summary @Metalcat . Feel like I learned some things there!
I'll add that when we ask ourselves "who put the tonedeaf people with narcissistic personality disorder in charge?" we have our answer here. Only such people could be willing to attempt the innovation and disruption of ancient, established systems. The rest of us are too timid, afraid of failure, sensitive to criticism, and accepting of the status quo to even contemplate such moves. The rest of us also care too much about things like family, enjoying life, etc. to put in the work.
What does $40B mean to someone like Musk? IDK. Someone who will never be poor, or even not-rich, thinks about such things differently than consumerist middle class people who seek the sensation of luxury.
At some level, wealthy people realize that money only represents the ability to make other people work for your benefit. There are other ways to make people work for your benefit, such as by making yourself their leader or by being highly persuasive. These three things - money, power, and persuasiveness - are fungible in the sense that with any one you can obtain more of the other. They are the same currency, in terms of manipulation of other people.
Musk's acquisition of Xitter represents an exchange of money for persuasiveness. By controlling media, he controls part of the narrative, forcing people with power to share that power with him or else he'll downgrade all their campaign tweets. That's what Xitter is all about - power. It's not an investment like poorer people think of investments. Musk isn't hoping to earn enough from Xitter to fund his 401fuckingK. He is obtaining a form of power that allows him to shape the behavior of everyone else.
Regarding the question of the nerd armies' motivation? I think lotto-ticket stock options have a lot to do with it. You work 100 hours a week for a couple of years and then cash out and become a millionaire. There's also a sense that even if one's startups don't work out, one moves on with one's career to the next opportunity with the contacts made in the previous one. Play that game often enough and you eventually get filthy rich on the IPO that does work out.
But Musk doesn't seem to be playing that game with Xitter. Probably the people working there are just earning a salary, with steadily attrition to more interesting startups. Musk doesn't need Xitter to be innovative to perform its persuasive function, he just needs to own and control it. The nerds only need to be smart enough to keep what was already built up and running. Doesn't take a genius to sell a checkmark or whatever.
I think he didn't make a Twitter competitor because he actually liked Twitter's product. He's used it often for over 10 years. There weren't good electric cars, commercial rockets, electronic banking, online mapping, etc. when he started or bought into those companies. He's given X and aspirational mission (free speech) to motivate employees like his other companies and adds features like community notes, spaces, content provider payments, an edit button (ha) and different content types. The aspirational mission + leaner execution + better design is his trademark. But it's also an AI data treasure trove.
So I don't think 40b means much to him at all, but I also think he's being facetious when he talks about X failing and the month-to-month deathwatch since last year has been clearly wrong. He's going to build products off of X and use X for other products and services. There's already many new services in the pipe from X. I'm sure his promise to employees is that it'll go public again eventually and they'll get their big payout. Like millionaire Tesla line workers.
I think he didn't make a Twitter competitor because he actually liked Twitter's product. He's used it often for over 10 years. There weren't good electric cars, commercial rockets, electronic banking, online mapping, etc. when he started or bought into those companies. He's given X and aspirational mission (free speech) to motivate employees like his other companies and adds features like community notes, spaces, content provider payments, an edit button (ha) and different content types. The aspirational mission + leaner execution + better design is his trademark. But it's also an AI data treasure trove.
So I don't think 40b means much to him at all, but I also think he's being facetious when he talks about X failing and the month-to-month deathwatch since last year has been clearly wrong. He's going to build products off of X and use X for other products and services. There's already many new services in the pipe from X. I'm sure his promise to employees is that it'll go public again eventually and they'll get their big payout. Like millionaire Tesla line workers.
Sure, but it's a lot harder to make stock holders rich when the company was already worth a lot to begin with.
I can't see that happening. There are 350 million daily users. Even if he somehow manages to convince 10% of them to pay him 100 dollar a year, that's still not the income that amounts to 40bn, not to mention Twitters high price. It was totally overvalued.It starts to make sense when you think of it as a product, not an investment. Elon purchased for himself the ability to control the "digital town square", not the ability to earn a decent return on his money. Control of Xitter gives Musk political power over his users. He can sway public opinion with quiet tweaks to the algorithms. He can overthrow governments, direct policy choices, and arouse angry mobs at anyone who dare oppose him.
I think he didn't make a Twitter competitor because he actually liked Twitter's product. He's used it often for over 10 years. There weren't good electric cars, commercial rockets, electronic banking, online mapping, etc. when he started or bought into those companies. He's given X and aspirational mission (free speech) to motivate employees like his other companies and adds features like community notes, spaces, content provider payments, an edit button (ha) and different content types. The aspirational mission + leaner execution + better design is his trademark. But it's also an AI data treasure trove.
So I don't think 40b means much to him at all, but I also think he's being facetious when he talks about X failing and the month-to-month deathwatch since last year has been clearly wrong. He's going to build products off of X and use X for other products and services. There's already many new services in the pipe from X. I'm sure his promise to employees is that it'll go public again eventually and they'll get their big payout. Like millionaire Tesla line workers.
Sure, but it's a lot harder to make stock holders rich when the company was already worth a lot to begin with.
It's also a job. We don't need to overcomplicate that there are conscientious people who work really hard and really well after getting recruited. Since he only kept 20% of Twitter's staff, X is probably already a high % of those types.
To your point, yeah, the Twitter employee millionaires have likely already been made unless there’s some AI revenue boom that 20x that valuation.
I can't see that happening. There are 350 million daily users. Even if he somehow manages to convince 10% of them to pay him 100 dollar a year, that's still not the income that amounts to 40bn, not to mention Twitters high price. It was totally overvalued.It starts to make sense when you think of it as a product, not an investment. Elon purchased for himself the ability to control the "digital town square", not the ability to earn a decent return on his money. Control of Xitter gives Musk political power over his users. He can sway public opinion with quiet tweaks to the algorithms. He can overthrow governments, direct policy choices, and arouse angry mobs at anyone who dare oppose him.
It's digital serfdom, where the nobility can make the peasants fight on their behalf and do all sorts of other things against their interests.
When you invest in power, you earn a return in a way totally different than middle class investing objectives.
I can't see that happening. There are 350 million daily users. Even if he somehow manages to convince 10% of them to pay him 100 dollar a year, that's still not the income that amounts to 40bn, not to mention Twitters high price. It was totally overvalued.It starts to make sense when you think of it as a product, not an investment. Elon purchased for himself the ability to control the "digital town square", not the ability to earn a decent return on his money. Control of Xitter gives Musk political power over his users. He can sway public opinion with quiet tweaks to the algorithms. He can overthrow governments, direct policy choices, and arouse angry mobs at anyone who dare oppose him.
It's digital serfdom, where the nobility can make the peasants fight on their behalf and do all sorts of other things against their interests.
When you invest in power, you earn a return in a way totally different than middle class investing objectives.
Musk’s comments seem at odds with his stated commitment to free speech, said Neal Thurman, co-founder of the nonprofit industry group Brand Safety Institute.
“He appears to be addressing the situation as if there is a presumption that advertisers should be spending on X. As if they have an obligation to fund it through their ad budgets,” Thurman said. “His indignant response to his customers voting with their wallets in response to his approach is ironic from someone who claims to be a free speech, free market libertarian. This is what free markets do.”
Great quote in the WSJ today (https://www.wsj.com/tech/elon-musks-f-bombs-make-linda-yaccarinos-job-at-x-even-harder-b45ff13d):QuoteMusk’s comments seem at odds with his stated commitment to free speech, said Neal Thurman, co-founder of the nonprofit industry group Brand Safety Institute.
“He appears to be addressing the situation as if there is a presumption that advertisers should be spending on X. As if they have an obligation to fund it through their ad budgets,” Thurman said. “His indignant response to his customers voting with their wallets in response to his approach is ironic from someone who claims to be a free speech, free market libertarian. This is what free markets do.”
Musk has never cared about free speech, only freedom for his speech. He has never cared about free markets - only freedom from regulation for his products in the market. He is not interested in liberty beyond what directly impacts himself.It doesn't matter if Elon or anyone else is a hypocrite. We're all hypocrites. Doesn't change a thing.
Once you realize that, Musk's comments make perfect sense.
X CEO Linda Yaccarino called owner Elon Musk "candid and profound" in a memo to staff addressing the public interview in which Musk told advertisers to "go fuck yourself."
"Elon's interview was candid and profound," Yaccarino wrote in a memo to employees of X (formerly Twitter) yesterday. "He shared an unmatched and completely unvarnished perspective and vision for the future. If you haven't watched it, please take the time to absorb the magnitude and importance of what we're all a part of."
Great quote in the WSJ today (https://www.wsj.com/tech/elon-musks-f-bombs-make-linda-yaccarinos-job-at-x-even-harder-b45ff13d):QuoteMusk’s comments seem at odds with his stated commitment to free speech, said Neal Thurman, co-founder of the nonprofit industry group Brand Safety Institute.
“He appears to be addressing the situation as if there is a presumption that advertisers should be spending on X. As if they have an obligation to fund it through their ad budgets,” Thurman said. “His indignant response to his customers voting with their wallets in response to his approach is ironic from someone who claims to be a free speech, free market libertarian. This is what free markets do.”
Great quote in the WSJ today (https://www.wsj.com/tech/elon-musks-f-bombs-make-linda-yaccarinos-job-at-x-even-harder-b45ff13d):QuoteMusk’s comments seem at odds with his stated commitment to free speech, said Neal Thurman, co-founder of the nonprofit industry group Brand Safety Institute.
“He appears to be addressing the situation as if there is a presumption that advertisers should be spending on X. As if they have an obligation to fund it through their ad budgets,” Thurman said. “His indignant response to his customers voting with their wallets in response to his approach is ironic from someone who claims to be a free speech, free market libertarian. This is what free markets do.”Musk has never cared about free speech, only freedom for his speech. He has never cared about free markets - only freedom from regulation for his products in the market. He is not interested in liberty beyond what directly impacts himself.It doesn't matter if Elon or anyone else is a hypocrite. We're all hypocrites. Doesn't change a thing.
Once you realize that, Musk's comments make perfect sense.
What matters is whether enough people think that it matters, because then they will sit back and do nothing, expecting the contradictions or nonsense reasoning to unravel the problem on their own.
Donald Trump should have taught us that it doesn't matter. He can be philosophically incoherent in a thousand ways and it only helps him. People don't run from hypocrisy, they embrace it because it gives them license to live more Id-centric lives and suppress their own troubling thoughts.
Musk is a politician too, and has moved into a position to pull the strings on the supply of information like the Soviet politiburo. When the bros rally as a tribe to defend his "free speech" they relieve themselves of a certain intellectual burden. Read Erich Fromm to understand why.
I understood the nuance of declining advertiser money that is tied to editorial requirements. This is the game that all media plays, constantly. But where Musk seemed unhinged and angry is when he subsequently said that the platform will die because advertisers will have killed it (and that he will document this in great detail, and “Earth” will be the judge).
So which is it, Musk? Are you able to decline advertising or are you not?
The platform dying because of it is where I think he's being facetious and not forthcoming. If X is dead by the end of 2024 or 2025, ok, but I think in those comments he is directly targeting those businesses for jumping on calling him antisemitic when he clearly isn't. That is personal (the most recent boycott anyway). If someone walked into my business and judged my character that way out of context, I might tell them to fuck off too.
Jewish communties [sic] have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them.
I'm deeply disinterested in giving the tiniest shit now about western Jewish populations coming to the disturbing realization that those hordes of minorities that support flooding their country don't exactly like them too much.
You want truth said to your face, there it is.
I understood the nuance of declining advertiser money that is tied to editorial requirements. This is the game that all media plays, constantly. But where Musk seemed unhinged and angry is when he subsequently said that the platform will die because advertisers will have killed it (and that he will document this in great detail, and “Earth” will be the judge).
So which is it, Musk? Are you able to decline advertising or are you not?
It's also not normal to take it so personally. When I declined projects because the client was too troublesome, or the work wasn't interesting, I didn't send the client an email stating "Your project sounds boring and I don't need your money. Go. Fuck. Yourself."
This was a good read:
https://www.sfgate.com/sf-culture/article/elon-musk-nyt-interview-18524602.php
The platform dying because of it is where I think he's being facetious and not forthcoming. If X is dead by the end of 2024 or 2025, ok, but I think in those comments he is directly targeting those businesses for jumping on calling him antisemitic when he clearly isn't. That is personal (the most recent boycott anyway). If someone walked into my business and judged my character that way out of context, I might tell them to fuck off too.
That way out of context? Did you read the post he agreed with? Are you suggesting that he was too stoned or sleep deprived to fully read it or that it wasn't antisemitic?Quote from: The Artist Formerly Known as EricJewish communties [sic] have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them.
I'm deeply disinterested in giving the tiniest shit now about western Jewish populations coming to the disturbing realization that those hordes of minorities that support flooding their country don't exactly like them too much.
You want truth said to your face, there it is.
Do you agree that "Jewish communities" have been pushing hatred against whites? What does that even mean?
Provide the context, please.
The platform dying because of it is where I think he's being facetious and not forthcoming. If X is dead by the end of 2024 or 2025, ok, but I think in those comments he is directly targeting those businesses for jumping on calling him antisemitic when he clearly isn't. That is personal (the most recent boycott anyway). If someone walked into my business and judged my character that way out of context, I might tell them to fuck off too.
That way out of context? Did you read the post he agreed with? Are you suggesting that he was too stoned or sleep deprived to fully read it or that it wasn't antisemitic?Quote from: The Artist Formerly Known as EricJewish communties [sic] have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them.
I'm deeply disinterested in giving the tiniest shit now about western Jewish populations coming to the disturbing realization that those hordes of minorities that support flooding their country don't exactly like them too much.
You want truth said to your face, there it is.
Do you agree that "Jewish communities" have been pushing hatred against whites? What does that even mean?
Provide the context, please.
You can listen to what he said in the interview about it and subsequent posts he made the same day. Do your own research.
Okay.- https://twitter.com/breakingbaht/status/1724892505647296620 (https://twitter.com/breakingbaht/status/1724892505647296620)
Jewish communties have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them.
I'm deeply disinterested in giving the tiniest shit now about western Jewish populations coming to the disturbing realization that those hordes of minorities that support flooding their country don't exactly like them too much.
You want truth said to your face, there it is.
You have said the actual truth- https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1724908287471272299 (https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1724908287471272299)
And, at the risk of being repetitive, I am deeply offended by ADL’s messaging and any other groups who push de facto anti-white racism or anti-Asian racism or racism of any kind.- https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1724934935943979269 (https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1724934935943979269)
I’m sick of it. Stop now.
The ADL unjustly attacks the majority of the West, despite the majority of the West supporting the Jewish people and Israel. This is because they cannot, by their own tenets, criticize the minority groups who are their primary threat. It is not right and needs to stop.- https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1724932619203420203 (https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1724932619203420203)
https://www.adl.org/resources/blog/threads-hate-how-twitters-content-moderation-misses-mark[/url])]The ADL, because they are so aggressive in their demands to ban social media accounts for even minor infractions, are ironically the biggest generators of anti-Semitism on this platform!- https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1698615533170557116 (https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1698615533170557116)
This past week, there were hundreds of bogus media stories claiming that I am antisemitic.- https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1726350631181717668 (https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1726350631181717668)
Nothing could be further from the truth.
I wish only the best for humanity and a prosperous and exciting future for all.
I should in retrospect not have replied to that one person and should have written in greater length what i meant. But those clarifications were ignored by the media and essentially I handed a loaded gun to those who hate me and arguably to those who are antisemitic. And for that I’m quite sorry, that was not my intention.
one of the most foolish — if not the most foolish — thing I’ve done on the platform.
If you generically, without condition, fund persecuted groups … some of those persecuted groups, unfortunately, want your annihilation.
His anti-semitism has become so blatant that I struggle to come to any conclusion other than that anyone who claims he isn't anti-Semitic is, themselves, anti-Semitic and is looking to absolve their own vile beliefs by excusing his, too. Musk isn't hiding it. Its no long a dog-whistle. It's a full-throated, emergency-notification, whistle blown into a megaphone.
Anyone who doesn't see it very much doesn't want to, and the only explanation I can see for that is that they hold similar beliefs and don't want to be labeled as anti-semetic because the world at large says that concept is a Bad Thing. It's like not wanting to be called racist because nearly everyone says that Very Bad, but also thinking Mexicans are criminals and black people are lazy.
Musk dislikes Jewish people, buys into inane and damaging theories about them and perpetuates those theories, and thinks Jews are responsible for any number of ills. If that's not anti-semitism, what on earth would be?
His anti-semitism has become so blatant that I struggle to come to any conclusion other than that anyone who claims he isn't anti-Semitic is, themselves, anti-Semitic and is looking to absolve their own vile beliefs by excusing his, too. Musk isn't hiding it. Its no long a dog-whistle. It's a full-throated, emergency-notification, whistle blown into a megaphone.
Anyone who doesn't see it very much doesn't want to, and the only explanation I can see for that is that they hold similar beliefs and don't want to be labeled as anti-semetic because the world at large says that concept is a Bad Thing. It's like not wanting to be called racist because nearly everyone says that Very Bad, but also thinking Mexicans are criminals and black people are lazy.
Musk dislikes Jewish people, buys into inane and damaging theories about them and perpetuates those theories, and thinks Jews are responsible for any number of ills. If that's not anti-semitism, what on earth would be?
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/12/xs-yaccarino-calls-musk-candid-and-profound-after-go-f-yourself-tirade/QuoteX CEO Linda Yaccarino called owner Elon Musk "candid and profound" in a memo to staff addressing the public interview in which Musk told advertisers to "go fuck yourself."
"Elon's interview was candid and profound," Yaccarino wrote in a memo to employees of X (formerly Twitter) yesterday. "He shared an unmatched and completely unvarnished perspective and vision for the future. If you haven't watched it, please take the time to absorb the magnitude and importance of what we're all a part of."
Whatever he's paying this woman in exchange for her dignity, it's not enough.
Anyhoo, in the most recent interview, Musk kinda apologized with the following:QuoteI should in retrospect not have replied to that one person and should have written in greater length what i meant. But those clarifications were ignored by the media and essentially I handed a loaded gun to those who hate me and arguably to those who are antisemitic. And for that I’m quite sorry, that was not my intention.
and says of the post that it wasQuoteone of the most foolish — if not the most foolish — thing I’ve done on the platform.
- https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/29/23980877/new-york-times-dealbook-summit-elon-musk-bob-iger-david-zaslav (https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/29/23980877/new-york-times-dealbook-summit-elon-musk-bob-iger-david-zaslav)
But in the same interview, Musk later doubles down by claiming that prominent people in the Jewish community fund Hamas demonstrations in every major city in the West . . . and then says of Jews:QuoteIf you generically, without condition, fund persecuted groups … some of those persecuted groups, unfortunately, want your annihilation.
The platform dying because of it is where I think he's being facetious and not forthcoming. If X is dead by the end of 2024 or 2025, ok, but I think in those comments he is directly targeting those businesses for jumping on calling him antisemitic when he clearly isn't. That is personal (the most recent boycott anyway). If someone walked into my business and judged my character that way out of context, I might tell them to fuck off too.
That way out of context? Did you read the post he agreed with? Are you suggesting that he was too stoned or sleep deprived to fully read it or that it wasn't antisemitic?Quote from: The Artist Formerly Known as EricJewish communties [sic] have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them.
I'm deeply disinterested in giving the tiniest shit now about western Jewish populations coming to the disturbing realization that those hordes of minorities that support flooding their country don't exactly like them too much.
You want truth said to your face, there it is.
Do you agree that "Jewish communities" have been pushing hatred against whites? What does that even mean?
Provide the context, please.
You can listen to what he said in the interview about it and subsequent posts he made the same day. Do your own research.
I haven't really dug into details very much previously, so did just that. Not liking what I've found by doing my own research.Quote from: The Artist Formerly Known as EricOkay.- https://twitter.com/breakingbaht/status/1724892505647296620 (https://twitter.com/breakingbaht/status/1724892505647296620)
Jewish communties have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them.
I'm deeply disinterested in giving the tiniest shit now about western Jewish populations coming to the disturbing realization that those hordes of minorities that support flooding their country don't exactly like them too much.
You want truth said to your face, there it is.Quote from: Elon Musk (in response)You have said the actual truth- https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1724908287471272299 (https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1724908287471272299)Quote from: Elon Musk (taking heat for antisemitism)And, at the risk of being repetitive, I am deeply offended by ADL’s messaging and any other groups who push de facto anti-white racism or anti-Asian racism or racism of any kind.- https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1724934935943979269 (https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1724934935943979269)
I’m sick of it. Stop now.Quote from: Elon Musk (taking more heat for antisemitism)The ADL unjustly attacks the majority of the West, despite the majority of the West supporting the Jewish people and Israel. This is because they cannot, by their own tenets, criticize the minority groups who are their primary threat. It is not right and needs to stop.- https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1724932619203420203 (https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1724932619203420203)Quote from: Elon Musk (in response to the ADL's report that 72% of antisemitic tweets remain up after being flagged - ([url=https://www.adl.org/resources/blog/threads-hate-how-twitters-content-moderation-misses-markhttps://www.adl.org/resources/blog/threads-hate-how-twitters-content-moderation-misses-mark[/url])]The ADL, because they are so aggressive in their demands to ban social media accounts for even minor infractions, are ironically the biggest generators of anti-Semitism on this platform!- https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1698615533170557116 (https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1698615533170557116)Quote from: Elon Musk (not liking the backlash)This past week, there were hundreds of bogus media stories claiming that I am antisemitic.- https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1726350631181717668 (https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1726350631181717668)
Nothing could be further from the truth.
I wish only the best for humanity and a prosperous and exciting future for all.
Incidentally, Elon Musk launched a lawsuit against non-profit Media Matters for reporting that many ads hosted by Twitter are being placed next to neo-Nazi content (https://www.mediamatters.org/twitter/musk-endorses-antisemitic-conspiracy-theory-x-has-been-placing-ads-apple-bravo-ibm-oracle (https://www.mediamatters.org/twitter/musk-endorses-antisemitic-conspiracy-theory-x-has-been-placing-ads-apple-bravo-ibm-oracle)). Interestingly, the lawsuit does not claim that any of the images shown in the Media Matters articles are falsely generated. - https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/20/23970274/x-elon-musk-media-matters-lawsuit-nazi-ads-filed (https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/20/23970274/x-elon-musk-media-matters-lawsuit-nazi-ads-filed)
Musk also filed a lawsuit against non-profit The Center for Countering Digital Hate for reporting that Twitter had failed to take action against 99% of posts flagged by their group for racist, homophobic, and antisemitic content.
- https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/elon-musks-x-corp-sues-nonprofit-group-tracks-hate-speech-rcna97511 (https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/elon-musks-x-corp-sues-nonprofit-group-tracks-hate-speech-rcna97511)
Musk has also threatened to sue the ADL for a loss of 60% of Twitter's revenue - https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/05/tech/elon-musk-adl-lawsuit/index.html (https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/05/tech/elon-musk-adl-lawsuit/index.html)
Anyhoo, in the most recent interview, Musk kinda apologized with the following:QuoteI should in retrospect not have replied to that one person and should have written in greater length what i meant. But those clarifications were ignored by the media and essentially I handed a loaded gun to those who hate me and arguably to those who are antisemitic. And for that I’m quite sorry, that was not my intention.
and says of the post that it wasQuoteone of the most foolish — if not the most foolish — thing I’ve done on the platform.
- https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/29/23980877/new-york-times-dealbook-summit-elon-musk-bob-iger-david-zaslav (https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/29/23980877/new-york-times-dealbook-summit-elon-musk-bob-iger-david-zaslav)
But in the same interview, Musk later doubles down by claiming that prominent people in the Jewish community fund Hamas demonstrations in every major city in the West . . . and then says of Jews:QuoteIf you generically, without condition, fund persecuted groups … some of those persecuted groups, unfortunately, want your annihilation.
Musk says and does enough antisemitic things that it doesn't look too good when they're taken together.
Anyhoo, in the most recent interview, Musk kinda apologized with the following:QuoteI should in retrospect not have replied to that one person and should have written in greater length what i meant. But those clarifications were ignored by the media and essentially I handed a loaded gun to those who hate me and arguably to those who are antisemitic. And for that I’m quite sorry, that was not my intention.
and says of the post that it wasQuoteone of the most foolish — if not the most foolish — thing I’ve done on the platform.
- https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/29/23980877/new-york-times-dealbook-summit-elon-musk-bob-iger-david-zaslav (https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/29/23980877/new-york-times-dealbook-summit-elon-musk-bob-iger-david-zaslav)
But in the same interview, Musk later doubles down by claiming that prominent people in the Jewish community fund Hamas demonstrations in every major city in the West . . . and then says of Jews:QuoteIf you generically, without condition, fund persecuted groups … some of those persecuted groups, unfortunately, want your annihilation.
He did apologize. Not "kinda". You'd know that if you sourced the interview and not stories about it which leave things out of course. Time 19:51. Here is the full interview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BfMuHDfGJI (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BfMuHDfGJI)
With that last quote: he was also talking of "prominent people in the community" with the last quote not Jews, generically. Can infer he's talking about George Soros.
The platform dying because of it is where I think he's being facetious and not forthcoming. If X is dead by the end of 2024 or 2025, ok, but I think in those comments he is directly targeting those businesses for jumping on calling him antisemitic when he clearly isn't. That is personal (the most recent boycott anyway). If someone walked into my business and judged my character that way out of context, I might tell them to fuck off too.
That way out of context? Did you read the post he agreed with? Are you suggesting that he was too stoned or sleep deprived to fully read it or that it wasn't antisemitic?Quote from: The Artist Formerly Known as EricJewish communties [sic] have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them.
I'm deeply disinterested in giving the tiniest shit now about western Jewish populations coming to the disturbing realization that those hordes of minorities that support flooding their country don't exactly like them too much.
You want truth said to your face, there it is.
Do you agree that "Jewish communities" have been pushing hatred against whites? What does that even mean?
Provide the context, please.
You can listen to what he said in the interview about it and subsequent posts he made the same day. Do your own research.
I haven't really dug into details very much previously, so did just that. Not liking what I've found by doing my own research.Quote from: The Artist Formerly Known as EricOkay.- https://twitter.com/breakingbaht/status/1724892505647296620 (https://twitter.com/breakingbaht/status/1724892505647296620)
Jewish communties have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them.
I'm deeply disinterested in giving the tiniest shit now about western Jewish populations coming to the disturbing realization that those hordes of minorities that support flooding their country don't exactly like them too much.
You want truth said to your face, there it is.Quote from: Elon Musk (in response)You have said the actual truth- https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1724908287471272299 (https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1724908287471272299)Quote from: Elon Musk (taking heat for antisemitism)And, at the risk of being repetitive, I am deeply offended by ADL’s messaging and any other groups who push de facto anti-white racism or anti-Asian racism or racism of any kind.- https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1724934935943979269 (https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1724934935943979269)
I’m sick of it. Stop now.Quote from: Elon Musk (taking more heat for antisemitism)The ADL unjustly attacks the majority of the West, despite the majority of the West supporting the Jewish people and Israel. This is because they cannot, by their own tenets, criticize the minority groups who are their primary threat. It is not right and needs to stop.- https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1724932619203420203 (https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1724932619203420203)Quote from: Elon Musk (in response to the ADL's report that 72% of antisemitic tweets remain up after being flagged - ([url=https://www.adl.org/resources/blog/threads-hate-how-twitters-content-moderation-misses-markhttps://www.adl.org/resources/blog/threads-hate-how-twitters-content-moderation-misses-mark[/url])]The ADL, because they are so aggressive in their demands to ban social media accounts for even minor infractions, are ironically the biggest generators of anti-Semitism on this platform!- https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1698615533170557116 (https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1698615533170557116)Quote from: Elon Musk (not liking the backlash)This past week, there were hundreds of bogus media stories claiming that I am antisemitic.- https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1726350631181717668 (https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1726350631181717668)
Nothing could be further from the truth.
I wish only the best for humanity and a prosperous and exciting future for all.
Incidentally, Elon Musk launched a lawsuit against non-profit Media Matters for reporting that many ads hosted by Twitter are being placed next to neo-Nazi content (https://www.mediamatters.org/twitter/musk-endorses-antisemitic-conspiracy-theory-x-has-been-placing-ads-apple-bravo-ibm-oracle (https://www.mediamatters.org/twitter/musk-endorses-antisemitic-conspiracy-theory-x-has-been-placing-ads-apple-bravo-ibm-oracle)). Interestingly, the lawsuit does not claim that any of the images shown in the Media Matters articles are falsely generated. - https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/20/23970274/x-elon-musk-media-matters-lawsuit-nazi-ads-filed (https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/20/23970274/x-elon-musk-media-matters-lawsuit-nazi-ads-filed)
Musk also filed a lawsuit against non-profit The Center for Countering Digital Hate for reporting that Twitter had failed to take action against 99% of posts flagged by their group for racist, homophobic, and antisemitic content.
- https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/elon-musks-x-corp-sues-nonprofit-group-tracks-hate-speech-rcna97511 (https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/elon-musks-x-corp-sues-nonprofit-group-tracks-hate-speech-rcna97511)
Musk has also threatened to sue the ADL for a loss of 60% of Twitter's revenue - https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/05/tech/elon-musk-adl-lawsuit/index.html (https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/05/tech/elon-musk-adl-lawsuit/index.html)
Anyhoo, in the most recent interview, Musk kinda apologized with the following:QuoteI should in retrospect not have replied to that one person and should have written in greater length what i meant. But those clarifications were ignored by the media and essentially I handed a loaded gun to those who hate me and arguably to those who are antisemitic. And for that I’m quite sorry, that was not my intention.
and says of the post that it wasQuoteone of the most foolish — if not the most foolish — thing I’ve done on the platform.
- https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/29/23980877/new-york-times-dealbook-summit-elon-musk-bob-iger-david-zaslav (https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/29/23980877/new-york-times-dealbook-summit-elon-musk-bob-iger-david-zaslav)
But in the same interview, Musk later doubles down by claiming that prominent people in the Jewish community fund Hamas demonstrations in every major city in the West . . . and then says of Jews:QuoteIf you generically, without condition, fund persecuted groups … some of those persecuted groups, unfortunately, want your annihilation.
Musk says and does enough antisemitic things that it doesn't look too good when they're taken together.
The key is that his activities in aggregate, his media reach and economic power make him the most influential enabler of antisemitic content that reaches the general public.
His apologies and excuses might be enough to get a random internet asshole off the hook, but Musk has too much power and influence for that - so he is facing the music and rightly so.
Incidentally, Elon Musk launched a lawsuit against non-profit Media Matters for reporting that many ads hosted by Twitter are being placed next to neo-Nazi content (https://www.mediamatters.org/twitter/musk-endorses-antisemitic-conspiracy-theory-x-has-been-placing-ads-apple-bravo-ibm-oracle (https://www.mediamatters.org/twitter/musk-endorses-antisemitic-conspiracy-theory-x-has-been-placing-ads-apple-bravo-ibm-oracle)). Interestingly, the lawsuit does not claim that any of the images shown in the Media Matters articles are falsely generated. - https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/20/23970274/x-elon-musk-media-matters-lawsuit-nazi-ads-filed (https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/20/23970274/x-elon-musk-media-matters-lawsuit-nazi-ads-filed)
7. Undeterred by the truth, Media Matters has opted for new tactics in its campaign to
drive advertisers from X. Media Matters has manipulated the algorithms governing the user
experience on X to bypass safeguards and create images of X’s largest advertisers’ paid posts
adjacent to racist, incendiary content, leaving the false impression that these pairings are anything
but what they actually are: manufactured, inorganic, and extraordinarily rare.
8. Media Matters executed this plot in multiple steps, as X’s internal investigations
have revealed. First, Media Matters accessed accounts that had been active for at least 30 days,
bypassing X’s ad filter for new users. Media Matters then exclusively followed a small subset of
users consisting entirely of accounts in one of two categories: those known to produce extreme,
fringe content, and accounts owned by X’s big-name advertisers. The end result was a feed
precision-designed by Media Matters for a single purpose: to produce side-by-side ad/content
placements that it could screenshot in an effort to alienate advertisers.
9. But this activity still was not enough to create the pairings of advertisements and
content that Media Matters aimed to produce.
10. Media Matters therefore resorted to endlessly scrolling and refreshing its
unrepresentative, hand-selected feed, generating between 13 and 15 times more advertisements
per hour than viewed by the average X user repeating this inauthentic activity until it finally
received pages containing the result it wanted: controversial content next to X’s largest advertisers’
paid posts.
11. Media Matters omitted mentioning any of this in a report published on November
16, 2023 that displayed instances Media Matters “found” on X of advertisers’ paid posts featured
next to Neo-Nazi and white-nationalist content. Nor did Media Matters otherwise provide any
context regarding the forced, inauthentic nature and extraordinary rarity of these pairings.
....
13. The truth bore no resemblance to Media Matters’ narrative. In fact, IBM’s,
Comcast’s, and Oracle’s paid posts appeared alongside the fringe content cited by Media Matters
for only one viewer (out of more than 500 million) on all of X: Media Matters. Not a single
authentic user of the X platform saw IBM’s, Comcast’s, or Oracle’s ads next to that content, which
Media Matters achieved only through its manipulation of X’s algorithms as described above. And
in Apple’s case, only two out of more than 500 million active users saw its ad appear alongside the
fringe content cited in the article—at least one of which was Media Matters.
Even if it were true that ads together with Nazi content were only shown to one single account out of 500 million (which is just Musk's assertion, and how much stock should anyone put in those at this point?), that doesn't make it defamatory for Media Matters to report on it.
There's no "OK, technically what you said is true, but you shouldn't be allowed to say it like that" condition to First Amendment law. A self-proclaimed "free speech absolutist" should know that.
Okay, that is not Twitter but Tesla, but it fits in the last discussion about the genius of this person.
As you might have heard, Swedish workers are striking against Tesla after years of negotiation tries. Musk simply refuses. He hates unions. No wonder, if you ask me, because a union means he cannot decide completely alone and I think that is something he is unable to do.
Now, Sweden has a particular system of collective contracts since 1938. In a typical Musk move the 4D chess genius has completely ignored the intricacies of the culture that is different from his view of how things should run.
As a result all the unions see his behavior as an attack against their model and now basically everyone strikes against him, the post does not bring new number plates, mechanics don't service Tesla cars, logistics don't transport them, cleaners don't clean Tesla buildings... and now it's starting in the other Nordic countries too. There won't be any Teslas moved in any harbor anymore.
And of course Musks reaction was a tantrum: "This is insane!"
I recommend this article, should be readable with a translate program of your choice and is densely packed:
https://www.msn.com/de-de/finanzen/top-stories/streiks-in-skandinavien-alle-gegen-tesla/ar-AA1lc2Ve?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=d6f7e32f3546436ea1188c98ef1f0b02&ei=11
Excellent points @Metalcat and @LennStar.Okay, that is not Twitter but Tesla, but it fits in the last discussion about the genius of this person.
As you might have heard, Swedish workers are striking against Tesla after years of negotiation tries. Musk simply refuses. He hates unions. No wonder, if you ask me, because a union means he cannot decide completely alone and I think that is something he is unable to do.
Now, Sweden has a particular system of collective contracts since 1938. In a typical Musk move the 4D chess genius has completely ignored the intricacies of the culture that is different from his view of how things should run.
As a result all the unions see his behavior as an attack against their model and now basically everyone strikes against him, the post does not bring new number plates, mechanics don't service Tesla cars, logistics don't transport them, cleaners don't clean Tesla buildings... and now it's starting in the other Nordic countries too. There won't be any Teslas moved in any harbor anymore.
And of course Musks reaction was a tantrum: "This is insane!"
I recommend this article, should be readable with a translate program of your choice and is densely packed:
https://www.msn.com/de-de/finanzen/top-stories/streiks-in-skandinavien-alle-gegen-tesla/ar-AA1lc2Ve?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=d6f7e32f3546436ea1188c98ef1f0b02&ei=11
Yeah, the thing is that's exactly the MO that made him successful, so of course it's what he does.
He entire thing is to not respect the rules and expectations of established systems, and to push staff as hard as humanly possible, which according to him isn't just about squeezing more productivity out of them. Because his background is working with scrappy, young startup engineers, he truly believes that people do their best, most creative, most driven work when they are pushed to the very limits of their exhaustion.
Except, as we addressed earlier, that may be quite true in a startup culture where that's the expectation going in and where there's a massive IPO payoff, but it doesn't work so well for people who didn't sign up for that life.
He sees reasonable work-life balance as a fundamental barrier to innovation and success.
So yes, disrespecting the rules and customs of an established union system in a worker's rights country and having callous disregard for the wants and needs of his staff isn't a flaw in his reasoning, it's a feature. This isn't evidence of his becoming unreasonable and foolish, this is *exactly* the kind of strategy that has generally worked out for him phenomenally well in the past.
That's not to say it's smart or that it will work out for him again, good luck changing the established culture of Sweden! Lol! But my point is that the more I read about his past decisions and how they've worked out, the more I understand his current behaviour as driven by evidence, not instability. In fact, based on what has worked SO WELL for him in the past, a lot of his current behaviour is actually perfectly rational because it's been so spectacularly well reinforced as the *right* thing to do.
For him to temper this kind of behaviour, he's going to have to have enormous failures to the point that they outweigh the history of benefits AND he's going to have to have the emotional capacity to process them from an internal locus of control and not an external one. A lot of people with glory days in their early adulthood have a hard time not blaming the world around them when their fortunes change.
I suspect he's definitely struggling with public sentiment turning against him and it's making him double down on his core principles of people being too stupid and too reliant on historical systems to have decent judgement.
A powerful belief that existing systems and rules are stupid *IS* his driving core belief behind his world view and the motivation behind pretty much everything he does. And the more that has paid off for him, the more established and unshakable it is.
If he concludes that a system doesn't make sense for his purposes, then he concludes that the system is stupid. Is the public support that system, then the public are stupid. The problem is that the bigger he gets, the more systems he's clashing with and his approach that once made him look like a brilliant young genius innovator is now making him look like a psychotic evil billionaire with a lack of judgement.
The truth is that nothing has actually meaningfully changed about him. The more I read, the more I see this as quite consistent behaviour. However, the bigger he gets, the bigger the systems and rules he's challenging and the more public these challenges are.
Let's not forget that he was removed as CEO *twice* in his younger years because he was so insane and so impervious to criticism. However, the bigger he is, the more unhinged this behaviour seems because it's attacking institutions and established rules that the public actually agree with. It's not so much that he's changed, but that public interpretation of his behaviour is changing.
These days his challenges to systems are so public and those systems are so big that they are pushing back, and he's never really learned how to accept that he might actually be wrong, only that he hasn't found the right way to break that system yet. When he's really wrong, usually a crew of grown ups around him cut him off at the knees before his stubbornness can tank the whole venture. His success has always depended on people being able to contain him. And when he trusts those people, he's been exceptionally gracious about being contained despite always maintaining that he was right all along.
I've been trying to make sense of him for years, but it's only once I read the history of Zip2 and PayPal that it all started making sense from a psychological development perspective.
Most people in their 20s have failure, self-doubt, humility, and respect for systems pummeled into them. This is often especially true of brilliant innovators, they rarely have extreme success very young. Musk had literally the opposite experience, and essentially has the opposite of imposter syndrome. Unless a person or a system is serving his purposes, he fundamentally believes that it's stupid and that he and a team of people who are smart enough and driven enough can break and improve any system and any set of rules. I mean, why wouldn't he believe this?
It's created a behaviourism feedback loop where failure never indicates to him that his approach has any flaws, nor that he should stop breaking rules, only that he hasn't quite yet found the right combo of rules to break. Consequences from rule breaking are just a normal part of the process, not indicators that he should question his judgement or take rules more seriously. See his episode of moving the servers and then casually acknowledging that it didn't work out very well.
From a behaviourism perspective, a lot of his actions are pretty rational within his belief framework. His framework is just so radically different from the norm because his lived experience is so different.
I've worked with wealthy folks long enough to know that it doesn't take that much success above the average for folks to have a fundamentally altered world view and warped perception of self and their own superior wisdom within established systems. I can't even remotely fathom the magnitude of impact of the successes he had so early in life and the decades of sycophantic media coverage.
He basically can't doubt his own judgement, that ability has been conditioned out of him up to this point.
Most people in their 20s have failure, self-doubt, humility, and respect for systems pummeled into them. This is often especially true of brilliant innovators, they rarely have extreme success very young. Musk had literally the opposite experience, and essentially has the opposite of imposter syndrome. Unless a person or a system is serving his purposes, he fundamentally believes that it's stupid and that he and a team of people who are smart enough and driven enough can break and improve any system and any set of rules. I mean, why wouldn't he believe this?
Most people in their 20s have failure, self-doubt, humility, and respect for systems pummeled into them. This is often especially true of brilliant innovators, they rarely have extreme success very young. Musk had literally the opposite experience, and essentially has the opposite of imposter syndrome. Unless a person or a system is serving his purposes, he fundamentally believes that it's stupid and that he and a team of people who are smart enough and driven enough can break and improve any system and any set of rules. I mean, why wouldn't he believe this?
Isn't this essentially the definition of a sociopath?
Tell us how you really feel Linette! Man, the coverage on Musk is getting brutal. Hard to believe this is the same guy who was a media darling for so long.
https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-problems-twitter-x-tesla-gamble-luck-run-out-2023-12
Tell us how you really feel Linette! Man, the coverage on Musk is getting brutal. Hard to believe this is the same guy who was a media darling for so long.
https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-problems-twitter-x-tesla-gamble-luck-run-out-2023-12
The media hates competition. Now without Twitter being censored to toe the line of the media/Democratic party (not that there's much difference) it represents an existential threat and must be destroyed.
Tell us how you really feel Linette! Man, the coverage on Musk is getting brutal. Hard to believe this is the same guy who was a media darling for so long.
https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-problems-twitter-x-tesla-gamble-luck-run-out-2023-12
The media hates competition. Now without Twitter being censored to toe the line of the media/Democratic party (not that there's much difference) it represents an existential threat and must be destroyed.
LOL putting aside the media/Democratic party bullshit, Twitter is no existential threat and never was to any media, in the same way tat google news never was. How could it be? It does not write news, it only quotes headlines.
Well, maybe for "media" like FoxNews who only live on headlines, right wing nut's lies and rages. Because that is what Twitter is now, so there might be actual competition. But I still think the workings are so different that it's more complimentary than competitive.
The difference in the media is that now Musk isn't falsely praised as God's Son anymore, but seen how he really is. (which, surprise, was the way he was treated everywhere outside the US for most parts.)
The media hates competition. Now without Twitter being censored to toe the line of the media/Democratic party (not that there's much difference) it represents an existential threat and must be destroyed.
Guess who's not wearing their hat and is getting their thoughts manipulated?The media hates competition. Now without Twitter being censored to toe the line of the media/Democratic party (not that there's much difference) it represents an existential threat and must be destroyed.I don't care who you are, that's some tin foil hat stuff there.
The media hates competition. Now without Twitter being censored to toe the line of the media/Democratic party (not that there's much difference) it represents an existential threat and must be destroyed.
I don't care who you are, that's some tin foil hat stuff there.
The media hates competition. Now without Twitter being censored to toe the line of the media/Democratic party (not that there's much difference) it represents an existential threat and must be destroyed.
I don't care who you are, that's some tin foil hat stuff there.
How soon we forget the efforts to conceal COVID information that turned out to be true. Or keep hush about Hunter Biden's shenanigans, which also turned out to be true. There are far more "tin foil hat" wearers out there and I wouldn't put Michael in ABQ in that category.
I don't know if I really want to go down this road but did that Covid information have any data backing it at the time? Did the people presenting it also give out 20 other pieces of Covid information that are still considered false?The media hates competition. Now without Twitter being censored to toe the line of the media/Democratic party (not that there's much difference) it represents an existential threat and must be destroyed.
I don't care who you are, that's some tin foil hat stuff there.
How soon we forget the efforts to conceal COVID information that turned out to be true. Or keep hush about Hunter Biden's shenanigans, which also turned out to be true. There are far more "tin foil hat" wearers out there and I wouldn't put Michael in ABQ in that category.
A new headline I saw today:
Elon Musk owns 12% of Tesla. That surprised me. I would have thought it was more than that. But he burned tens of billions of dollars on buying Twitter, and I guess that came from cashing in his Tesla stock.
I guess he has buyer's remorse, because he's demanding that Tesla shareholders just give him a giant chunk of the company (for free, apparently) to boost his ownership share back to 25%. If they refuse to do this, he says, then he won't allow Tesla to build products focused on AI and robotics, and will instead launch a new company to do that which will compete with Tesla.
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2024/01/elon-musk-gives-tesla-ultimatum-another-12-of-shares-or-no-ai-robotics/
Isn't this a direct statement that he plans to work against his own shareholders' interests, one way or the other? How much more erratic and destructive can he get before Tesla investors decide keeping him as CEO is more trouble than it's worth?
(There's also a link to a WSJ article which alleges that Musk has a serious drug problem, which, honestly, would explain a lot.)
[snip]
That's my best guess as to what this is about, since it makes no sense on the surface.
Or, ketamine.
[snip]
That's my best guess as to what this is about, since it makes no sense on the surface.
Or, ketamine.
¿Por qué no los dos?
[snip]
That's my best guess as to what this is about, since it makes no sense on the surface.
Or, ketamine.
¿Por qué no los dos?
Pretty sure that is the joke. Not my joke though, but that's how I read it.
What can I say... I saw the set up like you did, and couldn't pass up hitting it with the obvious punchline.
ugh...so it's just me being lame missing your humour, like a tool.
Even if it were true that ads together with Nazi content were only shown to one single account out of 500 million (which is just Musk's assertion, and how much stock should anyone put in those at this point?), that doesn't make it defamatory for Media Matters to report on it.
There's no "OK, technically what you said is true, but you shouldn't be allowed to say it like that" condition to First Amendment law. A self-proclaimed "free speech absolutist" should know that.
media Matters went that route bc they wanted to hit Elon where it hurt for him, which is money, in this case as revenue. One thing people agree on,is that extreme views are amplified on x or twitter. In particular far right views. So the overall composition has changed, the level of discourse has decreased, and twitter has admitted it's algorithm favors far right content. In addition sometimes Elon makes personal tweaks to what is showcased or not. He has special privileges in amplifies and pushing his tweets regardless of how one sets their preferences or swipe history. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2025334119Even if it were true that ads together with Nazi content were only shown to one single account out of 500 million (which is just Musk's assertion, and how much stock should anyone put in those at this point?), that doesn't make it defamatory for Media Matters to report on it.
There's no "OK, technically what you said is true, but you shouldn't be allowed to say it like that" condition to First Amendment law. A self-proclaimed "free speech absolutist" should know that.
Good journalism should be repeatable. Media matters got lucky and made it look like it was a common occurrence. This would be like changing your entire financial strategy because a friend won a jackpot at a slot machine.
So until somebody can repeat what media matters did, you might as well disregard it as a freak occurrence.
I understand why Media Matters did what they did. The issue is that it was unethical.media Matters went that route bc they wanted to hit Elon where it hurt for him, which is money, in this case as revenue. One thing people agree on,is that extreme views are amplified on x or twitter. In particular far right views. So the overall composition has changed, the level of discourse has decreased, and twitter has admitted it's algorithm favors far right content. In addition sometimes Elon makes personal tweaks to what is showcased or not. He has special privileges in amplifies and pushing his tweets regardless of how one sets their preferences or swipe history. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2025334119Even if it were true that ads together with Nazi content were only shown to one single account out of 500 million (which is just Musk's assertion, and how much stock should anyone put in those at this point?), that doesn't make it defamatory for Media Matters to report on it.
There's no "OK, technically what you said is true, but you shouldn't be allowed to say it like that" condition to First Amendment law. A self-proclaimed "free speech absolutist" should know that.
Good journalism should be repeatable. Media matters got lucky and made it look like it was a common occurrence. This would be like changing your entire financial strategy because a friend won a jackpot at a slot machine.
So until somebody can repeat what media matters did, you might as well disregard it as a freak occurrence.
I understand why Media Matters did what they did. The issue is that it was unethical.
I understand why Media Matters did what they did. The issue is that it was unethical.media Matters went that route bc they wanted to hit Elon where it hurt for him, which is money, in this case as revenue. One thing people agree on,is that extreme views are amplified on x or twitter. In particular far right views. So the overall composition has changed, the level of discourse has decreased, and twitter has admitted it's algorithm favors far right content. In addition sometimes Elon makes personal tweaks to what is showcased or not. He has special privileges in amplifies and pushing his tweets regardless of how one sets their preferences or swipe history. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2025334119Even if it were true that ads together with Nazi content were only shown to one single account out of 500 million (which is just Musk's assertion, and how much stock should anyone put in those at this point?), that doesn't make it defamatory for Media Matters to report on it.
There's no "OK, technically what you said is true, but you shouldn't be allowed to say it like that" condition to First Amendment law. A self-proclaimed "free speech absolutist" should know that.
Good journalism should be repeatable. Media matters got lucky and made it look like it was a common occurrence. This would be like changing your entire financial strategy because a friend won a jackpot at a slot machine.
So until somebody can repeat what media matters did, you might as well disregard it as a freak occurrence.
I understand why Media Matters did what they did. The issue is that it was unethical.media Matters went that route bc they wanted to hit Elon where it hurt for him, which is money, in this case as revenue. One thing people agree on,is that extreme views are amplified on x or twitter. In particular far right views. So the overall composition has changed, the level of discourse has decreased, and twitter has admitted it's algorithm favors far right content. In addition sometimes Elon makes personal tweaks to what is showcased or not. He has special privileges in amplifies and pushing his tweets regardless of how one sets their preferences or swipe history. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2025334119Even if it were true that ads together with Nazi content were only shown to one single account out of 500 million (which is just Musk's assertion, and how much stock should anyone put in those at this point?), that doesn't make it defamatory for Media Matters to report on it.
There's no "OK, technically what you said is true, but you shouldn't be allowed to say it like that" condition to First Amendment law. A self-proclaimed "free speech absolutist" should know that.
Good journalism should be repeatable. Media matters got lucky and made it look like it was a common occurrence. This would be like changing your entire financial strategy because a friend won a jackpot at a slot machine.
So until somebody can repeat what media matters did, you might as well disregard it as a freak occurrence.
I don't understand this comment. As I understand it, Musk said X could not happen. (I typed that with no pun about Twitter/X intended, I swear! Didn't occur to me until I typed the period at the end.) Media Matters proved that X could, in fact, happen, and they reported that. Where's the lack of ethics? (Or my lack of understanding about what happened, if I have the facts wrong.) If I say Y is impossible, and someone proves that one in a billion times, it will happen, they are wrong about the impossibility, even if it is still extremely improbably Y will occur.
I understand why Media Matters did what they did. The issue is that it was unethical.media Matters went that route bc they wanted to hit Elon where it hurt for him, which is money, in this case as revenue. One thing people agree on,is that extreme views are amplified on x or twitter. In particular far right views. So the overall composition has changed, the level of discourse has decreased, and twitter has admitted it's algorithm favors far right content. In addition sometimes Elon makes personal tweaks to what is showcased or not. He has special privileges in amplifies and pushing his tweets regardless of how one sets their preferences or swipe history. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2025334119Even if it were true that ads together with Nazi content were only shown to one single account out of 500 million (which is just Musk's assertion, and how much stock should anyone put in those at this point?), that doesn't make it defamatory for Media Matters to report on it.
There's no "OK, technically what you said is true, but you shouldn't be allowed to say it like that" condition to First Amendment law. A self-proclaimed "free speech absolutist" should know that.
Good journalism should be repeatable. Media matters got lucky and made it look like it was a common occurrence. This would be like changing your entire financial strategy because a friend won a jackpot at a slot machine.
So until somebody can repeat what media matters did, you might as well disregard it as a freak occurrence.
I don't understand this comment. As I understand it, Musk said X could not happen. (I typed that with no pun about Twitter/X intended, I swear! Didn't occur to me until I typed the period at the end.) Media Matters proved that X could, in fact, happen, and they reported that. Where's the lack of ethics? (Or my lack of understanding about what happened, if I have the facts wrong.) If I say Y is impossible, and someone proves that one in a billion times, it will happen, they are wrong about the impossibility, even if it is still extremely improbably Y will occur.
Media Matters created a new account that followed far right accounts and corporate accounts. They then generated 13 to 15 times the number of advertisements that a normal Twitter user would see.I understand why Media Matters did what they did. The issue is that it was unethical.media Matters went that route bc they wanted to hit Elon where it hurt for him, which is money, in this case as revenue. One thing people agree on,is that extreme views are amplified on x or twitter. In particular far right views. So the overall composition has changed, the level of discourse has decreased, and twitter has admitted it's algorithm favors far right content. In addition sometimes Elon makes personal tweaks to what is showcased or not. He has special privileges in amplifies and pushing his tweets regardless of how one sets their preferences or swipe history. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2025334119Even if it were true that ads together with Nazi content were only shown to one single account out of 500 million (which is just Musk's assertion, and how much stock should anyone put in those at this point?), that doesn't make it defamatory for Media Matters to report on it.
There's no "OK, technically what you said is true, but you shouldn't be allowed to say it like that" condition to First Amendment law. A self-proclaimed "free speech absolutist" should know that.
Good journalism should be repeatable. Media matters got lucky and made it look like it was a common occurrence. This would be like changing your entire financial strategy because a friend won a jackpot at a slot machine.
So until somebody can repeat what media matters did, you might as well disregard it as a freak occurrence.
I don't understand this comment. As I understand it, Musk said X could not happen. (I typed that with no pun about Twitter/X intended, I swear! Didn't occur to me until I typed the period at the end.) Media Matters proved that X could, in fact, happen, and they reported that. Where's the lack of ethics? (Or my lack of understanding about what happened, if I have the facts wrong.) If I say Y is impossible, and someone proves that one in a billion times, it will happen, they are wrong about the impossibility, even if it is still extremely improbably Y will occur.
Media Matters created a new account that followed far right accounts and corporate accounts. They then generated 13 to 15 times the number of advertisements that a normal Twitter user would see.
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24172816-x-v-media-matters-complaint
They engineered it to happen and pretended that it happened regularly. They acted in bad faith.
So, like, 6 to 8% of all Twitter users that follow those accounts. And of course you can't judge from one case on the average.Media Matters created a new account that followed far right accounts and corporate accounts. They then generated 13 to 15 times the number of advertisements that a normal Twitter user would see.
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24172816-x-v-media-matters-complaint
They engineered it to happen and pretended that it happened regularly. They acted in bad faith.
If this is true, doesn't that mean 1 out of every 13 to 15 Twitter users would see the same ads that Media Matters did? So, like, 6 to 8% of all Twitter users, on average?
Media Matters created a new account that followed far right accounts and corporate accounts. They then generated 13 to 15 times the number of advertisements that a normal Twitter user would see.I understand why Media Matters did what they did. The issue is that it was unethical.media Matters went that route bc they wanted to hit Elon where it hurt for him, which is money, in this case as revenue. One thing people agree on,is that extreme views are amplified on x or twitter. In particular far right views. So the overall composition has changed, the level of discourse has decreased, and twitter has admitted it's algorithm favors far right content. In addition sometimes Elon makes personal tweaks to what is showcased or not. He has special privileges in amplifies and pushing his tweets regardless of how one sets their preferences or swipe history. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2025334119Even if it were true that ads together with Nazi content were only shown to one single account out of 500 million (which is just Musk's assertion, and how much stock should anyone put in those at this point?), that doesn't make it defamatory for Media Matters to report on it.
There's no "OK, technically what you said is true, but you shouldn't be allowed to say it like that" condition to First Amendment law. A self-proclaimed "free speech absolutist" should know that.
Good journalism should be repeatable. Media matters got lucky and made it look like it was a common occurrence. This would be like changing your entire financial strategy because a friend won a jackpot at a slot machine.
So until somebody can repeat what media matters did, you might as well disregard it as a freak occurrence.
I don't understand this comment. As I understand it, Musk said X could not happen. (I typed that with no pun about Twitter/X intended, I swear! Didn't occur to me until I typed the period at the end.) Media Matters proved that X could, in fact, happen, and they reported that. Where's the lack of ethics? (Or my lack of understanding about what happened, if I have the facts wrong.) If I say Y is impossible, and someone proves that one in a billion times, it will happen, they are wrong about the impossibility, even if it is still extremely improbably Y will occur.
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24172816-x-v-media-matters-complaint
They engineered it to happen and pretended that it happened regularly. They acted in bad faith.
And no, I'm not a Musk fanboy. I understand that there is always more to the story.
I can't speak for Musk, but if I were in his shoes and my people are telling me the odds are ridiculously low that an event would happen for 99.9% of users, I would feel safe saying that it won't happen. For example, the odds of me getting a hole-in-one are astronomically small since I only play golf 4 or 5 times a year. I would feel safe saying that I will never be celebrating a hole-in-one. But if all of the sudden, I'm dead set on getting the result that is said will never happen, I might start going to a par 3 course 3 times a week. Now instead of seeing maybe 20 par 3s per year, I'm seeing 27 every week.
Media Matters created a situation that was so far removed from reality, that I don't see it as a gotcha. I don't use Twitter, nor follow anything that Musk has his hands in, but this seems like such a petty scenario from my perspective.
The people who insure hole-in-one contests (or half-court basketball shot contest, or kick a field goal contest) know the difference between odds that are very, very low and odds that are zero. If something is not an absolute, don’t talk in absolutes.(https://th.bing.com/th/id/OIP.e9wE5FUJEHHPcSg7OnkVeAHaEK?w=320&h=180&c=7&r=0&o=5&pid=1.7)
Well, I for my part don't hate Musk, though I dislike him a bit more every week (not sure if he always was such a conspiracy nut with xenophobic tendencies or if Twitter made him into one). But Media Matters matters not. I didn't crop up in my Twitter at all - though I use Tweetdeck, so I only see personally selected tweets (and their retweets). And of course half of them are German.I can't speak for Musk, but if I were in his shoes and my people are telling me the odds are ridiculously low that an event would happen for 99.9% of users, I would feel safe saying that it won't happen. For example, the odds of me getting a hole-in-one are astronomically small since I only play golf 4 or 5 times a year. I would feel safe saying that I will never be celebrating a hole-in-one. But if all of the sudden, I'm dead set on getting the result that is said will never happen, I might start going to a par 3 course 3 times a week. Now instead of seeing maybe 20 par 3s per year, I'm seeing 27 every week.
Media Matters created a situation that was so far removed from reality, that I don't see it as a gotcha. I don't use Twitter, nor follow anything that Musk has his hands in, but this seems like such a petty scenario from my perspective.
I also personally don't see much of the world reacting as if it is a "gotcha," other than maybe folks who already hate Musk.
The people who insure hole-in-one contests (or half-court basketball shot contest, or kick a field goal contest) know the difference between odds that are very, very low and odds that are zero. If something is not an absolute, don’t talk in absolutes.In that case half of the murderers currently in prison would be free, because even to sentence someone to death you only need to be sure "beyond reasonable doubt".
The people who insure hole-in-one contests (or half-court basketball shot contest, or kick a field goal contest) know the difference between odds that are very, very low and odds that are zero. If something is not an absolute, don’t talk in absolutes.
Half a billion people shooting for a hole in one multiple times a day, every single day, one would definitely expect it to happen.Or someone winning the lottery jackpot even though the chances are 1 in 45 million (for the big German one that falls every few weeks on average)
Well, I for my part don't hate Musk, though I dislike him a bit more every week (not sure if he always was such a conspiracy nut with xenophobic tendencies or if Twitter made him into one).
And again, MM did say this happens all the time or frequently. They just said that yes, it has happened at least once, because it happens to us.
There's nothing misleading about it. If someone said that no one could ever hit a hole in one, they'd be wrong. Objectively. Very wrong, and demonstrably so. Why would someone posting video of a real human getting a real hole-in-one be "unethical" or misleading in that case?
And again, MM did say this happens all the time or frequently. They just said that yes, it has happened at least once, because it happens to us.
There's nothing misleading about it. If someone said that no one could ever hit a hole in one, they'd be wrong. Objectively. Very wrong, and demonstrably so. Why would someone posting video of a real human getting a real hole-in-one be "unethical" or misleading in that case?
But it didn't happen to them. It happend to a highly unrealistic scenario created just to prove something. It's like Elizabeth Warren releasing DNA tests showing she had Native Americans in her ancestry 10 generations back. It's all just stupid and doesn't prove anything except the pettiness of humans.
And to repeat the point, because some people are still overlooking it: we don't know how many Twitter users were being shown the Nazi ads.
Musk says it was an extremely small number verging on zero, but that's not proven fact. It's just his assertion. He has a financial incentive to say that whether it's true or not, and even his defenders, I think, would admit he's not the most truthful person alive.
And to repeat the point, because some people are still overlooking it: we don't know how many Twitter users were being shown the Nazi ads.I haven't followed this issue very closely (because Musk) and I don't use Twitter/X, so maybe this is a dumb question, but why are there any fucking nazi ads in the first place?!
Musk says it was an extremely small number verging on zero, but that's not proven fact. It's just his assertion. He has a financial incentive to say that whether it's true or not, and even his defenders, I think, would admit he's not the most truthful person alive.
And to repeat the point, because some people are still overlooking it: we don't know how many Twitter users were being shown the Nazi ads.I haven't followed this issue very closely (because Musk) and I don't use Twitter/X, so maybe this is a dumb question, but why are there any fucking nazi ads in the first place?!
Musk says it was an extremely small number verging on zero, but that's not proven fact. It's just his assertion. He has a financial incentive to say that whether it's true or not, and even his defenders, I think, would admit he's not the most truthful person alive.
And to repeat the point, because some people are still overlooking it: we don't know how many Twitter users were being shown the Nazi ads.I haven't followed this issue very closely (because Musk) and I don't use Twitter/X, so maybe this is a dumb question, but why are there any fucking nazi ads in the first place?!
Musk says it was an extremely small number verging on zero, but that's not proven fact. It's just his assertion. He has a financial incentive to say that whether it's true or not, and even his defenders, I think, would admit he's not the most truthful person alive.
Musk opened the gates for far-right ads and personalities because he felt it was far-left biased when he bought it, and echoes far-right ideology every day while calling himself a "free speech centrist."
This policy change could possibly be in response to a post last month from Musk when he wrote, “Any doxxing, which includes revealing real names, will result in account suspension.” Still, in an interview with Don Lemon released on Monday, Musk said that moderation of hate speech is akin to “censorship.”
...Caraballo and others have pointed to accounts like Libs of TikTok and far-right troll Andy Ngo, both of which have shared private information about trans people but have not had their accounts suspended. Musk has also engaged with posts that doxed individuals on X, with seemingly no recourse for those accounts.
As long as you only get the cl*ck me, f*ck me bots, that is not a problem. Once you catch the Russian propanga bots though...
a few days ago I answered a post about Ukraine and got 7 of them how stupid it is to send weapons to Ukraine and that we need peace in Europe.
But no ads on Desktop? You mean in browser? Strange. That version is flooded! Main reason why I use tweetdeck. That and that, as you said, if you only follow sensible people you don't get that right wing hate wave (though I do follow a few of those accounts for... scientific reasons.)