Elon's Twitter

[N.E. Brigand]

Why are they so weird?

[Frelga]

Gay Twitter was snickering about that one...

[N.E. Brigand]

All the Nitter instances finally died, so last weekend I finally had to sign up for a Twitter account in order to be able to read content there. It is not my intention to ever post on Twitter. The site makes you "follow" at least one other account from a short list of options. One of them was Elon Musk. I did not select him but went with President Biden instead.

[N.E. Brigand]

Four years ago today, Elon Musk tweeted, "Based on current trends, probably close to zero new cases too by end of April." Such a genius. By the end of April, the U.S. was averaging 30,000 new cases per day. By the end of 2020, it was more than 150,000 new cases per day.

(The "too" was in response to Musk sharing a report China having zero new cases on the previous day. China had of course instituted draconian lockdown procedures during the first five months of the pandemic far beyond what most other countries ever put in place -- and if its official numbers can be trusted, they did indeed keep the case count very low for a long time -- but when Covid restrictions were fully relaxed in late 2022, China was faced with millions of new infections every day and then stopped reporting its numbers.)

[Sunsilver]

Hey, have a question for you regular Twitter users.

If I'm following someone on Twitter, how do I get a message to them without replying to one of their posts?

I did reply to a post, but it doesn't seem to be showing up for some reason. And there's something (not Twitter related) that I need to contact them about.

[Frelga]

You can send a DM (direct message). However, some users limit who can send them a DM to only people they follow or don't allow them at all.

[Sunsilver]

How do I send a DM? I don't see that option on his Twitter page. If it's available, how do I find it?

[Frelga]

Click on their profile picture to get to their profile, then click on the envelope icon.

[Sunsilver]

Thanks, Frelga. Okay, unfortunately, he doesn't allow PM's.

Edit: got an SLQ error message when I tried to post. And previously, got a 'resources exceeded' message when trying to view a thread in this forum.

[N.E. Brigand]

Elon Musk's press-gang today has been sticking blue checkmarks on accounts of people (like Marcy Wheeler and Heather Cox Richardson) who aren't paying for and don't want that badge of shame. It's sneetches all the way down.

Edited to add that the new blue checks are for "influential" Twitter members, but as the historian Kevin Kruse notes, he's just been thus designated despite not having posted from his Twitter acccount for six months.

[N.E. Brigand]

"Elon Musk's X pushed a fake headline about Iran attacking Israel. X's AI chatbot Grok made it up."

At some point the federal government may need to step in here to prevent social media platforms from accidentally starting a war. Corporations are not people and should not have free speech rights. Nor should their robots.

[N.E. Brigand]

CBS reports: "Brazil Supreme Court investigating Elon Musk over obstruction, disinformation on X".

[N.E. Brigand]

Elon Musk and Ken Paxton were handed a joint loss today when a federal judge issued an injunction preventing the Texas attorney general from getting documents from Media Matters in an investigation that seems to have been launched on behalf of Musk after Media Matters published an article about Twitter.

[N.E. Brigand]

This story has nothing to do with Elon Musk, but I note it here because I think it echoes what happened with Twitter: last year, the Park Record, a small newspaper in Park City, Utah made its first ever reference to Matthew Prince, the billionaire who co-founded the tech company Cloudfare. The Park Record story described how Utah's state legislature had blocked a bill that would have let Prince build a large mansion in Park City without having to meet local zoning and building requirements. Not long after, the Park Record started running a bunch of friendly pieces about Prince and his planned house. Why? Because he bought the paper.

[N.E. Brigand]

CBS reports: "Brazil Supreme Court investigating Elon Musk over obstruction, disinformation on X".

More on this story here. Apparently Michael Shellenberger, the independent "Twitter files" reporter whose claims (which were then shared by Elon Musk) led to the investigation, had admitted they weren't true. Not sure what happens next.

[N.E. Brigand]

Elon Musk said today that Alex Jones's Twitter account will be reactivated and also streamed a live chat between the two of them plus Andrew Tate (the kickboxer who's been indicted on sex trafficking charges in Romania) and Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.

Edited to add: Michael Flynn was also part of the conversation.

Since this thread is where Elon Musk's sometime associate, the kickboxer and alleged sex trafficker Andrew Tate, was most recently mentioned, I'm just going to note something that Tate tweeted today: "Sex is for making children. Any man who has sex with women because it 'feels good' is gay." What's that, you say? Maybe he doesn't believe that and is just posting outrageous statements for clicks?

Well then, since the post I'm responding to also mentioned the crackpot retired general Michael Flynn, I'll justify this post by adding this news:

"A federal judge has dismissed a false-light claim against CNN by relatives of Gen. Flynn."

Jack and Leslie Flynn had sued CNN for $75 million for defamation and false light because the network included a two-second clip showing them in a February 2021 report on Jack's brother Michael Flynn. (That case was previously mentioned here in this forum.) In that clip, Michael recites the Q-Anon oath as a group including Jack and Leslie gather around a bonfire. The defamation portion of the claim had previously been dismissed.

I appreciate the judge noting Jack Flynn's description of Q-Anon as "just people doing their own research and learning independence of thought to find the truth," because that so accurately captures how so many conspiracy theorists see themselves.