Elon's Twitter

[RoseMorninStar]

I'm glad I never joined Twitter and I hope it dies. How many right-wing hate platforms do we need? Isn't that what Truth Social and 4Chan are for? There is another social media platform out there .. I can't think of the name of it at the moment.. Sky?? maybe?? that holds some promise (or so I've read) but it's currently by invite only/in the trial stages.

[Frelga]

You are not wrong, but there's also a wealth of absolutely amazing content not replicated in any one place. Art. Fluffy animals. Science. Latest news. Writers, historians, doctors, techies, crafters, all sharing their knowledge for free. The only other place with this much Ukraine content is Telegram, and it's channel based.

And when people leave they go to different places. Mastodon is confusing in concept, although I'm looking forward to Dave's updates. Spout and Bluesky and Hive are all too new, and limited. There is no one place to replace Twitter.

Also, I hate giving up ground to Nazis. Yes Musk gave them a platform, but they are also getting piled on by everyone else.

That said, Musk announced plans to allow calls between Twitter users, and a dating... service? From what I heard, after all the layoffs Twitter doesn't have the resources to implement such a sweeping upgrade, but that's the kind of thing that would drive me off the app.

PS look at how V's posts are 80% Twitter links. It's where the information and the commentary live.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Arab Spring.

[Dave_LF]

Mastodon is confusing in concept, although I'm looking forward to Dave's updates.

Initial impression is that the look and feel are all but identical to Twitter—no serious learning curve there. The whole federation model thing sounds intimidating, but if you’re unconfused by the notion that there are about a zillion email servers out there that each have their own policies and spam filtering rules, yet can still exchange messages with each other without the end user really even needing to think about it, then you’re already most of the way there. The big problem, to no one’s surprise, is that there just aren’t that many familiar faces there (though there are more than zero). But I’ll stick with both for now and see how things go.

[RoseMorninStar]

Frelga, I understand what you are saying, and it is an unfortunate mess many did not see coming. As with many things, there is a fine line that is difficult to ascertain; what constitutes opposition/resistance/standing one's ground or conversely acceptance? With Elon owning twitter, there are few ways to oppose and resist and most have just accepted. When is one (for example) refusing to give ground to Nazi's/hate speech and when is one standing along side them? Does it further legitimize hate/conspiracies? I certainly don't know the answers. I cannot help but think how we have all come to accept the bizarre behavior of Trump and how his nastiness and criminality hardly bats an eye.

[N.E. Brigand]

You are not wrong, but there's also a wealth of absolutely amazing content not replicated in any one place. Art. Fluffy animals. Science. Latest news. Writers, historians, doctors, techies, crafters, all sharing their knowledge for free. The only other place with this much Ukraine content is Telegram, and it's channel based.

Unfortunately, some people are now finding that Twitter searches for "dog" or "cat" are now resulting in recommendations for "animal torture videos."

[Dave_LF]

Musk is stepping down as CEO.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/05/11/elon-mu ... oduct.html
Guess I'm not the only one this week who decided enough was enough.

[Frelga]

Possibly it would have been better if he remains a CEO and hired someone qualified for "overseeing product, software & sysops"
.

[N.E. Brigand]

You are not wrong, but there's also a wealth of absolutely amazing content not replicated in any one place. Art. Fluffy animals. Science. Latest news. Writers, historians, doctors, techies, crafters, all sharing their knowledge for free. The only other place with this much Ukraine content is Telegram, and it's channel based.

Unfortunately, some people are now finding that Twitter searches for "dog" or "cat" are now resulting in recommendations for "animal torture videos."

A new article from NBC about the proliferation on Twitter of videos showing cats and dogs being tortured, which apparently are being provided by Twitter's auto-complete function when you type "cat" or "dog" into their search engine. NBC reports that they checked and saw this happen.

Yoel Roth, Twitter’s former head of trust and safety, told NBC News that he believes the company likely dismantled a series of safeguards meant to stop these kinds of autocomplete problems. ...

“Type-ahead search was really not easy to break. These are longstanding systems with multiple layers of redundancy,” said Roth. “If it just stops working, it almost defies probability.”

The story's author writes: "America's preteens know this site has a gore and snuff problem. Some adults don't."

[Frelga]

Musk also announced that Twitter will delete all accounts that have not made a post in two years.

Apparently the actual number is 30 days. Even I have gone that long between the posts.

There are going to be a lot of broken links in the news media. And on HOF.

[N.E. Brigand]

CNBC reports that the "U.S. Virgin Islands issued subpoena to Elon Musk in Jeffrey Epstein lawsuit." This is part of the territory's ongoing lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase for "allegedly enabling and benefiting from Epstein’s trafficking of young women to his private island in the Virgin Islands to be abused by him and others." The territory has asked a federal judge in New York to permit the subpoena to be filed with Musk's registered agent, because they haven't been able to get it to Musk directly. The subpoena was issued about three weeks ago "because of suspicion that Epstein 'may have referred or attempted to refer' Musk as a client to JPMorgan." To be fair to Musk: Epstein seems to have been very good at making connections with wealthy or famous individuals, and in most such cases he was probably just networking.

[Dave_LF]

One problem with a strictly chronological timeline (which is what Mastodon seems to provide) is that accounts that post nonstop drown out absolutely everything else. I've had to mute a couple for the simple reason that they were all I saw anymore. Wish there was an option to show only the most recent n posts per account with a "92 more from this poster..." link you could click to see the rest if interested. Or something. Nothing wrong with algorithmic timelines as long as they're transparent, customizable, and there to serve you rather than advertisers.

[N.E. Brigand]

Elon Musk today tweeted that George Soros "wants to erode the very fabric of society" because he "hates humanity."

[RoseMorninStar]

Rumors are flying that Elon may also step down as CEO of Tesla. I think a great many would breathe a sigh of relief if he did.

[N.E. Brigand]

Elon Musk today tweeted that George Soros "wants to erode the very fabric of society" because he "hates humanity."

Despite Texas police confirming that the Allen mall shooter had Nazi tattoos, Elon Musk said today in a CNBC interview that there's no evidence the killer was a white supremacist, that Bellingcat, the investigative team that discovered the murderer's white supremacist social media postings, "does psyops," and that "ascribing it [i.e., the mass murder] to white supremacy was bullshit."

[Frelga]

Elon Musk today tweeted that George Soros "wants to erode the very fabric of society" because he "hates humanity."

Hates humanity = his hedge fund dumped Tesla stock.

[N.E. Brigand]

You are not wrong, but there's also a wealth of absolutely amazing content not replicated in any one place. Art. Fluffy animals. Science. Latest news. Writers, historians, doctors, techies, crafters, all sharing their knowledge for free. The only other place with this much Ukraine content is Telegram, and it's channel based.

Unfortunately, some people are now finding that Twitter searches for "dog" or "cat" are now resulting in recommendations for "animal torture videos."

A new article from NBC about the proliferation on Twitter of videos showing cats and dogs being tortured, which apparently are being provided by Twitter's auto-complete function when you type "cat" or "dog" into their search engine. NBC reports that they checked and saw this happen.

Yoel Roth, Twitter’s former head of trust and safety, told NBC News that he believes the company likely dismantled a series of safeguards meant to stop these kinds of autocomplete problems. ... “Type-ahead search was really not easy to break. These are longstanding systems with multiple layers of redundancy,” said Roth. “If it just stops working, it almost defies probability.”

The story's author writes: "America's preteens know this site has a gore and snuff problem. Some adults don't."

A week later, Fox News checked Twitter and didn't get the same results. Ben Collins notes some flaws in Fox's methodology.

[Frelga]

Seems Meta (nee Facebook) is planning to launch a new Twitter competitor.

The app, codenamed P92, will let users log in through their existing Instagram credentials & be based on a similar framework to the one that powers Mastodon.

The new app will be decentralized: it cannot be run at the whim of a single entity.

Thread here.

As much as I dislike Facebook, it's probably in the best position to compete with Twitter. Any newcomer faces a monstrous challenge on technical, legal, security, and other fronts. And Instagram already has the framework for posting and commenting, they just need to adapt to text posts.

[Dave_LF]

This is a new one:
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I see the beginnings of the word Substack in there, which Musk had previously been censoring outright, if reports are to be believed.

[RoseMorninStar]

Beau won't say 'Nazi flag' here, I'm not sure why, but this is a commentary on Elon's Twitter. Maybe some of you who are on Twitter can check this.