Possibly apochryphal story: P.T. Barnum encouraged customers who might have otherwise dawdled and cut into profits to make a timely exit from his museum with a sign that said: “This way to the egress.” Folks didn’t realize “egress” is a fancy word for “exit” and thought it was an exhibit of an exotic bird or something.
I wonder if there will be an egress from the platform now that it’s official that Elon Musk is buying Twitter:
“Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated,” Musk said in a statement included in the press release announcing the $44 billion deal. “I also want to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans. Twitter has tremendous potential – I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it.”
Twitter haters either won’t care about this or perhaps gleefully anticipate the platform’s downfall under one of the planet’s douchiest tech bros. I’m sad about it, similar to how I felt when the NYT bought Wordle:
I hope that even my worst critics remain on Twitter, because that is what free speech means
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 25, 2022
It’s all about him, you see.
Anyhoo, I’ve got no immediate egress plans, but I’m confident the Muskrat will exacerbate Twitter’s existing problems and introduce many brand-new ones. This sucks.
Open thread!
Major Major Major Major
Much like when the Times bought Wordle, I don’t think the Twitter experience will change very much. Even if Trump returns, that’ll just be twitter from a year and a half ago. Much too early to be eyeing the exits, at any rate.
germy
I assume he’ll bring the former guy back to twitter so we’ll have that going for us.
zzyzx
I’m going to wait to see what he does before guessing how I will react. If his changes are awful, I can always leave then.
Zzyzx’s First Law of Social Media is that any platform with enough people on it to be interesting will turn out to be awful due to the server needs to keep that going.
CaseyL
Repeating my comment from the previous thread:
People are already leaving Twitter for something called Counter Social, a social media app that currently has 30K users. I don’t know anything about it (don’t even know whether it’s a pay-for service) other than it claims to be a troll-free place.
But they’re being inundated with folks fleeing Twitter, and their servers have crashed. They are said to be aware of the problem, and working on it. If they’re going to be the “new Twitter,” they’ll need quite a bit of infrastructure added! Might take them a while to get things up to speed.
Princess
If he buys it I’ll log out and I’ll base whether I delete my whole account on what I hear about it. I was so relieved when Trump got tossed. There is no way I am going back to those days. And no, I didn’t follow Trump. You didn’t need to. He, and the troll army, deformed twitter around themselves.
Others mileage may vary.
robmassing
One thing you can count on is Elon never keeps a promise
dmsilev
Coming from the guy who has promised “real self driving, real soon now” basically every year for the last half decade or so, I’m going to go with “making promises that he doesn’t know how to keep”.
WaterGirl
This sale has to make it through a number of hoops before it becomes reality.
I’m not at all certain that it will make it through all those hoops, but if it does, this will totally suck.
germy
hueyplong
Difficult to register my displeasure by leaving a platform for which I never signed up. So my intense revulsion at the mere mention of his name continues its parallel to a twig falling in a forest devoid of witnesses.
Steve in PHX
Although not on Twitter, I do worry about Trump getting back on. Restraining his social media activity has made my life a tiny bit more mellow.
Calouste
@CaseyL: Allegedly 70% of Twitter staff is looking for a new job, they might be able to lend a hand. Also, good luck to Twitter trying to compete in hiring software engineers against companies that can still promise stock options. It’s not like Twitter has ever been really profitable.
germy
A New York state judge on Monday found Trump in civil contempt of court and ordered him to pay $10,000 a day.
How much is that in rubles?
Roger Moore
I’m definitely eying the exit, but I won’t leave just yet. If he brings back TFG, I’ll get a lot closer to the exit. To me, though, the big one will be if haters are given free rein to harass and intimidate people they don’t like. It’s already a problem, but if “free speech” means letting useful voices be drowned out by haters, the main thing that makes Twitter interesting will be gone.
CaseyL
counter.social/index.html
It does not appear to be a free service: private (individual?) accounts are $5/month. At least, that’s what I saw on Twitter (lots of discussions going on there about leaving!).
Though, honestly, if they mean it about “no trolls,” and can make that stick with a few million sudden subscribers, I’ll be happy to pay the $5/month.
Dangerman
I remember when MySpace was all the rage. I wonder what it is trading at these days…
…because sure as shit, Twitter is done. If it wasn’t private now, I’d short the fuck out of it.
Mike in NC
Elon Musk is the scum of the earth.
Roger Moore
@germy:
Not enough.
Chief Oshkosh
Why is it that the dumbest dumbfucks keep mis-defining what “freedom of speech” means? Yes, you can say anything you want, but that doesn’t mean there are no consequences. The “freedom” is that the government by-and-large cannot regulate what you say. How other people or entities react to what you say is up to them. Your friends might snub you. Your boss might fire you. Your spouse might cut your nuts off (looking at you, Elon), your parents might disown you. But, Uncle Sam will ignore you. Usually.
hueyplong
@germy: Trump likely knows how much that is in rubles, though the number of other things he knows seems to be declining.
kindness
I’ve never signed up for Twitter and will not do so now. Musk is going to bring back Trump. If only the MSM has learned and doesn’t hang on/repeat Trump’s every tweet.
The MSM hasn’t learned a thing, in fact they aren’t just complicit but are actually in on the bagging of our government
@germy: I don’t think Trump’s base is enraged geriatrics so much as younger folk than that. Geriatrics require Medicare and Trump and his party have vowed to kill that.
Roger Moore
@CaseyL:
Yeah, I think the idea that everything important on the internet should be free is really destructive. It pushes the whole spying-based advertising system that makes the current internet such an awful place. A few bucks a month seems like a reasonable price to pay to keep a social network free from bots and spammers.
Omnes Omnibus
I am not convinced that this sale will happen.
beef
Open sourcing the algos means making them more easily gamed. It’s a fundamental tension in spam/abuse fighting. Musk is either dumb or evil.
zzyzx
@Roger Moore: the problem though is if the $5 a month keeps it free from a lot of people I’d want to talk to.
I don’t believe a paywalled social media would ever get a big enough critical mass of users. I mean if it’s the right people, that could be fun, but it might just feel like a larger slack channel/group text.
Just One More Canuck
@Mike in NC: He’s the perfect example of someone who mistakes their own narcissism, sociopathy and whatever other “load bearing personality disorders” * they have rattling around inside them for actual business acumen
* Source: unknown (because of my crappy memory) BJ commenter
Roger Moore
@zzyzx:
I don’t know if $5 is the right amount, but I’m confident $0 is too little.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Chief Oshkosh:
I think what Musk’s talking about is different from the First Amendment. He seems to be talking about the principle of free speech; that large social media platforms are the public town squares of the modern age
I’m not so sure it’s as simple as he and other so-called “free speech absolutists” think this will work. Without some form of moderation, online spaces almost inevitably turn into toxic cesspools. He’ll probably end up destroying Twitter
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Omnes Omnibus:
Really? What’s the story there? It seems like this is pretty much a done deal.
Bobby Thomson
Now, settle down. This still has to make it through HSR, and if there’s one thing we can count on, it’s that the DOJ will vigorously enforce federal law against billionaires.
Criticism of Musk and Tesla will be an immediately bannable offense. Nothing will be done to curb bots and troll armies because Musk himself is one of the biggest offenders. And of course Nazis and other hate groups will still have free reign, while those who call them out will continue to have their accounts suspended. He probably already has a contract with DFG to restore the latter’s account, but good luck collecting on it.
TeezySkeezy
@beef: I’m not sure that’s necessarily the case in general, but with Elon at the helm it probably will be. Besides, I just flat out don’t believe him. At best the API will be open sourced, but I bet content recommendation algorithms won’t be. And if they are, that’s useless to me if I can’t change them.
Major Major Major Major
@CaseyL: iirc counter social is just a heavily modified Mastodon instance.
Mastodon is interesting, I wrote about it here last year, but it can be pretty quirky and tends towards weird tech people.
Bobby Thomson
Again, not mutually exclusive.
Major Major Major Major
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): the term I’ve seen people throwing around is something like “thick free speech”, ie yes this concept is touched on in the first amendment but as a guiding principle goes much further.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@kindness:
If the sale goes through, I can’t imagine Musk allowing Trump back on: he literally incited a riot with his tweets. You can’t just have a free-for-all on your platform like that
CaseyL
@Major Major Major Major: Yes, it is. Cain made this comment in the thread below:
I checked out the article he linked to, and it makes the company look very promising. I don’t know anything about Mastodon – like, for instance, I don’t know whether it’s a platform up to handling the kind of traffic it’s now getting – but I’m certainly open to the idea of going there.
Roger Moore
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
The idea of people in the public square saying whatever they please is a nice one, but even when people had to physically stand there to be heard it didn’t work that well. When you let people use sock puppets to boost their profile and send mobs to shout down those they disagree with, it doesn’t work at all.
Kent
Twitter is a crappy platform anyway. Other than the fact that you can post photos, I don’t see how it is even as good as the pre-world wide web text-based usenet forms from 30 years ago.
I’m not a power user. I only really started using it to follow Ukraine war news. But wow is it a mess, especially trying to follow long threads
I predict this is going to be a way for Musk to set $10 BILLION on fire give or take.
trollhattan
I assume by “worst critics” he means anybody who would dare criticize him. “They’re the worst!”
ksmiami
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Exactly. Already, the advertisers are starting to look at the exits because somehow having your ad for huggies end up next to Sam Hackett’s “Let’s Go Brandon Kill all liberals postings” is just not conducive to a pleasant consumer experience. When the Musk rumors got more serious, I sold the stock. I want nothing to do with that trash douchy tech bro as much as I think SpaceX has done some cool projects. Twitter is done. Stick a fork in it.
Cacti
Count me as one of the 7.8 billion people who never had a twitter account.
Aren’t bots about 1/3 to 1/2 of Twitter users anyway?
Kay
Fox News taking direction from the Trump campaign:
Yes sir. On it.
citizen dave
Given the fate of MySpace I truly don’t understand the value of these companies. Costs of entry are low and fashions can change fairly quickly.
Also curious how Elon wants to authenticate humans? Real names? I like my fake names
ETA: Yes, Elon is full of himself and the importance of twitter. It’s a minor amusement, period.
trollhattan
@Kent:
I refuse to subscribe so look at accounts in browsers, where a war is ongoing to limit one’s ability to scroll down–it freezes and demands you get you an account.
The antidote is to open the account in a private browser window but there’s a cat-and-mouse game going on between Twitter and the browser developers, because it works for awhile and eventually freezes, then there’s a browser update and it works again, rinse and repeat.
So yeah, unless there’s content I can’t see elsewhere I’m not interested. Face-a-Gram is just as bad.
Omnes Omnibus
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: It has to get past regulators. The detailed teens need to be worked out. He need to pony up $44 billion in some form. Etc.
eldorado
even my worst critics, but definitely not anybody organizing a union – elon almost certainly
trollhattan
@citizen dave:
Remember Google+? For all their resources, they couldn’t crack the code and ditched the whole thing. Embarrassing.
Roger Moore
@Kent:
If what you want Twitter for is to replicate USENET, it’s a really lousy substitute. But that’s not what Twitter is. It isn’t really supposed to be about threads, or at least only about short ones. It is managed by individual poster rather than topic, so you can follow what interesting people are talking about. But that makes it a rather shallow place.
One of the things I really like about it, though, is that a lot of the interesting people use a single account across their interests. So, for example, Hilzoy talks about politics and ethics, but she also talks about what’s going on in Baltimore and apparently follows a bunch of “this kind of animal picture every hour” bots, which she’ll occasionally retweet when they match her mood. I follow people from my professional field, but they’ll also talk about personal stuff.
citizen dave
@Chief Oshkosh: very well said Chief!
Kay
@eldorado:
All the celebratory union organizing posts will mysteriously disappear.
Bobby Thomson
@Omnes Omnibus: The deal with the board is not on Edgar yet, but we know he has financing
EDIT: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001418091/000110465922048128/tm2213229d1_sc13da.htm
artem1s
Yea, I’m definitely gone if he actually goes thru with the purchase. I’d recommend the front pagers stop relying on twitter to fill up their posts too. I won’t be clicking thru anymore. I stopped clicking thru to FacePlant long before the election when Suckerberg announced he was going to do everything he could to help TFG win.
How does this work for the stock holders when he buys it and takes it private? I’m assuming that’s what this means? Wonder how much of this crap is in my mutual funds?
MattF
Twitter has some unexpected strengths. There are a large number of self-organized small groups that chat about some specific subject and will probably be resilient to whatever Musk does by simply continuing to argue about their particular interest. I’d probably want to continue to argue about the Spelling Bee game, even if Musk un-bans the Orange Menace. We shall see.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Roger Moore:
Exactly. It’s a romantic notion but it doesn’t work very well, especially with social media networks. What would the real life equivalent to sock puppets be? Paying actors to show to a protest? So astroturfing?
CaseyL
@artem1s:
Stockholders are bought out at the agreed-upon stock price which, last I heard, was $54-and-change per share. So, however many shares you have, times 54.
Roger Moore
@citizen dave:
I’m not sure that’s true. Social media depends critically on network effects, which make it hard to dethrone an established dominant player. MySpace lost out to Facebook because they were competing with each other during the initial growth phase when neither one had yet achieved dominance. But now that it’s the big player, it will be very difficult to displace Facebook.
At least that’s true within the world of close substitutes. You can have different players for different things, e.g. Twitter for short messages doesn’t compete directly with Facebook, alternatives targeting specific languages can become dominant within that language, etc.
Bobby Thomson
Everyone will get the same per share price, which is either the $54.20 number in his bear hug letter or some other price negotiated by the board.
There will be lawsuits seeking a bump in whatever the price is, especially since Musk doesn’t have a great reputation as a rule follower, but they are unlikely to go very far.
Major Major Major Major
@CaseyL: masto is essentially a protocol, not a platform. There are hundreds of instances that communicate with each other. I’m not entirely clear on how the “all instances” feed works but I’d like to think it scales fairly resiliently. Maybe I’ll try making one for balloon juice folks to try out.
Betty
With any luck Elon will be bored with Twitter in short order and everyone can proceed as normal.
The Moar You Know
I assume every newsroom in America is having a party at the moment, because they’re gonna let Donald Trump back ONLINE and they’re going to be swimming in fat clickbait monies again, just like the glory years 2016-2020. No more working! No more having to leave the office and talk to icky people! Just cut, paste and watch the money roll in.
Trump will have to very careful with his new thin-skinned content owner, though. Musk does not handle contrary opinions well.
Brachiator
Elon Muskrat. Heh…
He is an odd man and easily distracted.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@artem1s:
Depends on the MF. In VTSAX, which tracks the entire US Stock Market based on I believe market capitalization, it doesn’t appear in the top holdings. Tesla does, funny enough.
Roger Moore
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
There isn’t necessarily a close meatspace equivalent to stuff that happens online. That’s part of the reason we had to invent new terminology for this stuff. But yes, Astroturfing is probably the closest equivalent to sock puppets. Though there are examples of sending letters using fake identities to make their support look bigger.
CaseyL
@Major Major Major Major: I just created an account there, but the site crashed again when I tried to upgrade to a Pro account. (TheJester, who is apparently the site owner, has joked that he’s shoveling more coal into the engines as fast as he can.)
They put up a Welcome screen that shows how the interface works. It looks like those multi-column Twitter search results, when you’re searching for a combination of terms.
EriktheRed
I deleted my account the weekend before last for reasons independent of his purchase. Can’t imagine I’ll be coming back anytime soon.
Major Major Major Major
Oh, and here’s my post about Mastodon/distributed social networks. https://balloon-juice.com/2021/01/09/the-web-is-broken-everybody-knows-it-and-donald-trump-has-proven-it/
CaseyL
PS for important Jorts& Jean news: Jorts says he is staying on Twitter, but as also created an Instagram account for people who prefer to follow that. But, he says, he will continue his pro-union trolling mostly on Twitter because that’s where all the bosses are.
Brachiator
@trollhattan:
Google had a social networking platform called Orkut which was used internally, and also extremely popular in India and Brazil in 2008. It was finally shut down in 2014.
ETtheLibrarian
Here’s the thing. I have only been on Twitter for a few years and didn’t really miss not having it before I joined. Don’t follow all that many accounts and don’t have many followers so me leaving won’t be much in the larger scheme of things for me or those that follow me. So the only things I will miss are the few accounts I follow including Jorts and a bunch of community/neighborhood ones. But I will just have to miss them.
There is absolutely no way that trump is not getting his account back. Same with with a few others that have spread so much harmful disinformation. They have a hard time controlling stuff now and with Elon in charge they won’t even bother. trump being gone from twitter made the experience better – not great but better – and the whole tone of the platform was just so much garbage then – more than it is now – and we will get back to that place. The bots and disinformation and shouting will get so, so much worse. I am just going to nope out of it.
While I won’t delete my account today or this week, once any attempt to control the hate/disinformation is gone why would I put myself in that place?
TM
The version of the Barnum story I know is that he put up a sign saying “This way to the Egress. Only 25 cents,” and then charged the marks for leaving.
Right now Elon Musk is putting up signs saying “This way to the Free Speech Egress.”
West of the Rockies
I become almost instantly enraged when I now see or hear ugly orange turd’s face/voice/gestures… if he can again Tweet, there will be that much more of his shit for the MSM to salivate over. Yuck.
Kay
MGT blabbed to Mark Meadows in a text that the insurrection-themed House group chats existed- which is amusing.
.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Major Major Major Major:
What does “thick free speech” mean exactly?
Mai Naem mobile
I was put in 24 hr twitter jail a long time ago for something I said about Elon Musk.i don’t even remember what it was…I think it had something to do with Tesla’s fight with the state of California during covid. I remember thinking it was something really inconsequential. To me it was obvious it was him or his underlings who had complained. The point i am making is that there’s a whole Elon entourage/fanatics who go after anything critical said of their God and it will be even worse when hes given the keys to Twitter. Also, a cheap shot here – Elon’s never done anything without a government subsidy. I find it hard to believe he’s going to buy Twitter without government assistance.
Zelma
I just joined Twitter last week because I was following interesting threads from Adam’s posts and I couldn’t read the whole thing. I have not yet figured out how to do anything else on Twitter, i.e, get on it. I guess now I’ll have to drop my membership. Which I probably can’t do without getting on the site. which I don’t know how to do. The joys of being old.
Felanius Kootea
Reposted from the thread below:
Oh well – I hadn’t used my fediverse account in over a year (I’m on writing.exchange). Looking forward to following new people in the fediverse.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
That sounds more like Reddit. Why everyone insists on Twitter is beyond me.
MazeDancer
Been doing a little Blog Promotion on Twitter.
Saying if you’re looking for great political discussion can highly rec a place I’ve been frequenting since 2008. (Under another nym.) And linking here.
But will deeply miss Twitter if it devolves. Like the instant access to news, the having friends from many different worlds, the towns square aspect of being able to interact with anyone and everyone.
But I signed up for Counter.Social as a back-up.
RaflW
For the moment, I decided to ‘protect’?︎ my account, so only people who follow me can see what I say. I unfollowed a couple dozen accts and will do a further pass later, kind of a way of starting to reduce my useage.
I’ve been on there for more than 10 years. It was mostly for fun prior to 2016. I’d see links to things I’d want to read. I could nerd out on aviation or snowboarding. But it’s become so much about autocracy and wether Dems can get it together and all that (things that are actually discussed at BJ, not just shouted into the void like Twitter).
I’ve had a few tweets go viral, usually some snarkish thing in response to an outrage du jour. That can feel fun (and adds to the rat/lever/reward spiral).
I guess it remains to be seen if a) Elon can actually close the deal and b) what idiotic things he’ll do the wreck the place more than Jack & his team have already done.
Felanius Kootea
@WaterGirl: I’m keeping my twitter account for now but will also increase my fediverse posts and those I follow. If TFG is let back on twitter, I will transition off twitter.
CaseyL
There are unique-to-Twitter accounts I follow, that I may continue to follow if they don’t migrate. But I will activate my CounterSocial account, too, and see what kind of place that turns out to be.
I started reading Twitter to get the latest on big breaking stories, and still use it for that (with the usual caveats about hot takes and fakes). There are some commenters I follow as well, though none I couldn’t find by searching if I decide to leave the site altogether.
RaflW
@beef: Musk is either dumb or evil.
I see no need to have that be an exclusive binary.
Tom Levenson
@beef: Porque no los dos?
I mean he is obviously not dumb in the conventional sense of the term, but technically competence does not tell you anything about intelligence or skill at anything outside particular domains.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Just saw a comment on a post on this news in the r/Technology subreddit on Reddit, specifically about Trump getting back on Twitter and becoming viable again. Paraphrasing, they think that the “Trump ship has sailed” whether he’s allowed back on or not and that his running (the nomination) would be a gift for Democrats.
Interestingly, they thought that any other Republican would win in 2024. It sure seems a lot of people are counting Biden short. Why is that?
Brachiator
@The Moar You Know:
The news industry has bern in decline for decades and 2016 to 2020 were hardly glory years.
Physical newspapers and magazines are largely defunct, and most online sites are struggling. BuzzFeed won a Pulitzer in 2021, but recently shut down its news division. CNN Plus didn’t last a month.
People prefer gossip, rumor, entertainment and conspiracies to boring, actual news.
Ken
“This…. is a seventy-two dimensional table? With 64 distinct values on each dimension?”
“Yes, that’s layer one. Layer two is bigger.”
“But what do these numbers mean?”
“We don’t know, the neural network has been training itself for eight years now.”
Feathers
Forcing people to authenticate their identities will kill the joint. I’d never do it. I’m going to figure out how to backup my archive and be ready to leave.
Several people on the Twitters have pointed out that trying to build a safe for right wingers social media platform never works. Why? Because people who aren’t toxic wingnuts will never hang out there and what right wingers really want to do is yell at the libruls and then pretend they won the fight.
rattlemullet
Well, it only reinforces my core belief that Facebook is for fools and twitter is for idiots. No matter what ones good intentions are when one chooses to sign up for either, sadly, it just make you part of the problem. Those social media sites are just like the TV, you can turn them off and not participate. It may be that one good thing could come out it, you could rag Musk ass so much he bans you from his version twitterdumb. The first one banned wins.
The worlds billionaires are the 21st century iteration of slave holders. By stealing so much wealth from the worlds economies they perpetuate billions of people to die of malnutrition. A crime against humanity if you will.
Soprano2
Unfortunately, I’m sure they haven’t learned a thing. They are salivating to be able to do this again because it will make their lives more exciting. They’ve missed TFG, even though the rest of us haven’t.
Jeffro
@Kay: kind of amazing to think about a Democratic equivalent, and what the media reaction would be…to say nothing of the always-frothing-but-even-more-so-if-the-Ds-pulled-this-shit GQP reaction.
Kay
Twitter by itself doesn’t worry me- if he turns it into a Right wing swamp people will drift away.
I worry that we’re looking at another Murdoch. That they buy these companies to use them and because it gives them huge attention and influence.
I don’t think anyone pays 44 billion dollars to buy something and then not turn it to specific ends.
Didn’t we just learn this lesson with Facebook?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Brachiator:
Out of curiosity, what do you think would’ve happened to the news industry if the internet had never been invented?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Kay:
You said it yourself that if he turns it into a right-wing swamp, people will flee in droves and Twitter will lose it’s relevance; he’ll have essentially set his 44 billion dollars on fire
Kay
@Jeffro:
Also- he contacted THEM because he was watching NC and it looked squeaker close, and it was close as hell. He’s the eager employee in this relationship.
Yes sir. On it.
terraformer
I know it’s been said a thousand times, but FFS Twitter moderation ain’t a “free speech” issue
Kay
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
But they adore the influence and the access to power and the ability to control events.
Rupert Murdoch could just be a rich person, or he can be a rich person who can increase turnout in NC when his chosen candidate needs a boost. They want power.
RandomMonster
So for just $3.5 million a year, Trump can just continue not sharing documents.
Betty Cracker
Trump told Fox News today he’s glad Musk is buying Twitter but he (Trump) isn’t coming back to Twitter and is instead going to actually join the glitchy knock-off platform the Trump minions built. Of course, Trump is a liar, so who knows?
Brachiator
I have a Twitter account, but never really mastered it. I used it to get real time commuting info for the local bus and train systems, but never branched out to follow any notable person or breaking news stories. I would sometimes temporarily jump to links posted here in Balloon Juice, but then quickly revert to my standard setup.
trollhattan
@Mai Naem mobile: “Elon Musk, known poopyhead.”
“Banned!”
prostratedragon
@trollhattan: So far I’m doing well in firefox by blocking cookies from twitter, though I suppose that won’t last forever.
Percysowner
I signed up for Twitter years ago because certain sites let me use Twitter to sign on to them, instead of having to create a separate account. Now I can use Gmail for most of those, so I can drop Twitter at any time. Mind you, I am constitutionally incapable of limiting myself to 140 characters or even to the new limit of 280, so I never use Twitter for anything else.
delk
Now where will all the old Tumblr porn accounts move to?
Major Major Major Major
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): It’s incoherent as actual policy since it’s basically hostile to private property, so you have to think of it as more of a vibe, a predisposition to letting people say stuff.
andy
@dmsilev: Ha! Tell that to Italian Elon Musk!
RobertDSC-Mac Mini
I only use Twitter for following my sports teams which are spread out across the country. I’ll have to find some other way of following my teams because I don’t like the way this acquisition looks.
Major Major Major Major
@Felanius Kootea: i’m @tynanpants there!
Brachiator
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
That’s like asking “what if Gutenberg had not brought the idea of the printing press to Europe?”
Raven
I don’t give a fuck about twitter or wordle
RandomMonster
@Betty Cracker: Then again, he couldn’t even remember the name of his social media platform the other night at his latest Nuremburg rally.
dm
So, of the $44 billion, Musk is putting up a big chunk on margin, backed by Tesla stock. Probably time to short Tesla.
Tesla’s market capitalization is >$1 trillion, and is greater than almost the entire rest of the auto industry (https://companiesmarketcap.com/automakers/largest-automakers-by-market-cap/). It has plenty of room to fall, and not a lot more than irrational exuberance holding it up that high).
I wonder what morale is like around Twitter offices now. At least they know what they’re likely to make on their stock options.
Roger Moore
@Mai Naem mobile:
I think a huge problem with all the big internet companies is that they’re addicted to doing things on the cheap. Part of that is that to try to automate stuff that really ought to have a human involved. In particular, they have automated their moderation process so that it responds to bad faith manipulation. If enough people complain about something, it will get moderated even if there’s nothing wrong with it. They really should have a human look to confirm, but that would be too expensive.
sab
I nave had a twitter account for about ten years, but it doesn’t feed me anything. There about a dozen accounts I check almost daily. A couple of them have slowed down lately, only post every few days. When those guys stop posting I will stop reading. I gather my approach isn’t how twitter is supposed to work.
Sphouch
I joined like 2 months ago simply to be able to see some threads. I just deactivated when I heard the news. I don’t want to be a part of whatever his idea of “free speech” on a public platform is, especially one strong armed by this country’s iteration of a nationalist party (figuratively speaking).
Jeffro
@Kay: good point.
it’d be a full-scale, month-long witch hunt if texts from a CBS or even MSNBC anchor reached out to 44’s or 46’s chief of staff: “things look close in PA…how can I help out? What’s tonight’s message?”
But for two decades or more now, it’s been, “eh, it’s Fox, what do you expect?” Major strategic error that needs fixing, Ds.
Roger Moore
@RandomMonster:
The fine is intended to get his attention. If that amount fails, the judge will probably increase it. If bigger fines don’t do the trick, there’s more the judge can do. The big one is making an adverse inference, i.e. assuming that Trump is failing to respond because the facts are not in his favor.
Jeffro
Also, since this is technically an open thread: I whipped up some ‘red bean and quinoa sloppy joes’ (WaPo Food recipe, I think) just for myself last night and holy cow, I may never (ok, rarely) go back to using ground turkey or ground beef.
It’s ok – the rest of the Fro family is sloppy joe-ambivalent at best, so it’ll just be a me thing. =)
different-church-lady
If this pans out the way I hope, it’s going to cure us of our Twitter problem and our Musk problem.
schrodingers_cat
You guys do know that you can block accounts . I block RWNJs like the former President and LW performance artists like my dear Senator. You can always toggle and see a particular tweet if you want to see why it is getting engagement.
Its going to be a while till Musk gets actual control of Twitter, so I am staying because I joined Twitter and started tweeting to get news from India directly. So I will stay put until Musk actually changes the platform.
PJ
@Kay: For me the biggest problem with Twitter is not so much as a right-wing noise machine (though that is a problem.) The biggest problem is that journalists rely on it:
1) as an accurate mirror of public opinion or popular trends;
2) to promote themselves and boost their brands and clout;
3) to hobnob with other people they think can boost their own brands and clout.
#1 is why journalists are so often wrong about elections and politics more generally, because Twitter only represents a tiny self-selected cross-section of the electorate. It’s also why contemporary journalism often spirals into this weird amplifying echo chamber re “what people care about”, because they are all reading, quoting, and retweeting the same tweets and articles being promoted in those tweets.
#2 and #3 are, in my opinion, more dangerous, because it helps journalists to believe that they are the story, and that all these people they are hobnobbing with on Twitter, no matter what atrocious things they may say or do, are friends or peers who should be defended. They get further sucked into their view that they and their atrocious Twitter friends are part of some elite setting trends and establishing standards for the world.
A friend who works for a major business journal said his cure for Twitter would be that journalists should never, ever be allowed to post anything on it. That way they could read what experts or interested parties have to say on subjects without infecting it with their own opinions and ego-boosting.
hueyplong
@different-church-lady: Seems like the surest (only?) way to be rid of people like Musk is for their private aviation to experience a catastrophic event.
jnfr
I love Twitter, but I’m not eyeing the exits any time soon. I do think letting Tr*** back on would be very bad for the world, but even that wouldn’t affect my personal feed that much.
I have had a mostly-unused account at Mastodon for some time now, just in case of need, but then I have attachments online in various places. I’ve been hanging around the internet since the early 90s, so you see a lot of stuff come and go. But Twitter has been a really good source for both news and friendly contacts, so I hope that continues.
schrodingers_cat
@PJ: The problem is the Village not Twitter.
Matt McIrvin
@trollhattan: For a while there, Google+ seemed like it was the best social-media outlet for science and mathematics stuff. There was a nice little geeky community going there. But a lot of that was probably a consequence of it being a relative failure–a lot of noise created by general-public popularity wasn’t present.
These days, it’s probably Twitter, but the restrictive Twitter format makes it all hard to read and follow. And there’s something about the way discussions spool out there that just makes it bad for mental health.
Major Major Major Major
@schrodingers_cat: I think people just really like to complain about Twitter. Including the fella who just bought it.
Helena Montana
I egressed about 25 minutes ago. I’m not going to have anything to do with any business affiliated with musky the fascist creep.
BC in Illinois
@rattlemullet:
This reminded me of Mississippi’s Declaration of Secession, 1861. (I looked it up, because state offices are closed in Mississippi today in observance of Confederate Memorial Day.)
The oligarchs and slave-holders of each era see themselves not only as bog, but as important.
germy
Sure Lurkalot
I follow a few people on Twitter without an account. When it locks up, I delete cookies and all is fine until the next time.
But I really think it’s a silly. The thread reader app illustrates this…it’s cumbersome to create and read long Twitter threads because they really are essays or articles.
The big import of this shitty news is that the world doesn’t need the 2500 or so billionaires it has. For the most part, they are people without boundaries, that amount of wealth shields them from needing or wanting a social contract. My sincere hope is that once Twitter’s employees get a taste of Musk as sole proprietor, they will scatter off to more amenable and lucrative work spaces.
Scout211
TFG says he won’t be returning to Twitter.
He said it on Fox so it must be true. ?
Kay
@PJ:
People said that about Fox for years though. I probably said it. It sounds like something I’d say. That was based, sensibly, on the idea that Fox has very few viewers compared to much bigger sources of news so was not an accurate reflection of anything.
But I think we were wrong. It’s been hugely influential, in a very negative way.
I don’t care that much about Twitter. I don’t care at all if Trump gets back on. But I don’t think this country will survive another, younger, richer Murdoch. It’s pure poison what they’re pumping into people.
gene108
@Roger Moore:
There’s communication on Twitter from poorer countries like Afghanistan, where people may not have $5/month to spare, as well as places in conflict, like Ukraine.
Twitter being free has benefits and problems regarding the flow of information.
Feathers
I have to confess that I’m really curious as to where the money is actually coming from. Remembering how Yahoo bought Tumblr for 1.1 billion and ended up selling it to WordPress for $3 million after pissing off the existing user base. As said above, Tesla’s valuation bears no relation to reality. A huge part of our problem is the financialization of the economy. Being able to buy companies for debts began in the 70s & 80s and whatever argument there may have been for it then, it’s clear now that it is toxically harmful.
I first learned about Musk during his first divorce, when his wife proved that he had fraudulently hidden assets and ended up with the money that was rightfully hers. “I Was a Starter Wife”: Inside America’s Messiest Divorce
VeniceRiley
Mrs. Otis’ Egress.
Technocray
“Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy”
Like convincing 60% of Republicans the election was stolen? Ugh.
cain
@trollhattan: I loved google+! They kept tweaking it until it just died. I think they were trying to figure out how to make money out of it and failed to do that. I thought that they already had all our thoughts and prayers on there – and they could have just mined that to their hearts content.
Kay
@germy:
There’s a funny story where he tried to pay off a 15 year old kid who was using publicly available information to track and post the location of his jet.
My favorite stories these days are kids just messing with horrible people :)
Peale
@Major Major Major Major: That’s my feeling. I’ve never been a very active user, though. Its mainly the platform that the bloggers I follow link to. I’m not even certain if its been a better or a worse place since Trump was banned. Its not like every other digital open, unmoderated and relatively anonymous commenting source on social media doesn’t end up becoming toxic. I have no idea what value Musk thinks he’s going to unlock. Increase the ad rates? Make us pay for it in electronic coins he’s always hawking these days?
Does twitter even pay its top content creators? I don’t think they do, so its not like he can boost profits by paying creators less.
hueyplong
@Scout211: Trump’s statement is probably an opening negotiation stance with the goal of an apology from Twitter and/or money as an incentive to return. Experience permits us to infer that Trump rarely underestimates himself or his popularity.
cain
@Major Major Major Major:
And each instance can have their own set of rules. But some rules will kick you out of the fedverse – especially if they are odious.
wizened_guy
Twitter is a global platform. Much of EM’s rhetoric about it has exhibited a very US-centric framing. Between the recently passed Digital Markets Act, and the soon-to-be enacted Digital Services Act, the European Union is putting in place very strict new regs regarding, among other things, content moderation on social media platforms, takedown requirements for whatever individual countries consider ‘illegal’ content, surveillance advertising and data retention.
As U.S.-based online companies/platforms discovered with the EU’s GDPR (data privacy regs), it is very difficult and expensive to operate under one set of rules in the US and a very different set of rules in the EU. And as a result, the stricter EU rules become the de facto global operating standard.
I’m not sure Mr. Musk realizes what he has gotten himself into.
Kay
@germy:
And pay him off CHEAP. 5000 dollars. The kid turned him down, as well he should have.
I hope he’s still posting about the jet
debbie
First thing we do, we boycott Tesla and whatever his stupid spaceship company is called.
Elizabelle
@Kay: I don’t think we’re surviving the elderly codger Murdoch, either.
Agree; it’s not the number of viewers; it’s the influence. Which is all out of proportion, and malicious.
I was appalled to see that Fox News was channel 1 on Armed Forces television in Germany; at least on the base I tuned in from. It should not be there, given its active work to brainwash and aggravate its audience.
Antonius
@beef: Those are not mutually exclusive.
gene108
@Kay:
It’s a two way street. The Republican Party also takes direction from Fox News.
Peale
Can I ask the twitter users what is the problem with the proposed edit button? I couldn’t tell if people were mocking it or scared of it.
MagdaInBlack
I find I do not give a rats red ass about Musk(rat) buying Twitter. Just. Do. Not. Care.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I enjoy twitter. I don’t have an account but it’s a quick way to find out information and there are some funny/intersting people posting– much like here!
But on balance it’s been a net loss for Democrats and it would be a good thing if it became a lot less influential
debbie
@Kay:
I worry that it will hurt Ukraine’s presence. They are all over Twitter communicating to each other and the world.
Scout211
@hueyplong:
Yes.
Plus it seemed to me like yet another sales pitch like we’ve seen before (see Trump steaks or Trump University). He’s pushing his branded product to his fans on Fox but he will return to Twitter because he needs the exposure and attention.
Kay
That would be good! Young people don’t know about them. They”ll think it’s new :)
Martin
We’ll have to see how this goes. I suspect Musk will dislike owning Twitter. It’s not really worth much money, and it’s headaches all the way down. I’m surprised that the board didn’t fight this harder.
Musks problem is that if he does any of the things he suggests he wants to do with the platform, then the platform will die. He claims to be a free speech absolutist, but he’s miles from that. If you want to see what a free speech platform looks like, 4chan and 8kun are easy enough to find. Plenty of porn (free speech) hate speech (free speech) quasi criminal activity (free speech) and so on. So much of it that most people don’t want to be around it, which mean that it can’t serve as a mass-market platform.
Twitter relies on Burger King and the US State department being there, and there will be a mass departure of the accounts that give Twitter legitimacy if he does something as benign as bringing Individual #1 back. Noticed a lot of accounts pointing out quite out of the blue that they have a website, so I’m guessing there are a lot of media strategy meetings scheduled for the next week or two.
Guessing I’ll be off the platform within a few days.
sab
@Elizabelle: When Rupert Murdoch finally dies, we need to have worldwide an unspeakably long long funeral. So the commenters in their task of filling empty airspace can finally say what they think since he will be dead and hopefully his kids will be in Australia.
WhatsMyNym
@CaseyL: @artem1s: He’s offering 54.20, but the stock hit a high of just 52.11 today. Not a good sign of confidence.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Omnes Omnibus: Me either…
Anyone remember The Boring Company?
gene108
@artem1s:
Shareholders have an incentive to sell, if they can profit. A stock sells at about $50/share for the past few weeks.
I want to buy this company.
Shareholders would need more than $50/share to have an incentive to sell to me versus just put shares up on the market for anyone to buy.
Kay
@debbie:
Oh, I like Twitter. I just lurk but I like it. Agreed. If it goes away a lot of people will not be heard.
But I don’t control billionaires. He wants it, he’ll probably ruin it, and that’s just the way it is.
jnfr
@CaseyL:
Looks a lot like Tweetdeck to me.
sab
@Kay: One of the joys of being young is that everything is always new. Even vintage clothing!
Matt McIrvin
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Most of them really just want women and minorities driven out to return to the very white male Internet of the 1990s, so a cesspool that accomplishes that is fine for them.
sab
@Kay: As often, you summed up my thoughts. Oh well as usual.
debbie
@Peale:
I think if someone posts and you respond to that post, and then that person makes edits, your response might look really stupid. ?
Elizabelle
@sab: I know. Tell younger people that blogs are the vinyl of internet outreach.
Martin
@Scout211: So, yeah, that’s because Trumps social media company lost about $3B in value due to the news of Musk buying Twitter. Investors are openly wondering why Truth is needed if Musk Twitter exists – so they have their ideas about what is going to happen here.
I’ve heard that a fair bit of the funding for this is coming from foreign investors. Guessing the Saudis, etc. have thrown in, as have some large investment banks.
We’ll see where this all leads. I’m not optimistic of Tesla holding its value (or the auto industry writ large) and I don’t see social media in general holding its value. The economics of it are very, very fragile, as we are seeing with streaming media.
sab
@debbie: Good point. Ukraine needs twitter for now.
Brachiator
@Roger Moore:
It’s not possible to moderate billions of messages. Not even the NSA or equivalent organizations in other countries could do it effectively.
I am not Jon Snow
@Martin: I couldn’t agree more. And yet another in the long list of potential headaches awaiting Musk: what happens when the Chinese government starts leaning on him to shadow-ban certain accounts, or lay off their manipulation of Twitter? Musk has a Tesla factory in China, and that’s quite a bit of leverage.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@sab: Fresh Air did an interview last week with one of the authors of an upcoming CNN+ documentary on the Murdochs (so who knows where it will air now), who said the writers of Succession must have a mole in Murdoch world. Lachlan, more RW (and I’ve read, more racist) than his father, is the designated heir, but the family trust is written in a way that’s gonna make control very difficult for him
Major Major Major Major
@Kay: blogs ? I’ve heard of these. Are they like Substack?
Martin
@Major Major Major Major: Mastodon is having a rough day, btw. Traffic more than doubled from yesterday to today.
In theory it should scale well. But in theory, theory and practice should be the same, but in practice they are not.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
will Cole come back to his blog now?
debbie
This is why I like Twitter:
Sloane Ranger
Haven’t read through all the comments so someone may already have posted, but a report of explosions in the Ministry of State Security in the Russian controlled Transnistrian region of Moldova has just popped up on my news feed. Don’t know what it means, but speculation has started that it’s a Reichstag fire event to justify using the Russian troops stationed there to invade Ukraine from the west. Personally, I don’t see why they need to gin up a reason, but what do I know?
Martin
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Boring company just secured another round of funding at a valuation of $5.7B.
Mind you, I think every project they’ve done is idiotic, but apparently that hasn’t made it home to everyone who is still hiring them.
MisterDancer
I recommend any user of Twitter to download your data: https://twitter.com/settings/download_your_data
If you’re staying, there’s an amazing service for Blocking: https://megablock.xyz/. It Blocks not only a user, but also all the people who like a specific tweet from that user, at one go! I use it extensively, esp. as the Blocklists I used to use, I can’t find anymore.
And yes, also lock it up if you’re at any risk.
All the above said: I’m mindful that Musk ain’t got anything but a promise and 9% right now. I’m choosing to hold pat until shareholder/regulatory approvals are done; I don’t want to give Musk a dime of my money or more attention, yet there are key communities, like schrodingers_cat notes, that aren’t as well represented anywhere else in the public sphere, online, today.
That people think Twitter is just horrific busts of hate is…not 100% incorrect. Yet there’s so much more, and this is a tragedy for the Progressive spaces that do communicate and interact via Twitter today, in my opinion. To take one example: as much as the Arab Spring had major issues pushing thru, if it wasn’t for social media, and esp. Twitter, I doubt it would ever have been a thing.
That’s the sort of thing, that Musk is putting at risk with his billions.
Kay
@Major Major Major Major:
I don’t think my youngest child has any familiarity with blogs at all, and he’s quite political.
I wonder if they would like them- start you own, it might be appealing. Younger liberals writing longer than a Tweet would not be a bad thing.
Poe Larity
Poor Elon, he just doesn’t get the respect he deserves.
He’s like Steven Seagal, whose every movie is him fighting for the underdog against The Man. He tosses oil execs into a vat of oil (bad hair day for Michael Caine), saves native land. Edward Abbey with a judo belt.
debbie
@debbie:
And also stuff like this:
Another Scott
We know that Musk has shot from the hip in the past, and we know (from reporting) that he has broken rules about disclosure in accumulating his ~ 9% holdings and tender offer and had to file amended documentation. I wonder if he’s still doing it wrong.
NPR ATC’s reporting on it this afternoon made the point that Twitter has never made a profit, doesn’t seem to have a sensible way to monetize it business, and there’s lots of dissention in the ranks about Musk. Presumably Musk will get his way, but that doesn’t mean that he can make a business of it (especially if he’s serious about (almost) anything goes free speech (he should review USENET’s history…).
We’ll see how it shakes out.
Cheers,
Scott.
sab
@Kay: Our blogfathers and frontpagers know how hard the blog software is to negotiate. Me, I haven’t a clue.
Ruckus ??
@Princess:
I was on twitter and now I’m not. My life is better. There are a number of people who were well worth following but they won’t be worth it with EM owning the place. Because I can not see it getting in any way better with him owning it and suspect that it will go the opposite direction, worse.
Calouste
@Martin: I think you mean $3 billion in valuation. The value of Truth Social is $0, rounding up.
cain
@Another Scott:
I look forward to his loss of money ..
Roger Moore
@PJ:
Twitter has more than one problem. There’s the problem for society that journalists misuse it. But for individual Twitter users, there’s the problem of harassment and intimidation. Twitter has made some effort to keep the harassment and intimidation under control by having TOS that ban things like doxing and threats. A big worry for many vulnerable users, and for less vulnerable users who care about Twitter not turning into a wasteland, is that Musk’s supposed respect for free speech means no longer banning people no matter what they say, giving license to those who want to harass and intimidate their enemies off the platform.
sab
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Lachlan is most racist so of course he is the heir. Sigh.
Fox built it’ s entertainment empire appealing to urban audiences. I guess Lachlan forgot that, or thinks he can move on from that.
CaseyL
@jnfr: Exactly – thanks! I was trying to think of the term for “multiple search stacks,” and Tweetdeck is it.
Ruckus ??
@beef:
Musk is either dumb or evil.
It is possible to be both……
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Kay:
@Major Major Major Major:
I prefer forums myself, too. Reddit is the most like the old 2000s internet. For better and worse. Though I do like being on Tumblr and Discord, too
Brachiator
@MisterDancer:
That’s a great example. And of course there are countries and political leaders who want to control social media. Musk is just one of many trying to exert pressure and influence.
But I think that he will lose billions if he acquires Twitter and sprays his musk on it.
Kay
@sab:
I didn’t think it was difficult. I didn’t do anything “fancy” though- no pictures or anything :)
How it looks matters a lot to me, reading. I never used Facebook because I hate how it looks, all clashing and jarring. It’s like chaos to me.
Scout211
Timing.
Kay
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
I forgot about Reddit. Sort of a bloggy format.
Cameron
The Barnum story reminded me of one I heard a long time ago. Don’t remember the name of the politician who was supposedly involved, but he accused his opponent of having a sister who was an “active thespian.”
Kay
@sab:
I take it back. I did do pictures after a while. I distinctly remember sizing (and re-sizing) a photo of a 4-H bunny, for this blog. A black and white Dutch :)
sab
@Kay: Adam Silverman links like a maniac, so he has issues. His turf is difficult.
Glad to see normal blogposting is easy (except for the writing.) Encourage your kid!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Cameron: A (I just learned!) probably apocryphal story about ancestral Florida man, Senator George Smathers and his campaign against Claude Pepper
sab
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): You have been quite absent for at least a month. Don’t think we haven’t noticed.
Where have you been? Hope it went well.
Feathers
@Peale: The real problem of an edit button is that the lack of one means that if the tweet is posted, it’s what you said. With an edit button, someone could tweet something, people could react, and then the original poster could edit it and claim they never made the original post.
Of course there could be ways around that. Edited posts could be marked, with the original version publicly available somehow. But all in all, adding an edit function seems like it would create more problems than it would solve. People have gotten used to the lack of one and make allowances.
sab
@Kay: I don’t do Facebook. That is how I feel about Lawyers Guns and Money and Daily Kos. Major project fighting through their formats. Especially LGW. Kos just offers too much, which is a different problem.
Major Major Major Major
@Martin:
OTOH twitter itself used to crash famously often…
Bill Arnold
@Feathers:
I follow some seriously anonymous and interesting users on twitter, and have >0 anonymous (seriously so) accounts myself. If authentication can be done via email exchange, fine. Otherwise, many interesting accounts will leave, and that includes many dissidents who would be persecuted or prosecuted or killed if they revealed their identities. Worldwide, especially; Saudi Arabia had at least one twitter employee insider who doxxed people for MSB’s regime. But even in the US, criticizing power can have significant associated risks. And I am 100 percent certain that E Musk is looking to attempt to doxx some twitter anonymous accounts that interest him. (With emphasis on “attempt”.)
trollhattan
@debbie:
Lordy!. Loved the postscript as well.
“Miller and Carter have asked for their fish fork back“
Major Major Major Major
@beef:
Worse—he’s an engineer.
brendancalling
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I use Reddit a lot. I got kicked off Twitter for saying some thing nasty about that walking turd Sinema, and barely miss it. Reddit is a lot of fun, and quite freewheeling.
Another Scott
@wizened_guy: Excellent points.
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
persistentillusion
@debbie: I knew a guy from Wales named Dai and yes. before you ask, he was that strange.
sab
@Major Major Major Major: Engineers aren’t horrible. They just think differently. A bit too rigorous for the normal world. Facts is facts etc.
Bill Arnold
@trollhattan:
Install the “Cookie Remover” plugin/addon, and click on the cookie icon whenever a website starts misbehaving. It also helps with some paywalled newsites like the NYTimes.
Roger Moore
@Peale:
IMO, the big problem with an edit button is what happens if someone tries to edit their tweet after it’s been replied to. I don’t think this is an unsolvable problem- you could forbid editing after the first response and/or keep a highly visible edit history- but the possibility of someone trying to change history so they don’t look stupid is a real one.
Roger Moore
@Martin:
Maybe they think $44 billion is more money than the company is worth, so they’re doing right by the shareholders by grabbing the cash while the offer is on the table.
burnspbesq
@germy:
All of them, Katie.
Martin
@Feathers:
I see this differently. Social media will never unfuck itself until it tackles the identity problem, so Musk is at least on the right track on that one. If you take away people’s anonymity, then you take away a LOT of the opportunity for abuse. It still lacks an enforcement mechanism in that law enforcement cannot keep up with the sheer volume of harassment and whatnot, and there’s jurisdictional issues, and all that. So even if you do get everyone authenticated, you still have a host of problems, but you cannot solve any of the problems without that getting done.
And then you have a fuckton of issues around the authentication/identity bit. For one, it’s hella expensive to do. And you automatically invite a host of quasi moderation/censorship problems just around doing that. Government has provided no framework to assist in that task, so they have to do the whole lift themselves. Getting rid of fake accounts by itself would be immensely beneficial. Leaves a lot of problems still to solve, and problems that Musk generally doesn’t handle well.
That said, I agree that a lot of the community will leave if authentication is imposed, in part because of the hassle, but mostly because the most colorful users on Twitter don’t want the accountability.
The other thing that authentication would address is their monetization problem. No company is going to pay for ads that go to spam bots, entities that can’t buy the product being advertised. That was an important factor for Facebook moving in that direction – it shored up their ad rates by a lot.
I’ve long argued that identity is the job of the government, as it has always been. Every identity you have is regulated by the government, except online. And online it’s just a shitshow.
But look at the reporting on the Libs of TikTok account, and the firestorm that turned up once the person who ran it had their name attached to it. Anonymity was enabling. It’s enabling for whistleblowing, but it’s also enabling for harassment. There are mechanisms to address the former that don’t open up the latter.
Just Some Fuckhead
I am currently in talks with John Cole to purchase Balloon Juice. I’m really excited to fix all of the things I’ve been complaining about for years. I’m a free speech absolutist so the current regime of censorship will be removed and all the free speech I approve of will be allowed. Of course, my critics will be given the opportunity to moderate their views.
On to threaded comments!
Martin
@Roger Moore: It definitely is more than it’s worth. But the board shouldn’t be of that opinion.
Ghost of Joe Liebling*s Dog
@RandomMonster:
Well, I mean, isn’t it called “TRUTH”?
How in the name of all that’s holy is he supposed to remember that???
Sure Lurkalot
@Martin: The Boring Company’s projects are truly idiotic. I’ve read some pretty snarky articles by transit bros that point to their faults and foibles. I saw one Twitter thread where the Muskbros claim the tunneling solves problems such as street flooding because apparently, underground structures can’t flood. Dozens of pictures of flooded subways and parking garages followed.
I have a mission for that Boring Company if it digs digging so much…bury America’s overhead utility lines. That would free up ROW, minimize fire hazards and beautify the country.
sab
@Roger Moore: As usual Balloon Juice does it best. Couple of seconds to edit (doing the proof read we all should do and never actually do before the post, and then a couple of seconds to realize “Yikes, forgot to proofread” or “Yikes angry as I was I came to my senses.” Beyond that proofreading is just dishonest editing.
Roger Moore
@Brachiator:
I’m not suggesting that every message get human confirmation before it’s posted. I’m suggesting that before a message is put in the naughty bin, and certainly before a user gets a timeout or a ban, that a human takes a look at the evidence.
Another Scott
@Brachiator:
China seems to be able to do it.
I think Roger Moore is right here – it’s the cost, not the inability to do so. (Of course, having the state behind China’s actions makes it easier for them – Twitter can’t (yet) send people to labor and re-education camps.)
Cheers,
Scott.
different-church-lady
Maybe once Musk is done ruining Twitter, reporters will remember how to do something other than tweet.
Martin
@Sure Lurkalot: Yeah. Nothing against tunneling – but the problem isn’t the lack of tunnels, it’s the overreliance on cars. Musk is just making the problem worse.
Bobby Thomson
@Roger Moore: It’s probably way more than a discounted cash flow would justify. The fact that the board didn’t already have a pill in place suggests either ignorance or a belief that the stock was already overvalued in the market.
I can’t imagine Musk has any ideas that people far more knowledgeable than him haven’t already considered three times.
burnspbesq
@ksmiami:
SpaceX has also committed multiple felony violations of Federal environmental laws, but I’m sure you don’t give a shit about that.
debbie
@persistentillusion:
“I’ve gone missing for four days and all I’ve got to show for it is this fish fork in my back.”
?
sab
@Martin: My identity through my nym is beyond obvious to anyone who even casually knows me. I really don’t want people across the planet googling me. If I am out of line I am very confident that people who know me will pipe up. Of course, with a less transparent nym that would not happen.
Old Man Shadow
I deactivated my account this morning.
Twitter is optional, not essential. And if it’s going to give a platform to Nazis, violent insurrectionists, and liars who kill people, I’ve got zero time and tolerance for it.
debbie
@different-church-lady:
Maybe he’ll run out of money and just disappear.
Old Man Shadow
@different-church-lady: Hey, hey, hey! That is GROSSLY unfair.
They also know how to bury a story until it’s time to write a tell-all book for a lot of money.
sab
@Another Scott: China has two billion people, we only have 330 million.
Martin
@sab: I don’t argue that point. I don’t use my name here either.
That said, free speech was never intended to mean free of consequences. You can’t have both. Anonymous speech does feel free, but it ultimately kills the concept because it enables abuse.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I wonder if Musk will add that “they’re not dead!” tag when some beloved older celebrity is trending, as Bob Newhart, who is apparently fine at 92, is right now
Roger Moore
@Martin:
A possible middle ground is to make authentication possible but not mandatory. Twitter already has a form of this with their blue check marks*. They’re limited to people who meet some kind of standard of notability so Twitter feels it’s worth their while to authenticate them, but the idea is that people with the distinguishing mark get added credibility because they can be traced to a real-world identity. Making something like that more widely available would make bots and sock puppets less effective. People who are worried about harassment could just auto filter for only people with authenticated identities, so at least they could report their harassers and be sure there was a traceable person behind them. At the same time, people who didn’t want their identity known could create non-authenticated accounts with the associated drawbacks.
*Which are actually white marks on a blue background, but get called blue checks anyway.
JPL
@Just Some Fuckhead: f.k it
Major Major Major Major
@Another Scott: I wouldn’t want to use a large site where all moderation decisions are first made by humans. It would take forever for abusive content to get the kibosh.
janesays
@Omnes Omnibus: There’s no real evidence to suggest it won’t. He got the financing lined up by leveraging his Tesla stock, which is why the board was happy to sign off on it. Shareholders stand to get a nice return on their investment, so I can’t see them blocking it.
Geminid
I’m fairly new to social media including blogs. I follow maybe a dozen people on Twitter, but I do not actively participate. So I’m not that concerned about Twitter’s future even though I maybe should be. I’ll just keep following Ragnarok Lobster and Mangy Jay, and note what they say or do about the platform.
Roger Moore
@Martin:
I don’t see why the board shouldn’t be of that opinion. Maybe it would be bad for the board to publicly state the stock is overvalued, but they ought to have a realistic idea of its value. If someone is willing to pay cash for more than the board thinks the company is worth, they would be failing their fiduciary duty to ignore the offer.
JPL
@Geminid: Two things to remember is never read the comments, and never comment. I follow several, and I have to say Bette Midler is a favorite
bettemidler (@BetteMidler) / Twitter
Major Major Major Major
@Roger Moore: I’m pretty sure what musk is talking about is expanding verification, yeah, but who the fuck knows.
Peale
@Bobby Thomson: on other forum’s the bullies somehow believe that he’s going to get rid of the ability to block and they are quite giddy about being able to bust our lieberal bubbles. Yeah, we’ll just stick around because we have to, I guess. Yeah, it means a lot of us will be driven from the site, but we’ll go somewhere else. Its not like blocking is some kind of super advance technology that only Twitter had developed.
I know it sucks. But its not like the net has been some kind of grand discussion of social liberalism.
sab
@Martin: Free speech with peple wo know you is free. Free speech across the planet is just opening yourself up for random abuse, whether tgey know you or not.
By the way, “I am an extremely pretty young woman who might live in your neighborhood, and her pitbull is very friendly and loves strangers.” Everything there is true except for my age, and possibly my looks. Husband thinks I am gorgeous. Pitbull is as advertised. A sweety.
JPL
Doug is on auto pilot. New York Times Pitchbot (@DougJBalloon) / Twitter
Tonight on Twitter Spaces, hear Glenn Greenwald, Jesse Singal, Peter Thiel and Elon Musk explain how their commitment to free speech is so great, they will sue every last person on earth to uphold it if needed
la caterina
@Scout211: I wonder if Trump has some agreement not to compete with Truth Social on other social media? Just a thought.
Bill Arnold
@Peale:
A few problems:
(1) People, both on twitter and on other venues, e.g. news articles/opinion pieces, link tweets. Currently the only way to break them is to delete the tweet, and that’s pretty clear (and solvable with an image or a copy of the text). Edit would break this, allowing twitter accounts to effectively edit other peoples material, even if edit history were preserved and easily accessible. (How many people look at Wikipedia edit history? I do, but am an outlier.)
(2) If there is no edit history, twitter becomes opaque for those who are trying to map influence operations/computational propaganda. Current, the tweet id contains a literal timestamp ( https://oduwsdl.github.io/tweetedat/ ) and so twitter is reliably time-stamped, and people can easily (through twitter apis) find the temporal roots of a propaganda tree. Take that away, and it instantly becomes a pure disinformation/propaganda cesspool. People could push out/amplify computational propaganda and then obscure the fact that they did so in cleanup operations. Such maneuvers can be detected e.g. by continuously capturing the state of twitter, but this greatly increases the burden.
Another Scott
She’s just about everywhere with the richy-rich types, isn’t she?
The second one has gotta hurt a bit, given his hair now…
Cheers,
Scott.
Feathers
@Martin: Nope. All you are seeing is the downside. Anonymous posting allows for communities to develop that would otherwise be unable to connect with each other. How many people in disability Twitter are out to their employers about the problems they face? Or to their families about their mental health struggles? Activism Twitter would be an entirely different place. Requiring real names is part of the reason why Facebook is such a right wing cesspool. These people live in communities where their views are the norm and not just permitted, but encouraged.
What about domestic violence victims and people with stalkers? Are they supposed to just stay offline and safely silent so you can be all high and mighty about keeping Twitter free of abuse? How many people here have jobs where they’d get in trouble for what they posted? Would Black Lives Matter movement have unfolded the way it did without the anonymous accounts of Black Twitter?
And don’t say that verification would be secret. It could have been secret all along and now Elon Musk would own it.
Only verified accounts helps the powerful and strangles everyone else.
Martin
@Roger Moore: I don’t see how that makes for a serviceable middle ground. The primary threat in social media is the cost of identity is effectively zero. Which means the cost of abuse is effectively zero. You can automate tipping up new accounts for nothing, and do it absurdly quickly. An awful lot of lawful behavior is the result of being unable to instantly delete yourself and create a new you.
Yes, there remains unresolved issues like how far that non-anonymous accountability should go. Does my drunk poor taste tweet forever ban me from employment, etc? Those issues can be addressed. Not easily, and not by Musk, but with a larger regulatory effort.
The cost of that identity needs to be meaningfully non-zero, even if the cost is in time and not money. If it took an actual human an hour to set up an account, a LOT of these problems would go away. Hard to do that in a free ecosystem unless the identity is backed by the government. But the cost is literally our democracy.
Omnes Omnibus
@Feathers: I definitely side with you on this issue.
Felanius Kootea
@Major Major Major Major: I just followed you :-).
Steeplejack
@NotHoodlum: “BREAKING: Scott Baio and Kevin Sorbo buy TruthSocial for $50 in all cash deal.”
Martin
@Feathers: I don’t discount any of that. I also don’t see how anonymous social media is either a necessary or even useful tool toward those goals. Understand, I’ve done the whistleblower thing multiple times, and none of it involved social media.
We don’t need to tolerate employers firing people over their social media. We can change that. We can require that social media platforms include better protections for users.
The reason why Facebook is a right wing cesspool is because it’s trivial to mass create fake accounts whose sole purpose is to amplify the right wing assholes. That’s the feedback loop, even for the people with authenticated accounts – their message is boosted in the algorithm by the fake accounts. Those purges of right-wing twitter users were just bot account deletions. The popular messages weren’t popular at all, apart from the one person in Russia who was managing the accounts.
We’re seeing right now through social media how close our democracy is to failure. No offense to the BLM protestors or domestic violence victims or disability Twitter but if that happens, whatever benefits they may have gotten out of anonymous accounts will be over. You have to return speech to accountability, and *then* you wrap the necessary protections around that for these groups.
Martin
@Feathers:
I think you are seriously discounting how badly the powerful are abusing the system through the anonymous accounts.
Does nobody here know what Cambridge Analytica actually did? Facebook alone is stopping over 5 *billion* fake accounts a year. And a lot are still getting through. You think the unpowerful are the ones writing AI algorithms to generate fake accounts and user profiles?
Another Scott
@Martin:
I’m not sure I follow.
It seems to me that the issues with easy creation of fake accounts has to do with the architecture of the platform, not with whether users are anonymous or not. Enforcing rules about abuse don’t require not being anonymous either.
I agree with you that coming up with systems to demonstrate and prove identity is a government function (going back to birth registries). I don’t think it follows, though, that Twitter or FB or some electronic BB needs to know my unique identifying details in real life to run their business.
We have hundreds of years of experience with people writing letters to the editor that are published, but those people didn’t have to provide all sorts of digital breadcrumbs for masses of malefactors to be able to instantly and at near-zero-cost track them down and make their lives miserable (or worse).
These social media companies make billions for their investors. Giving yet more private user information to them so that they, somehow, police their platforms seems like a solution that will not actually address the problem. The problem is that they do not enforce the lax and easily weaponized rules that they have.
The primary threat to social media companies is they might actually be subject to enforced rules and might actually have to spend money to enforce rules on malefactors abusing their sites. The primary threat to social media users is that they may be subject to attack by trolls and other malefactors for opinions they express.
“Yes, we made you give us all your identifying information to use our service, and yes we have tracking cookies following you wherever you go online and sell that information to other companies and you have no idea what they’re doing with it, and yes we were hacked by some crime syndicate in Moscow, and yes you lost all your money, but you have no recourse with us because we just provide a communications service and your financial data is your responsibility – not ours…”
Grr…,
Scott.
bk
Gonna repeat a comment that I made elsewhere earlier, and I apologize if this has already been mentioned on this thread, as I am too tired to scroll all the way through, BUT – he was never really given the boot from Twitter, as that braindead person who is his “spokesperson” (Liz something) reposts his shit almost daily on Twitter under her name and calls it “NEW!” Why she wasn’t also banned is beyond me, but it is moot now. Or, as MTG and Boebert would likely say if they had to use the word in a tweet, ,”mute”.
Feathers
@Martin: I could not be myself or talk about my actual life and disabilities on any platform that connected my real identity with my username. That is true for so many people. We should all just wait for your system where people can’t be fired for what they post online to be able to speak about our lives and truth?
Yes, bots are a problem. But they are a problem the platforms are choosing not to solve. Look how fast they get rid of people for copyright violations. They get rid of the Nazis quickly where ever they are legally required to.
Platforms can solve everything you are complaining about technically. There are researchers who can find the bots fairly easily and the platforms have far more data and resources. They can’t protect people who need to post anonymously in the same way.
This is equivalent to saying college students complaining about the bigotry they experience is as big a problem as anti CRT textbook censorship and the don’t say gay laws that are passing in red states.
jnfr
@WhatsMyNym:
I was sad that his 54.20 bid didn’t juice my marijuana stocks.
HinTN
@Mike in NC: Yeah, but, and I know I’m late, Starlink is the best damn internet I’ve ever had. Yeah, city folks can snorkel up their sleeves at me about bumpkin speed and I’m ok with that.
Ella in New Mexico
@Kay:
How. The Hell. Is THAT not a serious campaign finance violation?
Unless, of course, the Trump campaign was paying FOX to GOTV for Trump and claimed as such on their filings?
Roger Moore
@Another Scott:
How do you propose preventing people from creating a scad of fake accounts if you don’t make an attempt to distinguish between real and fake? As I said above, I think the middle ground solution is to created two classes of account: authenticated and not authenticated. Authenticated accounts would be tied to a real world identity and vice versa, so each person would be limited to one authenticated account.
You could do a lot by limiting things to authenticated accounts. Want to avoid harassment? Mute unauthenticated accounts. Anyone who tries to harass you from an authenticated account is potentially in trouble because the harassment can be tied back to a real identity. Want to avoid having people game the popularity metrics? Limit those metrics to authenticated accounts, and selling likes is a lot less viable.
hotshoe
I’m already following some folks who have migrated to / returned to Tumblr since the Muskrat news was announced.
It won’t hurt him at all, of course, losing them in onesies / twosies.
But definitely makes my life better to have one less reason to be looking at twits.
RaflW
@Another Scott: “NPR ATC’s reporting on it this afternoon made the point that Twitter has never made a profit, doesn’t seem to have a sensible way to monetize it business, and there’s lots of dissension in the ranks…”
Seems like a fantastic time for Jack and a whole lotta shareholders to dump this bag o flaming poo in Elon’s hands.
BTW, I’ve lost about 8 followers on the twitt-box this evening. I can’t say if those are unfollows, quits off the platform, or some of each. I typically might net out +/- one to three followers a month.
I also unfollowed about 90 accounts today.
Another Scott
@Roger Moore:
I’m no internet engineer. I don’t know the details. But presumably Twitter could spend some of the money they spend on giving out white/blue checkmarks on seeing how many fake accounts per second are being generated at particular IP addresses or range of addresses. Ultimately, the packets are coming from somewhere, and there are ways (far above my pay grade) to figure out whether bots or scripts are requesting the accounts. Have SuperCaptchas, have 2-factor authentication, have waiting periods, have existing users vouch for new users, make it a condition of service that an individual can have at most 2 accounts (work and personal) – try to create more and you’re banned, etc. If an ISP allows malefactors to try to game the rules, then ban that ISP. These are solvable problems, it seems to me.
Given the problems with identity theft, I don’t see that somehow “authenticating” users actually solves the problem. How do you know that the authentication is accurate? Databases get hacked all the time. Until/unless we get to a system where we have to use ID.me to login (and even that is probably not hack proof – nothing so far is), and do we really want to go that far?? And what about countries that don’t use that??
Of course anything that slows down signing up for new accounts would cost money and wouldn’t be perfect, but it’s a way for companies to have a service that is anonymous/pseudonymous and isn’t instantly taken over by troll bots. (At least for a while…) Ultimately, either these companies are going to have to develop and implement systems to automatically quickly take down content that violates their terms of service, or they’re going to have to hire people to do so. Or both.
It’s not the zillions of fake accounts that are the real problem, or people not using their real names, it’s the content and the actions by malicious users. They can take the content down (as (someone pointed out above) they rapidly do with DMCA claims because that can cost them real money…) and ban the accounts.
Cheers,
Scott.
RaflW
Jack Ass has now spoken:
I can hang out with some of the trippiest, hippiest of light body folks. I’ve done days of labyrinth walking, cast spells and spiral danced with Starhawk, meditated skyclad on a raft near the MN Boundary Waters, and ridden drum journeys in the high desert of New Mexico.
But “I trust [Elon’s] mission to extend the light of consciousness”?
FUCK that shit, man. Jebus.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@RaflW:
glc
@Sphouch: Never joined, but I follow a few people’s feeds just by following them. Don’t need an account for that. Just a bookmark.
Nettoyeur
Bugboy
Regardless of Musk’s claims to be the guardian of Free Speech(tm), I can’t help but think that he has this idea that somehow owning Twitter will enable him to avoid running afoul of the FEC…