lol buddy this is twitter every tweet is wrong and bad https://t.co/RiDKylNxpC
— kilgore trout, death to putiner (@KT_So_It_Goes) May 10, 2022
we already knew Musk opposed Trump’s Twitter ban and was “dismayed” he still wasn’t allowed to tweet, but i guess the day of a massive new Tesla recall is a good time to whip the media up in a frenzy about it pic.twitter.com/7ONXXyVHhu
— Paris Marx (@parismarx) May 10, 2022
thus ensuring a culture of zero-initiative will permanently embed itself at all levels of twitter; nobody is gonna do a thing that puts their neck at risk at a company where the owner capriciously involves himself in day-to-day operational decisions https://t.co/799ipusB32
— kilgore trout, death to putiner (@KT_So_It_Goes) May 10, 2022
poor guy wasn’t getting enough attention with all the conversations about women losing their reproductive rights pic.twitter.com/1bOctfUNoj
— Karl Bode (@KarlBode) May 10, 2022
The key elements of Musk’s conception of “free speech” apparently are rote compliance with govt censorship regimes, no matter how repressive, so long as it’s the law, and absolute rejection of the responsibility of private actors in civil society to choose what they platform. https://t.co/QJbEcgJsUg
— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) May 9, 2022
In a total coincidence the policy is great news for the censorious Chinese, Saudis, and Qataris that Elon does business with. https://t.co/Jd0j22nCNT
— Tim Miller (@Timodc) May 9, 2022
Every empirical study of Twitter has shown a right-wing bias:
“Our results reveal a remarkably consistent trend: In 6 out of 7 countries studied, the mainstream political right enjoys higher algorithmic amplification than the mainstream political left.”https://t.co/JXBqPkngwA https://t.co/HEdTJ0o2Sk
— Max Berger (@maxberger) May 9, 2022
There is, however, a plentiful and growing body of evidence that @elonmusk harbors right-wing bias.
Since attempting to acquire Twitter, he’s relentless attacked the left, while amplifying right-wing conspiracy theorists like Mike Cernovich and Tim Poole.
— Max Berger (@maxberger) May 9, 2022
Btw when you’re, say, bartending, you see a Loud Idiot With Opinions sway a couple people into endorsing some total hogwash over the course of an evening, so it’s not surprising that if you let that guy become “president” or “the richest man in the world” it’s really bad.
— Hemry, Local Bartender (@BartenderHemry) May 10, 2022
I’ve met plenty of “I am smart and know X very well therefore I have deep insights into absolutely everything” geniuses.
They tend to need legal assistance. https://t.co/3U8sQvnqX7
— WrongAndBadHat (@Popehat) May 10, 2022
NotMax
How is it seemingly no one has ever introduced Musk to blow and hookers to occupy his time?
//
piratedan
I do sometimes wonder why none of our supposed rich allies haven’t offered to step up and provide a platform for reasonable voices and exclude all of the bad actors, not saying that we have to live in a bubble…. but hell, there has to be a way to exclude of the bad faith that runs so much effective interference for those on the right.
FelonyGovt
“Wrong and bad” tweets. His vocabulary is as sophisticated as Trump’s.
Shalimar
@NotMax: This is mellow Musk after smoking tons of weed. You do not want to see what he was like back in the South African days.
NotMax
Tesla whoopsie.
scav
My Elon quote de jour was his homage to Chinese labor “They won’t just be burning the midnight oil, they will be burning the 3am oil, they won’t even leave the factory type of thing, whereas in America people are trying to avoid going to work at all.”
Clearly visions of 996 (shifts of 9 to 9, 6 days of week) with workers signing away rights to overtime and paid time off are dancing before his eyes as the promised return to ‘mercan greatness. (luffly bits from here). I don’t know. Being pancaked by one of his malfunctioning cars might be the preferred option.
sukabi
@FelonyGovt: he is also the guy that wanted to equip his Tesla’s with fart noises….soooo…
BellyCat
Popehat’s a lurker here? //
oldster
He thinks that it will be easy and uncontroversial to decide which tweets are “wrong and bad,” and then to delete them. And that he can do this without committing censorship.
He thinks that the limits of free speech are settled by “the law,” without noticing that there are hundreds of legal systems around the world that disagree about these very questions.
This guy is more naive and simple-minded than most highschool seniors. He seems incapable of serious thought on any hard issue.
How has he persuaded people that he is worth listening to on any topic?
No need to answer — I live in a country where millions voted for trump.
BellyCat
@oldster: Excellent point. However, who needs the judiciary when one owns Twitter? T’is the same nowadays, oui?
geg6
Sooooo…
Apparently his deal to buy Twitter is on hold. No details on why.
lowtechcyclist
@oldster:
A guy named Tevye answered that one a long time ago:
The most important men in town would come to fawn on me!
They would ask me to advise them like a Solomon the Wise
“If you please, Reb Tevye…”
“Pardon me, Reb Tevye…”
Posing problems that would cross a rabbi’s eyes!
And it won’t make one bit of difference if I answer right or wrong
When you’re rich, they think you really know!
And while I’m doing earworms, every time I see a tweet from “Hemry, Local Bartender,” I get Liz Phair’s “Polyester Bride” running through my mind (with a change of one consonant, mind you):
I asked Hemry, my bartending friend
Shalimar
@geg6: He’s going to argue that a decent percentage of accounts on Twitter are fake and that Twitter knows it, meaning they are illegally inflating the stock value. This would allow him to get out of the deal without paying the however many billion fee.
Nicole
@lowtechcyclist: Goddamnit, “Polyester Bride” is one of my go-to karaoke songs and you have now ensured I’m going to laugh every time I get to that lyric. Thanks a lot.
Shalimar
I don’t think Musk ever wanted to buy Twitter. This has all been a stock pump and dump, and he has been liquidating his 9% stake at the inflated values for the last month.
Vidya
On the other hand, Twitter taught me the word “fachidiot” so is it really that bad?
Baud
@Shalimar:
Everyone knows it.
Shalimar
@Baud: Twitter claims it is under 5%.
Dorothy A. Winsor
They don’t need no stinking empirical studies.
Actually, it probably doesn’t occur to them that there are empirical studies or that they could perform them.
Geo Wilcox
@Baud: Same thing with Facebook and every other social media platform.
Kay
Ford has a ad for EV’s that is built around comparing Ford’s plans for “EV’s for everyone” to Tesla’s exclusivity. They don’t use “Tesla” but the comparison is clear- footage of huge Ford plants that are being converted, how long they’ve been making cars, how they don’t do rockets or tunnels, just vehicles. It’s clever- Musk as celebrity gadfly and Ford as able to produce at scale “for everyone”. I wonder if he’s aware of it.
Brachiator
@piratedan:
Owning a newspaper or media site is a bad investment. Bezos owns the Washington Post, but appears to let it run without interference.
A billionaire owns the Los Angeles Times and a San Diego paper, but is losing millions of dollars. But one lefty site said that since the owner is worth about $7 billion he should be willing to take a loss and not make any cuts or lay offs. But losses of $50 to $100 million a year… He could be doing better things with his money.
Sadly, in a few years Los Angeles may not have a newspaper at all, almost unimaginable for a major city.
Rupert Murdoch is losing money on many of his media properties, but he doesn’t care because he wants the political power. His net worth is $18.9 billion USD. He has deep pockets to go along with his malignant ego.
azlib
@Shalimar:
Sounds about right to me. Is the SEC paying attention given his previous infractions?
MisterDancer
There is. But that way doesn’t bring you the masses. And it’s not sustainable at scale, either.
Doing actually good tech stuff at scale is a brutal problem. There are a lot of costs, and a lot of…disincentives, let’s say, to do the right thing.
Baud
@Shalimar: Could be. I technically have an account that I never use. I wonder how much traffic is from fake accounts.
@Geo Wilcox:
True. I, for example, am fake.
Kay
Ridiculous.
BellyCat
Why should “fake” discourage anyone?
We’ve built entire myths around justice, around community policing, and around the penal system, to name but a few.
A good friend last night claimed the same was true for the entire system of government.
“Fake” is the best scam going!
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@azlib: politics is likely a smoke screen for stuff like SEC. Maybe it’s a bet that the conservatives in SEC will overlook the pump and dump, because “Musk’s heart in the right place”.
SFAW
@Baud:
You may be fake, but you’re OUR fake. Pants or not, by the way.
catclub
on the spectrum. fantastic engineer. free speech legal theorist, not so much.
SFAW
@catclub:
Not sure that’s accurate. Not saying he isn’t, but he’s more of a “tech visionary,” which does not necessarily mean he’s a better-than-average engineer.It may be kinda like saying Steve Jobs was a “fantastic engineer.” Jobs was amazing, but not an engineer.
Jinchi
Musk is passionate about
free speechthe right of wealthy men to have a public forum, unencumbered by consequences for their actual words.debbie
@Kay:
Or heading off a potential election issue.
Shalimar
@SFAW: I’m not sure how much of a visionary he is either. He does put money into future-looking fields that progress human knowledge. But how much of that is him and how much is other people with the original ideas, I don’t know.
I do remember that he wasn’t a founder of Tesla. He was an investor who kicked the original visionaries out of the company and turned himself into it’s face.
Ken
In fairness, he got a great buy on CasioTone synthesizer chips, and they come with fart, frog, gunshot, and train whistle.
SFAW
@Shalimar:
Didn’t know that.
I still think he’s visionary to a good extent, but I realize my assessment might not be accurate.
But I’m pretty sure he’s an asshole.
Jager
@Kay:
After a Porsche EV sent the electric car record on the Nurburgring in Germany. Musk sent a Tesla S for a speed run on the track, No publicity, very hush-hush. Tesla added a 3rd motor to the car. They never published the results. A couple of enterprising car writers videoed the test and took a lot of pictures. They noticed the car had California HOV stickers. One of them took a picture of the VIN, checked it, and discovered the car was a factory recall.
Jager
@SFAW:
Tesla’s former Vice President of Engineering designed and built Motor Trend’s “Car of the Year” the Lucid Air. The new EVs from Mercedes, Lucid, etc, make Tesla seem old. Musk has never solved the replacement parts problem. Good luck if you get into a fender bender, you’ll wait months for body parts. That and a bunch of stupid shit like having to use the touch screen to adjust your seat, operate the sound system, or the damned door locks. Add to that, squeaks and rattles…
oatler
@Ken:
And Gene Belcher wants a word with him.
Ruckus ??
@SFAW:
Elon is a visionary to his bank balance. He has made progress towards the future of the automobile. At a rather high end price. He likes money. And yes so do all the rest of us. But if I were going to paint a picture of him it would be of his face on Scrooge McDuck’s body, playing in a pile of gold coins in his bank vault. He likes his money a lot more than most like theirs. And he thinks his money makes him a better person. Yes, he’s invested money in the future and made it the here and now. He, like the vast majority of the uber wealthy, think that his money makes him a massively better person with rights and powers that you and I shouldn’t and don’t have. It doesn’t.
And that point, that money makes a person better is the basis of most troubles in the world. Elon is building cars of the future right now. Except that a large majority can not afford to purchase one. And it seems that his concept that he can make a car that thinks better than the normal person behind the wheel keeps being proven to be not true. Yes people crash their cars all the time and and say and do stupid things all the time. Elon thinks that the computers in his car will make everything better than the humans that designed and build them. That is the major flaw in the computers taking over the world – humans designed and built the concepts, the software, the components, the computers that build and operate the cars. Some of that makes things better, some of that makes mistakes in process, and in outcome. All of this may be better than not having the computers. But to think that anything designed/built by man is not subject to the ideals, ideas and mistakes that humans make is only screwing themselves. And quite possibly everyone else.
Dopey-o
Jobs was the personification of Ken Kesey’s definition of a leader: he goes to the mountaintop and shouts ‘Hey everybody! Come over here!’
Jobs saw the future and refined some existing inventions. He exerted his vision and charisma to bend the future to his vision.
Musk is just Jobs without the vision or charisma or problem solving skills or motivation drive. IOW, a rich prick who hasn’t actually contributed anything, and isn’t very entertaining
oldster
@catclub:
Yeah, I don’t buy his having engineering chops. Two examples:
He’s a fraud in everything he does. He’s gotten rich by being a fraud, but then again so did Trump (that and a lot of Russian money).