Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

Americans barely caring about Afghanistan is so last month.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Sunday Afternoon Open Thread: Good News, Sorta

Sunday Afternoon Open Thread: Good News, Sorta

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…[M]any Twitter users and employees raised concerns that the new pay-for-play badges could cause confusion ahead of Tuesday’s elections because users could easily create verified accounts — say, posing as President Biden or as lawmakers or news outlets and publishing false information about voting results — which could potentially sow discord. In an internal Slack channel on Saturday, one Twitter employee asked why the social network was “making such a risky change before elections, which has the potential of causing election interference.”

A manager working on the verification badge project responded on Sunday that “we’ve made the decision to move the launch of this release to Nov. 9, after the election.”

Twitter, whose communications team has been almost entirely laid off, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Nov. 9 is the day immediately following Tuesday’s election, and many races may still be undecided as votes are tallied…

(But there’s also persistent rumors that the new verification process launch isn’t going well at all, so delaying further highly public changes might be self-protective as well.)


No doubt there are plenty of ex-employees (for instance, H1B holders) who will return… assuming Somebody is willing to increase the incentives for doing so…

Looking forward to seeing how the big-name advertisers treat *this* news, come Monday:

On Twitter, the ‘main character of the day’ is the unfortunate tweeter whose dumb / bad / hilarious tweet(s) earn them general opprobrium on the site… until the next ‘main character’ emerges…

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  • Anne Laurie
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    88Comments

    1. 1.

      John Revolta

      So I’ve been asking myself the old question: If Musk was purposely trying to tank the company, while trying maybe to maintain a plausible deniability- what would he be doing different?

      Reply
    2. 2.

      Stuart Frasier

      While I’m waiting for the next big shoe to drop in the crypto dumpster fire, the Twitter saga is giving me my daily dose of schadenfreude.

      Reply
    3. 3.

      brantl

      Twitter is currently trying to vandalize the plane while flying it into a mountain. Jebus, that’s a world-class sentence in  14 words.

      Reply
    4. 4.

      Suzanne

      I joined Mastodon last night. I have had a Twitter account for years, but have posted fewer than ten times, I estimate. I enjoyed following certain accounts, though, especially during the shut-in years. I don’t expect that I’ll be much more active on Mastodon. To inaugurate my account, I posted a picture of a tree.

      Reply
    5. 5.

      mrmoshpotato

      Good grief, Elon Musk is a slapdick.

      Extremely messed up! They’re trying to destroy free speech in America.

      Oh shut up, you whiny ass titty bitchass!

      Reply
    7. 7.

      Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

      The worse this goes the more he’s going to try and make up the difference via war profiteering. That concerns me. I don’t like the guy and I’ve never been big on Twitter, but I can’t get excited about him failing. I don’t want him succeeding either. My preference is that Twitter miraculously fails to fall apart until after Ukraine kicks Russia to the curb.

      Reply
    8. 8.

      Suzanne

      @mrmoshpotato: It’s amazing how quickly one’s opinion of Elon Musk became a sign of toxic masculinity. Like, if I was single, and some dude told me that he admired Elon Musk, I’d be like, “Check, please” and GTFOutta there.

      Reply
    10. 10.

      dmsilev

      At this point, the lettuce that outlasted Truss’s prime ministership looks to be a better bet for competence in leadership. Similar to baseball’s WAR (Wins Above Replacement), I propose Management Above Lettuce (MAL) as a measure of competence in corporate leadership.  Musk has a negative MAL.

      Reply
    11. 11.

      dmsilev

      @Suzanne: It’s impressive, isn’t it? I mean, he’s been a world-class asshole for years (example: the episode several years back about those kids in Thailand trapped in a cave) but now it’s just absolutely impossible to ignore or overlook the sheer pervasiveness and scale of his assholishness.

      Reply
    13. 13.

      sdhays

      @John Revolta: The only reason to not think that he’s purposely trying to tank the company is because that would make tens of billions of his own dollars disappear, and rich people hate that, even if the can’t actually tell the difference (and they can’t).

      He’s just very stupid, smarter only than the extremely stupid people who went in on the deal with him.

      Reply
    15. 15.

      Suzanne

      @dmsilev: It’s totally staggering.

      I really don’t understand rich people. Like, if you have enough money to live out the rest of your life in luxury….why fuck that up by being so flagrant?

      Reply
    16. 16.

      sdhays

      @Jackie: I would have preferred Elmu, myself. But I guess the visual of “tech titan master genius” Elon Musk as a simple red puppet was just too enticing.

      Reply
    17. 17.

      Suzanne

      Spawn the Youngest just responded to my admonition to walk rather than run in the house by prancing around the dining room, knees up high like a dressage horse.

      Children can be such tools.

      Reply
    18. 18.

      dmsilev

      @Jackie: Unfortunately, the Tickle Me Musk dolls weren’t selling well and there were all those ‘harassment’ and ‘assault’ charges, so a rebranding was needed.

      Reply
    20. 20.

      mrmoshpotato

      @Suzanne:

      It’s amazing how quickly one’s opinion of Elon Musk became a sign of toxic masculinity. Like, if I was single, and some dude told me that he admired Elon Musk, I’d be like, “Check, please” and GTFOutta there. 

      He’s always been a born-rich a-hole.

      Reply
    28. 28.

      mrmoshpotato

      @Suzanne:

      Spawn the Youngest just responded to my admonition to walk rather than run in the house by prancing around the dining room, knees up high like a dressage horse. 

      Children can be such tools.

      The kiddo has discovered Monty Python. 😁

      Reply
    29. 29.

      jnfr

      I actually love Twitter, and find it useful both as a person and as an organizer. I think it’s an important global communication channel, and when Musk kills it off as he likely will that will be a great loss.

      I’ve also been online since 1993 and I know we built all this shit from scratch in that time. So I know if we have to we can do it again.

      Reply
    30. 30.

      SpaceUnit

      Musk is like a rhinestone cowboy in a Wild West show who twirls his pistols around in the air for seven minutes and then shoots himself in the dick.

      Reply
    32. 32.

      Geminid

       

       

      @sdhays: As someone pointed out yesterday, Musk won’t just lose his own money but other people’s as well. He’d likely be better off in the long run if it was just his. And a lot of Tesla’s inflated stock price is held up by Musk’s prestige, I think, and that’s where the greater risk is for him.

      Reply
    36. 36.

      Jinchi

      @sdhays: It’s amazing to see a man spend so much effort looking for ways to pay $0 in taxes, then turn around and set billions of dollars on fire.

      Reply
    37. 37.

      jackmac

      What in the ever-loving f**k is going on in my bright blue Illinois?

      President Biden was here campaigning on Friday and Saturday. Vice President Harris is here today and the sadly-diminished but still important reporting voice of the Chicago Tribune says the visits “underscored the belief that races across the ballot have tightened ahead of Tuesday’s election.” With so many other close and critical races elsewhere, neither has any business being here. Even President Obama was here recently (he came to vote, but also do some campaigning). 

There should be a blue blowout across the board and state constitutional office from governor on down and legislative dominance appear to be safe. But GOP successes in a couple of Supreme Court races could give Republicans a majority on the court and threaten progressive agendas. Worse, are at least three Dem-held congressional seats (Sean Casten, Lauren Underwood and an open Dem seat in northwest Illinois) in jeopardy?

      Can someone please talk me off the ledge. Thanks.

      Reply
    40. 40.

      John Revolta

      @sdhays: Well yeah- but I’m thinking that he’s already resigned to taking a bath and that perhaps if he tanks it sooner rather than later, it could be not as bad somehow. Taxwise, or something. And just put the fucking thing behind him as quick as possible.

      Reply
    41. 41.

      Starfish

      These were real people’s jobs. We had a small local Twitter office and the estimate is that 87 out of 200 people here lost their jobs.

      WSJ is saying that there is going to be a big Facebook layoff this coming week as well.

      Reply
    45. 45.

      Ken

      @Suzanne: That’s why I was disappointed with this announcement of a delay in the plan. I have been enjoying the number of Elon fanboys who have assured the world that each business decision was part of a genius master plan, and then had to walk it back* when Elon reversed course. Outright cancellation of the blue payment scheme would have given me more amusement.

      * Though it’s not so much walking back, as a full “we have always been at war with Eastasia” denial that reality had ever been different.

      Reply
    48. 48.

      Starfish

      @Baud: I know at least two people in town who got laid off. I think they had been there for five or more years, which is a long time in tech career time.

      Tech career time seems to involve bouncing every couple of years to learn the new stuff.

      Reply
    52. 52.

      Dangerman

      @Suzanne: Well, I think it’s safe to say Elon doesn’t believe in safe sex. I think he’s nearly to a baseball team, football team here we come.

      Reply
    53. 53.

      Another Scott

      @Baud: Zuckerberg and Musk set tens of billions of dollars on fire.  Here’s why that’s bad news for Joe Biden.

      [/DougJBalloon]

      Cheers,
      Scott.

      Reply
    54. 54.

      jackmac

      @John Revolta: ​
      Thanks John Revolta. I did see the post. That is encouraging from a macro perspective. I just hope that trend plays out in places like Illinois where there might be some complacency. Like everywhere else, Republicans here have gotten awful and shouldn’t be anywhere near governing. Sorry, feeling some pre-election nerves and pondering worst-case scenarios. And the Bears lost today. On the plus side, my local Democratic headquarters was bustling and it is sunny and a lovely 61 degrees. Great weather for leaf-raking.

      Reply
    56. 56.

      Redshift

      But there’s also persistent rumors that the new verification process launch isn’t going well at all, so delaying further highly public changes might be self-protective as well.

      Yeah, it’s hard to imagine anything less likely to happen than “we’re going to roll out a new feature from announcement to production in about a week while having massive layoffs.”

      Claiming they’re going to have it done one day later is hilarious.

      Reply
    57. 57.

      Starfish

      @Baud: Indeed. Something said that 1% of the funds for Elon buying Twitter came from some crypto thing.

      People in crypto losing their money fits my just-world hypothesis.

      Reply
    59. 59.

      Redshift

      @MazeDancer:

      Anne Laurie, as a cartoon fan, ICYMI, George Booth died at 96.

      Aww, he was always one of my favorites.

      I’m reminded of one of his cartoons that seems particularly relevant, and I kind of wish wasn’t “timeless.” The husband is laughing over his newspaper, and his worried wife is telling her friend “he’s always enjoyed his morning paper, but it’s only recently he’s developed that graveyard laugh…”

      Reply
    62. 62.

      Frankensteinbeck

      @sdhays: ​

      even if the can’t actually tell the difference (and they can’t).

      Musk couldn’t afford to pay for Twitter by himself. His gigantic wealth is almost all assets like Tesla stock that could come crashing down at any moment. He legitimately could beggar himself if Twitter collapses, and it couldn’t happen to a nicer man.

      @Ken: ​

      * Though it’s not so much walking back, as a full “we have always been at war with Eastasia” denial that reality had ever been different.

      Jebus Christmas, Musk fanboys are bizarre. I’m used to Conservative Whispering, and the psychology that makes their reality denial work. Musk fanboys are a step beyond. Everything he does is part of some new brilliant plan. When Twitter sued Musk to force him to go through with the contract, they were convinced this was All According To Plan and Musk would force Twitter to reveal the real bot numbers, destroy Twitter financially, and be able to waltz away having gotten everything he wanted and spent nothing. Currently they think the $8 verification plan is obvious good business and that anyone who complains is admitting to [Admit Character Flaw Here].

      Reply
    64. 64.

      Suzanne

      @Frankensteinbeck: It’s bonkers.

      What they’re really invested in is the success of mediocre white men with rich parents. I can’t imagine why.

      I would sign to end the sarcasm, but oh boy, I’m not done. There’s a lot more sarcasm to come on this subject!

      Reply
    68. 68.

      jackmac

      @WaterGirl: You are absolutely correct. I guess I needed to rant a bit. Seeing my local Dem HQ in action earlier today was encouraging. There was a lot of phone outreach and I was able to pick up a cool bi-lingual Lauren Underwood sign featuring Day of the Dead imagery.

      Reply
    71. 71.

      Anne Laurie

      @MazeDancer: George Booth’s cranky bull terriers were my spirit animals since I was barefly capable of reading captions (which the bull terriers mostly didn’t need, anyways).

      Reminded that, originally, ‘only the good die young’ meant ‘some people leave us too soon, no matter how old they are chronologically’…

      Reply
    72. 72.

      Frankensteinbeck

      @Suzanne:

      What they’re really invested in is the success of mediocre white men with rich parents.

      I think his main appeal is to men (especially young and white) who see themselves as smarter than everyone around them.  It’s Galtian.  Musk acts like they do, including the style of assholery.  He created* some things they think are cool and would require genius to build.  He’s extremely rich.  He validated them, makes them think they are naturally superior and it just hasn’t paid off yet.

      It’s the mental gymnastics they go through as he fails again and again and again that boggles me.  They’re not content with “This one fact suits my prejudices, I can stop thinking now.”  They have to come up with explanations.

      *bought and claimed he created

      Reply
    73. 73.

      Miki

      Apropos of everything:

      Poem by Guante (Kyle Tran Myhre) at iwillvote.com

      Voting as a Fire Extinguisher

      When the haunted house catches fire: a moment of indecision.

      The house was, after all, built on blood, and bad intentions.

      Everyone who enters the house feels that overwhelming dread, the evil that perhaps only fire can purge.

      It’s tempting to just let it burn.

      And then I remember: there are children inside.

       

       

      Reply
    79. 79.

      marklar

      @trollhattan: Herschel then broke into the Jonathan Richmond song….
      “Martian time, time, timeWell, it’s Martian rhyme timeWe got a Martian rhyme for Martian, Martian timeAnd the Martians got notebooks in their little handWell, they’re strangers in this landMartian time it’s Martian, Martian time”

      Reply
    80. 80.

      Ruckus

      @Suzanne:

      It’s called toxic humanity.

      If they can’t have everything, no one else should have anything. And it’s justified by some accounting of something something of value to someone.

      We used to call it toxic masculinity – which of course still exists but now there are women in on the scam, maybe not as loudly in on it but in on it. Think Boebert or MTG. So from here on out I’m calling it toxic humanity.

      Reply
    83. 83.

      trnc

      [M]any Twitter users and employees raised concerns that the new pay-for-play badges could cause confusion ahead of Tuesday’s elections because users could easily create verified accounts — say, posing as President Biden or as lawmakers or news outlets and publishing false information about voting results

      In what universe can a “verified account” be easily created by literally anybody? JFC.

      Reply
    84. 84.

      George

      @Suzanne: I am way late to the game with this comment, but it is not a matter of not understanding rich people.  It is a matter of not understanding malignant/vindictive narcissists and psychopaths.  Musk definitely is the former and likely is the latter.

      Reply
    85. 85.

      Steve in the ATL

      @Redshift: I remember that one!  Of course I spent many hours of my childhood reading and re-reading my parents’ coffee table book of his cartoons.

      Reply
    86. 86.

      Jinchi

      @trnc: ​  In what universe can a “verified account” be easily created by literally anybody? JFC.

      Musk has actually called this “verified paid” in an interview. Once you realize that, it all makes sense, in a stupid way.

      He keeps the “blue check” symbol, but completely changes it’s meaning. It just verifies to the world that you’ve paid him $8 this month. It has nothing to do with you actually being the person you pretend to be. This is why you can lose your verification, despite being the same person you were yesterday.​

      Reply
    87. 87.

      Ken

      @Jinchi: Yeah, the only thing that’s verified is that they were able to charge $8 to a credit card number. They’re probably not even checking the name on the card matches any of the twitter account data.

      Speaking of which, would anyone here trust Twitter with their credit card number?

      Reply

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