Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

At some point, the ability to learn is a factor of character, not IQ.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

Motown is Joe-Town!

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

Jack Smith: “Why did you start campaigning in the middle of my investigation?!”

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

I’m just a talker, trying to find a channel!

You cannot shame the shameless.

“Loving your country does not mean lying about it’s history.”

I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.

In my day, never was longer.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

I wonder if trump will be tried as an adult.

This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

T R E 4 5 O N

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Late Night Open Thread: Pivot to Video!

Late Night Open Thread: Pivot to Video!

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It was irresistible!… Long years after everyone else has grown tired of the meme, Fortune informs us that “Elon Musk’s X claims it’s now a ‘video-first platform’ as it tries to reverse an advertiser exodus that has cost it billions in value”:

Elon Musk’s X, long known as a service for posting short text-based messages about anything and everything, claims it’s “now a video-first platform.”

The assertion, made by the company today in a blog post that was aimed at advertisers, follows an exodus of marketers from the platform including Disney, IBM, and Apple after Musk’s assertion that an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory was the “absolute truth.” That implosion plus other missteps have caused the value of the business to plummet from its $44 billion sales price last year by more than 70% according to Fidelity, one of X’s investors.

As proof of its video transformation, X touted a new video feature that is much like TikTok’s full-screen infinite scroll, and that has over 100 million daily users—”more than half of whom are Gen Z, the fastest growing audience on X,” the blog post claimed. It also mentioned letting users publish longer-form videos, crowing that “In December alone, people watched 130 years’ worth of videos 30 minutes or longer.”

However, X’s blog post was short on specifics. For example, its claims of a large Gen Z audience came without any metrics to back it up.

A source at X, who asked to remain anonymous because they weren’t authorized to talk to the press, was skeptical about the blog post’s assertion of a video-focused transformation. “I think it’s way too early to declare us a video-first platform,” the source said…

Reader Interactions

86Comments

  1. 1.

    J. Arthur Crank

    Jesus, I don’t even know where to begin with that “video only” argument for Twitter.   This is different from UTube in what way?   Christ, what an asshole!

  2. 2.

    Poe Larity

    I hear Twitch may be for sale. Perhaps that, a merger with OnlyFans and Specs delivery and we’d have the SuperX app of vices?

  6. 6.

    Martin

    See, the problem is that Nazis aren’t a good advertising demographic, no matter what format the content is in.

  7. 7.

    dmsilev

    Well, I’m sure convinced that this is the company I want to entrust with all my banking and financial transactions.

  9. 9.

    Leto

    Since one of the tags is “assholes”, here we go: It Never Ends With the Freedom Caucus: Mike Johnson Ouster Countdown Begins Republicans are privately—and publicly—considering dumping their own House speaker over the spending deal.

    Less than three months into Mike Johnson’s tenure as speaker of the House, some House Republicans are already experiencing buyer’s remorse.

    Texas Representative and Freedom Caucus member Chip Roy on Monday publicly raised the possibility of dumping Johnson as speaker.

    Questioned by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, Roy mentioned “colleagues that are really frustrated” with Johnson and alluded to “real conversations this week about what [House Republicans] need to do going forward,” calling the situation “[not] good.”

    And Roy is not alone. As Punchbowl News reports, some House Republicans have “significant concerns” about whether Johnson—the least experienced speaker in 140 years—is “in over his head.” At least one Republican claimed Johnson is “getting rolled even more than [ousted former Speaker Kevin] McCarthy did.”

    This from a party when asked recently, what can you tell the American public you’ve done/accomplished, the answer came back: not a damn thing. On the one hand I want to laugh at the utter dysfunction within their party, but on the other it’s crippling us to no end. Also Chip Roy’s head looks like 20lbs of lard shoved in a 2lb casing.

  10. 10.

    NotMax

    Whoops-a-doodle.

    The Securities and Exchange Commission’s official social media account on X (formerly Twitter) posted a notice on Tuesday evening falsely claiming it had approved listings for Bitcoin exchange-traded funds, or ETFs, which has since been deleted. Moments later, SEC Chair Gary Gensler said in a post on his own account that the agency’s account was “compromised, and an unauthorized tweet was posted.”

    The SEC followed up with a post reiterating Gensler’s statement. A spokesperson for the SEC also confirmed to CNBC that an “unknown party” had accessed its account. Source

  12. 12.

    Brachiator

    A source at X, who asked to remain anonymous because they weren’t authorized to talk to the press, was skeptical about the blog post’s assertion of a video-focused transformation. “I think it’s way too early to declare us a video-first platform,” the source said…

    It may not matter. Over the holidays I was seeing people finally saying goodbye to Twitter because they were tired of the bigotry and harassment, all the crap which Musk endorses and enables.

    And one August 2023 study revealed the following.

    TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram are the most popular social media platforms for Gen Zers, though only Snapchat draws a higher share of Gen Z teens than Gen Z adults, per our US Social Network Usage by Generation report.

    Younger people don’t use Twitter and are unlikely to migrate to the platform when they get older.

    Obviously Twitter still has value for many people, but Musk values the aspect of his platform that drives people away. This can’t work.

  13. 13.

    Leto

    Gee, Guess What Twitter Just Did to Accounts Critical of Elon Musk?

    X, formerly known as Twitter, on Tuesday temporarily suspended the accounts of multiple prominent journalists and left-leaning commentators and comedians, many of whom were critical of X owner Elon Musk.

    The social media platform gave no explanation for the sudden purge, saying only that the accounts “violate the X rules.” The X rules prohibit violent or hateful speech, child exploitation, private information sharing, and fake information.

    But the accounts in question do not post that kind of content. The reporters who were banned include Steven Monacelli, a journalist at the Texas Observer who covers extremism, and Ken Klippenstein, who covers national security for The Intercept. Last year, Klippenstein published a piece on the errors with Tesla’s self-driving feature, and Monacelli noted that X shadow-banned the Intercept author since then.

    MintPress News reporter Alan MacLeod, who recently has extensively covered Israel’s approach to the war in Gaza, and leftist podcaster Rob Rousseau were also suspended Tuesday.

    Just some more good ole banning of anyone even slightly critical of Muskrat. Apparently they undid the bans some time later, but those accounts then had a lot less followers. But sure, video! Gold, Jerry!

  15. 15.

    Roberto el oso

    When one of my cats doesn’t stick the landing and recovers by starting to bathe and by giving me one of those “I meant to do that” looks, it’s adorable and cute. But this level of desperation is gobsmacking.

  17. 17.

    HumboldtBlue

    And they’ve signed up Tullsi Gabbard, Don Lemon and Jim Fucking Rome, of all people, to be the headliners.​

  24. 24.

    wjca

    @Leto: Republicans are privately—and publicly—considering dumping their own House speaker over the spending deal.

    McCarthy may lose his distinction as the only Speaker ever voted out of office.  Oh, well.

    I do wonder if they will have the wit, this time, to figure out who they will replace him with.  Before they boot the current Speaker.  Nah, probably requires more brains than they have available.  So, another few weeks of failed votes for Speaker.  With the added spice of a government shurdown.

    Every time they do this, it ups the odds that a couple of swing district Republican congressmen will throw up their hands and contrive to get Jeffries elected Speaker.  Which, if the Chair gets vacated again, might require no more from them than finding reason to be out of town for a couple days.

    EDT  Martin git there first.

  25. 25.

    Redshift

    For those who may not be familiar with the phrase:

    The phrase “pivot to video” has become a joke, shorthand for a media company’s last-ditch effort to turn things around before the layoffs begin.

    Facebook’s pivot to video didn’t just burn publishers. It didn’t even work for Facebook | Nieman Journalism Lab

    Muskrat is “innovating” by copying a phony Facebook strategy from eight years ago. (I know it well, because I happened to be at one of the companies that ended up on the short end of FB’s lies about how everyone would make money if we produced more video content they could feature.)

  28. 28.

    cain

    @wjca: they won’t do it. They will leave instead.

    To vote Democratic would invite death threats. I think it is very unsafe to be a non MAGA GOP.

  29. 29.

    No One of Consequence

    FOUND IT!
    This has been bothering since I thought something horribly awry with the Trump lawyer today, aside from his arguments, was his audio feed. HOLY CRAP!

    Then I recalled what it was I equated in my mind immediately upon hearing the first utterance:

    “You’re a feisty little one, but you’ll soon learn some respect. I have need for you on the master’s sail barge, and I think you’ll fill in nicely.”
    ―EV-9D9 to R2-D2 — (audio) Listen (file info)[3]

    EV-9D9 was a sadistic EV-series supervisor droid who supervised the droids in Jabba the Hutt’s palace.

    Go do a lookup on that from Return of the Jedi. The scene where C3PO and R2D2 are being inducted into Jabba’s workforce, the droid that sets that up has some small dialogue and a voice that almost exactly matches that lawyer today.

    or is it just me?

    Peace,
    -NOoC

  30. 30.

    Martin

    @cain: They might. I mean, it only takes one to start the process, and it only takes 2 to give Dems enough votes to remove him. Johnson so far has done a good job keeping his caucus together, but man, I wouldn’t put money on him being able to keep that up for another year.

  33. 33.

    wjca

    @cain: They will leave instead.

    My guess as well.

    I wonder if Jeffries et al. are helping them come up with plausible reasons for having to be away…. (Just as an intellectual exercise, of course.)

  35. 35.

    bjacques

    To be fair, I’ve been on Xitter more often the last couple of years to watch the Russian Turret Toss trials.

  37. 37.

    Brachiator

    @wjca:

    Every time they do this, it ups the odds that a couple of swing district Republican congressmen will throw up their hands and contrive to get Jeffries elected Speaker.

    There is no universe in which the Republicans will contrive to get Jeffries elected Speaker.

  38. 38.

    NotMax

    @wjca

    And five minutes after he is sworn in as Speaker by such a method a motion to vacate the chair will be called.

  39. 39.

    AlaskaReader

    @NotMax: I wasn’t able to stick around the other night but I did go back and read where you queried if Murkowski might have some redeeming qualities and I want to assure you she does not.

  40. 40.

    NotMax

    @AlaskaReader

    You would know better than I.

    In the 70s, at a time when I was back on my heels and scuttling around NY for gainful employ I was offered a job as a dishwasher on the North Slope while the pipeline was under construction. Closest i ever got to the 49th state. Couldn’t justify to myself to undertake such a drastic move.

  43. 43.

    AlaskaReader

    @NotMax: To clarify, Murkowski has a ‘reputation’ of being a moderate but any close review of her actual voting record, (which differs greatly from her carefully curated ‘reputation’) will show that she’s anything but a moderate.

    Murkowski, (Alaska’s most prominent nepo baby), sat at Trump’s right hand and went along  to confirm all of Trump’s fraudulent, incompetent and criminal appointees.

    She is known for casting an oppositional vote once in a blue moon, but none of those votes were ever consequential, the fix was already in and she was given cover to boost her ‘reputation’.  Not once has one of her ‘show’ votes ever stopped her Republican Party ambitions.

  45. 45.

    NotMax

    New router purchased (ka-ching) after existing one got partially frazzled by power blink Monday. Computer guru arriving at 9 in the morning to do professional set-up. Have to move furniture to run the new power cord and unplug the old one, probably around 8:30. Not looking forward to hefting what’s necessary to do so.

    Selection at Office Max was pathetic (went with an Asus). Would have checked out Costco but their routers are much too high end for my needs in this tiny cottage. Only advice from guru was to steer clear of Netgear and D-link. Really nowhere else on this island to shop for one.

  49. 49.

    AlaskaReader

    @Chetan Murthy: ….to a point.

    Collins bucked McConnell by voting for witnesses in the first Trump impeachment, Murkowski worked with McConnell to to be the key player to spike the effort to allow more witnesses.

    Not a fan of Collins, just drawing the distinctions that are there.

  52. 52.

    AlaskaReader

    Murkowski very publicly promised her constituents she would not vote to confirm Barrett

    Next day, she did vote to confirm Barrett.

  54. 54.

    brantl

    @Leto:  I have been banned and reinstated about 10 times last year and once this year. Since they never tell you what you’re banned for, I just say I’ve done nothing wrong, and they reinstated me, every time.

  56. 56.

    Mai Naem mobile

    @Leto: White Chocolate Chip Nutjob Roy is one of those people who’s always criticizing but never wants to run for Speaker himself.  Ofcourse he’s a protégé of Rafael ‘Cancun’ Cruz.

  57. 57.

    Mai Naem mobile

    @matt: David Sacks is such a huge Elmo suck up. Honestly it’s embarrassing. I understand some two bit nobody sucking up to Elmo trying to get his attention but David Sacks is supposed to be wealthy enough now not to need to do this.

  58. 58.

    Barry

    @wjca: “I do wonder if they will have the wit, this time, to figure out who they will replace him with.  Before they boot the current Speaker.  Nah, probably requires more brains than they have available.  So, another few weeks of failed votes for Speaker.  With the added spice of a government shurdown.”

     

    When 1% of a group has a veto, *and* the group is based on chaos and evil,…

  59. 59.

    Geminid

    @NotMax: Clean energy news, on an Island near you! From Canary Media:

       A huge battery plant has replaced Hawaii’s last coal plant.

    Plus Power’s Kapolei battery plant is officially online. The pioneering project is a leading example of how to shift crucial grid functions.

    The coal plant shut down September 1, 2022. The installation of 158 Tesla Megapak batteries can provide 185 megawatts of electricity to the grid, performing:

    “basic peak capacity, frequency response, synthetic inertia and grid-rebooting [“black start”] tasks.”

    The last three functions distinguish Plus Power’s project from simpler battery installations, and are explained fairly well in the article.

  60. 60.

    Geminid

    @Mai Naem mobile: Like Cruz, Chip Roy came to Texas from out of state. The way Roy talks, you’d think he grew up roping calves down on the Brazos, but he was born in Bethesda, Maryland and attended high school in Northern Virginia.

  62. 62.

    Geminid

    @Geminid: Canary Media seems to be a good general source for clean energy news. There are a lot more, including sites reporting on particular sectors. I usually look up “clean energy news” every couple days and track down articles that way. There are a lot to see.

  64. 64.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    Musk is just lost. One reason twitter was popular (ie produced eyeballs for ads) was that, for better or worse, it was easy to use. You had a thought. You blurted it out there. Video raises the effort needed to post.

    But you knew that. Everybody does. So why doesn’t Musk?

  65. 65.

    Princess

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: I hate the videos on Instagram and FB but I confess I do get sucked in. That being said, I can spot an ad within a second and I scroll on past. Not convinced they’re as effective as text, at least with me. But in general I find the videoification of the whole internet is making it less fun. Elmo is following, not innovating, when he tries to put Twitter on that bandwagon.

  66. 66.

    Shalimar

    @wjca: They have a 2-vote majority.  Johnson is not going to oust himself, so they’re already down to 1 vote.  That means every single Republican but one has to agree on a replacement.  That is never going to happen.

  67. 67.

    Kay

    Rumble is the Right wing channel Glenn Greenwald uses and promotes. I wonder if Rumble’s troubles with (allegedly) fraudulently inflating metrics inspired Musk to focus on video as an alternative host for Right wingers:

    Rumble, the so-called free speech alternative to YouTube, is the subject of an investigation by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), according to the company and a letter from the SEC.
    The SEC confirmed its investigation involving Rumble in response to a public records request that WIRED first filed in November, seeking documents related to the company. The agency denied WIRED’s request on the grounds that related documents were part of an “active and ongoing” investigation. Confirmation of the probe follows public allegations that Rumble inflated key user metrics, which the company denies.

  68. 68.

    The Thin Black Duke

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Musk has never been an ordinary person, so of course the spoiled rich brat would have no idea what ordinary people want or need. You can see this play out with the ridiculous additions he’s requiring for the Cybertruck. I mean, no side mirrors ? Who asked for this?

  69. 69.

    Gin & Tonic

    Welp, 4.7″ of rain overnight, on top of the snow, after a foot of rain in December, means today will be spent drying the basement, again.

  70. 70.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @Princess: I confess to watching TikTok book post, especially the ones from libraries and bookstores. The Fowlerville library posts these videos where two women read one star reviews of a popular book without naming it, and viewers try to guess the book.

    @The Thin Black Duke: No side mirrors? Is that even legal?

  71. 71.

    Geminid

    Politico reports that Wyoming Senator John Barrasso endorsed Trump for President last night, on The Hannity Show. He became the 20th (out of 49) Republican Senator to back the Orange Churl.

    Barrasso is the Republican Conference Chair, and is the second of his Caucus’s elected leadership team to endorse Trump. The first was Campaign Committee Chair Steve Daines, who endorsed last year. Daines may have wanted to mitigate conflicts with Trump over candidates and fundraising.

    Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Whip John Thune, Conference Vice Chair Shelly Moore Capito, and Policy Committee Chair Jodi Ernst have stayed on the fence so for. So has former Whip John Cornyn.

  75. 75.

    Geminid

    @Gin & Tonic: I can’t help but wonder if the grade at your foundation is sufficiently pitched so as to shed water. You most likely have checked this already; I just mention it because a common cause of wet basements is backfill that has settled over time.

  77. 77.

    Kay

    @Geminid:

    I like the 24/7 Trump blitz by media. It’s depressing and he’s annoying to listen to -that awful honking NY accent and his limited vocabulary-  but ultimately good for our side. The more exposure Trump gets the less people like him. They needed a reminder of how horrible it is when he’s in the news 24/7 because they have the attention span of gnats. We’ll see his polling drop shortly.

  78. 78.

    Geminid

    @Kay: This is true, I think. Trump has been a near-constant presence on this forum, but he’s been out of most people’s lives for three years. They won’t need to learn about his court cases and “Plan 2025” to know they don’t want four more years of his chaos and bullshit. It will be a gut reaction as strong as an intellectual one.

  79. 79.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Jay: This conspiracy theory

    The idea caught the attention of a range of conspiracy theorists, who see it as a supposed part of a “great reset” or “climate lockdown” in which people are forcibly kept within their local neighbourhood and not allowed to travel.

    One wonder wonders what kind of crapsack world these people’s minds are that they see being able to walk to buy groceries as a dire threat.

  80. 80.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Barry: When 1% of a group has a veto, *and* the group is based on chaos and evil,…

    Frankly, I wouldn’t be to surprised if what they really want is the Dems back in control of the House so they can do nothing all day while fund raising off absurd promises what they will do once the GoP is back in power.

  81. 81.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Geminid: We are in a fairly poor drainage area and have a high groundwater level. Generally over 4” in 24 hours brings some infiltration. But major engineering/construction is not in the cards. We have maybe 10 years left in this house. In the meantime, everything is either on shelves or in plastic bins, so I let the water flow.

  82. 82.

    Geminid

    @Gin & Tonic: That’s a tough situation. I just mentioned the possibility of backfill settling because it happens a lot and is usually cheap and easy to fix.

  83. 83.

    artem1s

    @cain: ​ 

    So they are going to do it aren’t they ?
    Bet all those GOP donors are going to be pretty pissed off.

    I think the chaos congresscritters are doing it because of TIFG’s comment the other day about wanting the economy to tank. they are taking his ‘orders’ seriously. nothing will chill the stockmarket like the threat of a government shut down and/or defaulting on the debt.

  84. 84.

    burritoboy

    Musk had this idea in 1996-7.  This is what he wanted PayPal to be.  Yes, he literally is recycling his idea (which never went anywhere originally) from nearly 30 years ago.

  85. 85.

    wjca

    @Brachiator: There is no universe in which the Republicans will contrive to get Jeffries elected Speaker.

    All it takes, at this point, is a couple having reelection campaign appearances scheduled at a fortuitous time.  They don’t even have to be consciously contriving.  (Although it wouldn’t amaze me if there are one or two who would.  There’s a fairly wide variation in the degree of fanaticism.)

  86. 86.

    wjca

    @NotMax: And five minutes after he is sworn in as Speaker by such a method a motion to vacate the chair will be called.

    That stupid “only takes one member to force a vote to vacate the Chair” rule was a gift/bribe from McCarthy to the crazies.  Jeffries is under no obligation to continue it.

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