Twitter is better

[mspart]

Well it is apparent the author does not want anyone to take the Twitter Files seriously. 

My question is how can you not?   Blatant politiking going on there with a veneer of self righteousness that nothing was happening here. 

 

[Mike Parrish]

21 minutes ago, mspart said:

Well it is apparent the author does not want anyone to take the Twitter Files seriously. 

My question is how can you not?   Blatant politiking going on there with a veneer of self righteousness that nothing was happening here. 

 

You could actually read the article.

They lay out EXACTLY why they don't take it seriously.

Maybe you could try to rebut, point by point, their reasoning...

Quote

 

Anyhow, Friday has arrived, and so now it's time to take a look at this alleged scandal. And where you have to start, in our view, is with three giant red flags:

1. Elon Musk: Given Musk's skill at, and demonstrated history of, bending the narrative to suit his purposes, you have to treat anything he's involved in with kid gloves. That is especially true here. The story that the Twitter Files purport to tell is that under the site's past regime, Twitter was hopelessly biased against conservatives. There is also an implication that Twitter is representative of other social media platforms, which are therefore also hopelessly biased against conservatives.
   
   The problem here, in terms of red flags, is that Musk has at least two motivations to sell this particular narrative. The first of those is that, for whatever reason, he has recently reinvented himself as a right-wing culture warrior, doing battle with the forces of wokeness. The second is that he's trying to attract right-wing users, most obviously Donald Trump, back to his money-hemorrhaging social media platform. If The Daily Beast were to start publishing stories about how left-wing websites are our single-best tool for combating global warming, it would be wise to treat those stories with some skepticism. The same holds here.
    
2. Selective Release: Musk, and several members of his management team, are choosing what is released to the general public (mostly internal e-mails and online Slack conversations involving Twitter employees). For serious journalistic outlets, this curation alone is enough to be a dealbreaker. It means two important things: (1) that there's no way to be certain of the context surrounding the communications, and (2) that there's no way to know how often similar situations arose involving left-wing and/or politically neutral content. It is one thing if 95% of the moderation discussions and decisions involved right-leaning content. It's another thing if it was only 50%, or 40% or 30%.
    
3. Selective Recipients: Musk is only releasing the Twitter Files to select people in the media. In fact, there are only three folks who are on the Twitter CEO's recipient list: Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss and Michael Shellenberger. This is a very, very carefully chosen list. All three of these individuals have cultivated a reputation for being "independent" but willing to ask "tough questions" about wokeness and about people on the left. Shellenberger, for example, has argued that progressivism encourages homelessness, drug addiction and mental illness. Weiss is fond of comparing left wingers and fascists. Taibbi is an enthusiastic practitioner of bothsidesism; his main shtick is that the excesses of the left and of the right are equally wrongheaded and are entirely comparable to each other. For example, he's compared people who look through the past statements of public figures with an eye towards racist rhetoric to "Christians [who] periodically discover the face of Jesus in tree stumps or wall mold."
   
   In short, Musk did not handpick Fox or The New York Post to share his material with. No, to create a veneer of legitimacy, he picked people who are not necessarily in the bag for the Republican Party the way Fox is, but who agree with the right on a lot of things, and who just so happen to agree with Musk on the key issues in play here. So, he knew exactly what would be written even before he shared a single screen shot with Taibbi, Weiss and Shellenberger. And even then, Musk demanded additional concessions from the trio. One of those was that they had to publish everything they wrote to Twitter first, before publishing it elsewhere. It's not known what the other concessions were; Taibbi has publicly acknowledged that "in exchange for the opportunity to cover a unique and explosive story, I had to agree to certain conditions," but has refused to expand on what those conditions were.

In short, one cannot take this seriously as an attempt to inform the public and to stimulate thought and discussion. This is much closer to a propaganda campaign than it is to serious journalism.

 

[jross]

Counter.  Why don’t you go item by item and cite a fact rather than opinion.

[jross]

First paragraph.  
 

Please demonstrate Elon’s history of bending the narrative to suit his purpose where the purpose is wrong?

Is there evidence that Facebook and Google (other media) censor conservative material?

[Mike Parrish]

3 minutes ago, jross said:

First paragraph.  
 

Please demonstrate Elon’s history of bending the narrative to suit his purpose where the purpose is wrong?

 

Just from yesterday:
Claiming that publicly available flight information is somehow private information and then changing the rules to claim that this information, that ANYONE CAN GET AT ANYTIME, is 'assassination information' and must be a banning violation.

Claiming that his son was stalked with this flight information when his son was nowhere near an airport or Elon's jet's location.

Claiming that a dozen journalists were banned for posting links to this information or links to it when their archived profiles shows this is completely false.

Edited December 16, 2022 by Mike Parrish

[jross]

8 minutes ago, Mike Parrish said:

Just from yesterday:
Claiming that publicly available flight information is somehow private information and then changing the rules to claim that this information, that ANYONE CAN GET AT ANYTIME, is 'assassination information' and must be a banning violation.

Claiming that his son was stalked with this flight information when his son was nowhere near an airport or Elon's jet's location.

Claiming that a dozen journalists were banned for posting links to this information or links to it when their archived profiles shows this is completely false.

Scott Adam’s says two movies are playing at the same time in the same theatre.  We are watching different movies.

Listen to the spaces talk with journalists.

https://twitter.com/forevereversley/status/1603612770892918784?s=46&t=Sjd7S9_0NK1dapNG4Vo-0g

Was it doxxing or not?  Of course it was! Or not?  

[Mike Parrish]

2 minutes ago, jross said:

Scott Adam’s says two movies are playing at the same time in the same theatre.  We are watching different movies.

Listen to the spaces talk with journalists.

https://twitter.com/forevereversley/status/1603612770892918784?s=46&t=Sjd7S9_0NK1dapNG4Vo-0g

Was it doxxing or not?  Of course it was! Or not?  

 

What in there is private information?

[Jason Bryant]

Anyone else thinking that Elon's using "doxxing" incorrectly here? It's like that's the word he's now overusing. 

[mspart]

Great movie, by the way.

mspart

[Mike Parrish]

4 minutes ago, Jason Bryant said:

Anyone else thinking that Elon's using "doxxing" incorrectly here? It's like that's the word he's now overusing. 

Maybe he's thinking of mocking?

[jross]

Elon has death threats.  Stalkers have tracked his car multiple times.  Dude feels unsafe and people are showing his jet location, which is also enabling car tracking.  He put some people in time out for including URLs that show his location.  
 

He is making mistakes.  I’m good on this one.  The journos say… I only included the link because I was reporting the link that others shared.  Give me a break journos.   Be better and welcome back.

[Mike Parrish]

6 minutes ago, jross said:

Elon has death threats.  Stalkers have tracked his car multiple times.  Dude feels unsafe and people are showing his jet location, which is also enabling car tracking.  He put some people in time out for including URLs that show his location.  
 

He is making mistakes.  I’m good on this one.  The journos say… I only included the link because I was reporting the link that others shared.  Give me a break journos.   Be better and welcome back.

His jet location is coming from a public data stream.

It's not doxxing.

[jross]

1 minute ago, Mike Parrish said:

His jet location is coming from a public data stream.

It's not doxxing.

Aside, when someone says please don’t share my location, I am concerned for my safety, what would a good person do?

[Mike Parrish]

3 minutes ago, jross said:

Aside, when someone says please don’t share my location, I am concerned for my safety, what would a good person do?

Are only those people who fit your description of 'good' allowed on Twitter?

I thought you guys were all on the "It's wrong to deplatform people from Twitter!!" just a little while ago.

Elon let ACTUAL FU*KING NAZIS back on twitter, so calling it a 'safety issue' rings really hollow to me.

 

Elon can do what he wants, he just can't prevent everyone else from mocking him for his hypocrisy.

 

P.S. I'd watch the EU regulatory space closely in the next few months.

Edited December 16, 2022 by Mike Parrish

[Mike Parrish]

Another example of a petulant Joffrey.

 

https://www.thedailybeast.com/elon-musk-suspends-insiders-linette-lopez-another-reporter-who-pissed-him-off

 

Quote

It increasingly looks like Elon Musk is suspending Twitter users based on personal grudges instead of concrete principles. The latest victim: Insider columnist Linette Lopez, who has spent years aggressively covering Musk’s businesses, including documenting alleged safety lapses at Tesla.

In 2018, Musk disputed Lopez’s reporting, claiming that she had written “several false articles” and suggesting, with scant evidence‚ that she had bribed a former Tesla employee for information and was secretly “serving as an inside trading source for one of Tesla’s biggest short-sellers.”

“Have you ever heard anything more ridiculous,” she said on Friday of the allegations, laughing. “What a frickin’ fantasy.”

Lopez told The Daily Beast she received no explanation for her suspension, nor information about how long the ban will last. She said she hadn’t tweeted details about the location of Musk’s private jet—his stated rationale for other suspensions—but instead had been cataloging what she considered his hypocrisy over doxxing and targeting private citizens.

 

“I was just trying to highlight the fact that he talks about bullying and doxxing and all this stuff…And he’s a pro at it,” she said. “He harassed me back in 2018, he talked shit about me in the court of law, he sued my source. Like, I've been through the ringer with this guy. Nothing he does surprises me.”

Musk banned multiple prominent accounts over the past week, starting with the @Elonjet plane tracker. He then moved onto journalists who had covered the controversy, including New York Times reporter Ryan Mac, a former target of his ire.

In 2018, while working at BuzzFeed, Mac published emails from Musk in which the billionaire baselessly accused a British man working to rescue Thai children stuck in a cave of being a “child rapist.” Musk claimed the emails were off the record, but Mac never agreed to those terms.

Musk did not immediately respond to The Daily Beast’s request for comment.

 

Edited December 16, 2022 by Mike Parrish

[jross]

It will not be a surprise if Elon dies by “natural causes” 

[jross]

If he’s banning people for shady reasons, shame.

All I know us that my experience is better.  Less toxic.  Less amplification of toxic.  I see a lot more now from baseball, tech, and wrestling sources.  Less politics.  Less judgement.  More content from opposing thoughts with less hostility.  Less spam.  The best since before Trump ran in 2016. 

[Mike Parrish]

Right on time.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/12/16/musk-journalists-suspension-europe-backlash/

 

Quote

 

European Commission Vice President Věra Jourová, whose brief includes the rule of law and disinformation, tweeted that the “arbitrary suspension of journalists on Twitter is worrying.”

“EU’s Digital Services Act requires respect of media freedom and fundamental rights. This is reinforced under our #MediaFreedomAct,” she wrote. "@elonmusk should be aware of that. There are red lines. And sanctions, soon.”

 

Edited December 16, 2022 by Mike Parrish

[mspart]

https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/7/23445476/elon-musk-twitter-user-growth-all-time-high-advertisers

Twitter’s daily user growth hit “all-time highs” during the first full week of Elon Musk owning the platform, according to a company document obtained by The Verge.

Something is better.  More usage at all time highs. 

mspart

 

[Mike Parrish]

Just now, mspart said:

https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/7/23445476/elon-musk-twitter-user-growth-all-time-high-advertisers

Twitter’s daily user growth hit “all-time highs” during the first full week of Elon Musk owning the platform, according to a company document obtained by The Verge.

Something is better.  More usage at all time highs. 

mspart

 

More bots = more activity.

[jross]

I've seen considerably less bot activity and assume the DAU will be down in the next review.

[jross]

The FBI suppresses jokes.  Really?

• TWITTER, THE FBI SUBSIDIARY: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1603857534737072128?refresh=1671235705

Earlier Twitter Files

1. Free speech used to matter: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1533972260062736385.html
2. The Twitter files: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1598822959866683394.html
3. The Twitter files supp: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1600243405841666048.html
4. Secret exclusion lists: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1601007575633305600.html
5. Removing Trump Jan6: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1601352083617505281.html
6. Removing Trump Jan7: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1601720455005511680.html
7. Removing Trump Jan8: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1602364197194432515.html

[Mike Parrish]

Again, please point to anything illegal.

Or surprising, for that matter.

I have always assumed social media was rife with USIC contacts.

[Jason Bryant]

I muted a ton of political words, including candidates names, and my feed got so much better. I had Blue for a bit, but it got taken away, now I have to re-sign up if I want to have the ability to edit. I use that because it's quick, so I will fat-finger something here and there. My check was verified around 2012 during the London Olympics due to my role with (then) USAW. Twitter verified a lot of Olympic accounts then. 

 

[Wrestleknownothing]

There is another theory for what Elon Musk is up to. It goes something like this.

All of Elon Musk's wealth derives from Tesla. Teslas are proud symbols of coastal elite liberals who have wanted to be aligned with Elon Musk and his liberal sympathies. Meanwhile conservatives view electric vehicles as woke, liberal crap. He has sold all of the Teslas he can to coastal elite liberals. If he were to do something that makes himself personally appealing to conservatives he can double the maximum addressable market for Teslas. If he can double the maximum addressable market for Teslas he can significantly increase his net worth.