Elon Musk

There are still a lot of good things happening on twitter.

Also probably lot’s of good things not on twitter.

Its still a positive & accurate news aggregator for many.

Isn’t that an oxymoron?

It still functions as a market place for many small & independent business. Its still a community information board for many.

It’s an advertising platform that relies on user created content to generate traffic and clicks, it’s not a hugely original business model…

I get the guy at the top is a nob and I get that he is facilitating further nobs but there aren’t many if any suitable alternatives that people can just jump to.

Really? You make it sound like an essential service without which no information could possibly reach you. Clearly not the case as you’re posting on STW (and no doubt other niche corners of the interwebs)…

Just to put it in perspective Twitter apparently has 396.5 million users, that’s just under 5% of the 8 billion people living on Earth currently. If you think you’re getting comprehensive news/information with insightful comment and opinion from just 5% of the population (mostly the wealthiest 5%) guess again…

I accept twitter’s influence goes beyond it’s user base as they keep bloody pasting links everywhere else, and half of all journalism now seems to be based on quoting tweets, but it wouldn’t be very hard to disentangle ourselves from twitter. People have been telling us all to delete FB since about 2016, I don’t see why twitter deserves any more lenient treatment…

Anyone fancy trying neurolink then? Don’t worry the monkeys only chewed a finger* or two off in tests**.

It’s probably got very little to do with medical advances and more to do with some people thinking they can live inside the internet and actually experience the sensations therein.

A bit like those extreme gothic types that like to believe they really are vampires.

https://boingboing.net/2022/12/12/video-of-elon-musk-getting-booed-on-stage-at-dave-chappelles-show-last-night-was-removed-from-twitter-heres-a-copy.html

Could have just said “you’re wrong” and been less of a dick about it but you kno’ hating on something is so cool right now.

I’m tempted to just set up another account using a burner email address, just to troll Musk.

I’ve never had a Twitter account and I’m considering signing up just to give him shit. Maybe that’s his plan? Curse you Musk and your psychological games! Curse you!

I’ve never had a Twitter account and I’m considering signing up just to give him shit. Maybe that’s his plan?

he had only 96M followers a couple of weeks ago and now its up to 120M.  You might not be alone

This is good advice IMO.

But many of you seem absolutely determined to find every one of these creepy freaks, and to engage Musk, and to wallow in the mud with every terrible account. This is childish. Ignore those accounts. /3

— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) December 13, 2022

he had only 96M followers a couple of weeks ago and now its up to 120M. You might not be alone

Its a bit like a house fire down the street – everyone is turning up to have a look and many are deciding to piss on the flames. Elon could end up with a metaphorical pile of smouldering ash covered in piss or they may well end up putting it out for him.

thepodge
Free Member
Could have just said “you’re wrong” and been less of a dick about it but you kno’ hating on something is so cool right now.

I could have, but half the joy of social meeja isn’t just telling people they’re wrong, it’s dissecting and illustrating the ways in which their wrong. 😉

As for “hating on” twitter/Elon? Yeah I wasn’t a fan of either since before it was cool, I’ve not hidden that fact.

Those slowly coming to the realisations that the apps, personalities and narratives that have shaped their current world view are flawed are just going to have to get used to being challenged when they start try to apologize for the whole sorry shit show…

Those slowly coming to the realisations that the apps, personalities and narratives that have shaped their current world view are flawed

Whereas those thinking that this has only become an issue since the advent of “social media” are just hopelessly naïve.

Just to put it in perspective Twitter apparently has 396.5 million users, that’s just under 5% of the 8 billion people living on Earth currently. If you think you’re getting comprehensive news/information with insightful comment and opinion from just 5% of the population (mostly the wealthiest 5%) guess again…

What do you mean by comprehensive? All the major news sources are on Twitter, and all the local news sources that I want to read about, too. No doubt if I wanted live coverage of the latest scandals going on in some remote village in Ghana I’d be stuffed, but for the actual news that affects me I’d say yes: it’s pretty comprehensive.

Whereas those thinking that this has only become an issue since the advent of “social media” are just hopelessly naïve.

Indeed this is very much a repeating pattern throughout the ages.

Elon Musk is more like Henry ford than Tony Stark, Twitter now being his ‘Dearborn Independent’.

What do you mean by comprehensive? All the major news sources are on Twitter, and all the local news sources that I want to read about, too. No doubt if I wanted live coverage of the latest scandals going on in some remote village in Ghana I’d be stuffed, but for the actual news that affects me I’d say yes: it’s pretty comprehensive.

I suppose I simply mean looking beyond a single media platform and its contributors, perhaps ‘comprehensive’ isn’t the right word? Dunno.
If the rectangle in your pocket is your main window on the world and the major source by which news/information filters through is the twitter app, you’re inherently limiting the breadth of sources and perspectives.

If you consider twitter a comprehensive source then fine, but as noted before it’s really just an aggregator, which means everything posted can be found elsewhere and the algorithms and filters in place to dictate what you users see are now ultimately under Elon’s control…

I still think twitter needs to be starved of users to force a moderation of its owner’s behaviour, ultimately part of that is those people seeking out other sources of news and information, which really might not be such a terrible thing…

It’s those that consider twitter ‘town square of citizen journalism’ that I have direct issue with – not those that get information from reputable news sources who have shared head lines on the platform.

half the joy of social meeja isn’t just telling people they’re wrong, it’s dissecting and illustrating the ways in which their wrong.

What you’ve done there is use the possessive ‘their’ (as in belonging to them, i.e, they had their arses handed to them by a grammar pedant) whereas you should have used they’re, which is the contraction of they are. Which is odd, because you got it right the first time, in exactly the same form (i.e. they are wrong becoming they’re wrong)

What you’ve done there is use the possessive ‘their’ (as in belonging to them, i.e, they had their arses handed to them by a grammar pedant) whereas you should have used they’re, which is the contraction of they are. Which is odd, because you got it right the first time, in exactly the same form (i.e. they are wrong becoming they’re wrong)

Or did I do it as a gift to a would be grammar pedant, Providing the opportunity to point out and explain my error, thereby helping to illustrating the point I was making?

(I did not).

17 pages when all that needed to be said is Elon Musk, bit of a ****. He reminds me of Steve Jobs who, in turn, makes me think of Bill Burr talking about Steve Jobs. I see Musk in the exact same way.

https://twitter.com/RMac18/status/1602777375560695809

Bankruptcy does seem a serious possibility.

One reason to stay on this site is the very real possibility it may soon be more responsibly managed by court-appointed bankruptcy trustee or an unpaid creditor like XYZ Realty or Acme Jet Cleaning Services. https://t.co/CSrr27RvTi

— David Frum (@davidfrum) December 14, 2022

Musk is now banning journalists who have been critical of him.

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/twitter-suspends-journalists-covering-elon-musk-company-rcna62032

Aaron Rupar is a well-known liberal journalist.

Aaron Rupar just got suspended from Twitter.

— Decoding Fox News (@DecodingFoxNews) December 16, 2022

Keith Olbermann has been suspended following his support for Aaron Rupar. pic.twitter.com/ns7wEkbmkX

— charlotteclymer@mastodon.social (@cmclymer) December 16, 2022

Musk is now banning journalists who have been critical of him.

Yup, he’s definitely championed the old free speech there hasn’t he…

Well banning journalists ticks one of the Fascism boxes but then Fascism and free speech don’t mix that well unless it is that sort of free speech.

It’s because of location tracking breaches – apparently

There “was” two narratives, the alternative was those journalists calling out Musky for posting data that could identity individuals, both narratives had “evidence” last night.

Not really believing anything at this point

I like the way he ran a poll

It didn’t go the way he wanted

So he ran another…

What an absolute tool

Yeah like all the other fascist-adjacent right wing narcissists masquerading as free speech absolutists; it all goes fine until they encounter the “wrong” sort of free speech.

It’s like watching a 4 year old having a tantrum.

Yeah like all the other fascist-adjacent right wing narcissists masquerading as free speech absolutists

Free speech seems to mean the right to say what they want when they want without any consequences including people pointing out they are knobs.

It’s because of location tracking breaches – apparently

The flight-tracking data is publicly available, anyone can access it. Elon changed the rules then banned the account that was tracking his private jet based on posts that preceded the rule change.

The journalists’ bans were because they expressed support for the flight-tracking account and criticized Musk. But, when Nazis are involved, Musk is a free-speech absolutist.

Twitter recently granted "amnesty" to a fugitive neo-Nazi who doxed a Jewish woman and her 12-year-old son, photoshopped them at Auschwitz, and led a harassment campaign that resulted in her receiving hundreds of threatening calls, texts and emails. But yes, go on. https://t.co/BAJt7n1Usb

— Nick Martin (@nickmartin) December 16, 2022

Shadow banning Mastodon links too.

Oh FFS: pic.twitter.com/OuZZ6bPELb

— ChrisO_wiki (@ChrisO_wiki) December 16, 2022

Making things difficult for Ukrainians, too.

Accounts registered in Ukraine no longer have access to Twitter Spaces.

Last week Twitter deleted Ukraine from the list of countries that can register new accounts using the phone number verification (there is no Ukraine's country code in the list anymore).

— Euromaidan Press (@EuromaidanPress) December 16, 2022

I’d absolutely love it if journalists had the backbone to just quit Twitter en masse, but alas I think they’re too hooked on it.

The problem with switching from Twitter is network effects – everyone is on Twitter, so you have to be on Twitter. Mastodon is the obvious alternative, but there’s little point in posting there because everyone’s on Twitter. The one thing that Twitter is really useful for is getting news updates from legitimate sources, so legitimate journalists need to be on Twitter. They aren’t going to quit because they can’t.

Aaron Rupar’s ban seems to be related to criticizing Musk, not for breaching location tracking rules.

https://twitter.com/CleoMatra/status/1603707082758590465

He seems to have attracted the attention of the EU again with his journalist banning, emotions really must be like a roller coaster ride round him at the moment:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-63996061

https://t.co/qxV1ZljCcV

— bring on the dancing horses (@inthefade) December 17, 2022

This hurts my eyes

That’s a parody, surely?

As a graphic designer, all I can say is WOW! That really is quite something. Its difficult to know where to start with that?

I’d love to read the brief the designer got from Elon 🤣

It looks like something you’d see airbushed onto the cab of a big American truck in Idaho or somewhere

binners

It looks like something you’d see airbushed onto the cab of a big American truck in Idaho

Perfect 😀

That really is quite something. Its difficult to know where to start with that?

Not too hard – I think that was an option in Wordart ca. Office 97?

I’m picturing the ‘design process’ as being like those episodes of the apprentice, where an inexplicably overconfident photocopier salesman from Telford is trying to tell the long-suffering designer at a top London design agency what to do

Except this time it’s for real and he actually owns the company

The result certainly looks like something an Apprentice contestant would come up with

I’d love to read the brief the designer got from Elon 🤣

”Give me what I want.”