Elon Musk

Forty Four thousand million dollars has gone out of Musk’s and many other banks and investment funds different accounts to pay for Twitter. Where has such a mind blowing amount of money gone?? I assume much of it isn’t ‘real’ money!…………….. I always like the counting analogy to figure the size of numbers. It would take 11.5 days to count to a million, 32 years to count to a billion thus 1408 years for someone to count to 44 billion. That’s a lot of money gone somewhere?

To the previous owners. Twitter was a publicly traded company so it went to the shareholders.

So is there anything stopping Me from creating a profile under a famous person’s name then paying 8 dollars and spewing any old nonsense for a bit of a laugh? I’m assuming not?

However surely if I impersonate someone, twitter will be open to being sued if my comments are at odds with the real person’s opinions. How would that play out? I don’t think we’ll have to wait long to find out

anyone have any background of what all those 7500 employees did?

I think people would be surprised how much work is involved to scale a product to that size. Even outside of the content moderation and legal issues involved in serving the product to hundreds of millions of users in hundreds of different countries and languages, there’ll be a huge amount of code in the background.

I’m sure somebody could knock up a rudimentary version in a week but it’s going to fall over pretty quickly at scale. I read somewhere that the iOS app alone has over 6 million lines of code. That app will undoubtedly connect to who knows how many services also developed by Twitter. Then there’s all the other platforms, and the services required to integrate it into places like STW. That’s a very simplistic estimation from a casual observer, I’m sure there’s much, much more. The stuff you see when you open it up will only be a tiny part of it.

If you look at the giants like Amazon and Facebook, they’re responsible for a lot of the software and infrastructure much of the modern Web is built upon, because it was impossible to scale to the size they did without it. I’m not too familiar with exactly what Twitter have contributed but they’ve certainly had their own influence in shaping the technology we use every day.

So is there anything stopping Me from creating a profile under a famous person’s name then paying 8 dollars and spewing any old nonsense for a bit of a laugh? I’m assuming not?

I would think not. But if you do and manage to get away with it, all confidence in such a system would fall flat on its face and people would be leaving in droves. And we’re not talking about your average user, but those with millions of followers. They would lose confidence and if they leave, twitter ceases to exist.

.

I urge to to try it 😀

Free speech

Journalist and former Texas Monthly editor Christopher Hooks @cd_hooks has had his Twitter account restricted after posting this tweet about @elonmusk Elon Musk (the retweet function is disabled for the tweet as well) pic.twitter.com/UWzOQS7DzO

— Brian Bennett (@ByBrianBennett) November 5, 2022

Fake news.

He was suspended for this:

That's not why he got suspended, he got suspended for impersonating Elon Musk (which is fun, but apparently not allowed for blue checks).

He has explained it himself: https://t.co/4fW0pDsYey

— Joost (@almodozo) November 6, 2022

Twitter’s dead. Just thought I’d put it out there in case anyone was still in doubt.

All the content has moved, or is in the process of moving right now. Journalists and idle chatterers may not quite realise yet, but the generators of informed content have already gone to mastodon where they can have intelligent and interesting conversations without getting shouted at by trolls. And the journalists can’t actually achieve anything just chatting to themselves, so they will surely follow once they’ve worked it out.

$40Bn down the drain in a matter of days, thanks to an ego the size of a planet being linked to a wallet the size of a small nation and the intellectual maturity of a small child.

Cheers @RickDraper correction taken

Twitter’s dead. Just thought I’d put it out there in case anyone was still in doubt.

Originally I thought it’d be a 💩show but the financial realities of users generally wanting a free platform paid for by advertising would force the path taken. But the more I read of Elons commentary the more it appears you might be right.

It’s not even so much about the money, it’s about the shitshow. Ok, I’m verified for free on mastodon, but the real draw is that I can have intelligent exchanges in a pleasant environment. I know it will get trolled a bit but local/server blocking should be much better than hoping for some central moderation that just doesn’t work (together with a business model that relies on outrage and argument).

I’ve not used twitter much until recently. And I’ve got to say it’s a hateful place that gives a voice to some absolute bellends

But I hadn’t perhaps appreciated the scale of how may absolutely stupid, gullible people there are out there…

Luckily they all are easily identified with a national flag in their profile, but even still, it’s fairly depressing

 have already gone to mastodon

I tried to get a Mastodon acct set up on Friday, and it was such a ball ache, I gave up. I don’t want to choose a server (and then have it repeatedly fail) I don’t want to have to chose (or tell it) what I’m interested in and be pigeonholed. and if I don’t have to do any of that, and I’ve got it wrong, then the system sign on was was shit enough for me not to understand how it works, and it’s overly complex

Mastodon isn’t going to be the next Twitter.

Ok, I’m verified for free on mastodon, but the real draw is that I can have intelligent exchanges in a pleasant environment

Don’t all places start this way until the trolls discover it’s interesting and move across.

It was very easy when I did it a couple of years ago (but no-one was there, so it basically sat dormant) and I expect it will be quite easy again when the current rush has subsided.

Choosing a server is somewhat akin to choosing an email provider or web host: ie, it really doesn’t matter very much at all and you can easily change your mind later (much easier than changing your email provider, as you can automatically redirect all followers etc). But I agree it’s a bit of a ball-ache right now as people are getting applications rejected etc just due to the systems being overwhelmed.

Don’t all places start this way until the trolls discover it’s interesting and move across.

Possibly, but the server independence mean that admins have a strong incentive to control their trolls or risk their server being blocked. Also, there is no business need for outrage and offence being used to drive engagement, no algorithms telling you what to read. So the whole environment is less toxic by design.

just due to the systems being overwhelmed

yep the server I chose has been offline all weekend 🙄

Twitter’s dead. Just thought I’d put it out there in case anyone was still in doubt.

Really?, a site that has been in use for 15years with the most amount of users does not die merely because a dick like musk buys it. For mastodon to equal the breadth of Twitter it would/will take years/a decade of continuing growth – not going to happen. Mastodon is mostly independent private servers run by single entities, what is the financial incentive to ramp up the capability of these servers to cope with increasing traffic?, mastodon is not the panacea to elons Twitter, he’ll get bored soon enough and stick his dick into something else.

Twitter works fine for me as I only view latest tweets from those I follow, why would anyone wish to rile themselves up by viewing the racist/bigoted shite from those they don’t agree with or follow?, if I wanted to read/hear that bile I’d buy the sun/telegraph or watch gb news

Possibly, but the server independence mean that admins have a strong incentive to control their trolls or risk their server being blocked

Doesn’t sound scalable to me.  It’s lovely when the server admins work for free, not so great when they do it for a living.  Small is relatively easy.  It’s not that I don’t want it to work, it’s just that people are not as great as we would like them to be

I think you’ll find professionals happily paying a small fee for (advert-free) service run essentially by and for the users. Anyway, I’m just pointing it out, you can thank me later. It seems that most of the people I care about following (and being followed by) are already there.

“Elon is very clever and judging productivity by lines of code is very good…”

CONFIRMED: Twitter is now asking some fired workers to please come back

– Some were laid off by mistake

– Some were let go before management realized their experience is needed to build new features Elon Musk is planning

FFS ? https://t.co/WKdtokWHoH

— Matt Navarra (@MattNavarra) November 6, 2022

The system I am looking at currently has loads of lines of code. Loads and loads – too many, in fact. That’s why it doesn’t run fast enough.

I’m hoping to save the project and the customer’s reputation with a single email.

the remaining staff at twitter are actively bullying me now. Jed from accounting called me "little baby bitchboy" to my face and nobody even said anything. I mean obviously I fired him and I'm having my goons break his wife's legs, but still. it hurts 🙁

— Elon Musk (@jephjacques) November 5, 2022

😂

Mastadon info

Reading this, I really don’t think Mastadon is a viable Twitter alternative at the moment.

Personally, I think Musk will realize he’s made a terrible mistake and quietly sell his interest…who it goes to is the real key

Personally, I think Musk will realize he’s made a terrible mistake and quietly sell his interest

Yeah, I doubt anyone would notice, especially with Elon’s habit of keeping things low key…

I think he should **** off to Mars, personally. He could take Trump, putin and the majority of the UK govenment with him.

Bon Voyage!

So is Mastodon the new Diaspora? Remember that? No? Thought not…

EDIT: bloody hell it still exists with a whopping 800k+ users. By comparison MySpace still has around 6M users. Mastodon has 10x less than that.

Love the post from @jephjacques! 🤣🤣

By comparison MySpace still has around 6M users. Mastodon has 10x less than that.

MySpace is still going? 😳 Who’d a thunk it! I’ll have to check and see if my account is still there; there’s a photo on there of me and Gemma Hayes, an Irish singer songwriter from back when she was just starting out, she did a small in-store at the small Fopp Records in The Corridor, Bath, I’d like to find it and have a copy in my photo library. Someone else took the photo, and sent me a copy on a CD, God knows where that is!

If anyone wants me I’ll be on bebo.

If anyone wants me i will be near the phone box just down the road from me Mam and Dads house.

Musk won’t kill twitter but his purchase shines a powerful light on both him and social media platforms. The power they have and hence the power of the people that own them.

Musk will undoubtedly damage the brand though and will move on to pastures new at some point… Just blaming everybody else as he does so.

There could actually be some positives that come out of this. Musk will be seen to be what he really is by far more people for a start.

Love the post from @jephjacques!

Yep. Today’s comic has a post about his subsequent ban from Twitter.

It’s just plain dumb if one of the main criteria for sacking devs was how many lines of code they’ve produced, I struggle to believe Musk is that detached from the reality of how software development works.

Possibly, but the server independence mean that admins have a strong incentive to control their trolls or risk their server being blocked.

De-centralised modding doesn’t really work if Reddit is anything to go by. Sure, some subreddits have good moderation but many others just become a cesspit with mods ridiculously power-tripping or abandoning any principles in the pursuit of monetising it. Most vaguely contentious (politics, religion etc.) subreddits are just echo chambers these days with any dissenting posts ending up in a permanent ban (from the subreddit).

Yup, the muskrat has just announced a change to the rules for people impersonating people without a clear “parody” tag, basically, permanent ban on the first strike.

This was announced from his personal account and apparently had not gone through he moderation council that is supposed to do these things.

Man-baby gets angry at people mocking him and pretending to be him and bans them.

Yup, the muskrat has just announced a change to the rules for people impersonating people without a clear “parody” tag, basically, permanent ban on the first strike.

Seems like a good place to leave this.

Personally, I think Musk will realize he’s made a terrible mistake

Elon is such a massive narcissist, I will bet money he thinks it’s all going brilliantly

Or at least if it isn’t going brilliantly it won’t be his fault and will be everyone else’s for not listening to him.

Yep, it’s always someone else’s fault with these guys

kerley
Free Member

Or at least if it isn’t going brilliantly it won’t be his fault and will be everyone else’s for not listening to him.

This started pretty much instantly- the fall in advertising is caused by <check notes> journalists and leftist pressure groups

I think he should **** off to Mars, personally. He could take Trump, Putin and the majority of the UK government with him.

Could we squeeze Michael Mackintyre in there as well please…