Elon Musk buys Twitter to bring back Free Speech

[Mollymews]

5 hours ago, Istelathis said:

my ability to appreciate comedy - now my only purpose is to cancel others.  

i cancel heaps. Cadbury, Bill Cosby, Starbucks, New Zealand Herald, Radio Pacific, Michael Jackson,  Kevin Spacey, ACT political party, Vladimir Putin. Everyone who thinks 8am on Sunday morning is the time to mow their lawns. The lady who never gave way to me at the supermarket when I was going down the ramp with my full trolley and who never had any trolley herself

and I cancelled this ginger cat who came and sat on the fence outside my bedroom window and started meowling at some other cat at 3am in the morning. And that guy who beeped their car horn at me, like they own the road or something. I also cancelled Natalie Portman halfway thru this movie as well when I thought would be quite good. Dumbest movie ever ever since at least yesterday. Canceled this person on Youtube when I was looking for a quick and simple recipe for paneer masala. Like who insists crushing and peeling fresh garlic is quick and simple !! get real Youtube person !!! And that was just today. Will be whole lot of other people gunna get the cancel from me tomorrow

😺

 

[Innula Zenovka]

1 hour ago, Mollymews said:

yes. I will not be surprised at all if the deal doesn't finalise. It doesn't make any sense for Elon Musk to buy it. Is not a good financial proposition at the price and buying Twitter doesn't solve his other issue which grates on him as a person

as part of the settlement with DOJ over his tweet about taking Tesla private, Mr Musk also had to agree that any further tweets about Tesla (being a public company) that could affect the company share price, has to be prior cleared by a Tesla attorney

buying Twitter doesn't change the settlement terms that restricts Mr Musk from tweeting whatever he likes about Tesla or any of the other public companies that he may be invested in

recently he was in court to have this part of the agreement nullified and the judge said no, as in the agreement Mr Musk simply acknowledged his fiduciary responsibility as a  officer of a public company

 

Tesla shareholders certainly don't seem impressed by the news

Quote

Tesla shares have fallen after investor concerns that boss Elon Musk may have to sell shares in the electric car maker to help pay for the takeover of Twitter.

Tesla had more than $125bn (£99.3bn) wiped off its market value on Tuesday.

One analyst said the slump in Tesla's value may pose problems for a $12.5bn loan Mr Musk has secured against his stake in the company.

The issues highlight the challenges he faces as he tries to run five firms.

Tesla's share price has taken a hammering, with some investors wondering whether Mr Musk's Twitter purchase is bad for Tesla.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61239181

The article goes on to note that:

Quote

Mr Musk says he is a "free speech absolutist". But make no mistake, the platform will still need to be moderated.

On Tuesday, he clarified what he meant: "By 'free speech', I simply mean that which matches the law," he said.

But there are real problems with that definition. For one, the law is different in different countries.

It is also often difficult to know whether a tweet breaks the law in real time.

Did tweets encouraging the storming of Capitol Hill in Washington cross the line into insurrection? Where does criticism become libel? When does hate speech directed towards someone become abuse or harassment?

In February, I interviewed the chief executive of Gettr, Jason Miller. He's Donald Trump's former spokesperson, and now heads up a "free speech" alternative to Twitter.

And yet Gettr has a load of rules on what you can and can not say.

"I spend a lot of time on moderation policy, it's probably what I get enquiries from people about the most," he said.

So Mr Musk is going to have to spend an awful lot of time thinking about, and resource the policing of Twitter, whatever happens.

Twitter has some other fairly significant structural problems. Unlike its Silicon Valley peers like Facebook or YouTube, Twitter has never been very good at making money from the platform.

 

[Arielle Popstar]

13 hours ago, StarlanderGoods said:

Okay, you searched, but after the evidence that was presented to you, do you need to keep searching? Or can you accept that the man is not flawless and in this particular situation he messed up big time.  Because hiring someone to dig up dirt, that´s extremely petty, and it clears all the doubts about what he really meant.

So, give us this one, it´s as black and white as you can get with this guy.

Never said he was not flawless. No one is whether you, me or anyone else that spends more time looking at the flaws of others rather then their own. And those with money and power and in the public eye have theirs amplified. When it comes to whether Musk could make something of Twitter without having to cancel one half of the population, it is my thought that he is more likely able to then many others and even Jack Dorsey himself thinks so which in my opinion is about the best recommendation one could get for running Twitter:

I love Twitter. Twitter is the closest thing we have to a global consciousness.

The idea and service is all that matters to me, and I will do whatever it takes to protect both. Twitter as a company has always been my sole issue and my biggest regret. It has been owned by Wall Street and the ad model. Taking it back from Wall Street is the correct first step.

In principle, I don’t believe anyone should own or run Twitter. It wants to be a public good at a protocol level, not a company. Solving for the problem of it being a company however, Elon is the singular solution I trust. I trust his mission to extend the light of consciousness.

Elon’s goal of creating a platform that is “maximally trusted and broadly inclusive” is the right one.  This is the right path...I believe it with all my heart.

https://twitter.com/jack/status/1518772754782187520

 

[Love Zhaoying]

19 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Never said he was not flawless. No one is whether you, me or anyone else that spends more time looking at the flaws of others rather then their own. And those with money and power and in the public eye have theirs amplified. When it comes to whether Musk could make something of Twitter without having to cancel one half of the population, it is my thought that he is more likely able to then many others and even Jack Dorsey himself thinks so which in my opinion is about the best recommendation one could get for running Twitter:

Hey, if it doesn't matter who owns Twitter, let's give full control of it to someone who knows how to wield power.

Like, some authoritarian leader of another country!

What could go wrong?

[Ayashe Ninetails]

46 minutes ago, Innula Zenovka said:

"So Mr Musk is going to have to spend an awful lot of time thinking about, and resource the policing of Twitter, whatever happens."

A live look at that happening 😂

 

No but seriously, Twitter's current moderation is going to need a pretty major overhaul whether he buys or not. I would hope they've already started working on that.

[Luna Bliss]

26 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

When it comes to whether Musk could make something of Twitter without having to cancel one half of the population, it is my thought that he is more likely able to then many others and even Jack Dorsey himself thinks so which in my opinion is about the best recommendation one could get for running Twitter:

He doesn't play well with others (the most crucial skill needed for a social leader)...here's some of the article explaining this:

"....the idea that Musk alone can fix Twitter is a popular one in certain tech circles. After all, he has led two of the most spectacular business success stories of our time, in Tesla and SpaceX. Both endeavors, by all accounts, depended heavily on Musk’s personal vision, commitment, showmanship and business acumen.

Dorsey’s exaltation of Musk evoked “great man” thinking — a theory of history in which individual heroes direct world affairs through force of will and intellect. Antiquated among academic historians, “great man” theory has enjoyed a renaissance in the technology industry. Consider the legends of solitary geniuses tinkering in garages, conjuring code on computer screens or scrawling out plans on whiteboards to remold the future for us all.

What “great man” thinking obscures is that technological breakthroughs invariably build on the work of others. And successful tech companies are shaped and realized through the work of teams of designers, engineers and others, buying enthusiastically into an idea whose moment has arrived.

Thomas Edison’s great “invention” of the lightbulb concealed a far more complex and incremental story of its development, and depended on his team of researchers at Menlo Park. Hewlett and Packard started in a garage, but it was the corporate culture they cultivated that made HP — rather than, say, Shockley Semiconductor — the founding emblem of Silicon Valley. Jeff Bezos, who owns The Washington Post, has attributed Amazon’s success in part to good timing. And Mark Zuckerberg was just one of several Harvard entrepreneurs who were all vying at the same time to build a campus-based social network.

At Tesla and SpaceX, Musk earned a reputation as a hard-charging, hands-on leader who played a crucial role in product and engineering decisions, at times micromanaging to a fault. But even Musk, hardly a paragon of humility, would readily acknowledge that those companies’ triumphs were not the results of his efforts alone. They were the work of large teams of talented, idealistic employees who were attracted to his vision and highly motivated to help bring it to fruition.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, he issued a series of tweets critical of both Twitter as a company and individual Twitter employees, including its top policy executive, Vijaya Gadde. Those tweets have helped to fuel an ugly, and at times violently racist, harassment campaign against her — and signaled that he won’t hesitate to use the platform against his own workers. They also likely poisoned the well for any relationship between Musk and Gadde, or anyone at the company who was loyal to her".

more... https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/04/27/jack-dorsey-elon-musk-singular-solution/

[Luna Bliss]

https://www.plainsite.org/dockets/download.html?id=285067564&z=c0073a30
On page 48 there's a description of Musk's behavior when he appeared on the rescue scene all cocky and believing he could help in a situation he knew nothing about, trying to dominate experienced divers.  Reading this I believe I'd tell him to stick it where the sun doesn't shine as well.

"He did not take well to being told to go away. Over the weekend, Mr Musk tweeted that Mr Unsworth
(who is threatening to sue for libel in return) was a "pe do guy" and pledged to take his pod to the cave
anyway to prove he was right. His desire to come out on top of this argument speaks to the feral
instincts of his natural Silicon Valley home, where the winner frequently takes all. In technology, human
lives tend not to be directly at stake. Such an emergen cy ca lls for imagination, flexibility and timeliness
- not grandstanding and the worst of tech's "move fast and break things" ethos.

By defaming Mr Unsworth, widely celebrated as a hero, Mr Musk has revealed a less appealing side to
his character that should not escape the attention of investors. Such personal insults suggest he had at
least one eye on enhancing his own reputation through this crisis.
This dispute represents two different worlds colliding. The rescue operation was a team effort; the
divers who rescued the boys brought expertise from Australia, Scandinavia, Belgium and the US. They
worked tirelessly together towards a common goal.
The rescue team is proof of the advantages in having expertise in a specific field. The divers and rescue
specialists knew what had to be done to save the boys and set about it methodically. Mr Musk, on the
other hand, believes in the value of bringing fresh eyes to complex chal lenges. Yet it would be naive to
think that any individual alone was best equipped to deliver salvation.
Mr Musk's intervention also exposes one flaw in "flat hierarchy", the slimline management structure
favoured by Silicon Valley. lfteam members defer to each other 's expertise then such a structure can
encourage useful collaboration. But reducing layers of management - as Mr Musk has recently done at
Tesla - can sometimes allow leaders to tinker and assert their influence counter-productively. His
efforts in Thailand suggest this was precisely the tech-man's approach.
The drama of the underground rescue - whether the trapped Thai children or the Chilean miners in
2010 - is best managed by largely anonymous individuals working together without ego. They do not
depend on chief executives bubbling with optimism and flashy innovations. An offer to help in such a
perilous situation is welcome. Rudely asserting one's own authority at the expense of the team is not.
The Thai boys were saved by a systematic collective approach. The intervention of Mr Musk, who has
conceded he might be a useful "narcissist", points to the limits of Silicon Valley's "yes, we can" attitude.
This was one situation where the last thing a trained team needed was a dose of disruption".

[Theresa Tennyson]

6 hours ago, Istelathis said:

No, the liberal media has completely removed my ability to appreciate comedy - now my only purpose is to cancel others.  

ON THE ONE HAND:

I grew up in a small town. Not many degrees of separation. News traveled fast.

Now I'm grown and in a small, specialized and highly mobile profession. No matter where you get a job, it's highly likely that you will work with someone who shares a contact with you from clear across the country.

So, in these situations I learned that what you say gets around, and if you don't watch yourself it's highly likely that something you said in "confidence" will end up in the ear of someone who will make your life hell. So, if you don't want everyone to hear it, you just don't say it.

Right now, the United States and the world has become a very big small town. People who aren't used to that situation are getting nasty surprises.

ON THE OTHER HAND:

I used to fly commercial a lot. At the end of a flight, when the attendant was announcing gates for connections, they usually said, "We know you have choices when making your travel plans." As it happens I lived in a hub city for a major airline so that was partially earwash, but still: Yes. I could have gotten where I was going in a number of different ways.

A lot of things are like that. For everyone who has a job, for every company that makes a product, there are usually several others who could do the same thing at least as well.

In the entertainment and media field now that's very much different than it used to be. There's far less friction to get a message out then there used to be when things had to be run through an offset press or sent over a limited and expensive set of airway spectra. Not as easy to control what gets out.

SO:

It seems to me that when I hear of someone being "silenced," as I hear that I also hear exactly what they were "silenced" from saying, ad nauseum and from multiple directions.

When someone gets "cancelled," they seem to pretty quickly get picked up by someone else who's glad to have them, with a nice helping of extra hype and a new status as a Free Speech Warrior.

Seems to me that the only "free speech crisis" we're living through is that some people are acting like spoiled children when they're discovering they can't say anything they want anywhere they want.

Anyway, that's just my opinion. Free speech, you know?

[Love Zhaoying]

2 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

"He did not take well to being told to go away. Over the weekend, Mr Musk tweeted that Mr Unsworth
(who is threatening to sue for libel in return) was a "pe do guy" and pledged to take his pod to the cave
anyway to prove he was right. His desire to come out on top of this argument speaks to the feral
instincts of his natural Silicon Valley home, where the winner frequently takes all. In technology, human
lives tend not to be directly at stake. Such an emergen cy ca lls for imagination, flexibility and timeliness
- not grandstanding and the worst of tech's "move fast and break things" ethos.

Makes me wonder if this type of behavior is influenced by the weed, or by the chip in his head.

[Love Zhaoying]

1 minute ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

When someone gets "cancelled," they seem to pretty quickly get picked up by someone else who's glad to have them, with a nice helping of extra hype and a new status as a Free Speech Warrior.

It can be amusing to watch those who are "cancelled" get forced to more and more obscure platforms.

[Luna Bliss]

11 hours ago, Lindal Kidd said:

I appreciate @AnthonyJoanne's critique of the "cancellation" definition and concede their point. Cancellation, in its new meaning (to me, it used to mean stopping a magazine subscription!) includes an implied retaliatory intent. It's not just stopping support of someone because you no longer like, need, or want their product. It's retaliation for an expressed point of view, an attempt to "make them pay" for their position.

Those who champion the freedom they believe a Musk Twitter would bring often don't want to be confronted for their bad behavior -- they like to claim they are being "cancelled" and treated unfairly when in most cases their behavior is indeed wrong. 

When you use the words "retaliation for an expressed point of view" to define "cancellation" this implies that confronting someone about their behavior is always wrong because the accused individual only has a "point of view" being challenged or those confronting the behavior of the accused person are only seeking "retaliation" or revenge.
However, bringing to light someone's bad behavior and forcing them to face consequences for this bad behavior can be a positive force for change -- especially when levied against those with great power in society who would otherwise be able to get away with the bad behavior.

Taking the example of a sexist boss who treats women badly, I'm glad women who were victimized by such a boss came forth to tell their story so that he suffered consequences and was removed from his position so that future women in that company won't have to endure his behavior.
Often these types of bosses are able to get away with their behavior because it's difficult to address it from within the company itself -- the whistleblowers are instead fired. Having a venue to voice their abuse (social media) gives them power, and those who abuse others in such ways thereby face the consequence of their behavior.

 

[Ceka Cianci]

2 minutes ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

ON THE ONE HAND:

I grew up in a small town. Not many degrees of separation. News traveled fast.

Now I'm grown and in a small, specialized and highly mobile profession. No matter where you get a job, it's highly likely that you will work with someone who shares a contact with you from clear across the country.

So, in these situations I learned that what you say gets around, and if you don't watch yourself it's highly likely that something you said in "confidence" will end up in the ear of someone who will make your life hell. So, if you don't want everyone to hear it, you just don't say it.

Right now, the United States and the world has become a very big small town. People who aren't used to that situation are getting nasty surprises.

ON THE OTHER HAND:

I used to fly commercial a lot. At the end of a flight, when the attendant was announcing gates for connections, they usually said, "We know you have choices when making your travel plans." As it happens I lived in a hub city for a major airline so that was partially earwash, but still: Yes. I could have gotten where I was going in a number of different ways.

A lot of things are like that. For everyone who has a job, for every company that makes a product, there are usually several others who could do the same thing at least as well.

In the entertainment and media field now that's very much different than it used to be. There's far less friction to get a message out then there used to be when things had to be run through an offset press or sent over a limited and expensive set of airway spectra. Not as easy to control what gets out.

SO:

It seems to me that when I hear of someone being "silenced," as I hear that I also hear exactly what they were "silenced" from saying, ad nauseum and from multiple directions.

When someone gets "cancelled," they seem to pretty quickly get picked up by someone else who's glad to have them, with a nice helping of extra hype and a new status as a Free Speech Warrior.

Seems to me that the only "free speech crisis" we're living through is that some people are acting like spoiled children when they're discovering they can't say anything they want anywhere they want.

Anyway, that's just my opinion. Free speech, you know?

Yep, That small town grapevine  has been canceling people since forever and a day..

The worst thing about it is, they all know where everyone lives.. hehehe

The funny thing about is, just about everyone has been on that vine at one time or another, yet still acts like they are shocked at what others do.. hehehe

 

[Luna Bliss]

11 hours ago, AnthonyJoanne said:

Why am I spamming a wall of text as to what really constitutes canceling?

Because twitter has been a primary mechanism for canceling for quite a while now. And some of the people who have the biggest problem with Musk buying twitter are the most egregious practitioners of canceling people.

As has been pointed out, what you are calling "canceling" is not always bad -- some people need to be called out on their bad behavior. So if those you experienced on Twitter who believe in "canceling" don't want Musk to own Twitter this could be a good thing.
We'd have to know what they were wanting to "cancel" and how they were attempting to achieve it before we can say.

[Luna Bliss]

14 hours ago, Arielle Popstar said:

20 hours ago, Luna Bliss said:

In deciding Musk's character the main issue here isn't whether jurors were bought off somehow, or whether the law was able to determine what occurred met the terms of defamation.

What is disgusting here is that Musk hired a private investigator to try and dig up dirt on someone with little power in society who merely insulted him --  Musk paid a private investigator 52,000 dollars in an attempt to paint his opponent as a pedo.

Imagine, Arielle, that I was some famous and wealthy person, you toss an insult at me, and in response I use major resources to make you seem like a pedophile. Do you see the abuse of power here, the vindictiveness and 'unfair fighting' that shows Musk should not wield any power -- he abuses power.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/oct/08/elon-musk-diver-vernon-unsworth-pedo-idiot

Expand  

Abuse of power happens al the time, even here within this forum and it is highly unlikely that most people in the world have not abused their power over another with vindictiveness and unfair fighting at some point in their lives. Children learn it early on and just get better at making it appear more civilized as they grow up. Those who see themselves as victims are especially prone to it as they use a form of guilt and manipulation to get their needs met as opposed to those who do so more directly through force. Take a look at Musk's wiki page, it is an interesting read on his own background that will obviously have some impact on how he handles himself today. Some people here I think need to stop looking at him as Musk, the billionaire and see him as Musk the human being. 

So because there exists abuses of power in the world this means we should not strive to create more justice when we can? 
This sounds like some sort of 'lets all be asshats' manifesto justified by the fact that asshats exist.

I'm sure Musk has redeeming qualities, but there are important qualities all leaders with great power must embody in order to be effective leaders. You'd need to study this to understand.
In short, this guy fails big time in the qualities one needs to govern others effectively. And I'm not talking about the skills needed to run a business -- those are very different skills from what is needed to manage a now-vital part of society.

[Ceka Cianci]

The only problem I really have with things like that is when they start getting into the whole Doxing.. That can have some terrifying results.. When someones whole family  is exposed to being hurt or death threats on them and all kinds of terrible things.. Those things won't end well and can get people on either side of the situation hurt or killed.

That's not just a one sided one group doing those things either..

This is why it's not good to be relying so much on how things make you life easier.. It's just an easier trail to lay out for the creepers..

 

[kali Wylder]

On 4/26/2022 at 9:09 PM, AnthonyJoanne said:

 words....

One can, however, search using an unbiased search engine (assuming you've made the effort to find one: Here's a hint, Google and Duck Duck Go are NOT reliable unbiased search engines and openly admit that they are not) ... more words.

So, what search engine do you consider to be unbiased?

[Love Zhaoying]

13 minutes ago, kali Wylder said:

So, what search engine do you consider to be unbiased?

You didn't ask me, but I have an answer!

It has to be Bing, right?  Bing seems to randomly steal its search results from other search engines.

I'm halfway joking, as Bing was "caught" stealing search results early on, as I recall.

[Love Zhaoying]

On 4/25/2022 at 7:28 PM, Arielle Popstar said:

“Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated,”

Just don't criticize Musk, or he will cancel your Tesla order! (It was in the news, in case nobody put the info in this thread yet.)

Irony!

[Silent Mistwalker]

2 hours ago, Mollymews said:

i cancel heaps. Cadbury, Bill Cosby, Starbucks, New Zealand Herald, Radio Pacific, Michael Jackson,  Kevin Spacey, ACT political party, Vladimir Putin. Everyone who thinks 8am on Sunday morning is the time to mow their lawns. The lady who never gave way to me at the supermarket when I was going down the ramp with my full trolley and who never had any trolley herself

and I cancelled this ginger cat who came and sat on the fence outside my bedroom window and started meowling at some other cat at 3am in the morning. And that guy who beeped their car horn at me, like they own the road or something. I also cancelled Natalie Portman halfway thru this movie as well when I thought would be quite good. Dumbest movie ever ever since at least yesterday. Canceled this person on Youtube when I was looking for a quick and simple recipe for paneer masala. Like who insists crushing and peeling fresh garlic is quick and simple !! get real Youtube person !!! And that was just today. Will be whole lot of other people gunna get the cancel from me tomorrow

😺

 

Mom? Is that you?

[Silent Mistwalker]

1 hour ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Makes me wonder if this type of behavior is influenced by the weed, or by the chip in his head.

It's not the weed.

[Coffee Pancake]

2 hours ago, Arielle Popstar said:

I love Twitter. Twitter is the closest thing we have to a global consciousness.

This perception couldn't be further from the truth.

Twitter is deliberately, carefully and precisely engineered to be antagonistic. The entire platform depends on engagement, and the only way to measure that is by the level of reactionary knee jerking. It's only feature is it's ability to generate fist fights without nuance or context.

Even if you sort by new, the algorithm still stacks content to get a reaction. Trends are carefully tailored to pull the greatest possible engagement from you, it amplifies division and culture war by design.

It deliberately prevents natural topics from trending, as can be seen when something trips the algorithm and suddenly you have 2 or more very different topics mashed together because of a common keyword. The "hot button" topic it's trying to promote getting drowned out by posts from niche communities like biology or astronomy twitter.

It's a bar brawl that's been refined, corporatized and monetized to the point of a Disney attraction. Step up! Step up! Let the fighting commence.

Do not for one second think the content you see on Twitter is a neutral stream of global consciousness.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

3 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

This perception couldn't be further from the truth.

Twitter is deliberately, carefully and precisely engineered to be antagonistic. The entire platform depends on engagement, and the only way to measure that is by the level of reactionary knee jerking. It's only feature is it's ability to generate fist fights without nuance or context.

Even if you sort by new, the algorithm still stacks content to get a reaction. Trends are carefully tailored to pull the greatest possible engagement from you, it amplifies division and culture war by design.

It deliberately prevents natural topics from trending, as can be seen when something trips the algorithm and suddenly you have 2 or more very different topics mashed together because of a common keyword. The "hot button" topic it's trying to promote getting drowned out by posts from niche communities like biology or astronomy twitter.

It's a bar brawl that's been refined, corporatized and monetized to the point of a Disney attraction. Step up! Step up! Let the fighting commence.

Do not for one second think the content you see on Twitter is a neutral stream of global consciousness.

And it is definitely not the place to engage in productive and civil conversations with people who have differing perspectives. Even if you are fortunate enough to find someone with whom you disagree who is rational, reasonable, and stable enough to actually engage dialogically, invariably others who are less so start piling in, and the mudslinging begins.

I DO find Twitter a useful resource for gauging the temperature and current trends in many issues, and it is, I think, very useful to gain some insight into how others think, their reasons for their opinions, and so forth.

But basically, it's a hot toxic mess.

[Ceka Cianci]

8 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

This perception couldn't be further from the truth.

Twitter is deliberately, carefully and precisely engineered to be antagonistic. The entire platform depends on engagement, and the only way to measure that is by the level of reactionary knee jerking. It's only feature is it's ability to generate fist fights without nuance or context.

Even if you sort by new, the algorithm still stacks content to get a reaction. Trends are carefully tailored to pull the greatest possible engagement from you, it amplifies division and culture war by design.

It deliberately prevents natural topics from trending, as can be seen when something trips the algorithm and suddenly you have 2 or more very different topics mashed together because of a common keyword. The "hot button" topic it's trying to promote getting drowned out by posts from niche communities like biology or astronomy twitter.

It's a bar brawl that's been refined, corporatized and monetized to the point of a Disney attraction. Step up! Step up! Let the fighting commence.

Do not for one second think the content you see on Twitter is a neutral stream of global consciousness.

THIS!! \o/

[Ayashe Ninetails]

1 minute ago, Coffee Pancake said:

This perception couldn't be further from the truth.

Twitter is deliberately, carefully and precisely engineered to be antagonistic. The entire platform depends on engagement, and the only way to measure that is by the level of reactionary knee jerking. It's only feature is it's ability to generate fist fights without nuance or context.

Even if you sort by new, the algorithm still stacks content to get a reaction. Trends are carefully tailored to pull the greatest possible engagement from you, it amplifies division and culture war by design.

It deliberately prevents natural topics from trending, as can be seen when something trips the algorithm and suddenly you have 2 or more very different topics mashed together because of a common keyword. The "hot button" topic it's trying to promote getting drowned out by posts from niche communities like biology or astronomy twitter.

It's a bar brawl that's been refined, corporatized and monetized to the point of a Disney attraction. Step up! Step up! Let the fighting commence.

Do not for one second think the content you see on Twitter is a neutral stream of global consciousness.

So much this. They also don't let you tailor the damn thing. They make it seem like you can customize your experience and engage only with content you care about (via the dropdowns that let you tell the algorithm you don't give a hoot), but if you go out of your way to hide trending topics, you'll find them right back on the list the very next day. If they hide properly at all.

I'm set to show US trends and I get things in my Trending tab with only 1,000 tweets - you mean to tell me that's important enough news pertaining to the entire country to get promoted to the top of my list? And when I hide it via dropdown, it pops back up over and over again with only slight variations (#JurassicWorldDominion - not interested - hide, Jurassic World Dominion - hide, JurassicWorldDominionMovie - hide, #JurassicWorldDominionYOUWILLNOTBERIDOFME - hide). 

Also, I used to wonder how in the freaking world I would always see comments from the same few controversial accounts at the very top in any political trending topic - well, that's by design as I don't even follow them. But you can bet their tweets have thousands of likes and replies - and if you dive in to peek at the comments, it's nothing but a bar brawl in there.

It's a very spoon-fed experience and not organic in the slightest.

[Aethelwine]

Twitter confuses me and I have no patience to try to work it out. I see it through third party reporting more than anything else, sometimes funny reactions to something daft that has been posted by a politician, that I suppose support the view that twitter is primarily about creating conflict spectacles. But especially recently I am see a lot of reports of news coverage on twitter through third party reporting, in particular with respect to information about what is going on, on the ground in Ukraine. I am curious to know how important Twitter is for the freedom of information internationally for getting reports out of conflict zones and from areas that might otherwise be unable to get their stories out? and is there a risk that this might be under any threat?

I have learned not to trust those crying about being cancelled on social media, and their freedom of expression when they say nothing about the actual censorship going on in places like Florida where books are being banned from schools and public libraries because messages about being nice to one another are not in their view age appropriate.  

Edited April 28, 2022 by Aethelwine