Social Media Political Lens

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Isgrimnur
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by Isgrimnur »

As always, the real winners will be the lawyers.
It's almost as if people are the problem.
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by malchior »

Apparently Musk is sueing Sweeney claiming his son was stalked because of the jet tracking app. That sounds dubious but whatever Elon. I'm pretty sure Sweeney will have a line of people willing to defend him against an overprivileged thug.
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by LordMortis »

malchior wrote: Thu Dec 15, 2022 12:33 am Apparently Musk is sueing Sweeney claiming his son was stalked because of the jet tracking app. That sounds dubious but whatever Elon. I'm pretty sure Sweeney will have a line of people willing to defend him against an overprivileged thug.
But it's OK for DJMusk to direct people to stalk Fauci and attack trans folk and the previous Twitter regime and to dissolve his own safety department, expose private internal conversations for his amusement, etc...
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by pr0ner »

Musk is going scorched Earth on Twitter, banning several accounts of reporters who've been covering him.



Twitter has also banned the account for Mastodon.
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by malchior »

Well Twitter is making it clear it is time for us to move on. I'm very much open to the idea that authoritarians ponied up money to take a dissent platform down. Either that or Musk is easily triggered and manipulated into going full derp tilt. Between this and his Ukraine nonsense he is acting like an adversary agent. We truly live in an odd time. Is it stupid or is it nation state activity? Hard to tell anymore.

Edit: I also can't wait for the FTC stuff to hit. That will be the full on popcorn moment. Twitter has little cash, is now privately owned, and their very cash poor CEO is potentially on the hook for billions of dollars of fines.
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by hepcat »

But if he can just get some of that sweet, sweet 99 dollar Trump digital card action, he’d be golden.
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by malchior »

I'm still not convinced this isn't a re-boot of Brewster's Millions. Authoritarians pony up billions of dollars to kill Twitter. If he destroys it in under a year, they give him a city. Unfortunately he didn't look at the fine print and that city is Kandahar. Womp womp.

Edit: Back in reality, he banned a lot of journalists at major publications. They *all* need to send a clear message that they will suspend all activities on the platform now. Basically what CBS did a few weeks ago but actually follow through. We all need to hasten the collapse of Twitter as a platform. It has tons of debt. Burn it down. It's time for it to die.
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by Smoove_B »

What an absolute clown Musk is. A thin-skinned bully with more money than brains.
Last edited by Smoove_B on Thu Dec 15, 2022 11:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by Holman »

Much prefer my Nazis Nuremberged.
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by Holman »

Much prefer my Nazis Nuremberged.
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by pr0ner »

Smoove_B wrote: Thu Dec 15, 2022 10:05 pm Here's the list of suspended journalists:



What an absolute clown Musk is. A thin-skinned bully with more money than brains.
I posted that tweet already. :wink:
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by Isgrimnur »

pr0ner wrote: Thu Dec 15, 2022 10:52 pm Account Suspended
It's almost as if people are the problem.
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by Smoove_B »

Noted!
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by pr0ner »

Isgrimnur wrote: Thu Dec 15, 2022 10:57 pm
pr0ner wrote: Thu Dec 15, 2022 10:52 pm Account Suspended
:mrgreen:
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by El Guapo »

malchior wrote: Thu Dec 15, 2022 9:12 pm Well Twitter is making it clear it is time for us to move on. I'm very much open to the idea that authoritarians ponied up money to take a dissent platform down. Either that or Musk is easily triggered and manipulated into going full derp tilt. Between this and his Ukraine nonsense he is acting like an adversary agent. We truly live in an odd time. Is it stupid or is it nation state activity? Hard to tell anymore.

Edit: I also can't wait for the FTC stuff to hit. That will be the full on popcorn moment. Twitter has little cash, is now privately owned, and their very cash poor CEO is potentially on the hook for billions of dollars of fines.
Well, Musk is significantly economically dependent upon China, and has a documented position of being extraordinarily friendly and complimentary of the Chinese government (up to and including helpfully suggesting that China be given overlordship of Taiwan). So not crazy to wonder about that side of things.

That said, Occam's Razor and the evidence one can glean from generally observing Elon Musk suggests that it's far more likely to be that he's a thin skinned billionaire high on his own derp supply.
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by pr0ner »

Lol at this shit.

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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by Smoove_B »

I guess we get to add "paranoid" to the list of his personality traits.

EDIT: And now this:
Twitter is blocking users from tweeting links to many major servers for Mastodon, one of the most notable Twitter alternatives. The ban was enacted sometime during what’s been a chaotic Thursday evening on the platform after journalists and Mastodon’s own account were unexpectedly suspended.

Attempting to tweet many Mastodon links will result in an error message saying, “We can’t complete this request because this link has been identified by Twitter or our partners as being potentially harmful.” Twitter is currently blocking links to the original mastodon.social server and more than 10 other domains The Verge tested.
So much free speech.
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by Blackhawk »

Way to promote Mastadon as the Twitter replacement, Elon!
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by Carpet_pissr »

Blackhawk wrote: Fri Dec 16, 2022 12:26 am Way to promote Mastadon as the Twitter replacement, Elon!
Yep. Couldn’t have asked for better exposure than to have been banned and ginned up all the news about them being a potential competitor.
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by Skinypupy »

pr0ner wrote: Thu Dec 15, 2022 11:52 pm Lol at this shit.

For those who may have missed it, the “assassination coordinates” he’s referring to is any journalist who included a link to the “Elonjet” account (which is still active on FB, apparently) in one of their stories.

That site simply posts publicly available flight information on where Musk’s plane is going.

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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by LordMortis »

Is there a point where they go Brittany Spears on The Absolutist and take away his toys?
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by YellowKing »

He's now entering the "paranoia" stage of complete MAGA conversion.
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by Skinypupy »



:lol: :lol:
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by malchior »

It really does appear he is sitting around whining about how the media is re-tweeting about @Elonjet but won't take his "Twitter files" seriously. And just lashing out at individuals like the spoiled brat he is.

Meanwhile the EU is warning about sanctions against Twitter.
Elon Musk’s decision to suddenly ban prominent tech journalists from Twitter is fanning a fierce backlash in Europe.

Germany warned of the impact on press freedom, while a senior EU official said Twitter must comply with the bloc’s rules or face possible sanctions.

“Freedom of the press cannot be switched on and off as you please,” Germany’s foreign ministry tweeted on Friday. “As of today these journalists are no longer able to follow us, to comment or criticize. We have a problem with that @Twitter.”
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by LawBeefaroni »

pr0ner wrote: Thu Dec 15, 2022 11:52 pm Lol at this shit.

The White House account posted that Biden was watching the World Cup at the White House with Moroccan VIPs. Multiple assassination coordinates provided.


And any time anyone posts a "check out my seats" photo from a game or concert or whatever, they're posting assassination coordinates of dozens, if not hundreds, of fellow spectators.


It's probably everyone's duty to report such violations.
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by LawBeefaroni »

Oh, yeah, protests too. Pretty much any breaking news is assassination targeting.
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by Holman »

Much prefer my Nazis Nuremberged.
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by pr0ner »

Musk wound up killing Twitter Spaces last night, too, over the whole ordeal (though he claims it's to fix a "legacy" bug that allowed suspended users who were around on Twitter when Spaces was originally Periscope to log in).

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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by Zaxxon »

Man, I go offline for ~24 hours to take my daughter out for a Christmas surprise, and everything goes [even more] to hell.

Notable (to me) that both DHH and Gruber, two folks who had maintaned a wait-and-see view on Twitter getting gutted and rebuilt, have both thrown in the towel:

DHH: Throw Twitter into the Fire of Mount Doom.

Gruber:
Apparently I’m a very slow learner on the “Elon Musk is an absolute shithead” front, but this purge is genuinely shocking to me. I was really in for the “more tweets, even from people you flat-out despise” idea.
FWIW, I'm out, too (have been for quite awhile now but figured I should make it explicit given my well-known Tesla/SpaceX love 'round these parts). It's indisputable that Musk was a required piece of both of those companies' success, but I'd love it if he were gone from both at this point.

It's also rather incredible how prescient Mike Masnick's content moderation speed-run piece from early November has turned out to be. All he missed was the incredible levels of thin-skinnedness and hypocrisy.
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by malchior »

Zaxxon wrote: Fri Dec 16, 2022 2:52 pmFWIW, I'm out, too (have been for quite awhile now but figured I should make it explicit given my well-known Tesla/SpaceX love 'round these parts).

It's indisputable that Musk was a required piece of both of those companies' success, but I'd love it if he were gone from both at this point.
It's not indisputable if you believe the stories that management at both companies built ways to work around his nonsense. A lot of what Musk did that'll hurt him long-term was to pierce this veil of genius, moral superiority, and great business sense. People are going to argue for years whether it was right place, right time, pure luck, etc.
It's also rather incredible how prescient Mike Masnick's content moderation speed-run piece from early November has turned out to be. All he missed was the incredible levels of thin-skinnedness and hypocrisy.
Totally. And in his defense a lot of people gave Musk the benefit of the doubt. He didn't deserve their trust. He has been telling us for a *long time* that he was a villain.
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by malchior »

One other note I have been thinking about is why this is different from SpaceX/Tesla. He has been a bully and a piece of shit for a long time. But he had the benefit that the terrible mean-spirited things he did could be obscured behind NDAs and 'bossism' boosters. Bossism? See the great NY Times piece on this term - Elon Musk, Management Guru? with a headline only the NY Times can publish with a straight face to boot. ;)

In any case, his fundamental error in my opinion is that he thought his act was going to play with the public. He doesn't get that many of us do not like aspects of modern "capitalism". It's often awful and dehumanizing. So when he is giving people ultimatums about being hardcore by tomorrow or be out of work in the holidays? Not paying their severance packages? Etc. Guess what? People start to hate him more. And as has he made misstep after misstep in the public light, his flaws took over. Instead of taking a beat to re-calibrate, he leaned in because he is the type who can't self-correct under criticism. He doubles down. Over and over until he has spiraled into the abyss.
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by Zaxxon »

malchior wrote: Fri Dec 16, 2022 4:28 pm
Zaxxon wrote: Fri Dec 16, 2022 2:52 pmFWIW, I'm out, too (have been for quite awhile now but figured I should make it explicit given my well-known Tesla/SpaceX love 'round these parts).

It's indisputable that Musk was a required piece of both of those companies' success, but I'd love it if he were gone from both at this point.
It's not indisputable if you believe the stories that management at both companies built ways to work around his nonsense.
I don't dispute those aspects--I'm talking earlier on, from both financing and product directions. Read the Vance and Berger books for a lot more insight into this. There's no chance either company survives their early stages without Musk. None. I've been following both for over a decade exceedingly closely.

The dude is quite clearly a douchenozzle today, was then, and has been for a long time. I'm sure there has always been some level of managing the guy, as there is with the folks getting shit done managing the the powers that be in any compnay. Probably more with Musk than with most leaders.

But he was instrumental to success in both places. It's not the popular narrative today, and were 2022 Musk the one involved in 2004 SpaceX and 2008 Tesla I think both very well may have died, but it's true.
malchior wrote: Fri Dec 16, 2022 4:37 pm One other note I have been thinking about is why this is different from SpaceX/Tesla. He has been a bully and a piece of shit for a long time. But he had the benefit that the terrible mean-spirited things he did could be obscured behind NDAs and 'bossism' boosters. Bossism? See the great NY Times piece on this term - Elon Musk, Management Guru? with a headline only the NY Times can publish with a straight face to boot. ;)

In any case, his fundamental error in my opinion is that he thought his act was going to play with the public. He doesn't get that many of us do not like aspects of modern "capitalism". It's often awful and dehumanizing. So when he is giving people ultimatums about being hardcore by tomorrow or be out of work in the holidays? Not paying their severance packages? Etc. Guess what? People start to hate him more. And as has he made misstep after misstep in the public light, his flaws took over. Instead of taking a beat to re-calibrate, he leaned in because he is the type who can't self-correct under criticism. He doubles down. Over and over until he has spiraled into the abyss.
I think another major reason that Twitter is so much more difficult for Musk (which you hit on in your 2nd paragraph) is that it is not--on virtually any level that matters since Musk took over--a product problem. It's entirely social, driven by regulations, politics, and psychology. Both SpaceX and Tesla were, in their early stages where Musk was a net positive rather than an anchor, primarily product-driven endeavors. The major problems for both Tesla/SpaceX in their developmental stages were engineering problems. (Spare me the 'Musk has no engineering talent' retorts--again, this is not the case, and also isn't really disputable. Many, many engineering folks inside both companies who worked directly with Musk have attested to this, both in those books I mentioned as well as to me directly. When he was actually focused on working problems rather than building his ego in the public space he has/had a lot of talent.) They were problems where solutions could be developed objectively, largely out of the public eye while the sausage was being made. Twitter is very much not that.

He's also coming in with a much higher profile than in the past, and with a savior complex from the start. Stir in a generous dose of having overpaid to such a degree that the sale itself was embarrassing and now Musk's social ineptitude was dialed up to eleven on day one.
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by Holman »

I think Musk took a look at Twitter's growth during the Trump years and recognized that Trump (as a lightning rod for news, engagement, devotion, and condemnation) was the site's most important "product." Because Musk seems to be trying to play that role himself now.
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by Kurth »

Holman wrote: Fri Dec 16, 2022 5:24 pm I think Musk took a look at Twitter's growth during the Trump years and recognized that Trump (as a lightning rod for news, engagement, devotion, and condemnation) was the site's most important "product." Because Musk seems to be trying to play that role himself now.
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by malchior »

Zaxxon wrote: Fri Dec 16, 2022 5:14 pmI think another major reason that Twitter is so much more difficult for Musk (which you hit on in your 2nd paragraph) is that it is not--on virtually any level that matters since Musk took over--a product problem. It's entirely social, driven by regulations, politics, and psychology.
I disagree on this. It is principally a product problem. It appears he didn't understand Twitter as a product. It was built on trust, stability, etc. and his customer was the advertisers. He however came in to fight a culture war that completely trashed the existing product's value almost overnight. A colossal mistake. Without a new product to replace it...he has nothing. He has since flailed to define it, and has undermined all attempts over and over. The problem is this was not a product space he understood at all.
Both SpaceX and Tesla were, in their early stages where Musk was a net positive rather than an anchor, primarily product-driven endeavors. The major problems for both Tesla/SpaceX in their developmental stages were engineering problems. (Spare me the 'Musk has no engineering talent' retorts--again, this is not the case, and also isn't really disputable. Many, many engineering folks inside both companies who worked directly with Musk have attested to this, both in those books I mentioned as well as to me directly. When he was actually focused on working problems rather than building his ego in the public space he has/had a lot of talent.) They were problems where solutions could be developed objectively, largely out of the public eye while the sausage was being made. Twitter is very much not that.
Right. He was hands on at Paypal too. He clearly has a technical mindset which is ultimately part of the problem. He overfocused on minor "engineering" flaws such as slow app loading in some markets as evidence the company needed a massive overhaul. Combine that with the desperate need to cut costs, and we saw a visionless abrupt change in an unplanned fashion. That rarely goes well.
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by Zaxxon »

What I mean by it's not a product problem is that he has gradually reverted the product (which is the moderation) back to what Twitter was already doing--manual decisions by a moderation group. 'Free speech within the law' disintegrated almost immediately, and each fiasco moves the needle back closer to what Twitter has already been doing (that is to say, reverting to the mean described by Masnick, which all social media platforms revert to unless they die first).
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by pr0ner »

LOFL.

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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by Skinypupy »

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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by Zaxxon »

pr0ner wrote: Sat Dec 17, 2022 10:07 am LOFL.

Uhoh. Virtual assassination coordinates!
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Re: Social Media Political Lens

Post by Alefroth »

This seems like a good idea-

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