Musk is off to a rip-roaring start. During his first weekend of Twitter ownership, he fired off a tweet suggesting that the attack on Paul Pelosi was his fault — that it happened in a drunken gay tryst. It was just the worst kind of right wing libel from crazy town.
Elon Musk and a wide range of right-wing personalities cobbled together misreporting, innuendo and outright falsehoods to amplify misinformation about last week’s violent assault on Paul Pelosi to their millions of online followers.
A forum devoted to former White House adviser Stephen K. Bannon’s right-wing radio show alerted its 78,000 subscribers to “very strange new details on Paul Pelosi attack.” Roger Stone, a longtime political consigliere to former president Donald Trump, took to the fast-growing messaging app Telegram to call the assault on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband an “alleged attack,” telling his followers that a “stench” surrounded mainstream reporting about the Friday break-in that left Pelosi, 82, hospitalized with a skull fracture and other serious injuries.
I guess this is where Twitter is going, transitioning to a collection of those lunatic Facebook posts your demented uncle reposts online. Content is going to suck, but also…they call Musk a brilliant businessman? He has no idea what he is doing. He wants to increase the profitability of the platform instantly by charging to get a blue check mark on their account.
Now that he owns Twitter, Elon Musk has given employees their first ultimatum: Meet his deadline to introduce paid verification on Twitter or pack up and leave.
The directive is to change Twitter Blue, the company’s optional, $4.99 a month subscription that unlocks additional features, into a more expensive subscription that also verifies users, according to people familiar with the matter and internal correspondence seen by The Verge. Twitter is planning to charge $19.99 for the new Twitter Blue subscription, though that price is subject to change. Employees working on the project were told on Sunday that they need to meet a deadline of November 7th to launch the feature or they will be fired.
Musk has been clear in the months leading up to his acquisition that he wanted to revamp how Twitter verifies accounts and handles bots. He is also keen on growing subscriptions to become half of the company’s overall revenue. On Sunday, he tweeted: “The whole verification process is being revamped right now.”
This is nuts. For years they’ve given users the ability to get “verified”, that is to have their identities confirmed, which would grant them the glorious reward of having a blue check mark next to their name. That’s it. They never made a good case for what benefit this would provide, other than bragging rights and ego stroking, so I never bothered to apply for it. The features offered by Twitter Blue, and not worth $5/month, let alone $20.
He has also informed Twitter engineers that they must get these boring new features implemented by 7 November, or they’ll be fired. Brilliant.
I was assuming that Musk would let Twitter limp along, making incremental changes, but it looks like his plan is to accelerate the implosion of the company as fast as he can.
Well, he’s off to a bang up start. Can the experienced developers, then the recruiters for not instantly replacing the developers, watch the platform stagnate and decay and call it a Trumpian success.
AKA bankruptcy.
Xpost from the Infinite Thread
I’m going to amplify the comment at #431 SC about Hillary Clinton and Elon Musk about the Paul Pelosi attack.
Because it proves once again that Elon Musk is a mentally and morally defective personality.
He is simply a terrible, malign person.
Elon Musk is implying with no evidence whatsoever that maybe Paul Pelosi was attacked after getting drunk and getting into a fight in a gay bar in San Francisco.
I’m sure Elon Musk can go lower but I’m unable to imagine how low he can go.
We’ve seen a lot of Elon Musk lately.
It’s not good.
He is a far right wingnut and definitely a terrible human being.
He says that twitter isn’t going to turn into a troll and Nazi hellscape.
We can already see how this will work and yes, it will turn into a troll and Nazi hellscape.
Reports are that the Russians are already back and lying like they always do.
I will never buy anything associated with Elon Musk.
Not giving a creep like Musk any of my hard earned money.
I don’t even have a twitter account.
You can read what you need without having an account anyway.
Also, remember who financed Musk’s purchase of twitter:
Morgan Stanley
Bank of America
Larry Ellison (Oracle co-founder)
Alwaleed bin Talal (Saudi Prince)
Binance (Crypto exchange)
So in other words only the BEST!
I’ve been wanting Twitter to die ignominiously for years now. If Musk ends up killing it, I will be grudgingly grateful to him for doing some good in the world, however inadvertently.
Fucl twitter and fuck Elon Musk.
Pro tip: Install the extension “behind the overlay” so if you want to see a few tweets and a few responses and the annoying “join titter” shit appears, you can just click to remove the overlay and browse it as normal. It also works on those fucking websites that don’t like the adblock.
Just read a commentary on a tech forum praising Twusk for his “common sense” and wishing Facebook and Google also had someone cleaning up like that.
Oh dear…
I’ve been contemplating getting a Twitter account just so I can start tweeting that Musk’s favorite hobby is autocoprophagia. You know, test how devoted to free speech Twitter really is.
On Real Time Maher was fawning over Musk and referred to him as a genius. Really? He started off with dad’s cash and knew how to delegate the difficult engineering to others, right? What has Musk actually hands on developed himself?
Maher was badmouthing young people again for dealing with the mess Boomers like him helped create and had a couple specifically picked guests so he could snark about smartphones with his arrogant voice. Yuval Harari countered some of Maher’s snotty BS. I had gotten an impression Harari wasn’t all he was cracked up to be from reading stuff about him, but he was the only one on the panel not annoying me. Low bar I suppose.
For all the bad and problematic with Twitter, people forget the good that it’s done in letting marginalized people find each other and allowing ease of communication during events such as the Arab Spring. It’s a platform that’s not easily replaced and it shows a degree of privilege in wanting to see it die.And I say this as someone whose first suspension came during an argument with a creep who argued that paying money for a photo with a female wrestler meant that you can put your hands wherever you want on her.
Yuval Harari is himself a bullshit peddler but I guess in presence of Maher, he can be the voice of reason.
Latest headline which says what PZ said.
I suspect the other people involved in this $44 billion deal are going to have something to say to Musk and soon.
Something along the lines of fix twitter or we (and Musk) are going to lose billions of dollars and we won’t like that.
Shortly after that, Musk announces he is leaving off running twitter for his new hobby of getting random women pregnant so the earth doesn’t run out of people. Or something.
Basically, the insecure kid discovers that money is power, and takes his ego out without a leash. As he gets positive reinforcement for this, he will just get worse and worse.
I’m tempted to join just so I can close my account. But, really, it’s just a website! Why care!? [by the way the solution to all the free speech issues is: set up your own blog, then post stuff there and post non-offending links on the social platform. Of course that -will- get you banned because it messes up their eyeball-capturing ad model. Womp womp.]
I’ve had the same experience.
Twitter serves multiple purposes and is a news media outlet as well as social media.
I’ve ended up using twitter simply because it is useful, mostly for following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
I don’t have a twitter account and don’t need one for just reading it.
Twitter is widely used by governments, corporations, news media, analysts etc. to announce Real Time news in short messages. It is also widely read.
The idea is good and the implementation was at least not completely terrible.
They at least banned Trump which took some courage.
I never saw that with Facebook. Facebook became a toxic dump and is sinking back into the primordial ooze that it came from.
@raven: there is terrific coverage of the Russia war over on Daily Kos. They’ve got a bunch of former army artillery officers and intelligence officers who really understand what is going on.
I am not a genius billionaire but I suspect that threatening programmers who have “worked for Twitter” on their resume is not a good move. Buh-bae, Musko!
Elon Musk may be an insufferable, juvenile asshole, but, I gotta say, watching him troll the woke Twitter cry-bullies is MUSIC to my fucking ears. :-D
I hope you’re right PZ. I hope he burns Twatter to the ground with all his money in it. Burn baby burn!
In all my careers I was never fired nor laid off. Bad life choices, I guess. But I was threatened with termination by a supervisor who asked me to do something really stupid that I refused to do. Oh, Irony, that supervisor got himself fired shortly thereafter by threatening to fire another employee then lying about it. The employee, a fellow geek-nerd pal of mine, kept a dictaphone in his desk. He only bought it because he thought it was “cool” and he had a hobby of collecting sound effects. So, he recorded the whole “Imma gonna fire yo ass!” conversation and played it to HR. Man, mess with a geek at your own risk!
The nice thing about blogs like this is that there is a moderation policy.
Anyone who uses the term “cry bullies” in earnest has the mind of a toddler and opinions that can be safely ignored.
Have to agree with Raven and Tabby. I’m English, living in Europe. After our 2017 and 2019 elections demonstrated how corrupted by neoliberalism our media is – corrupted well beyond the point of rationality, let alone trustworthiness – Twitter became my primary news source. Scoff about echo chambers, and I am definitely in one, but at least that means I hear about news that’s important, like the UN climate warnings this week that barely got a mention in most of the media, or Al-Jazeera’s Labour Files documentary.
I really hope an alternative to Twitter is created… although maybe I don’t. Living in the end times is depressing af. Maybe ignorance will be bliss, and at least i don’t have to root for Jack Dorsey (reportedly planning a version of Twitter) that way.
$240/yr. to do what? The ability to vent, rage, incite, cast aspersions, make witty comments, call people racial, sexual, or religious slurs with impunity? Zealots for a cause might pay for that platform, but very few sane people will waste their money on that. I’m not on Twitter myself, and even if I was interested, this would be a deal breaker.
@12: Here is a link
Musk has owned Twitter under a week and big names are already leaving the platform, complaining about a hate surge, and calling for tighter regulation
Serious question for those using Twitter as a news source – are you using it as a primary source, or just a means of discovery for stuff from other sources?
The muskrat may be competent in a narrow facet of business, but when a dilettante is put in charge of something he (or she) does not understand, the result is something like the brief career of the former prime minister of Britain.
.
If he fires most of the staff, good luck keeping the burning remains functioning and on track.
With nazis and other trolls popping up everywhere, yeah, PZ et al discussed that prospect in s previous thread.
Twitter is the 15th most popular social media site. Not even in the top ten.
Yes, Musk is going to kill Twitter.
Good.
I shut down Twitter once again. I’d like to make Mastodon work this time, but holy stars is the user experience atrocious and hostile. It’s as if it is explicitly designed to not do the only things it needs to do.
(Lightbulb moment)
Encourage Musk to buy Fox News.
“The influence of Fox News as well as its audience is shrinking. Only your genius can reverse the trend.”
Also, make him take over Koch Industries.
In the 9 years, 2 months, and 29 days I have had a Twitter account, not one tweet have I posted. My first and only action, thanks to Musk: the account’s deletion.
;-)
The sheer degree of insanity that conservatives and their ilk are expressing nowadays makes me think it’s all over — if facts, evidence and logic are insufficient to convince them otherwise, America (if not the entire human race) is doomed.
So… He’s making arbitrary, unreasonable demands of highly skilled workers. Who have a whole lot of other opportunities in their local area not to mention all across the country. In a job market where employees can pick and choose which role they want to fill and which company they want to work with.
It looks like incompetence. If it’s not, I’d guess he’s weeding out anyone who isn’t desperate to stay for some reason. And people who are desperate can be asked to do a lot of things and that’s not necessarily limited to stuff that’s unreasonable or inconvenient for them.
Welcome to hell, Elon, is a splendid rant. Sample-
“The asset is the user base: hopelessly addicted politicians, reporters, celebrities, and other people who should know better but keep posting anyway. You! You, Elon Musk, are addicted to Twitter. You’re the asset. You just bought yourself for $44 billion dollars.”
Strongly recommended.
I read a good twitter thread on this, and the bottom line was, Twitter needs to earn or Musk’s house of cards financing will impact him and his tesla stock in very bad ways.
Also, another great, sources twitter thread on why musk and the previous owner are not competitors and there is ample evidence they are working together to transition twitter to the new bluesky protocol/platform where they think they make it earn even more via web 3.0 chicanery.
Microsoft #8
Nothing will happen. I already tweeted “@elonmusk raped and murdered a young girl 1990” and not only is my account still active (for the time being), I didn’t even receive a warning.
antaresrichard: Twitter doesn’t care about you any more than it cares about me. You weren’t active, so there’s no loss to them. I didn’t have an account at all, but same same.
I thought the idea of being verified was to connect your online reputation with your IRL one, so you own what you say.
“I thought the idea of being verified was to connect your online reputation with your IRL one, so you own what you say.”
No, it’s more about making sure people aren’t soiling your reputation by claiming to be you. Of course, they made it too exclusive so this doesn’t help lesser known people who are being targeted. And that exclusivity also means it has been taken away as punishment which shouldn’t be a thing if it was just about that original meaning of verifying that you are who you say you are. There should have been a hell of a lot more blue check marks on the site and some with only a handful of followers is what I’m saying.
Tabby, nah. There’s the notability criterion at hand.
From the twittering mouth (the help page):
“The blue Verified badge on Twitter lets people know that an account of public interest is authentic. To receive the blue badge, your account must be authentic, notable, and active.“
I guess it’s time for all Twitter employees to brush up their CVs.
For ‘normal’ people, the blue check means nothing. That’s fine.
On the other hand, there have been several dozen fake ‘Mark Hamill” accounts out there for years in multiple social media sites until the real Star Wars actor finally got on there with the blue check.
Many celebrities have bad impersonators (who initially pass off as valid because of how much public info is out there on them), so the blue check is a way to be sure you’re actually following the real movie/tv star and not some fake account that’s collecting info on you and feeding you made up junk that may or may not be slanderous to said celebrity.
typical MBA going for maximum short term profit not long term sustainable business by the new owners who know less about the business then the previous owners. get rid of old expensive employees (who know the business) jack up prices for no fundamental reason other then to satisfy the creditors.
stand back genius at work!
@17. hookflash : “Elon Musk may be an insufferable, juvenile asshole, but, I gotta say, watching him troll the woke Twitter cry-bullies is MUSIC to my fucking ears.”
Really? Why is that?
FYI. Using “woke” as a perjorative is how you tell people you are a terrible human being who is racist, misogynist and bigoted without telling people you are racist, misogynist, bigoted and a terrible human being. Ditto with using “cry-bullies”” really although that term does suit the Trumpist reichwing very well.
See : https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2022/10/29/why-would-anyone-send-me-this-link/comment-page-1/#comment-2155649
unclefrogy, FYI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zip2
(After that, PayPal, and so forth)
I bet the verification is going to be with a tie-in to another account, not to something like a social security number or passport number. Even then, how can you be sure which person holding a passport under the name Brad Pitt is the actual person most people first think of when they hear that name? Does the current blue tick thingy work without human intervention?
I’m reminded of the old engineering adage, that it’s possible to design a system which can be fast, cheap or reliable: pick any two. If it’s cheap and reliable, it won’t be fast; if it’s fast and reliable, it won’t be cheap; if it’s fast and cheap, it won’t be reliable. Replace ‘cheap’ with ‘up and running within a week’.
Rich:
Um, I think you meant replace ‘fast’, there.
What part of “an account of public interest” in my #38 did you misunderstand?
(Also, “notable”)
well if he is going to make a business out an un-moderated social media web service Might that make some of the advertisers a little reluctant or at least want to pay less to be associated with the inevitable hate filled crap so hence his idea to get rid of all of that he will need an additional income stream so he starts charging $$$ for it.
he has a lot riding on the fickle nature of public interest and popularity I will be watching how it comes out with interest
unclefrogy, sure.
But maybe he’s just indulging himself via his wealth.
Nothing to stop him, he’s already rich enough that it’s beyond most people’s dream of avarice.
And it’s rather likely that he didn’t get to that point (and I notice with approval you’ve got the point) by being a dolt.
Still… it’s certainly possible.
[jocular interlude]
I am almost tempted to sign up to twitter just to block elon musk!
Anyone with the least experience in how software is developed should know that making threats is not an effective strategy. How does he not know this already?
expatlurker, I refer you to my #43.
(Basically, the dude made his fortune by founding a software enterprise)
@42 StevoR:
See, this is the cartoonish nonsense people are referring to when they “use the term woke as a pejorative.” I agree with you about Trumpkins being cry-bullies, though (maybe even bigger cry-bullies than wokesters!).
See, this is the cartoonish nonsense people are referring to when they “use the term woke as a pejorative.”
You can’t even accurately describe what “woke” means other than you are using it as an insult. You have the mindset of a toddler at best, although that is probably insulting to toddlers, since they are clearly smarter than you.
@hookflash 51
“See, this is the cartoonish nonsense people are referring to when they “use the term woke as a pejorative.” I agree with you about Trumpkins being cry-bullies, though (maybe even bigger cry-bullies than wokesters!).”
And that’s an opinion full of non-literal language as to be useless. I encounter wokeness used as a pejorative on a regular basis. A cetegorically bad thing.
Now “wokester” I’ve been tempted to apply to myself to mock the idea. I’ve considered the “Joker” thematically because rhyming but I like to think about ones like this for a bit. I do the all caps laughter from time to time though.