Equal Employment Commission sues Tesla for racist discrimination, retaliation at Fremont plant The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has filed a lawsuit against Tesla alleging "widespread and ongoing racial harassment of Black employees," at the company's Fremont, California plant. The 10-page lawsuit filed in the Northern District of California yesterday is packed to the brim with allegations that will …
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Tesla just got snubbed by Biden’s electric vehicle summit
Come-on Elon, get with the program, the Big Guy requires his cut ;)
Musk won't change his behavior until he's locked up in a cell and realizes there really ARE rules that apply to him...
This is the problem with politics. You're safe, as long as you're part of the circle jerk. Musk used to be a darling of the left because he was saving the planet with his EV's and solar panels. Then, he did the unthinkable and started going on about something that simply cannot be tolerated by the liberal left. Free speech. How can the masters of the dark arts push their narratives, if people are allowed to see or discuss, debate or point out that the official disinformation is just disinformation? How can media managers manaage media, if they just won't do what they're told?
So Musk swiftly turned from being loved by the left to being a pariah, simply by buying their beloved, carefully curated and censored echo chamber. Allowing more free speech? That's simply outrageous. Or #1 on the US Constitution.
And now he's going even further by pointing out America's very porous border, so expect more retaliatory strikes. But as the world's richest man (currently, on paper) he has more freedom of speech that most of us. And certainly more than most governments want to permit. Curious what they'll try next and wondering if that will be scrapping subsidies for Tesla, which is probably long overdue anyway.
Conservative: I have been censored for my conservative views
Me: Holy shit! You were censored for wanting lower taxes?
Con: LOL no...no not those views
Me: So....deregulation?
Con: Haha no not those views either
Me: Which views, exactly?
Con: Oh, you know the ones
(https://twitter.com/gourmetspud/status/1588570438224908288)
It's odd then that research projects that took place before His Muskiness took over found that the Twitter algorithm would amplify right wing voices more than left wing ones. Even Twitter's own internal research found this. This is the 'old' Twitter algorithm, not the new Musk approved one.
The theory seems to be that right wing mouth pieces tend to post more outrageous content and are therefore more likely to garner outrage, which drives engagement, which the algorithm loves so it promotes them even more. Twitter has always been an outrage generating cesspit. Yes, they used to de-platform illegal or threatening speech, but the right wing outrage machine would have you believe that they were being censored just for expressing a political opinion. All evidence suggests that they were not and their posts were in fact being amplified. If they could have just held back on the direct calls for violence against minorities then perhaps they wouldn't have been 'de-platformed' so much. The current right seem to have a persecution complex, whereas what is actually happening is they are being held to account for the things they say.
But no, Twitter was definitely a lefty safe haven that completely censored all right wing views. I guess all the research is wrong because right wing pundits 'feel' like they're being censored (whilst giving their fifth interview to an international news organisation that day).
https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/22/22740703/twitter-algorithm-right-wing-amplification-study
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2024292118
The theory seems to be that right wing mouth pieces tend to post more outrageous content and are therefore more likely to garner outrage, which drives engagement, which the algorithm loves so it promotes them even more. Twitter has always been an outrage generating cesspit.
Yep, and? This is old news. If it bleeds, it leads. Antisocial media just took those problems and ran with them, automating everything with crude algorithms. Then add financial incentives, and the results were inevitable. So you want a post to be trending, or 'go viral'? Be outrageous! You can then usually rely on useful idiots to amplify the post by triggering them to respond (MAGA!) and wait for it to trend-
https://xkcd.com/386/
If only people remembered DNFTT, or even AOL's 'Me too!' moments..
Yes, they used to de-platform illegal or threatening speech, but the right wing outrage machine would have you believe that they were being censored just for expressing a political opinion.
Welll.. Twitter did de-platform a chappie who just happened to be US President at the time. It also de-platformed people who mentioned a certain laptop, including journalists and newspapers. And then there was all the Covid stuff.. If something is illegal, then sure, remove it. Threatening gets a little more nuanced, and inconvenient just dives into censorship.
I guess all the research is wrong because right wing pundits 'feel' like they're being censored (whilst giving their fifth interview to an international news organisation that day).
I think you'd be guessing wrong, and perhaps not understanding the way research works. Just because something gets published, it doesn't mean it's right. It could be doing what you're doing now and conflating the way algorithms promote active/contentious subjects with active efforts to censor viewpoints that disagree with the people who create policy. There's ample evidence to show that 'de-platforming' happened more frequently with people that held 'right wing' viewpoints, but that's exactly what you'd expect to see from a fascist/authoritarian stance on censorship. Again, Orwell explained all this years ago. Slovakia just held an election, the results weren't want the EUrocrats wanted, so the problem must have been 'Russian disinformation', and the solution must be more censorship. It couldn't possibly be democracy, and Slovakians voting against previous EU/Slovakian policy.
"But as the world's richest man (currently, on paper)"
Welllllll, if you only tot up the current trading value of the stock he holds, the number looks pretty impressive, but the term is "net" worth so one also has to take into account all shares pledged against loans, lines of credit and other securitizations. Falcon LLC, the company that 'owns' the Gulfstream Elon flies around on constantly, was waiting on the latest model to be delivered which is a huge pile of money in addition to the thousands of dollars per hour it costs to operate those aircraft (Tesla and SpaceX may be paying for the flight time). I wouldn't be surprised if the paper on the financing is backed at least in part with Elon's stock holdings. How many ex wives does he have? Any more children to add to the tally? It won't belong before the $258bn lawsuit for Dogecoin shenanigans starts being heard in court. More blood sucking lawyers to keep fed and they do what they can to pad their billing.
Welllllll, if you only tot up the current trading value of the stock he holds
Yep, that's always the challenge with paper. See all the titans that got taken down with a margin call. But this is probably where Musk is most vulnerable to some financial engineering and lawfare. Anything useful will just go through the usual Ch.11 laundry process and emerge with new owners. Downside is shareholders and other unsecured creditors usually get wiped out. If Musk is shrewd though, he may end up down to his last couple of billion, poor chap.
I wonder why it is that every time the right wing and their defenders log on to complain about being de-platformed, censored or not permitted to speak their minds by "the liberal left", it always boils down to "Why can't I say the N-word?"
No, that's not true. I don't wonder why. I know why.
How come theres no articles here about fires from Tesla batteries ?
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/sep/27/tesla-lithium-battery-fire-bouldercombe-energy-storage-site-project-rockhampton
Tesla's strategy for fires is to let them burn. Yes this is going to be greaat when a shopping center carpark goes up and a 100 cars and coutnless people die ...
"Tesla's strategy for fires is to let them burn. Yes this is going to be greaat when a shopping center carpark goes up and a 100 cars and coutnless people die ..."
The approach is moving towards protecting things around the burning EV rather than trying to extinguish the battery fire which is a lost cause anyway. By the time the fire brigade shows up the car is a total loss. They aren't talking about standing around as the surrounding countryside is reduced to ash.
Since Twitler took over, the amount of racist content on the site has exploded. What's the common element? The person in charge or each company. Someone who was socialized in Apartheid South Africa. Tesla will get its chance to present its version of events at an eventual trial, but the EEOC has such a limited budget, it doesn't tend to even take on cases unless it thinks that the evidence is pretty overwhelming. I'm betting the EEOC already tried reaching out to Tesla and attempted to negotiate some kind of voluntary settlement that would involve some changes to how these kinds of things were handled, and maybe some EEOC oversight for a couple of years, and they were rebuffed.
"The person in charge or each company. "
Without some very damning evidence that Elon is a massive racist, I'd go with him just not caring one way or the other as long as cars are coming off of the assembly line. It's a crazy approach but thus far Elon hasn't been penalized in a substantial way for his antics. The "420 Tweet" cost him $20mn (and Tesla $20mn, but that out of company funds so nothing for Elon to worry about). Somebody worth billions on paper isn't going to be too stressed about $20mn since he got all sorts of coverage for doing something that most other corporate executives would be drawn and quartered over. I was very disappointed that the SEC settled before trial. Anybody qualified to be at the head (CEO and Board Chairman, for bog sake) of a big publicly traded company should know that the Tweet wasn't on and would cause issues. Part of the problem is Elon's Twitter account had been officially designated as an official source of company communications. It wasn't just a personal account, but for somebody like Elon, it wouldn't matter much anyway since he's so tied to the company he stole from the founders.
The phrase "the almighty dollar" didn't just come out of nowhere. For better or worse, money is a major driving factor in a lot of decisions people make in this country; especially in business. It doesn't make it right, but it also doesn't make it any less of a driving factor.
"Without some very damning evidence that Elon is a massive racist"
Exhibit A through infinity is his activity on Twitter where he engages with white nationalists, has re-platformed white nationalists, and the fact that this sort of shit doesn't happen unless it's tacitly approved of from the top down. The actions of the company's CEO sets the overall tone for the entire company, and HR and management wouldn't be emboldened enough to allow this to go on unless that's the message they were getting from on high. Word will spread in various jackass communities that this or that company is "friendly" towards racists or whatever type of jackass behavior you want to name, and all the jackasses of that type who can't hold down a job anywhere else will flock to apply.
Say you get a job with Apple, and you think you can go in on Day 1 spouting a bunch of homophobic slurs and other nonsense without the HR department swiftly showing you the door, you are going to be very surprised... unpleasantly so. Being an openly gay CEO, Tim Cook doesn't tolerate that sort of thing and it's made clear all the way down through the ranks. Maybe you'd be able to get away with some other types of jackass behavior, but that one is clearly off-limits.
Twitler can claim he's not antisemitic all day long, but when he spouts a bunch of conspiracy theories about George Soros and/or engages with well-known antisemitic accounts on Twitter, you'll forgive me if I choose to believe his actions over his words. At this point, I'm honestly surprised he's not a big public Andrew Tate cheerleader. I do take your point, that he may just be choosing to turn a blind eye because the problem is so pervasive it would hobble the production capabilities at that plant, but my impression about how big a factor that is is clearly less than yours.
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