Musk tells advertisers to 'go f**k' themselves as $44B X gamble spirals into chaos "I hope they stop. Don't advertise. If someone's going to blackmail me with advertising, blackmail me with money, go fuck yourself. Go. Fuck. Yourself. Is that clear? I hope it is." What's clear is that Elon Musk is making a $44 billion mistake – his purchase of Twitter in 2022 – even more expensive. "Hey, Bob! If you're in …
"And the whole world will know that those advertisers killed the company," he added ominously, "and we will document it in great detail."
When something goes well, it's Elon "I know more about manufacturing than any person on this planet" Musk who is personally responsible. When it goes badly, it's all the fault of those evil people who won't let the self-entitled man-child do whatever he wants without consequence.
Note that this is the man who told us they would land two Starships on Mars right around now, but has apparently just begun yet another significant redesign of their rather explodey rocket. The man who has been claiming self-driving cars were going to be generally available "next year" every year for the last ten years... and the man who announced he was buying Twitter to "stop the bots"... yeah, how is that going?
At what point do people start to realise he is a technical incompetent held up by spending other people's money on unfortunate workers smarter than he is?
I certainly agree that his personality traits quickly come to the fore: he loves to attack, makes insincere apologies only when he thinks he has to, and quickly goes back on them.
What investors should worry about is that the companies who are withdrawing their accounts now, are the ones with the beancounters telling them to do so. Those with a conscience left a long time ago. Those who stayed, stayed because they thought it was still good business. Having seen a couple of commercial presentations from Twitter I at least understand the pitch they were trying to make. It was sketchy then and that was, for better or worse, when it had a near monopoly in some areas: politics, fashion, music. Fashion and music have left, leaving pretty much only the politicians and lazy journos. Difficult to see Disney's or IBM's target audience being there.
Because keeping open an account is free, and it takes more work than shutting one down, and because they probably wrote a bot to make social media announcements on a variety of platforms about a decade ago and don't see any reason they should take Twitter off that list. Whether they have an account or not isn't doing much for Twitter's revenue, certainly not as much as their advertising was. Maybe it will keep some users on the platform, but I don't think that many were hotly anticipating the next Tweet from IBM.
There's also no guarantee they'll keep doing that, rather than keeping the accounts sans "verification". The accounts can be free, and when a company has already decided to stop paying for advertising, the question of why we still pay for that gold mark has got to come up soon. It won't be immediately, since they've made their decisions about advertising very recently and corporate inertia is certainly a thing, but I wouldn't count on them staying gold mark customers either.
It depends on how Disney's lawyers feel about the possible consequences for Twitter if Musk permits someone to hijack Disney's social media profile just because Disney stopped paying him. If you're selling verified accounts, then you need to actually do some verification to justify the fee. If Disney can turn around and say "you knew that person who requested a gold tick claiming to be Disney couldn't be us because you told us not to do business with you and we complied", then that opens a can of worms.
Even if they aren't currently buying ads, both companies still have Twitter / X accounts. Why do you suppose that is?
That's why this is so much fun! MM fakes 'news', Disney and IBM buy it, and flounce off from X in a huff. Partly. But they still have accounts there because that's where the eyeballs are. Disney desperately needs eyeballs, if viewing figures for it's Marvels & Dr Who garbage are anything to go by. People increasingly aren't buying what they're selling, and Budweiser's lost almost as much as X trying to sell tranny fluid. The woke are fleeing X for.. somewhere that advertisers can't reach, and might be being replaced on Twitter by the unwoke that aren't buying what the ESG peddlers are selling. The world slowly seems to be waking up to the ESG garbage.
So if nothing else, Musk is providing better entertainment than Disney has been for the last decade. And he has a point. Kinda like Nestle, and people that boycott that company because of ethical concerns. Or people who might boycott IBM because of their age discrimination. Perhaps Musk will only accept ethical advertisers, and adverts. For now at least, Musk can afford to do this kind of stuff.
Just out of curiosity... what does being a professional troll pay these days? Does Twitler pay better than Russia?
I dunno, what does being a concern troll pay? I just like the way Musk points out people are trying to blackmail him to increase censorship and deny free speech. He said something about companies have the appearence of being nice, but doing evil. He has a point. Pre-Musk, Twitter censored many things. Pre-Twitter, Musk was a darling of the left. He was building EVs, and solar, and the lefty media couldn't get enough of him and gave his companies millions in free publicity. Then he bought Twitter, brought down the echo chamber, slayed the sacred cows and the worms turned.
And people are still missing the point. MM had to go to considerable efforts to manufacture their story, and if Musk is right, this would be far from a normal user experience. MM chose to follow some right wing accounts, they saw some right wing posts. Ohnoes! Cue instant outrage to ban this filth and deplatform Twitter. But here's a crazy idea. Find accounts posting stuff you don't agree with? Don't follow them.
Instead, the 'liberals' want them banned! They really hate the idea of free speech.
The idiot brigade and the various foreign professional trolls share a common delusion.
Companies separating themselves from hate speech is not censorship. Censorship by definition is conducted by governments, per the US First Amendment.
So, either Congress has delegated legislation to corporations in their version of unreality or they're simply idiots trolling other idiots, utterly ignorant of what "Congress shall pass no law" is not corporations withdrawing advertisements.
"Instead, the 'liberals' want them banned! They really hate the idea of free speech."
And, companies want advertising venues that fit with their narrative of sweetness and unicorns even if they are complete bastages. If major advertisers are loath to place ads someplace where they are likely to have their ads shown on the same page as some anti-Semitic tirade, they'll look for someplace else. They don't want the association even if it's only a subconscious thing. If you often see ads for Coke next to scenes of war, it's not long before you start making an association even if you don't know that's what you are doing.
If Elon wants to have his own personal soap box to say whatever he likes and bring along others that agree with him, that's fine. He should pay off the loans and settle up with the Middle Eastern wealth fund and run the whole thing as a non-profit. It could be a tidy tax write-off. If the goal is to keep it a commercial enterprise, he has to cater to the people most likely to pay him, in other words, customers. The users are just the product being served up.
If major advertisers are loath to place ads someplace where they are likely to have their ads shown on the same page as some anti-Semitic tirade
You're rather missing the point. This all exploded due to 'Media Matters' fabricating a story. According to the filing, advertisers were extremely unlikely to find their ads placed there, and MM had to go to great lengths to get their smoking gun. Then blasted it all over the MSM, who promptly demonstrated their own confirmation bias. Musk is evil! Burn the witch!
But that's the genius of the blackmail. If IBM did nothing, MM might blast out another press release claiming IBM funds nazis. Which is probably the situation right now. The advertisers initially said they were pulling their ads 'while they investigate', but the anti-Musk and anti-free speech mob want that to be permanent. Minitruth must be brought into existence, and controlled by the right sort of 'fact checkers'.
So basically what you're saying is, is that the pay is shite, but you've burned basically every other bridge and its the only job you can get anymore.
A very strange inference, aerogums. Maybe I don't need the money? I'm sure being pro-free speech pays a lot less than anti-free speech 'fact checkers' pays. But why would anyone pay me anyway, if I'm simply expressing my own opinions? Have you by any chance looked at how much the 'non-profit' bosses at Media Matters pay themselves, or where their money comes from? Still, if Musk wants to bung some money my way, I'd probably take it. I agree with him when it comes to protecting free speech, but I disagree with him on other matters.
"Disney and IBM buy it, and flounce off from X in a huff. Partly. But they still have accounts there because that's where the eyeballs are."
I don't have an account on any of the usual suspects so I don't know if they're still posting anything. However a quick glance at IBM's front page shows no blue bird there. In fact there are no social media links there at all and my general impression is that far fewer big name sites nowadays don't have any. I think it's getting to the point where marketing departments are starting to regard the whole mess as toxic and best avoided.
"Even if they aren't currently buying ads, both companies still have Twitter / X accounts. Why do you suppose that is?"
1) In the case of IBM, they are likely cruising for an opportunity to sue X some reason. Sooner or later they'll find a patent violation. It's only a matter of patience and time.
2) Disney? Who knows? Maybe The Mouse has an untreated Twitter addiction.
The most likely explanation is that it has already been budgeted for until the end of the financial year, and the cost of paying someone in the legal department at $500 p/h to look into closing the account before the renewal review comes up exceeds the cost savings from doing so.
Sometimes it's cheaper to do nothing.
Because when someone a bit less man-childy buys the remains of the company for $50m during 2024, they don't want to have to go through the rigmarole of dealing with squatters.
Even so, I imagine that they would be greeted with a bit more than a turd emoji if they did have to go down that route when the time arises.
"aka an arse, which Trump most definitely is."
He's no saint, but what politician is? I shudder to think what the US would be like had Hillary gained office and I have questions about who is running Joe Biden as he often makes comments that shows he has no clue where he is or what he's supposed to be parroting. The biggest problem in US politics right now is a total lack of good choices. I expect that many other places are the same.
They're so smart all you need to do to outwit them is stick some wobbly eyes to the back of your hat. They only attack when you're walking away.
Oh, and if your gander does attack, grab him by the neck and swing him around a bit. He'll think twice ... for a day or two. Stupid bastard.
"Fetch t'pineapple, Granville and put 't up t'rump."
Besides making a complete mess of my keyboard (see icon --->), you have given me a new way to refer to His Orangeness. I think I'll start referring to him as "t'pineapple".
Now, I'm off to BestBuy to find a new keyboard, dammit!
To be fair, heard both glottal stop (what you're referring to) and "in t' ", speaking as someone with Yorkshire family, and a father who considers himself a "dyed in the woll Yorkshireman" (but amusingly, has no real Yorkshire accent anymore, because he left years ago to join the RAF and then went into the Defence industry and spent most of his working life abroad or anywhere else in the UK).
The rules for succession about who is next for candidacy if the current dies. The const also has rules about who can be president, just because the POTUS and VPOTUS die doesnt mean the rules about US PREZ are somehow skipped and auto magically given to the next in the list. Thats not how laws work.
Not sure why this was downvoted, though it could have been phrased better.
The Natural-Born Citizen clause says "No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President". How the person made it to the office — election or succession — is irrelevant; if you're not eligible, you're not eligible.
Note that the Speaker of the House's position in the POTUS line of succession is not established by the Constitution. Article II gave Congress the power to establish the line of succession (after the Veep, and then the 20th amendment broadened that somewhat), and the various Presidential Succession Acts did so. The 1947 version stuck the Speaker into his or her present place in the line.
However: Both the PSA and the 20th amendment actually use the phrase "act as President". The 20th, for example, says "the Congress may by law provide for the case wherein neither a President elect nor a Vice President shall have qualified, declaring who shall then act as President, or the manner in which one who is to act shall be selected, and such person shall act accordingly until a President or Vice President shall have qualified". The key there is act as President. It is by no means clear whether the restriction on holding "the Office of President" is also an impairment to "act[ing] as President". The 25th amendment says that the VP actually becomes President and appoints a new VP, but if both the President and VP die or otherwise become illegible in a short period, the Speaker would be in line to become acting President, and it's not clear the NBC clause applies.
I think this might be discussed in Wexler's The Odd Clauses, but my copy isn't ready to hand.
As I understand the rules, they just skip anyone who doesn't meet all the criteria. So maybe it would work if everybody on the list except for him died, because then they'd need someone to fill in during the emergency, but if one of the other twenty or so on the list was around, it would go to them instead.
"But isn't Speaker just two sudden deaths away from becoming POTUS?"
The Vice President would be elevated to the Presidency if the President dies or is incapable of completing their term. The Speaker of the House would "assume the duties" of the President if both the President and Vice President were unavailable to perform. I believe that there is still the same eligibility requirements in place as there is for somebody to be elected US President.
> But isn't Speaker just two sudden deaths away from becoming POTUS?
Which means we're currently looking at the possibility of President Mike Johnson. A man who believes the universe is 6000 years old, created on 23 Oct 4004 BC at 9:00 AM Garden of Eden time, and who would not stand out, intellectually, in the fish tank of a dentist's waiting room. It's hard to imagine there's an alternative to President Elon Musk who would be even worse, but you could argue that's what we have right now.
My mind upon considering the above -- >
> Just because he says he believes doesn't mean in private that he believes.
Admittedly quite possible, and I suspect many idiotic ideas espoused by our leaders are for public consumption. For example, you hear often about Republicans praising He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named-While-Eating in public, then privately complaining about him. But from what I've read, it would appear that Mike Johnson is a true believer.
"who believes the universe is 6000 years old, created on 23 Oct 4004 BC at 9:00 AM Garden of Eden time!
I wish Alan Harper had issued a contradictory ex cathedra statement when he held Ussher's old gig. He was previously a geographer turned archaeologist so hugely better qualified than Ussher. Of course with the wild men on either side in N Ireland who might have objected it could have been high risk.
The house speaker is 3rd in line to the presidency. What would happen if someone filled that role who was ineligible to be president and the president & VP both became unable to fill the roles? Would it skip past them to the next in line?
Yes. The order of succession is statutory; the requirement to be a citizen from birth is constitutional.
"An example of this is Queen Victoria. Her father also had a personal union with Hanover, and when he died she only succeeeded him as QUeen of the UK but not Hanover, because the later did not allow women to rule."
Victoria's father was never King of the United Kingdom and Ireland - that would be her uncle, William IV, whom she succeeded when he died. Her father, Edward, was Duke of Kent when he died, before Victoria's 1st birthday.
From Article II, Section 1, Clause 5:
"No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States."
See bolded part. Since George Washington was a US Citizen in 1789, he was eligible. TMYK!
"Washington was not either a native born US citizen, so under the originalist doctrine this restriction is lot legit!"
If that was correct, no one would have been eligible to be the first President until some newborns came of age after the formation of the county. All those Declaration signers and others old enough to qualify as adults to be elected President were born somewhere other than the United States of America. They were either born in British or other colonies or recent immigrants because the USA didn't exist when they were born!
-- the beancounters telling them to do so --
I would love to see the cost / benefit analysis for advertising on any social media platform. Surely with all the analytics on the internet we have progressed beyond the "we know 50% works" period. Maybe its just marketing wanting to keep their budget?
"I would love to see the cost / benefit analysis for advertising on any social media platform. "
For some well known brands selling sugar water, they can have a carpet bombing approach where they get their logo plastered everywhere. It's hard to calculate a ROI on specific venues, but they know that in aggregate that when they do it, they sell more product.
He's certainly smarter than Trump, but it's exactly the same game plan that you've described.
When all is good - "It was me!"
When all is bad - "It's you!"
Very child like, but unfortunately for the world, it has repercussions.
When these big babies throw their toys, it echoes.
I guess it's always been the same. Perhaps Genghis Khan was just a big man-child, Hitler too.
Putin certainly is.
Maybe it's a trait wedded to that level of greatness or notoriety - that level of drive.
"I'm a gonna show all of them, just watch me!" - like a child chastised who wants to exact revenge.
Monsters, basically. A certain kind of intelligence and drive that propels them to the top, but lacking ... humanity. No empathy. Broken, basically.
A child can be born physically deformed and it's obvious. If they are lucky, they can propel themselves forwards and enjoy a good life.
A child can be born pretty much a moron, same outcome.
But what of children born with a brain deformity that isn't picked up? Super intelligent, but completely lacking some kind of empathy gene?
Nothing holds them back, nothing at all, because they don't actually give a fuck.
They mimic that side of human behaviour - cloak themselves.
That's Musk.
God help us all.
Strangely over the years I've run into smart asses like muskie.... the high IQ types, and all of them have personality disorders of some kind or other
we're not talking the 120-135 IQ level who generally end up being lawyers or doctors and fit in quite well, we're talking the 145+ crowd.
They ranged from bipolar, to someone who cant hold a job down due to terminal honesty, to an utter perfectionist, to the smartest person I know of... who is permanently sectioned to protect society.
My belief is that the high IQ types need just as much help while growing up as any below 70 IQ kid, otherwise they grow up into a musk (or worse)
"Strangely over the years I've run into smart asses like muskie.... the high IQ types, and all of them have personality disorders of some kind or other"
That really casts doubts as to whether standardized IQ ratings are valid. What's really being measured and is it any good indicator about a person? I expect that Fritz Haber had a very high IQ.
That really casts doubts as to whether standardized IQ ratings are valid.
They've been debated for years. Like if they're really an ability to do IQ tests. Practice them, you get smarter! Otherwise, intelligence should be an ability to solve problems. Or create more interesting ones. It cuts both ways. I think as a society though, we're certainly dumbing down, especially when we're apparently no longer supposed to question anything.
There are now a lot of different ways to get an IQ measurement, and all of them have one thing in common: a lot of researchers think they're crap. Like a lot of other tests, there's some correlation between scoring higher and being generally smarter, but when you try to be any more specific than that, the logic breaks down really fast. They include arbitrary correct answers, weights that are there for no real reason, and then they take those results and put them on a curve. As we all know, changing scores to fit a curve is likely to introduce a lot more chaos into a grading system than having a previously-decided standard. We'll probably never get over wanting to have a convenient number to measure intelligence, though, and I don't think any other test will end up being perfect, so I expect IQ to stay around for a long time.
The only time IQ testing is a problem is when amateurs make it a problem. It's supposed to be *part* of a comprehensive examination of mental abilities, not a start and finish line. There's emotional testing, empathy assessment, etc.
Each assessment stage is worthless in isolation and is frequently abused by isolating one stage by itself, rendering any assessment entirely out of balance and incomplete.
The only time IQ testing is a problem is when amateurs make it a problem. It's supposed to be *part* of a comprehensive examination of mental abilities, not a start and finish line. There's emotional testing, empathy assessment, etc.
Which is why they coined the phrase "emotional intelligence". As I said ^ - my 'skill' seems to be entirely information-related - and I *have* to be intertested in what I was learning for it to kick in. Techie stuff? Works fine. Maths? [insert blank look].
I'd never have been able to make a living as a physicist.. But I do enjoy doing presentations - especially teaching non-techies about techie stuff in a way that (I hope) they understand.
"We'll probably never get over wanting to have a convenient number to measure intelligence, though, and I don't think any other test will end up being perfect, so I expect IQ to stay around for a long time."
So, like Zodiacal brith signs then, and about as much use, but so ingrained in society, people still believe :-)
"That really casts doubts as to whether standardized IQ ratings are valid. What's really being measured and is it any good indicator about a person?"
That's been an ongoing debate since IQ testing first started.
Case in point, Wikipedia is an absolute genius in general knowledge terms. It's also entirely vacant in terms of mathematical skills and spacial reasoning. But then, it's a searchable encyclopedia, not an AI.
Our current AI's are barely that, in narrow enough areas to fail an IQ test, let alone a Turing test.
Meanwhile, I've personally met some high IQ types who would also fail a Turing test, but are undeniably intelligent and some, even socially skilled.
Meanwhile, to assess mental function, IQ testing is part of a comprehensive battery of testing, it's not a be all and end all, save for the layperson, who doesn't understand psychology at all.
And to properly cover that requires at least a psych 201 level course. :/
In first school mine was measured at 169 by someone trained in the art.
And after a similar test at a job interview at time of graduation I was told that I was "obviously very intelligent" (*)
I just happened to be quite good at the type of puzzles those tests included.
(*) They also said that I needed a high level of motivation, which I translated as being lazy - and they were certainly right about that aspect..
"They also said that I needed a high level of motivation, which I translated as being lazy - and they were certainly right about that aspect."
Intelligent and lazy is a good combination. The type of person who will spend hours or days looking for a quicker or better solution to something that most others wouldn't bother with as "not worth it". But you come up with a solution in days that saves years of man-hours in the long run :-) Sometimes, putting in the least effort (lazy!) involves quite a bit of up front effort in the short term for a long term gain.
But you come up with a solution in days that saves years of man-hours in the long run :-)
Whenever I've had a new job, I spend the first 6 months frantically making my life easier and working out better ways of doing the job. Then the rest of the time in the job enjoying a peaceful life :-)
@Boris the Cockroach
" someone who cant hold a job down due to terminal honesty"
Sounds like someone on the spectrum, a lot of autistic people struggle with telling lies, it is a "skill" that can be learned by some (I managed it, but it was not easy, did not come naturally at all), as a bit of lying tends to be needed as a social lubricant (again for many most social interaction stuff has to be essentially rote learned and painstakingly practiced as again it often does not come naturally & don't even get me started on the whole difficulties of eye contact rules)... Managing to do a few lies is very mentally exhausting though, so maybe your totally honest acquaintance either could not learn to lie, or found lying took too much out of them for it to be viable (certainly find that when I'm knackered far more likely to not be able to consciously counteract my "default" honesty and to make extremely blunt and truthful comments)
.. One thing I noticed in trying hard over the years to present as more neurotypical was that my particular autism "super powers" seemed to noticeably decline (great memory, ability to concentrate on problems for a very long time, easy assimilation of complex logic pathways etc). Whether that's an actual reduction in level of autism or (more likely guess) is that the mental processing effort to appear more neurotypical just leaves less brain power available for those autism "super powers" and so they are less efficient (not linked to general age related mental decline as had happened well before the age that mental performance typically starts to suffer ). So another possibility is the person tried the "dishonest" approach but suffered those side effects & decided to ditch "dishonesty" so as not to weaken their autism related skills.
It almost sounds as if you are saying the brain has a fixed "processing" capacity and the more functions it's asked to perform, the less it has for specific functions. If you totally gave up on trying to be "neurotypical", maybe you'd have more power to do things your preferred way :-)
A bit like how it's said that people who have lost (or never had) a sense, such has blindness or deafness (I mean total or very significant loss in this instance) have "super sense" in their remaining senses, when the reality is mostly that they use those working senses far more and, possibly, have more of the brains capacity to process that information.
"My belief is that the high IQ types need just as much help while growing up as any below 70 IQ kid, otherwise they grow up into a musk (or worse)"
On a similar note, schools "special needs" programmes seem to only take account of those with "learning difficulties". There seems to be very little for the brighter ones who are bored because the teaching experiences is just so slooooow for them. At best, they get labelled "disruptive" because they bored and are looking for something to do or get some attention.
fit in quite well, we're talking the 145+ crowd
[Waves].
I did join Mensa (briefly) but found it was full of the most boring people imaginable, all high on their own IQ scores.
My main personality quirk is a deep love of prog rock (listening to it now while in a nice dark room because migraine - the music actually helps because it gives my brain something to do other than go 'ow ow ow'). My IQ mainly seems to be in information gathering - and IT. Which is fortunate since I herd IT for a living..
Mind you, my IQ test was when I was 18 - which was 40 years ago. I'd imagine (like a 57-year old Morris Minor engine) that a lot of the horses have left for pastures new..
I like to think I'm relatively normal. And so does my imaginary friend..
It's amazing what you can buy with an inherited fortune, isn't it.
It's well documented that if Trump had taken his inheritance and invested it in index-linked bonds, he'd be richer than he is, so he's a walking example of how to make a small fortune - start with a large fortune.
It's also documented that he's bad enough at running businesses that he managed to bankrupt a casino, a business notable for people giving you money for nothing.
Yes he is a bad businessman, no argument that doesnt change the fact that he has done better than 99% of other people if the situations were reversed. Look at Lotto winners, many are broke in a few years because well scammers get them. For all Donalds attributes he has managed to stay rich which is some achievement.
The problem is you cant accept just how stupid most of the public is, they re significantly dumber than Donald.
Take the last few elections, half the country voted for him, how fucking dumb do you have to be, to be an average american to vote for the guy who wants to lower your wages and workers rights...
Donald is not dumb, its an act. You dont understand he is playing to a certain audience. He is no different to say fundamentalist preachers, they too know their religion is bullshit and its all an act so they keep their position.
But this is true of any politician. You have to know how to work your audience and play to that crowd to attract voters. So I think we tend to end up with people who are charismatic, not necessarily intelligent. Al Gore was a preacher, Biden's an everyman, Trump and Musk are carny hustlers like P.T.Barnum. Both of those must have some intelligence because both developed big businesses. Many politicians are just career politicians though. Some of Musk's statements have been strange, like his Hypeloop and comparing it to an air hockey table. Trains riding on a cushion of air, in a vacuum tube.
"Some of Musk's statements have been strange, like his Hypeloop and comparing it to an air hockey table. Trains riding on a cushion of air, in a vacuum tube."
Beyond that slight problem coming from somebody with a Bachelors of ARTS in physics, the whole concept is over 100 years old yet he presented it as if it was his own and told everybody that he was going to make it Open Source and not patent it (had already been patented so was ineligible). "There behind the glass is a real blade of grass.... Come and see the show"
Of course its true of all public personalities.
The image they present is an act, the reality of the person in privaate is completely different.
jellied: Many politicians are just career politicians though.
cow: that may be true, but it does take some effort and weaseling to actually be selected in the first place and continue to be selected all the way up.
jellied: Some of Musk's statements have been strange, like his Hypeloop and comparing it to an air hockey table. Trains riding on a cushion of air, in a vacuum tube.
cow: Its social media, most people in the world are idiots, Musk is tlking bullshit and they beleive, its no different to religion.
No, it's not all an act. If he was a smart person, his Presidency would have been much worse. The "act" is the same one other populists have used for probably centuries now. You might hope they don't believe what they're preaching, but most fundamentalist preachers DO believe what they're preaching.
The more I go on in life it seem clear, we need these monsters because that's how we have structured the entire business world.
We created positions that need people that are pure logic focused, to say make the most money for the investors no matter the route, but the other side of than is needing zero empathy.
Often what holds up a money making scheme is ethics, find a figurehead that can make it happen and then you have a point to both applaud when it goes right, and axe when it goes wrong, replace with a different monster and continue.
Ultimately all that matte6r in these cases is "line goes up" as long as that is ticking away nicely the consequences are moot it seems.
When it goes badly... Well we have Musk and X to look at currently.
I don't like it but what's the alternative, we have built the entire functional world around this concept.
"Often what holds up a money making scheme is ethics, find a figurehead that can make it happen and then you have a point to both applaud when it goes right, and axe when it goes wrong, replace with a different monster and continue."
I'm sure that if I went into weapons R&D, I'd have a much higher net worth, but I made the decision long before Uni that it was a path I would not tread.
At what point do people start to realise he is a technical incompetent held up by spending other people's money on unfortunate workers smarter than he is?
While his personality traits are , let's say, deplorable, he has been able to execute on dreams that others have tried and failed utterly at. He's done it with way less money than others wasted. He has made (or backed up), big calls that proved his judgement right, and he has been able to carry them through to fruition.
Misses don't negate the hits (midget subs anyone?).
He will be seen as having personally driven some improbable success as very few others have, and his apparent descent into ineffectual craziness (c.f. Howard Hughes, N Tesla) is going to be a tragic loss really. Sadness is overwhelming schadenfreude.
At what point do people start to realise he is a technical incompetent held up by spending other people's money on unfortunate workers smarter than he is?
While his personality traits are , let's say, deplorable, he has been able to execute on dreams that others have tried and failed utterly at. He's done it with way less money than others wasted failing to do the same. He has made (or backed up), big calls that proved his judgement right, and he has been able to carry them through to fruition.
Misses don't negate the hits (midget subs anyone?).
He will be seen as having personally driven some improbable success as very few others have, and his apparent descent into ineffectual craziness (c.f. Howard Hughes, N Tesla) is going to be a tragic loss really.
I find sadness is overwhelming schadenfreude.
"And the whole world will know that those advertisers killed the company," he added ominously, "and we will document it in great detail."
And where is this mythical documentation to be stored, once the company is defunct? Written in pixie dust?
Of course, his investors will be quite out for blood and well, every other bit of moisture in his body, as he bought Xitter largely with investor money, not his own.
Sounds like a nascent riches to rags story, once punitive damages get awarded in a century or so.
Certainly I've never heard that autism and attention-seeking are strongly correlated. Musk's incessant "look at me!" does not strike me as typical of anyone significantly far along the spectrum.
And I agree that autism as a fashionable self-diagnosis for people who simply have little regard for others' feelings is pretty vile.
nobody wanting to advertise or even use the platform
this is contrary to my observation : the more advertisement there is, the less I personally use it. I have all ad-blockers and UBlock origin and the like, and if a site refuses to show me their page because of that, I don't deactivate my ad-blocker but simply go away. Somehow the author seems to conflate that if users stop seeing ads they somehow will stop using a site.
That being said, I don't use Twitter (nor any other social media), and ElReg doesn't show me any ads.
"That applies to any site that I visit."
It's amazing that they don't get the concept that if I've gone to the trouble to look at their web site, chances are better than even I'll buy their product. The last thing they should be doing is throwing up some reason for me to go and look at their competitor. If their business plan has a heavy dose of data harvesting, I'm not interested in doing business with them.
The new fiber internet company in the area chased me off by wanting to run a credit check and was asking for things like my date of birth. That pretty much ended that. If I didn't pay the bill, a whole $50, they could just shut off service so what's with the credit check? It's not like I could rack up charges against the account for outside services. They could be rather strict about on-time payments for the first year too if they like. I own the house so it's not like I'll be picking up and moving with no notice. Whether I rented or owned was a question not asked.
It's probably some tracking script that somebody installed, not understanding what it was doing or how it worked. None of the test machines, neither of them, had an ad blocker on it, so they assume it's fine for everybody. That would be my guess. Then again, I've been surprised to see some companies with Google ad frames on them when that really doesn't fit with the rest of it, and only a few days ago, there was an article about Google ads being on the website of an Iranian steel company, which you'd think wouldn't need the extra revenue, so maybe they are just dumb enough to go for those few pennies.
I'm not conflating anything. I'm saying that advertisers don't want to advertise next to 4chan content, and Twitter users don't want to see 4chan content. If you do, just go to 4chan.
No one wants to see advertisements, but since they made up the bulk of Twitter's revenue, it seems pretty counterproductive to turn the platform into a free-for-all then tell the money men to fuck themselves.
"No one wants to see advertisements, but since they made up the bulk of Twitter's revenue, it seems pretty counterproductive to turn the platform into a free-for-all then tell the money men to fuck themselves."
This is like Disney's theme parks. They screen people at the gate so "youths" wearing gang attire or packing weapons aren't admitted. They also have a large discreet security force to quell and remove any disturbances in the park. People that change clothes once inside, take off shirts, etc are shown the side gate and very distinctly told to never return. If Disney didn't preserve its fun and safe atmosphere, families would stay away and those are the people spending large quantities of money when they visit. A free-for-all would put them out of business in a week or less. TL:DR, They cater to the people giving them the most money.
but since they made up the bulk of Twitter's revenue
keyword being "made" , in the past. And if I remember well, Twitter never was profitable, even with all the ads. So apart that you don't like Elon Musk – even though I very much doubt that you know him, and you're making up your opinion entirely on rumors – I don't really see your point.
Twitter had two profitable quarters and were on target for more after paying off fines for past bad behaviour.
The new owner has loaded the company up with debt requiring $300M/quarter interest payments, run up debts at every opportunity, restored the behaviour that incurred fines, driven away customers, alienated much of the user base, got rid of the staff required to show compliance with consent decrees and publicly stated that anyone foolish enough to work at X will lose salary and severance pay in an upcoming bankruptcy.
Extwitter has only remained operational this long because it borrowed more than sufficient for the buy out. The excess was used to pay interest and there is not much left. Even Musk can see the bankruptcy coming which is why he his busy blaming anyone but himself despite his hard work and effective strategy for turning the company around.
"Twitter had two profitable quarters and were on target for more after paying off fines for past bad behaviour."
They could have reigned in a whole bunch of spending as well. Digs in the center of major cities, while very swank, are very expensive and not necessary. Twitter 1.0 would pay for IVF for employees although I suspect if those employees only worked a 40 hour week and had more unstressed time to spend on reproducing, the outcome could be the same. It's still a monumental amount of generosity given the cost and that those employees are going on extended leave 9 or so months in the future. Made worse by the not uncommon issue of multiple births. There were a bunch of other things on the list that Elon axed. I think he made a big mistake deleting the cafe. Instead of shutting them down, he could have made them wi-fi free zones and even installed some shielding so mobiles got really bad reception if they got it at all. People wouldn't go in, get a tray of food and diddle with their phone until the food was warm/cold and then dump it in the bin. They'd go in, eat and leave to run someplace with at least 3 bars of signal.
"And the financial difference is...?"
Elon's big gripe was that people were filling the bins with uneaten food. It's also well known that eating a well balanced meal provides energy to be able to do work and not get "hangry" later in the afternoon and snap at your co-workers. The cost is the same, but the return is different.
"X" is now private, so the numbers aren't published.
However it is very obvious that non-advertising revenue is extremely small, because it's pretty easy to run the numbers and find an upper bound.
If advertising revenue is not still the bulk of their revenue, then they are trading while insolvent.
That might be the reason for this latest outburst...
So apart that you don't like Elon Musk – even though I very much doubt that you know him, and you're making up your opinion entirely on rumors
As a high profile - and self-promoted - public figure, his actions are available for public review and judgement...
and yep, he is a dick.
not female genitalia.
not neuro divergent
Probably inadequately socialised/ not beaten enough as a child
His father most definitely was *not* a billionaire in South Africa in the 80s. Everyone in South Africa at that time knew who the billionaires (in Rand, not dollars) were... The Oppenheimers, the Ruperts, the Moutons, the Marais', the Enthovens and the Kerzners... those were the billionaires. Errol Musk was never anywhere close (and I don't recall him ever being anywhere in the gossip press).
I use similar language when dealing with adversaries, but I wouldn't be so stupid to think that my company was ENTITLED to the money from those advertising clients. That's this megalomaniac's problem in this context. They don't owe him shit, and have a right to disassociate their brand from his negative platform.
Upvoted for the most succinct summary comment.
Musk can say what he likes about whomever he likes on whatever platform he likes. Tomorrow: "The unions can go fuck themselves." That doesn't make shooting off his mouth a smart business move. The advertisers, unions, crash-test dummies, etc. are not in any way forced to do business with Musk. As demonstrated, they can vote with their feet.
When you have 250 billion, you can wipe your butt with 200 billion and throw it in the toilet before you even have to look at the books. He's betting the bros and bud light protesters will elect him president of Mars anyway, and he's probably right. They will do what they are told for a chance to smell a dollar. The devil is in the details. I'm fairly certain he was paid to bring down twitter after frumpy pants lost at this point. It's all a little too intentional, and convenient.
"To wipe with $200 billion in $100 bills, with each wipe taking 3 seconds, it would take approximately 190.26 years."
Musk will be scruncher, not a folder, soi it'll be a big handful for each shimmy. Still take him the rest of his life, and would still be the best possible use of the man's time.
"When you have 250 billion......"
Elon doesn't have that much 'Net' money. He owns stock equally that amount if it was sold at the day's price, but as soon as he tried to sell large blocks, the price would drop like a brick. A lot of those shares are also pledged as security for loans and lines of credit so it isn't convertible anyway.
There's a reason that he didn't pay cash for Twitter. It would have simplified so many things if he did.
the free speech in the 1st ammendment is definitely right wing, because it was written by old white male cishet slave owners
true free speech is creating a space where the oppressed feel free to talk and allowing everyone to speak equally creates inequality that maintains the statues quo
this means true free speech requires the silencing of some people but this is necessary to keep it truly free and the censored are oppressive hatemongers anyway so it's not discrimination based on a characteristic, it's discrimination based on a hateful choice they made
《the free speech in the 1st ammendment is definitely right wing, because it was written by old white male cishet slave owners
true free speech is creating a space where the oppressed feel free to talk and allowing everyone to speak equally creates inequality that maintains the statues quo
this means true free speech requires the silencing of some people but this is necessary to keep it truly free and the censored are oppressive hatemongers anyway so it's not discrimination based on a characteristic, it's discrimination based on a hateful choice they made》
This for real? I first read it as a clever, if somewhat sarcastic, satire but our insane times I have a nasty creeping suspicion the poster is in deadly earnest.
I did think the "statues quo" was a clever oblique reference to the removal of the monuments of Confederate (Civil War) figures with an intentional malapropism of 'status quo.'
Redolent of the satire in Orwell (Blair')s "1984" or "Animal Farm."
Discrimination (against) here being synonymous with persecution and not as in discrimination between (good and evil) is still persecution - own it, wear it.
This is well known, and known as Karl Popper's Paradox of Tolerance.
In summary, speech is free, the consequences of speech are not. You won't be prevented from spewing dangerous hate-speech, but will go to prison for the harm it causes if you do so.
In the same way, you are free to think about stabbing someone you don't like, and since "thought crime" isn't (yet) a criminal offence in most places, you won't have committed an offence. Attempting to do so, though, is a crime; not because you are waving a knife about (although that might in itself be a crime in many places, if done in public), but because you are intentionally sticking it into someone and causing harm. Just because what you are doing, with "speech", is using your mouth, or written words, doesn't mean that what you are doing is not harmful. In many cases, it is considered a civil matter (such as with libel and slander), but in some cases, such as incitement to riot, or insurrection, it is a criminal matter.
Other cases of hate-speech would be things that cause people to legitimately fear for their lives. For example, if you were a Jew living in 1930s Germany, you might find yourself at risk from the antisemitic fervour worked up by chanted slogans directed at you. Of course, 1930s Germany was not a place that had laws against such hate speech, but this is a good example of where these things lead, and why may places (including Germany) now do have strong laws against certain speech. This does, of course, not prevent anyone from being able to express their own thoughts and views, just that in a coherent functioning society, we have to set limits of what is acceptable expression, both in speech and action.
"Free speech absolutists" believe that freedom of speech outweighs any such responsibilities, and by holding those beliefs, this logically demonstrates that they actually believe that they should exist outside of society, or that society itself should not exist. Neither of those things is a tenable position for a member of a social species.
Does that help clear things up for you?
this goes beyond direct threats, oppressed groups can be silenced just by the speech of oppressor groups
the role of the privileged who are genuine allies is to say as little as possible and only speak when directed to by the oppressed because the society we live in unfairly amplifies the voice of the privileged
it's good that you seem to be on your way to being an ally but you have a lot more education to ingest
I'd disagree, and say that the role of those with privilege is to amplify the voices of those without. Not to speak for them, but to make sure their voices are heard.
The problem is that money is the best amplifier, and those with the most money have it because they are the ones doing the exploitation.
This is, unfortunately, the main flaw in capitalism, and, since there is no real viable alternative for a societal structure, why capitalism needs heavy regulation, so that individuals cannot become billionaires in the first place. Of course, as soon as you voice that opinion, a whole load of voices come out of the woodwork claiming that you are advocating communism and discrediting you, because those with lots of money can also fund a lot of astroturfing.
This is off the mark. The free speech of the 1st Amendment is not right wing, or anything like that. It is in some ways purer than the free speech concept embraced by Europe, which gives equal weight to the freedom to receive information and ideas. European free speech is more circumscribed by proportionality.
In the US, money is equal to speech. The Supreme Court more or less endorsed that view in Citizens United. So it's acceptable to drown out the marginal voices. Plurality used to be valued, but that seems to have gone out the window with the shelving of the FCC's Doctrine of Fairness. I'll bet you wouldn't guess that it was Obama who did that. Not his finest moment.
The 1st Amendment concept of free speech has its roots in the American Revolution and the publications of the Sons of Liberty, who distorted the truth in order to gain support for the rebellion against new taxes and other similar grievances. Truth and accuracy were never part of it.
Yeah, it's nonsense question really isn't it? Why does everything have to be cast onto the axis of "left vs right"? In many cases of this mindset, it's not even an axis, rather a binary "us v them" state.
Other such logical absurdities might include asking whether the number 11 is sweet or salty, or whether space is above, or below, the Earth.
...and sees Musk run the gamut from flippant to sincere, grandiose to utterly deluded.
Honestly, I defy anyone to watch that and tell me that Musk is ok. I'm not a psychologist, but seriously, that comes across as the sort of incoherent sudden personality shifts - sometimes in basically the same sentence - that I've seen several times from over-stressed friends. While it's a lot easier to take a much needed mental health day when you're worth hundreds of billions of dollars and don't need to worry about getting fired if you don't show up to work the next day, for normal people every time I've seen this it has been shortly before they ended up having a big flaming burnout and end up on long-term sick leave and having to go therapy.
Dude does not look like he's alright.
I wouldn't be surprised if Twitler is popping some kind of pills like tic-tacs these days. Oxy, Benzos, Ketamine, Adderall, some kind of "supplement" pills that are supposed to improve cognitive function that are popular among the wealthy elite, maybe others or a combination of thereof. He hasn't been right (as-in sane) for a very long time now. Even by the standards of a workaholic who thinks its a virtue to sleep on a manufacturing floor.
"Even by the standards of a workaholic who thinks its a virtue to sleep on a manufacturing floor."
That's been debunked, but Elon keeps brining it up. Common Sense Skeptic did a run down of all Elon's appearances during the period he claims he was spending all of this time at the Tesla factory sleeping on the floor (with photo of him on a camp bed). I've curled up at the shop more than a few times when I had a manufacturing company, but it was much smaller and I was much more hands on with design and production. For something like Tesla, it's a bad sign to see the CEO spending lots of time on the factory floor rather than doing what only a CEO can do.
Without getting involved in that argument (and also while acknowledging that Hamas' attack was an act of terrorism), there really are no "good guys" in that particular argument. There isn't even a winning argument, which is why, in case you hadn't noticed, that the situation in the Middle-East is rather long-running, and some might argue, intractable.
Turning up in a private jet, and talking to the leader of one side in that fight, who himself, isn't exactly squeaky-clean, is going to achieve exactly the square root of fuck all to help the situation, but it's good for publicity, right?
Meanwhile, innocent civilians, in both Israel, and Gaza, and also those in refugee camps in the West Bank, continue to die.
As I said, though, I have absolutely no desire to get involved in this argument, because everyone's a loser.
Dude does not look like he's alright.
He might have realised that even SpaceX's days are numbered and he's running out of people he can fool.
Three minutes for SpaceX mission control to realise it had blown up. So much for telemetry and agile rocket building...
Three minutes for SpaceX mission control to realise it had blown up. So much for telemetry and agile rocket building...
What's the difference between the signal received after loss of telemetry due to a comms failure and the signal received following a rocket having blown up?
Do you think a rocket that suffers a massive explosion has a special bomb proof radio that sends the "stage 2 exploded" message?
Those engineers knew the thing was probably lost immediately because I did just from the telemetry on the stream. They just had to check everything and make sure.
I'm no fan of musk but this video is just low life propaganda. Can't believe that Reg readers are sucking up such bullshit.
So they saw it blew up and carried on reading from the script for two minutes while the telemetry arrived at the speed of sound?
Do you think a rocket that suffers a massive explosion has a special bomb proof radio that sends the "stage 2 exploded" message?
If you can see there's a big explosion in the sky and also it's stopped sending the "I'm alive" ping then odds are it's dead.
The presenters won't be able to see the video, they just have a "voice in the ear" telling them what's going on.
Though you'd hope they would have pre-prepared scripts for each probable occasion.
Just after stage separation is a bleedin' obvious likely failure point, after all that's when the Falcon 1s used to explode.
So they saw it blew up and carried on reading from the script for two minutes while the telemetry arrived at the speed of sound?
Do you think a rocket that suffers a massive explosion has a special bomb proof radio that sends the "stage 2 exploded" message?
If you can see there's a big explosion in the sky and also it's stopped sending the "I'm alive" ping then odds are it's dead.
Do you not understand the difference between the talking heads that present the stream and the mission control people (you mentioned) who are actually running the mission?
There are dozens of other flaws in that FUD video, which seems to be aimed at the confirmation bias of nutjobs.
Do you not understand the difference between the talking heads that present the stream and the mission control people (you mentioned) who are actually running the mission?
Assuming mission control were controlling the mission instead of standing round cheering and assuming that it somehow takes three minutes to work out it's exploded, how can the mission be designed to have a two-three minute window where they don't know what's going on at that point in the launch?
Also why do we have talking heads instead of a feed from mission control as we do any space agency?
There are dozens of other flaws in that FUD video, which seems to be aimed at the confirmation bias of nutjobs.
Point them out...
"Do you think a rocket that suffers a massive explosion has a special bomb proof radio that sends the "stage 2 exploded" message?"
It's the loss of signal unexpectedly that is a big fat clue. With all of the money SpaceX is spending to blow up rockets, why couldn't they have a monitoring facility in Puerto Rico? It's a US possession so there's no problem sending the gear down there. Of course, Elon isn't really popular there, but they could have put a receiver on a boat. If they asked nicely, maybe the NASA TDRS satellites could have been used since the Starship system is supposed to be under development for sending astronauts back to the moon in a couple of years.
"Do you think a rocket that suffers a massive explosion has a special bomb proof radio that sends the "stage 2 exploded" message?"
Not that I think this is very important, because I don't really see why three minutes makes much of a difference, but if you do want to know earlier then it might be worth having observation and telemetry systems that aren't on the rocket. That way, if it blows up or the equipment fails, you can get more information in general and have that information quicker.
" but if you do want to know earlier then it might be worth having observation and telemetry systems that aren't on the rocket. "
Most entities doing test flights pile on a lot of extra monitoring since they know that bad things can happen during testing and not having data makes the test worthless. I know somebody that works on testing military aircraft and got a tour of one of his projects. He pointed out that all of the orange wiring on the craft (non-combat) was added sensors and telemetry and it was a s-ton. The reasoning was that if they lost the craft, if they had good data, it wasn't a big deal. With some tests they were pushing the design limits to see where it would fail first and they would lose the craft.
Or you could watch the challenger launch where the commentator was describing how far/how fast challenger was going even though we could all see it had blown up.
Columbia had the same sort of event where they lost signal and kept going 'comm check' to columbia even though the shuttle had already broken up.
The video is a continuous stream of garbage for the first seven minutes - I assume it goes down hill from there. I will just deal with the point mentioned here:
The commentator on the video admitted to re-syncing the audio. The crowd at SpaceX (not mission controllers) cheered at separation not - as edited - after the first stage explosion. The commentator then presented later SpaceX commentary of Stage 2 progress as mission controller cluelessness about the fate of stage 1. He also says SpaceX would have got better telemetry from GEO satellites than by relying exclusively on Starlink. SpaceX launches normally use their own ground stations within a few hundred km of the rockets. This launch was in an odd direction to line up with the DoD's extensive missile tracking equipment north of Hawaii. SpaceX did use their ground stations for IFT2 when they were within range. GEO satellites are tens of thousands of km away and were never within range (without a drastic loss of bandwidth). Most of the track was over the ocean (guess why) away from Starlink ground stations. A proportion of Starlink satellites now forward data to each other with laser links and have some useful coverage over oceans.
I promise you every statement made in the first 7 minutes is just as bad. The presenter knows better but is deliberately writing garbage knowing it will get links because Musk is an arsehole and views from people debunking utter crap.
Latency is the problem for geostationary orbit distance from earth, though they are OK for streaming.
You would have to be very simple minded to be taken in by that video. People need to be a lot more savvy than Dan 55 to deal with modern web content. I fear for him.
"Latency is the problem for geostationary orbit distance from earth, though they are OK for streaming."
Latency from GEO not too bad for most things. Way back I was working as a tech at a Disneyland anniversary getting news agencies sync'd up with their offices via satellite. Due to the way Canada requires sat comms to be done, we had one feed that bounced so many times that there was 4-5 seconds of delay between the broadcast feed and the backhaul. Looked at in terms of total distance, it was around 9.3 million miles. They couldn't do a live broadcast as the delay was too bad. With all of the agencies we had, we were using all of the channels available on the sats and telephone lines.
Exactly right. People are reading the quotes and thinking it's just him being a dick as usual. But watch the video of the interview and this is clearly a different person to the one from ten or perhaps five years ago.
He used to be inspirational in the early days, and this sudden shift to hard-line political views always seemed odd. But there's a huge mental health decline right there to see, just from the way he talks.
Digging with a "second shovel" and calling the interview a "car crash"... Way to undersell things! If anything, he brought in a whole fleet of heavy excavators and had a conveyer belt installed to keep the dig site clear, and the "rapid unscheduled disassembly" of that SpaceX rocket a while back is a bit more of an apt metaphor for what he's done to Twitter. I'm sure after being told to go fuck themselves, companies that could buy and sell all of Twitler's businesses several times over are going to come crawling back.
His "apology" was a classic, "I'm sorry I got caught" type apology. "I'm sorry people realized I'm an antisemitic and racist piece of shit! I was using coded language! It's not like I showed everyone the photo of the time I dressed up as Hitler for Halloween! Grimes went as Mussolini, why isn't everyone mad at her!?"
But here's an interesting one to ponder. On paper at least, Twitler is only the CTO at Twitter. So, technically Yaccarino could fire his ass, and drop the ban hammer on his account. How long do you suppose that would last before Yaccarino was looking for a new gig? And at this point, by continuing to stick around, Yaccarino has made herself damaged goods, so I hope she has enough money in the bank to retire on, or the Daily Stormer pays well, because the number of places that will want to risk having her associated with them has got to be vanishingly small and shrinking every time Twitler opens his gob (virtually or otherwise). I have no idea what her end game is, or why it is she's continuing to stick around when this is just the latest Twitler meltdown, not the first, and we all know it won't be the last.
"And at this point, by continuing to stick around, Yaccarino has made herself damaged goods, so I hope she has enough money in the bank to retire on"
That was my take from the very beginning. What ever role Elon carved out for himself, he wouldn't put the nominal CEO in the limelight and stay in the shadows.
I'm sure the Daily Mail will make a place for her if they haven't already made her an offer.
If I were offered the CEO chair (electrified, I'm certain), It would have to come with serious FU money so I could buy a ranch in the middle of nowhere and keep on ranching until the money was all gone (hopefully timed to the date of my death).
"I'm looking forward to finding out which Elon we get at the Cybertruck launch today. Will it be Happy Elon? Will it be depressed "we dug our own grave" earnings call Elon? Will it be combative "go fuck yourself" Elon? We won't know for another hour!"
Which ever one show up, it's a short show as they are said to be handing over a whole 10 trucks. Oprah did better than that. "You get a car and you get a car and you get a car....."
"I'm looking forward to finding out which Elon we get at the Cybertruck launch today."
We got the one that brought out a dancer in spandex to demo the Tesla robot.
They redid the test of throwing something at a window to see if it would break, but, par for Elon, this time the guy threw a baseball and not a heavy steel ball. "oh look, it bounced right off". Not even funny as a joke.
I think they meant "poor" in the sense of "worthy of sympathy" rather than "lacking in money". Not that I feel much sympathy. She should have known what she was getting into before signing on, and I hope she was smart enough to do so and request something that was worth the effort.
What's even cringier than the F-bomb, and the ensuing uncomfortable silence, is this bit, missing from most reports;
Elon Musk: "Jonathan, the only reason I'm here is because you're a friend. Look, what was my speaking fee?"
Andrew Ross Sorkin, laughing: "You're not making any ... First of all, I'm Andrew."
My politics is, as far as I can tell, completely on the other end of the spectrum to Musk's but I tend to agree with him. Its the whole "You can't say 'X' " business which prevents us from saying what's in front of our noses and is used to manipulate our thinking. I am also a free speech absolutist, I don't think we need to "think of the children" -- or rather, do people's thinking for them. I think we need to encourage people to think for themselves.
(As for the "advertisements next to articles by Nazis" business it turns out that this was some rather nifty manipulation of the media using a combination of bogus accounts and some deft SEO manipulation. But its easier to react, get headlines and generally make a whole lot of noise than it is to really understand what's going on and why.)(Which is why I'd like to see the entire advertising ecosystem destroyed along with social media as we know it. Unfortunately, that's a real pipe dream.)
Which is why I'd like to see the entire advertising ecosystem destroyed along with social media as we know it. Unfortunately, that's a real pipe dream.
I think it's beginning to work. Advertisers have been struggling to grasp the online world and how to reach potential customers. Sometimes, it's misjudged this spectacularly. Disney's been struggling to make money and has a content strategy that's clearly not reaching audiences. See the Marvels and it's riveting live stream of.. cats. Or see the latest Bbc/Disney co-production, Dr.. Who? Lots of message, not much story. Lots of misandry, no misogyny. Lots of negative press pointing out how discriminatory RTD & the Bbc's dream team can be. People in wheelchairs can't be evil.. They really don't get it, yet these are the brilliant minds that want to censor and control what people can say and think.
But this is where it gets interesting. Disney's a train wreck. I have no idea how much Twitter managed to sucker out of them, but all X needs to do is find replacement advertisers who can take up the slack. Maybe advertisers that aren't welcomed on, say, YT. Maybe Musk can figure out ways to get referal fees or commisions on product sales. Sure, YT's maybe cornered the mass market in advertising crypto, finance scams and other garbage but whether Musk can attract enough advertisers that are currently shunned by the MSM and lefty socialist media sites. If the lefty corporations don't want those customers, maybe there are other businesses that do, and will offer better products and services than the old dinosaurs?
I hear there's a pillow tycoon about to launch a major ad campaign, he's just trying to tie up a lucrative joint venture with the people who make Jellied Eel flavour Brainfarce so they can make a real 'splash' in the toilet bowl formerly known as Twitter.
That would really be scraping the bottom of the barrel. I'm not sure anything short of human trafficking, arms sales and ads for recreational drugs are unwelcome.
Yep, it's strange YT and TikTok get a pass for content/advertising while the focus is on X. But arms sales is one possibility. Maybe not extolling the virtues of the latest environmentally friendly cluster bombs, but simpler stuff like firearms, accessories and outdoors things. AlphaGoo seems to object to those, but there's a bunch of guntubers & outdoor channels, and it's a multi-billion dollar market in the US. Sure, some people find shooting sports objectionable, but with an s1 FAC, and land, it's even legal in the UK. Or maybe X can just figure out how to make ads more relevant to content. I also watch a lot of crafting channels, yet none of the ads are relevant to the content.
There seems to be a lot of opportunties to improve online advertising and target it better. YT has a ton of flags & tags to categorise content. So as an example, I've been getting back into cosplay stuff. Sometimes, I see stuff being used I want to buy, then have to go hunt for suppliers. How hard could it be to have an advertiser category and pool of craft supply companies and match those to crafting channels? Sure, they may not have the ad budgets of Disney, but if they knew they were getting in front of a relevant audience, they may spend something. And some already do, ie in-content sponsorship, but AlphaGoo or X aren't getting a cut of that.
"Its the whole "You can't say 'X' " business which prevents us from saying what's in front of our noses and is used to manipulate our thinking. "
When I was young, manners and decorum were important things to my parents. There's topics and words that are fine to use with your intimates, but if you are presented to the king, it's not appropriate to say "What up, homey?" If you are participating in a business meeting and call the boss incompetent in front of everybody, there will be consequences. That last one happened at a company I worked for. Dead silence for a longish period and the CEO then told the person they need to talk privately after the telcon. It would have been more appropriate to suggest that the boss being criticized has a lot on their plate and maybe the task under discussion could be delegated to somebody with more available time and report to the boss.
So you are a "free speech absolutist" but you don't think IBM et al have the right to "speak" with their advertising dollars where they choose to? Musk seems to believe Twitter is entitled to these advertisers spending money there, and if they choose not to it is "their fault" if Twitter goes bust.
You clearly do not subscribe to what you claim to, or have a remarkable ability to choose when and where free speech rights are "absolute" and where they are non-existent.
So you are a "free speech absolutist" but you don't think IBM et al have the right to "speak" with their advertising dollars where they choose to? Musk seems to believe Twitter is entitled to these advertisers spending money there, and if they choose not to it is "their fault" if Twitter goes bust.
Where's he saying that? Maybe he's saying advertisers don't have a right to set editorial policy. Maybe he's saying IBM was wrong not to do some due diligence and acted prematurely after Media Matter's hatchet job. Maybe he's saying some advertisers have too much control and influence. Maybe IBM won't run ads on any media that criticises their age discrimination policies, or any of their actions. About that story you ran. Be a shame if we pulled our adverts, wouldn't it?
You clearly do not subscribe to what you claim to, or have a remarkable ability to choose when and where free speech rights are "absolute" and where they are non-existent.
Well, there does seem to be a concerted effort to destroy X, and attack Musk. Should corporations be doing this? Does that have free speech implications? But interestingly, some people are calling for a boycott of those advertisers. I'm not sure how effective this will be, ie how many pro-free speech people would bother watching Disney. But consumer activism can be effective. So Budweiser decided to ditch it's 'frat boy' market and rebrand as tranny fluid. AB lost what, $18bn and still hasn't recovered. Most of Disney's recent movies and shows have tanked, and Disney's been bleeding cash, so maybe it's vulnerable to consumer boycotts. IBM's perhaps safer because they're not exactly a mass market or consumer brand, but also have their own problems. Pretty much every advertiser can be easily substituted by their customer base, especially if those customers are already feeling alienated or just ripped off already. I've cancelled my Discovery subscription, not really as a result of this fiasco, more because it doesn't do documentary shows any more.. Plus of course, the unskippable ads it forces into it's shows.
>will you please take a hike you transphobic bigoted loudmouth, do the right wing "news" sites not have forums..
????
The whole problem with Musk's interview was that he was being asked questions of the form "When did you stop beating your wife?". Its not journalism, its actually a form of propaganda and its quite transparently so. He got a bit frustrated with this, rose to the bait and provided the media with its "Gotcha" moment.
This type of interview is designed to appeal to people like the writer of the sentence I copied. Its a sign of a successful propaganda campaign when people are trained to have primarily a gut reaction to ideas -- you'll typically find them emphatically in favor or against something without being able to articulate why. That's why you get these streams of invective and short, catchy, names for things. It also doesn't belong in technology and science; one of the characteristics of working in these fields is being able to hold a lot of different, sometimes contradictory, bits of information and make sense of them.
Anyway, someone points this out and gets a stream of nonsensical insults as a response. I suppose I'm "right wing" as well -- actually, I'm not, I belong well to the left of people like Corbyn and Sanders having grown up in an age Where There Was An Alternative. Anyway, I'd suggest stopping and thinking before barraging (downvotes, of course -- off you all go.....sigh......)
Well, there does seem to be a concerted effort to destroy X, and attack Musk. Should corporations be doing this?
Just because some individuals may want to "attack Musk" and "destroy X" does not imply that corporations who make the decision to take their advertising elsewhere have a goal of doing so. If that was the case, why have they been advertising on Twitter (I refuse to call it X like the guy dumb enough to believe he will ever turn it into an "everything app" wants us to) for the past year? Wouldn't they have simply reduced their advertising budget down to a trickle over time? Or quit advertising before the takeover, so they can claim it had nothing to do with him?
Does that have free speech implications?
Only if you believe like Musk does, that Twitter is entitled to its advertisers to continue paying them for advertising regardless of whatever lunatic shit he posts, or seeing their ads alongside Nazi accounts, or whatever next month's craziness will be? For all the problems there are with Facebook they probably think that's a far safer place for them to advertise, so that next time Musk inserts his foot into his mouth up to his kneecap no one will be calling their PR department asking for comment. There's a reason why normal CEOs don't go out of their way to stir up controversy. Maybe IBM's CEO believes the Earth is flat and Elvis is still alive living with JFK and Marilyn Monroe, but if he so he's smart enough to keep his crazy to himself to avoid damaging the corporate brand.
Free speech, just to educate you Trumpies who don't believe in the constitution except for alternate Tuesdays when it is time to buy another AR15 and certainly have never read it, in its First Amendment states "CONGRESS shall make no law..." Congress was not involved in any way with the decision of IBM et al to stop advertising. You can whine all you want about your theory of how these corporate meanies want Musk to fail, but there is no evidence of that. But given that a sizeable percentage of you idiots still believe Trump won the election despite that lack of a single grain of evidence ever presented in any court of law anywhere in the US, you obviously don't consider facts when you decide what conspiracy theory to hitch your wagon to.
Just because some individuals may want to "attack Musk" and "destroy X" does not imply that corporations who make the decision to take their advertising elsewhere have a goal of doing so.
Or maybe it does. ESG became a big thing, reputation is a big thing. But so is concentration of risk. That's a standard risk measure in big business, ie you depend on a few big customers, what happens if one or more of those customers decides to leave? Or one of those customers exploits the relationship to demand things, because if you don't, they may leave? This is sadly normal in business, and driving down costs is common so companies can boost their profits at their supplier's expense. It can also be very satisfying to tell a big, prestigious brand 'No, we will not do business with you on those terms'. Or even better, not renew a contract because the VIP customer is generally a PITA.
But this saga seems to have been a very deliberate effort by Media Matters to drive a wedge between Musk and his revenue streams. Media Matters is one of the DNC's pet attack dogs, and politically motivated. If Media Matters were really concerned about content, they could have shown their report to X and given them the opportunity to respond. Instead, they blasted it out to the gullible media who seized on the story and amplified the potential damages that might get awarded in X's lawsuit. That also contains maybe a bit of trolling, ie it demands Media Matters take down the story everywhere. Which means if X wins, even the stories here will have to get disappeared.. But if the problem were as widespread as Media Matters implied, shouldn't the advertisers have noticed? Don't they monitor the performance of their adverts? And as for the 'everything' app, maybe that's something Musk could deliver, after all he started out as a sofware guy making those types of apps, including payment systems and maybe could challenge PayPal's dominance in that space.
Only if you believe like Musk does, that Twitter is entitled to its advertisers to continue paying them for advertising regardless of whatever lunatic shit he posts, or seeing their ads alongside Nazi accounts,
That's just a strawman that will hopefully be tested in court. Media Matters created the pairing between advert and 'Nazi accounts', and X's filing claims that this was very much abnomal behaviour. Rest would be in the contracts between X and the advertisers, or their agencies. Those haven't been filed yet, and may not become public. But they probably have language like minimum spend committs and 'reasonable endeavors' to match adverts to eyeballs, or avoid placing ads next to objectionable content. But that may also be impossible, ie I could probably create a Twitter account, follow a bunch of lefty stuff, make a bunch of lefty posts to establish the accounts profile and then go off on a rant to try and blackmail advertisers, or X.. Much as Media Matters has done.
You can whine all you want about your theory of how these corporate meanies want Musk to fail, but there is no evidence of that. But given that a sizeable percentage of you idiots still believe Trump won the election despite that lack of a single grain of evidence ever presented in any court of law anywhere in the US, you obviously don't consider facts when you decide what conspiracy theory to hitch your wagon to.
Oddly enough, I am going by the evidence. You're also conflating free speech arguments. A bunch of posts here have been disappeared. That's fair enough, El Reg's house, their rules. Twitter can delete posts it finds objectionable or break their house rules. Twitter pre-Musk banned a sitting President.. Which maybe takes it to extremes. Advertisers don't have to advertise on Twitter. Twitter can refuse advertisers. But there does seem to be a concerted effort to shape what is permissable on 'private' social media platforms to favour a certain party. That starts to blur the lines between general free speech, and constitutionally protected free speech, especially when PR companies like Media Matters are perhaps not very independent.
As for elections, that certainly has created it's fair share of conspiracy theories. So Al Gore's hanging chads and the way his election win was stolen. Or Hillary having her win stolen by those pesky Russians. Or just this-
https://www.gpb.org/news/2023/11/13/constitutional-challenge-georgia-voting-machines-set-for-trial-early-next-year
U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg issued a 135-page ruling late Friday in a long-running lawsuit filed by activists who want the state to ditch its electronic voting machines in favor of hand-marked paper ballots. The state had asked the judge to rule in its favor based on the arguments and facts in the case without going to trial, but Totenberg found there are "material facts in dispute" that must be decided at trial.
Which is as it should be. Obviously for a representative democracy to work, the voting systems must also work. There were a number of questions regarding the reliability and accuracy of voting machines, some already answered, some not. Some problems have already been found, ie the accuracy/reliability of things like signature reading, some may not have been tested thoroughly. Some people believe the systems are perfect, flawless and absolutely should not be tested or challenged. But then the judge also said-
Totenberg made clear in a footnote in her order that the evidence in the Georgia case "does not suggest that the Plaintiffs are conspiracy theorists of any variety. Indeed, some of the nation's leading cybersecurity experts and computer scientists have provided testimony and affidavits on behalf of Plaintiffs' case in the long course of this litigation."
We're IT types. We know all the myriad ways our systems can produce interesting and unexpected results. We don't know the details wrt voting machines because so far, they've really only been tested in the media. Maybe this trial will find that these specific e-voting systems are secure and reliable, maybe it won't. If it does find that they're flawed.. Who are the conspiracy theorists then? All the 'fact checkers' who got it wrong, and branded these questions 'misinformation'?
ESG seems to be on the decline. Companies have worked out that the % of people who actually care is tiny and that implementing all the overhead is hurting profit.
https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/esg-falters-as-firms-chase-profit-5825588/
"despite that lack of a single grain of evidence ever presented in any court of law"
That is because the vast majority of the cases were never heard in a court of law. They were either dismissed before the election as 'it hasn't happened yet' or dismissed on the grounds of laches after the election as 'its now too late, you should have done this earlier'.
The US election system is fundamentally broken and seemingly run by total incompetents. 'We didn't buy enough paper or print enough ballots'. 'We bought the wrong pens/pencils'. 'We didn't test the machines'. 'We've lost the chain of evidence'. Even African nations can run an election better than that.
Anyone remember the group of Dems raised concerns that voting machines were potentially insecure?
https://www.warren.senate.gov/oversight/letters/warren-klobuchar-wyden-and-pocan-investigate-vulnerabilities-and-shortcomings-of-election-technology-industry-with-ties-to-private-equity
https://time.com/5613673/warren-election-security/
After 4 years of 'Russia Russia Russia' on the fake news.... then Drool Cup wins and suddenly it is the most secure election in history and you cannot question it.
"ESG seems to be on the decline. Companies have worked out that the % of people who actually care is tiny and that implementing all the overhead is hurting profit."
I don't care about ESG nor do I care about the DIE agenda either. What matters to me is goods and services that I want/need at a suitable price. There is a line. If my clothes are being made in a sweat shop where the supervisors are whipping the workers and denying them visits to the loo, that would be a problem for me.
It was Trump's own appointee who called it "the most secure election in history".
Given that Trump had started hyping up the election lies even before the election (suggesting that mail in ballots couldn't be trusted, because he knew people who believed covid was real would prefer that method over standing in line to vote in person) and ordered his DOJ to begin election investigations BEFORE election day (because he wanted to his lie prepared for when he lost) then it probably WAS the most secure election in history. Its just too bad for Trump that despite starting investigations before election day Barr couldn't find any election fraud, because there wasn't any.
A few states did investigations post election but embarrassingly found more republican fraud than democrat fraud (the usual single person fraud where some tries to vote in person after voting by mail, or vote in two states because they had a second home, etc.)
"But this saga seems to have been a very deliberate effort by Media Matters to drive a wedge between Musk and his revenue streams. Media Matters is one of the DNC's pet attack dogs, and politically motivated. "
The Media Matters matter is just one tooth on the gear. Elon's own xits, likes and re-xits (cringe) are a big problem as well. It's one thing to have a platform with a broad tolerance for what's being posted, it's yet another if the management is part of one extreme or another. Elon is setting a tone that big advertisers don't like. If it were just Media Matters, it would be simple enough for Elon to say to the advertisers, "I agree that they've gone too far over the line and their account has been suspended/deleted." and no more would be said about it. Even if Elon didn't believe that, it would be an easy out.
"Well, there does seem to be a concerted effort to destroy X, and attack Musk. Should corporations be doing this? Does that have free speech implications? "
It does have free speech implications. A customer is fully entitled to choose to stop being a customer for any reason. Stopping spending on advertising is an act of omission. It can hardly be considered part of a concerted effort to destroy a company. It's more like slowly backing out of the room and closing the door. There are plenty of other places to adverstise that are not nearly so controversial, and brands always do well to avoid controversy.
"Maybe he's saying IBM was wrong not to do some due diligence and acted prematurely after Media Matter's hatchet job." No, that is almost too idiotic for comment. Due diligence? IBM is not obligated to be a customer. There is no due diligence involved. X is not entitled to any revenue. It has to earn it. You don't earn it by making bad impressions. You don't earn it by telling your customers to go fuck themselves. Seriously belief beggaring shit right there.
"There is no due diligence involved."
Yes, there is. I have no doubt that, unless they were TRULY stupid, IBM and co knew the sort of content that has always been on Twitter. Someone somewhere would have made a decision that IBM wanted to advertise on Twitter and that there is a risk their brand might show up alongside something they dislike (remembering of course that the content MM showed was not illegal) and that this is a small danger of being a customer. I very much doubt that any internet company promises to an advertiser that they are 100% clean and everything is perfect. Twitter has been in the news time and time again over the years years.
Any time a company associates itself with another company there will have been due diligence. Sometimes on both sides. Would you want to sell a product to a company with a bad reputation?
There should be an exercise in due diligence before entering into a commercial relationship. I agree. Exiting such a relationship requires none. If we're talking about the due diligence before advertising on Twitter, years and years ago, then that's something else. I don't think that's what the commenter was saying. The difference back then, of course, was that Twitter did its best to respond to that type of content by removing it and suspending accounts. Twitter had community guidelines and a department looking after that.
"Twitter did its best to respond to that type of content by removing it and suspending accounts"
I think it was Twitter that was sued by someone for not removing CSE images from the platform as Twitter claimed it didn't violate the TOS so didn't need to be removed?
Yup, Twitter, pre-Muskprat.
https://endsexualexploitation.org/articles/fact-check-twitters-motion-to-dismiss/
It was well known as a toxic platform.
Sure, it was never perfect. Forgive me, but I'm not familiar with that case and I can't be arsed to read about. It doesn't matter. The exodus of advertising today likely has more to do with the controversial behaviour of the company's leadership. The Media Matters campaign was just another straw on the camel's back. IBM, and others, decided they'd had enough. It may not have even been the real reason for stopping. Just a reasonable excuse, not that any was needed.
Seriously, I can't be arsed because it doesn't fucking matter. There were instances where they disagreed about the application of their ToS. They still behaved like a company with customers and a reputation. They, in legal filings, defended themselves against accusations. They didn't tell their customers to go fuck themselves. Can't you see the difference?
I've now looked a bit more closely at the material and it seems that an advocacy group was suing Twitter to gain access to an API that Twitter only provided to paying customers. Twitter wouldn't give it to them. The advocacy group were intending to use this API to produce statistics that might have shown Twitter in a bad light. That was Twitter's motion to dismiss.
There should be an exercise in due diligence before entering into a commercial relationship. I agree. Exiting such a relationship requires none.
Not true. Exiting a relationship also required diligence. So what's the cost of continuing the relationship vs terminating it? That may be contractual, ie what penalties might apply. It might be financial, ie what lost opportunites might there be by exiting that platform? Or it might even be reputational, ie IBM et al fell for some epic trolling from Media Matters. There may also be some benefits, ie how many people ever bought IBM because of an ad they saw paired with a tweet?
Answering the question about who may have decided not to buy IBM on the basis of a tweet seems a lot easier. If what X included in their court filing, the answer is only Media Matters, or one other instance of those pairings. The harm from that to IBM was non-existant, until Media Matters chose to blast the story out to a gullible MSM, who didn't bother to 'fact check' Media Matter's methodology. But they KNOW X is a wretched hive of scum and villainy because companies like Media Matters have been churning out endless articles saying it is, ever since Musk took Twitter over. They want their echo chamber, and anyone with an opinion that differs from theirs to be banned from the 'net.
But IBM has shareholders. They may challenge the boards decision. So do the other companies that have decided to boycott X. Disney won't be able to promote it's content to millions of eyeballs on Twitter. Neither will Discovery. How will I ever know the great mysteries that are being uncovered at the Blind Frog Ranch? Answer to that one is simple. I don't care anymore and cancelled my Discovery subscription. Not because of their boycott, but because their content is garbage. Other people are apparently cancelling subscriptions because of perceived anti-free speech or anti-commercial behaviour. That can be far more damaging, ie AB's decision to re-imagine Bud Lite. That cost around $18bn to discover they'd switched brand into a teeny market. Shareholders weren't happy, heads rolled. And it's much the same with Disney. Get Woke, Go Broke. They focused on messages that mainstream audiences don't want to hear, and produce blockbuster bombs. Disney's shareholders aren't very happy either. People are apparently cancelling Disney now.
So it's all rather amusing. Direct damage, virtually zero. Don't want to see objectionable content on X? Don't follow objectionable people. Wider impact? Who knows. Companies like Media Matters have used their voice to push their paymaster's policies. They may lose their court case and be bankrupted out of existence. Their paymasters will simply move on and create new astroturfing companies. Maybe those will be banned from Twitter. Maybe more people will start thinking about free speech, and political dirty tricks, and Musk has a very loud voice.
"There may also be some benefits, ie how many people ever bought IBM because of an ad they saw paired with a tweet?"
Going the other way, people may start to subconsciously take a dim view of IBM if their xits are often paired with unsavory content. My belief is that it's the subtle things more than the overt. I don't believe that ads on a website are supportive of the content of the page being served up, but if I keep seeing a brand's advertising on pages with content I find objectionable, I might form a negative opinion of the company without even stopping to analyze why. That would translate into the products I might buy and the investments I might make.
Going the other way, people may start to subconsciously take a dim view of IBM if their xits are often paired with unsavory content.
But this is the point that's still being overlooked. According to X's filing, the pairing was extremely rare and Media Matters had to force it. If pairing were frequent, Media Matters should have been able to find many more examples, or IBM's marketing people might have noticed themselves, seen customer complaints etc etc. IF X's filing is correct, then this was really much ado about nothing. Media Matters crafted an account that only followed the advertisers and a few nutjobs. Only the Media Matters saw the ads, allegedly. The only other people who might have seen those ads I guess might be the nutjobs and their followers, who appear to be a tiny community. And I'm also curious how many of the nutjobs followers would be accounts like Media Matters, looking for drama.
So it seems to be a big nothingburger that's been blown waaay out of proportion, and may result in some very large damages againts Media Matters. It's had a bit of a Streisand effect highlighting free-speech and corporate/political activism that might blow back on the advertisers. We know this can happen, eg the opposition to AB, Target etc cost them around $40bn in shareholder value, some of which hasn't recovered. That really suprised me given it was a fairly organic response against virtue signalling, and doubt it'll happen to the same magnitude here.. But who knows?
Which really just leaves the biggest problem. What is 'unsavory content', and who gets to decide? If it's unsavory and illegal, that should be simple. If it's unsavory just because it's a difference of opinion, then X seems to limit exposure anyway. Don't follow it, don't see it, or ignore it and don't see it.
"According to X's filing, the pairing was extremely rare and Media Matters had to force it. "
That's why I believe there is far more to it than just what Media Matters is saying. Lots of big companies have staff that do nothing but comb social media to find mentions of the company. If it turns out that those staff members are also finding pairings that their company would object to, that's a problem. Maybe that's what happened, where social media combers were only looking at posts for feedback to the company, they might have also started looking at what sort of ad content was showing up against the company's ads and surrounding user comments too.
That's why I believe there is far more to it than just what Media Matters is saying.
Maybe, but that's where the court case could get interesting with opportunities to force disclosure on both sides.
Maybe that's what happened, where social media combers were only looking at posts for feedback to the company, they might have also started looking at what sort of ad content was showing up against the company's ads and surrounding user comments too.
But would that work? I'm by no means an expert on Twitter having never used it. But the court filing implies that the ads are served based on the user profile. So you and I may see different ads for the same post, and it may not be possible to monitor. I suspect this will be something X & Media Matters argue, ie X will say it's only a problem because MM made it one, MM may try to argue it's commonplace and show evidence. But arguing that may be difficult, and have wider implications either for free speech, or just demonstrating that most social media ad spend is just wasted money. I guess for advertisers, it's still the problem of very fragmented audiences and there's no real alternative to X of equivalent size for an advertiser like Disney to promote stuff.
"But the court filing implies that the ads are served based on the user profile."
I don't think any social media company does that 100% of the time. It might be more like 80% of the ads are referenced to the user's generated profile and 20% are not. That lowers the creepy factor and also explores a bit more about the user that the social media company can use to refine the profile. If somebody likes cats and that's all the profile has on them, showing nothing but ads related to cats isn't going to fully exploit that user.
Yes, in the same way that Tesla and X are killing my company by not spending millions advertising on MY website. Put your hand in your pocket Elon and fork over the moolah, otherwise the whole world will soon know that you killed my company.
I find your ideas intriguing and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
Why isn't his Twitlerness paying me to be the cute and adorable person that I am? This is an outrage! Clearly Twitler hates cute and adorable people! He's trying to cancel us! This is discrimination!
Yes, in the same way that Tesla and X are killing my company by not spending millions advertising on MY website. Put your hand in your pocket Elon and fork over the moolah, otherwise the whole world will soon know that you killed my company.
Bill Hicks got it right. Advertising and marketing is a strange business, and it got weirder with the explosion of the Internet. Want to flog tat to lefties? Buy some space in the Grauniad. To the right? The good'ol Daily Mail. Which has weighed in on this story-
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12813467/elon-musk-advertisement-row-x-hate-speech-not-return-twitter.html
Going a step further, one executive, Tom Hespos, of consultancy business Abydos Media, said that not only was he advising clients not to advertise on X but also to cease even posting on the platform.
'You can't with a good conscience make a recommendation to a client that they continue to be a part of [X],' he said.
Ohnoes! I've heard of Martin Sorrell, and even Abydos, but not that media company. So a quick search finds the website. Which didn't find things I'd expect to see for a media consultancy, like a list of it's clients, which would hopefully include some companies or brands I might recognise. It did give the address, which is in NY, but isn't in NYC's adland, just some small residence near Long Island Airport. I'm sure Musk is trembling at the prospect of losing that client income. But such is the world online. There's a billion of these new & social media companies, all generating noise, but not much in the way of useful revenues for their clients.
That's the whole Trump/MAGA ethos. Take credit for being a "genius" for things you think make you look good, hold yourself blameless while pointing the finger at vast vague conspiracies against you for things you think make you look bad.
Sure everyone does this to some extent, it is human nature to want to believe that we are responsible for good fortune rather than luck, and are willing to blame others for bad fortune. But only with Trump has it been raised to an art form, and has spread to the third of the population who worship him like an orange Jesus.
I despair for my country.
You should see the comments on this very event on Techspot. They are ugly.
People going on about gov't censorship (nothing here has been censored, advertisers pulled their funds.)
People coming out in support of Musk, saying everyone who supports pulling advertisements from hate speech are "woke".
Nonsense circular logic about how this speech is fine but saying "Maybe hate speech is not a good thing" (not a call for censorship, just the suggestion that maybe one should not actively support these views)... is unreasonable extremism.
The view that these companies (I mean, IBM! Really!) are "progressive-aligned". Even the suggestion that they wanted to drop ads on Twitter for a long time and just used this as a manufactured excuse to do so (which I find an odd argument, companies have shifted ad spend from one platform to another since the beginning of time.)
Nonsense about fake news and media distortions (of course, not sites like Fox News or NewsMax where they distort things enough they are hard to recognize compared to what really happened... complaints about more mainstream sites that posted a story, updated it within 24 hours as new info came in, as "proof" that they intentionally posted inaccurate information since the original article had to be updated.)
And of course, since the US has only 2 main political parties, the ugly polarizing bickering based on the view from many Deomcrats that almost all Republicans have extreme far right views, and conversely the view from many Republicans that almost all Democrats have extreme far left views. If we had a functional multi-party system, those people would be in their respective far-left and far-right parties, with the bulk being in center-left and center-right parties merrily getting along and actually agreeing on at least some issues.
I made what I thought was a reasonable suggestion, perhaps Twitter/X should allow for ad controls like has been going on for TV/radio for over 50 years (you can choose to not have your ads on certain shows) and other websites and platforms. I mean, I did an Android app with banner ads, I could select not to have gambling, alcohol/tobacco, and "adult" ads, and conversely the ad suppliers could choose to not display their ads on gambling apps, "adult" apps, etc. They would even likely get more ad revenue as better ad targetting would increase the view and clickthrough ("conversion") rates, letting them get more $$$ per ad. The commentors on there were too busy calling the others "woke" (and then acting like they didn't say "Woke" when someone would comment on their use of the term) to even respond to any actual discussions.
And of course, since the US has only 2 main political parties, the ugly polarizing bickering based on the view from many Deomcrats that almost all Republicans have extreme far right views, and conversely the view from many Republicans that almost all Democrats have extreme far left views.
You're not alone. The UK has much the same with our 2 parties, and so does much of Europe. What's perhaps a little more alarming is stuff like this-
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.259110/gov.uscourts.dcd.259110.22.1.pdf
It's interesting that that pdf can't easily have it's contents copied & pasted, but basically Special Counsel Jack Smith demanding to know what Twitter ads Trump was served. Wonder if there were any from IBM, Disney etc? Perhaps more alarming is Smith also demanded details of any user who re-tweeted, forwarded or mentioned Trump. More on this here-
https://nypost.com/2023/11/27/news/heavily-redacted-documents-related-to-search-warrant-for-trumps-twitter-account-released/
Including that over half of Smith's warrant was completely redacted. I guess the DoJ is still putting together it's Xmas lists of who's been naughty or nice.
I made what I thought was a reasonable suggestion, perhaps Twitter/X should allow for ad controls like has been going on for TV/radio for over 50 years (you can choose to not have your ads on certain shows) and other websites and platforms. I mean, I did an Android app with banner ads, I could select not to have gambling, alcohol/tobacco, and "adult" ads, and conversely the ad suppliers could choose to not display their ads on gambling apps, "adult" apps, etc.
Agreed. According to X's filing in their case against Media Matters, there seems to be some control over this, ie the 'nazi' stuff and the ads seemed to be exceptional and took Media Matters some effort to create their pairings. I have no idea how this works, but curious what may be revealed in the case. I've also been puzzled that YT doesn't seem to allow this for their content creators either, and again have no idea what controls YT offers it's advertisers. It seems wrong though that content creators have no ability to choose not to have crypto/gambling ads inserted into their content. The creators know their audience, so should be better able to match advertisers to their content anyway.
"Including that over half of Smith's warrant was completely redacted. I guess the DoJ is still putting together it's Xmas lists of who's been naughty or nice."
What isn't redacted is the broadest reach I've ever seen (not saying all that much). I'm not even sure that some of it is even faintly possible without Twitter having retained logs in excruciating detail. It's also not of particular usefulness since aside from DM's, it's not hard to see what somebody did on Twitter. If somebody is passing damning things via Twitter DM's, they're too stupid to be allowed Oxygen. It's like gangbangers filming themselves committing crimes on their own phones.
What isn't redacted is the broadest reach I've ever seen (not saying all that much). I'm not even sure that some of it is even faintly possible without Twitter having retained logs in excruciating detail. It's also not of particular usefulness since aside from DM's, it's not hard to see what somebody did on Twitter.
Yep, seems to be a very broad fishing trip. And agree on retention, but think it mentioned Twitter had been ordered to retain logs for longer than it normally would. I guess the usefullness would be for SNA, or 'Social Network Analysis', which can be a powerful tool for figuring out assosciations and possible (criminal) networks. But that assumes whatever Twitter dumped from it's log servers can be imported into whatever tools the DoJ has, and if it could parse them in any useful manner. Plus sometimes there are shenanigans.. Like one time a company complied to this kind of request, but in hard copy, printed on purple paper that made it very difficult to read or scan. But they complied..
"Twitter had been ordered to retain logs for longer than it normally would."
Some of the bots that Elon was bitching about compile information on VIP's and archive all of their interactions. I expect some of those have more extensive logs on Mr Trump than even Twitter might have retained. Who wants to bet against me that a few of those bots weren't attributable to a Three Letter Agency?
"The world doent need advertising, its the new big con of the 21st century. "
I disagree. I get trade magazines primarily for the ads. The articles are crap and usually some puff piece about somebody in the industry I've never heard of. People won't know about your product if you don't do any advertising. The first 20 pages you get on a Google search are just sponsored listings and companies that have paid for adwords. Even DDG is getting that bad. It makes me miss having a Yellow Pages directory delivered fresh every year. It was a much better and faster way to find a plumber or wholesale electric supplier.
Yes it is pretty bad. I am glad I have retired early and could easily move out of the US if Trump wins. I don't say that lightly, but I really do believe the US would become a dictatorship given his plans for replacing all government employees and military leadership with people loyal to him. The problem is that with the power of the US military at his command Trump could really fuck things leaving no place truly safe.
The US would see a "brain drain" the likes of which no country since Nazi Germany has experienced and the economy would crumble within a few years. The military power under the control of someone so clearly showing signs of serious dementia would allow him to lash out without any of the guardrails that prevented him from doing stupid stuff like bombing Mexico or nuking Iran last time. Before long that wall he wants to build would be to keep people in rather than keep people out.
I hope enough voters are sane and sober enough to realize this, and don't fall for the Fox News lie that Biden is the "fascist". Hopefully Trump finally eats one too many Big Macs and has that widowmaker heart attack we're all hoping for. I hope those reading this who support him realize that he's not on your side. He's not on anyone's side but his own. He won't need his supporters once he's installed himself as dictator. He dreams of becoming the next Putin or Kim Jong Un, with a population that exists only to enrich him and worship him, with death (if you're lucky) or years in a hellhole prison (if you're not) awaiting those who dare to speak up against him.
"someone so clearly showing signs of serious dementia"
Corn pop was a bad dude!
It is odd how President Drool Cup is bringing the world ever closer to WW3 yet people like you seem to think it was Trump who would do this. Odd how we had 4 years of no new wars, no invasions, no major problems in the middle east...
The US would see a "brain drain" the likes of which no country since Nazi Germany has experienced and the economy would crumble within a few years.
It's already crumbling, much like US infrastructure. I doubt many people really care who the talking head is on tele, interrupting their viewing with yet another State of the Onion address. The majority probably care about the smaller, more tangible things. Like do they have a job? Have the potholes on the way to work been fixed yet? Will they make it to work, or get car jacked? Can they afford their bills, or will they have to cut back on luxuries that they'd previously taken for granted? But there have already been 'brain drains', or more importantly tax base drains from people moving away from liberal utopias like LA, SF and NY to other states and cities.
"I am glad I have retired early and could easily move out of the US if Trump wins"
What? are you a member of the Hollywood elite that say the same sort of thing and never follow through?
I've heard this song before and from people that say their vote doesn't count so they don't bother. If I can't find anybody to vote for, I can certainly find some that I want to vote against the most. I get good use out of my dart board during election periods.
> Musk is making CEO Linda Yaccarino's job intensely difficult without even trying, and Sorkin indicated that she was watching the car-crash interview from the wings.
what does she actually do ?
Does she do code reviews ?
Architectural designs ?
Select coffee for the cafeteria ?
Please dont bite me, give me real examples of what she does at X ?
I’m already amazed that she’s stayed in the job this long. I’d have been out of there, well, probably the moment Musk uttered a single problematic tweet.
She does now have a kind of a strange power. If she does walk away no one would blame her, but the damage done to Twitter could be immense. How many advertisers would think that the last restraint had gone, get out whilst you can? All of them?
For her own sake I think she does need to get out. If she’s still there when the company finally fails, one would have to question her motives for doing so. She must see that there’s no saving this one. Working for Musk doesn’t sound appealing at all. Why risk her future career hanging on to this job?
The best explanation she can give would be “For the huge amount of money“…
A dangerous question for her is, does she sympathise at all with Musk’s views? As her continued presence in twitter becomes ever more inexplicable, people will inevitably start forming other explanations that are unsavoury…
A dangerous question for her is, does she sympathise at all with Musk’s views? As her continued presence in twitter becomes ever more inexplicable, people will inevitably start forming other explanations that are unsavoury…
But she is older than 25, isn't she?
Oh, sorry, it is for Elon, not Leonardo...
Regardless of her views, she probably has some sort of incentive bonus to stay on the job to prevent her from quitting in frustration when the real CEO keeps shitting himself in public.
Even if she's a true blue MAGA believer like Musk, she would have to be really annoyed that he is constantly making her babysitting job more difficult and making it more and more likely that Twitter will chase all the normies away and devolve into another right wing echo chamber like Gab or Trump's tiny little sandbox he shouts from.
Elon has never even seen the line that delimits genius, preferring instead to inhabit the zone bounded by "idiot, but rich."
It's worth remembering that all his "successes" are ventures started by other people that he has bought, and that he has managed to do so by starting off with his parents' apartheid-era emerald mine money, and has succeeded largely due to random luck rather than good judgement, and certainly not though "genius".
His success reminds me of Trump's claim that he started with a "small loan of $1 million" from his father back in 1972. That $1 million would be equivalent to around $10 million today, and he inherited a total of over $400 million from daddy, worth over a billion in today's money. Makes for a great demonstration of being out of touch with real people, since likely a low single digit percentage of the population has parents wealthy enough to loan them $1 million in cash before they reach the age of 30.
Musk's story similarly leaves out of the rich parents, and how they got rich. I'm sure he started with a similar "small loan" back in the 90s. If it weren't for government money Tesla would have gone under before it shipped its first car, but now that he's got his he's one of those "the government is the problem, they should get out of the way and let innovators innovate" types that believes government spending should be cut to the bone to reduce the tax "burden" on billionaires.
I think it's worth looking past Musk's odd, annoying, childish and sometimes inflammatory words.
A world without Musk would be lacking some important and amazing innovation. Whenever I watch a rocket booster landing, whether on land or a floating platform, I am left in awe at the level of technical achievement employed to do this.
Whenever you see an electric vehicle passing by ask yourself who kick-started, nurtured and developed this technology so that it's affordable and mass market.
We need people who break the rules and show us a different and hopefully better way forward.
I don't get inflamed by what he does with X Twitter. It's his, he bought it and as far as I'm concerned that gives him the right to do whatever he wants with it.
Love or hate Musk he's interesting and the world would be less fun without him.
Musk didn't achieve any of those things, people who work for companies that he bought did.
If those companies were owned by someone else, those people would still have produced the same work. They might even have produced better work, because they wouldn't have had to deal with a petulant man-child "disrupting" things, and wouldn't have had to suddenly divert their attentions to fixing problems produced by a bullshitting business owner.
...that people who like to crow about free speech are always the first to try to sue others for things they have said?
It's like the guy who only just discovered "pizzagate," despite owning the platform that proliferated that particular batch of crazy, still hasn't discovered irony.
He may, or may not, still be the richest man in the world (I lose track of who is worth the most at any one time), but he certainly is the richest man-child.
...that people who like to crow about free speech are always the first to try to sue others for things they have said?It's like the guy who only just discovered "pizzagate," despite owning the platform that proliferated that particular batch of crazy, still hasn't discovered irony.
Lawfare is expensive, and as others have pointed out, free speech, even 'absolutist' comes with consequences. But there is plenty of irony in this story. Look at the execs at Media Matters and you'll find claims of blackmail, and even the possible origins of 'pizzagate'-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Brock#Personal_life
Brock made a six figure payout to Grey in order to avoid his former partner going public with accusations of corruption regarding Brock and Media Matters. Brock initially paid, then sued afterward for what he now termed "blackmail". Grey filed a lawsuit against Brock in January 2011, and Brock countersued Grey in March 2011. The dispute was settled at the end of 2011 on confidential terms.
Maybe the richest man in the world could make an offer to Grey to breech those confidentiality terms. And-
Brock was formerly in a long term relationship with James Alefantis
.. owner of the famous (or infamous?) Comet Ping Pong pizzeria that started that particular conspiracy theory. It's a shame that politics has gotten so dirty, but play stupid games, win stupid prizes I guess.
> As the old saying goes, freedom of speech is not freedom from consequence ..
No, that's a recent invention by the Woke Taliban.
> .. and if Musk keeps heading down this path
I notice you and your ilk are free to type such, without getting threatened with “consequence” from Musk.
>No, that's a recent invention by the Woke Taliban.
Pah. People have been suing each other for libellous comments for centuries, and the laws on causing public offence are as old as the hills. People have been writing criticisms of "the great and the good" for centuries, in olden days in the form of phamphlets printed cheaply and handed out on the streets.
>I notice you and your ilk are free to type such, without getting threatened with “consequence” from Musk.
That remains to be seen. And, write something truly offensive here and even El Reg will take your post down.
Forbes: Musk takes ketamine in small doses to treat depression and uses higher doses of the drug at social events, according to the Journal, citing unnamed sources who saw the Tesla CEO take the drug or were told by Musk himself. In a tweet shortly after the report’s release, Musk asserted “ketamine taken occasionally is a better option” than traditional medication for depression, citing the experience of “friends.”
Plenty of famous, sometimes even talented, people have messed up with self administered medication/drugs which changes from an occasional thrill into a regular habit and then a slow descent into hell.
Blackmail? What the advertisers are doing isn't blackmail.
noun
any payment extorted by intimidation, as by threats of injurious revelations or accusations.
the extortion of such payment:
He confessed rather than suffer the dishonour of blackmail.
Guys an idiot
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