Official Twitter Thread (2 Viewers)

[CletiusMaximus]

Setting a few muted words can help clean up the feed - example

 

[TLEF316]

Bunch of porn ads (I presume they're porn, it's a video of a lightly clad woman who appears to be ready for action...Haven't actually clicked on any of them) today out of nowhere.

Great product ya got Elon

 

[The Z Machine]

Without an account, I used to go to Twitter to follow some quote or link in some article, and it was easy. I could read the quote, and if it was part of a longer thread it was easy to get to the whole thread and follow it. I'd do it for sports and news stories I was interested in. I can't do that easily any more, and I probably use Twitter 20% as much as I used to. 80% of my views are gone for them.

Cutting off viewers with no account from being able to read someone's entire feed must have seemed like a good idea to someone's ego and/or to some beancounter, but it decreased my views of Twitter by a lot.

So I made an account. It doesn't tweet and it doesn't follow anyone; it's just a way in so I can see what I could see before things started being made inaccessible. Now I have a page full of supposedly interesting information for me, which I am not interested in, don't want at all, and don't want to spend time cleaning out.

If I was a librarian I think I might spend time there, curate pages and accounts, clean up unwanted stuff, and arrange everything just so, so that it was a comfortable and predictable experience every time just like walking into a library. But I'm not a librarian, I'm someone who wants to read about news events without having to get rid of stuff and organize stuff and spend a lot of time. Doing that is possible, quickly, off Twitter. It's not possible quickly on Twitter.

I don't think this makes me a "hater". I think I'm a guy who had a tool that used to work well and now works really crummy.

This is exactly my experience. It sucks that I cannot read full threads. I refuse to set up an account.

 

[fatness]

Instagram is working on something called Threads that is allegedly a Twitter replacement.

Killing the network on a platform where the only real advantage was the first-mover network effect seems shortsighted.

When he bought it, he paid 44B. I read some analyst valued it at 15B a few weeks ago. Has to be worth about 5 now I’d guess. Brilliant moves. The book written about this should be fascinating.

Update on that, with valuation done by Fidelity.

Fidelity has again marked down its stake in Elon Musk’s social-media platform — known as Twitter throughout its 17-year history until being suddenly rechristened X by Musk last summer — which the Boston-based money manager helped Musk purchase for $44 billion late in the previous year.

Fidelity Blue Chip Growth Fund had valued its stake at nearly $20 million in October 2022, when Musk bought what is now known as X Holdings. But according to a November filing released on Dec. 30 and first reported by Axios, the stake’s value is now listed at $5,599,168. That means Fidelity now believes its X Holdings stake is worth 71.5% less than when it was purchased.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/f...h-71-5-less-than-when-musk-bought-it-f9076958

 

[CletiusMaximus]

I read a fluff piece yesterday where experts in different fields were making predictions for 2024. The expert on social media trends predicted that Threads will surpass X / Twitter media position in 2024 and I thought ‘that’s a company I haven’t heard from for a while.’ I remember Threads bursting on the scene with some big celebrity marketing but then it died pretty quickly.

 

[McBokonon]

I read a fluff piece yesterday where experts in different fields were making predictions for 2024. The expert on social media trends predicted that Threads will surpass X / Twitter media position in 2024 and I thought ‘that’s a company I haven’t heard from for a while.’ I remember Threads bursting on the scene with some big celebrity marketing but then it died pretty quickly.

Growth did decline but it’s growing again, especially internationally. I imagine the built-in Instagram base helps quite a bit.

Somewhat recent TechCrunch article: https://techcrunch.com/2023/12/04/t...h-as-x-adds-walmart-to-its-advertiser-exodus/

That gives a decent summary of the factors, like some of Twitter’s growth struggles being attributed to the rebrand to X to the point where they added “formerly known as Twitter” to its name to help with app store searches.

 

[IvanKaramazov]

I read a fluff piece yesterday where experts in different fields were making predictions for 2024. The expert on social media trends predicted that Threads will surpass X / Twitter media position in 2024 and I thought ‘that’s a company I haven’t heard from for a while.’ I remember Threads bursting on the scene with some big celebrity marketing but then it died pretty quickly.

Growth did decline but it’s growing again, especially internationally. I imagine the built-in Instagram base helps quite a bit.

Somewhat recent TechCrunch article: https://techcrunch.com/2023/12/04/t...h-as-x-adds-walmart-to-its-advertiser-exodus/

That gives a decent summary of the factors, like some of Twitter’s growth struggles being attributed to the rebrand to X to the point where they added “formerly known as Twitter” to its name to help with app store searches.

I still find the rebrand completely inexplicable as a business decision. Nobody refers to the site as X in the wild. It's still "Twitter," or, in every single media source I read, "X, formerly known as Twitter." The rebrand isn't sticking, and it makes no sense to make it difficult to refer to your product.

I do find it weird that no serious competitor has yet emerged for Twitter. I know the network effects are difficult to overcome, but nobody has even seriously tried at this point. Mastodon was never designed for that, Bluesky is still closed (wth?), and Threads is just Instagram. How hard is it to launch a bare-bones microblogging site?

 

[McBokonon]

I know the network effects are difficult to overcome

I don’t think this piece can just be said in passing. They were the first to do something like they did (well, at least) and it became almost indispensable. News segments made sure they included Tweet reactions, etc. Few people who use Twitter are going to go somewhere new AND completely abandon Twitter at the same time unless they know everyone is coming with them.

The other part is Twitter always had trouble monetizing even in the Before Times. Ads don’t work there like they do on Facebook for reasons I’m not educated enough to fully grasp.

 

[Mitchie]

Instagram is working on something called Threads that is allegedly a Twitter replacement.

Killing the network on a platform where the only real advantage was the first-mover network effect seems shortsighted.

When he bought it, he paid 44B. I read some analyst valued it at 15B a few weeks ago. Has to be worth about 5 now I’d guess. Brilliant moves. The book written about this should be fascinating.

Update on that, with valuation done by Fidelity.

Fidelity has again marked down its stake in Elon Musk’s social-media platform — known as Twitter throughout its 17-year history until being suddenly rechristened X by Musk last summer — which the Boston-based money manager helped Musk purchase for $44 billion late in the previous year.

Fidelity Blue Chip Growth Fund had valued its stake at nearly $20 million in October 2022, when Musk bought what is now known as X Holdings. But according to a November filing released on Dec. 30 and first reported by Axios, the stake’s value is now listed at $5,599,168. That means Fidelity now believes its X Holdings stake is worth 71.5% less than when it was purchased.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/f...h-71-5-less-than-when-musk-bought-it-f9076958

Someone needs to let Fidelity know that nothings really changed.

you should give them a call

 

[Desert_Power]

I read a fluff piece yesterday where experts in different fields were making predictions for 2024. The expert on social media trends predicted that Threads will surpass X / Twitter media position in 2024 and I thought ‘that’s a company I haven’t heard from for a while.’ I remember Threads bursting on the scene with some big celebrity marketing but then it died pretty quickly.

Threads is pretty good, but none of the sports or local stuff I follow seemed to have moved over.

 

[Joe Bryant]

I read a fluff piece yesterday where experts in different fields were making predictions for 2024. The expert on social media trends predicted that Threads will surpass X / Twitter media position in 2024 and I thought ‘that’s a company I haven’t heard from for a while.’ I remember Threads bursting on the scene with some big celebrity marketing but then it died pretty quickly.

Growth did decline but it’s growing again, especially internationally. I imagine the built-in Instagram base helps quite a bit.

Somewhat recent TechCrunch article: https://techcrunch.com/2023/12/04/t...h-as-x-adds-walmart-to-its-advertiser-exodus/

That gives a decent summary of the factors, like some of Twitter’s growth struggles being attributed to the rebrand to X to the point where they added “formerly known as Twitter” to its name to help with app store searches.

I still find the rebrand completely inexplicable as a business decision. Nobody refers to the site as X in the wild. It's still "Twitter," or, in every single media source I read, "X, formerly known as Twitter." The rebrand isn't sticking, and it makes no sense to make it difficult to refer to your product.

I do find it weird that no serious competitor has yet emerged for Twitter. I know the network effects are difficult to overcome, but nobody has even seriously tried at this point. Mastodon was never designed for that, Bluesky is still closed (wth?), and Threads is just Instagram. How hard is it to launch a bare-bones microblogging site?

Agreed. The rebrand made no sense to me either.

For a competitor, I've wondered the same. Does seem interesting there are no serious competitors since Threads died off as quickly as it rose up.

I agree it doesn't seem that difficult to build a micro blogging site but the reality is it must be.

The network effect is for sure the biggest challenge I think. I use twitter because it's where all the people I want information from are.

If they were no longer there, I'd go where they are.

But getting the contributors to go somewhere else is apparently really difficult.

 

[Pip's Invitation]

I read a fluff piece yesterday where experts in different fields were making predictions for 2024. The expert on social media trends predicted that Threads will surpass X / Twitter media position in 2024 and I thought ‘that’s a company I haven’t heard from for a while.’ I remember Threads bursting on the scene with some big celebrity marketing but then it died pretty quickly.

Growth did decline but it’s growing again, especially internationally. I imagine the built-in Instagram base helps quite a bit.

Somewhat recent TechCrunch article: https://techcrunch.com/2023/12/04/t...h-as-x-adds-walmart-to-its-advertiser-exodus/

That gives a decent summary of the factors, like some of Twitter’s growth struggles being attributed to the rebrand to X to the point where they added “formerly known as Twitter” to its name to help with app store searches.

I still find the rebrand completely inexplicable as a business decision. Nobody refers to the site as X in the wild. It's still "Twitter," or, in every single media source I read, "X, formerly known as Twitter." The rebrand isn't sticking, and it makes no sense to make it difficult to refer to your product.

I do find it weird that no serious competitor has yet emerged for Twitter. I know the network effects are difficult to overcome, but nobody has even seriously tried at this point. Mastodon was never designed for that, Bluesky is still closed (wth?), and Threads is just Instagram. How hard is it to launch a bare-bones microblogging site?

Agreed. The rebrand made no sense to me either.

For a competitor, I've wondered the same. Does seem interesting there are no serious competitors since Threads died off as quickly as it rose up.

I agree it doesn't seem that difficult to build a micro blogging site but the reality is it must be.

The network effect is for sure the biggest challenge I think. I use twitter because it's where all the people I want information from are.

If they were no longer there, I'd go where they are.

But getting the contributors to go somewhere else is apparently really difficult.

To recreate the same atmosphere somewhere else, you'd need almost all the contributors, and many of the users, to agree on where else to go. And it's hard to get a small group of people to agree on something, much less a large group. The Twitter community came to be what it was because it was the only community of that type when it was founded. Within a year, Google tried to replicate it with Google Buzz, but that failed quickly.

The other difficulty is that Twitter was never monetized well even when it was running "optimally" for its user community. That would certainly be a challenge in building a new community of that type.

 

[Eephus]

Back in my enterprise collaboration days, there was a 3x rule which said a technology had to be three-times better than the platform it was supplanting. Things are different in the consumer space but it's very difficult to drive traffic to a competing service that's essentially the same. There has to be some useful innovation involved. If we knew what that could be we'd all be rich but most of us are too old to predict anything.

 

[Joe Bryant]

Back in my enterprise collaboration days, there was a 3x rule which said a technology had to be three-times better than the platform it was supplanting. Things are different in the consumer space but it's very difficult to drive traffic to a competing service that's essentially the same. There has to be some useful innovation involved. If we knew what that could be we'd all be rich but most of us are too old to predict anything.

Agreed. 3x better feels about right. And of course, the trick is in defining "better".

It really does feel like a thing of where the people are.

It's somewhat similar to how I always fight against splitting up a forum. Some people in the shark pool want a separate forum for player news and another forum for strategy talk. I think it's best all in one big forum as people are already there. Even on the same site, there's resistance to leaving the page you're on and going to a different place. That kind of thing is way more pronounced when it's a whole different platform.

 

[Eephus]

Agreed. 3x better feels about right. And of course, the trick is in defining "better".

"Different" is a good start towards defining "better". Instagram, Snapchat and TicTok were different enough from their predecessors to attract young eyeballs.

Fifteen years ago, Twitter's use of SMS messaging was different enough to gain traction before smartphones became commonplace. It took Facebook a long time to build a decent mobile app and you could probably argue they never really succeeded.

 

[fatness]

Update: After logging in to my account which I don't want, on my landing page there were 2 items with videos of (human) shootings, 2 conspiracy items pushing violence, and an item directing me to a long thread advertised with a child abuse video. I've gotten none of this bile before. I guess as long as a business owner keeps the advertising bucks coming in, or decides to just keep running it and covering the losses with other money, the owner can keep pushing this kind of vomit material.

 

[rockaction]

Update: After logging in to my account which I don't want, on my landing page there were 2 items with videos of (human) shootings, 2 conspiracy items pushing violence, and an item directing me to a long thread advertised with a child abuse video. I've gotten none of this bile before. I guess as long as a business owner keeps the advertising bucks coming in, or decides to just keep running it and covering the losses with other money, the owner can keep pushing this kind of vomit material.

Sorry to hear that. Like I've stated (probably too much), I've pretty much stopped going and have gone from a reluctant Twitter user to somebody who foregoes it. I know I'm missing stuff, but it's just not worth it to me.

 

[fatness]

Update: After logging in to my account which I don't want, on my landing page there were 2 items with videos of (human) shootings, 2 conspiracy items pushing violence, and an item directing me to a long thread advertised with a child abuse video. I've gotten none of this bile before. I guess as long as a business owner keeps the advertising bucks coming in, or decides to just keep running it and covering the losses with other money, the owner can keep pushing this kind of vomit material.

Sorry to hear that. Like I've stated (probably too much), I've pretty much stopped going and have gone from a reluctant Twitter user to somebody who foregoes it. I know I'm missing stuff, but it's just not worth it to me.

Thanks. I'm sorry a business owner chooses to push this crap on people. Imagine if Amazon did that.

 

[AAABatteries]

I read a fluff piece yesterday where experts in different fields were making predictions for 2024. The expert on social media trends predicted that Threads will surpass X / Twitter media position in 2024 and I thought ‘that’s a company I haven’t heard from for a while.’ I remember Threads bursting on the scene with some big celebrity marketing but then it died pretty quickly.

Growth did decline but it’s growing again, especially internationally. I imagine the built-in Instagram base helps quite a bit.

Somewhat recent TechCrunch article: https://techcrunch.com/2023/12/04/t...h-as-x-adds-walmart-to-its-advertiser-exodus/

That gives a decent summary of the factors, like some of Twitter’s growth struggles being attributed to the rebrand to X to the point where they added “formerly known as Twitter” to its name to help with app store searches.

I still find the rebrand completely inexplicable as a business decision. Nobody refers to the site as X in the wild. It's still "Twitter," or, in every single media source I read, "X, formerly known as Twitter." The rebrand isn't sticking, and it makes no sense to make it difficult to refer to your product.

I do find it weird that no serious competitor has yet emerged for Twitter. I know the network effects are difficult to overcome, but nobody has even seriously tried at this point. Mastodon was never designed for that, Bluesky is still closed (wth?), and Threads is just Instagram. How hard is it to launch a bare-bones microblogging site?

Classic Coke Twitter.

YWIA Elon.

 

[bigbottom]

Update: After logging in to my account which I don't want, on my landing page there were 2 items with videos of (human) shootings, 2 conspiracy items pushing violence, and an item directing me to a long thread advertised with a child abuse video. I've gotten none of this bile before. I guess as long as a business owner keeps the advertising bucks coming in, or decides to just keep running it and covering the losses with other money, the owner can keep pushing this kind of vomit material.

Sorry to hear that. Like I've stated (probably too much), I've pretty much stopped going and have gone from a reluctant Twitter user to somebody who foregoes it. I know I'm missing stuff, but it's just not worth it to me.

Thanks. I'm sorry a business owner chooses to push this crap on people. Imagine if Amazon did that.

I can't imagine that this is his intent. Rather, I suspect that his intent is to remove some (or much) of the content moderation algorithms and/or subjective policies to allow for broader speech and this is the unintended result.

 

[Pip's Invitation]

Update: After logging in to my account which I don't want, on my landing page there were 2 items with videos of (human) shootings, 2 conspiracy items pushing violence, and an item directing me to a long thread advertised with a child abuse video. I've gotten none of this bile before. I guess as long as a business owner keeps the advertising bucks coming in, or decides to just keep running it and covering the losses with other money, the owner can keep pushing this kind of vomit material.

Sorry to hear that. Like I've stated (probably too much), I've pretty much stopped going and have gone from a reluctant Twitter user to somebody who foregoes it. I know I'm missing stuff, but it's just not worth it to me.

Thanks. I'm sorry a business owner chooses to push this crap on people. Imagine if Amazon did that.

I can't imagine that this is his intent. Rather, I suspect that his intent is to remove some (or much) of the content moderation algorithms and/or subjective policies to allow for broader speech and this is the unintended result.

Yep. If he values "free speech absolutism" above all else, then this is what will happen.

 

[Dezbelief]

Update: After logging in to my account which I don't want, on my landing page there were 2 items with videos of (human) shootings, 2 conspiracy items pushing violence, and an item directing me to a long thread advertised with a child abuse video. I've gotten none of this bile before. I guess as long as a business owner keeps the advertising bucks coming in, or decides to just keep running it and covering the losses with other money, the owner can keep pushing this kind of vomit material.

Sorry to hear that. Like I've stated (probably too much), I've pretty much stopped going and have gone from a reluctant Twitter user to somebody who foregoes it. I know I'm missing stuff, but it's just not worth it to me.

Thanks. I'm sorry a business owner chooses to push this crap on people. Imagine if Amazon did that.

I can't imagine that this is his intent. Rather, I suspect that his intent is to remove some (or much) of the content moderation algorithms and/or subjective policies to allow for broader speech and this is the unintended result.

Yep. If he values "free speech absolutism" above all else, then this is what will happen.

Free speech as long as it isn't anything negative about Musk or Tesla.

 

[Chaos34]

Free speech as long as it isn't anything negative about Musk or Tesla.

Not true. I'm a Tesla owner with a very early number for a CyberTruck and follow many pertinent accounts. I see tons and tons of Musk/Tesla hate.

 

[SWC]

i have one very specific thing that i will use twitter for about another two or three years on and after that im done with it take that to the bank brohans

 

[massraider]

Yep. If he values "free speech absolutism" above all else, then this is what will happen.

If you pay $8 a month, your speech gets amplified.

 

[urbanhack]

I'm not sure if anyone is seeing this, but my feeds are all very inconsistent. I stopped checking the "for you" feed because those were all suggestions and things I didn't necessarily subscribe to. I recently noticed my "following" feed was pretty stale and missing content from people I know post a lot. I've clicked on "for you" the past few weeks and I'm seeing posts from feeds that I follow. Their posts are showing up there but not in my "following" feed. I don't get it.

 

[massraider]

Recent purge of journalists on Twitter

As well as a couple **** posters who were critical of Elon.

 

[Desert_Power]

Recent purge of journalists on Twitter

As well as a couple **** posters who were critical of Elon.

Free speech!

 

[FreeBaGeL]

Recent purge of journalists on Twitter

As well as a couple **** posters who were critical of Elon.

It's far from the first time. The first round of CNN/NBC journalists were banned allegedly for doxing Elon's location, though there were no tweets anyone could find on their Twitter feeds doing so and Twitter couldn't provide an example of them. After Elon did one of his unban polls like he did for Trump etc and the people voted to have them unbanned, he said he would unban them only if they deleted the offending tweets, but would/could not provide which tweets were the ones that were supposedly doxing him and needed to be deleted. A neat little trick.

Documented censorship is up 30% on the platform since Musk took over, as was covered even by the New York Post who is one of the champions of Musk and biggest opponents of pre-Musk Twitter. Surprisingly, that article on their website was mostly ignored and had only had 16 comments, compared to the thousands of engagements and comments on articles like "Airbnb implements new algorithm that bans 10's of thousands of guests associated with banned users, one of those 10's of thousands of people happened to be someone related to a vocal conservative, therefore we can deduce that Airbnb must be explicitly targeting conservatives and banning them from the platform!!!!!11".

 

[Battersbox]

Recent purge of journalists on Twitter

As well as a couple **** posters who were critical of Elon.

It's far from the first time. The first round of CNN/NBC journalists were banned allegedly for doxing Elon's location, though there were no tweets anyone could find on their Twitter feeds doing so and Twitter couldn't provide an example of them. After Elon did one of his unban polls like he did for Trump etc and the people voted to have them unbanned, he said he would unban them only if they deleted the offending tweets, but would/could not provide which tweets were the ones that were supposedly doxing him and needed to be deleted. A neat little trick.

Documented censorship is up 30% on the platform since Musk took over, as was covered even by the New York Post who is one of the champions of Musk and biggest opponents of pre-Musk Twitter. Surprisingly, that article on their website was mostly ignored and had only had 16 comments, compared to the thousands of engagements and comments on articles like "Airbnb implements new algorithm that bans 10's of thousands of guests associated with banned users, one of those 10's of thousands of people happened to be someone related to a vocal conservative, therefore we can deduce that Airbnb must be explicitly targeting conservatives and banning them from the platform!!!!!11".

I'd appreciate a link to the bolded if you have one. It's distressing if true.

 

[FreeBaGeL]

Recent purge of journalists on Twitter

As well as a couple **** posters who were critical of Elon.

It's far from the first time. The first round of CNN/NBC journalists were banned allegedly for doxing Elon's location, though there were no tweets anyone could find on their Twitter feeds doing so and Twitter couldn't provide an example of them. After Elon did one of his unban polls like he did for Trump etc and the people voted to have them unbanned, he said he would unban them only if they deleted the offending tweets, but would/could not provide which tweets were the ones that were supposedly doxing him and needed to be deleted. A neat little trick.

Documented censorship is up 30% on the platform since Musk took over, as was covered even by the New York Post who is one of the champions of Musk and biggest opponents of pre-Musk Twitter. Surprisingly, that article on their website was mostly ignored and had only had 16 comments, compared to the thousands of engagements and comments on articles like "Airbnb implements new algorithm that bans 10's of thousands of guests associated with banned users, one of those 10's of thousands of people happened to be someone related to a vocal conservative, therefore we can deduce that Airbnb must be explicitly targeting conservatives and banning them from the platform!!!!!11".

I'd appreciate a link to the bolded if you have one. It's distressing if true.

Twitter censorship increases under Elon Musk’s leadership: study

Censorship on Twitter has increased under the rule of Elon Musk to levels well above those of the previous regime, according to a bombshell new study from the Media Research Center.

nypost.com

STUDY: Twitter Censorship Shockingly on Rise After Elon Musk Takeover

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Free Speech America is more than a website. It is a movement to stop Big Tech censorship of conservatives. The Media Research Center has been fighting Big Tech bias for several years, building on more than 33 years experience

censortrack.org

 

[fatness]

Recent purge of journalists on Twitter

As well as a couple **** posters who were critical of Elon.

It's far from the first time. The first round of CNN/NBC journalists were banned allegedly for doxing Elon's location, though there were no tweets anyone could find on their Twitter feeds doing so and Twitter couldn't provide an example of them. After Elon did one of his unban polls like he did for Trump etc and the people voted to have them unbanned, he said he would unban them only if they deleted the offending tweets, but would/could not provide which tweets were the ones that were supposedly doxing him and needed to be deleted. A neat little trick.

Documented censorship is up 30% on the platform since Musk took over, as was covered even by the New York Post who is one of the champions of Musk and biggest opponents of pre-Musk Twitter. Surprisingly, that article on their website was mostly ignored and had only had 16 comments, compared to the thousands of engagements and comments on articles like "Airbnb implements new algorithm that bans 10's of thousands of guests associated with banned users, one of those 10's of thousands of people happened to be someone related to a vocal conservative, therefore we can deduce that Airbnb must be explicitly targeting conservatives and banning them from the platform!!!!!11".

I'd appreciate a link to the bolded if you have one. It's distressing if true.

Here you go:
https://www.techtimes.com/articles/...e-rampant-under-elon-musk-censored-tweets.htm

Here's the actual study:
https://censortrack.org/study-twitter-censorship-shockingly-rise-after-elon-musk-takeover

 

[Battersbox]

The article is from April

Recent purge of journalists on Twitter

As well as a couple **** posters who were critical of Elon.

It's far from the first time. The first round of CNN/NBC journalists were banned allegedly for doxing Elon's location, though there were no tweets anyone could find on their Twitter feeds doing so and Twitter couldn't provide an example of them. After Elon did one of his unban polls like he did for Trump etc and the people voted to have them unbanned, he said he would unban them only if they deleted the offending tweets, but would/could not provide which tweets were the ones that were supposedly doxing him and needed to be deleted. A neat little trick.

Documented censorship is up 30% on the platform since Musk took over, as was covered even by the New York Post who is one of the champions of Musk and biggest opponents of pre-Musk Twitter. Surprisingly, that article on their website was mostly ignored and had only had 16 comments, compared to the thousands of engagements and comments on articles like "Airbnb implements new algorithm that bans 10's of thousands of guests associated with banned users, one of those 10's of thousands of people happened to be someone related to a vocal conservative, therefore we can deduce that Airbnb must be explicitly targeting conservatives and banning them from the platform!!!!!11".

I'd appreciate a link to the bolded if you have one. It's distressing if true.

Here you go:
https://www.techtimes.com/articles/...e-rampant-under-elon-musk-censored-tweets.htm

Here's the actual study:
https://censortrack.org/study-twitter-censorship-shockingly-rise-after-elon-musk-takeover

This news is from March/April 2023. Not sure it's relevant. Moreover, the article suggests the censorship was largely from holdovers from the prior regime and the primary targets of censorship were those critical of transgenders and issues around trans rights. Do you think this is what's happening now?

 

[IvanKaramazov]

The idea that Twitter has become more censorious on trans issues just isn't credible, guys. Come on, now.

 

[fatness]

Recent purge of journalists on Twitter

As well as a couple **** posters who were critical of Elon.

Article on the recent (this week) purge:
https://www.mediaite.com/news/elon-...wing-critics-taking-off-the-free-speech-mask/

Elon Musk’s X/Twitter platform began suspending the accounts of prominent left-wing journalists and bloggers late on Monday night and into Tuesday.

Civil rights attorney Alejandra Caraballo began documenting the “massive purge” Tuesday morning and listed some of the major accounts that were suspended. Ken Klippenstein of the Intercept, Steven Zetti (who writes under Steven Monacelli) of the Texas Observer, blogger Rob Rousseau, the account for TrueAnonPod podcast, and blogger Zei Squirrel were among those suspended.

 

[Battersbox]

Recent purge of journalists on Twitter

As well as a couple **** posters who were critical of Elon.

Article on the recent (this week) purge:
https://www.mediaite.com/news/elon-...wing-critics-taking-off-the-free-speech-mask/

Elon Musk’s X/Twitter platform began suspending the accounts of prominent left-wing journalists and bloggers late on Monday night and into Tuesday.

Civil rights attorney Alejandra Caraballo began documenting the “massive purge” Tuesday morning and listed some of the major accounts that were suspended. Ken Klippenstein of the Intercept, Steven Zetti (who writes under Steven Monacelli) of the Texas Observer, blogger Rob Rousseau, the account for TrueAnonPod podcast, and blogger Zei Squirrel were among those suspended.

These were literally last night into this morning. Interesting. Curious to see what the reasons are for those bans.

 

[Battersbox]

Recent purge of journalists on Twitter

As well as a couple **** posters who were critical of Elon.

Article on the recent (this week) purge:
https://www.mediaite.com/news/elon-...wing-critics-taking-off-the-free-speech-mask/

Elon Musk’s X/Twitter platform began suspending the accounts of prominent left-wing journalists and bloggers late on Monday night and into Tuesday.

Civil rights attorney Alejandra Caraballo began documenting the “massive purge” Tuesday morning and listed some of the major accounts that were suspended. Ken Klippenstein of the Intercept, Steven Zetti (who writes under Steven Monacelli) of the Texas Observer, blogger Rob Rousseau, the account for TrueAnonPod podcast, and blogger Zei Squirrel were among those suspended.

These were literally last night into this morning. Interesting. Curious to see what the reasons are for those bans.

Already reinstated, after Musk responded himself.

The platform is messy, no question. But I heartily disagree with implications it's more censorious now than pre-Musk. That's just a ridiculous notion to me.

 

[massraider]

Much more relevant that Twitter complies with censorship requests from countries known to censor dissent, like Turkey and India.

But I heartily disagree with implications it's more censorious now than pre-Musk

I think "any censorious whatsoever" is the story, from the free speech absolutionist, right?

 

[Battersbox]

Much more relevant that Twitter complies with censorship requests from countries known to censor dissent, like Turkey and India.

But I heartily disagree with implications it's more censorious now than pre-Musk

I think "any censorious whatsoever" is the story, from the free speech absolutionist, right?

Sure. He's fallen short at times, no argument from me. But the platform is still far more inclusive than before he took over, and that is the primary story to me. You can quibble with him saying he wants to be a free speech absolutist, that's fine. To me that's far less important than the net effect of the change in regimes.

Misrepresenting articles to suggest he's been more censorious than the previous regime are what I was taking issue with, because it doesn't represent reality.

 

[massraider]

But the platform is still far more inclusive than before he took over,

u have a link for this?

 

[Battersbox]

But the platform is still far more inclusive than before he took over,

u have a link for this?

Are we having a discussion or are you trolling me? No link, it's just my opinion. Thought that was obvious.

If you disagree and feel the platform is less inclusive, I'm happy to hear your reasons.

 

[IvanKaramazov]

Much more relevant that Twitter complies with censorship requests from countries known to censor dissent, like Turkey and India.

But I heartily disagree with implications it's more censorious now than pre-Musk

I think "any censorious whatsoever" is the story, from the free speech absolutionist, right?

How would you like to see Twitter handle entities like the EU, China, India, etc. that are more censorship-minded than the US?

 

[massraider]

Are we having a discussion or are you trolling me? No link, it's just my opinion. Thought that was obvious.

If you disagree and feel the platform is less inclusive, I'm happy to hear your reasons.

Am I trolling you? For asking for a link?

I'd appreciate a link to the bolded if you have one.

 

[Battersbox]

Are we having a discussion or are you trolling me? No link, it's just my opinion. Thought that was obvious.

If you disagree and feel the platform is less inclusive, I'm happy to hear your reasons.

Am I trolling you? For asking for a link?

I'd appreciate a link to the bolded if you have one.

You really don't see the difference?

He quoted a hard number, a statistic, and mentioned a specific story. I wanted to read it.

C'mon man.

 

[Dr. Octopus]

If you disagree and feel the platform is less inclusive, I'm happy to hear your reasons.

Well two people shared articles which you ignored and claimed they were wrong based on your anecdotal evidence. As an outsider, it looks to me like you're not really interested in hearing reasons.

 

[IvanKaramazov]

If you disagree and feel the platform is less inclusive, I'm happy to hear your reasons.

Well two people shared articles which you ignored and claimed they were wrong based on your anecdotal evidence. As an outsider, it looks to me like you're not really interested in hearing reasons.

The articles that were cited originate from a right-wing source claiming that Musk has clamped down on anti-trans viewpoints. Does that sound believable to you?

 

[massraider]

How would you like to see Twitter handle entities like the EU, China, India, etc. that are more censorship-minded than the US?

It's not relevant how I would like to see it being handled.

Musk can kick anyone out of his sandbox. He purchased that right, and I fully support his right to do that. Frankly, this is kind of what I expected. He's a guy who is addicted to Twitter, and likes, and trolling, he just so happens to be a billionaire who bought a high profile message board.

I don't think Twitter is nearly as important as some people do. I never bought this digital town square nonsense. It's a place for creators to promote themselves, and to get you to go to their site, where they can make money, like the guys who own this site. It's helpful for breaking news as it happens, but most of those people breaking news want you to go to their site, right? Then you have scammers and trolls, but they were always there. There's no important back and forth discussion going on there. If Twitter disappears tomorrow, Threads would probably rise up, and the same people would be saying toxic crap in the comments of every post. That's not a Musk problem.

I have an issue with Musk the demagogue, where he lies, makes outrageous claims, treats workers like garbage, and people lap up everything he says with no questions asked. I think it's really dangerous, and pointing out that Mr. Free Speech is censoring people is worth bringing it up.

 

[Dr. Octopus]

If you disagree and feel the platform is less inclusive, I'm happy to hear your reasons.

Well two people shared articles which you ignored and claimed they were wrong based on your anecdotal evidence. As an outsider, it looks to me like you're not really interested in hearing reasons.

The articles that were cited originate from a right-wing source claiming that Musk has clamped down on anti-trans viewpoints. Does that sound believable to you?

I wouldn't know. I guess only some people get the "real" news. There were other articles as well.

 

[Battersbox]

If you disagree and feel the platform is less inclusive, I'm happy to hear your reasons.

Well two people shared articles which you ignored and claimed they were wrong based on your anecdotal evidence. As an outsider, it looks to me like you're not really interested in hearing reasons.

Jeezus.

Did you read the articles? I did. They are addressing the first few months of the takeover, and explicitly mentioned that the holdovers from the prior regime were censoring CONSERVATIVE critics of Trans accounts and issues. The data was from a conservative media watchdog group complaining that the pre-Musk holdovers were still censoring conservative voices.

Based on that, why would you say I ignored the articles? Wtf

I'm VERY MUCH interested in reasons If you think the platform is becoming more restrictive, which is why I wanted to read the article which was directly referenced.

 

[Dr. Octopus]

I'm VERY MUCH interested in reasons If you think the platform is becoming more restrictive

I did not make any claims either way.