Twitter is a Private Company

paulsurovell said:

...

Edited to add: Pres Obama's definition of "wokeness" is as good as you'll get.

President Obama isn't giving a "definition of wokeness" in the clip. He is admonishing people not to act superior just because you think you're right and the other person is wrong.

You should take that to heart instead of making up arguments so as to feel superior to the rest of us who are just paying attention to the facts.


paulsurovell said:

But my point was, that "wokeness" doesn't usually apply to defending the rights of Palestinian students in the US, which is what Bari Weiss opposed at Columbia (and many Palestinian activists opposed her hiring by the NYT for that reason).

And you would be wrong.  I can cite Bari Weiss for this.

We Got Here Because of Cowardice. We Get Out With Courage - Bari Weiss, Commentary Magazine

American Liberalism in Danger - Tablet Magazine

Anti-Racism and Anti-Semitism Collide: Glenn Loury in Conversation with Bari Weiss | Manhattan Institute (manhattan-institute.org)

Related: ‘Wokeness’ is Enemy No. 1 at conservative Jewish Leadership Conference (jweekly.com)


paulsurovell said:

Because it hasn't been said yet. And by the way, I'm not defending Elon's personality. I'm not sure what he's like on a personal level, and I don't care. It's his impact on humanity that I care about.

more than two weeks ago tjohn and I wrote this:


ml1
said:

tjohn said:

I like what Musk has done in terms of popularizing electric cars and promoting space exploration. However, that does not justify any sorts of poor behavior. Moreover, he is not the savior of mankind. These things would have happened anyway.

this is an important point. The idea that one man alone is largely responsible for the advancement of solar power and battery storage is dubious. If Elon Musk never had gone into the solar business it's hard to believe no other entrepreneurs or corporations would have emerged to push technology forward to where it is today.

But let's give credit where credit is due. Musk does seem to have done an awful lot to promote consumer uptake of solar power by regular American homeowners and drivers.

and with regard to Musk himself we don't need to know him personally to know what he's about. Just observing how he treats employees is sufficient. 



"Twitter Files" update - Last night, Bari Weiss twittered a nothing-side-of-fries to go with the earlier nothing-burger that Taibbi published. 

What she described was the existence of "content monitoring" tools, which social media companies use for the obvious reasons.

Apparently, one of her screen shots inadvertently revealed that Elon Musk had given her and Taibbi access to the tools which let them look at any user's private messages on the platform.

That's not good.


nohero said:

"Twitter Files" update - Last night, Bari Weiss twittered a nothing-side-of-fries to go with the earlier nothing-burger that Taibbi published. 

What she described was the existence of "content monitoring" tools, which social media companies use for the obvious reasons.

Apparently, one of her screen shots inadvertently revealed that Elon Musk had given her and Taibbi access to the tools which let them look at any user's private messages on the platform.

That's not good.

This whole thing is effing weird. Who the heck would work for a company that publishes employees' internal emails (along with their personal email addresses) for the whole world to read? 


Elon Musk is a dangerous person. 


It seems like Musk paid 44 billion to whistleblow himself.


An old college acquaintance tweets.



DaveSchmidt said:

An old college acquaintance tweets.

The real story that Taibbi is obscuring, is how a social media platform can face a "whack-a-mole" situation, where it's used to spread lies in order to drown out the truth.

Taibbi is on the side of the lies.


nohero said:

Smedley said:

Someone is extra grouchy today.

To the contrary, I’ve been extra accommodating today. 

Self-diagnosis is never a good idea.


nohero said:

Fixed it for you.

paulsurovell said:

MORE Twitter files BULLSHITE:

@nohero doesn't like disclosure.


nohero said:

DaveSchmidt said:

An old college acquaintance tweets.

The real story that Taibbi is obscuring, is how a social media platform can face a "whack-a-mole" situation, where it's used to spread lies in order to drown out the truth.

Taibbi is on the side of the lies.

This goes to the heart of the matter. James and @nohero believe that Twitter should be a discussion board run by people who decide what is "true" and "false," and ban, censor, suppress and manipulate accordingly.

Elon's creating a Twitter public square based on First Amendment-like criteria. That's anathema to James and @nohero, and what's behind the attacks.


Jaytee said:

Elon Musk is a dangerous person. 

Elon Musk saved Ukraine. You know that, right?


nohero said:

"Twitter Files" update - Last night, Bari Weiss twittered a nothing-side-of-fries to go with the earlier nothing-burger that Taibbi published. 

What she described was the existence of "content monitoring" tools, which social media companies use for the obvious reasons.

Apparently, one of her screen shots inadvertently revealed that Elon Musk had given her and Taibbi access to the tools which let them look at any user's private messages on the platform.

That's not good.

@nohero reading the "nothing burger" talking points.


paulsurovell said:

@nohero reading the "nothing burger" talking points.

Nope, you are. 


paulsurovell said:

Jaytee said:

Elon Musk is a dangerous person. 

Elon Musk saved Ukraine. You know that, right?

LOL

You're so silly.


paulsurovell said:


Elon's creating a Twitter public square based on First Amendment-like criteria.

That's rather gullible of you.


drummerboy said:

paulsurovell said:

Jaytee said:

Elon Musk is a dangerous person. 

Elon Musk saved Ukraine. You know that, right?

LOL

You're so silly.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/11/22/ukraine-internet-starlink-elon-musk-russia-war/



PVW said:

paulsurovell said:


Elon's creating a Twitter public square based on First Amendment-like criteria.

That's rather gullible of you.

If you disengage from Musk Bad and look at what he's doing you'll get it.


paulsurovell said:

If you disengage from Musk Bad and look at what he's doing you'll get it.

It's because I see what he's doing that I find your take so naive.


It's a bit strange to talk about Musk and twitter in terms of the first amendment. The first amendment is about the relationship of government to its citizens, so twitter's decisions regarding its users is obviously not a first amendment issue. The relationship of twitter to the government is, but Musk's supporters are either quiet or actively opposed to the first amendment here -- see Taibbi downplaying Twitter honoring Trump admin (the government) requests, while playing up honoring Biden campaign (not the government) requests, or the way politicians like DeSantis (whom Musk supports) seek to compel favored speech.

What Musk and his supporters really mean is the first amendment culturally, not literally. But here they just seem to mean "speech I like, and punishing speech I don't like." The complaint about the previous management of twitter is that decisions around moderation were inconsistent and not transparent. Under Musk, though, the previous process has been replaced by Musk's personal decisions -- which is inconsistent and not transparent. He certainly makes different decisions, but whether or not they are better is just a subjective judgement that says more about his supporters' and critics' ideological positioning.

Personally, I think a twitter that agreed to requests to take down non-consensual nude pics was making better decisions, but that's me.

Meanwhile, what Musk has been doing is to put current and former employees in danger via doxxing their personal information and playing games with the pay and benefits owed to them and demanding that anyone still working for him pass increasingly bizarre loyalty tests while he tanks the value of twitter ensuring that anyone who does manage to last isn't going to get much reward out of committing to "twitter 2.0". Keep in mind that many of those who've stayed are on visas, and so don't have as much flexibility to just quit and look for another job. Puts his installation of beds in the office into a somewhat different light, doesn't it? Encouraging a semi-captive labor force to seldom leave the office isn't a great look.


I’ve got to ask how you can establish office dormitories, while simultaneously dismissing the office cleaners?? I mean, ewwww! Not to to mention linens to be changed and laundered etc. 
i read something about robotic cleaners, but they can’t do half the tasks needed. 


PVW said:

It's a bit strange to talk about Musk and twitter in terms of the first amendment. The first amendment is about the relationship of government to its citizens, so twitter's decisions regarding its users is obviously not a first amendment issue. The relationship of twitter to the government is, but Musk's supporters are either quiet or actively opposed to the first amendment here -- see Taibbi downplaying Twitter honoring Trump admin (the government) requests, while playing up honoring Biden campaign (not the government) requests, or the way politicians like DeSantis (whom Musk supports) seek to compel favored speech.

What Musk and his supporters really mean is the first amendment culturally, not literally. But here they just seem to mean "speech I like, and punishing speech I don't like." The complaint about the previous management of twitter is that decisions around moderation were inconsistent and not transparent. Under Musk, though, the previous process has been replaced by Musk's personal decisions -- which is inconsistent and not transparent. He certainly makes different decisions, but whether or not they are better is just a subjective judgement that says more about his supporters' and critics' ideological positioning.

Personally, I think a twitter that agreed to requests to take down non-consensual nude pics was making better decisions, but that's me.

shouldn't there be some recourse for people who have been slandered on the platform to have posts removed? Or should anything go? How about harassment?

Would it be OK for me to tweet that another user, let's call him "Small Duracell," told me he's been committing tax fraud for the past decade. Would that be OK as an expression of 1st Amendment rights? Or should it be removed as a destructive lie I pulled out of my ****?


paulsurovell said:

drummerboy said:

paulsurovell said:

Jaytee said:

Elon Musk is a dangerous person. 

Elon Musk saved Ukraine. You know that, right?

LOL

You're so silly.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/11/22/ukraine-internet-starlink-elon-musk-russia-war/

Apparently you think that Starlink is the only company providing that service, just like you think that without Musk, there would be no electric car market.

Silly.


paulsurovell said:

Elon's creating a Twitter public square based on First Amendment-like criteria. That's anathema to James and @nohero, and what's behind the attacks.

How’s that working in Iran and China? Heck, how about France? Or India? Russia? Pakistan? Tanzania? Venezuela? 


Well, now I understand why paulsurovell loves the guy so much.


ridski said:

Well, now I understand why paulsurovell loves the guy so much.

Elon is so "QAnon" now, I wouldn't be surprised if he declared that he was really JFK Jr.


Nothing in the "Twitter Files" showed that there was such a thing as "shadow banning", fyi.

paulsurovell said:


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