The social media link buttons to Twitter and certain IM platforms have returned. I wonder why? đ
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I wonder if anyone here has still not heard of yesterday’s grim warning from MSNBC’s Ari Melber that it is very bad for Elon Musk to own Twitter because now he doesn’t have to explain himself “or even have to be transparent”, but could
I also wonder whether his argument is strengthened or weakened by its internal indications that there is indeed stuff he and his typical audience did not find out about till very long after the election – like, not even yet?
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Yes Niall, I saw that too, and it was all said without even a hint of irony đ
You’ve got to admire Elon Musk. When he says he’s going to do something, he goes out and does it.
And I just love the popping sound of liberals’ heads exploding first thing in the morning. đ
My favorite comment on the reaction to this was:
Related.
Although afaik PD Mangan eats meat only 3 times/week, after going to the gym.
Salty Cracker has a short video of Miss Pissaki throwing a wobbler on behalf of the Potato in Chief about Mr Musk’s acquisition.
As Salty observes these rats (my epithet) are getting upset now, over Twitter and free speech. Where were they in 2020?
The left really are a gut wrenching sickly bunch. Hatred, lies and violence are their only stock in trade.
Too early to tell.
@lucklucky
Too early to tell.
That is true. I was thinking about what I would do were I king of Twitter. I think what I’d want to do is implement the principle: “freedom of speech, freedom of listening.” Which is to say you can say anything you wish (except things that are actually illegal), and I, on the other hand, can listen only if I want to.
Back in the days of yore when the internet was young, and before the web was invented the way people chatted on the net was via a system called netnews. It was a threaded system of groups (kind of like reddit is today) where people could post whatever they wanted. The way it prevented you from drowning in garbage was really through a few mechanisms: 1: some groups were specifically moderated, and moderators were elected, 2. You could subscribe to whatever groups you wanted. 3. Anyone could start a group if they wanted. 4. the tools used to read the “news” were designed to give you control. They had this thing called a kill file where you could put in information that told your news reader what you wanted to read. So, if you hated me you could ban me — from your feed anyway — if you didn’t like the n word you could filter out all articles containing it and so forth.
That seems to me to be a great approach to moderation. Give people control over their own moderation. Maybe even allow people to design “kill files” for others that they could subscribe to. Ultimately you can even use a neural net to say “I like this and I don’t like that” and it could build a customized net to filter your stuff for you.
If Musk is smart enough to come up with an honest moderation system I actually think it will put a lot of pressure on other platforms to do something similar, and that would be all in all a good thing.
Freedom of speech, freedom to listen.
Great post Frasier Orr! Let’s do that!
For all of its much vaunted anarchy and freedom to say anything even 4Chan employs teams of unpaid janitors and mods to purge threads and individual posts which cross the line and nominally ban (temporarily or forever) the anonymous IP addresses from which trolling arises.
4Chan IP bans are pretty easy to get around (just reset your internet router in most cases), but it illustrates the point that even an anarchic collective like 4Chan has to have some measure of control and sanction otherwise chaos ensues.
I can’t imagine that a Twitter free-for-all as is being suggested by Elon Musk’s opponents would last 5 minutes and Elon Musk knows this full well.
He’ll want to see a return on his investment, so likely will do little more than get rid of the most egregious stuff that goes well beyond the legally required and extending an olive branch to those on the right.
Whether he’ll actually go as far as restoring Trump et al by outright executive fiat or not is as much about PR and not triggering an effective lockdown of the platform by Democratic lawmakers over-reacting (although likely shooting themselves in the foot).
Like Trump, what Elon Musk says about being a “free speech absolutist” should be taken with a big dollop of salt. His actions will be focussed on dealing with excesses of censorship, removing obvious bias and broadening the appeal of the platform.
That way he has a reasonable chance of getting a return on his investment.
If ‘lockdown of the platform by Democratic lawmakers’ is a real possibility, it is in Elon’s interest to trigger (literally đ ) their attempt before the mid-terms, with a view to getting a different congress after them.
It’s going to take 6 months (give or take) to deliver on the deal and every reason to extend that period if necessary by either party, so while Elon might have his hands on Twatter by November it won’t be much sooner than that.
A regulatory hurdle or two just to keep matters in play beyond the mid-terms would be easy to conjure out of nothing. Just requires a bit of Democratic sleight-of-hand.
As for Elon playing “The Trump Card”. That might be something nice to keep in his back pocket. Playing it in 2022 doesn’t necessarily make sense when it might be more valuable in late 2023 or early 2024.
I would imagine that a timely return of “The Donald” to Twatter just in time for the 2024 Election would set the proverbial cat among the pigeons.
Ministry of truth
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/dhs-creating-disinformation-governance-board-ahead-midterms
@Nemesis
Ministry of truth
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/dhs-creating-disinformation-governance-board-ahead-midterms
I saw that too Nemesis. It is very disturbing. One thing the crazies are good at is labelling: by making some terms common it normalizes a particular way of thinking. The “Don’t say gay” bill is a perfect recent example. People who believe in freedom need to master that skill too. So we should be calling it the “Kindergarteners don’t need to know about teachers’ sex life” bill, though that isn’t as catchy.
I suggest we all make an effort to call this very disturbing committee the Ministry of Truth, and see if we can make this the widely used terminology.
FWIW, the newest article in the stack is so prescient here. What the hell happened to the left?
We already do. It’s known as the “Anti-Groomers Bill”, but you won’t see that catchy title in the mainstream press because of left-wing bias.
Those wanting to teach sex positions to pre-adolescents and toddlers do not like being labelled “Groomers”, which is still a pretty accurate description in my honest opinion. They may not be grooming kids for their own sexual perversions, but they are certainly enabling it in others.