X.COM on the Path to Profitability

Ayespy

@Pesala said in X.COM on the Path to Profitability:

...who gets to decide what is accurate information, and what is disinformation?

There is nothing to decide. Thigs are true or they are not. False claims are mistaken, or they are malicious. They are not potentially true.

I have the benefit of working in a field where opinion is irrelevant. Everything is provable truth, provable falsity, or yet-to-be-proved. Opinion or belief are not in any case truth. They are only opinion and belief. There is no voice of authority which determines truth or falsity. There is only what is.

But the great tragedy here is the erroneous monotone assignment of importance to fact and opinion (or alternative "fact") - and the parallel fact that lies fed to and accepted by people cause blindness and stupidity. So lying to people is, defacto, harm. (It can be harm by mistake or by intent.)

But truth is discerned by direct perception. The lies fed to and accepted by a person can inhibit or prohibit that perception.

Pesala

@Ayespy said in X.COM on the Path to Profitability:

Misinformation is lying irrespective of knowledge or intent.

In my book, lying requires intent to deceive, even if only for a moment, as in telling jokes.

Misinformation is just something that is false or imperfect due to incomplete knowledge, or lack of context.

If someone expresses an opinion that is contrary to widely held beliefs, they are accused of spreading disinformation.

There is nothing to decide

You have already decided that you know truth from falsehood, but you may be misinformed or deluded. We are not talking about flat-earthers here, but opinions and beliefs that many take to be the truth, such as Elon Musk is an anti-Semite, condones conspiracy theories, etc.

Ayespy

@Pesala said in X.COM on the Path to Profitability:

You have already decided that you know truth from falsehood,

Not true. I have decided that it is knowable what is or is not true. Things can be perceived or demonstrated. A concatenation of facts can serve to demonstrate a fact one did not directly observe (a 10-inch intrusion across the front of a 1995 Kia Sportage is demonstrative of a 30-mph delta V even if you were not looking at the speedo in the Kia when the accident happened). But I also can acknowledge what I don't know, without at the same time claiming it is unknowable - or that those persons whose livelihood consists of direct observation of the evidence couldn't possibly know it any better than a political commentator with an agenda to push.

Pesala

Ben Shapiro Talks to Elon Musk

Free Speech, ADL and Anti-Semitism

Ayespy

@Pesala Ben Shapiro is a major king of disinformation and toxic content. There is no chance that a conversation between him and Musk could produce any valid and informative data. You could hardly have posted a less productive link.

https://popular.info/p/facebook-allows-prominent-right-wing

Pesala

@Ayespy Ben Shapiro seems to be a very successful Jewish journalist. How about listening to the dialog instead of denigrating the speakers?

He seems to be just the kind of free speech advocate who would upset the liberal left.

Ayespy

@Pesala Shapiro is not a journalist. He is an advocate. As to whether he is "successful," there are two potential measures: Whether he makes money - he does. Whether he swings opinion to the position of his advocacy - he does not. Whether he is Jewish is an open question. Rabbi Yaakov Shapiro would hold that he is not. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKRSiqBWqNM

It is not his identity as a "source" that defeats his credibility, but rather his content.

ugly

@Ayespy said in X.COM on the Path to Profitability:

@Pesala Shapiro is not a journalist. He is an advocate.

That is a generous description. He is better described as a provocateur, a reactionary, or a media manipulator. Anyone who presents themselves as a 'free speech advocate' is usually a big red flag. They are not actually interested in free speech. What they are interested in is polluting the discourse, or 'flooding the zone with shit'.

Watch Linda Yaccarino’s wild interview at the Code Conference

Yaccarino sounded rattled. She’d found out earlier in the day that Kara Swisher, a Code Conference co-founder, had booked a surprise guest to appear an hour before her: Yoel Roth, Twitter’s former head of trust and safety. He has been an outspoken critic of the direction Elon Musk has taken the site.

In his interview with Swisher, Roth recounted how Musk put him personally in danger. Musk suggested on Twitter that Roth had advocated for sexualizing children — a completely unfounded claim — which led to death threats and his address being posted online. “I had to sell my house. I had to move,” Roth said. He encouraged Yaccarino to think about how Musk could turn on her, too, and said the site was bleeding users and advertisers.

I suppose unfounded claims about a person sexualizing children is just good old free speech.

Elon Fires Half Of ExTwitter’s Election Integrity Team, Because A Manager Liked A Tweet Calling Him A F-ing Dip-

Indeed, reports show that the only times Twitter was actually removing information regarding elections was in the most extreme circumstances, such as cases where you had people impersonating election officials on Twitter in an attempt to mislead voters into not voting (such as by telling them the election was on a different day), or where there were out and out frauds.

That kind of thing is still really important.

But apparently not to Elon Musk. Earlier this week it was reported that exTwitter had disabled the feature that let users “report” election misinformation as part of its reporting tools. That already got some people worried about how a Musk-run exTwitter would handle many upcoming elections.

As if to confirm this was absolutely intentional, that same day, the Information revealed that Elon fired half of the remaining “Election Integrity Team” at exTwitter. This is despite him recently promising to expand that effort. Rolling Stone has way more info on all of this, including details about what likely happened here and it’s dumber than you could have imagined.

It began, as so much nonsense does these days, with gullible Elon falling for complete and utter nonsense peddlers on his own site. A month ago, Aaron Rodericks, who worked on the “threat disruption” team, and is a holdover from pre-Elon Twitter, announced that he was hiring 8 new people for civic integrity and elections work:
Again, this work is not about “censoring,” but about actually understanding various threats to actual elections (not just garden variety political misinfo) and figuring out ways to counter them.

But the nonsense peddlers on exTwitter that have Elon’s ear convinced him that it was a sneaky plot behind Elon’s back… supported with “evidence” that Aaron had, at times, liked some tweets that mocked Elon and Linda Yaccarino.

In a quote tweet, Benz replied to Raichik’s sarcastic question: “No, it’s being run by Yoel Roth’s former colleague, who still somehow works at X despite appearing to think Musk is a ‘f-ing dip-’ — His name is Aaron Rodericks.” In the post, Benz shared screenshots of his many recent criticisms of Rodericks on the platform. In those tweets, Benz called Rodericks one of CEO Linda Yaccarino’s “censorship shills” and noted that Rodericks had apparently liked another user’s tweet using the aforementioned epithet to describe Musk.

Again, remember that for all of Elon’s talk about “free speech” on his platform, and a promise to fund any lawsuit for someone fired for their activities on exTwitter, he has a thing where he is very quick to fire any employee who even hints at not wanting to lick his boots.

The free speech warriors also tend to have the thinnest skin.

ingolftopf

@ugly
Thank you for this information.
It seems quite credible to me and fits into the picture.

ingolftopf

This post is deleted!

ingolftopf

@Pesala said in X.COM on the Path to Profitability:

A lie gets around the world before the truth has the time to get its pants on. (Sir Winston Churchill).

Whether by Mark Twain or Winston Churchill, a wonderful quote.

But, like every quote, it also runs the risk of being occupied.

I don't think either of them would ever have used it pro Elon Musk.

ingolftopf

To me it sounds more like the acerbic charm of Winston Churchill.

Pesala

In spite of all the trolling here by haters, x.com is on the path to profitability.

Linda is doing an awesome job as the CEO of 𝕏:

• Operating cash flow is at break even
• Turning a profit early 2024
• 90% of top 100 advertisers have returned
• In last 12 weeks ~1500 advertisers returned
• Daily active users: 250M
• Monthly active users: 540M (Teslaconomics on X:)

Only time will tell if it becomes the everything app like WeChat that Elon has envisioned.
@ugly said in X.COM on the Path to Profitability:

The free speech warriors also tend to have the thinnest skin.

An employer has every right to expect that employees will not bite the hand that feeds.

Free speech allows anyone to say whatever they like, but trying to damage an individual’s or a company’s reputation, resulting in financial loss, is a dangerous game to play. One should expect to be sacked or sued.

Venting your ill-will on social media harms yourself first. As the saying goes: “Picking up excrement to throw at others will soil your own hand, and you may miss the target entirely.”

@ingolftopf said in X.COM on the Path to Profitability:

To me it sounds more like the acerbic charm of Winston Churchill.

He won a Nobel Laureate for literature. He said and wrote many things. It is likely that he said the quoted phrase, even if he did not invent it. Mark Twain said something different: “A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”

Pesala

@Ayespy said in X.COM on the Path to Profitability:

Whether he is Jewish is an open question.

Only if you redefine “Jew” to suit your agenda.

Shapiro was born on January 15, 1984 in Los Angeles, California, to a Conservative Jewish family. He is Ashkenazi Jewish, of Russian-Jewish and Lithuanian-Jewish ancestry. When he was 9 years old, his family transitioned to Orthodox Judaism. (Wikipedia)

Eggcorn

@ugly said in X.COM on the Path to Profitability:

Scientists publishing their work that goes against conspiratorial narratives regularly receive death threats.

If that's true, that's terrifying! Forgetting banning from social media: Those folks need to be arrested.

DoctorG

Free Speech at X? Such can never exist on a non-free commercial platform.
This Elon is kidding us with his juvenile jokes.

At X and former Twitter was much of hate, death threats on normal people. Aggression as a business model. No thanks.
I am not a person with thin skin. But lies and defamation is not the content i like to read or discuss.

Pesala

@DoctorG 𝕏 is free to use. Subscriptions are optional. I heard of a plan to charge $1 a year to foil spammers. I don’t know if it has been implemented yet.

Aggression is not the business model for 𝕏.
You are spreading lies and disinformation.

Dad Jokes are allowed, but hate speech that violates the law of the land is not. People can and do get banned for posting threats. One can easily mute users who post mostly content intended to stir people up.

Former Twitter had a lot of problems, most of which have been fixed, but it will always be work in progress.

Spam selling crypto etc., seems to be rare. What you come across will depend largely on who you follow.

If anyone likes cute cat videos, they can follow https://twitter.com/ShouldHaveCat

Pesala

The alleged antisemite, Elon Musk plans to visit Israel on Monday, the office of Israeli President Isaac Herzog confirmed to Business Insider.

ugly

What is impressive is how he's built a cult of personality around him, such that people will continue to defend his actions, even as be continues to spiral into being a conspiracy theory promoting reactionary.

It is also impressive that with enough money someone can create and publicize an event in order to backpeddle on their recent actions, instead of doing what normal people have to do, like not promote anti-semetic commentators or promote idiotic conspiracy theories.

DoctorG

Nothing will happen if Musk would be or support such anti-whateverelses; his company is in state "To big to fail".

I can not see that information and discussions in tweets (or should be call is Xs?) are better now after Musk bought Twitter and changed it to X.