The Bane That Is Social Media

[LFC]

Twitter is trying to prepare for the 2022 election without pissing off the right-wingers whose generate most of the lies. Face it, Twitter (and other platforms). You are major weapons being used to take down American democracy. Good luck prospering under the fascist overlords when they take power, demand that you suppress actual facts, and you lose a mass of people who are actually the ones your advertisers want to reach. Here's their prior track record. It ain't good.

A study out of Stanford University last month found that, during the 2020 election Twitter managed to consistently label 70 percent of misleading claims.

In an article for Lawfare Blog, the researchers—Samantha Bradshaw of American University and Shelby Grossman of the Stanford Internet Observatory—explained:

We found many examples of Twitter treating identical tweets differently as well. On Nov. 4, 2020, Trump tweeted, “We are up BIG, but they are trying to STEAL the Election. We will never let them do it. Votes cannot be cast after the Polls are closed!” Twitter put the tweet behind a warning label. In response, Trump supporters shared the text of the tweet verbatim. Sometimes Twitter labeled these tweets and sometimes it didn’t, even though the tweets were identical and tweeted within minutes of each other.

Examining a pool of over 600 misleading tweets, Grossman and Bradshaw noted that Twitter was “22 percent more likely to label tweets from verified users, compared to unverified users.”

The researchers said they were unable to draw any reasonable conclusions as to why 30 percent of misleading claims were treated differently by Twitter, even when tweets were “seemingly identical” to others it did label. Their best guess The tweets were placed into a queue for content moderators, who just happened to responded differently to the same misinformation.

[LFC]

Ruh, roh.

A company that agreed to take former President Donald Trump's Truth Social platform public issued a warning this week that the former president's popularity and ongoing investigations could derail the deal.

CNBC reported that a special purpose acquisition company named Digital World Acquisition Corp. (DWAC) presented the information in a securities filing on Monday.

The filing suggested that falling popularity and ongoing investigations of the former president could impact Trump Media and Technology Group, which owns Truth Social.

“If President Trump becomes less popular or there are further controversies that damage his credibility or the desire of people to use a platform associated with him, and from which he will derive financial benefit, TMTG’s results of operations, as well as the outcome of the proposed Business combination, could be adversely affected,” the filing said.

“Our failure to obtain any required regulatory approvals in connection with the Business Combination or to resolve certain ongoing investigations within the requisite time period may require us to liquidate,” the document added.

[Bact PhD]

Asshat gets de-platformed…only after boatloads of complaints get lodged…gotta trap that profit first, ya know.

www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/08/21/andrew-tate-tiktok-instagram/

videos splashed across the internet, Andrew Tate, a onetime kickboxing champion turned self-styled men’s-help guru, has argued that women are the property of their husbands and should “have kids, sit at home, be quiet and make coffee.”

He has claimed that he needs authority over the women he dates, saying, “You can’t be responsible for a dog if it doesn’t obey you.” He has said he would attack a woman who accused him of cheating and described himself as “absolutely a misogynist.”

His fans have called him the king of toxic masculinity.

[snip]

Now, Tate has been barred from TikTok, Facebook and Instagram.

In a statement to The Washington Post, a TikTok representative said Tate’s account was removed for violating the company’s policies that bar “content that attacks, threatens, incites violence against, or otherwise dehumanizes an individual or a group” based on attributes including sex. Meta said it had removed Tate’s official accounts on Facebook and Instagram, pointing to policies against dangerous organizations and individuals.

[snip]

Other social media influencers — along with several organizations that support survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence — had called for him to be booted off social media platforms. Hope Not Hate, a Britain-based group that launched a petition calling for Tate to be deplatformed, described him as dangerous.

“The effect that Tate’s brand of vitriolic misogyny can have on the young male audience is deeply concerning,” Hope Not Hate said. “His content is widely celebrated by his fans for having brought back ‘traditional masculinity.’ However, we also know that misogyny can be a gateway to other extreme and discriminatory views.”

The WaPo piece referenced a Guardian article from a couple of weeks ago:

www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/aug/06/andrew-tate-violent-misogynistic-world-of-tiktok-new-star

Whereupon I found this gem:

“It’s bang out the machete, boom in her face and grip her by the neck. Shut up bitch,” he says in one video, acting out how he’d attack a woman if she accused him of cheating. In another, he describes throwing a woman’s things out of the window. In a third, he calls an ex-girlfriend who accused him of hitting her – an allegation he denies – a “dumb hoe”.

Tate’s views have been described as extreme misogyny by domestic abuse charities, capable of radicalising men and boys to commit harm offline.

But the 35-year-old is not a fringe personality lurking in an obscure corner of the dark web. Instead, he is one of the most famous figures on TikTok, where videos of him have been watched 11.6 billion times.

Styled as a self-help guru, offering his mostly male fans a recipe for making money, pulling girls and “escaping the matrix”, Tate has gone in a matter of months from near obscurity to one of the most talked about people in the world. In July, there were more Google searches for his name than for Donald Trump or Kim Kardashian.

And this goes to show how easily the platforms can be manipulated, despite supposed safeguards in place:

His rapid surge to fame was not by chance. Evidence obtained by the Observer shows that followers of Tate are being told to flood social media with videos of him, choosing the most controversial clips in order to achieve maximum views and engagement.

The coordinated effort, involving thousands of members of Tate’s private online academy Hustler’s University and a network of copycat accounts on TikTok, has been described by experts as a “blatant attempt to manipulate the algorithm” and artificially boost his content. In less than three months, the strategy has earned him a huge following online and potentially made him millions of pounds, with 127,000 members now paying the £39 a month to join Hustler’s University community, many of them men and boys from the UK and US.

Must remember to talk to Dear Son tonight…

[LFC]

Sounds like he's got the backing of the Incel Brigade. They love that kind of shit-talk where they fantasize about lording their power over the women they'll never have.

[goldenvalley]

Aug 22, 2022 21:12:11 GMT LFC said:

Sounds like he's got the backing of the Incel Brigade. They love that kind of shit-talk where they fantasize about lording their power over the women they'll never have.

And the poor beleaguered, downtrodden husband set of men.  The ones who think Hennie Youngman's "Take my wife....please" is hilarious.  

[Bact PhD]

Aug 22, 2022 21:49:18 GMT goldenvalley said:

Aug 22, 2022 21:12:11 GMT LFC said:

Sounds like he's got the backing of the Incel Brigade. They love that kind of shit-talk where they fantasize about lording their power over the women they'll never have.

And the poor beleaguered, downtrodden husband set of men.  The ones who think Hennie Youngman's "Take my wife....please" is hilarious.  

Sigh. I remember as a kid hearing how TV stations were no longer showing syndicated episodes of "The Honeymooners" because the implied/threatened violence ("To the moon, Alice!!") was deemed inappropriate for family viewing (never mind that Ralph never actually hit Alice; the threat of the violence was enough). That was roughly a half-century ago. Even as a young adult in the '80s I didn't think advocating partner violence would make this sort of return to popular culture, even if used "ironically" or "humorously" or as part of some "Internet persona."

Chem discussed the matter with Dear Son. As far as Chem could tell, DS might have actually employed some critical thinking skills and more-or-less rejected the garbage stuff while taking in the fitness stuff -- Chem did remind DS that there are other fitness gurus out there and DS could pick one that doesn't spew garbage about half the population.

With a little bit of luck the subject asshat of my OP will return to the anonymous slime from which he oozed, never to be heard from again.

[Bact PhD]

Bloomberg has an interesting piece about how they went after Islamic violent extremists aggressively, but seemed to have a blind spot when it came to the White Nationalist crowd:

www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2022-08-30/youtube-s-video-purge-left-out-right-wing-extremism

Bardan had already worked at YouTube for several years by the time of the 2017 retreat and was taught its ethos on speech: Leave videos up, so long as they didn’t show or incite over-the-top violence. “This is a platform,” she was told. “We’re not responsible for what’s on it.”

The limits of that philosophy became obvious as YouTube became one of the most visited sites on the internet, and the company has consistently struggled to adjust, according to interviews with dozens of current and former YouTube employees.

Within YouTube’s upper ranks, the 2017 meeting was seen as the first step toward effectively wiping radical Islam from the commercial web and taking all forms of extremism more seriously. Advertisers returned, helping bring its business back from the brink.

But people lower down YouTube’s corporate ladder didn’t see it as such a triumph. Shortly after the staff retreat, White nationalists staged a deadly riot in Charlottesville, Va., a watershed moment in an increase of far-right violence in the US and internationally. A progression of young White men carried out racist attacks, accompanying them with accounts of how they’d been radicalized online.

Of course, how many advertisers would have gone BONKERS had the scrubbing of White Nationalist material been that effective?

[LFC]

Ugh.

Donald Trump could be back to his old social media antics in just a few months. The two-year ban, barring the former poster-in-chief from Facebook, expires at the beginning of 2023. And Meta, Facebook’s parent company, hasn’t revealed whether it’ll be extending Trump’s virtual exile.

“When you make a decision that affects the public realm, you need to act with great caution,” Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, reportedly said during a media event hosted by the new news organization Semafor. It seems that Clegg is who will ultimately be tasked with deciding, one way or the other, the fate of Trump’s Facebook presence.

The exec further explained that, to determine the company’s future course of action, Meta would consult with outside sources, and assess the risk of “real-world harm.” All of which echoes previous company statements.

The former president was kicked off of Meta platforms, Facebook and Instagram, the day after the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, for his role in inciting the violent riots. Initially, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the block would last “indefinitely,” however Meta’s oversight board contested that decision, and mandated that a timeline for revaluation be imposed.

In June of 2021, the company complied with the board’s request and declared that, at the end of the two years, it would “look to experts to assess whether the risk to public safety has receded.”

[LFC]

Florida under DeSatanist is still trying to regulate social media to keep Republicans' lies on the most popular platforms.

Florida yesterday asked the US Supreme Court to reinstate its social media regulation law that made it illegal for sites like Facebook and Twitter to ban politicians.

Florida's petition said the Supreme Court should answer the questions of whether the First Amendment prohibits states "from requiring that social-media companies host third-party communications, and from regulating the time, place, and manner in which they do so," and whether the First Amendment prohibits states "from requiring social-media companies to notify and provide an explanation to their users when they censor the user's speech."

The Florida law is currently blocked by an order issued by the US Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, which made its ruling in a lawsuit filed by Big Tech industry groups. Florida filed its Supreme Court petition several days after a Texas social media law was reinstated by the US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit.

Florida's petition points to the contrasting decisions by the 5th and 11th Circuit courts as evidence that the Supreme Court should settle the over-arching questions relevant to both cases. Florida said the case over its own law is "an ideal vehicle" for considering "whether social-media platforms are 'speaking' when they host third-party speech."

A previous 5th Circuit ruling in the Texas case was vacated by the Supreme Court in May, suggesting the states face an uphill battle. The governors of Florida and Texas have both argued that state laws are needed to prevent censorship of conservatives on social media.

The Big Tech industry groups that sued Florida also said they want the Supreme Court to decide the case.

I guess we'll find out if right-wing SCOTUS truly believes a company has "freedom of speech" or if it's only Hobby Lobby and churches that get it.

[pnwguy]

Sept 22, 2022 21:33:57 GMT LFC said:

Florida under DeSatanist is still trying to regulate social media to keep Republicans' lies on the most popular platforms.

I guess we'll find out if right-wing SCOTUS truly believes a company has "freedom of speech" or if it's only Hobby Lobby and churches that get it.

Churches believe that any speech not in agreement with their doctrine is "disinformation" by default, so it should all be banned!

[LFC]

[slow head shake]

Yeezy To Buy Parler

Welp, we might have another reason why rapper Ye (formerly Kanye) West went off the rails with rants about The Jews (besides blatant anti-Semitism): He’s planning on buying Parler, one of the “free speech” social media platforms that Twitter-banned conservatives flock to, and what’s a better marketing ploy for that particular market than posting screeds about going “death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE” and getting yourself locked out of Twitter?

• West pointed directly at his Twitter (and Instagram) time-out as his motivation for the Parler purchase on Monday, telling Bloomberg that that was when he “knew it was time to acquire my own platform.”

• West also told Bloomberg that he uses social media “as my therapist.” Dear God.

[LFC]

Turns out Trump isn't the only one who can shoot somebody in the street and not have his kind of people care.

Kyle Rittenhouse is taking his fame from the shootings in Kenosha in Aug. 2020 and developing a YouTube channel to create videos about guns and to talk " ... about the 2nd amendment with all of you."

The 19-year-old was famously found not guilty of murder and other charges after shooting and killing Joseph Rosenbaum of Kenosha and Anthony Huber of Silver Lake, while also wounding Gaige Grosskreutz from West Allis, during a protest in Kenosha following the shooting of Jacob Blake.

Since that verdict, he has become a celebrity among the American political right as a gun rights advocate, being featured on conservative political television commentary programs, speaking at events held by conservative Turning Point USA and meeting with former President Donald Trump.

Rittenhouse's YouTube channel debuted on Sunday, Oct. 16 with a 35-second video featuring clips where he shoots various firearms at a target range and from a vehicle.

He credits popular gun-focused YouTuber Brandon Herrera, who speaks alongside Rittenhouse in the channel's first video, for helping launch the channel. Herrera said to expect "advice" on the channel, with no specifics regarding content beyond that.

Rittenhouse acknowledged those who have been fans of his over the past two years, saying, "Thank you guys very much for continuing to support me."

Funds are currently being raised online by Rittenhouse to battle the civil suits he has been named in, including a suit by Anthony Huber's estate.

[pnwguy]

Oct 18, 2022 20:11:21 GMT LFC said:

Turns out Trump isn't the only one who can shoot somebody in the street and not have his kind of people care.

If there are scary black people out in the streets, you are allowed obligated to shoot them.  

[goldenvalley]

Oct 18, 2022 20:11:21 GMT LFC said:

Turns out Trump isn't the only one who can shoot somebody in the street and not have his kind of people care.

Kyle Rittenhouse is taking his fame from the shootings in Kenosha in Aug. 2020 and developing a YouTube channel to create videos about guns and to talk " ... about the 2nd amendment with all of you."

The 19-year-old was famously found not guilty of murder and other charges after shooting and killing Joseph Rosenbaum of Kenosha and Anthony Huber of Silver Lake, while also wounding Gaige Grosskreutz from West Allis, during a protest in Kenosha following the shooting of Jacob Blake.

Since that verdict, he has become a celebrity among the American political right as a gun rights advocate, being featured on conservative political television commentary programs, speaking at events held by conservative Turning Point USA and meeting with former President Donald Trump.

Rittenhouse's YouTube channel debuted on Sunday, Oct. 16 with a 35-second video featuring clips where he shoots various firearms at a target range and from a vehicle.

He credits popular gun-focused YouTuber Brandon Herrera, who speaks alongside Rittenhouse in the channel's first video, for helping launch the channel. Herrera said to expect "advice" on the channel, with no specifics regarding content beyond that.

Rittenhouse acknowledged those who have been fans of his over the past two years, saying, "Thank you guys very much for continuing to support me."

Funds are currently being raised online by Rittenhouse to battle the civil suits he has been named in, including a suit by Anthony Huber's estate.

So much for my faint hope that he would accept his acquittal as the gift it was and disappear from public life.  I suppose now this will have to be his grift for many years.  He has no other skill or ambition apparently.

[LFC]

Candace Owens just scammed Herschel Walker. Stealing from the disabled is low, even for her.

[LFC]

Uh, OK. Is he planning on giving Twitter the vulture capital treatment, cutting meat and bone to make it look good for the moment while loading it up with debt, to try to get his overpayment out of it?

Elon Musk reportedly wants to lay off 75% of Twitter’s staff

Musk has previously gestured at plans for layoffs if he were to buy Twitter, but those cuts could go even deeper than previously imagined.

According to a new report from the Washington Post, Musk plans to purge 75% of Twitter’s workforce, or around 5,600 employees. If Musk’s vision for a much leaner platform comes to fruition, Twitter would be forced to operate with a sliver of its current staff.

Between broader economic factors and ongoing criticisms that Twitter has failed to deliver on its promise (at least as far as investors are concerned), Twitter was always going to trim its workforce. But cutting the staff down by three quarters isn’t what most people had in mind. The Post noted that Twitter already planned to cut around a quarter of its workforce — but leaving a quarter of the workforce is a different situation altogether.

A grain of salt is necessary here. While Musk reportedly described his aggressive plan over the past few months, there’s often a gulf between his words and the reality of the situation. Musk might want to lay off 75% of Twitter’s workforce — what dollar-signs-for-eyes investor or CEO wouldn’t want to make more money with fewer pesky salaries to pay! — but it’s also conceivable that Twitter wouldn’t even be able to operate if cut to the bone.

[goldenvalley]

Oct 21, 2022 15:49:44 GMT LFC said:

Uh, OK. Is he planning on giving Twitter the vulture capital treatment, cutting meat and bone to make it look good for the moment while loading it up with debt, to try to get his overpayment out of it?

Yes he is.  Get that company into bankruptcy as quickly as possible.  And sue the Twitter execs who lied about the value of the company to induce him to pay the price they wanted.

[LFC]

TPM notes that the Twitter deal makes no sense and is almost guaranteed to lose money. Interesting to me is the other investors who are in on this and staring down a big loss. On top of that Musk's headcount cutting announcement pretty much guarantees that the company is going to struggle.

It’s quite difficult to see from the business press whether Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter is about to go through or not. But if it does it will be critical to look closely at the identities of the foreign and sovereign wealth fund investors who are behind his purchase.

There are good arguments that Musk is purchasing it at as much as four times its actual value. Before he expressed interest in the purchase it was trading at little more than half the agreed purchase price. Put it yet another way, Musk is buying Twitter for almost 50x EBITDA. That happens in the hockey stick world of tech sometimes. But Twitter is not an early stage company.

Yesterday it was reported that Musk plans to cut some 75% of the workforce and radically scale back content moderation. That may be music to some people’s ears for ideological reasons. And it certainly may cut costs. But it won’t be good news at all for any plausible path toward making Twitter profitable or growing its value in a way that makes a successful exit possible.

But what if it was never meant to be a good financial investment?

William Cohan at Puck thinks basically everyone involved in this deal is royally screwed, from Elon down to the scrawniest Saudi princeling. He may be right. But that’s screwed in financial terms. For a lot of people around the globe, controlling Twitter and its data might be worth the loss.

The big picture is that there’s every likelihood that a lot of money is in the process of being lost on this deal. We need to see whether those losses are being made up for in some other currency.

[LFC]

The Twitter deal is sealed and Musk is already tearing the company apart.

Elon Musk has completed his $44 billion deal to buy Twitter, a source familiar with the deal told CNN Thursday, putting the world’s richest man in charge of one of the world’s most influential social media platforms.

Musk fired CEO Parag Agrawal and two other executives, according to two people familiar with the decision. Twitter declined to comment.

The deal’s closing removes a cloud of uncertainty that has hung over Twitter’s business, employees and shareholders for much of the year. After initially agreeing to buy the company in April, Musk spent months attempting to get out of the deal, first citing concerns about the number of bots on the platform and later allegations raised by a company whistleblower.

Musk appeared to acknowledge the takeover in a tweet Thursday night saying, “the bird is freed.”

By completing the deal, Musk and Twitter have avoided a trial that was originally set to take place earlier this month. But Musk’s takeover, and the immediate firings of some of its top executives, now raises a host of new questions for the future of the social media platform, and the many corners of society impacted by it.

In addition to Agrawal, Musk on Thursday fired CFO Ned Segal and policy head Vijaya Gadde, according to the two sources. Musk also fired Sean Edgett, Twitter’s general counsel, according to a source.

Musk is now yammering on about it being a free platform but also trying to double back and saying he doesn't want it turn into a complete steaming pile. Gee, if only a company had already been doing that like, oh I don't know, maybe Twitter? I think he's about to turn the platform into a shit-show because he has no idea what he's doing, just a huge ego and a vague idea that he can do better ... somehow.

Perhaps most immediately, many will be watching to see how soon Musk could let former President Donald Trump back on the platform, as he has previously said he would do. Depending on the timing, such a move could have major implications for the upcoming US midterm elections, as well as the 2024 Presidential campaign.

In taking those steps, Musk could singlehandedly upend the media and political ecosystem, reshape public discourse online and disrupt the nascent sphere of conservative-leaning social media properties that emerged largely in response to grievances about bans and restrictions on Twitter and other mainstream services.

Earlier this week, Musk visited Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters to meet with employees. He also posted an open letter to Twitter advertisers, saying he doesn’t want the platform to become a “free-for-all-hellscape where anything can be said with no consequences.”

[LFC]

[AnBr]

[AnBr]

Jim Wright
22h

Social Media has grown and evolved to the point where it is an integral part of our society.
For many, it's the primary source of personal interaction, news, information, and support.
It can no longer be controlled by billionaires or stock holders.
Like any other public utility, it needs to be regulated.

[LFC]

Musk told us that Twitter couldn't become a "hellscape" and then proceeded to post the very type of thing that would make it a hellscape. Much like sticking his nose into the Russian war on Ukraine, he has no f***ing idea what he's doing.

So to give you a sense of how this is going, Elon Musk started the day by replying to Hillary Clinton’s condemnation of the Pelosi attack with a link to an article containing an anti-LGBT conspiracy theory about the attack on Paul Pelosi. I don’t want to get into the details. But let your imagination go wild and it’s that bad. Now he’s deleted the tweet and is getting attacked by his alt-right fans for giving into the left wing mob. Twitter has always been a marginal proposition in business terms. I suspect that the advertiser exodus had already started. Whatever its other shortcomings, Facebook in its day was a killer app when it came to ad targeting. Advertisers found it impossible not to be there. The post-2016 climate has taken a toll regardless. Its market cap has now collapsed. Twitter is a far more marginal buy for advertisers.

[LFC]

Musk is now in the midst of a shit-show of his own making.

Elon Musk (and his consortium of much smaller investors) now owns Twitter. We need to take seriously the possibility that this will end up being one of the funniest things that’s ever happened.

That’s because as of this moment, it looks like Musk dug a big hole in the forest, carefully filled it with punji sticks and crocodiles, and then jumped in.

This was made immediately clear by Musk’s “Dear Twitter Advertisers” tweet as the deal closed:

[tweet here]

The statement starts off, promisingly, with a blatant lie: “The reason I acquired Twitter is because it is important for the future of civilization to have a common digital town square.” Musk apparently believes that no one will remember that until three weeks ago, he was desperately trying not to buy Twitter. The only reason he did is because he was about to lose Twitter’s lawsuit to force him to buy it. This may be the greatest “you can’t fire me because I quit” moment in history.

The significance of the rest of his statement is more subtle. To understand it, you have to start with the basics.

Twitter currently makes 90 percent of its revenue from advertising. (The rest is largely from data licensing.) This means that you, the Twitter user, are not Twitter’s customers. You are its product. Its customers are corporate advertisers and, as every businessperson knows, the customer is always right. Grocery stores care about the people shopping for Cheetos, not about the feelings of the Cheetos themselves.

Twitter’s content moderation has sometimes been heavy-handed — especially when it froze my account because David Duke got mad at me. But this is not because Twitter is run by a woke mob. It’s because Twitter needs to keep advertisers happy — and their top priority is a certain kind of environment for their ads.

The article goes on about how Twitter was already a marginal business and Musk has now made it even worse. That means he can't afford to make Twitter's advertisers nervous. Meanwhile the backlash is about to get very, very personal because they are no longer a faceless corporation. He IS now Twitter.

This is why Musk hit the ground running with a groveling attempt to propitiate advertisers. He absolutely must keep them happy. As he put it, “Twitter aspires to be the most respected advertising platform in the world that strengthens your brand and grows your enterprise.”

And that’s where the hilarity begins. Musk has engaged in endless paeans to the glory of free speech and the need to end Twitter’s invidious censorship. This clearly isn’t a subject he’s thought deeply about, since he said back in May that Twitter should delete “tweets that are wrong and bad.” Still, his vague pronouncements have given him a legion of right-wing acolytes who feel they’ve been ill-treated by Twitter.

But they are not Musk’s constituency now. Advertisers are. Even if Musk had some genuine commitment to free speech (which he absolutely does not), it would be essentially impossible for him not to continue significant content moderation.

That’s why, after a brief nod to his wish for Twitter to be a place “where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner,” he quickly pivoted to telling advertisers that “Twitter obviously cannot be a free-for-all hellscape, where anything can be said with no consequences! In addition to adhering to the laws of the land, our platform must be warm and welcoming to all.”

This could have been the mission statement of pre-Musk Twitter. But now there’s one big difference: When the content moderation of Twitter remains largely the same, the sense of betrayal among Musk’s super-fans will explode with the force of a supernova. And they will scream at Musk about it nonstop — on Twitter.

Another mogul might have the fortitude to ignore this. But Musk does not, judging by past performance.

He likely has no idea that he's in a no win situation.

It will be hell on earth for him. No matter what decisions he makes, he will infuriate large swaths of Twitter. The left will see its suspicions about him confirmed. The right will see him as a horrendous sellout, just another lying Big Tech swine. Joe Rogan will shake his head sadly about what happened to Elon. Eventually what used to give Musk the greatest pleasure, opening up Twitter on his phone, will be a source of excruciating pain.

[LFC]

Another piece on the person hell Musk is about to face. As noted he is not the kind of guy who can brush this aside. As the pressure and criticism ratchet up on his every decision expect his responses to become more unhinged.

Welcome to Hell, Elon
You break it, you buy it.

You fucked up real good, kiddo.

Twitter is a disaster clown car company that is successful despite itself, and there is no possible way to grow users and revenue without making a series of enormous compromises that will ultimately destroy your reputation and possibly cause grievous damage to your other companies.

I say this with utter confidence because the problems with Twitter are not engineering problems. They are political problems. Twitter, the company, makes very little interesting technology; the tech stack is not the valuable asset. The asset is the user base: hopelessly addicted politicians, reporters, celebrities, and other people who should know better but keep posting anyway. You! You, Elon Musk, are addicted to Twitter. You’re the asset. You just bought yourself for $44 billion dollars.

The problem when the asset is people is that people are intensely complicated, and trying to regulate how people behave is historically a miserable experience, especially when that authority is vested in a single powerful individual.

What I mean is that you are now the King of Twitter, and people think that you, personally, are responsible for everything that happens on Twitter now. It also turns out that absolute monarchs usually get murdered when shit goes sideways.

This describes the kinds of political problems he has to face. After seeing him get pwned and spoon fed talking points by Vladimir Putin I doubt anybody has any faith in his ability to handle them without tantrums and meltdowns. He actually has quite a bit in common with Trump on this front.

Actually, there’s a step before trying to get the ad money: it turns out that most people do not want to participate in horrible unmoderated internet spaces full of shitty racists and not-all-men fedora bullies. (This is why Twitter is so small compared to its peers!) What most people want from social media is to have nice experiences and to feel validated all the time. They want to live at Disney World. So if you want more people to join Twitter and actually post tweets, you have to make the experience much, much more pleasant. Which means: moderating more aggressively! Again, every “alternative” social network has learned this lesson the hard way. Like, over and over and over again.

Also, everyone crying about “free speech” conveniently ignores that the biggest threat to free speech in America is the fucking government, which seems completely bored of the First Amendment. They’re out here banning books, Elon! President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump have identical policy positions on Section 230: they both want to repeal it. Do you know why? Because the First Amendment prohibits them from making explicit speech regulations, so they keep threatening to repeal the law that allows social networks to even exist in order to exert indirect pressure on content policy. It’s not subtle!

State governments are even less subtle: both Texas and Florida have passed speech regulations that overtly tell social media companies how to moderate, in open hostility to the First Amendment. Figuring out how to comply with these laws is not an engineering problem (not least because compliance might be impossible). It is a legal problem because these laws are blatantly unconstitutional, and the only appropriate response to them is to tell the government to shut up and go away. (A big problem here is that the courts are pretty stupid about the internet!) A challenge to these laws, partially funded by Twitter, is headed to the Supreme Court, which is the polar opposite of a predictable system: it is a group of uncool weirdos with lifetime appointments that can radically reshape American life however it wants.

You can’t deploy AI at this problem: you have to go out and defend the actual First Amendment against the bad laws in Texas and Florida, whose taxes you like and whose governors you seem pretty fond of. Are you ready for what that looks like? Are you ready to sit before Congress and politely decline to engage in their content capture sessions for hours on end? Are you ready to do any of this without the incredibly respected policy experts whose leader you first harassed and then fired? This is what you signed up for. It’s way more boring than rockets, cars, and rockets with cars on them.