By "social media" we mean any large computer network that allows people to interact in shared communities. The big ones of course are Facebook, Twitter (X), and Instagram, but we can't forget newer platforms like Discord and Slack.
Dedicated video sites are off-topic here and YouTube has its own separate thread
.
What we should discuss in this OTC topic are news items, business operations, and activities by the networks themselves, not specific things posted by users. Those should go into threads appropriate to the subjects of those posts. For example, if an actor tweets about a film, we'd discuss that in the Media forum topic for the film, not here. If Facebook changes its policies, that could be discussed here.
The politics, motives, competency and wider business activities of the owners and leaders of social media companies (e.g. Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg) are also off-topic — except in situations where they are directly making specific policy for the platform.
Talking about a particular Instagram policy change (or a high-profile ban on a specific user) directly announced by Mark Zuckerberg would be acceptable in this thread, speculating about Zuckerberg's wider motivations wouldn't be.
The thread's also not about "dumb thing [public figure] said on [social media platform]". If there isn't a specific thread related to the subject of the statement (e.g. US Politics), then it's probably gossip and not worth talking about.
created back in 2020 that we never opened. Unfortunately, it's a little stale, so bumping it isn't going to work very well, but I would like to restart it. The reason I'm doing so is that the Computer Thread seems to have become the de facto place for this sort of talk, and it's a big tonal clash with talking about computer tech.
The hot topic of the day is Elon Musk's bid to acquire Twitter. We first discussed it in the Computer Thread, starting roughly here, and I am not going to rehash the entire discussion. Instead, I am going to resume from the last post:
CNBC: Twitter is reportedly taking another look at Musk takeover bid
Twitter's board is reportedly meeting with Elon Musk and may seek to negotiate on his buyout offer. Musk claims to have secured $46 billion in funding to buy the company at a valuation of $43 billion and is preparing to make a tender offer to its shareholders.
While the board has passed a poison pill, it could be facing resistance to that from groups of shareholders and will want to talk things out rather than face a hostile takeover. It's also possible that Twitter's stock could crash if the offer fails to go through.
Another possible topic was originally posted here.
Ars Technica: EU to unveil landmark law to force Big Tech to police illegal content
Following on from the recently passed Digital Markets Act, which requires large tech companies to unbundle first-party software from hardware platforms, the proposed Digital Services Act will require medium and large social media platforms and search engines to police hate speech and disinformation while adding additional protections for children against targeted marketing.
It also bans "dark patterns", which manipulate or trick people into clicking on ads or other content. The article doesn't explicitly say what that means, but I assume it includes things like disguising ads to look like parts of a site's user interface, hiding "close" buttons, and such.
For large companies, the requirements would go into effect immediately. For medium companies, they would have a grace period to implement the changes.
Thierry Breton, the EU’s internal market commissioner, has warned that Big Tech has become “too big to care.”
This phrase, "too big to care", intrigues me. It's an indictment of the idea that these companies have decided that growth and engagement metrics overwhelm any sense of social responsibility.
In my opinion, a law like this would be impossible in the United States, since it would be challenged (likely successfully) on First Amendment grounds.
Edited by Mrph1 on Dec 12th 2023 at 11:24:56 AM
Visiting from the Hoag Galaxy
Especially because "activist groups" is a dogwhistle for literally anyone who espouses leftist ideals or inclusiveness.
So it could include everything from the NAACP and the Trevor Project to the Autism Self Advocacy Network to some random group of anarcho-socialists and up to and including (potentially) the UN itself, because they get lumped in with "activist groups" sometimes.
So there's no way he actually made a deal because the range of possible "activist groups" is so broad that it's impossible for one to have happened.
Not to mention the advertisers themselves all basically just saying "it's because of Musk." They don't really care about calls for boycotts.
Edited by Zendervai on Nov 23rd 2022 at 9:32:20 AM
Not Three Laws compliant.
Oh, bother.
I forgot to put scare quotes around activists.
Disgusted, but not surprised
The Best Worst Psychonaut
"Ah yes, 'activists', the supposed horde of nebulous do-gooders allegedly camping directly outside your office armed with mean jokes. We have dismissed that claim."
Edited by PresidentStalkeyes on Nov 23rd 2022 at 5:11:36 PM
"If you think like a child, you will do a child's work."
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
That reference doesn't work because the threat the person saying that was dismissing did actually exist.
Welcome to Estalia, gentlemen.
The Best Worst Psychonaut
Fair point.
"If you think like a child, you will do a child's work."
RJ Savoy
This week's Neoliberal podcast talks about what Musk is doing to Twitter. The guest is from Techdirt, and both speakers are accustomed to moderating large-ish online platforms.
Mike Masnick shows deep conviction and complete disregard for his safety when he says that Twitter had one of the best moderating teams in social media. I also liked "I don't think Elon has a vision for the company either, but we have to assume he has for this discussion to work". They think Twitter might go completely offline, but think it's likelier that other media will take its place and it will go on by inertia.
My own take is that while Elon's takeover is a disaster by any conventional measure, it might yet be successful for Elon, who seems to want attention and adulation more than anything. He is being talked about everywhere, and many on the right are cheering him on (even if more out of "I hate Twitter and want to see it burn" than anything).
Stories don't tell us monsters exist; we knew that already. They show us that monsters can be trademarked and milked for years.
The problem with that assertion is that Musk wants positive attention. He wants to be praised and adored.
Being dunked on by pretty much everyone is not the kind of attention he craved, especially since he's incredibly thin-skinned.
Edited by DrunkenNordmann on Nov 23rd 2022 at 7:08:58 PM
Welcome to Estalia, gentlemen.
Perpetually Confused
Legal Eagle covering the various legal troubles Musk as accrued in his still short tenure of Twitter.
I hope these lawsuits go somewhere and he has to pay out of his own personal accounts. Rather than put Twitter into bankruptcy and forget about it. Impossible I know, just a wish.
With the alleged report out of Space "X", it’s worth remembering that basically every large organisation will engage in some level of managing up. Top staff simply do not have the time to see everything their organisation are doing and make informed decisions about it, they need to have things considered and assessed before being presented to them as options and informed choices.
When that fails you get people who should be making big-picture strategy decisions using their time to action small-scale projects and changes. Even if their involvement is useful to the staff tasked for said changes (which is rare) it still causes work to be left un-finished at the top level.
If that is characterised as “concealing” and “making decisions for them” or “escalating only when appropriate” and “providing informed advice and recommendations” is often times a matter of perspective and down to how deliberately established the process is.
If Musk is really autisticnote he'll probably be slightly prone to micromanaging or at least following technical things that most executives/owners would not care about.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Visiting from the Hoag Galaxy
He's not that technical. I don't mean that in a "he's not autistic" kind of way (I still have really serious suspicions about that just because the way it came up was odd) I mean in the sense that he never goes into any detail in interviews. If he was really technically oriented, interviews would be interrupted with these overly technical explanations of things that would be really hard for a layperson to follow, and his Twitter would be full of it, since there's a lot of stuff he could talk about that's not proprietary. We know he basically doesn't have a filter, especially on Twitter.
Instead, he only ever talks about stuff exactly as if he was a layperson who learned a little bit about a topic and didn't realize how little he actually knows about the big picture. The time he talked about building a tunnel between Baton Rouge and New Orleans is a great example of this, because he used really basic lay-person terms and missed entirely the fundamental reason why that area doesn't have underground transit, a reason he can't ever fix. If he was really technically oriented, he'd be aware there's places where tunnels just won't happen ever because that's one of the first things that road and transit planners learn.
Not Three Laws compliant.
Oh, bother.
He's not technical. He's a Control Freak who thinks he knows more than actual experts.
Disgusted, but not surprised
Visiting from the Hoag Galaxy
Exemplified by how he seemingly is refusing to talk to anyone who actually knows how Twitter functions and assumes he can read unfamiliar code and understand it perfectly, a thing no one can do.
Not Three Laws compliant.
Wait, who is claiming Elon Musk is autistic? Is he doing it to himself as one of those self-diagnosed cases?
OK, it was a mistake to bring that up. Let's not continue...
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Visiting from the Hoag Galaxy
When he was on SNL, he said he was the first host who had Asperger's. Which...1) that term is really out of date for a very good reason (it's named after a Nazi who kinda...used the category to identify disabled people the state could find useful and everyone outside that category was...disposed of) but I don't hold that particular thing against him, 2) is incorrect, Dan Aykroyd hosted multiple times previously and is 100% diagnosed with autism and 3) never mentioned it before or since, even in situations where it would seriously benefit him.
Sorry. Uh, I do think it's important for people to know the claim came from Musk, at the least, because it gets used to muddle the conversation around Twitter a lot.
Edited by Zendervai on Nov 23rd 2022 at 2:12:57 PM
Not Three Laws compliant.
This dumpster fire is turning into a regular California Wildfire. It's hilarious to watch the myths about Musk's competency crumble due to his own idiocy and watch him dig his own grave. It's just a shame that it has to destroy a lot of people's careers and livelihoods in the process.
Edited by ScubaWolf on Nov 23rd 2022 at 2:15:13 PM
"In a move surprising absolutely no one"
I'm sorry Tien, but I must go all out.
So, I've been getting kinda mixed signals here from the regulars, and I want to hear everyone's individual opinions. Are you:
- Hoping for Twitter's demise?
Or
- Hoping for Twitter to make a recovery?
Like, do you think Musk potentially killing Twitter to be a good thing overall or a bad thing overall? And would you want to see Twitter recover to the same or better state than it was before?
Visiting from the Hoag Galaxy
I want Musk gone and for Twitter to stabilize. And maybe increase the amount of moderation. I've seen too many good and/or innocent people harassed off the site for no good reason.
Like, I'm actually a passing acquaintance on there with the person who just got harassed off for the absolutely heinous crimes of...having a pet pig and wanting to take a dinner to a group of neighbors who seemed to order out a lot. She got attacked for days and it even ended up in a newspaper, because apparently offering food is horrible (???), and the neighbors were fine with it.
But the fact is that Twitter is one of the very few visible places that trans people and queer people can openly congregate and ensure that they aren't glossed over or ignored.
Edited by Zendervai on Nov 23rd 2022 at 2:43:55 PM
Not Three Laws compliant.
I actually wanted to be Resileaf
It feels like a uniquely rightist american viewpoint that providing help to others is humiliating.
Visiting from the Hoag Galaxy
A lot of people pretending to be leftist are like that too. There's a specific ring of people who will choose someone, usually an autistic or trans person, will start to pick and pick and pick at them under the guise of "but what if the recipients are deathly allergic to your food, or what if there's cultural restrictions?" or something similar and when their target blows up, the reaction is usually "how dare you attack a black trans person" or something similar and they can use it as leverage to get more and more people to attack their target too and create an internet pile-on that way.
My acquaintance got over a year of "wouldn't it be funny if we killed and ate her pet pig?" on every single post and whenever she tried to push back, it was just "oh, so she's racist and transphobic, huh?" And then they started to actively doxx her and the threats to her pet got more and more detailed.
And the people involved are very obvious and very notorious ban evaders who have been seen palling around (on Twitter) with Libs of Tiktok, to show how serious their lefty credentials are.
And I don't want to hear any blithering garbage about "thick skin" because I don't think anyone would be able to handle constant and seemingly credible threats about people wanting to kill and eat your pet well. The fact of the matter is that a lot of people are very isolated and they've found a good social circle on Twitter that doesn't exist elsewhere, and there are horrible people trying to ruin that.
EDIT: This is not intended to be drama importation, it's just a recent and clear example of this behaviour.
Edited by Zendervai on Nov 23rd 2022 at 2:56:09 PM
Not Three Laws compliant.
I'm in the "I hope Twitter falls" camp, though hypothetically it being put under better management and recovering would not be a bad thing.
My thought on the issue is basically that (to my understanding, I'll admit I've never once sent a Tweet) Twitter spreads sound bytes too small to contain too much meaningful information, and incentives them for being attention-grabbing. You'd need to do a considerable rework of the sight to stop it from being a place to spread dumb ideas.
"Any campaign world where an orc samurai can leap off a landcruiser to fight a herd of Bulbasaurs will always have my vote of confidence"
x5 Hoping for Twitter to fall low enough to where Musk ends up bankrupt from all the lawsuits and bad publicity (which has been doing a number on his Tesla stocks) and has to get rid of it. At which point it will rise from the ashes like a phoenix. But really, as much as I want Twitter to survive, I get more enjoyment out of seeing a billionaire fall to bankruptcy as his empire of lies crumbles around him.
Edited by ScubaWolf on Nov 23rd 2022 at 2:57:44 PM
"In a move surprising absolutely no one"
Note that when you say "said activists" that's a bit of a stretch coz Musk never names or implies who those "activists" he claims to have had made a deal with were. It's the CEO equivalent of the girlfriend that lives across the border that totally does exist no you can't see her.