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
This means paying roughly a dollar per affected user, which is a vanishingly small amount.
Still not embarrassing enough to stan billionaires or tech companies.
Lost in Space
...Lest we thought that Twitter was the good guy in this situation...
Edited by Fighteer on May 25th 2022 at 8:11:48 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Redmess
Yeah, I'm not sure why minorities are so eager to keep Twitter with privacy concerns like that. Maybe they shouldn't feel so bad about moving on after all.
Optimism is a duty.
No one's attached to Twitter as a platform. They're attached to the communities they've formed on Twitter. Uprooting those communities and reforming them, intact, elsewhere, isn't as simple as all that. If it were, it wouldn't be a problem... if it were, I daresay plenty of people would have done so by now.
Edited by Perseus on May 25th 2022 at 9:46:28 PM
Trans rights are human rights.
Visiting from the Hoag Galaxy
Can anyone actually name a viable alternative to twitter? Facebook is toxic, Discord is completely useless for a lot of Twitter's uses and even Mastodon has a walled garden problem where it's really easy to entirely split off entire communities from each other, making it useless for freelancers and artists and stuff to advertise properly.
Edited by Zendervai on May 25th 2022 at 7:51:39 AM
Not Three Laws compliant.
Redmess
I'm sure there's plenty out there, people just need to find them. I think once the need gets urgent, they'll find something new. There's always some up-and-coming startup trying to be like the big guys.
And even if there aren't, once Twitter goes down, you can bet half a dozen will pop up within the month.
Optimism is a duty.
Yeah, but reorganizing is hard, specially adapting to a new social media, so I can get why annoying if the social just tanks like that.
Also, for what I get some comunity are just tumblr community that migrated after tumblr stupid idea.
"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"
A procrastination in of itself
It depends what you want to do. If you just want a public space to discuss and comment upon things then then there’s plenty of free web-forum hosting services out there that would enable communities to be hosted (zetabaord is still alive in a form). For specific topics there already exist plenty of niche forums out there that people could use to publicise themselves, while there will remain plenty of general spaces (like Reddit or Facebook) where people can signpost others towards the niche spaces.
If Twitter goes it would represent the end of the mid-internet centralisation of social activity, where activity moved from specific groups, websites and chats into a central place with a central overlord. I see no need to bring in a new overlord, I want that decentralised system back.
It everyone agreed that we need to replace Twitter with a like for like product, I think it’s time for something different, be it something old or something new.
Edited by Silasw on May 25th 2022 at 1:27:15 PM
"And the Bunny nails it!" ~ Gabrael "If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we." ~ Cyran
The tesla stock thing reminds me of a question I had. The Twitter deal won't go through if tesla's stock drops below 400 before October, does that mean it fails the moment it hits below 400 or does it have to stay below 400 by October?
A procrastination in of itself
I don’t think it actually breaks the deal, it breaks the loan Musk is using to fund the deal. But he still has to pick between finding the money elsewhere or pulling out of the deal and invoking the penalty clause.
"And the Bunny nails it!" ~ Gabrael "If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we." ~ Cyran
Visiting from the Hoag Galaxy
That equity funding might mean he's trying to avoid the loan completely now, but yeah, it doesn't break the Twitter deal, it breaks the bank deal.
Not Three Laws compliant.
Lost in Space
That's part of the report that was linked earlier. Musk has secured enough financing to eliminate the margin loans on Tesla stock. It is no longer coupled to the deal in any way, so we can stop concerning ourselves about the share price... unless we want to keep dunking on Musk for tanking TSLA.
Edited by Fighteer on May 25th 2022 at 8:30:25 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Well that's disappointing.
Lost in Space
Well, as we said, this now puts all of the debt burden (the buyout price minus the shares Musk has already bought and/or committed to buying in cash) on Twitter rather than Tesla, dramatically increasing the likelihood that it will be unable to pay those debts and go bankrupt.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
A procrastination in of itself
Presumably Musk would still prefer to fund via the loan rather than the equity thing? In that case the Tesla share price does still matter, as it determines which way the deal gets funded.
"And the Bunny nails it!" ~ Gabrael "If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we." ~ Cyran
Lost in Space
Eh, it's other people's money at stake if he uses Twitter as collateral. This way he still has the option of selling stock or using margin loans to prop Twitter up if he needs to.
Edited by Fighteer on May 25th 2022 at 8:42:12 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Is Facebook that much more toxic than Twitter? I don't use social media period, but everything I've heard suggests they're both miserable hellholes.
Well... there goes the possibility of the buyout not happening at all.
Visiting from the Hoag Galaxy
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
It's the userbase and the way Facebook handles interaction.
Twitter has a lot of toxic people on it...but it's also less likely to have your insane family members on it, and even if it does, there's a lot less of a pressure to tell them what your username is or that you're present at all. Oh, also, Twitter isn't nearly as infested with MLM people.
Edited by Zendervai on May 25th 2022 at 8:50:01 AM
Not Three Laws compliant.
Lost in Space
Yeah, Twitter is infested with crypto scams instead.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Like reflections in the glass!
Edited by MorningStar1337 on May 25th 2022 at 6:42:33 AM
Lizard Metabolism
That doesn't seem to me as easy as some people here say. "Just change the platform", they say - but to what?
The reason people put up with stuff like Twitter, Youtube, Steam (to a lesser extent) is that these platforms are huge and easily accessible both. They provide an avenue for all sorts - and just like a raging fascist isn't going to be using Truth Social because it's a small irrelevant platform for the like-minded scum so he has no one to harass or heckle, similarly an artist peddling their stuff on Twitter won't go to some Small But Better We Promise platform, because how many people are going to be there?
YMMV on how that comparison works out since social media are not as important to your basic needs, but imagine these platforms as electric energy. You can't just say "alright, well, let's fuel everything with something else now, and toss the power plants in the bin overnight", because these platforms are too big now. The vacuum created after they would be gone isn't just going to be instantly replaced with a brand new set of social media platforms.
How do lizards fly?
Shockingly, it turns out that the "anyone can upset the market if you give the users what they want and there's a vacuum to fill!" capitalistic line doesn't really account for the vested interests of other corporations (via integration and data mining, in particular). And given inertia/the surface-tension effect of not leaving because everyone else is still there, I doubt we're going to see some techbro maverick storm the social media world with Twutter anytime soon.
(The version with an "a" already exists, it's called Truth Social.)
It's been fun.
Meanwhile, Twitter itself now has to pay $150 million in a settlement with the DOJ and FTC over privacy violations.
Apparently they were taking user data collected in the name of "security" and instead launching targeted ads with said data. (And not the first time they ran afoul of these regulations either.)
Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)