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.
One exception is Truth Social, due to its connection to Donald Trump. As there is a forum ban on US Politics, all discussion of Truth Social is off-topic and posts about the platform may be thumped.
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, then it's probably gossip and not worth talking about.
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 Nov 8th 2024 at 5:16:31 PM
The only thing I tend to more or less "like" of ED was they try at least also atacking right wing point and sometimes they dig thing even other didnt like that Milo before becoming the speakvoice of GG and earlier alt right did post atacking gamer saying they were loser who needed a life, which in insight show the playbook videogame grifter
"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"ED did indeed go after "bad" people as often as good ones, but I don't think I have to explain why that doesn't matter.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"I think this is on topic.
Elon Musk posted a deepfake video of Kamala Harris denigrating herself and Joe Biden on the site formerly known as Twitter
. If you can't read the NYT link, here's a report from Engadget
.
As they point out, doing so violates the site formerly known as Twitter's rules against "synthetic, manipulated or out-of-context media that may deceive or confuse people and lead to harm."
Ukrainian Red CrossJust a reminder —
- The US politics thread is still locked, and that broader topic is off-limits for the forums.
- Posts by Elon Musk aren't automatically on-topic. This latest one was relevant because he was seemingly breaking his platform's own policies, but that's an exception.
As we head into US election season, Musk and other prominent social media figures are likely to be more vocal. But that's not always going to be on-topic for this thread, and it shouldn't become a wider conversation about them, their politics, or politics in general.
Without getting into the politics of the post in question, I've seen people talk about the potential for a defamation case to arise from it. Social media and defamation go together like french fries and cheese curds, so if Harris sues it could become a very interesting trial balloon for how the legal system handles such things.
If you post deepfaked content knowing that it is fake and without marking it as such, does that satisfy the "actual malice" provision of defamation law?
Maybe this would be more suitable for a thread that discusses defamation cases, but it's interesting nonetheless.
Edited by Fighteer on Jul 29th 2024 at 9:17:25 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"That's the thing, though. X's official user terms of service require that any content posted as parody be flagged as such. So, if you know it's a fake and don't identify it, you're in violation of that rule.
It's harder to make a parody defense to defamation when the activity is in direct violation of the terms of service of the site you post it on.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"I imagine Musk could get away with arguing he believed that it was real footage, given his likes and replies on the platform. Unless he commissioned it himself you’d be hard pressed to prove what he actually knew.
On another front, NYT has an article up on Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino, including her struggles with trying to woo advertisers only for Musk’s antics to undo her hard work.
Some highlights are;
- She got to work paying the bills that Musk’s firing spree had caused, and managed to negotiate a cheaper contract with Google for their cloud servers.
- She worked to bring on Don Lemon to Twitter to host a show to woo advertisers, only for the first interview with Elon to go so awkwardly that Musk had the deal cancelled the very next day.
- After Elon told advertisers to literally fuck off and ruined her work in wooing them she managed to get him to go back to meet with them despite him complaining it’d make him look like he was begging for money
- despite the antics she’s very much on board with his vision for the company and is in it for the long haul
- Advertisers who do come back tend to Twitter are spending less than before
I wonder if she might realize it's a lost cause when Musk is still around.
"That we continue to persist at all is a testament to our faith in one another."![]()
From the article I don't think she will, she's rebuffed her social circle suggesting she leaves and is of a similar mind to Musk on a number of matters. It does sound like he picked the right CEO for his vision and she has produced results. If anything it makes her look better since from articles like this it makes it look like she's the one keeping the lights on at the company. That she can keep getting advertisers back to the table despite Musk's antics driving them away shows she is pretty damn good at the job.
Bumping for a news article: Don Lemon sues Elon Musk and Twitter over scrapped talk show.
If you remember the last article I posted mentioning how Twitter's CEO spent a lot of time setting up a deal with Don Lemon to host a news show on Twitter, only for Musk to be the first interviewed subject, getting really uncomfortable that Don was acting like a proper interviewer, and then terminating the contract the following day. Don is suing, claiming that Musk and Twitter announced the partnership to try and rehabilitate Twitter's image and then immediately terminate the deal, leaving Don out hundreds of thousands of dollars that he invested into the show.
I'm not sure how much of a shot this lawsuit has. If the intention always was to cancel the show immediately and only announce it to try and woo advertisers back then yeah that sounds like an open and shut case of fraud, but from the sequence of events and Musk's long documented history of making impulsive decisions you'd be hard pressed to argue that the deal wasn't made in good faith and got scuttled because Musk got upset and cancelled it on the spot. I think this boils down to the terms of the contract and what clauses were in there regarding cancelling the deal.
Even if Don lemon were to win that lawsuit, I doubt it would change much: Either you do use that as a case law for other social media (but few are dumb enough to host/sponsor a show/podcast as an official member of said social media in the first place), or it would be just an example of musk paying a fine that amounts to a slap to the wrist and not being trustworthy...
Which people already knew since he bought twitter and forgot to learn not to use social media yourself when the marketing team (or whatever 3rd party firm is in task of building a legacy) did an frankly great job crafting a reputation of "Real life Iron Man" (Geez, I remember that was a thing)
Edited by Thesegougou on Aug 2nd 2024 at 9:43:30 PM
I'm not crazy, just creatively different.

I think ED was spawned from 4chan, which really makes it the granddaughter site of SA.
On a lighter (and on-topic) note, you know how Doom runs on everything? It even runs on social media!
(Wafrn is an open-source microblogging service that integrates with the Fediverse, and it just added an Easter egg in the settings menu that has Doom in it).
(EDIT: My post drawing attention to Doom on Wafrn managed to pagetop both the Social Media thread and the Doom thread).
Edited by VampireBuddha on Jul 27th 2024 at 4:41:50 PM
Ukrainian Red Cross