Elon Musk Warns Twitter Users, 'You Are Being Manipulated by the Algorithm' (twitter.com) 281
Twitter's potential new owner just made this announcement to his 93.1 million followers. "Very important to fix your Twitter feed," the annoncement began:
1. Tap home button.
2. Tap stars on upper right of screen.
3. Select "Latest tweets".
You are being manipulated by the algorithm in ways you don't realize.
Easy to switch back & forth to see the difference.
Currently it's been pinned to the top of Elon Musk's Twitter feed. And minutes later, he added this reply to his own tweet. "This message brought to you by the Illuminaughty."
Hours later Musk posted some clarification. "I'm not suggesting malice in the algorithm, but rather that it's trying to guess what you might want to read and, in doing so, inadvertently manipulate/amplify your viewpoints without you realizing this is happening.
"Not to mention potential bugs in the code. Open source is the way to go to solve both trust and efficacy."
Musk's motivation isn't clear — but just minutes earlier he'd tweeted a reply to own tweet from Friday that had suggested Twitter users check a sample of 100 Twitter accounts for the percentage of fake/spam/duplicate accounts. "I picked 100 as the sample size number," Musk had added as a reply Friday, "because that is what Twitter uses to calculate less than 5% fake/spam/duplicate." Musk's follow-up tweet today?
"Twitter legal just called to complain that I violated their NDA by revealing the bot check sample size is 100! This actually happened."
The tweets follow three more from the last 24 hours which all apparently comment wryly on Musk's planned acquisition of Twitter. "Whoever thought owning the libs would be cheap never tried to acquire a social media company!" Musk tweeted earlier this afternoon. "At least, that's what the lib hivemind thinks haha."
And an earlier tweet appeared to allude to his recently-expressed interest in the number of fake/spam accounts on Twitter. Friday night, Elon Musk tweeted:
"The bots are angry at being counted."
2. Tap stars on upper right of screen.
3. Select "Latest tweets".
You are being manipulated by the algorithm in ways you don't realize.
Easy to switch back & forth to see the difference.
Currently it's been pinned to the top of Elon Musk's Twitter feed. And minutes later, he added this reply to his own tweet. "This message brought to you by the Illuminaughty."
Hours later Musk posted some clarification. "I'm not suggesting malice in the algorithm, but rather that it's trying to guess what you might want to read and, in doing so, inadvertently manipulate/amplify your viewpoints without you realizing this is happening.
"Not to mention potential bugs in the code. Open source is the way to go to solve both trust and efficacy."
Musk's motivation isn't clear — but just minutes earlier he'd tweeted a reply to own tweet from Friday that had suggested Twitter users check a sample of 100 Twitter accounts for the percentage of fake/spam/duplicate accounts. "I picked 100 as the sample size number," Musk had added as a reply Friday, "because that is what Twitter uses to calculate less than 5% fake/spam/duplicate." Musk's follow-up tweet today?
"Twitter legal just called to complain that I violated their NDA by revealing the bot check sample size is 100! This actually happened."
The tweets follow three more from the last 24 hours which all apparently comment wryly on Musk's planned acquisition of Twitter. "Whoever thought owning the libs would be cheap never tried to acquire a social media company!" Musk tweeted earlier this afternoon. "At least, that's what the lib hivemind thinks haha."
And an earlier tweet appeared to allude to his recently-expressed interest in the number of fake/spam accounts on Twitter. Friday night, Elon Musk tweeted:
"The bots are angry at being counted."
Great job! (Score:4, Insightful)
The self-proclaimed genius has figured out what has been all over the media for over a year now.
Re:Great job! (Score:4, Insightful)
The real question is does he realize he has been in his own echo chamber hell loop for over a year without understanding what it was?
Own the LIBS!!!!!! (Score:3)
Ya know, if he just took away the idiotic political claptrap he's fallen into, one could argue that he makes some good points.
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Irony (Score:2, Informative)
Musk, who deploys tweet bots to boost the share price of his companies, warning users that they're being manipulated.
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s e c.
are you all listening to what musk is doing
He's trying to torpedo the deal... (Score:2)
...when it falls through, he will just say the books were cooked or that Twitter cancelled for no reason or whatever.
Feeding the fire (Score:3, Insightful)
...when it falls through, he will just say the books were cooked or that Twitter cancelled for no reason or whatever.
He said that? I heard that he stated explicitly that he was still interested in the purchase. I don't think he said what you think he said.
Twitter made a recent filing 10-Q [cloudfront.net] where they estimated the number of spam/fake/bot accounts at less than 5%:
We have performed an internal review of a sample of accounts and estimate that the average of false or spam accounts
during the first quarter of 2022 represented fewer than 5% of our mDAU during the quarter. The false or spam accounts for a period represents the average of
false or spam accounts in the samples during each monthly analysis period during the quarter. In making this determination, we applied significant judgment, so
our estimation of false or spam accounts may not accurately represent the actual number of such accounts, and the actual number of false or spam accounts
could be higher than we have estimated.
This is in the official quarterly report, filing with the SEC. If twitter is shown to be off by a little, maybe possibly even being off by 100% (10% of total accounts instead of 5%), then that might pass muster.
If the total amount is *significantly greater* than 5
Re: Feeding the fire (Score:2)
It's worth noting that number of accounts and daily active accounts is different.
There may be reasons that bots don't get monetized.
Twitter could be 50% bots but the 5% claim still be true.
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For them to be lying they would have to know it wasn't true. More likely, if the number is more than 5% it's because their technology can't detect those fake accounts.
5% is probably about right. The influence that fake accounts have is disproportional. They are after all designed to be propaganda machines. It might seem like there are more of them because of that.
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That's an extremely insightful take.
So it seems that Twitter only used a sample size of 100 to get their 5% estimation. With such a small number protected by NDA, it seems like it was picked on purpose. With all the computing resources Twitter has, surely they can afford a larger sample size! Maybe that's the largest size they could run and get an honest 5%? With all the caveats and specific verbiage in their filing, they're not telling a lie so they're in the clear... But it definitely seems like an intent
I sure wish we had a functional government (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm no lawyer but I do believe what he is doing here is extremely illegal. You're not allowed to manipulate stock market prices in order to make purchases. But laws don't apply when you've got as much money as he does. I just don't understand why we tolerate having these elites be above the law. If you are I pulled this crap we'd be hauled in front of Congress if we were lucky and probably slapped and cuffs
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Yeah, it's basically like letting termites loose at a house you're interested in buying. Problem with that is, you may get a better deal, but now you've got a pest problem to address. Maybe there's a bit more to that analogy..
I'd like to see Musk get punished. Hell, I'd like to see Trump face justice for some of what he's gotten away with, too. I'm not going to hold my breath waiting. As you said, these sort of people aren't who the laws are written for. Laws only apply to the plebs.
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I genuinely don't see how he can purchase Twitter at a lower price. He already signed a contract for the agreed price.
Even if he somehow convinces Twitter to let the contract breach slide and start over, shareholders would be (understandably) furious. The Twitter board would drown in lawsuits.
Re:I sure wish we had a functional government (Score:5, Insightful)
The purchase contract likely includes terms for due diligence and that important findings of things not disclosed can lead to renegotiations of the purchase price.
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It does not. The only bailout provisions are either party paying $1bn, on common agreement, or a successful a Material Adverse Effect court claim.
I guess he's aiming for the latter, but there's zero chance it goes through. Unless Twitter has been somehow blatantly lying on their SEC filings over the past 5-ish years.
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It does not. The only bailout provisions are either party paying $1bn, on common agreement, or a successful a Material Adverse Effect court claim.
I guess he's aiming for the latter, but there's zero chance it goes through. Unless Twitter has been somehow blatantly lying on their SEC filings over the past 5-ish years.
So Musk tanks the stock price, then announces "oh, the company is failing, my new offer is $35B, if you don't want it then I'll pay the $1B severance".
Granted, Musk is fairly media savvy so he might not do this for fear of the bad press from screwing over the retail shareholders.
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So Musk tanks the stock price, then announces "oh, the company is failing, my new offer is $35B, if you don't want it then I'll pay the $1B severance".
As noted, only if Twitter agrees. Why wouldn't they sue Musk if it comes to that?
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"Here's my new offer. You'll find it most generous considering the value of your company. Of course, the board remains the way it is, no changes planned (save one or two necessary ones).
If you disagree, I'll pay the 1b and let you crash and burn, and the whole board is SOL.
You have a minute to decide."
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Yeah, with the caveat of that being blatantly illegal.
And also you're wrecking the value of the company you're trying to buy in the process.
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Unless you've seen the actual contract, I would be hesitant to claim that there is no due diligence provision.
(A due diligence provision is a provision where the purchaser examines the company purchased to see if the purchaser is getting what the seller claims. Determining the number of actual active users and users who are bots would normally be part of due diligence.)
Because due diligence provisions are standard boilerplate and don't get mentioned in news stories about contract terms. But they're omnipre
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If I sign a contract to buy a house and the contract says the house does not have mold, and I discover it is completely filled with mold, the contract would be broken.
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No, he did not. He agreed to purchase the company at a price, given (among others) the information Twitter publicly releases in SEC filings, which is where the ~5% figure comes from.
He can of course claim that Twitter lied on this, which involves a Material Adverse Effect claim in courts, but these very rarely, if ever, succeed. A lot of people used MAEs to try renegotiate deals made before the COVID pandemic hit, and very few succeeded.
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I genuinely don't see how he can purchase Twitter at a lower price. He already signed a contract for the agreed price.
Even if he somehow convinces Twitter to let the contract breach slide and start over, shareholders would be (understandably) furious. The Twitter board would drown in lawsuits.
I don't know if it's legal or not but... The current turmoil of future of Twitter is sinking Twitter's market price. If Elon Musk take this chance to buy more Twitter stock in market, he will need to pay less in actual acquisition?
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If Elon Musk take this chance to buy more Twitter stock in market, he will need to pay less in actual acquisition?
Oh, it would be very illegal. But then again, the Tesla stock he's taking loans on to pay for the purchase has fell 30% in the last month or so as well.
It was a dumb purchase before, and it is even dumber now.
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Remember the golden rule.
Who has the gold makes the rule.
Re: I sure wish we had a functional government (Score:5, Insightful)
Free speech absolutist?
Do you believe you should be able to yell false accusations against someone in public? Or bogus threats of bombs? Or threats of violence?
All without any punishment?
I don't think any reasonable person thinks this sort of thing should be allowed.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think any reasonable person thinks this sort of thing should be allowed.
I'd go further, and say that even dada21 doesn't believe that sort of thing should be allowed; rather he was presenting a deliberately overstated argument as a way of demonstrating the problems with Musk's "free-speech-abolutism" position.
Dunno if that sort of rhetoric really works on the Internet though; when communicating via text it's hard to tell when someone is making a genuine argument vs. being sarcastic (Poe's Law and all that).
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Musk has demonstrated that he doesn't like criticism on Twitter. He offered to pay that guy who tracks his private jet to stop doing it, for example. Whatever he really thinks about free speech, he clearly thinks that money should entitle him to silence people he disagrees with.
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This has to be the dumbest comment I've read in a long time. Laws, rights and justice system doesn't work the way you imagine it to work. But it's quite that only someone who has no clue about it can consider himself a 'free speech absolutist'.
"Throwing rocks at people is legal but you're not immune to the consequences of hitting someone".
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Ah, so you're ok when I say that, say, you run a pizzeria and in the basement, you run a child sex ring?
Nothing bad will come out of that little lie, would it?
The pump and dump continues (Score:5, Interesting)
Musk and Trump are two incredibly big examples of what I call this current period the age of the grift. Like if you didn't know this already about Twitter, you just weren't paying attention. So considering that I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that Musk isn't a complete idiot, he tweeted this for the exact purpose to tank Twitter's stock price.
And par for the course, nothing will be done by the current US administration because, IDK, the President is too busy taking a fucking nap or something. But to be fair, the previous President would have fucking pinned a medal on Musk for him being "the absolute best person, nobody is better than him, everyone agrees he's the best."
We're fucked when the only two political parties we've got are such fucking useless excuses for governance. One's too busy trying to regulate a woman's uterus and the other is too busy telling us that a woman's uterus is the most important thing facing America today. You know what? How about skipping the civics bullshit and ensuring this market manipulation stops fucking happening seeing how all our retirements are tied to this shit and a single guy has decided to de-bro-stroy the thing we've hitched are wagons to. And while someone, literally anyone is at it, how about addressing some of this inflation too. Civil rights aren't going to really mean shit if we're at each other's throat because no one can afford food.
Re:The pump and dump continues (Score:5, Funny)
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I want a third party, but I don't think the one you have in mind is going to get enough people behind it to break the duopoly.
I'm more looking for one that will get us single payer (aka first world) healthcare by any means necessary. But the fewer people voting for the two scam parties, the better.
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Unless you also change the first-past-the-post system, all you do within a decade or two, is to end up with two different parties. We've been there before.
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Get your anatomy straight. He said we need an uterus, not a cunt.
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Nicknamed "the dicks".
I think the current president (Score:5, Insightful)
A little stock market manipulation is way down the totem pole of things that our president has time to deal with.
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No. Congress is nearly deadlocked, so nothing substantive can be done. Anything Biden does can just be reversed by whoever comes next. Sometimes I think this is the best that government can do, but the defect is that it encourages the executive branch to become an autocracy.
Re: I think the current president (Score:2, Insightful)
Biden and the Dems have a majority in both houses. Everything that happens is on Biden and Pelosi right now, they hold all the power, from Afghanistan to Ukraine to China and COVID, they got gifted an automatic recovery on which to capitalize, instead they blame everyone else, weâ(TM)re supposedly still in COVID emergency mode even though nobody worries about shots or masks anymore.
The problem is their political stance on everything is so far to the left they canâ(TM)t even get a majority of lefti
Re: I think the current president (Score:5, Informative)
Unfortunately not as simple as that. You need a full-on 60 clear votes in the Senate to stop the filibuster -- which is a requirement for ANY kind of controversial (e.g., one-sided) legislation.
This is why when either party has a majority in the Senate, they usually still can't get all the things done they want, because it's rare for either party to have that full 60 number. (Also, Dems have 2 Senators right now that vote along conservative lines more often than their own party.)
We don't really have to (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not even hard to see why. Go read newt Gingrich's Wikipedia article and you'll find that the gridlock is entirely caused by the Republicans who blamed the damage caused by it on Democrats and use that to get power during election cycles. Gingrich called it his contract with America strategy. Personally I call it smash and grab. Either that or political terrorism because the goal is to cause chaos and fear so that voters will blame the Democrats in hand the reins of power over to Republicans.
We've watched this song and dance multiple times. There's no reason at this point to continue to repeat it. One party is objectively better than the other. And you can get around the problems of one party rule just by voting and primary elections for the Democratic Party. Plus given time the Republican Party can die off in the Democratic Party can split into a left and a right wing.
There's no longer any reason to let right wing extremists hold political office in America. All conservative policies can be effective right-wing policies have been shown consistently and repeatedly to not be only ineffective but actively damaging.
Wait if you have no idea what (Score:3)
It might be a good idea to ask where you're getting your talking points from and what their motives might be.
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for the express purpose of turning you against Biden or political gain?
I'm not even a US voter so what would that gain be?
But the whole affair around Burisma smells.
It might be a good idea to ask where you're getting your talking points from and what their motives might be.
Various media all over the political spectrum. The US department of justice and their investigation against Hunter Biden - the fact that there'S enough crap for the district attorney (Wilmington) to get involved.
And if you seriously think that the son of a previous vice president and (at the time it all apparently happened) presidential candidate does such business without his dad knowing then you're even less fami
Re:I think the current president (Score:5, Insightful)
Biden is involved in some dirty dealings with Ukraine. No idea what and not sure if we'll ever find out
That's hilarious. What we know for sure is that Trump was involved with dirty dealings with Ukraine. He was literally impeached for it. Manafort was paid tens of millions of dollars to help install Russia's man in Ukraine (who preceded Navalny) which he then concealed from the government, eventually arrested for it, then later pardoned by Trump. Trump and Manafort were both working for Russia — When Trump pardoned their asset Manafort, it was well after every non-Russian bank had kicked him to the curb. Russia is Trump's only source of financing now because banks don't like being defrauded, and the whole world now knows that Deutsche Bank only loaned Trump money on the basis of the scam where he called in pretending to be an officer of his father's corporation. Hilariously, you can easily recognize his voice and accent in the recording of the call, but somehow they failed to do so, which makes them look like a bunch of dumbfucks. Banks don't like looking stupid either.
No idea what and not sure if we'll ever find out, but the whole shit with his son and then the whole thing blows up and everyone thinks there's no connection?
We know beyond any doubt that Paul Manafort helped Russia install a leader in Ukraine. We know beyond any reasonable doubt that Trump tried to pave the way for Russia's invasion into Ukraine, both by weakening NATO and by refusing to provide aid to Ukraine well in advance of Russia's invasion. The Biden administration has been consistent in providing aid to Ukraine. US intelligence successfully predicted Russia's attack on Ukraine, and most of their predictions about the attack came true (some of which have been confirmed by information they released before the attack.
Why do you assume that whatever was going on was nefarious? Some associated graft would not shock me, and I do not intend to support it, but what we know is that the Trump administration was actively trying to harm Ukraine, and the Biden administration has consistently supported it. Are you opposed to support of Ukraine against Russia? Because that's most likely what Hunter was doing in Ukraine, besides the usual nose-powdering and such. I'm not a Hunter fan. Shit, I'm not even a Biden fan. He's a centrist at best. But what I'm really especially not is a Russia fan. Not Russians, get them out of their environment and they're just people like anyone else. But as a single entity, Russia has a long history of atrocities. It's kind of what they're known for, both against other people, and even their own people. And frankly, I'm willing to accept some graft if it means preventing the rebuilding of the Soviet Union.
The whol thing didn't need to happen, I agree on that. But honestly I think that a lot of forces in the west not only wanted it to happen, but actively acted towards making it happen.
Well, we know Trump worked towards making it happen. Is there any evidence that Biden did that? Because all of the available evidence so far shows that he worked against it.
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And par for the course, nothing will be done by the current US administration because, IDK, the President is too busy taking a fucking nap or something.
Because it's Twitter. In the grand scheme of things, the average American is more concerned with the rising cost of living and various other pocketbook and social issues, not whether or not they'll be able to get their doomscrolling fix through Twitter.
Musk can flush the service down the toilet after buying it, and I'll still be paying whatever awful price gas is going for. I'll still be worried about political issues that affect my rights as a gay man. I'll still have to go grocery shopping and say "wha
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The issues you raise (reproductive freedom in particular, civil liberties in general) are incredibly useful means of keeping the populace at each other's throats and generally ignoring some really important issues of financial policy, international trade policy, and matters of global and domestic economics. The decisions made on these fronts are not put to vote (or are put to shame votes only), but they impact us and the whole world in a profound and fundamental way.
We don't get a say, because America is a [washingtontimes.com]
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And par for the course, nothing will be done by the current US administration because, IDK, the President is too busy taking a fucking nap or something.
Musk has learned one thing from Trump -- throw red meat at the Republican base, and they'll give you political cover for practically anything you want to do afterwards. Then every crime gets reduced in the media to a he-said/she-said culture-war fight, and after the noise dies down, you can skate.
If the DOJ were to step in and prosecute Musk, you can just imagine the howls from the right wing about government censorship and freedom and Musk is being politically persecuted and blah blah blah. So the Presid
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One, if the stock price can be dumped with a few silly Tweets, then it's obviously not a stable company (and/or not a stable financial system).
Two, you're not the only country with imbeciles at the helm. I've been looking at my home country (Germany) with more disgust every election. Nowadays it seems like being a loser without proper qualifications for anything is almost a precondition to get a government position. Then I realize no, wrong, the main and increasingly only qualifications are being a proper p
He is actively trying to destroy Twitter. (Score:2)
There is a conflict between him trying to buy and trying to harm it's value. At this point it is not just a hostile takeover but an attempt to destroy the company's reputation.
Buy it or do not, until then STFU.
Re: He is actively trying to destroy Twitter. (Score:2)
Especially when he is using information he received in good faith with an NDA to do so.
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No, the point is that the NDA information was false.
And I'm amused at the talk of "trying to destroy twitter"... imagine allowing dissenting views from the "woke/fake liberal/Biden Democrat" hive mind the platform has been pushing.
You don't want discussion, you don't want dissenting opinion. to have that would be "the destruction of social media." what a joke.
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... should be at least gagged until their deal to purchase said company does or does not go through.
By whom and under what authority?
Re: He is actively trying to destroy Twitter. (Score:2)
By SEC, under its own authority, that it obtains from the act of Congress.
Re: He is actively trying to destroy Twitter. (Score:2)
So the SEC should make laws to prevent exposing false statements made to the SEC by companies?
Pay what you signed for, Elon (Score:2)
Looks like you're the last person to realize what a shit deal buying Twitter is.
Twitters numbers are fudged! (Score:2)
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Actually, studies have shown that the vast majority of advertisers, especially the bigger ones, are not getting anything remotely close to value for money.
They keep doing it for the classic reason. Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM. Also, the marketing department has a vested interest in convincing everyone else that giving money to the marketing department is a good idea. And they *are* the marketing department after all.
Rich (Score:3)
Fat words from someone totally manipulated by the right. Anakin has totally become Darth Vader. He's acting like the left never gave him the carbon credits and tax breaks that helped Tesla survive its hardest years. Guaranteed he's convinced himself Tesla never needed it. I am pretty sure's already been convinced global warming is a myth.
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Who's manipulating him?
Uh, are you drunk?
manipulated by (Score:2)
You are being manipulated by Musk himself too.
Elon the Liberator (Score:3)
He would have his sycophants believe that this is the digital D-day.
yawn
Elon Musk wants attention (Score:3)
Sample size (Score:2)
It's been a while since I did stats but I think the 95% confidence interval for a sample size of 100 and a true mean of 5% is [0.73, 9.27].
I'm not sure what's going into the reasoning for Twitter's inhouse 100 user sample (if they do it on a regular basis it's more meaningful) but if you're doing a $44B acquisition and only taking a 100 user sample I'd say you're trolling more than doing your due diligence.
Re: no one cares anymore (Score:2, Troll)
This guy is currently leading the way for: Electric vehicles, space exploration, global low-latency internet access, battery storage, and possibly a few other important emerging technologies. It's kind of hard to not care about these things, unless you happen to be somebody like Ted Kaczynsky, but if that's you then slashdot is one of the last places you'd be.
Re: no one cares anymore (Score:5, Insightful)
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He got triggered by Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. And also Fremont/California tried to shutdown the gigafactory during the pandemic. He couldn't handle that fear/trauma of what the lockdown might cost and that triggered him to go full throttle right wing. That really ached his balls. Same way Anakin got triggered to become Darth Vader. You know the Yoda quote.
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He seems to shit post on social media and manipulate stock prices.
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Because twitter is an important technology for the continuation of democracy and the rule of law?
No. Just no.
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Because twitter is an important technology for the continuation of democracy and the rule of law?
Hey, that's a good one! Got a few more zingers like that, you could have a gig in Vegas!
Wait... you're serious?
Re: no one cares anymore (Score:5, Insightful)
This guy is currently leading the way for: Electric vehicles, space exploration, global low-latency internet access, battery storage, and possibly a few other important emerging technologies.
That's... arguable. But more importantly, it is besides the point.
The OP's sentiment and the inciting incident has nothing to do with "this guy's" business ventures - it's about his cringeworthy behavior, rivaling that of a 9-year-old with ADHD.
It's actually kinda depressing.
By ANY measure of success he's supposed to be someone inspiring.
He's got all the money and the supposed freedom it provides, all the best toys you mention... and still I read what he spends his time on and get 4chan flashbacks.
Can someone like... give the guy a hug or something?
Re: no one cares anymore (Score:2)
The OP's sentiment and the inciting incident has nothing to do with "this guy's" business ventures - it's about his cringeworthy behavior, rivaling that of a 9-year-old with ADHD.
It's actually kinda depressing.
By ANY measure of success he's supposed to be someone inspiring.
He's got all the money and the supposed freedom it provides, all the best toys you mention... and still I read what he spends his time on and get 4chan flashbacks.
Success on the level he has is typically part of a packaged deal.
https://www.chicagotribune.com... [chicagotribune.com]
FWIW people always say the same shit about me. Basically I get comments like this: "How is it that you're so responsible but you're also so immature?" or "How are you such a fucking genius but you can't pay attention for one minute?" It's also why I'm given a ton of autonomy at work while also bringing in decent pay.
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I shouldn't have to say this: Musk owns a controlling share in a bunch of companies. He is rich and this is how he has spent his money. The fact that those companies do things does not imply that Musk does things. His primary role seems to be as cheerleader and spokesperson, and he has proven himself to be very effective at raising funds in this ma
Re: no one cares anymore (Score:5, Insightful)
Your comment is really embarrassing. It looks like you're getting blinded by hate and are just spouting nonsense.
Electric vehicles are really simple things.
If electric vehicles are such simple things, why didn't somebody else create a company specializing in electric cars before Tesla? Musk's merit is not that he invented the electric motor. Is that he put together an end-to-end solution, from a power distribution network to battery factories to car manufacturing, and he proved electric cars to be not only a viable alternative, but in may ways superior to the ICV. He brought competition to an industry that had grown complacent and whose innovation was getting limited to changing the shape of the headlights.
The problem with 'em has always been one of economics, not technology. Musk hasn't fixed that.
What was that problem? Price? Electric cars are now available at prices comparable to internal combustion ones, and, as technology advances and new battery factories come online, the price can only go down. The cost of energy? Electric cars are already more economical than ICVs, and with the price of gas going up the difference will become even more significant. Distribution of energy? Recycling of batteries? Scarcity of rare metals for batteries? Please explain: what's the "economic problem" you're postulating that remains, from what you say, still unsolved? Also please explain why are electric cars becoming popular if that huge economic problem hasn't been solved yet.
In fact, he's still selling electric cars to pretty much the same clientele who would've bought that car Leno has, back in its day.
What a ridiculous and meaningless thing to say. Who were "the same clientele" that would have bought Leno's electric car, as opposed to ICVs? The one percenters perhaps? Then you're off by orders of magnitude: for example, almost two thirds [engadget.com] of the new cars sold in Norway last year were electric. Electric cars have become mainstream, and you have to credit Musk for that. If it's not the one percenters, who then are the "same clientele" you complain about? And, even assuming you can actually define them (which I doubt), why would selling electric cars to those people be a bad thing?
Re: no one cares anymore (Score:2)
Re: no one cares anymore (Score:2)
The only reason the price is going up is because demand has spiked. Gas powered cars are going up even faster right now, tough mainly because of supply shortage. I bought a brand new carolla in 2019 for $16,500 that's now worth $22,000 used. Considering cars are supposed to lose 20% of their value the second you drive it off of the lot, that's saying something. Because of that rise in price, people are increasingly looking at EVs.
Re: no one cares anymore (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
All he did was buy it.
And turn it from a garage company into a global company.
Re: (Score:2)
The problem with 'em has always been one of economics, not technology. Musk hasn't fixed that. In fact, he's still selling electric cars to pretty much the same clientele who would've bought that car Leno has, back in its day.
Musk is selling cars at the price the market will pay.
Right now he can't manufacture them fast enough to keep up with demand so what exactly do you want him to be doing? Working on a $20,000 car? He still hasn't launched his truck and that will take all the production facilities for the next five years when it gets launched.
The cheap Teslas will come later.
Or you can buy Nissan/Hyundai/etc....
Re: no one cares anymore (Score:2)
Musk states the obvious (Score:2)
All featured/recommended feeds are garbage. YouTube's recommended feed is full of pseudoscience BS, Reddit's "Best" promotes stuff from the bowels of their weirdest subs (even if it's stuff you're clearly not into), and even most retail stores pollute your search results with irrelevant "Sponsored" items.
As long as there's an incentive to monetize Twitter's userbase, there will always be promoted shit shoved in your face that you're not interested in seeing. That is, unless Musk wants to take it subscript
Re: (Score:2)
YouTube's recommended feed is full of pseudoscience BS
If you watch only "good" science videos, Youtube seems to recommend more good videos.
Hint: If you want to watch a low-quality video, do it in incognito mode so Youtube doesn't think you want more of the same.
Re: Musk states the obvious (Score:2)
Press the 3 dots. Select âoedo not recommend this channelâ.
Doesnâ(TM)t take much time to help it stop showing you that.
Re: (Score:2)
Watching too many Thunderfoot busted videos will do that to you.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: no one cares anymore (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
yours its nazis+++ at one side and nazis at the other, its amusing to see US politics
Nah, it's more like the lyrics from that classic rock song "Stuck in the Middle with You".
Clowns to the left of me
Jokers to the right
Here I am stuck in the middle with you
Re: no one cares anymore (Score:2, Informative)
Yeah Europeans like to say that, right up until people show them things like this:
https://www.pewresearch.org/gl... [pewresearch.org]
https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]
A lot of European countries like to just pretend that it doesn't exist:
https://harvardpolitics.com/no... [harvardpolitics.com]
Besides, Europe is the only place where you can find actual fascists being elected in political offices:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world... [bbc.com]
It makes sense though, fascism (asking with communism) was invented in Europe after all, and they dragged us into a war ove
Re: no one cares anymore (Score:5, Insightful)
"Besides, Europe is the only place where you can find actual fascists being elected in political offices:"
Really? As a European I'm ready to admit that fascism is on the rise but I would dare to ask you to look carefully at US politics and one party specifically.
Re: (Score:2)
Russia who is behaving in every way like the Nazis did right now.
LOL! Putin's stated reason for invading Ukraine was to liberate the people from their Nazi president.
Re: no one cares anymore (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The Japanese empire attacked and occupied the US empire's overseas colonies as part of their expansion ambitions. So "dragged into it" the same way European countries got "dragged into" most wars for the last few hundred years.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Whats not to get? You get tweets from the people you follow. Whether theyre organized by the algorithm or chronologically you see tweets and retweets from who you choose to follow. If you don't like what you are seeing follow other people? Like I don't get this complaint.
There is shit that happens outside that like if you go by trending or if you search by the top topics but thats just asking for garbage but thats almost any site.
Same with youtube, the algorithm feeds you stuff based on what you already watched and are subscribed to. Go to the general trending and it's a whole different world. Have the minorist of agency and critical engagement with the platform and it can be a good resource.
Twitter is you get out of it what you put in. I find it a good news source because I can follow not just publications but the individual reporters and pundits. It's a good way to actually get a pretty broad range of views. Despite what some think about it there is actually a good amount of conservatives as well as liberals and leftists as well as just generally smart and insightful people posting interesting dicsussions. Want to see a guy breakdown, repair and explain the workings of an ISA card that turns a DOS machine into an Apple II? It's on Twitter. [twitter.com]
Re: (Score:2)
To his credit the guy does have a website packed with other cool shit and he sells some neat parts he makes. [tubetime.us]
I agree, looking back now at relatives that short lived "age of the blog" was nicer than todays social media format but just saying, theres cool shit even on Twitter. Like you could just follow retro electronics accounts and thats all youd see on Twitter
Re:Oh heck yeah (Score:5, Informative)
There was a tweet by a liberal media outlet saying right wingers are the most dangerous demographic in the nation
They're not wrong [theguardian.com]. In fact, another one went out of his way [cnn.com] to murder nearly a dozen people a few hours ago.
and i mention BLM and Antifa riots looting and burning down people's property and I got banned for it
Because burning property is the same thing as murdering people for the color of their skin. Also, white supremacists were involved in those burnings [theguardian.com] as well, but we won't hear you say anythinga about that, will we?
Further, a study about the protests showed the overwhelming vast majority were peaceful [harvard.edu] with less than 4% of all protests involving property destruction. As you will also note from the study, a police officer was killed by supporters of white supremacists, not any BLM protestors.
Would you like to know more?
Re:Oh heck yeah (Score:5, Interesting)
They're not wrong [theguardian.com]. In fact, another one went out of his way [cnn.com] to murder nearly a dozen people a few hours ago.
The "right winger" who describes himself as 'authoritarian left wing' in his manifesto? Especially concerning when they recently tried to assassinate a black mayor [yahoo.com]. And murder a crowd of people at a parade [nbcchicago.com].
Because burning property is the same thing as murdering people for the color of their skin.
That's cool how they are able to telekinetically control the fire and keep it from harming anyone. Oh wait people were burned alive [cnn.com]. Which was an obvious risk that the arsonists showed themselves more than happy to take every time they started a fire. Unless they posted warnings, thoroughly cleared the buildings, and set up fire suppression to keep it from spreading to uncleared buildings, the fact, say, disabled people might not be able to get out in time was clearly okay to them.
Also, white supremacists were involved in those burnings [theguardian.com] as well, but we won't hear you say anythinga about that, will we?
Every single person who does anything remotely like that should be prosecuted to the fullest extent. One of the things that markers white supremacism as a disgusting and abhorrent ideology is that it provides context for justifying such behavior. Any other ideologies which choose to express themselves by such means thereby prove they can comfortably sit beside white supremacy as siblings in character and thought.
Further, a study about the protests showed the overwhelming vast majority were peaceful [harvard.edu] with less than 4% of all protests involving property destruction.
Serial killers spend less than 0.1% of their nights about town murdering people so I guess not a problem, right?
Seriously, what is that statistic supposed to provide other than a political framing? If x is a problem the fact x can be called a small percent of some other category y... has no relevance at all to initial fact of x being a concern.
Would you like to know more?
Yes I would like to know between (a) getting bipartisan buy-in for a collaborative effort to wind down and eliminate extremism (b) opportunistically dunking on your political adversaries while ignoring mutual problems, which would you choose?
How about this - all attacks on the public are bad and evil. Anyone who encourages them, or from a position of responsibility (such as media) turns a blind eye to any one or any category of them, deserves to be called out. The most important calling out anyone can ever do is on they're own side, because generally no one listens across the aisle. And saddling one side with responsibility is the last thing you want to do, because at the same time you are sullying your opponents, you are also mainstreaming the extremists. We should be telling extremists that they have no home, not that half the country secretly supports them. If people start to commonly believe those accusations are reality I can tell you both the right and left are going to be more willing to broaden their coalition to welcome the new members than they are to sacrificially implode for the common good.