bluecrew wrote:

FLYFIRSTCLASS wrote:

Tugger wrote:

That will never happen and if you think it is possible then you are ill-informed.

Tugg

That's what Musk promised and as it should be. This is America and we have a 1st amendment.

Have you read the 1st Amendment? Particularly the first couple of words.

Your comment is an indication that you have not.

Most Conservatives have no clue what the 1st amendement is. They also have no clue about consequences that can be handed down from private entities for speech that they don't agree with,

Musk will be finding out shortly with his drop in revenue.

FLYFIRSTCLASS wrote:

Tugger wrote:

FLYFIRSTCLASS wrote:

[...] Making Twitter a true free speech unmoderated platform.

That will never happen and if you think it is possible then you are ill-informed.

Tugg

That's what Musk promised and as it should be. This is America and we have a 1st amendment.

We also have a capitalist system where businesses tend to not want to pay money to advertise on a platform that is essentially a free-for-all of hatred, bigotry, racism and incitation to violence... Good luck to Musk in trying to fund Twitter if he lets it become a cesspool of the worst of human behavior, as unmoderated and anonymous internet forums tend to become.

Of course, that is not what Musk intends to do. True unmoderation would be letting all the whackos like Alex Jones et. al. back on, or letting people post child pornography or snuff videos.
As he has now proven, all he really wants is to make Twitter an advertising tool for his own political agenda. This has nothing to do with free speech or the 1st amendment and everything to do with controlling the narrative.

Avatar2go wrote:

FLYFIRSTCLASS wrote:

Tech layoffs are running at full speed right now. I am sure some of those 10,000 that got cut from Meta would be glad to work at Twitter. It may be bumpy for a few month or two, but things will smooth out. Making Twitter a true free speech unmoderated platform.

The question is whether Musk is fostering free speech, or extremism. It's notable that free speech already existed on Twitter. Only the most extreme voices, who were advocating lies or destructive narratives, were suspended or banned. Now those voices are coming back.

Marjorie Taylor Greene is a good example. As it happens, she and Musk are on the same side on many issues, including Ukraine. So is he really advocating for free speech, or is he amplifying his personal agenda, at his personal whim?

He promised that he would not reinstate anyone without review by an independent moderation board. I think most people would have accepted that outcome, especially if it contained caveats for resumption of the earlier behavior.

Now, that is out the window, as so many of Musk's statements and promises have been. He did instead what many had feared he would do, making personal decisions for personal reasons.

He covered it with an unscientific poll of Twitter users, but I have no doubt he would have done the same for either outcome. Anyone who thinks this is solely about freedom of speech, is deluding themselves about Musk's true character. He is not an altruist, or even a particularly good citizen.

Won’t do Musk’s credibility any good if he is anywhere near that batty woman and her (KKK inspired) ‘Jewish Space Lasers’.
I just wish what whatabouists and general deflectors of that and other nonsense had the stones to admit it, including on here but not holding my breath.
Musk? Seems you can take the boy out of Apartheid South Africa but.......

FLYFIRSTCLASS wrote:

Tugger wrote:

FLYFIRSTCLASS wrote:

[...] Making Twitter a true free speech unmoderated platform.

That will never happen and if you think it is possible then you are ill-informed.

Tugg

That's what Musk promised and as it should be. This is America and we have a 1st amendment.

Musk can promise all he wants but Twitter is a global platform and unless he wants to be disconnected from any market,Twitter needs to follow the local laws, not only US laws.The EU won't be pleased if twitter breaks earlier promises and will not hesitate to cut Twiiter out of the EU. Second, advertisers do not want free speech. Unless Twitter gets enough payiing customers who will make up for the lost revenue, Twitter will eventually do what they want. Musk isn't stupid, when he has the choice of "free speech" or ensuring he remains wealthy, he'll choose the latter.

FLYFIRSTCLASS wrote:

Tugger wrote:

FLYFIRSTCLASS wrote:

[...] Making Twitter a true free speech unmoderated platform.

That will never happen and if you think it is possible then you are ill-informed.

Tugg

That's what Musk promised and as it should be. This is America and we have a 1st amendment.

You are either trolling or you don't know what the first amendment is..

You are protected from the government going after you for what you say and that does and that expands to some other public institutions. However if you go to your bank, your gym, your employer etc. and say crazy things to them. The bank and the gym have the right to cut you off as a customer, you would likely be fired if you insult your boss. Remember the right for you to swing your fist stops at my face.

Heck this site is moderated. If you insult another user you probably are given a vacation from the mods or the post gets removed. If you get a ban or posts get deleted are you going to file a lawsuit against A.net. IIRC it is domiciled in California.

The answer is obviously of course not, how is this different than Twitter? The only difference is the scale.

If I am correct, looking at Musk's actions, he will work to make Twitter an AI controlled content distribution platform with minimal human intervention and staffing. The AI systems unilaterally cutting off, suspending or terminating posts or users automatically (and perhaps set to reactivate after a specified period of time and limits for repeat offenders). Making it "free speech" with content moderated automatically and most importantly low cost to operate.

We'll see what happens.

Tugg

Tugger wrote:

If I am correct, looking at Musk's actions, he will work to make Twitter an AI controlled content distribution platform with minimal human intervention and staffing. The AI systems unilaterally cutting off, suspending or terminating posts or users automatically (and perhaps set to reactivate after a specified period of time and limits for repeat offenders). Making it "free speech" with content moderated automatically and most importantly low cost to operate.

We'll see what happens.

Tugg

It will be like his self driving cars. Occasionally running over the random pet or person, and then sometimes for no reason at all burst into flames.

casinterest wrote:

It will be like his self driving cars. Occasionally running over the random pet or person, and then sometimes for no reason at all burst into flames.

That is a remarkably succinct and likely accurate description!

Tugg

Tugger wrote:

he will work to make Twitter an AI controlled content distribution platform with minimal human intervention and staffing.

With half the staff gone, who does Musk expect to write the AI?

Avatar2go wrote:

FLYFIRSTCLASS wrote:

Here is an interesting youtube video of a former Twitter employee who I assume was one of the ones who Musk fired his first day in office, as opposed to one of the ones who quit. It really goes to show that the "grass isnt always greener" directed to those who quit. It really seems they will have trouble finding work again..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-voQsFY6SE

Musk reinstating the Babylon Bee, as well as Trump, without the moderation review process he had promised or any limiting action, was basically giving the middle finger to the left, whom he despises. He has the power to do that, but it will cost him.

As far as firing qualified and competent people, that too will cost him. I've seen other organizations do this, and they always point to the immediate savings but disregard the opportunity cost, which is huge. Twitter is no different. It will turn into the the high burnout and turnover employment model that exists at Tesla and SpaceX.

I have to say that clip is comedy gold. Usually good comedy is not right wing.

Bill Maher makes a joke about woke millennials. If you are the butt of comedy then you are doing something wrong.

I could see SNL writing this with exactly the same and I would cast Heidi Gardner as the girl, Colin Jost as the interviewer and Pete Davidson as the mechanic.

FLYFIRSTCLASS wrote:

That's what Musk promised and as it should be. This is America and we have a 1st amendment.

Tell me you don’t understand the 1st Amendment without telling me.

petertenthije wrote:

Tugger wrote:

he will work to make Twitter an AI controlled content distribution platform with minimal human intervention and staffing.

With half the staff gone, who does Musk expect to write the AI?

Well after he gets rid of another 75% of the half that remain, the new staff Twitter hires with expertise in that task and field.

Tugg

stratosphere wrote:

Avatar2go wrote:

FLYFIRSTCLASS wrote:

Here is an interesting youtube video of a former Twitter employee who I assume was one of the ones who Musk fired his first day in office, as opposed to one of the ones who quit. It really goes to show that the "grass isnt always greener" directed to those who quit. It really seems they will have trouble finding work again..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-voQsFY6SE

Musk reinstating the Babylon Bee, as well as Trump, without the moderation review process he had promised or any limiting action, was basically giving the middle finger to the left, whom he despises. He has the power to do that, but it will cost him.

As far as firing qualified and competent people, that too will cost him. I've seen other organizations do this, and they always point to the immediate savings but disregard the opportunity cost, which is huge. Twitter is no different. It will turn into the the high burnout and turnover employment model that exists at Tesla and SpaceX.

Who says he is not moderating ? He let back a few people Twitter banned. Kind of funny how Twitter bans Babylon Bee but is ok with a terrorist like Ayatollah Khamenei on their platform. I will admit I don't understand what Musk is doing but guess we will see.. I think any social media platform with 80% of it's employees have an implicit bias is a problem. Glad he kicked a bunch to the street.

Obviously it’s tough to tell but couldn’t we assume that those who stayed also have an implicit bias?

Francoflier wrote:

c933103 wrote:

The most important thing Twitter have, like most other social network product including this a.net we are on now, is its user. The role of software layer is to keep its users sticking to the software while able to make money from users doing so.

The user base is very important but the problem with Twitter, like with many other sites, is that anonymity and the Internet tend to bring out the worst of humanity. Twitter lives off of advertisers, not the user base directly. These advertisers do not want their brands associated with undesirable content. Moderating so many digital voices takes a lot of advanced tech, along with the manpower and their associated knowledge base to run it, which Twitter has now all but lost.

I agree with what you wrote, but I thought his "master plan" was to make Twitter self-funding and get away from depending on advertising?

One way to do that is to piss off all the advertisers, the "burning the canoes on the beach" approach.

stratosphere wrote:

Who says he is not moderating ? He let back a few people Twitter banned. Kind of funny how Twitter bans Babylon Bee but is ok with a terrorist like Ayatollah Khamenei on their platform. I will admit I don't understand what Musk is doing but guess we will see.. I think any social media platform with 80% of it's employees have an implicit bias is a problem. Glad he kicked a bunch to the street.

You are pointing out the problem with bans, it's impossible for there to be agreement on who should be banned and who should not. You're always going to trigger some subset of the user base on any ban, and the platform amplifies their voices.

Tugger wrote:

petertenthije wrote:

Tugger wrote:

he will work to make Twitter an AI controlled content distribution platform with minimal human intervention and staffing.

With half the staff gone, who does Musk expect to write the AI?

Well after he gets rid of another 75% of the half that remain, the new staff Twitter hires with expertise in that task and field.

Twitter now has a stench associated with it. People with a choice aren't going to want to contemplate putting their careers into Musk's hands. They don't want to be in an interview some time in the future trying to justify their decision to join the post-Musk version of Twitter. Most will decide to stay away.

Also, many people go to work at a company because they know and respect the people they will be working with. It's kind of hard for that to be true after you fire 7/8ths of the people who work there. Most of the people you might wanted to have learned from don't work there any more. The ones who stay are probably the ones who have no other options available to them, or embrace the erratic behavior of Musk and accept that they should give up having any sort of non-work life just because a billionaire demands that of them. It's really not an organization engineers with a choice will want to be associated with, IMO.

casinterest wrote:

bluecrew wrote:

FLYFIRSTCLASS wrote:

That's what Musk promised and as it should be. This is America and we have a 1st amendment.

Have you read the 1st Amendment? Particularly the first couple of words.

Your comment is an indication that you have not.

Most Conservatives have no clue what the 1st amendement is. They also have no clue about consequences that can be handed down from private entities for speech that they don't agree with,

Musk will be finding out shortly with his drop in revenue.

Correct. Many conservatives want freedom of speech for themselves without consequence but when a liberal says something controversial they are the first out with the pitchforks.

Revelation wrote:

Twitter now has a stench associated with it. People with a choice aren't going to want to contemplate putting their careers into Musk's hands. They don't want to be in an interview some time in the future trying to justify their decision to join the post-Musk version of Twitter. Most will decide to stay away.

Twitter has been a cesspool long before we were forced to actually pay attention to Trump on it and long before Elon. It's essentially a reality show on your phone.

The sad thing is that, with moderation, Twitter could be a valuable source of real-time information, before the MSM develops the story and checks sources. To be taken with a grain of salt for sure, but still useful.

For example in the Artemis cubesat missions, the teams are posting their successes and failures, mostly on Twitter. That's the kind of environment I imagine, when I think of what Twitter could and should be.

In the responses to those posts, are some ridiculing and negative comments. That in turn represents the downside of lack of moderation.

Avatar2go wrote:

The sad thing is that, with moderation, Twitter could be a valuable source of real-time information, before the MSM develops the story and checks sources. To be taken with a grain of salt for sure, but still useful.

For example in the Artemis cubesat missions, the teams are posting their successes and failures, mostly on Twitter. That's the kind of environment I imagine, when I think of what Twitter could and should be.

In the responses to those posts, are some ridiculing and negative comments. That in turn represents the downside of lack of moderation.

It is not really possible to have any social media that allow people to interact and expect people do not post anything negative against them. The only possibility to achieve this would be like YouTube where you lock up the comment section and hide the downvotes so that negative comments are hidden from the public view. But at that point why even post on social media instead of writing a blog.

c933103 wrote:

It is not really possible to have any social media that allow people to interact and expect people do not post anything negative against them. The only possibility to achieve this would be like YouTube where you lock up the comment section and hide the downvotes so that negative comments are hidden from the public view. But at that point why even post on social media instead of writing a blog.

It's true that you can't have discussion without valid representation of both sides. But part of the fallacy put forth by Musk and many conservatives, is that moderation necessarily suppresses one side or the other. That is a misrepresentation of the true issue.

In fact, moderation suppresses those comments that don't seek to inform or foster understanding of the issue, but rather seek to discredit the speaker, or the source.

In the cubesat example, for someone to post that the mission should have included a backup propulsion system, opens the door to discussion as to why it didn't, and how that might be improved in the future.

Whereas, posting that the team are idiots and don't know what they're doing, or that the whole idea is a stupidity, doesn't really foster understanding or discussion. It's just a flame contest.

The mystery is that we've had rules of debate for centuries, that prevent that kind of argument. But have not enforced them on social media, because of the spectre of censorship. Any person participating in elementary school debate, knows they cannot argue in such a fashion.

To be honest, I'd much rather adjudicate the rules of debate, and whether they are applied fairly, than deal with the spewing of derision and hatred that occurs without them.

Avatar2go wrote:

c933103 wrote:

It is not really possible to have any social media that allow people to interact and expect people do not post anything negative against them. The only possibility to achieve this would be like YouTube where you lock up the comment section and hide the downvotes so that negative comments are hidden from the public view. But at that point why even post on social media instead of writing a blog.

It's true that you can't have discussion without valid representation of both sides. But part of the fallacy put forth by Musk and many conservatives, is that moderation necessarily suppresses one side or the other. That is a misrepresentation of the true issue.

In fact, moderation suppresses those comments that don't seek to inform or foster understanding of the issue, but rather seek to discredit the speaker, or the source.

In the cubesat example, for someone to post that the mission should have included a backup propulsion system, opens the door to discussion as to why it didn't, and how that might be improved in the future.

Whereas, posting that the team are idiots and don't know what they're doing, or that the whole idea is a stupidity, doesn't really foster understanding or discussion. It's just a flame contest.

The mystery is that we've had rules of debate for centuries, that prevent that kind of argument. But have not enforced them on social media, because of the spectre of censorship. Any person participating in elementary school debate, knows they cannot argue in such a fashion.

To be honest, I'd much rather adjudicate the rules of debate, and whether they are applied fairly, than deal with the spewing of derision and hatred that occurs without them.

I don't think it's realistic to expect moderators of such a large platform (No matter Twitter or other similar site) spending sufficient energy to discern what is constructive and what is not, unless they hire people in the number of hundred thousands which again isn't realistic. There are hundreds of million people constantly using such service. So moderation on platform like Twitter can only focus on whether such comment broke rule or not.

For more context-sensitive moderation, even at the scale of a.net moderators are already stretching thin despite I guess active users each day are only in the number of thousands while moderators seems to be in the number of dozen. To scale it to Twitter with 200 million daily active users, that would mean Twitter will probably need half a million moderators or so.

This is the cost that would be needed to implement rule of debating when moderating a platform. No platform can financially support this.

Not to mention, social media aren't a place for people to debate.

c933103 wrote:

I don't think it's realistic to expect moderators of such a large platform (No matter Twitter or other similar site) spending sufficient energy to discern what is constructive and what is not, unless they hire people in the number of hundred thousands which again isn't realistic. There are hundreds of million people constantly using such service. So moderation on platform like Twitter can only focus on whether such comment broke rule or not.

For more context-sensitive moderation, even at the scale of a.net moderators are already stretching thin despite I guess active users each day are only in the number of thousands while moderators seems to be in the number of dozen. To scale it to Twitter with 200 million daily active users, that would mean Twitter will probably need half a million moderators or so.

This is the cost that would be needed to implement rule of debating when moderating a platform. No platform can financially support this.

Not to mention, social media aren't a place for people to debate.

You very well may be right that it's impractical to impose the rules if debate on social media. Still it would be interesting to try. Here is how I've envisioned it:

1. AI engines that evaluate and assign points to all posts based on adherence to rules if debate, courtesy, verified factual references, etc. With the user accumulating a score over time, that is visible to other users, and promoted in results ranking.

2. The AI engines being published as open source, with moderated changes based on community input, to improve the engines over time. Part of that would be the ability to submit posts on a trial basis, to either self-evaluate or to confirm an earlier score that is suspect. Also show the component breakdown so users could learn how to improve their posts in the rankings.

3. Users being able to flag content as either untruthful, unverified, in violation of rules, etc. Also to protest scores they believe to be unfairly applied. These inputs after human review, would be incorporated into the engine training.

I believe that over time, such a system would converge on an active community that supported free speech, but within civil bounds, based upon accepted rules of debate. It effectively would teach those rules to users, while allowing them a voice in determining the rules. Also would not require censorship or banning, the user would simply be de-ranked to the point of oblivion. But could also recover by improving behavior.

This system would essentially mirror the rules of society. Behave well, and you have an audience. Behave badly, and you don't, although people who wish to follow your bad behavior could still search and find you.

Lastly as far as social media not being a proper forum for the rules of debate, I disagree in rhe strongest possible terms. Even Elon says it should be a public square. Those types of meetings do still necessarily have rules.

Avatar2go wrote:

You very well may be right that it's impractical to impose the rules if debate on social media. Still it would be interesting to try. Here is how I've envisioned it:

1. AI engines that evaluate and assign points to all posts based on adherence to rules if debate, courtesy, verified factual references, etc. With the user accumulating a score over time, that is visible to other users, and promoted in results ranking.

2. The AI engines being published as open source, with moderated changes based on community input, to improve the engines over time. Part of that would be the ability to submit posts on a trial basis, to either self-evaluate or to confirm an earlier score that is suspect. Also show the component breakdown so users could learn how to improve their posts in the rankings.

3. Users being able to flag content as either untruthful, unverified, in violation of rules, etc. Also to protest scores they believe to be unfairly applied. These inputs after human review, would be incorporated into the engine training.

I believe that over time, such a system would converge on an active community that supported free speech, but within civil bounds, based upon accepted rules of debate. It effectively would teach those rules to users, while allowing them a voice in determining the rules. Also would not require censorship or banning, the user would simply be de-ranked to the point of oblivion. But could also recover by improving behavior.

This system would essentially mirror the rules of society. Behave well, and you have an audience. Behave badly, and you don't, although people who wish to follow your bad behavior could still search and find you.

Lastly as far as social media not being a proper forum for the rules of debate, I disagree in rhe strongest possible terms. Even Elon says it should be a public square. Those types of meetings do still necessarily have rules.

I think what you ate describing is basically Reddit where its upvote and downvote buttons were supposed to let users vote based on submission quality but ultimately being used as a way to reflect how much they like a post. I would imagine introducing community judgement in modration would have similar result. People, or even organized malice actors, will simply flood such system with report of content they don't like.

c933103 wrote:

I think what you ate describing is basically Reddit where its upvote and downvote buttons were supposed to let users vote based on submission quality but ultimately being used as a way to reflect how much they like a post. I would imagine introducing community judgement in modration would have similar result. People, or even organized malice actors, will simply flood such system with report of content they don't like.

No, sorry, no similarity to Reddit whatsoever. Reddit is an example of the opposite, no enforcement of the rules of debate or civil society. Moderation is entirely in the hands of the Redditors, with large variations in how they view the discussion. That's just a massive multiplier of Muskian mercurialism, raised to the nth power.

Twitter has closed its Brussels office after senior staff left the office. This means that it also doesn't have any staff who work on the EU's new laws around misinformation and may lead to Twitter being banned from the EU. Moreover, as the EU noticed that removal of hate speech dropped by almost 5%..

https://www.businessinsider.nl/the-twitter-office-responsible-for-complying-with-european-misinformation-laws-has-been-shut-down-after-elon-musks-layoffs/

c933103 wrote:

I think what you ate describing is basically Reddit where its upvote and downvote buttons were supposed to let users vote based on submission quality but ultimately being used as a way to reflect how much they like a post. I would imagine introducing community judgement in modration would have similar result. People, or even organized malice actors, will simply flood such system with report of content they don't like.

Indeed. If the gain is worth the pain, click farms will be re-targeted to scamming such systems, if this hasn't happened already.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, please check out:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Click_farm

Free speech comes at a price. A perhaps easy way to moderate is to have a small charge to posters who repeatedly offer malicious lies and hate. You would be required to have on deposit $25, and offenses could be charged between $1-5. Most of us would occasionally be dinged a dollar. Hater and liars would quickly learn. Or be contributing a lot to Musk and Twitter. These fees could also be extended to 'likes' and retweets. It would not be inappropriate to expect those fees to cover a lot of the expense of moderation.

Perhaps some would be happy to pay $25 to get their message out there.

frmrCapCadet wrote:

Free speech comes at a price. A perhaps easy way to moderate is to have a small charge to posters who repeatedly offer malicious lies and hate. You would be required to have on deposit $25, and offenses could be charged between $1-5. Most of us would occasionally be dinged a dollar. Hater and liars would quickly learn. Or be contributing a lot to Musk and Twitter. These fees could also be extended to 'likes' and retweets. It would not be inappropriate to expect those fees to cover a lot of the expense of moderation.

This is just like the blue checks for $8 per month. Great in theory until a bunch of people paid for verified accounts and trolled.

It will be seen as a bargain for many trolls to cause trouble. If you wanted this to have impact then you would need to increase it by a factor or 10 at minimum.

Anyone who has a life situation that $25 matters has no time for Twitter

I think you would be surprised by the effects of small monetary fees. Liars and haters typically are cheapskates, and there would be no problem with escalating the size of fees to cover moderator expenses for checking every tweet of particularly bad posters. Likes and sharing would really disappear fast.

Musk has announced resumption of banned and suspended accounts next week, with very few exceptions. Again he did this after an arbitrary informal poll, which really just provides cover for what he wants to do. I think we can safely kiss the moderation council goodbye.

He may be doing the calculus that the advertisers that would leave over this, have already left, so he has nothing to lose.

The real test will be over the next event that triggers widespread conspiracy theories and/or violence, as COVID and the 2020 elections did. That will be interesting, since Musk is personally claiming responsibility for these decisions, he will also be open to civil liability. The corporate veil won't protect him.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/24/tech/elo ... index.html

LJ wrote:

Twitter has closed its Brussels office after senior staff left the office. This means that it also doesn't have any staff who work on the EU's new laws around misinformation and may lead to Twitter being banned from the EU. Moreover, as the EU noticed that removal of hate speech dropped by almost 5%..

https://www.businessinsider.nl/the-twitter-office-responsible-for-complying-with-european-misinformation-laws-has-been-shut-down-after-elon-musks-layoffs/

Surprised it is 5% instead of order of magnitude level of difference

c933103 wrote:

LJ wrote:

Twitter has closed its Brussels office after senior staff left the office. This means that it also doesn't have any staff who work on the EU's new laws around misinformation and may lead to Twitter being banned from the EU. Moreover, as the EU noticed that removal of hate speech dropped by almost 5%..

https://www.businessinsider.nl/the-twitter-office-responsible-for-complying-with-european-misinformation-laws-has-been-shut-down-after-elon-musks-layoffs/

Surprised it is 5% instead of order of magnitude level of difference

This is an example of why 'statistics' can be so misleading:

A 5% increase among all the posts in a day that are deemed to contain 'hate speech' can mean that the usual average number of posts that contained what was decided to be 'hate speech' has increased by a factor of 5, or 500%.

Musk has now stated that he feels no obligation to the promised moderation council review of suspended and banned accounts, because he offered that to advertisers in return for them resuming ad revenue to Twitter. Since the revenue did not materialize, the council is off the table.

I think that points to the faults in his thought process. He doesn't see the council as an necessary or independent good, but rather as a ploy or bargaining chip. Even if he had done it, he didn't want it and wouldn't have kept it.

What he wants to do, is what he has done, have personal control of the moderation process. I suspect he won't substantially deviate from that model.

Avatar2go wrote:

Musk has now stated that he feels no obligation to the promised moderation council review of suspended and banned accounts, because he offered that to advertisers in return for them resuming ad revenue to Twitter. Since the revenue did not materialize, the council is off the table.

I think that points to the faults in his thought process. He doesn't see the council as an necessary or independent good, but rather as a ploy or bargaining chip. Even if he had done it, he didn't want it and wouldn't have kept it.

What he wants to do, is what he has done, have personal control of the moderation process. I suspect he won't substantially deviate from that model.

It looks like he really wants Twitter being banned in the EU........

LJ wrote:

It looks like he really wants Twitter being banned in the EU........

It certainly looks like Twitter's days in Europe are counted.

All part of the genius plan I'm sure...

Then again, it is becoming increasingly clear that Musk only intends to use Twitter as a political tool which may mean it's useless to him outside of the US.

Francoflier wrote:

LJ wrote:

It looks like he really wants Twitter being banned in the EU........

It certainly looks like Twitter's days in Europe are counted.

All part of the genius plan I'm sure...

Then again, it is becoming increasingly clear that Musk only intends to use Twitter as a political tool which may mean it's useless to him outside of the US.

A very expensive political tool at $44bn.

But perhaps the other investors also see it that way (a political tool).

Vintage wrote:

c933103 wrote:

LJ wrote:

Twitter has closed its Brussels office after senior staff left the office. This means that it also doesn't have any staff who work on the EU's new laws around misinformation and may lead to Twitter being banned from the EU. Moreover, as the EU noticed that removal of hate speech dropped by almost 5%..

https://www.businessinsider.nl/the-twitter-office-responsible-for-complying-with-european-misinformation-laws-has-been-shut-down-after-elon-musks-layoffs/

Surprised it is 5% instead of order of magnitude level of difference

This is an example of why 'statistics' can be so misleading:

A 5% increase among all the posts in a day that are deemed to contain 'hate speech' can mean that the usual average number of posts that contained what was decided to be 'hate speech' has increased by a factor of 5, or 500%.

Isn't it talking about "decrease" in "removal", aka number of moderation action being taken?

LJ wrote:

Avatar2go wrote:

Musk has now stated that he feels no obligation to the promised moderation council review of suspended and banned accounts, because he offered that to advertisers in return for them resuming ad revenue to Twitter. Since the revenue did not materialize, the council is off the table.

I think that points to the faults in his thought process. He doesn't see the council as an necessary or independent good, but rather as a ploy or bargaining chip. Even if he had done it, he didn't want it and wouldn't have kept it.

What he wants to do, is what he has done, have personal control of the moderation process. I suspect he won't substantially deviate from that model.

It looks like he really wants Twitter being banned in the EU........

I think EU would only (and could only) issue fines and punishment instead of banning such a website, unless content in question are copyright violation

Reports emerging now that Twitter has lost about 50% of advertisers, with revenue amounting to $1B per year.

https://www.npr.org/2022/11/25/11391800 ... =18&f=1001

A significant drop ocurred after the impersonation of Eli Lilly caused a stock price reduction. Publicly traded pharmaceutical companies don't want to have that vulnerability on Twitter.

https://endpts.com/biggest-drug-compani ... lin-spoof/

c933103 wrote:

LJ wrote:

Avatar2go wrote:

Musk has now stated that he feels no obligation to the promised moderation council review of suspended and banned accounts, because he offered that to advertisers in return for them resuming ad revenue to Twitter. Since the revenue did not materialize, the council is off the table.

I think that points to the faults in his thought process. He doesn't see the council as an necessary or independent good, but rather as a ploy or bargaining chip. Even if he had done it, he didn't want it and wouldn't have kept it.

What he wants to do, is what he has done, have personal control of the moderation process. I suspect he won't substantially deviate from that model.

It looks like he really wants Twitter being banned in the EU........

I think EU would only (and could only) issue fines and punishment instead of banning such a website, unless content in question are copyright violation

I guess you haven't read the new Digital Service Act, which came into force last week. The EU can go to court and request a temporary suspension of service (which technically the EU can do quite easily). Also note that the fines for platforms like Twitter are up to 6% of the global turnover.. Will be interesting to see if Musk would like such a claim. As for "well we're in the US so why bother"... I would say, ask US websites why they block people from the EU due to GDPR.

LJ wrote:

c933103 wrote:

LJ wrote:

It looks like he really wants Twitter being banned in the EU........

I think EU would only (and could only) issue fines and punishment instead of banning such a website, unless content in question are copyright violation

I guess you haven't read the new Digital Service Act, which came into force last week. The EU can go to court and request a temporary suspension of service (which technically the EU can do quite easily). Also note that the fines for platforms like Twitter are up to 6% of the global turnover.. Will be interesting to see if Musk would like such a claim. As for "well we're in the US so why bother"... I would say, ask US websites why they block people from the EU due to GDPR.

Twitter does not appears to match the act's definition of very large platform of being used by over 10% EU consumers?

c933103 wrote:

Twitter does not appears to match the act's definition of very large platform of being used by over 10% EU consumers?

Just to clarify, the DSA specifies that service providers with a user base of over 10% of the EU population, or alternatively at least 45M users, automatically qualify as VLOP's (Very Large Online Platform), which have the highest level of regulatory scrutiny.

However the act also allows for discretion in the assignment of VLOP status, depending on the impact of the service and the potential for abuse.

Thus although Twitter, at around 30M EU users, does not meet the automatic qualification, the EU has issued several warnings that it could use discretion to hold Twitter accountable to VLOP standards. I would not be at all surprised if that happened.

Even without VLOP status, most of the DSA rules still apply to smaller providers. Only the level of oversight changes.

Here is a good summary of the DSA legislation, and how Twitter might fit into the requirements.

https://techcrunch.com/2022/11/16/digit ... nto-force/

StarAC17 wrote:

casinterest wrote:

bluecrew wrote:

Have you read the 1st Amendment? Particularly the first couple of words.

Your comment is an indication that you have not.

Most Conservatives have no clue what the 1st amendement is. They also have no clue about consequences that can be handed down from private entities for speech that they don't agree with,

Musk will be finding out shortly with his drop in revenue.

Correct. Many conservatives want freedom of speech for themselves without consequence but when a liberal says something controversial they are the first out with the pitchforks.

So true, as we see more and more people banned for being critical of Twitter and Musk

Anyone else see the irony of Musk trying to get out of buying Twitter because he didn't trust Twitter's own data on subscribers, but now he's using Twitter's own data on subscribers to show he's doing a good job as CEO???

As if cutting spending on servers and firing half the people somehow makes the subscriber data more reliable?

Revelation wrote:

Anyone else see the irony of Musk trying to get out of buying Twitter because he didn't trust Twitter's own data on subscribers, but now he's using Twitter's own data on subscribers to show he's doing a good job as CEO???

As if cutting spending on servers and firing half the people somehow makes the subscriber data more reliable?

It is the narcissistic way. Blame every one else unless it makes you look good.

Revelation wrote:

Anyone else see the irony of Musk trying to get out of buying Twitter because he didn't trust Twitter's own data on subscribers, but now he's using Twitter's own data on subscribers to show he's doing a good job as CEO???

As if cutting spending on servers and firing half the people somehow makes the subscriber data more reliable?

I had the same thought. But since Musk's estimates were later debunked by his own consultants, he may have given up the ghost on that issue.

The more surprising thing was his claim of the user base growing. That could be conservatives who left Twitter coming back, but it seems in contradiction to the widespread reports of people leaving. I'll be surprised if that is sustained in any way.

Avatar2go wrote:

The more surprising thing was his claim of the user base growing. That could be conservatives who left Twitter coming back, but it seems in contradiction to the widespread reports of people leaving. I'll be surprised if that is sustained in any way.

Twitter is a private company now, Trump is under no obligation to tell the truth, so we can know for sure that any numbers he gives out have no relation to reality and are skewed in a direction he sees as favorable to him.

casinterest wrote:

So true, as we see more and more people banned for being critical of Twitter and Musk

I don't know how anyone didn't think that it would become Elon friendly speech only. Its just getting started.

Now if app stores start banning Twitter Elon wants to make his own phone.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/11 ... an-twitter