Before she was one of the thousands of employees Musk laid off from Twitter at the end of last year, Melissa Ingle worked on a team responsible for civic integrity and tackling the spread of political misinformation on the platform. She also wrote algorithms to moderate harmful content. Ingle, who is now a senior data scientist at an IT company, said she couldn’t believe how bad these problems are now.
“The things that we were protecting against then are exactly the things that we’re seeing all over the site right now,” she said. “When it comes to political misinformation, you have to be on top of that stuff at all times, or it just spreads everywhere.”
And so the sources of all the how bad Twitter is stories. Elon laid off 6,000 or so highly vocal tossers. All these pieces are being written by talking to some subset of these tossers.
Hey, Twitter might well be worse than it was. Could be. But “Ms. I Got Laid Off” ain’t a good source.
When it comes to political misinformation, you have to be on top of that stuff at all times, or it just spreads everywhere.”
Translation :-
“There’s another election in 12 months time and now we can’t blatantly control the narrative and censor the other side”.
Doesn’t he do the razor blade commercials now? Or is it Tampax?
Imagine employing a tranny, lol:
https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:2400/1*4lfSX_BE2FIe-Hs2Rwctdg.jpeg
Elon Musk is the greatest African American who ever lived apart from Prince.
“how a year of Elon Musk rendered the platform useless”
Curious how they’re all still using it then.
BiS – they keep telling us they’re terminally online feebs whose brains have melted down into a kind of HIV flavoured head slush, but we don’t listen:
We’ve watched in horrified fascination as the town square that was once the world’s collective pulse has gone up in flames
Are ya winning, son?
I sell stuff online, and Twitter was a significant source of customers and a good way to offer support.
Regardless of what the people involved may claim (on either side), the place is a shithole these days. The customers I used to get have gone. Most posts are only liked by bots that are running rampant on the site. The great god Musk who claims that he’s an AI genius apparently cannot spot an account that only posts links to porn sites.
The crap about Gaza is frankly horrifying – purely for the insane takes, misinformation and personal attacks running across the whole of X. I actively avoid politics on there, but it’s seeped into every corner of the place.
And from a commercial perspective, the site is broken – all of the stats (that would make it clear just how bad it has become) have been ‘unavailable’ for six months. I’m trying to reach customers, and cannot actually tell who has seen what, and when. Features are dropped or just don’t work at random.
Musk has fucked up. The previous lot running the site were a disaster zone, but he’s managed to make things significantly, measurably worse. And whilst he’s fucking up basic services, he’s focussing on shit that no-one but him actually wants or has asked for.
I’m actively moving my business and any interaction off that site, and onto the sites that are managing not to piss off my customers. If you want to get a sense for how bad it is… people are moving back to Facebook.
AndyT – you make “breaking Twitter” sound like a bad thing, lol
A fatwa on Twitter. Burn it all down to the gwound.
Steve – I note that for the people who believe Musk can do no wrong, when he first bought the site it was all “He’ll sort out the bots and make this site great! Masterful move!”
Now that he’s pissed $44 billion up the wall and clearly fucked it up, we get “He meant to do it all along! Masterful move!”
I used to quite like Musk, but it’s become clear that he’s a clown that has one trick that only worked when money was cheap.
AndyT – I thought his plan to buy a microblogging site for a hundred bajillion dollars, then kill the brand, was daft.
But it’s really pissing off journalists, which is great.
But another thing I’m thinking is that this is a kind of watershed for Internet 2.0, running expensive server farms at a loss was never going to be a long term business plan, and it turns out advertising data isn’t as valuable as they thought, and the Easy Money years are over.
“X” is a legitimately terrible idea, but so is Meta and Windows 11 and whatever the fuck Google is up to now. The days when autistic tech tyrants had a Midas touch are over.
– The previous lot running the site were a disaster zone, but he’s managed to make things significantly, measurably worse.
The most important measure for a business is profitabilty, and the CEO of X is claiming that it will be turning a profit next year.
So we’ll see.
PJF – odds on an ROI this century?
Buying Twitter was one of them courageous decisions, like when Ferranti bought a company that turned out to be a front for illegal CIA weapons dealing. Place is/was hoaching with feds and Musk is now on the enemies list.
No idea, Steve. It’s certain, considering the rebrand, that Musk wants the business model to be something way beyond just bringing eyes to ads via user content.
https://www.businesstoday.in/technology/news/story/twitter-to-replace-your-bank-elon-musk-wants-x-to-roll-out-a-financial-and-payment-feature-in-one-year-403638-2023-10-28
Think he couldn’t do it? The bloke having his own literal world-wide-web in space suddenly makes sense . . .
@pjf
Agreed
I for one would not bet against Musk’s ability to think strategically
Want to move offworld?
Spaceships, check
World spanning Comms network, check
Electrically powered transportation, check
Solar generation ,check
Infrastructure and underground boring, check
Financial services and communications , work in progress
One to watch
Starfish – Want to move offworld?
No, that would be a living Hell.
Imagine colonising Mars. You’d spend the rest of your life living in a plastic oxygen tent underground and have nowhere to go and nothing to spend your wages on. Maybe, if you’re lucky, you’ll get to watch films from Earth while you eat your protein pills and wash them down with your own recycled piss while your mutant children lope around in their distorted low-G monster bodies.
And you’d better do what the people who control your air supply say, or you’re dead.
Your status on Mars – assuming you don’t die from any of the many ways Mars is constantly trying to kill you – would be that of a slave.
Given the current trajectory of the world that doesn’t sound like that bad of an alternative
BniC: for all the manifest shit that’s going on here, it’s a far better option to stay here and try to fix it. The off-worlders are just quitters who have read far too much sci-fi for the good of their minds. I quite like some sci-fi but it’s a fantasy to enjoy, not a recipe for the future.
We might get zapped permanently by the Big One when Bruce Willis fails but any off-worlders will also die before they find or make Earth Mk II. Also, if it happens it’ll leave room for the small mammals to scrap it out with the small reptiles and insects as to who will inherit again. I don’t care as I’ll be long gone, as will, probably, all my descendants that still have any trace of my genes.
Steve is right, in a sense. But…..
Your average oik here on Earth lives , by those markers, just as much Living In Slavery.
It’s not as if there’s any actual room left to strike out and try if you don’t like the setup, isn’t there?
Or, for that matter, improve things/stop things if you just want to moderately conserve the status quo…
Anyone but a complete idiot realises that the first trip(s) to Mars will be a ( for all practical purposes) death sentence. One way or another.
And yet I’d sign up if given the chance.
Because it’s there… And it is a hell of a challenge.
Humanity advanced by sending the adventurous and Old out to see what’s beyond the Horizon.
Most of them died. Some returned and told the rest how to go about it and live.
Thus Progress is made. It has a Price. Some are willing to pay it.
X may live or die.. But as long as it lives it Triggers the Pearlclutchers and Pantytwisters.
Especially since Musk has proven he can do that ultimate Magic trick: Pull the Hat from the Rabbit…
Has done so several times already..
And that’s what really worries the Establishment… What if X works..
From The Martian Way by Isaac Asimov:
Like I said, Martians are a lot like Earthmen, which means that they’re sort of human beings, and human beings don’t go in for philosophy much. Just the same, there’s something about living in a growing wortd, whether you think about it much or not.
Say what you like about Tail Gunner Joe, he provoked Asimov to snap out of pearl clutcherism and sound like Heinlein.
I can’t imagine Musk having a ‘B’ Ark either
Elon is just trying to get home
Imagine colonising Mars. You’d spend the rest of your life living in a plastic oxygen tent underground and have nowhere to go and nothing to spend your wages on.
Sure. When it’s still at the village stage. But at that stage it’ll be research scientists, prospectors, construction workers. Bit like a posting to East Siberia. But a full grown Martian city wouldn’t be much different to live in than an Earth city. They’re both entirely artificial environments depend on technology to be sustained. Big enough critical mass, no reason why one wouldn’t have the full spectrum of arts, culture, sport….
Nah. I reckon Mars is a non-starter. They’ll discover some weird arctic style single celled organism still living under a rock on an ancient lake bed and the entire planet will be quarantined except for “Government scientist astronauts” for eternity.
Mars was always a step too far for anything more than a boots-n-flags thing.
Moon colonies is about all we can manage for the foreseeable and Musk knows it, hence his involvement in Artemis and other LEO/GEO and cis lunar endeavours.
I’d go, but then I’m in the old enough so why not group, definitely fit into the too much sci-fi group as well.
Might explain why I have the SpaceX Occupy Mars t-shirt and a black rifle coffee Caffeinate Mars one as well
Mars was always a step too far for anything more than a boots-n-flags thing.
Distance is an Earthbound concept. Off planet one talks about DeltaV. Velocity change. I think I’m right in saying it requires less DeltaV to get to Mars than it does to land on the far side of the Moon. At Mars orbital capture & landing’s made using aerobraking, so the DeltaV comes for free.
Question is, do you want to be on Mars? Once having got up out of the Earth’s gravity well, why be at the bottom of another? There’s a likelihood that everything one might need can be found floating around in the asteroid belt. Including, importantly, organics. Which Mars won’t have.
There a good design for a space city we could build now. Basically a big cylinder with a cable attached to one end. On the other end, an asteroid . Spin the two up gives artificial gravity in the cylinder. You make the cable long enough that there isn’t much gravity difference between the top & bottom of the cylinder so you don’t get hydrodynamic pressure problems doing things like standing up. What would have ruled out the exercise wheel on the 2001 spacecraft. Death by water hammer!
BiS
Delta V for fuel, yes, but also need to consider journey time. Going to the moon takes a weekend, going to Mars takes half a year. That’s quite a bit harder for life support, consumables, reliability, journey planning, solar radiation etc.
And I don’t think you get that free deltaV on the return journey, which I’d imagine we’d be quite keen to be able to make.
@Tractor Gent
Don’t know about that. Seems a lot of people are using 1984 as a recipe for the future.
More a combination of 1984 and Brave New World
All too true, BniC.
But as for Mars, the obvious way to colonise it is the method used in the US and Oz. Ship out the convicts. (According to my tome, about half of the early US colonists were convicts. This isn’t taking count of those black convicts shipped in from Africa.)
The important thing is to make sure that the convicts are liberally ‘assigned’ as servants to the free settlers. That way the most influential locals have an interest in the system and are unlikely to protest too strongly against their wicked earthling rulers.
Mars is a bust.
the Jovian moons are the place to be
Ganymede – water (more than earth)
Europa – more water and a little bit of oxygen in a thin atmosphere
Io – geothermal energy and lots of it. Like crazy lots. Most geologically active object in solar system. 400 active volcanoes active.
Callisto – kind of boring here as well, not much to talk about. Maybe a bit of water? Meh, go to Europa instead
The only downside is that it would take a long time to get to Jupiter.
On the plus side, it takes a long time to get to Jupiter so you’d be far away from all the Earth BS. No more Sunak, Starmer, Biden, Trump, Putin, woke nonsense.
As another plus, the delta v for the moons are smaller than planets…
Delta v for moons…?
Should be the gravity well is smaller for moons.
Fuck me I need a coffee.
Far too early.
“I for one would not bet against Musk’s ability to think strategically”
This whole Mars diversion came from the idea that Musk’s proposals are “strategic”… they’re not. He does things because he wants attention, and people to be impressed by him (see his terrible attempts at being down with the 420 guys).
Big rockets, artificially intelligent cars, public transport solved… none of this is stuff he actually has a clue how to do or a strategy for getting there (proof: FSD is a “year away” – every year for the last decade), but it’s great for getting headlines, and that’s what the Silicon Valley culture is all about. Elizabeth Holmes and Sam Bankman-Fried being the perfect examples of how headlines and worship culture short circuit people’s ability to apply critical thought.
“I know what he’s selling is bullshit, but it’s such a cool thing… imagine landing on the Jovian moons!”… bwahahahaha..
All these worlds are yours. Except Europa. Attempt no landing there.