The Elon Musk rorting continues ...

[facthunter]

That would mean you are Licentious?  Nev

[willedoo]

From Musk's child-like behaviour on Twitter, I get the impression he suffers from a lot of random, impulsive thought bubbles. His tweets in general give the impression of a maturity level around the 13 to 14 y.o. mark, although maturity level and intelligence level are two distinctly separate things. His latest was to tweet that the blocking feature would be removed from the app. The only problem is that it's a condition of the Google and Apple app stores that social media apps must contain a blocking feature. A few hours ago, Musk very quietly deleted his announcement.

 

It wouldn't surprise me if he did it in response to finding out how many Twitter users have blocked his account. Since taking over Twitter, he's virtually dismantled the verification system and reinstated previously banned accounts like putin, Trump, Medvedev etc..  For Twitter users logging in to their account, Musk's changes to the algorithms are most noticeable in the suggested 'for you' list of tweets. No cigar necessary for guessing one outcome - Musk's idiotic, childish, right wing garbage tweets on a continual basis unless you block him to get rid of what is basically spam. Seeing how many users have blocked him would dent his fragile ego.

 

Because of his algorithm changes, there's a bit of work involved in keeping the 'for you' suggestions to any usable level. To keep wanted accounts in your feed, you have to follow, give likes, retweet or visit that account directly on a regular basis. If you don't, your feed ends up just being a mish mash of dog and cat videos, Republican conspiracy theories and Russian troll farm disinformation. The block feature has become very important in the fight against a lot of the carp that Musk has allowed on Twitter since he took over. One thing I've noticed is that suggestions are quite different depending on whether a phone or desktop is being used. I can't figure that one out.

[willedoo]

Someone's take on the current state of Xcrement.

 

 

[willedoo]

It's hard to figure out Comrade Musk. He bought Twitter for 44 billion and now it's valued at 8 billion mainly due to his idiocy. On top of all that, he's now contemplating blocking Europe from access because he doesn't want to comply with the EU's Digital Services Act, which came into effect in August. The Europeans don't like his enabling of propaganda, disinformation and bot accounts. He's totally incapable of running a social media platform. I think he should just walk away, cut his losses and go back to bludging money from the government to build rockets. At least he had some respect doing that. Since buying Twitter he's turned into a Trump wannabe buffoon.

[facthunter]

He's certainly not been wildly successful. Nev

[Jerry_Atrick]

It shows, like politics, large corporate identities can fall for their own BS and the view they have built up for themselve. Musk, like many other public corproate identities spend many millions per year on PR - not only for their company, but also for themselves. They know if they can project their personal image well, it does their businesses very good indeed. For example, I didn't even know there was a competing EV maker, Lucid, which seems to make better EVs than Tesla, but are struggling becaused they lose over AUD$500K/car they build. We don't know of them and they don't sell quite as well despite (being better value for the money (until the recent price reductions by Tesla), better range, better power, etc.  People do fall for marketing and PR; they rarely go with the best product (many "best" products are accepted as best because of the marketing and PR).

 

So, Musk, riding high on a personal approval from the populace, obviously thought he knew better than anyone about anything (the bloke from Burke's backtyard had a bit of a reputaiton for this as well). What can be so hard about runnign a social media company? And,  just intuitively, without due diligience he kniew its value. The Twitter directors and shareholders almost bit his hand off at that offer, especially since he waived his right to due diligence and the only condition being that Twitter hand over docvumentation to him.. Which they dutifully did. While he has turned his $44Bn to something quite a lot less (who knows what it is really worth), there are few that would accept it was worth near $44Bn in the first place - except that was what one dunse in the market was willing to pay and had the means to pay it. As he had to sell another percentage of Tesla stock to do it, his Telsa investors were not quite so happy, either. 

 

Ironically, he was trying to weasel his way out of it based on the number of bot accounts, yet, under his regin, apparently they flourish.

 

X still is a viable going concern; for quick messaging, it is by far the leader, and Threads as well as the rabble of other tech are not making too much of an inroad onto the user base. It proves habits die hard. I have no idea of its financials, but whatever it is currently worth on the market, will take a few more billion and possibly a couple of years to recover the technology and moderation drain, and that would have to factor into any valuation. It is still probably worth a punt at this stage for a different investor/management team.

 

 

[nomadpete]

[Jerry_Atrick]

But cats.. you are nto referring to the piece of female anatomy often referred to by another feline name?

[pmccarthy]

No, you are thinking of beavers.

[onetrack]

Well, Musk appears to have finally dropped Twitter into the sink he was carrying. The opinion now is that "X" is relatively valueless. Not a bad effort for a $44B purchase.

The major problems with "X" is that Musk made it into his personal playground, and put the stamp of his erratic, divisive, and extreme right wing personality on it.

 

A very sizeable majority of users and previous users have pointed out that it is now an unsafe platform for activists, the platform is now skewed towards right-wing hatreds becoming the norm - and the Chinese have taken advantage of being able to buy "blue ticks", and are manipulating the algorithms to ensure the Chinese Govt has major power on the platform to influence views and opinions.

 

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-02/twitter-elon-musk-one-year-world-human-rights-x-social-media/103044304

[willedoo]

Basically, a twit has bought Twitter. As well as users, advertisers have left in droves since he took over. There's probably more than one reason for that, but I wonder how much it would be connected to Musk account-walling Twitter. Previously, non account holders could freely view Twitter content. They couldn't post or comment, but could certainly click on advertising, and advertising is what makes the money. I think Musk shot himself in the foot with that one.

 

Since taking over Twitter, the real Musk has surfaced in his ludicrous tweets and antics, and people have started to doubt his mental stability. It also leaves open the question of whether the U.S. government will continue to trust him with the future of the country's space program. Also, from the Ukraine experience, the U.S. government has surely realised that Starlink cannot be relied upon to do the right thing in critical times of warfare.  Unless Musk does an about face with his behaviour and attitude, I can see a future where the Pentagon and government start moving away from any reliance on companies he is involved in. It could be goodbye Comrade Musk, hello Boeing. 

 

Buying Twitter was a bad move for Musk in two ways. Firstly, he's totally incompetent at managing a social media platform and has thrown away billions in the process. Secondly, he has completely trashed his reputation. Before buying Twitter, a lot of people were dazzled by electric cars and space rockets. He had an almost cult following with millions thinking he was this really cool guy who made really cool stuff. Since Twitter, the bad Genie is out of the bottle and it's not pretty. Musk's problem is that he wants to use Twitter as his personal vehicle to spread his obnoxious politics and beliefs, but he still wants to be seen as that cool guy while doing so. Sorry Elon, it doesn't work like that; the two don't mix.

[willedoo]

The boy isn't having much luck lately. The latest Starship rocket blew up, a heap of major sponsors have halted advertising on Xcrement (formerly Twitter) and some major investors are calling for him to stand down as Tesla CEO.

 

The major advertisers on Xcrement don't like their ads being placed beside posts praising Hitler and Nazism, and they are not too happy with him publicly endorsing an antisemitic post on the platform.

[red750]

7 hours ago, willedoo said:

The major advertisers on Xcrement don't like their ads being placed beside posts praising Hitler and Nazism

IBM and Apple are two of the biggest.

[facthunter]

Trump says Democrats are VERMIN. Now we have Trumpler. doing a Hitler .  Nev

[red750]

Latest SpaceX launch called a 'successful failure'.

 

Read report here.

[willedoo]

Here's Musk's intelligent and mature response to the advertisers suspending their advertising on Xcrement:

 

 

[willedoo]

As time progresses, Musk seems to be travelling deeper into the spectrum. He's getting more dysfunctional.

[willedoo]

The interview had it's lighter moments.

Musk to the interviewer:  "Jonathan, the only reason I’m here is because you are a friend.” 

The interviewer's response: “First of all, I’m Andrew.”

[onetrack]

What a bloody rabbit. Telling your advertisers - which is where you get your income from - to go f*** themselves, shows the arrogance of this prick, and the fact that he lives on the same planet as Trump.

[rgmwa]

I think his planet is in a galaxy much further away than even Trump's.

[facthunter]

I think you fail to acknowledge Trumps abilities to be the Biggest Ginger nut possible Credit when it's due. Trump is NEVER wrong. Always has someone else to put the Blame on and dump.  Nev

[spenaroo]

On 01/12/2023 at 4:34 PM, onetrack said:

What a bloody rabbit. Telling your advertisers - which is where you get your income from - to go f*** themselves, shows the arrogance of this prick, and the fact that he lives on the same planet as Trump.

yeah, 
my big thing is him talking about it as blackmail.....

No, No it is certainly not.

[willedoo]

5 hours ago, spenaroo said:

yeah, 
my big thing is him talking about it as blackmail.....

No, No it is certainly not.

It's not as if they want cheaper rates or anything. All they want is a safe advertising environment adequately monitored for extremist content the way Twitter was before the child bought it. It's not much to ask for. Musk promotes himself as a free speech advocate but the problem is he includes hate speech in his warped definition of free speech. That worries the advertisers who are concerned about the possible consumer backlash when their ads appear alongside posts praising Hitler and Nazism.

 

It's obvious Musk didn't buy Twitter to make money. It's just been one big vanity project for him to trumpet his unpleasant opinions and politics. The only time I see his posts is when someone re-Tweets them as I blocked his account early in the piece. He must have had the algorithms tweaked to promote his own posts as a priority as all of a sudden, his garbage posts were saturating the platform. Luckily he hasn't removed the block feature yet.

 

Is Musk really brilliant or just lucky? My money is on the latter. He's smart enough to organise financial backers and clever people to create the stuff his companies sell, but I think his fans overrate his personal abilities. He hasn't got where he is without hiring the right people who are the real talent behind his enterprises.

[nomadpete]

Watching that interview made me think....

He didn't  inspire confidence in his reasoning. If the advertisers are going away, maybe it is really because they see that the changes Musk made to the advertising platform are no longer giving the results the advertisers were paying for.

That is not blackmail, nor is it a boycott.

[facthunter]

The "Market" decides. If it has a choice (alternative).  Nev