Elon Musk Buys Twitter

[Volpone]

So Elon says he is going to disclose all internal messages about the successful big tech effort to effect election outcomes by censoring information about the Biden family's criminal misconduct. Democrats are now up in arms demanding Twitter get removed from Apple store and Google's App Store.

Dems really want to hide their corruption. The corrupt snakes are over reaching and this will cause theor downfall.

No one cares. They're in their own alternate reality. They impeached Trump for allegedly trying to blackmail Ukraine into...fuck, I don't know. Ask one of them. At any rate, it was on the strength of testimony from someone who wasn't even present at the phone call. Meanwhile they've got Biden ON VIDEO, bragging about blackmailing Ukraine into not investigating his crooked son's crooked Ukrainian oil company and nobody cares.

 

[jack]

Meanwhile they've got Biden ON VIDEO, bragging about blackmailing Ukraine into not investigating his crooked son's crooked Ukrainian oil company and nobody cares.

Except it wasnt about Bidens son, it was about the prosecutor NOT PROSECUTING CORRUPTION IN UKRAINE. It's all in print. Yes he used leverage, but twisting it into something to do with Burisma and his son Hunter is absolutely false.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...raine-aid-oust-corrupt-prosecutor/5991434002/

What fucking bullshit. You guys are full of it.

 

[Volpone]

Trump suggested having National Guard at the Capitol for the Inauguration and Pelosi turned him down. The FBI had a big hand in agitating people into Jan 6. The 2 people who died were a cop who got hero treatment--and then they quietly admitted he'd died of a stroke--and an unarmed woman who was shot by a cop. But Trump got impeached for causing that. Hillary ran the State Department from a server in her freaking basement that had classified e-mails on it and no one cares, but Trump has documents that may or may not be declassified, depending on who you talk to, in a double-locked room and he's being investigated years after leaving office. Eric Holder was found in contempt of Congress and nothing happened, while...I forget who...the Trump guy gets arrested at the airport and led off in handcuffs for the same thing.

 

[jack]

BULLSHIT. Pelosi had nothing to do with that and that isn't even how the story went. FBI had nothing to do with Trump whipping the crowd into a frenzy and setting them loose to the Capitol.


Those documents don't belong to him. You have nothing to say about it. That's the fucking law.

Who knew you were such a trumpette. Go suck his dick.

 

[jack]

CLAIM: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi blocked the National Guard from coming to the Capitol during the Jan. 6 insurrection.

AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. As Speaker of the House, Pelosi does not direct the National Guard. Further, as the Capitol came under attack, she and the Senate Majority leader called for military assistance, including the National Guard.

THE FACTS: On Tuesday, a false claim about the deadly Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol resurfaced suggesting that Pelosi blocked the National Guard from coming to lawmakers’ defense during the insurrection at the Capitol.

“@SpeakerPelosi, why did you block the National Guard from protecting the Capitol?” Indiana Rep. Jim Banks tweeted.

Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy posed a similar question on Fox News saying, “Was there a decision by the Speaker not to have the National Guard at the Capitol that day?”

The answer is no.

“On January 6th, the Speaker, a target of an assassination attempt that day, was no more in charge of Capitol security than Mitch McConnell was. This is a clear attempt to whitewash what happened on January 6th and divert blame,” Drew Hammill, a spokesperson for Pelosi told The Associated Press in an email.

The decision on whether to call National Guard troops to the Capitol is made by what is known as the Capitol Police Board, which is made up of the House Sergeant at Arms, the Senate Sergeant at Arms and the Architect of the Capitol. The board decided not to call the guard ahead of the insurrection but did eventually request assistance after the rioting had already begun, and the troops arrived several hours later.

The House Sergeant at Arms reports to Pelosi and the Senate Sergeant at Arms reported to McConnell, a Republican who was then Senate Majority Leader. There is no evidence that either directed the security officials not to call the guard beforehand, and Hammill said after the insurrection that Pelosi was never informed of such a request.

 

[Volpone]

Ah. It didn't happen. Because the AP and Pelosi's staff say it didn't happen. Riiiight. And the FBI has not been turned into a corrupt, partisan Gestapo. These aren't the 'droids you're looking for.

 

[jack]

Ah it did happen then? Because Breitbart and Daily Caller and Joe Rogan said so? Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

The FBI can't be partisan, it's run by a republican (A Trump appointed one no less) Those aren't the droids you're looking for.

Nothing like a little seditious conspiracy to ruffle the far righties feathers (not to mention the endless repetitive echo chamber).

 

[jack]

The FBI is now the "gestapo" because Trump took national secrets home with him and lied about it? You folks talk out of both sides of your mouth.

Interesting.

 

[jack]

Twitter is hemorrhaging advertisers, and new CEO Elon Musk's efforts to retain them have backfired spectacularly.

The tech entrepreneur's first month as Twitter owner has chased off half of the company's top 100 advertisers, who have paused spending over concerns about content moderation and the firing of most of its ad sales team, and Musk has been unable to strong-arm them into returning, reported the Financial Times.

“He seems to put off even those advertisers who wanted him to succeed,” said one top advertising agency executive.

Twitter's ad business team has been cut so deeply that many agencies no longer have a point of contact at the company, and four industry insiders said they have received little or no communication in recent weeks, while others complain the ad systems aren't working properly since Musk took over.

“Tech issues on campaign management . . . mean it’s completely unreliable as a platform to use,” said Gabby Krite, head of digital operations at The Kite Factory.

Musk has tried to personally call the chief executives of some brands that have pulled advertising to berate them, according to one senior industry insider, but that has backfired as some companies have decided to cut spending to the bare minimum to avoid further confrontation.

“It is quite unique," said a senior executive at a big four advertising agency. "The turmoil, the damage, nothing of this magnitude has happened before -- never."

Musk's management, along with his near-daily controversial tweets, have left him with only one option to save the company he paid $44 billion to purchase in a deal finalized Oct. 27, according to industry insiders.

“Musk’s best chance of bringing advertisers back to Twitter is to appoint a new CEO,” said Darren Savage, chief strategy officer at Tribal Worldwide. “Particularly, one who understands what Twitter is, has the credibility with advertisers, and users — and is then left alone to do their job.”

 

[Oerdin]

How is Jack so uninformed?

 

[jack]

Musk's "Twitter files" tweet on Monday night came amid a longer tirade specifically against Apple. Musk, a self-proclaimed "free-speech absolutist" claimed the tech giant has "mostly stopped" advertising on Twitter. He also alleged that Apple threatened to withhold Twitter from its App Store without telling the company why.

He wrote: "Apple has mostly stopped advertising on Twitter. Do they hate free speech in America?" He also tagged the company's CEO Tim Cook in a reply, demanding a personal explanation.

Musk ended the string of tweets on Monday by claiming his self-declared "war" with Apple was "a battle for the future of civilization." He added: "If free speech is lost even in America, tyranny is all that lies ahead."

The Tesla CEO has been a longtime advocate of "free speech", although experts routinely question his wide interpretation of the First Amendment.

Since taking over the social-media platform, Musk has reinstated multiple suspended Twitter users including former US president, Donald Trump.

The billionaire also plans to offer a general amnesty to many more banned accounts, with employees already referring to the plan as "the Big Bang," according to a report by Platformer.

Representatives for Twitter did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

 

[Loktar]

How is Jack so uninformed?

Probably avoids the left and right wing nutjob conspiracy websites, newspapers, and news TV programs. Also his lips aren't glued to Trump's ass.

 

[Oerdin]

Funny, I do none of those things either yet am not as completely ignorant of factual reality as Jack is. Weird.

 

[Oerdin]

The dirt bags know that Elon is going to release all internal communications about the decision to censor hunter biden's laptop and partisan censorship so they are trying to get ahead of it to set the narrative.

Ex-Twitter safety chief admits Hunter Biden laptop censorship was a 'mistake'

Yoel Roth, Twitter's former head of trust and safety, admitted that censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop story from the New York Post was a "mistake."

www.foxnews.com

 

[jack]

Musk is taking on Apple. It might not end well.​

Elon Musk has a new nemesis, and it might be one that’s too big even for him. On Monday the Tesla (TSLA) CEO and Twitter owner fired off a series of tweets criticizing Apple (AAPL) for pulling advertisements from the social media platform and claiming that the company threatened to remove Twitter from the App Store.

Musk is no stranger to picking fights from his keyboard. He’s famously tussled with everyone from members of Congress and the Securities and Exchange Commission to fellow billionaire Jeff Bezos. And while some have resulted in blow back, and lawsuits, Musk’s newest dust-up could cost his latest venture where it matters most: it’s bottom line.

“This is very much a one-way relationship, and Twitter is exceptionally dependent on Apple,” Forrester VP and research director Mike Proulx told Yahoo Finance. “For Apple, advertising on Twitter is at best nice to have. The Apple brand is incredibly strong and will continue to flourish without advertising on Twitter. But the same cannot be said in the opposite direction.”

Musk didn’t just stop at calling out Apple for cutting back on its ads on Twitter and threatening to delist the app from the App Store. He also chastised the company for charging developers a 30% fee on sales they make through the App Store. In another tweet he accused Apple of secretly suppressing free speech, and specifically called out CEO Tim Cook.

Musk’s gambit could be one of reasonable business concerns that have been echoed by firms ranging from Spotify (SPOT) to Microsoft (MSFT) mixed with his own usual online antics. But going after Apple could also backfire tremendously for the CEO. Especially if Apple were to remove Twitter from the App Store and its 1 billion users.

Apple could pull Twitter, but it’d be risky

Musk’s assertion that Apple has threatened to take Twitter out of the App Store would represent a major escalation between the companies. (Apple didn’t respond to Musk's tweets publicly or to Yahoo Finance's request for comment.) But it wouldn’t be the first time Apple scrubbed an app from its software portal.

In the wake of the Capitol riot in Jan. 2021, Apple pulled Parler from its App Store because it was reportedly hosting content including threats of violence and illegal activity. And since consumers can only download apps to their iPhones from the App Store, Apple effectively cut Parler off from iOS users. Sure, they could access the service via their web browsers, but doing so is often clunky.

Apple eventually restored Parler after the app agreed to moderate content on iOS.

Musk, for his part, has maintained that Twitter will be a free speech paradise, and recently restored 62,000 previously suspended accounts, as well as former President Trump’s account. What’s more, on Nov. 23, Musk moved to deprioritize marking COVID misinformation on Twitter as phony. If Musk does allow Twitter to become a kind of new Parler, Apple might be forced to remove the app. Still, the chances of the company doing so are slim at this point.

“It would just be too huge of a thing at this stage to delist Twitter even though Twitter seems to be imploding and … Musk is taking some shots at Apple and Tim Cook,” University of Buffalo Law School professor Mark Bartholomew told Yahoo Finance.

“It would just create too much negative attention for Apple if they actually tried to not make Twitter available in the App Store,” he added.

If Apple moved to pull Twitter, it would likely draw the ire of Republican members of Congress who have lined up to back Musk’s so-called free speech efforts. And for a company that tries to court relationships with members of both sides of the political spectrum, and is already facing antitrust scrutiny, that could be especially dangerous for Apple.

Musk’s biggest gripe is an old one

While pulling Twitter from the App Store could prove to be an existential threat to the social network, it’s Apple’s 30% App Store fee that would be truly problematic for Musk’s site. Apple traditionally charges app developers 30% of each purchase users make via apps that use Apple’s App Store payment service. And since apps in the App Store are required to use Apple’s payment service, developers have no real way to escape the fee.

Subscription services catch a break when users reup for another year, with the fee dropping to 15% after the first year, and some reader apps like Netflix aren’t required to pay up. But for other developers the App Store’s fees are a certainty.

Musk isn’t the only one who’s called out Apple’s control over the App Store, either. Microsoft President Brad Smith and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg have both criticized Apple’s App Store policies. Heck, it was at the center of Epic’s antitrust lawsuit against Apple.

And with Musk planning to pivot Twitter from an advertising-based revenue model to a subscription service, those fees could eat into the company’s bottom line. Musk already launched a subscription for Twitter Blue that allowed users to buy verification badges but was forced to yank it back after trolls bought subscriptions to add badges to accounts masquerading as profiles for everything from Lebron James to Lockheed Martin.

Still, Musk plans to bring the service back in the near future. And when he does, he’ll need to surrender 30% of each sale made through Twitter’s iOS app to Apple. But if Musk thinks that a few tweets about Apple’s fees are going to get the company to curtail the practice, he’s out of luck.

Apple has fought for years to keep its App Store fees in place both in the U.S. and abroad, and Musk’s comments are unlikely to change the company’s stance.

As for his attempts to paint Apple as an anti-free speech company, that could all be smoke and mirrors.

“Musk has been the subject of a pretty steady flow of negative stories. I think he'd like to have that attention diverted somewhere else for a while,” explained Professor Erik Gordon of the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business.

“When he sees that doesn't work, I think he will get back to trying to lure advertisers back, running Tesla, doing his two or three day jobs, which don't include throwing rocks at Apple.”

 

[jack]

Twitter 2.0 strategy is broken because Elon Musk still doesn't understand Twitter​

Twitter started as "A global community of friends and strangers answering one simple question: What are you doing?"

That was the mission: Millions of people hopping onto the micro-blogging service to share mundane and momentous thoughts and activities. The 140-character limit - a product of its SMS roots - fit perfectly with this original intention. You didn't need more space to share that you were "Eating a bagel," "Watching Lost," or even witnessing a plane floating in the Hudson river.

Naturally, Twitter changed as it grew and people started sharing not just what they were doing, but what they were thinking and feeling. Once you start sharing that stuff, well, inevitably others share, and not always in harmony. That's human nature for you.

I agree, this changed Twitter in ways that I and, I'm certain, its founders never anticipated. Twitter probably became too much of a lightning rod, maybe too powerful for shaping opinion. It accidentally became a public square, but one without the benefit of in-person humanity.

Two things are true: Twitter can't go back to what it was and you can't change human nature.

Can't change human nature

People are people, and, without the benefit of having to face people, you subtract humanity, leaving you with unfiltered emotion. It's gotten Twitter and those on it in a lot of trouble, including its new owner Elon Musk.

Perhaps that's why Musk struggles so much to fix what's broken. He's not just close to the problem, he's inside it. Still, he's promised "Twitter 2.0" and now we have the clearest outline of what that vision entails. It's not encouraging.

Twitter 2.0, which was outlined in a blog post on Wednesday, insists that it's the "Same mission." And the only real differences are "Faster innovation," and "More transparency."

This sounds good, great even, but it's not quite true is it?

The problem is that, even with Musk at the helm, no one has answered the central question of "What is Twitter's purpose?"

Being the Town Hall for the Internet is incredibly broad and discounts other platforms like Reddit, Discord, and even Facebook. Can someone explain what sets Twitter apart so much that it deserves that role and, more importantly, who asked it to be this?

Twitter's purpose

Twitter's role was never supposed to be the standard-bearer for free speech. As a social media platform built and hosted in the US, that was already the assumption. And don't let anyone fool you, people already say whatever the hell they want on Twitter.

Obviously, there are limits to free speech (there are limits everywhere). And companies - private and public - can have their own limits, which are either designed to satisfy shareholders, the rules of good common sense and safety, or all of the above. When you broke those rules on Twitter, your posts, and maybe even you got the boot. It wasn't a perfect system, but it more or less got the job done.

Twitter's new 2.0 mission statement seeks to give everyone the power to share ideas and information. There is the unspoken assumption that people were not doing that already.

But in this statement, which is a promise to make "human safety a top priority," Twitter contradicts itself with the desire to let people share "instantly without barriers." If further adds that while the content policies haven't changed, it'll be using "de-amplification" for content that violates these policies.

Put another way, you can say terrible things but Twitter will shadow-ban them. They'll still be on Twitter and, probably searchable. In fact, there is a further promise of "freedom of reach."

This is a new-ish phrase that Musk favors. It means, I think, you can still share your awful thoughts, fake news, junk science, etc. with your audience. Twitter, if I'm reading this right, won't stop you.

How this works in practice is not clear. Twitter does have rules that forbid:

• Violence
• Terrorism and violent extremism
• Child exploitation
• Abuse and harassment
• Hateful conduct
• Perpetrators of violent attacks
• Suicide or self-harm
• Sensitive media including live adult content
• Illegal goods and services

Will those things be removed immediately or simply "deamplified"? What gets to stay and be sort of hidden and what goes over the line is not entirely clear.

Interestingly, what's missing from the Twitter 2.0 manifesto is any mention of that Content Moderation Council Musk promised, ostensibly the people who could decide such things. I'm still not clear if Musk convened this group of smart and impartial people. Without them, how can this plan work?

It's good that Musk had Twitter put out this Twitter 2.0 policy statement. Maybe advertisers like Apple will find some...oh, wait, never mind. More likely though, Apple and all other Twitter partners still have questions.

Twitter can't get to 2.0 until it really understands what Twitter 1.0 was all about.

I'm still not sure Elon Musk gets it.

 

[Volpone]

"Oh well, we rigged an election. Oopsie!"

 

[jack]

Yeah that laptop would have guaranteed a 2nd term for trump if only everyone had listened to Rudy.

ROTFLMAO

 

[The Question]

 

[The Question]

LOL Antifa doesn't exist. It's an idea.

There are individuals proudly proclaiming that they align with antifa. There are groups, chapters, gangs, what have you, that fly that flag. There are people supplying them with those flags, as well as supplying them with uniforms, shields, weapons, and other gear. There's photographic and video proof of all of that.

Claiming that antifa is "just an idea" is CeeJay level horseshit. Knock it off. Either own it or condemn it, but don't act like a fucking cupcakeer and lie about it.