Twitter, since its acquisition by Elon Musk, is rapidly becoming the primary free speech platform on the Internet. It's the stated reason Elon bought it, and he's very much following through.
It's a lot easier said than done. Illegal content is required to be suppressed (on a country by country basis), and legal but truly hateful or harmful content also needs to be suppressed or people won't like it. Also, obvious disinformation needs to be somehow marked. And bot armies that would seek to disrupt the platform or finesse the rules also need to be suppressed. As well, there is a need for an "algorithm" that presents interesting content to you from tweeters you may not already know about. Without that, your feed becomes very dull and uninteresting. So all in all it's a tall order.
Elon started with a mass firing of about 80% of the employees. This weeded out most of the ideologically driven leftists that came to dominate that company. In the process, he drove out a lot of waste. Despite the doom and gloom predictions, Twitter continues to operate and seems faster and more reliable than ever.
Elon made the "Twitter files" available to journalists in a bid to regain lost trust in the platform from the previous owners. Elon allowed journalists wide access to internal records (emails, slack messages, documents, ...). Journalists combed through and did some truly frightening reporting about the extent to which the government in collusion with leftists attempted to limit speech they disliked (about COVID and elections mainly). One trick they used was the trope of "Russian disinformation" to shadow ban (using a discredited method of identifying "Russians").
Elon made the algorithm optional. At the very top of the app in plain sight and easily accessible is the choice between a "For You" feed and a "Following" feed. The "For You" feed runs the algo. The "Following" feed gives you a simple chronological view of activity from those you follow without the algo picking for you. I often look at both.
Elon open-sourced the algo used. So everybody can look at the code and understand what influences a tweet ranking higher in a feed. No hidden agendas.
Elon has removed many bots from the platform using straightforward means (he alleges the previous owners did not try very hard in order to give the appearance of higher user numbers to boost advertising revenue and stock price).
His biggest mechanism to limit the reach of bots is the revamp of "Twitter Blue" which is a special mark you get in your account if you've proven you're a human by paying $8/month. Increasingly, blue accounts are given wider reach and non-blue are being suppressed. If I make a tweet there is a tab called "All" and another called "Verified" where I can look at the reactions. I'm increasingly only looking at "Verified" and ignoring "All" as that feed seems filled with mindless responses whereas the "Verified" is generally more thoughtful (though sometimes misinformed IMO).
A huge innovation is "Community Notes" which allows blue users who apply to the program and are accepted to add a special note to a tweet to correct the record or add important missing context. The algo for community notes is also open source. Verified users vote on a note. Only notes that get wide approval from people who previously have disagreed on things are shown widely.
The platform continues to use AI-driven text analysis to limit the reach of content that is just obviously hateful on its surface. However, it has now been tuned to use a much more obvious definition that all parties have agreed upon, and does not impact more politically charged speech where many would say it's not hateful (eg, about transgender issues or racial issues).
Just today Elon released end-to-end fully encrypted DMs that not even he with a gun to his head could look at.
He's added long-form articles and longer videos and is now allowing users to monetize their content.
He re-energized "spaces", which is an audio-only live discussion, optionally available for playback as well.
Of course, the left and most traditional left-leaning mainstream media are trying everything in their power to stop these things. They are claiming there is much more "hate" on the platform and are trying to get advertisers to boycott the platform. However, they cannot point to anything widely distributed that we can all agree is hate. There was a very funny BBC interview of Musk where the journalist claimed there was more "hate" on the platform but was unable to come up with any examples.
The entire interview is very enlightening and covers a lot of the above. The amusing part I referred to above starts at 19:20.
It was very recently announced that Tucker Carlson will be making Twitter his new home for the reasons stated above.
Everybody who is in favour of free speech should be embracing this platform.
Twitter is fine for finding porn but it is so unprofitable (worth between 50-75% of what it was recently bought for) and so uncool that I think we are just counting down the days until it dies for good.
ReplyDeleteI fully support free (even dangerous) speech and clearly twitter was not the place for that in the past, but it also still isn't. It's easier to get banned there than nearly any other site.
The value of the company is not an issue as it's privately held by Elon. Ongoing cash-flow is important to service the loan, but after the cuts it's now apparently almost cash-flow neutral.
DeleteI don't think it's practical for a widespread platform to be 100% free speech because of idiot teenage boys who'll say anything at all to offend. Best that can be hoped for is a decent compromise, and I think Twitter is that. I get all my breaking news + fact checks + both sides on Twitter. I think it's great.
Yeah, if Musk is willing to eat shit on the value of Twitter as it slowly declines, I will continue to use it for porn. Can't think of anyone I know under 50 who is still on it and also has a full time job though.
Delete"Total users: In 2023, Twitter currently has 353.90 million users, a 3.93% increase from 2022. (Source: https://www.bankmycell.com/blog/how-many-users-does-twitter-have)"
DeleteYour comment is biased BS. There are tons and tons of users, most under 50.
"Worldwide, 38.5% of Twitter users are 25-34, making it the largest age group using the app."
There are only 17.1% >50
https://blog.hootsuite.com/twitter-demographics/
Ok just watch what happens then. I get that you like Musk. And you’re right that DNC astroturfing ruins most other platforms.
DeleteBut Twitter is Facebook in 2012. It is straight up no longer cool in the first world and is gaining accounts “worldwide”. That matters since signing up new accounts of wealthy people is how these things grow. But Twitter is not what it used to be, which is reflected by its poor profitability and negative EBITDA.
I don’t like the soy brigade either, but look at the figures. Musk won’t lose cash forever.
Musk cares about free speech. The money is immaterial to him.
DeleteAs I said, we shall see what happens. I suspect Musk wants to make a profit here if he can, but it is possible you are correct and this is more of a political statement or a hobby.
DeleteAt least we can probably agree that it will be interesting to see how businesses react to a freer, edgier, more controversial social network. It should say a lot about perceptions of social risk and profitability.
He has a history of making money from businesses that seemed doomed!
DeleteYes, but Twitter is a bit different than a car company or a rocket company. There are no taxpayer subsidies this time, and the competition is fierce!
DeleteBut Twitter has first mover advantage and a strong network effect going for it. The only question is whether the censorious wokeys will win or not.
DeleteI liked Elon’s comment on Bill Maher that he’s not much of a conservative since he’s spent so much time building electric cars and developing solar power.
ReplyDeleteI only do Twitter a little since I have a hard time following what people mean with their cryptic comments. Free speech is good, yes, even For folks like Carlson and Trump with whom I disagree heartily.
I do miss shows like the McLaughlin Group where there was intense but constructive disagreement.
Rosco
Anybody who does not toe-the-line for the most currently fadish "progressive left" is labelled an "extreme MAGA Republican" nowadays, not realizing it's actually a compliment.
DeleteIt may seem so in some areas and in the media, but most of the people I know like neither the progressive left nor Donald Trump.
DeleteBefore she withdrew, I was backing Amy Klobuchar for president in 2020. We’ll see what happens in 2024.
Rosco
RFK Jr. is looking good. 53% favourable with Dems and 65% with Republicans!
DeleteI like Twitter, even more now under Musk. His move labelling CBC as 'Government Funded Media' was spot-on. When they got all pissy and claimed less than 70% of their funding was directly from the government, he re-labelled them '69% Government Funded Media'. They stormed off in a huff (they're back today, apparently). Anyway, Twitter let's me see breaking news in near-realtime, provides links to interesting articles, let's me express my own unvarnished opinion to the half dozen or so benighted fools who choose to read it, and it's free. Is it perfect? No, far from it. But nothing is. And it's optional, like all social media. Don't like it, don't go there.
ReplyDeleteFor all those hating on it, I say crawl back to Reddit or worse, Mastodon, where you'll be bathed in the warm embrace of those who think exactly like you and you'll never have to be challenged by a different opinion.
I agree totally. Those hating on the platform tend to be those who do not want opposing views raised (usually because they are very emotional and don't have the facts and the arguments to back themselves). I see the same types all the time in my comments!
DeleteTwitter is good for Porn not Politics !
ReplyDeleteIt's good for anything where you value free speech.
DeleteOnce more you do a fine job avoiding the elephant in the room. The issue with Twitter isn't so much the direction various contributors lean as it is the self-fueling distortions that people can provide on the platform. If Twitter users were largely educated and informed, the platform would be amusing and potentially useful.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is with people, who like you, prefer labels to facts. I'm not a progressive Democrat, though I tend to vote for Dems. Ever since talk radio hosts and a former White House resident made catchy name-calling the way to avoid intelligent discussion, short-form media like Twitter becomes the currency of those people.
Twitter is as good or bad as the people you follow. I like to use it to promote my blog and exchange non-political information with informed people. Musk's purchase and his largely-useless "For You" feed don't affect me at all. By the way, don't you think it is stupid to attach automatic credibility to anyone who pays $8 a month for a blue checkmark?
Show me another platform that's as committed to healthy free speech principles as demonstrated by actions such as those I listed.
DeleteTweets often refer to links, and increasingly we are getting full scale reporting in large-format tweets. The replies often add a lot, as do the community notes. I just ignore anything impolite that passes by and focus on the good points made on both sides of an argument.
Self-fuelling distortions are kept in check with community notes.
I did not label you with anything. I referred to the enemies of Twitter as being mainly progressive leftists. Do you dispute that characterization?
Before you had to pay, it was very inexpensive to launch a bot army. Now, it has become relatively very expensive to launch a verified bot army. That's the whole point of it.
What the radical right doesn't comprehend is freedom of speech doesn't come with freedom from consequences
ReplyDeleteSounds like an anti free speech sentiment there. "Cancel culture mob" for anybody you disagree with?
DeleteThe radical left doesn't comprehend that concept either. It is the consequences of speech that keep the civil people civil. We actually care about our neighbor. Western society is increasingly producing people with zero concern for anyone except themselves. No morals, no shame, only the impulse of the moment.
DeleteLike many things, you will never get a hard and fast rule. Reasonable people "know it when they see it". Like porn (I agree with that sentiment on how to detect porn, but disagree that it should be banned).
DeleteMy concern is that we have so few reasonable people left on the matter of "hate" speech. Hate speech should be confined to the truly ugly contentless stuff. Issues with sex, gender, race, medical, crime, ..., when stated in polite terms, should never be so labelled. Saying "trans women are men" is a political statement, not hateful. "Trans women should die" is hateful.
Julie "have I told you how much I love ❤️ you" your kinks and politics both are both spot on for my liking. Although I do prefer you on the top side of things Although I admit I have had many pleasurable mornings reading about you on the receiving end.
ReplyDeleteSome of my favorite stories of sort involved you sending a reader here On embarrassing shopping trips, how did he get that lucky lol. I need to get on that list someday.
I bet you enjoyed the ass beating President Trump gave CNN last night. Thank you for what you do .
Yes, it was incredibly amusing and entertaining and filled with truth.
DeleteTo be honest, I have yet to see the positive point of Twitter. It's a site that people can spew out brief statements of whatever the f. they feel a need to speak a sentence or two about. Somebody tell me how this is really a particular boon to society in general? Because I don't see it.
ReplyDeleteI use it for breaking news. I already know about everything before anybody else because of Twitter.
DeleteBut just how often is that "breaking news" really important to know faster than you could have heard about it on the news, at worst a few hours later?
DeleteNews often does not cover and does not give both sides or provide links and discussion (plus a lot of ignorable stupid comments, yes).
DeleteI am a casual user. Seldom tweet, just read what some rational folks share. Did not know there was porn on Twitter. And don't care.
ReplyDeleteMy feed is half politics, half porn!
DeleteI had a Twitter account for years before I deleted everything in disgust. When Elon bought it, I signed back up. The alternatives just weren’t cutting it. Even Truth Social. (Sorry Mr. Trump!) I don’t blue check, my Twitter name is my real name, and my number of followers makes me look like a bot. I think most should tweet under a real name, but I understand why some can’t. Some need anonymity for business reasons, harassment protection, and if I was following porn feeds, I would be anonymous too. Breaking news has been my main interest, but since the plandemic, real, the uncensored health and medical information available has been extremely valuable to me. Lots of medical professionals are generous with their time and want to help people, even when government, employers and licensing boards try to prevent it. Of course, unhinged leftist meltdowns are always fun to watch, as well. Don’t know if he’s still out there, but there was a lefty with the same name as me, demanding to know why I was impersonating him! Even if none of that had persuaded me to rejoin, I would now be signing up for sure to watch “right-wing extremist” Tucker’s show. - david
ReplyDeleteI agree. Anybody with eyes to see can see both sides are battling it out on Twitter.
Deletethis take is as trash as that rapist pedo president u love so much.Twitter is now another far right propoganda machine.It is nowhere in the middle
ReplyDeletePedo? Never heard that one before. Also, any rape allegation was just thrown out. Biden looks like quite a pedo, what with all the sniffing of little girls and showering naked with his granddaughter.
DeleteYou don't like Twitter because you live in an echo chamber and can't deal with alternative points of view.
I actually like opposing views but nope your far right points make zero sense half the time. Trump just got charged with sexual assault plus the list of how he treats women are long as life, these include rape, he been on epsteins island but we know u don't care
DeleteYou clearly don't like opposing views and you are TDS infected in a bad way.
DeleteTrump had a hate on for Epstein ever since the incident with the daughter of a member at Mar-a-Lago. Trump banned him from all his properties. Trump never visited pedo island. That was President Bill Clinton you must be thinking of.
The E Jean Carol thing was utter nonsense. Jury found she lied about being raped, which was her allegation. He was found liable of touching her in a sexual manner, but Trump claims he does not know the women, and she has zero evidence to the contrary. ZERO. And she's a total kook (has rape fantasies, thinks it sexy, and named her cat Vagina, among other things). But of course a biased NY jury found in her favour. Nobody not named Trump would have been found liable in a million years on the same set of facts. They literally had to change NY State law to extend the statute of limitations specifically for this case. Did your news sources tell you any of those facts?
And yes, he slept with a lot of beautiful women, and he's very rich and very famous. That's going to attract low rent women like Stormy trying to make a buck.
You are so easily lead around by your nose by the Democrat lie machine that I feel sorry for you. Must be terrible to not know how to analyze facts and think.
Trump got sentenced to pay Carol 5mil. USD. So apparently the court decided that something inappropriate happened back then. As for no one but Trump being found guilty in said case I'll allow myself to question. Following the MeToo movement things seem to have changed in that regard.
DeleteAnyway, this is actually one allegation against Trump, where I'll side with him in the sense that I don't think he raped the mentioned lady. I can perfectly well see Trump having sex with her in a dressing room in a shopping center, and that part being true. But I'm not buying it being rape. Too many times, during the supposed timeline of events, an outcry on behalf of Carol could have brought attention to something happening, and caused someone to come looking. And don't tell me that the place didn't have camera surveillance back then. Maybe not in the changing rooms, but certainly on the floors, and likely outside of the changing rooms. I also have a hard time seeing her sitting on the story for 30 years, and telling noone about supposedly having been raped. Despite having it supposedly ruin her ability to have a relationship in the following decades. IMO she had consensual sex with Trump, and later regretted it for whatever reason.
If you look at the details of that case, there was terrible bias by the judge. He would not allow any evidence that Carol was a kook who had previously falsely accused other men of the same thing. Nor did the judge allow evidence that given the store's private shopper policy at the time, at no point would Trump have been unaccompanied. Much room for appeal.
DeleteI think I'll let the legal system decide what's right or wrong to admit as evidence into any particular trial. They are a LOT better versed in US law then I am, (and probably you too), but your comment on the case is noted. As for this particular case, let's see if it gets appealed by Trump, and where it eventually ends. For the time being, the judge presiding over the case found that there was sufficient cause to make Trump pay Carol 5 mil. USD.
DeleteAs for whether she's a kook or not, that doesn't mean that she didn't have sex with Trump in a changing room. The two are not mutually exclusive. But as I wrote earlier, this is one matter, where I'm siding with Trump saying that there was no rape. Though I do suspect that they had spontaneous, consensual sex in that changing room.
It was not the judge, it was the jury. But the judge ruled consistently against Trump and for the plaintive on matters of admitting evidence. Absolutely key evidence I reference above was not allowed, which will become a point of appeal.
DeleteElon just announced that he has found a new CEO for Twitter. He did not disclose the name but nevertheless he said that "she" would be starting in few weeks.
ReplyDeleteCould it be you....? You fit his criteria and ours.
More evidence of Elon’s genius: Hiring a woman CEO to save 22% on executive compensation. - david
DeleteThe woman is apparently a whizz with advertisers and has some cred with the left. It was a good choice IMO (as well as being 22% cheaper because of 'muh wage gap 😂)
DeleteWe've traded emails several times over the past few years. You need to come out of the closet and publish your political/social commentary under your real name or another pseudonym in a different blog. Non insane people need your voice to counter the crazy NYT, WaPo, CNN, etc. Or join up with Jordan Peterson and his growing empire of truth telling.
ReplyDeleteThanks, but I imagine it's hard to get an audience without talking about sex and showing my spanked ass!
DeleteCurious about your take on the Twitter move in Turkey. How to balance free speech and availability? Will be interesting to see what they restricted
ReplyDelete"In response to legal process and to ensure Twitter remains available to the people of Turkey, we have taken action to restrict access to some content in Turkey today."
I am unaware of this issue. Will look into it.
DeleteHowever, I do know Elon has said he will respect whatever speech restrictions a country passes into law. Not sure how to work around that.
Ouch, Elon did you dirty Julie lmao. I really don't have a horse in this race and have continued to use Twitter through all of the changes recently because... I don't care lol.
ReplyDeleteBut geez, ever since your post about him Elon has seemingly gone out of his way to make things appear differently to how you've put them! First he resigns and installs a new CEO and now he very publicly caved to Erdogan's threats and removed content created by his opponents. Free speech indeed, lol.
-Kasey
I'll wait and see on the new CEO. Elon has spoken passionately about free speech, so I expect the new CEO will mirror that or be fired. She's apparently a whizz at drumming up advertisers.
DeleteAs to Edrogan, I have not looked into that yet, but Twitter is hampered by country laws, so if the restrictions have taken the form of laws, there is little Twitter could do.
From Twitter:
Delete"In response to legal process and to ensure Twitter remains available to the people of Turkey, we have taken action to restrict access to some content in Turkey today. We have informed the account holders of this action in line with our policy.
This content will remain available in the rest of the world."
From Elon: "This is par for the course for all Internet companies – we are just going to be clear that it’s happening, unlike the others".
He really is between a rock and a hard place, but I think his response is the best of a bad lot.
If Wikipedia can take Erdogan to the Turkish supreme court and win then so can Twitter. It's entirely Twitter's choice to limit free speech in Turkey. Going off of Elon's words alone is not enough.
Delete-Kasey
And, this isn't even a left vs right issue. The opposition to Erdogan in Turkey is a mix of left, right and Kurds. It's the literally "anyone but Erdogan" ticket. So it's not that Elon is silencing leftists, it's that he's choosing his company to silence some aspects of free speech.
Delete-Kasey
And perhaps they will challenge it, but it seems like for the time being they have assessed it is a legal order from the Turkish govt (though one we all hate). The consequence of going against the policy is being shut down in Turkey. He's still allowing all the tweets, and anybody with a VPN can access them, which is the same net effect as being shut down.
DeleteFreedom of speech is absolute. Fire in the theater, racist bullshit !!!
ReplyDeleteArgue, debate.
You are a fag, a nazi, a quiver, a gypset or a newworld girl
Show me !!!!
Most people disagree with that, as do I. Ought not say things that directly bring harm to people. Ought not say truly hateful things. I don't think the latter should be against the law, but not being platformed is ok.
Delete