Elon's Twitter

[River]

Musk is currently running a poll over whether or not he should step aside as the leader of Twitter. So far the majority is "yes".

[Frelga]

The poll is here



Twitter also a announced a new rule banning links to other social media sites like Instagram, Facebook, and Mastodon, plus a few I've never heard of. The list notably does not ban links to right-wing sites like Parler and Gab. It does ban Truth Social, probably because its owner didn't come running once unbanned on Twitter.

[N.E. Brigand]

Twitter yesterday "permanently" suspended another reporter, Taylor Lorenz of the Washington Post, with no explanation given. Lorenz had not violated the new rule. However, she had just tweeted at Musk asking for comment on the story he's told about his child having been put in danger.

Today, Elon Musk tweeted that Lorenz's suspension was only temporary and that the reason for her suspension was "prior doxxing." It appears this refers not to anything she did on Twitter but to a news article she wrote two years ago in which she revealed the identity of an influential pseudonymous Twitter user.

Meanwhile, Musk attended the World Cup Finals in Qatar today in the company of Jared Kushner.

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Also:

(For those who don't know: "Jack" is Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter who lately seems to have realized he made a huge mistake selling the firm.)

Elon Musk is now hinting that he might just shut down Twitter entirely, because he believes no one else "can keep Twitter alive," but as Josh Marshall notes, while Twitter faced some financial challenges before Musk's purchase, it was in no short-term danger of having to close. Musk has damaged the company by (1) saddling it with billions in debt it didn't previously have and (2) driving away advertisers:



I don't think Musk can actually close Twitter, because he owes a good deal to his investors. But he's obviously not thinking clearly, so who knows what he will try. Marshall argues that Musk doesn't have a grand plan and is making it up as he goes. He may be trying to set someone else as the fall guy for Twitter's eventual collapse, or maybe he's trying to reassure his Tesla investors that he'll stop micromanaging Twitter and once again will focus on his car company.

[N.E. Brigand]

Twitter also a announced a new rule banning links to other social media sites like Instagram, Facebook, and Mastodon, plus a few I've never heard of. The list notably does not ban links to right-wing sites like Parler and Gab. It does ban Truth Social, probably because its owner didn't come running once unbanned on Twitter.

According to one commentator, this rule "is in direct violation of European Union rules," and the penalty could be substantial, but the EU isn't actually issuing penalties until next year.

[Dave_LF]

As Garry Kasparaov put it, "Places everyone wants to go are strict about who gets in. Prisons and dictatorships are strict about who gets out!"

[N.E. Brigand]

Twitter yesterday "permanently" suspended another reporter, Taylor Lorenz of the Washington Post, with no explanation given. Lorenz had not violated the new rule. However, she had just tweeted at Musk asking for comment on the story he's told about his child having been put in danger.

Today, Elon Musk tweeted that Lorenz's suspension was only temporary and that the reason for her suspension was "prior doxxing." It appears this refers not to anything she did on Twitter but to a news article she wrote two years ago in which she revealed the identity of an influential pseudonymous Twitter user.

Taylor Lorenz and Drew Harwell have published their story on the stalking incident in the Washington Post. This seems to be the reporting that got both Lorenz and Harwell suspended from Twitter, but I think their accounts have now been restored. (Lorenz's certainly has been. Harwell hasn't posted for three days, but I can see his prior content.)

A confrontation between a member of Elon Musk’s security team and an alleged stalker that Musk blamed on a Twitter account that tracked his jet took place at a gas station 26 miles from Los Angeles International Airport and 23 hours after the @ElonJet account had last located the jet’s whereabouts.

The timing and location of the confrontation cast doubt on Musk’s assertion that the account had posted real-time “assassination coordinates” that threatened his family and led to the confrontation. Police have said little about the incident but say they’ve yet to find a link between the confrontation and the jet-tracking account.

The incident, The Washington Post’s reporting shows, occurred in South Pasadena, a Los Angeles suburb, on Tuesday at about 9:45 p.m. South Pasadena police were called to the gas station, according to the business’s manager, but made no arrests. South Pasadena police have not responded to requests for comment. ...

Musk tweeted Thursday that journalists [whom he had ordered to be suspended from Twitter] had been “aware of the violent stalker and yet still doxed the real-time location of my family.” He did not say which journalists he was referring to or provide evidence. The Post was unaware of the incident until Musk tweeted about it. A review of the internet found no news accounts about a stalker. A volunteer with the investigative journalism group Bellingcat used the video Musk posted to locate the incident to the gas station.

The story takes stalking seriously. It's the kind of journalism you'd want reporters to do in case like this. They were able to identify and interview the stalker. He's nuts, and he seems to have at least as much interest in the mother of two of Musk's children, the singer Grimes (who lives not far from that gas station), as in Musk himself. Grimes and the children don't seem to have been in the car when the confrontation happened, fortunately.

As Emily Nussbaum of The New Yorker notes, there are faint echoes of the attack on Paul Pelosi -- an attack which Elon Musk made light of.

[N.E. Brigand]

As Garry Kasparaov put it, "Places everyone wants to go are strict about who gets in. Prisons and dictatorships are strict about who gets out!"

Musk himself made this very point just six months ago: "The acid test for any two competing socioeconomic systems is which side needs to build a wall to keep people from escaping? That’s the bad one!" Holy mother-forking shirtballs! (Spoiler at link for The Good Place.)

[Frelga]

There's a Musk quote for everything.

There's also a Pratchett quote.

I heard where this guy, he killed this monster in this lake, no problem, stuck its arm up over the door (...) and you know what? Its mum come and complained. Its actual mum come right down to the hall next day and complained. Actually complained. That's the respect you get.
Guards! Guards!

Yes, Musk's actual mom actually come right down to Twitter to defend his antilink policy. Actually come and complained.

I feel silly even mentioning it in this group but Pratchett is obviously making a Beowulf reference.

[N.E. Brigand]

There's a Musk quote for everything. There's also a Pratchett quote.

I heard where this guy, he killed this monster in this lake, no problem, stuck its arm up over the door (...) and you know what? Its mum come and complained. Its actual mum come right down to the hall next day and complained. Actually complained. That's the respect you get. Guards! Guards!

Yes, Musk's actual mom actually come right down to Twitter to defend his antilink policy. Actually come and complained.

I feel silly even mentioning it in this group but Pratchett is obviously making a Beowulf reference.

And Maye Musk's defense of the new policy didn't even make sense: per her analogy, Twitter's users are company employees.

And also:

Twitter also a announced a new rule banning links to other social media sites like Instagram, Facebook, and Mastodon, plus a few I've never heard of. The list notably does not ban links to right-wing sites like Parler and Gab. It does ban Truth Social, probably because its owner didn't come running once unbanned on Twitter.

According to one commentator, this rule "is in direct violation of European Union rules," and the penalty could be substantial, but the EU isn't actually issuing penalties until next year.

Apparently Elon Musk didn't bother running the new policy past his lawyers before publicizing it, but I guess he has now, because the tweets announcing the new policy, and the policy itself, have all been deleted.

[Frelga]

Leaving behind thousands of posts mocking the policy and leading up to thousands more mocking the deletion.

And Maye Musk's defense of the new policy didn't even make sense: per her analogy, Twitter's users are company employees.

Yes, it's more like if Tesla stopped driving if you put a "My other car is..." bumper sticker on it.

[N.E. Brigand]

One of Elon Musk's "Twitter files" reporters today posted Hunter Biden's personal email address and phone number on Twitter. (The information may be out of date, but the reporter, Michael Shellenberger, doesn't address this concern one way or the other.)

[N.E. Brigand]

I believe to see these Twitter results manipulated by the Chinese government, you have to search using Chinese characters.

Twitter used to have a team that would respond to this sort of thing.

The New York Times has more reporting on how China used a network of bots to bury Chinese language tweets about the protests there: there's a service that charges $1,400 per month to have 200 bots each tweet 150 times daily.

[Eldy]

The new spin is in thanks to an assist by Kim Dotcom (of Megaupload fame):



Source

[N.E. Brigand]

I saw someone point out that this means Musk is now instituting a poll tax.

[N.E. Brigand]

Twitter yesterday "permanently" suspended another reporter, Taylor Lorenz of the Washington Post, with no explanation given. Lorenz had not violated the new rule. However, she had just tweeted at Musk asking for comment on the story he's told about his child having been put in danger.

Today, Elon Musk tweeted that Lorenz's suspension was only temporary and that the reason for her suspension was "prior doxxing." It appears this refers not to anything she did on Twitter but to a news article she wrote two years ago in which she revealed the identity of an influential pseudonymous Twitter user.

Taylor Lorenz and Drew Harwell have published their story on the stalking incident in the Washington Post. This seems to be the reporting that got both Lorenz and Harwell suspended from Twitter, but I think their accounts have now been restored. (Lorenz's certainly has been. Harwell hasn't posted for three days, but I can see his prior content.)

Harwell says that Twitter won't let him post unless he deletes this comment:



And he says because it's factual reporting, he won't do that.

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Meanwhile, Marcy Wheeler points out that the Jan. 6 Committee's executive summary shows that Twitter used to allow doxxing when the President of the United States did it:

[N.E. Brigand]

The most recent installment in the "Twitter files" series, this time presented by Lee Fang (formerly of the Intercept), actually breaks some news, I think:

How Twitter Quietly Aided the Pentagon’s Covert Online PsyOp Campaign

Despite promises to shut down covert state-run propaganda networks, Twitter documents show that the social media giant directly assisted the U.S. military’s influence operations.

Twitter has claimed for years that they make concerted efforts to detect and thwart government-backed platform manipulation. Here is Twitter testifying to Congress about its pledge to rapidly identify and shut down all state-backed covert information operations and deceptive propaganda. [see image at link]

But behind the scenes, Twitter gave approval and special protection to the U.S. military’s online psychological influence ops. Despite knowledge that Pentagon propaganda accounts used covert identities, Twitter did not suspend many for around two years or more. Some remain active.

Much more at the link. I'm not sure how I feel about this cooperation between Twitter and the Dept. of Defense, which appears to have started in 2017.

[N.E. Brigand]

Twitter yesterday "permanently" suspended another reporter, Taylor Lorenz of the Washington Post, with no explanation given. Lorenz had not violated the new rule. However, she had just tweeted at Musk asking for comment on the story he's told about his child having been put in danger.

Today, Elon Musk tweeted that Lorenz's suspension was only temporary and that the reason for her suspension was "prior doxxing." It appears this refers not to anything she did on Twitter but to a news article she wrote two years ago in which she revealed the identity of an influential pseudonymous Twitter user.

Taylor Lorenz and Drew Harwell have published their story on the stalking incident in the Washington Post. This seems to be the reporting that got both Lorenz and Harwell suspended from Twitter, but I think their accounts have now been restored. (Lorenz's certainly has been. Harwell hasn't posted for three days, but I can see his prior content.)

A confrontation between a member of Elon Musk’s security team and an alleged stalker that Musk blamed on a Twitter account that tracked his jet took place at a gas station 26 miles from Los Angeles International Airport and 23 hours after the @ElonJet account had last located the jet’s whereabouts.

The timing and location of the confrontation cast doubt on Musk’s assertion that the account had posted real-time “assassination coordinates” that threatened his family and led to the confrontation. Police have said little about the incident but say they’ve yet to find a link between the confrontation and the jet-tracking account.

The incident, The Washington Post’s reporting shows, occurred in South Pasadena, a Los Angeles suburb, on Tuesday at about 9:45 p.m. South Pasadena police were called to the gas station, according to the business’s manager, but made no arrests. South Pasadena police have not responded to requests for comment. ...

Musk tweeted Thursday that journalists [whom he had ordered to be suspended from Twitter] had been “aware of the violent stalker and yet still doxed the real-time location of my family.” He did not say which journalists he was referring to or provide evidence. The Post was unaware of the incident until Musk tweeted about it. A review of the internet found no news accounts about a stalker. A volunteer with the investigative journalism group Bellingcat used the video Musk posted to locate the incident to the gas station.

The story takes stalking seriously. It's the kind of journalism you'd want reporters to do in case like this. They were able to identify and interview the stalker. He's nuts, and he seems to have at least as much interest in the mother of two of Musk's children, the singer Grimes (who lives not far from that gas station), as in Musk himself. Grimes and the children don't seem to have been in the car when the confrontation happened, fortunately.

As Emily Nussbaum of The New Yorker notes, there are faint echoes of the attack on Paul Pelosi -- an attack which Elon Musk made light of.

The Guardian has more on the story, including this:

"The South Pasadena police department has confirmed that an incident involving two vehicles was reported to the police on Tuesday night, but said that a member of Elon Musk’s security team is currently a suspect in the investigation, not a victim."

[N.E. Brigand]

One of Elon Musk's "Twitter files" reporters today posted Hunter Biden's personal email address and phone number on Twitter. (The information may be out of date, but the reporter, Michael Shellenberger, doesn't address this concern one way or the other.)

Vox's Andrew Prokop makes a good point about Hunter Biden's laptop, which has lately been the subject of the "Twitter files" project: the computer repair shop owner was motivated to deliver the laptop to Rudy Giuliani & co. after seeing reports about Donald Trump's first impeachment trial, in which Trump was charged with extorting Ukraine's president to announce an investigation into . . . Hunter Biden. So in a way, Trump's extortion paid off.

[Frelga]

Would you be shocked to hear that Musk lied about the stalker who supposedly got his child's location from the flight tracker? Yeah, me neither.

“Police in South Pasadena said in a statement Tuesday that, contrary to Musk's assertions about the incident, they believe a member of Musk's security team hit a man with his car and accused him of following him.”

California police say member of Elon Musk's security team is a suspect following stalker claim

[Dave_LF]

Seems like as good an explanation as any:
http://smbc-comics.com/comic/artificial-incompetence