Elon & Twitter

[ohmman]

Last night I spoke with a Facebook employee who survived the recent 11,000 person layoff. He had a view that I thought was interesting. I asked if he was relieved about keeping his job and he was relatively ambivalent about it. That surprised me, because he's a pretty high earner. When I pressed about it, he told me that very few people who work in social media are passionate about their job, because, well, it's social media. The pay is good, and that's why people stay. But most employees recognize that it's not some great mission. It's a job.

I asked how he thought that would play into the current Twitter situation and his feeling is that Musk has had a lot of success driving people to do great things because they were working towards great causes. Launching rockets and being the underdog in a new electric car company are mission driven projects that can ignite passion in employees. He has worked with people from all over social media and his feeling is the same kind of passion will be significantly harder to generate about a social media company like Twitter.

That might be one difference of this particular undertaking that we haven't yet acknowledged in this thread.

 

[PeterJA]

...So your theory is he's intentionally (ie "intends") posting grossly untrue things as fact as some kind of 69D chess move to prove fact checking (using a system that was there before Elon bought the company) works?

I never said that. Now you are creating straw men.

The man makes mistakes. But he corrects them. The fact-check showed his error, and his tweet has now been deleted. Isn't that what we want to happen to falsehoods?

https://twitter.com/x/status/1591585984747286528

 

[Knightshade]

I never said that. Now you are creating straw men.

Does the word "intends" mean something other than intentional in your world? Because that's the word you used.


Can we get back though to addressing the fact the guy who bid 44B, signed a contract to pay 44B, and actually did pay 44B not only had no idea of the actual click through rates of the company he did all that for- but still doesn't a couple weeks after he's in charge?

How do you explain getting something so basic about the business so hilariously wrong this late in the game of interest, offer, and aquisition?

The man makes mistakes. But he corrects them

Or others do, as happened here.

But again, how could that massive an error happen to begin with other than he has no idea what's going on at his own company?

. The fact-check showed his error, and his tweet has now been deleted. Isn't that what we want to happen to falsehoods?

I can't speak for you.

But what I want is for people to try to stick to posting true things in the first place.

And this is one Elon should already have known like the back of his hand instead of...wherever he got the idea he was #1 instead of not even in the top 10 from.

 

[sleepydoc]

Sounds like you've been reading the smear campaign in mainstream media, an industry that Elon is disrupting.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1588671155766194176

Most accounts I've read indicate that Twitter (and other social media giants) are overstaffed. Twitter was/is also hemorrhaging money. This being the case, staffing cuts are a natural and expected course of action. Very few people would dispute that. The source of contention is how the cuts were done. Employees found out they had been cut when they couldn't check their email. Ya think maybe a more professional route would have been to actually call them? Or send them a letter or and email before you cut them? Even forgetting about professionalism, just in terms of getting the work done, suddenly cutting people off leaves everything in the air with no way to make a controlled landing.

Then there's the reports of them going back to some employees and saying 'oops, we didn't really mean to fire you, can you come back?'

Finally, if half of the employees were actually bots like Elon claimed, why didn't he just fire the bots first? Seems like that would be a totally free way to cut costs.

 

[PeterJA]

...But what I want is for people to try to stick to posting true things in the first place.

Convenient and immediate fact-checking by millions of people seems likely to inventivize verified accounts to fact-check themselves before posting... if you give the system more than 2 weeks to start working.

Maybe it is already working on Elon.

 

[JRP3]

Convenient and immediate fact-checking by millions of people seems likely to inventivize verified accounts to fact-check themselves before posting... if you give the system more than 2 weeks to start working.

It didn't work on Elon previously. He's been fact checked before and had to delete tweets but still freely posts misinformation. Slow learner I guess.

 

[PeterJA]

...Then there's the reports....

The problem (for me at least) is I don't know which reports are true and which are part of the ongoing smear campaign.

Twitter Layoffs Hoax, Duo Posing As Laid Off Employees Trick Reporters

Media outlets were duped by pranksters posing as laid off Twitter employees, one of which told reporters his name was 'Rahul Ligma.'

www.tmz.com

And this problem will get worse. The rise of video "deepfakes" now allows anyone with cheap computer tools to make a video of you saying you ate your grandmother for breakfast, or something much more lucrative for the video creator.

I suspect that this is partly why Elon bought Twitter: to create a trustworthy platform of identity-verified speakers subject to instant and convenient fact checking by millions. I think Tesla (and civilization) needs this to avoid drowning in disinformation.

 

[ohmman]

a trustworthy platform of identity-verified speakers

Going well so far.

 

[PeterJA]

Going well so far.

Key words: "so far"

https://twitter.com/x/status/1590384919829962752

 

[hacer]

Last night I spoke with a Facebook employee who survived the recent 11,000 person layoff. He had a view that I thought was interesting. I asked if he was relieved about keeping his job and he was relatively ambivalent about it. That surprised me, because he's a pretty high earner. When I pressed about it, he told me that very few people who work in social media are passionate about their job, because, well, it's social media. The pay is good, and that's why people stay. But most employees recognize that it's not some great mission. It's a job.

I asked how he thought that would play into the current Twitter situation and his feeling is that Musk has had a lot of success driving people to do great things because they were working towards great causes. Launching rockets and being the underdog in a new electric car company are mission driven projects that can ignite passion in employees. He has worked with people from all over social media and his feeling is the same kind of passion will be significantly harder to generate about a social media company like Twitter.

That might be one difference of this particular undertaking that we haven't yet acknowledged in this thread.

I think that some of Elon's stated aspiration for Twitter (e.g. an actual town-square of reasoned debate, breaking down of community "bubbles") could have inspired many Twitter employees and users. The problem was that immediately after acquiring Twitter, many of Elon's own tweets were pretty much the exact opposite of those goals. With no apologies or even admitting when they were wrong it transforms the perception of the aspirational goals into just a bunch of platitudes not to be taken seriously. I'm not ready to say he can't turn things around but I don't see how it's possible without him first changing his own tweeting behavior which seems unlikely.

 

[30seconds]

I think Elon needs a long vacation

https://twitter.com/x/status/1591827463583453190

 

[Matias]

The problem (for me at least) is I don't know which reports are true and which are part of the ongoing smear campaign.

Twitter Layoffs Hoax, Duo Posing As Laid Off Employees Trick Reporters

Media outlets were duped by pranksters posing as laid off Twitter employees, one of which told reporters his name was 'Rahul Ligma.'

www.tmz.com

And this problem will get worse. The rise of video "deepfakes" now allows anyone with cheap computer tools to make a video of you saying you ate your grandmother for breakfast, or something much more lucrative for the video creator.

I suspect that this is partly why Elon bought Twitter: to create a trustworthy platform of identity-verified speakers subject to instant and convenient fact checking by millions. I think Tesla (and civilization) needs this to avoid drowning in disinformation.

I would trust mainstream media more than xx69pussydestroyer from twitter.

 

[ElectricIAC]

I think Elon needs a long vacation

https://twitter.com/x/status/1591827463583453190

Oh I know Eddie isn’t making threats now is he?

 

[PeterJA]

I think Elon needs a long vacation

https://twitter.com/x/status/1591827463583453190

Maybe so, here's some context: Senator Markey has been attacking Tesla for some time in a quite unreasonable way. Elon has reason to be fed up with him. If anyone picked a fight, it was Markey.

Sen. Ed Markey, co-architect of Green New Deal, is wrong on Tesla Autopilot

Senator Ed Markey (D-MA), co-architect of the Green New Deal, is expanding his attacks on Tesla Autopilot. He previously only...

electrek.co

And Elon doesn't need to be told to fix his companies.

 

[ohmman]

Elon's response wasn't actually to this tweet. Took me a second to figure this out, but I noticed that he was replying to @washingtonpost as well, which wasn't in the original message.

It's actually this (apologies, I don't know how to embed a tweet here).

 

[PeterJA]

Elon's response wasn't actually to this tweet. Took me a second to figure this out, but I noticed that he was replying to @washingtonpost as well, which wasn't in the original message.

It's actually this (apologies, I don't know how to embed a tweet here).

View attachment 874189

I can't even find Elon's reply that you posted in his Twitter feed. Clearly this Twitter thing needs some work.

 

[bkp_duke]

I think Elon needs a long vacation

https://twitter.com/x/status/1591827463583453190

Agree, but Sen Markey needs to stay in his lane. Nothing good comes from anything Congress touches. And his intentionally threating a private citizen with investigations and/or congressional intervention . . . yeah, lots of people take issue with that.

 

[bkp_duke]

Maybe so, here's some context: Senator Markey has been attacking Tesla for some time in a quite unreasonable way. Elon has reason to be fed up with him. If anyone picked a fight, it was Markey.

Sen. Ed Markey, co-architect of Green New Deal, is wrong on Tesla Autopilot

Senator Ed Markey (D-MA), co-architect of the Green New Deal, is expanding his attacks on Tesla Autopilot. He previously only...

electrek.co

And Elon doesn't need to be told to fix his companies.

Markey has long-time campaign contributions from the UAW and is extremely pro-union. Suspicious . . . no?

Senator Markey Joins Senator Warren, Representative Sherman in Reintroducing the Nationwide Right to Unionize Act, Call for Passage of the PRO Act | U.S. Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts

Washington (September 8, 2022) — Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) joined Senator Elizabeth Warren...

www.markey.senate.gov

 

[bigsmooth125]

Agree, but Sen Markey needs to stay in his lane. Nothing good comes from anything Congress touches. And his intentionally threating a private citizen with investigations and/or congressional intervention . . . yeah, lots of people take issue with that.

The issue isn't Sen Markey or anyone to whom Elon tweets a response. It's Elon's responses themselves. There's a smart and clever way to respond, and there's a juvenile way. We see too many of the latter. And it's this behavior, accumlated over time, that reflects negatively on Elon and thus Tesla's brand.

 

[30seconds]

Agree, but Sen Markey needs to stay in his lane. Nothing good comes from anything Congress touches. And his intentionally threating a private citizen with investigations and/or congressional intervention . . . yeah, lots of people take issue with that.

Markey doesn’t have to threaten anything. All the career at the FTC, NHSTA, SEC just got reminded that they have plenty of political cover if they need it.

Contrast that with not being a snowflake and having a good strategy to get broad support.