Elon & Twitter

[sleepydoc]

You mean the one that suggests that all EV owners can't find reliable charging on road trips? By failing to mention Tesla's superchargers?

did you read the article? It did mention Tesla‘s superchargers. It gave the example of a woman traveling in an iD4 then a few paragraphs later stated ”For the most part, Tesla owners have found that the company’s proprietary charging network works well”

Isn’t that exactly what everyone here keeps saying? Road trips aren’t practical in non-tesla EVs and the supercharger network is what puts Tesla’s miles ahead of the competition (pun intended)

 

[sleepydoc]

Interesting. I thought only criminals can do that.

That’s the point. The ‘fixes’ Elon put in place actually made it easier for anyone to spoof an identity and trivially easy for a criminal to do so.

If I were you I'd just watch him work. Give it time. He'll fix Twitter and it's much an act of philanthropy as anything else.

I have been watching him work and I’m not impressed. I think that’s the difference - I’m pessimistic because of what I see. You’re optimistic in spite of what I see.

 

[Knightshade]

Interesting. I thought only criminals can do that.

I mean to be fair, you think a lot of things that turn out to have no basis in fact

Even worse- they are things that were already explained in this very thread multiple times--- including the credit card number thing. But sure, here it is yet again...

Several banks specifically allow cardholders to generate disposable numbers for the users security (Citi and Cap One were cited previously- though I suspect others may offer it too). Criminals of course have even more options, with stolen card #s readily available for as cheap as $1 per number. If you're gonna scam people out of money paying $9 total instead of $8 isn't much of a burden.


BTW, in case you remain unclear about the fact the $8 blue check did not verify your identity-- here's Twitter telling you it does not verify your identity

X Verification requirements - how to get the blue check

The blue Verified badge on X lets people know that an account of public interest is authentic. Learn about which types of accounts become Verified.

help.twitter.com

What does the blue checkmark mean?
...the account has an active subscription to Twitter’s new Twitter Blue subscription service, which was made available on iOS in the US, Canada, Australia New Zealand and the UK on November 9, 2022. Accounts that receive the blue checkmark as part of a Twitter Blue subscription will not undergo review to confirm that they meet the active, notable and authentic criteria that was used in the previous process.

Note the bit in bold.

You can apologize for insisting I was wrong multiple times when telling you this anytime

 

[sleepydoc]

Do you think Elon did that himself or was someone assigned that task?

Does it matter? he took over and created a mess. If he assigned it to someone else then he clearly assigned it to the wrong person which goes back to his ability to lead the company.

 

[PeterJA]

did you read the article? It did mention Tesla‘s superchargers. It gave the example of a woman traveling in an iD4 then a few paragraphs later stated ”For the most part, Tesla owners have found that the company’s proprietary charging network works well”

Isn’t that exactly what everyone here keeps saying? Road trips aren’t practical in non-tesla EVs and the supercharger network is what puts Tesla’s miles ahead of the competition (pun intended)

I confess I didn't read the article, only excerpts posted here. I find that many media hit-pieces use a misleading headline and first paragraph, then correct them "a few paragraphs later," where the truth is missed by busy people (and algos) who read only the headline and first paragraph. Now why would the media do that?

If you were publishing a piece about EV ownership, why would your example be an ID4 owner, despite the fact that 75% of EV owners in the US drive Teslas? (more in California) Why would you describe the EV owner's extreme hardship in detail, then mention Tesla in one sentence "a few paragraphs later"?

It's quite a mystery. You tell me.

 

[PeterJA]

I mean to be fair, you think a lot of things that turn out to have no basis in fact

Even worse- they are things that were already explained in this very thread multiple times--- including the credit card number thing. But sure, here it is yet again...

Several banks specifically allow cardholders to generate disposable numbers for the users security (Citi and Cap One were cited previously- though I suspect others may offer it too). Criminals of course have even more options, with stolen card #s readily available for as cheap as $1 per number. If you're gonna scam people out of money paying $9 total instead of $8 isn't much of a burden.


BTW, in case you remain unclear about the fact the $8 blue check did not verify your identity-- here's Twitter telling you it does not verify your identity

X Verification requirements - how to get the blue check

The blue Verified badge on X lets people know that an account of public interest is authentic. Learn about which types of accounts become Verified.

help.twitter.com

Note the bit in bold.

You can apologize for insisting I was wrong multiple times when telling you this anytime

Thank you for your research. Unlike your avatar, I have limited time to spend arguing with haters on the Internet.

 

[Knightshade]

Thank you for your research. Unlike your avatar, I have limited time to spend arguing with haters on the Internet.

Might I suggest the time you HAVE spent arguing here would've been better spent on the research part rather than the arguing part?

Especially since you'd have avoided wasting a ton of time arguing in favor of ideas that were not actually true if you'd bothered to check?

For example when you wrote:

You mean the one that suggests that all EV owners can't find reliable charging on road trips? By failing to mention Tesla's superchargers?

You acting like you read the article.

Except then someone who DID read it points out your claim is false- and you admit:

I confess I didn't read the article

Seriously dude- you keep being wrong on the basic facts over and over because you can't be bothered to check...like... anything...before just making up stuff about it.


Why you keep trying to participate in a discussion you aren't willing to actually learn the facts or details of is.... well, I'll let you describe it!

It's quite a mystery.

 

[DeepFrz]

Musk should have paid more attention to Tesla and made it a first class car company. Instead he buys twitter and gets completely hosed. Dude just stick with what works.

Almost works.

 

[sleepydoc]

I confess I didn't read the article, only excerpts posted here. I find that many media hit-pieces use a misleading headline and first paragraph, then correct them "a few paragraphs later," where the truth is missed by busy people (and algos) who read only the headline and first paragraph. Now why would the media do that?

If you were publishing a piece about EV ownership, why would your example be an ID4 owner, despite the fact that 75% of EV owners in the US drive Teslas? (more in California) Why would you describe the EV owner's extreme hardship in detail, then mention Tesla in one sentence "a few paragraphs later"?

It's quite a mystery. You tell me.

I strongly suggest you read the article in its entirety.

Tesla is the 500 lb gorilla in the EV world but there are many other options and there are many people who want an EV but don’t want a Tesla either because of Elon Musk or because they are turned off by Tesla zealots, or perhaps they can’t afford a Tesla so they consider some other, more affordable options. The article was about the growing interest in EVs and they would have been remiss not to include other brands since they are part of the growing market.

 

[Ogre]

What evidence do you have it was useless for most people?

Because Blue Checks were so uncommon, most Twitter traffic is by definition between non-Blue Check users.

Blue checks are useless when you can't get them and most of the people you follow don't have them.

I think most people were able to use the check to distinguish imposters of those account that had them (the checks) which were the majority of accounts that had lots of followers and the largest target for scammers and thus the most important to protect from imposters.

I've already mentioned multiple accounts that I've followed which have fought impersonators but weren't "big enough" to merit Blue Checks.

Most of the people I follow didn't have Blue Checks and couldn't get them if they wanted. If 80% of my follows are not protected by a mechanism, what is the point?

They were irrelevant.

But for those who were smart enough to understand Twitter's identity verification badge (and there were many - maybe even most) it was a reliable means to determine authenticity of those accounts that had the blue check.

For the small number of accounts which were protected, a small number of users who were aware of how the feature would work would have a bit of assurance.

You seem to think Twitter is a platform for a small number of people broadcasting ideas. That's not what it was founded on, and not what I'm interested in the platform for. Nor do I think it's how most people use the platform. Twitter is about a large number of people talking to each other. I follow dozens of people in a variety of interests from a lot of communities. Most often what someone with 2000 says is more important to me than what someone with 200,000 followers says.

 

[ElectricIAC]

They were irrelevant.

When I still used Twitter, the only blue checks that ever stood out or seemed to be promoted were Hollywood jerkasses or Politico coat tail riders with some hot garbage/coastal elite take that made me lose any respect for them.

It may not be much to look at but without the flyover states, the country starves.

 

[Ogre]

When I still used Twitter, the only blue checks that ever stood out or seemed to be promoted were Hollywood jerkasses or Politico coat tail riders with some hot garbage take that made me lose any respect for them.

In may not be much to look at but without the flyover states, the country starves.

I use a third party Twitter client that doesn't even show Blue Checks. It's not a feature I've ever relied on or missed.

Mostly I follow people like Pierre Ferragu, The Limiting Factor, a bunch of space enthusiasts, Joe Tegtmeyer, Dave Lee, and a good chunk of Apple enthusiasts. That's like 95% of my feed. Most of them were not verified until after the new program started. Quite a few still aren't and likely won't. Many of them have had trouble with impersonators.

I'm left wondering if the people whining about Twitter changes actually use the service.

Here's one just today.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1591822499863560196

She has 23k followers. Twitter has historically had 0 Fs to give about these people. Blue checks are completely worthless.

 

[ElectricIAC]

I use a third party Twitter client that doesn't even show Blue Checks. It's not a feature I've ever relied on or missed.

Mostly I follow people like Pierre Ferragu, The Limiting Factor, a bunch of space enthusiasts, Joe Tegtmeyer, Dave Lee, and a good chunk of Apple enthusiasts. That's like 95% of my feed. Most of them were not verified until after the new program started. Quite a few still aren't and likely won't. Many of them have had trouble with impersonators.

I'm left wondering if the people whining about Twitter changes actually use the service.

Nice.

And no, they’ll never leave because they can’t live without angryhol like the anger addicts they are.

 

[hacer]

Interesting. I thought only criminals can do that.

capital one's single-use CC numbers Almost all issuing banks offer something similar. Their actual purpose is for combating fraud!

 

[JRP3]

Blue checks are useless when you can't get them and most of the people you follow don't have them.

Aren't they also useless when anyone can get them for $8?

 

[Ogre]

Aren't they also useless when anyone can get them for $8?

I'm not the one claiming Musks changes ruined verification.

Honestly, not sure if the $8/ month is bringing a ton of value right now. I'm not entirely sold on any of Musks changes. But I'm not claiming Musk has screwed up here. Nor do I claim Musk's changes are massive victories.

It's been 3 weeks.

This whole debate is stupid. Much like 90% of the coverage of the topic. We don't have enough distance from the decisions to see that the long term effects will be.

Call me back in a year and we'll talk about how successful the changes are. In the mean time I'm just laughing at people stupid enough to defend Twitter's obviously crappy policies.

 

[PeterJA]

capital one's single-use CC numbers Almost all issuing banks offer something similar. Their actual purpose is for combating fraud!

I have credit cards but never heard of that. Don't burner phone numbers cost more? And how do you connect your single-use CC and phone numbers? (in case I need to impersonate Jesus)

 

[sleepydoc]

I have credit cards but never heard of that. Don't burner phone numbers cost more? And how do you connect your single-use CC and phone numbers? (in case I need to impersonate Jesus)

If you’re looking to create mischief then a few dollars for a burner phone number and a credit card number are trivial expenses.

The fundamental problem still remains that the $8 system is so deeply flawed as to be worthless, actually worse than worthless. The old system was flawed, too, but at least the checkmark meant something. With the new system it means nothing but is easily confused with something that used to mean something, making it worse than no change at all.

 

[hacer]

I use a third party Twitter client that doesn't even show Blue Checks. It's not a feature I've ever relied on or missed.
...
Mostly I follow people like Pierre Ferragu, The Limiting Factor, a bunch of space enthusiasts, Joe Tegtmeyer, Dave Lee, and a good chunk of Apple enthusiasts. That's like 95% of my feed. Most of them were not verified until after the new program started. Quite a few still aren't and likely won't. Many of them have trouble with impersonators. ...

Can you post a couple of examples of these users being impersonated?

I was active (as a reader - I tweeted 5 times total) mostly 2015 - 2020 before I decided Twitter was mostly a cesspool although I did continue reading Short Shorts Historian, FactChecking, and KarenRei through near the end of 2021. Like you, most of who I followed on Twitter when I was on twitter had small numbers of followers and weren't verified. But I never saw any evidence of anyone impersonating any of them either. Perhaps I was hoodwinked because they were missing checkmarks and the spoofed content was indistinguishable (to me at least) from their true posts and they never mentioned or complained about being impersonated in their own tweets that I saw.

For the few big names that I followed who had blue checks there were a lot of obvious impersonators. Elon's account was constantly being barraged with impersonators running various crypto scams.

So my experience was that the blue checks were doing their job quite well whenever it actually mattered. But then I only looked at a very narrow slice of Twitter - mostly local stuff (schools, community groups etc.), some board game things and Tesla stuff.

It's possible my experience with respect to accounts with and without blue checks was very atypical but I'm not sure why that would be.

 

[Ogre]

Can you post a couple of examples of these users being impersonated?

I was active (as a reader - I tweeted 5 times total) mostly 2015 - 2020 before I decided Twitter was mostly a cesspool although I did continue reading Short Shorts Historian, FactChecking, and KarenRei through near the end of 2021. Like you, most of who I followed on Twitter when I was on twitter had small numbers of followers and weren't verified. But I never saw any evidence of anyone impersonating any of them either. Perhaps I was hoodwinked because they were missing checkmarks and the spoofed content was indistinguishable (to me at least) from their true posts and they never mentioned or complained about being impersonated in their own tweets that I saw.

For the few big names that I followed who had blue checks there were a lot of obvious impersonators. Elon's account was constantly being barraged with impersonators running various crypto scams.

So my experience was that the blue checks were doing their job quite well whenever it actually mattered. But then I only looked at a very narrow slice of Twitter - mostly local stuff (schools, community groups etc.), some board game things and Tesla stuff.

It's possible my experience with respect to accounts with and without blue checks was very atypical but I'm not sure why that would be.

I just did above. Wasn't even looking for it, it just rolled across my stream.

Search Sawyer Merritt's history, I recall at least a couple times he's been impersonated and complained about the process. Likewise @TheLimitingFactor. Sawyer Merritt helped Jordan deal with it.