Social Media Discussion

[Alefroth]

I'll give it a try - thanks!

Interesting: The above suggestion stops the ads from playing, but there is a 10-30 second pause where Youtube is trying to play an ad (but it can't), so it's just silent. That's certainly better. Here's hoping they (uBlock) keeps tweaking...

That just started happening to me yesterday. I'm using AdBlocker Plus.

[LordMortis]

CNBC is reporting that not only is IBM pulling its advertising from X for allowing hate speech (related to antisemitism) but that it is also bucketing it as NSFW. I am making the assumption that it means that it is blocking its use on company property. Also, I guess TicTok is taking heat for Osama Bin Laden related posts.

[Jaymann]

That reminds me of a player on Quake 3 named Osama Bin Fraggin.

[Smoove_B]

CNBC is reporting that not only is IBM pulling its advertising from X for allowing hate speech (related to antisemitism) but that it is also bucketing it as NSFW. I am making the assumption that it means that it is blocking its use on company property.

Add Apple to the list.

Apple is pausing all advertising on X, the Elon Musk-owned social network, sources tell Axios.

...

This could be the start of an advertising exodus. Lions Gate Entertainment is also pulling all advertising from X, a spokesperson confirmed to Axios.

[Unagi]

I read that as Lionhead Studio and got sorta excited.

[Smoove_B]

Sue everybody:

After a spate of major advertisers said they were halting spending on X over owner Elon Musk’s support of an antisemitic conspiracy theory, the tech mogul said he plans to file a “thermonuclear lawsuit” against a research group that had claimed to find ads on X/Twitter running against pro-Nazi and white nationalist posts.

On Friday, Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, Comcast/NBCUniversal, Lionsgate and Paramount Global they were pausing their ads on X, coming after IBM said it was halting ad spending a day earlier. Apple also is suspending advertising spending on X, per an Axios report.

Several of the X advertisers cited Musk’s endorsement earlier this week of a conspiracy theory that Jewish people “promote hatred against whites” for pulling their ads. But in his late-night legal threat, Musk took aim at watchdog group Media Matters over what he alleged was manipulated research about advertising on the platform.

“The split second court opens on Monday, X Corp will be filing a thermonuclear lawsuit against Media Matters and ALL those who colluded in this fraudulent attack on our company,” Musk posted on X late Friday night. He added that the legal action will go after “Their board, their donors, their network of dark money, all of them …”

[LawBeefaroni]

All they have to do is show that ads were fed along aide nazi/white nationalist posts. Seems pretty binary.

He's also trying to distract from.the fact that most of them actually left because of his own hate speech posts.

[Rumpy]

Interesting. He can't really afford to piss off his advertisers (or maybe he can), but he's doing everything he can to scare them away from the platform. He likes to say he's apolitical, but if you look at his history, he really isn't, given what he'd decided to do with Starlink via the Russian War with Ukraine and other things.

[Blackhawk]

I've come to simply believe that he's mostly just insane. The kind of insanity that you only get in the super-rich. Howard Hughes crazy.

Maybe he has a plan. Maybe he doesn't. Maybe he's got some good ideas in certain fields. But it's all overlaid with a layer of madness.

[Carpet_pissr]

Interesting. He can't really afford to piss off his advertisers (or maybe he can)

?!
Net worth: $241 billion

[LordMortis]

Given that he's probably already driven the value of Xitter from 44 billion to less than 10 billion and he's worth a couple hundred billion, he can afford to tank Xitter and fund it sans advertising and appease the people he convinced to back him there. What he can't afford to do is allow his Xitter behavior to freak out Tesla shareholders and investors in all of his other ventures that bleed off twitter shareholders' faith in the company (and man?). Say for example, Cybertruck falls completely flat and price cuts reduce his profit margins to a negative for growth at any cost. TESLA faithful historically would allow him to release five billion more in shares while announcing a stock split rather than taking out short term loans at 8%+. If that happens while he's screaming the Jewish establishment is attacking his white heritage while going "thermonuclear" with lawsuits because organizations are pointing this out? The decades of faithful investors might decide it's time to take some profits and object to further share dilution, of which TESLA is has already been authorized for a lot. I think the float is something like 3 billion shares and they are authorized for something like up to 6 billion.


https://stockdividendscreener.com/auto- ... ing-worse/

[Jaymon]

maybe this time he will actually learn what "freedom of speech" actually means.

As in, you are free to leave hate speech on your platform, and I am free to stop using your platform.

Maybe he will also learn something about capitalism. there are many things companies have a right to do, including blocking websites for employees on work machines. social media sites are already blocked for nearly every contact center on the planet (except for the social media team), there is no legal response he can summon that can prevent companies from blocking it on the rest of the network.

[Rumpy]

Interesting. He can't really afford to piss off his advertisers (or maybe he can)

?!
Net worth: $241 billion

Yeah, I meant in terms of the platform rather than Musk himself, but he certainly seems to be willing to make mistakes just because he can.

[Blackhawk]

Is that worth in US dollars, or worth in Trump dollars?

[LawBeefaroni]

Is that worth in US dollars, or worth in Trump dollars?

He's worth that in company stock. Mostly. I'm sure he has a dozen $B or so elsewhere.

[LordMortis]

Company's stocks. He also has his boring company and solar city and space X and whatever his bioengineering company is stocks. Of course, they mostly survive off of TESLA whale investors and TESLA purchasing assets in them. I think SpaceX is the exception which survives off gub'ment funding.

[Carpet_pissr]

For reference, approx market cap:
Tesla: $734b
Space-X $150b
X: $19b (has dropped from around $40b since Musk bought it)

[LawBeefaroni]

Company's stocks. He also has his boring company and solar city and space X and whatever his bioengineering company is stocks. Of course, they mostly survive off of TESLA whale investors and TESLA purchasing assets in them. I think SpaceX is the exception which survives off gub'ment funding.

TSLA equity accounts for around 50% of his net worth, SpaceX around 20%. Solar City was bailed out/bought by TSLA in 2016.

[Smoove_B]

I'm beginning to think he has no idea what he's doing:

Less than two months after completely changing the way news articles appear on X — formerly known as Twitter — billionaire owner Elon Musk says the social media site will start displaying headlines on the platform again.

In October, headlines for articles shared to X were removed from the article previews, after Musk had said it "will greatly improve" the site's aesthetics. The move was also an attempt to keep users on the site longer by preventing them from clicking links that would redirect them to other websites.

...

This forced publishers to start either including headlines in the text of the post or on the image, in order to provide context as to what users were clicking on. But now, Musk says X is going to start displaying article headlines for links to news stories again — in a new way.

"In an upcoming release, X will overlay title in the upper portion of the image of a URL card," Musk said Wednesday in a post on X.

"The title will be in the image overlaid at the top, with URL overlaid at the bottom, as it is now — no extra vertical pixels used," he added Thursday, saying that he wasn't a fan of the previous "giant, ugly URL cards."

Musk — who leads product and engineering at X — has previously said he dislikes any links that are shared to the platform because it leads users away. But the latest change may make it easier for media companies and publications to continue to share their stories — depending entirely on how they'll appear now.

[Holman]

link

It's a little over two minutes long, but the video is worth a watch. Musk tells advertisers leaving X to "Go fuck themselves." He singles out Bob [Iger] of Disney by name.

Most businesses that rely on advertising, especially if they are bleeding out like X, would try to explain why abandoning the platform is actually not a good idea. But not Musk.

He also seems like he's really pretty stoned. It's weird.

[LordMortis]

Summary: I refused to be blackmailed... Go Fuck yourself... You're killing my company and ruining earth if you don't give me money to run the company I bought so I could tell you to go fuck yourself while I run it in to the ground...

I don't even anymore. It's just the most privileged man in the world playing the victim card on repeat. And that's me leaving the politics out of it.

[Rumpy]

Wow, that guy is just so completely delusional.

So, if the company tanks, it will somehow not be his fault. Even if he makes the worst business decisions in the world. He makes Snidely Whiplash look good.

[Blackhawk]

Yeah, but if they tank the company, it will be documented. So that they can... prove they quit advertising?

He makes Snidely Whiplash look good.

In the world of supervillains, he's more like The Monarch. If there was a Monarch movie directed by Zack Snyder. In sepia.

[Smoove_B]

I still maintain he's going to do whatever it takes to keep Twitter up and running through November of 2024. After that? It's anyone's guess.

[LawBeefaroni]

After that? It's anyone's guess.

If his man gets elected, Musk will be installed as the Minister of Information and xtwitter will be purchased by the federal government (for $117B) as the official state-run social media network.

[Kraken]

I still maintain he's going to do whatever it takes to keep Twitter up and running through November of 2024. After that? It's anyone's guess.

He clearly bought it to give himself the world's loudest megaphone and he's going to say whatever he jolly well wants, because free speech. He clearly doesn't care if it's profitable or not. This is a vanity project.

[Skinypupy]

Isn’t he suing Media Matters and blaming them for Twitter’s decline in ad revenues because…reasons?

I guess their lawyers would just have to put this clip on repeat during the trial.

[Brian]

Kurzgesagt once again back to explain stuff. This time, social media.

[LordMortis]

So as CNBC is playing "Go fuck yourself" about once ever 15 minutes or so and then opining around it, I have to wonder, if it all these advertisers responsibility to not kill the private company Musk owns by giving him money, how much money has his companies spent on advertising? How much did they meet their responsibilities by providing shareholders advertising or other monies before he bought it? I'd like to not spend energy thinking about such things. Maybe it's time to turn the TV off, so I don't have to hear it all day long, so you don't have hear me hearing about it.

[Rumpy]

I still maintain he's going to do whatever it takes to keep Twitter up and running through November of 2024. After that? It's anyone's guess.

He clearly bought it to give himself the world's loudest megaphone and he's going to say whatever he jolly well wants, because free speech. He clearly doesn't care if it's profitable or not. This is a vanity project.

The problem is that once advertisers leave, he knows he's got less validity. If a platform is volatile enough to not make it worth their time and money to advertise on, then that means less traffic towards his tweets overall. So, part of me believes he cares about it being profitable, if only for that reason, so that he can keep that megaphone of his running.

In other news, here's an article on Bloomberg about the Canadian Online News Act, and how it's been affecting smaller publishers in the months since it went into effect. FWIW, my community is being served by a local publication owned by Village Media, which is featured in the article, which is said to have led to a significant traffic drop, and a drop in revenue, pretty much as I suspected it would. The giants might be able to weather this, but the smaller independent companies are being hit the hardest by this.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features ... ia-outlets

And Google has apparently as of yesterday, agreed to a deal.
https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/google-real ... -1.2005153

[Smoove_B]

The problem is that once advertisers leave, he knows he's got less validity. If a platform is volatile enough to not make it worth their time and money to advertise on, then that means less traffic towards his tweets overall. So, part of me believes he cares about it being profitable, if only for that reason, so that he can keep that megaphone of his running.

Conversely, saying ridiculous things to "woke" company CEOs only improves his outlaw biker image, increasing street cred with the people the worship him and whatever nonsense he's boosting. Again, I don't think his goal is to make money on Twitter. I firmly believe he's planning on using it to influence what happens in 2024 by way of our R&P forum.

He will keep it open and running at a total loss as long as he is getting engagement and eyeballs from specific groups.

[Rumpy]

Anything can happen at this point, but I almost feel like advertisers are like jenga blocks.

[Kraken]

A few days ago I joined a Facebook group called the Dull Men's Club. After following it long enough to get a good sense of the content, I made my first post last night. The signature convention is (age), (shoe size), (tagline). This is what I wrote:

I am the one who knows where hyphens do and do not belong, who removes and inserts commas, who capitalizes lower-case letters and strikes down impertinent capitals, who ensures that trademarked words are written correctly, who decides where single or double quotation marks belong, who changes en-dashes to em-dashes, and who corrects grammar that offends me. I am a copy editor, and my word is final because you pay me for it. The power is dizzying.
66 years old, 9.5 wide Brooks Adrenalines, judging everything you write.

As of right now, that post has 914 reactions, of which 611 are comments, and two shares. Including two marriage proposals.

That's more interaction than anything I've ever posted anywhere. And they're still coming in. Truly, I am a dull man.

[Alefroth]

Were any of the comments in regard to your shoe brand? 12 Brooks Launch 2 here.

[Rumpy]

Wow, marriage proposals even. That group keeps popping up as a suggestion on my feed for some reason.

[stessier]

Well that's a bummer - the perfect response to his post here would have been completely ignoring it.

[Zaxxon]

Well that's a bummer - the perfect response to his post here would have been completely ignoring it.

[Kraken]

Were any of the comments in regard to your shoe brand? 12 Brooks Launch 2 here.

Oh yes. A few Adrenaline fans, one Ghost snob, and a couple of Brooks haters. Those sneakers cured my plantar fasciitis so I'm quite partial to them.

As of a couple of hours ago my "likes" count passed 1,000. But I see a lot of posts with thousands of likes, so it must be a pretty large group.

[Smoove_B]

There was a post on the other side of the fence about how Bluesky is now fully open to everyone (not sure if that was intentional), but here's a helpful cheat sheet for making the transition:

[Zaxxon]

Indeed, I posted to the wrong thread. Here's their announcement.

I'm on there as Zaxxon. Who else is live over there?