Now that Elon Musk has bought Twitter - now the Pit edition (Part 1)

I heard it was good for depression, but if it’s because it turns you into an asshole, I think I’ll pass.

Not to state the obvious but I’m pretty sure Elmo would still be a narcissistic asshole even if he never touched drugs.

Sounds like a repeat but it’s another case of shareholders taking on Elmo.

"Musk and his brother, Kimbal Musk, a Tesla director, sold a combined $30 billion in the electric vehicle maker’s stock between late 2021 and the end of 2022, cashing in before news that would cause the stock to fall became public, according to the lawsuit, which was filed by the Employees’ Retirement System of Rhode Island (ERSRI).

Musk sold the shares at artificially inflated prices by concealing his plan to use the proceeds to buy social media platform Twitter, which he later renamed X, according to the lawsuit, filed at the Delaware Chancery Court. Musk also sold Tesla stock when he knew that deliveries of Tesla cars had fallen far below public projections, the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit is the second challenge from a Tesla shareholder that Musk is facing in Delaware court and follows a similar case that accuses Musk of insider trading at Tesla. Musk is also facing a probe that is set to determine if he may have broken federal securities laws in 2022 when he bought stock in Twitter."

And he’s still a creep towards women - alas some of them joined the cult or we’d have more fireworks.

Contains some of the meat from the WSJ article @smapti referred to .

LOL, ‘likes’ are now hidden on Twitter. They still add towards the counter, but if you click on the counter, you don’t see who liked what tweet - even if it is your tweet.

Previously, you were able to see who liked your (and others’) tweets, but now? Nope. Thanks, Elon!

Speech isn’t free if unless you can’t suffer any consequences.

Conversely, why should a social media platform display your likes to the entire world? It’s like the idiocy of Venmo displaying every transaction everyone you know makes by default. There’s no reason for that.

My general observation here is that Elmo’s complete and total control over Xitter which he spent $44 billion to achieve may be ego-gratifying, but it may not give him the dominant influence he thinks it will. He seems to think that Xitter is some great invariant and invulnerable institution that will dominate social media forever, with Elmo gloriously at the helm doing whatever he wants with it. The reality is that the more he messes with it, making it less usable and a more appealing playground for social outcasts like himself, the more it will descend into irrelevancy, hopefully eventually collapsing into a black hole never to be seen again. It can’t happen too soon.

Valid question, but it’s been that way for almost 20 years at this point and it’s not like this is a feature people have been clamoring for, because most of us aren’t worried about liking posts that will out us as racists or freaks or perverts. This is being implemented for an audience of one.

Trouble is, we expected it to happen a while back. But here it is, the giant turd in the social punchbowl, and everyone is still drinking.

Xitter has enormous inertia because of its large established user base. Whether than inertia is sufficient to maintain its dominance over the long term in the face of Elmo’s constant meddling and mismanagement and the rise of competition is, at best, an open question. The one positive thing Elmo could have done is genuinely hand over control to a competent CEO, and he didn’t. On the contrary, he’s still micromanaging features, and of course being counterproductive in the process.

From what I can tell, the people who all say they hate Twitter now still can’t stop using or talking about Twitter.

That’s what bookmarks do. The difference between your bookmarks and your likes is one used to be public, the other private. What’s the difference between bookmarks and likes now? Good question. Wish I had an answer.*

*With the caveat that this is what I’ve gleaned from Twitter users, I’ve never had an account.

I hate twitter, and I talk about it here. Ergo, you are technically correct.

But I never used it, and in the real world I never talk about it.

Re: Blocking people from Apple

Just noticed an article from Forbes summed up as: “Apple Stock Dips Due to iPhone Threat From Musk”.

Ha, nice try. Since Elmo’s tantrum, AAPL has soared to $219.75 a share.

The stock dipped the day of the conference, though I don’t think it was due to Musk. Most people simply felt there wasn’t anything NEW revealed. The next day, as all sorts of media pundits enthused over the AI reveal, the stock began to move up.

Musk has pretty much discredited himself on the subject of AI, since he only seems to have a problem with it when he’s not in charge; if iPhones were reaching out to xAI he wouldn’t have made a peep, even if the same supposed issues existed.

Knowing Apple, they’ll likely dump Chat-GPT when their own LLM or whatever is powerful enough.

Yeah, it was a pain to convince my wife that the “Payment for BJ” on Venmo was for Blue Jeans.

Kidding- I actually agree with you and I don’t need everything in my life to be part of some running commentary with the world. I use Venmo to pay the housecleaners, and you should see my SIL’s feed. Jesus, what is wrong with people that they like this.

I’m not sure, but can’t some websites see what bookmarks you have? They can at least see what other websites you’ve been to. That’s not really public information, nor is is private, apparently.

Because that’s what a like is. It’s a public acknowledgement that you like something. That’s why everyone is now posting “like” or similar as comments.

By having a button that says “like” or “thanks”, you can cut down on the need to comment just to say you like it agree with something. Facebook even took it further and added a few other emoticons.

I’m not opposed to the idea of a “private like” that just affects the algorithm, but making it the only choice seems to misunderstand why most users “like” posts.

I struggle to comprehend why I would want a private “like.” I know that i liked something; why do I need someone to have it catalogued for me? When I “like” a post, it’s because I want to provide feedback to the poster.

It won’t be long before Elmo starts making them visible to posters who pay him a fee. He better do it before everyone decides to stop giving “likes” though.

It’s not clear to me whether at least the person who wrote the tweet can see who liked it.