Tag: Twitter

Racism And Misogyny And Lies–Oh My

This is a post about Twitter (I refuse to use ‘X’) and what it has become….the article referenced in this post is from The Guardian….I ceased all association with Twitter right after Musk took over basically because I think he is huge prick and figured he would piss up Twitter at his first opportunity.

I considered leaving Twitter as soon as Elon Musk acquired it in 2022, just not wanting to be part of a community that could be bought, least of all by a man like him – the obnoxious “long hours at a high intensity” bullying of his staff began immediately. But I’ve had some of the most interesting conversations of my life on there, both randomly, ambling about, and solicited, for stories: “Anyone got catastrophically lonely during Covid?”; “Anyone hooked up with their secondary school boy/girlfriend?” We used to call it the place where you told the truth to strangers (Facebook was where you lied to your friends), and that wide-openness was reciprocal and gorgeous.

It got more unpleasant after the blue-tick fiasco: identity verification became something you could buy, which destroyed the trust quotient. So I joined the rival platform Mastodon, but fast realised that I would never get 70,000 followers on there like I had on Twitter. It wasn’t that I wanted the attention per se, just that my gang wasn’t varied or noisy enough. There’s something eerie and a bit depressing about a social media feed that doesn’t refresh often enough, like walking into a shopping mall where half the shops have closed down and the rest are all selling the same thing.

In 2023, the network now known as X began sharing ad revenues with its “premium” users, and I joined Threads (which is owned by Meta), but all I ever see on it is strangers confessing to boring misdemeanours. I remained on X, where everything got darker. People get paid, indirectly through advertising, for engagement. Even that is a bit murky, since it’s described as “revenue sharing”, but you don’t get to see which ads’ revenues were shared with you, so can’t measure revenue-per-impression. Is X sharing it 50/50? Or 10/90? Are they actually paying you to generate hatred?

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/sep/05/racism-misogyny-lies-how-did-x-become-so-full-of-hatred-and-is-it-ethical-to-keep-using-it

I originally used Twitter for a news feed and it progressed into a cluster fuck and has become a monumental cluster fuck since Musk acquisition.

Please share your thoughts on Twitter and its direction.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Musk And His Employees

Elon Musk has been making news all over the place…..from his purchase of Twitter to his cage match with the Zuck to his many lawsuits…..employees are trying to get what he promised them in the past.

Since Elon Musk took over as CEO of X, formerly known as Twitter, the company has been a lawsuit magnet. There’s that class-action suit in California by former employees who claim they weren’t paid promised bonuses. Another claims the company hasn’t ponied up $500 million in severance pay to employees who were laid off.

Now add more than 2,200 arbitration cases, according to a complaint filed earlier this week in Delaware. All told, the social media giant is potentially on the hook for more than $3.5 million in filing fees, according to CNBC‘s estimate. When it rains, it pours!

The deluge of arbitration cases was revealed in a court document filed by former employee Chris Woodfield against X and Elon Musk. Last month, Woodfield slapped the company and Musk with a separate complaint, claiming they hadn’t paid him his promised severance.

The cases underline Musk’s bull-in-a-china-shop approach when he first took over the social media giant in October last year. When he became CEO, Musk laid off legions of workers, cutting staff numbers from around 8,000 to just 1,500 as of this April. That’s a lot of pissed off people with an axe to grind — hence the flood of suits.

The arbitration cases from former employees add another messy wrinkle to the legal challenges X and Musk are facing.

Arbitration is a legal process in which two opposing parties agree to mediate their dispute with a third party arbitrator rather than going through the court system. At Elon Musk’s other company, Tesla, employees are forced to sign arbitration agreements as a requirement for employment in states where it is legal, which is a move some politicians decry as a way to hide complaints of discrimination, which Tesla has faced.

https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-twitter-employees-lawsuit

It is not bad enough that he is moving into the Trump camp but he now acts like the robber barons of old.

X has lost about 60% of its ad revenue….and Musk had to borrow millions from SpaceX, you know that multi-billion dollar enterprise that cashes many government checks.

My thought is he is a feminine hygiene cleansing agent that one might use on a Summer’s Eve.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Changes Coming To Twitter

I admit it….the only social media I use is Twitter….mostly as a news feed…..

The news is that changes are coming to Twitter…..

They’ve worked well for Facebook, so Twitter is going to add groups to its platform—though they’ll be called “communities.” That’s one of the major changes announced Thursday, the Verge reports. The other big one is called Super Follows, which will permit users to steer their followers to content and charge them for the privilege. The content could include additional tweets, newsletters, support badges, and access to one of the new communities. In Twitter’s example, the users charge $4.99 per month for the benefits, enabling them to collect directly from their followers. The changes were unveiled during Analyst Day, per CNBC, and the idea is that they’ll help the company reach its 2023 goals for users and revenue.

Many of the changes aren’t new, but they’re new to Twitter. Users will be able to start and join communities built around common interests. The examples Twitter gives are cats and plants, so users in a cat community would see even more cat content. Users who run communities would be allowed to set their own rules for members, beyond those set by Twitter. Details were sketchy, but Twitter also said it’s looking into allowing followers to tip certain accounts. The company thinks “an audience-funded model where subscribers can directly fund the content that they value most is a durable incentive model that aligns the interests of creators and consumers,” its head of design and research said. Super Follows is supposed to launch before the end of the year.

Nothing will change for me.

When I heard changes were coming I thought they decide to charge people for being members….that would kill it for me.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Closing Thought–18Feb21

Looks like Twitter is trying to head off any crackdown by the Biden admin by permanently shutting down some of the hate users….like Trump.

But they also have suspended the accounts of some of the Saudi dissidents….

Twitter has removed the blue verified badge from the accounts of several Saudi political prisoners, including two prominent clerics who were detained in a crackdown against reformists, activists and government critics. 

Among those whose verification label has been removed are Ali al-Omary and Awad al-Qarni, two senior religious figures who have been jailed since 2017. They were seized during a purge that followed Mohammed bin Salman‘s rise to the position of crown prince.

Similarly, the accounts of the Saudi philanthropist Khaled al-Mohawesh and journalist Khaled al-Alkami, also jailed in the 2017 purge, had their blue tick removed, according to the advocacy Twitter account Prisoners of Conscience. It added that the account of economist Essam el-Zamil, another political prisoner, has been suspended. He tweeted under the handle @Essamz.

Middle East Eye has contacted Twitter for comment but has not received a response by the time of publication.

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/saudi-arabia-twitter-jailed-scholars-verification-removed

I wonder how much that cost the Saudi royals?

And it makes me think of what is Twitter doing.

Seems the reforms in KSA does not mean the right to dissent…..

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Trump/Twitter Saga Continues

Yesterday I wrote about the back and forth between Trump and Twitter…..to the point that Trump has threatened to close down social media….especially Twitter…..

But read my thoughts for yourself……https://lobotero.com/2020/05/27/closing-thought-27may20/

But as I closed the post with….the saga continues and now the rest of the story from Donald the Orange……

President Trump’s feud with Twitter continues. The latest: White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany told reporters Wednesday night that the POTUS will soon sign an executive order aimed at social media companies, the AP reports. White House strategic communications director Alyssa Farah said the move would come Thursday, but neither offered further details on what exactly it would entail. Politico explains that tech companies are concerned Trump will target a 1996 statute protecting them from lawsuits; conservatives have increasingly accused the companies of abusing that protection, which has so far afforded them broad leeway to censor material they deem objectionable. Trump, who is upset Twitter flagged two of his tweets about mail-in ballots and voter fraud with a fact-check warning, and other Republicans have accused social media companies of left-wing bias.

Such companies “are curators of user experiences, i.e. the man behind the curtain for everything we can see or hear,” an administration official tells Politico anonymously. Trump had threatened “big action” against them earlier Wednesday, and on Wednesday night added, “Big Tech is doing everything in their very considerable power to CENSOR in advance of the 2020 Election. If that happens, we no longer have our freedom. I will never let it happen! They tried hard in 2016, and lost. Now they are going absolutely CRAZY. Stay Tuned!!!” Meanwhile, Mark Zuckerberg seemed to agree with Trump on at least one thing, saying that social media companies “shouldn’t be the arbiter of truth of everything that people say online.” Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey hit right back: “We’ll continue to point out incorrect or disputed information about elections globally,” he tweeted. “This does not make us an ‘arbiter of truth.’ Our intention is to connect the dots of conflicting statements and show the information in dispute so people can judge for themselves.”

Sounds like someone that wants to control the narrative and the news to me…..

What more can be said….other than….The Saga Continues…..

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Closing Thought–27May20

The Breaking News……

Since Morning Joe has been bad mouthing Trump it is only fair, in his tiny mind, that he do the same and on Twitter…..

The widower of a former congressional staffer of Joe Scarborough has gone directly to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey with a plea: Delete President Trump’s conspiracy theories suggesting that Scarborough killed his wife. Trump has been pushing the idea hard of late that Scarborough, now at MSNBC, played a role in the 2001 death of Lori Klausutis, and Timothy Klausutis is now pushing back. Coverage:

  • The letter: Trump “tweeted to his nearly 80 million followers alluding to the repeatedly debunked falsehood that my wife was murdered by her boss, former U.S. Rep. Joe Scarborough,” Klausutis wrote in a letter to Dorsey that was first revealed by Kara Swisher in a New York Timescolumn. “Please delete these tweets. My wife deserves better.” At another point: “I’m asking you to intervene in this instance because the president of the United States has taken something that does not belong to him—the memory of my dead wife—and perverted it for perceived political gain.”
  • Another line: “An ordinary user like me would be banished from the platform for such a tweet but I am only asking that these tweets be removed.”
  • The death: Lori Klausutis, 28, worked as a constituent services coordinator, and she died in Scarborough’s office in Fort Walton Beach, Florida. An autopsy found that she suffered from an undiagnosed heart condition, and authorities concluded that she fainted and struck her head, reports Newsweek. Scarborough was actually in DC at the time of her death, notes Axios.
  • Trump: The president has tweeted multiple times about the death. An example: “A blow to her head? Body found under his desk? Left Congress suddenly? Big topic of discussion in Florida … and, he’s a Nut Job (with bad ratings),” Trump wrote Saturday. “Keep digging, use forensic geniuses!” On Tuesday, Trump revisited the subject: “The opening of a Cold Case against Psycho Joe Scarborough was not a Donald Trump original thought, this has been going on for years, long before I joined the chorus,” he wrote.
  • Twitter response: Twitter has not removed the Trump posts, notes Politico. “We are deeply sorry about the pain these statements, and the attention they are drawing, are causing the family,” said a spokesperson. “We’ve been working to expand existing product features and policies so we can more effectively address things like this going forward, and we hope to have those changes in place shortly.” Swisher’s column reports that the company is speeding up plans to label some tweets as false and provide links to credible information refuting them.
  • Scarborough response: What Trump is doing is “unspeakably cruel” to the Klausutis family, Scarborough said Tuesday on his show, per Cleveland.com. “I know all too well how much (widower) T.J. has suffered, and how much—he’s told me his family has suffered. … Every time they spread these lies, they’re hurting the family.”
  • Fact-checker: The Fact Checker blog of the Washington Post previously dug into the conspiracy theories and concluded they’re bunk. They received the worst possible score of Four Pinocchios, “and we wish we had more to give.”

Of course Donald the Orange could not let a situation good un-lied about and took to Twitter , as usual…..

President Trump is hitting back hard at Twitter after the social media company started flagging his tweets about mail-in voting. The tech giant “is now interfering in the 2020 Presidential Election. They are saying my statement on Mail-In Ballots, which will lead to massive corruption and fraud, is incorrect, based on fact-checking by Fake News CNN and the Amazon Washington Post,” the POTUS posted on, yes, Twitter Tuesday night. Twitter has yet to flag any more tweets beyond the two that were slapped with a fact-check warning earlier Tuesday, the first time Twitter has ever pulled such a move on Trump, per CNN.

Trump’s campaign manager also responded to the controversy Tuesday night, releasing a statement accusing “Silicon Valley” of pulling “out all the stops to obstruct and interfere” with Trump “getting his message through to voters,” Business Insider reports. “Partnering with the biased fake news media ‘fact checkers’ is only a smoke screen Twitter is using to try to lend their obvious political tactics some false credibility,” Brad Parscale’s statement continues. Yahoo News notes that Twitter has yet to flag or remove any of Trump’s tweets promoting a conspiracy theory about MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough and the 2001 death of one of his staffers, a fact that has reportedly angered some Twitter employees.

Now we know why he worships tyrants…..he seems to think that he can do whatever he wants to whoever is handy…..

His latest piece of BS is that he will shut down social media…..

President Trump escalated his new feud with Twitter on Wednesday morning by threatening to shut it and other social media sites down over what he sees as political bias. The threat comes after Twitter added a fact-check function to some of the president’s tweets. “Republicans feel that Social Media Platforms totally silence conservatives voices,” Trump tweeted. “We will strongly regulate, or close them down, before we can ever allow this to happen. … Social Media. Clean up your act, NOW!!!!”

  • Can he? Despite Trump’s threat, he has “little authority” to shut down the sites, notes Bloomberg. Potential regulations are another thing, though adviser Kellyanne Conway declined to suggest specifics on Wednesday. “The president’s saying please stop suppressing conservative voices,” she said. On Twitter’s new fact-checking move: “I thought using outlets that are decisively and proudly anti-Trump to fact-check the president was maybe the richest piece of the whole thing.”
  • Mail-in voting: On Tuesday, Twitter flagged Trump tweets linking absentee voting to fraud as potentially misleading. (The site added a blue exclamation point to the tweets with a “Get the facts” note linking to stories on the issue, per Reuters.) But Trump returned to the topic Wednesday. “We can’t let large scale Mail-In Ballots take root in our Country,” he wrote. “It would be a free for all on cheating, forgery and the theft of Ballots. Whoever cheated the most would win.”
  • Another Trump move: Last week, before the Twitter controversy, the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump might create a White House panel to review online bias at social media sites. “Left-wing bias in the tech world is a concern that definitely needs to be addressed from our vantage point, and at least exposed [so] that Americans have clear eyes about what we’re dealing with,” says a White House official.
  • Twitter stock: Shares were sliding Wednesday morning, reports the Street. They were down about 2% even as the tech-centric Nasdaq index was rising.
  • A counterpoint: Axios did an analysis last year and found that the most viral online stories about the 2020 election actually came from right-wing sites.

Really?  How will Trump get his lies and bullshit out to his mentally slow supporters without social media?

And the saga continues……..

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

The Adventures Of “Pierre Delecto”

There had been a “lurker” dogging Trump on Twitter….they went by the handle of “Pierre Delecto”….and finally his true identity has been revealed…..

You might know him as mild-mannered Sen. Mitt Romney. But on Twitter, he is Pierre Delecto, fearless defender of … Mitt Romney. After the Utah senator mentioned in an Atlantic profile Sunday that he has a “lurker” Twitter account that he uses to follow journalists and athletes, among others, Ashley Feinberg at Slate did some sleuthing and found the Delecto account, which follows and is followed by numerous Romney family members. Its first follower was Tagg Romney, one of the senator’s sons. The account, created in July 2011, has only posted 10 times, all in response to other tweets. Nine of the posts came this year, and many of them defended Romney against critics. The account is no longer public.

“Jennifer, you need to take a breath,” Delecto wrote after Jennifer Rubin at the Washington Post said his strategy for dealing with President Trump was “verging on spinelessness.” “Maybe you can then acknowledge the people who agree with you in large measure even if not in every measure.” Many of the 257 tweets the account has liked are either pro-Romney remarks or tweets from official Romney accounts, according to Feinberg. McKay Coppins, author of the Romney profile, tweeted Sunday night that he asked Romney about the Delecto account and his response was “C’est moi.” The New York Times notes that it’s not clear what the name “Pierre Delecto” could be a reference to.

If Mitt or any other spineless Repub has something to say about Trump or his policies then come forward and speak like the person that they were elected to be.

Mitt working in the shadows…what is he afraid of?  He is from Utah and Trump is NOT popular in Utah…his Senate seat is pretty comfortable as long as he wants it….so of what is he afraid that he must snipe from the shadows?

This is why I call most politicians cowards….they will attack from the shadows but shy away from the light….that by definition is a COWARD.

The conserv site The Bulwark has an opinion on Delecto as well…..

All this time, I thought that Congress was devoid of politicians who represent the views of my fellow lonely and disenfranchised Salon conservatives. After a painful period of hopefulness I had determined that it was in fact too much to ask for a single senator who was both skeptical of the federal government behemoth and sentient enough to see that the president is a pathological liar who should not be trusted to run a down-market QVC steak brand, much less the White House. 

But it turns out that this senator was right in front of me all along. Lurking. Reading my hot fire twitter takes. Sometimes you look everywhere for love and it’s right there staring you in the face.

Yes, that man is Senator Pierre Delecto. The delightful Pete. Never Trump stalwart. Conservative Globalist. The senator I’ve been dreaming for . . . but more in déguiser than reality. The Gene Parmesan of the world’s greatest deliberative body.

What Would Delecto Do?

I Read, I Wrote, You Know

“Lego Ergo Scribo”

Trump’s New Record

Closing Thought–03Oct19

Pres. Trump has set a brand new record…..I wish it was something more meaningful than it is…..

It’s a record that may never be broken—not by another president, at least. President Trump broke his own record for most presidential tweets in a month in September, when he or retweeted 790 times, CNN reports. He set the previous record in May with 695 tweets. He also set the record for most tweets from a president in a week, with 240 the week of Sept. 23. USA Today notes that Trump’s tweeting intensified after news of the Ukraine whistleblower surfaced and Democrats started calling for his impeachment. In tweets since Sept. 19, he has used the words “Ukraine” or “Ukrainian” 56 times, “whistleblower” 25 times, “treason” five times, and mentioned Joe or Hunter Biden 24 times.

Golly!  We are so lucky to have such a record setter as president….

“I Read, I Wrote and now You Know”

“Lego Ergo Scribo”

Just How Stupid Are They?

Every day it seems that some ignorant mental midget grabs a gun and goes on a rampage…..and the pundits and wonks have the same coverage and conversation on a growing problem…..and the same result of all the debate and analysis….we wait for the next attack so we can have the “talk” all over again.

Basically it is……deaths….talks…..wait….rinse and repeat……

I had my little rant because of something completely different….it is the butt hurt Rep from California Devin Nunes who is suing Twitter for 250 million……

Newsweek reported that an attorney representing Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) is arguing that two parody Twitter accounts making fun of the congressman are as dangerous as guns.

The lawsuit alleges that the parody accounts, called “Devin Nunes’ Mom” and “Devin Nunes’ Cow,” constitute “an orchestrated defamation campaign of stunning breadth and scope, one that no human being should ever have to bear and suffer in their whole life,” and for Twitter to keep them operating is equivalent to negligently giving someone a firearm without determining if they are qualified to use it.

Nunes filed the $250 million defamation suit against these two Twitter accounts, as well as Twitter itself and Never Trump GOP strategist Liz Mair, earlier this year. He has also alleged that Twitter was secretly “shadow banning” his account by preventing people from finding him in search results, which Twitter says never happened, and which doesn’t present any clear legal injury even if it was true.

(Raw Story)

If you are against gun laws then I suggest you read that again.  (Pause here for the slower readers)

Maybe someone should tell the idiot Nunes that he is doing some damage just because he got butt hurt over criticism.

This lawsuit could have wide ranging consequences…..I am not a lawyer but even I can see the chances here….maybe the NRA should hold a consultation with Nunes and suggest that he drop the lawsuit to avoid any long term damage he could possibly do.

“An action has an equal but opposition reaction”

Learn Stuff!

“Lego Ergo Scribo”

An Unpleasant Surprise

AS Memorial Day approached the US Army thought it would try something new….it ran a survey that asked veterans on Twitter a simple question…..the answers were not what the Army was hoping to get…..

……..the US Army asked veterans on twitter a simple question, “How has serving impacted you?” As Memorial Day approaches, whoever is in charge of the Army’s social media was probably hoping for some nice responses about all the benefits they think come with serving, college education, the bonds formed with fellow soldiers or the invaluable life experience. But the sad reality that our nations veterans and their families face showed itself in the thousands of heart-breaking replies to the question.

Michael J Neel replied, “26 brothers dead. Only 8 in theater. Psyche ward myself after 3 attempts. Everything we accomplished in Mosul was wasted. Every life we gave was spat on. That’s how serving impacted me.” Veteran Drew Turner said, “Let’s see. Lost the functional use of a hand, developed a rare movement disorder and cancer both likely from burn pit exposure, enjoy sleeping 3 to 4 hours most nights due to nightmares and during the day random anxiety attacks all due to PTSD, 7 herniated discs, arthritis…”

https://news.antiwar.com/2019/05/26/us-army-unpleasantly-surprised-after-asking-veterans-about-impact-of-serving/
 
These veterans are begging for help….IS ANYONE LISTENING?
 
AS I wrote…not exactly what the Army intended……these are the stories the media needs to report and stop cheer leading for war and aggression and adventurism.
 
And then forgotten heroes that are with us and we choose to look away…..

Every Memorial Day, we remember the great heroes who perished, from Gettysburg to Normandy to the streets of Basra. Our country was founded, defended and defined on the backs of those who gave the ultimate sacrifice for our nation and our freedoms.

We think today of the lives that were cut short. Of the men and women in their twenties who never made it home. The children they never had, or the birthdays and graduations they never saw. We must pause to reflect on those lives that were shortened in the name of letting the rest of us live on. We remember their sacrifice on the battlefields in defense of our nation, as we rightfully should.

https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-the-casualties-of-war-we-often-forget-20190527-nht36h46kvcjnej3lasew5bstu-story.html

Once again these are the stories that should make the news nightly…instead of what a royal baby is named or what shoes some model wore in Cannes.

None of that is life changing or will make a difference in society….so why bother?

A closing thought is mine and mine alone……

Be a hero and resist the warmongers among us.