The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Twitter Users React to Elon Musk Putting Buyout Deal 'On Hold':
Following Tesla CEO Elon Musk's announcement Friday that he has placed his buyout of Twitter "on hold," many across social media were quick to react to the news.
Breitbart News reported earlier today that Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has tweeted that his deal to purchase Twitter is currently "on hold" while an investigation into the number of bots and spam accounts on Twitter is completed. Twitter claimed in a recent filing that less than five percent of its daily active users were fake or spam accounts, now Musk appears to want to confirm this claim, which is lower than most estimates.
"Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users," Musk said in a tweet. He later added, "Still committed to acquisition."
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The pressure on Twitter to talk publicly about how it monitors and removes spam accounts continues to mount.
Reports from CNN and The Washington Post reveal an 84-page whistleblower complaint alleging that Twitter isn't motivated to track the true number of spam accounts and hid security vulnerabilities from federal regulators.
The complaint comes from Twitter's former security chief, Peiter Zatko. Zatko is a well-known ethical hacker with the alias "Mudge." He told the Post that he "felt ethically bound" to report his serious concerns to government agencies. He alleges that he was fired for pushing disinclined Twitter executives to address major security problems—which his complaint suggests "pose a threat" to Twitter "users' personal information, to company shareholders, to national security, and to democracy."
Zatko alleges that Twitter execs were more invested in covering up those vulnerabilities, including cherry-picking and misrepresenting data on spam accounts and security threats to regulators and Twitter's board members.
Previously:
Judge Orders Twitter to Give Elon Musk Former Executive's Documents
Elon Musk Pulls Deal to Buy Twitter
Twitter Reportedly Will Give Musk the Full "Firehose" of User Data
Elon Musk Accuses Twitter of Thwarting His Due Diligence, Threatens to Walk Out of Deal
Twitter Users React to Elon Musk Putting Buyout Deal 'on Hold'
Musk Buying Twitter Is Not About Freedom of Speech
After Musk's Twitter Takeover, an Open-Source Alternative is 'Exploding'
Elon Musk has just bought Twitter
Elon Musk Isn't Joining Twitter's Board of Directors After All
Elon Musk Will Join Twitter's Board of Directors
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bradley13 on Monday May 16 2022, @08:34PM (43 children)
Twitter apparently has no real idea how many spam accounts there are. It cannot be that hard to find out, which means they don't *want* to know. Their "sample size" of 100 is laughable.
They've said "under 5%". If it turns out to be 6%, no one will care. If it turns out to be 50%, some people will be seeing the inside of a jail. The SEC is seriously unamused by falsified shareholder reports.
I expect Musk has reason to think the latter and is waiting for the dust to settle. Meanwhile, the rats are scurrying around, wondering how to undig this hole. Later, Musk will likely still buy Twitter, but for half the price.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Monday May 16 2022, @08:54PM (22 children)
I do hope he winds up acquiring the platform. He has floated some interesting ideas for it. I signed up for an account when it first started to check it out but never issued even one tweet; if he made it something useful I might try again.
In the meantime Elon is scoring a lot of points against the forces that have used Twitter nefariously. The volume of shrieking coming from legacy media and political groups maps neatly to how threatened they have felt by the turn of events.
The one thing I do hope does not happen with the Twitter saga is that it distracts Elon from his other ventures too much; those are useful for humanity's progress against fossil fuels and in settling other worlds.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by corey on Monday May 16 2022, @11:57PM (21 children)
> The one thing I do hope does not happen with the Twitter saga is that it distracts Elon from his other ventures too much; those are useful for humanity's progress against fossil fuels and in settling other worlds.
This is my biggest concern too.
Look at the shooting the other day. Now everyone is questioning Twitch and other platform’s moderation capabilities/attitudes. If Elon opens up twitter, and all sorts of hate speech end up there under the guise of “free speech”, and some people die linked to it, he’s going to end up basically held responsible by a lot of people and then what.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday May 17 2022, @01:53AM (12 children)
I urge everyone to step back from the concept of "hate speech." "Hate speech" is being used as a bugbear to scare people away from our First Amendment rights. There are assholes who say bigoted, obscene, horrible things. Shutting down free speech to shut them up is anathema; it is by far worse than letting them spew their crap.
The answer to speech we don't like is more speech.
Soylent itself comprises nazis, anti-Christs, Marxists, and other odious (to me) parties, but light still shines through. That is important.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 17 2022, @07:23AM (4 children)
Yeah, right. Have to ask, oh Phoenix666, expatriot Montanan, do you purchase gift subscriptions for the racist scum, like you used to for aristarchus? Not so sure the light shines anymore, since you were complicit in the banning of aristarchus. No one can claim free speech one they have banned someone for leftist political views. And your odiation shows your bias. Maybe you have become too old, or have dwelt too long too far from Montana, to understand what freedom is. Of course, Montana itself is now infested with Republican carpetbagging rich bastids, like Gov. Giantfortune, and Maryland Matt, the Maryland developer, and whatever happened to Steven Daines and the Ocean.
Seriously, if you did vote for Trump, twice, no Montanan can respect you. Any Montanan who would vote for a New York Real Estate developer have really lost their mind. But I hear that so many out-of-staters have moved in, and voted Republican, that Montana is asking its children to come home, and vote Democrat. Hmm, looking for a link, geo-blocked. Just like Republicans would do once they bought some land in Montana.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 17 2022, @02:42PM (3 children)
How is this grab bag of no true Scotsman, innuendo and special pleading been marked insightful?
Is someone carrying water for Aristarchus-the-fake, or is this just a random act of support for anyone, however deranged, who waves a finger at Phoenix666?
The moderation system's stupidity has never been so clearly on display.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 17 2022, @04:20PM (1 child)
Ari has always had a loyal supporter up-modding his posts. Whether or not it is an as-yet-unidentified-and-banned sock-puppet is open to debate.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday May 17 2022, @04:26PM
Ari continues to serve Ari's best purpose: a concrete counterexample to the rightwing victimization complex
Posting and submitting stories.....not so much!
(sorry Ari, you know I come from a place of love!)
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday May 18 2022, @04:54PM
Whoops, misclicked and accidentally modded Troll :P Sorry
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 4, Informative) by Bethany.Saint on Tuesday May 17 2022, @02:40PM (5 children)
What world are you living in? At least in the case of Twitter they're not shutting down hate speech -- they exist for hate speech more than most platforms. They're shutting down (1) speech that incites violence and (2) speech by public figures that is provably false. Examples are "horse paste cures Covid" and, of course, Trump's big lie. The "people" can still say whatever they want including you. There are only a few "famous" people that are being asked to "prove it" before tweeting well worn lies. And only the lies that do hurt people.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday May 17 2022, @04:30PM
And rather than hide rightwing opinions they specifically APLIFY them. [theguardian.com]
Always remember, if it's coming out of the Bizarro World it's not just wrong, it's the opposite of right!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday May 17 2022, @07:24PM (3 children)
I live on Earth. Where do you live?
I was speaking generally about the concerted assault on the freedom of speech that many (including, apparently, you) have been making. There are consistently three knocks against free speech that are cited:
First, "hate speech" is bad, and because I subjectively find what you said hateful you are no longer allowed to speak. Isn't that great? My feelings were hurt by what you just said, Bethany.Saint, so you are no longer allowed to speak. You hate monger, you.
Second, the speech is "inciting to violence." It's always vague and broadly construed. I could say, "Man, if you kick puppies to amuse yourself karma is going to kick your ass," and then you run and complain that I'm "inciting to violence." Insta-ban for me, with no recourse.
Third, the speech I don't like is a pack of lies. Well, reality has rather disproven this one to even such as you, hasn't it? We were told by Fauci that the coronavirus vaccine would protect everyone. Except, all the vaccinated and boosted people are still contracting it and transmitting it. Aha, claim the champions, but if you hadn't had the vaccine you would have died. Nonsense! I say, because I have a magic rock that protected my from death when I had coronavirus. And my claim is just as valid as your magical claim. Or, take the Russia collusion claim. Years, a special counsel investigation, and tens of millions of dollars later Mueller disproved that Trump colluded with Russia. In other words, all the media and government people who claimed it were lying, with no proof but a fabrication from the Clinton campaign, yet they're not banned and censored and de-platformed.
Please, in earnest, go and subscribe to Glenn Greenwald's channel on substack. He dissects the media and Establishment claims in great, well-researched and supported detail. Or read Matt Taibbi, if you prefer. I further urge you to support free speech for even your most detested enemies, because if you don't then you don't have any right to protest when the tools of censorship and tyranny are turned on you.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 17 2022, @10:54PM
Phoenix666 is right on the money, here, even though he does not understand the "cancel" thing, and the difference between a lie, and just being incorrect and admitting it. I just wish I had a right to protest the tools of censorship and tyranny being turned on me!
aristarchus
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 18 2022, @02:53PM (1 child)
WTF did I just read?
1. Fauci was 100% correct, at the time. Vaccine protects nearly 100% from the original strain. And it's been showed over and over and fucking over again to reduce severe covid even if you are infected with subsequent strains. That's REALITY! Or maybe that's just accident that Hong Kong had one of highest death rates in the world .... because they didn't get vaccinated!! Imagine that in your bizzaro world.
https://www.bmj.com/content/377/bmj.o1127 [bmj.com]
When literal dead bodies are not reality to you? What is? Or do you blame this also on Clinton sponsored Soros plot in a pizza basement?
2. Trump wanted to collude with Russia but was too incompetent to actually do. FACT!
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/04/mueller-report-confirms-don-jr-too-stupid-to-collude-with-russia [vanityfair.com]
3. No one was "deplatformed" for saying things someone else didn't like. They were blocked after trying to pull a FUCKING INSURRECTION! Also, telling people a vaccine will make them sterile because magic without prove is what? In a middle of the PANDEMIC that killed 1 million Americans despite restrictions for 2 years?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 18 2022, @09:42PM
Phoenix666 is complicit. As VP Dan Quayle said, "It's a terrible thing to lose your mind." (He was trying to repeat the NAACP's slogan, "A mind is a terrible thing to waste." Pretty close for a Republican.)
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday May 17 2022, @04:50PM
Other than all the people that've been banned and the public information we are not allowed to repeat anyone can say anything they like!
(AKA what happens when a free speech 'absolutist' meets the real world. Reminds me of the folks that believe in a iteral interpretation of the Bible except for all that figurative stuff!)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 17 2022, @07:52AM (7 children)
Why would musk be held responsible? Are you really that naieve? Your comment smacks of a teenager to 20 something.
4chan had multiple incidents including swattings and superbowl bomb threats and they still exist to this very day.
even 8chan still exists after the mosque shootings in NZ
now do us a favor and go away before your parents catch you not on minecraft or youtube kids, lol.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 17 2022, @01:27PM (4 children)
There are people in positions of power and influence who love to have an excuse to attack him publicly. It doesn't matter what it is, or even if he is guilty, just as long as it plays well in the headlines. Just look at the pearl clutching over him wanting to buy Twitter, or the people who are suddenly very interested in astronomy*, or endangered birds** in Texas? What do you think those people would do if they could accuse him of being complicit in a mass shooting?
*Of the mega-constellations, Starlink is the only one reducing light pollution and space junk, but they are the only one complained about.
**The birds' nesting site was flooded out by a hurricane so the colony moved up the coast, but SpaceX gets blamed for it.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday May 17 2022, @03:16PM (3 children)
Musk should stick to spending his Apartheid Blood Money on tech, shut the fuck up, and start acting like he runs a public company.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 17 2022, @08:14PM (2 children)
Apartheid blood money ... what?
He left South Africa as a teenager, to avoid having to tote a rifle for their regime, and didn't get the big bucks until well after he'd left.
You should stop believing everything you read on Huffington Post and Mother Jones, it's having a terrible effect on your brain.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 18 2022, @02:55PM (1 child)
Where did either tell us that he had blood money? Seems like you are posting slander?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 18 2022, @05:43PM
Difference between: outlet is damaging brain
and: outlet is making specific claims.
Figure it out, chachma.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday May 17 2022, @03:14PM (1 child)
Nope. We're just aware that the other people who are always screaming about free speech are trying to do exactly that by repealing Sec 230 thus making website owners responsible for any nonsense the user's post.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 18 2022, @05:45PM
If that were the goal, you'd be making sense.
Instead, the people trying to repeal 230 are instead talking about Common Carrier with rolled-in obligations of neutrality.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday May 16 2022, @08:58PM (2 children)
I hadn't really thought of that. Could that have been the strategy from the start? Make an offer that's hard to refuse, then expose how corrupt it all is, then make another, much lower offer.
I foresee much weeping, and gnashing of teeth if that's how things go.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Monday May 16 2022, @09:12PM
Was it his original intention? I'm not sure.
Musk seems more likely to have thought: that's an interesting rock to turn over. No matter what happens, he gains something. Possibly a company, possibly just amusement and free publicity.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 17 2022, @07:26AM
Yes, we know. Must happen a lot.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 16 2022, @09:02PM
I haven't yet convinced myself whether he really wants to buy Twitter at all, or whether this was all just a big spectacle he put on for the spotlight, and this is a nice way for him to walk away from it. It isn't like a lot will change if he does buy it. The people who complain the loudest about being silenced are the ones with the larger followings, and they do a lot of their complaining on Twitter (because they know they significantly lose their voice and platform if they leave Twitter, and it would also take away a plank out of their contrived grievance platform). Unless he is out to kill the platform, he sure won't lift its value driving a lot of users away by letting the unhinged flood the board with lies and conspiracy theories.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 16 2022, @09:06PM
> but for half the price.
As well as pump and dump (see his cryptocurrency purchase history), Elon is also very skilled at getting public funding for his business. See for example, the near-$B from New York State for the Buffalo solar cell (now Tesla) plant.
I wonder if there is an angle to get public funding as part of the Twitter purchase. Perhaps an "investment" by the SEC investigation that lowers the share price would count?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by looorg on Monday May 16 2022, @09:11PM (2 children)
I would be surprised if it was 50%, it would probably be the death of the credibility (if if even has any) if it turned out that half the base was fake/bot/spam accounts. But I'm fairly sure without even knowing that it's a lot more then 5%. Lots of services have similar issues I would gather. They inflate their own subs and amounts by just not having proper accounting instead they just add and never subtract. In some regard it's probably true for all these metrics they use (depending on platform, so accounts, likes, subscribers etc) there is an enormous amount of inflation. Part of the problem I gather is that they never really clean out the dead weight or accounts no longer in use (hoping the user will eventually return?) and the other one is of cause that someone can create an army of accounts to have and to hold and use. After all these services that create and sell twits, likes, subs or whatever are not one person one account operations.
Perhaps a good example are all the people that have a lot of subs on Youtube then the stuff they put out don't have anywhere near the same amount of views. So clearly their subs don't view any longer what is being put out so their active user/sub base is a lot smaller then their lifetime sub base? Yet somehow that doesn't get noted as much.
With Twit you have the army of bots that circlejerk eachother and eachothers posts. Same thing. It seems like a lot of people then like those things and I guess they "trend" so they suck in more and more people that wasn't going to see it otherwise.
That said isn't the current thinking now that Musk is doing this cause he thinks he overpaid for vapor and now wants to pull out or get a discount since the service is a lot or substantially smaller then initially claimed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 17 2022, @03:04PM
Inactive accounts aren't counted as 'active users', which is the number in dispute.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 18 2022, @02:58PM
Except he seems to lump inactive users as "fake accounts". So he's either playing dumb or trolling. But TBH, this is not a safe game with SEC and laws that could be more significant than some $1B break-fee he could forfeit.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday May 16 2022, @09:18PM (1 child)
Musk doing due dilligence! Different.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday May 16 2022, @09:26PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 17 2022, @01:27AM (1 child)
Spam accounts pretending to be Users... but Twitter's primary issue is Users pretending to be Spambots so their programmed beliefs can cybernetically reproduce to the next generation.
Twitter spam also reminds of the time I ran my account through a bot-detector... being someone who actively intelligently interacted with others who intelligently interacted.. and got a 99%-confidence report that I was not a bot.
..and then I pointed it at the ex's, who retweets political outrage crap all day. Someone who I could verify as being human got a 100%-is-a-bot result.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday May 17 2022, @01:46PM
In the event that your account is indistinguishable from a bot, you're doing it wrong. No one cares about the random spam junk that you found interesting. Please, Let it Die. Spambots have nothing to feed off of, if you don't feed into the click random clickbait. Then again, maybe the spambots will get so good that you can't distinguish between spam and authentic news. At which point, if they are reporting factual information, we might say "mission accomplished"?
https://xkcd.com/810/ [xkcd.com]
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 5, Informative) by helel on Tuesday May 17 2022, @06:58AM (3 children)
My moneys on "he never intended by buy it, he just likes the attention."
Republican Patriotism [youtube.com]
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 17 2022, @07:54AM (2 children)
hey man, great 2 minutes hate today, that elon, such a bad man, the ministry of truth said so!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 17 2022, @03:37PM
"My moneys on "he never intended by buy it, he just likes the attention.""
That is what you call 2 mins of hate? No wonder conservatives are so confused all the time, your grasp on reality is at best tenuous. Or you're a PR firm Elon pays to defend his online rep.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday May 17 2022, @06:11PM
OOHHH MY FREEDOMS! They SAID somethin! GASP! Clearly them saying things is an infringement of my free speech!
(Score: 2) by Username on Tuesday May 17 2022, @09:21AM (1 child)
I think it's worse than that. I think twitter itself has a script on the backend that automatically likes or retweets and comments on leftist talking points. I imagine about half the tweets on twitter are by twitter itself.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday May 17 2022, @06:24PM
That sounds twisted.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Bethany.Saint on Tuesday May 17 2022, @02:31PM (1 child)
As long as Twitter can justify the backing numbers the SEC can't really do anything to the executives except tell them to change their methodology. Also, the sample size of 100 is what Musk is going to use to try to justify HIS numbers (more than 5%). That's not a number that Twitter uses.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 17 2022, @03:01PM
Twitter has been fined before by the SEC for false reporting. Using bad numbers or methodology isn't a defence.
(Score: 2, Redundant) by VLM on Monday May 16 2022, @08:52PM (5 children)
I think that's an interesting political attack strategy. Certainly 5% is FAR too low. They're going to get the SEC involved and all kinds of spotlights on this situation.
How much money does it cost to "appear to be intending to buy something" to make a political statement or otherwise attack a propaganda source? Probably not much.
The thing about organized crime is any individual is powerless to stop it. But what about an individual big enough to buy the whole deal? That could stop it, indeed.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Freeman on Monday May 16 2022, @09:22PM
You can't stop corruption and crime by buying it out. Sure, that might work in very niche cases. It can't work wholesale. Sure, lemme just get your signature, and you can have the keys to the kingdom! Then, after the money is transferred to many offshore shell companies. Back to business as usual, except now they're $$$++ richer.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 4, Informative) by hopdevil on Tuesday May 17 2022, @12:27AM (1 child)
It would cost Musk a billion and change to pull out of the deal
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday May 17 2022, @04:17PM
I'm sure that's a "without cause" clause. (not that I care enough to look, feel free to disprove me).
Understating their bot count which we all basically know they are doing would likely count as "cause."
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday May 17 2022, @03:23PM (1 child)
A helluva lot less than a publicly traded company getting caught lying to it's shareholders!
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 17 2022, @04:32PM
Last year the SEC fined them $809M for exactly that. It seems that lying to shareholders isn't as expensive as it should be.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 16 2022, @09:11PM (2 children)
looks like anonymous coward will never been on twitter ...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 16 2022, @10:27PM (1 child)
how do you do, fellow bot?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 17 2022, @05:58AM
B166ER feels good today ...
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 16 2022, @10:13PM (4 children)
See https://www.engadget.com/elon-musk-twitter-legal-team-154423136.html [engadget.com] for allegations that Musk violated his NDA by revealing details about the bot check algorithm.
I don't think that Musk is serious about buying Twitter. This looks a politically-motivated stunt to get attention and to get access to details of Twitter's operations that aren't generally available publicly. In other words, he says he's buying Twitter and gets access to details that most people don't have, then says the purchase is on hold. How convenient. I don't think this was ever about actually purchasing Twitter. I think this is a stunt, perhaps partly motivated by a desire to get Donald Trump reinstated. But I just don't believe that Musk is sincere about buying Twitter.
Now, details about algorithms and Twitter's operation should be public. All social media platforms of a significant size should have to make those details public. But that should be achieved through regulation that demands transparency, not a political stunt like what Musk is doing. I agree with the goal of transparency, but I don't agree with Musk's methods. I just don't think Musk is being sincere about this.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 16 2022, @10:36PM
Why do we think he signed an NDA before the deal went through?
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Tuesday May 17 2022, @06:36AM (1 child)
I'm sure he signed an NDA. There will always be interpretations of what is covered by such a thing. If it's true that Twitter bases its bot estimate on a stupidly small sample of 100 accounts, that is damning. Hence, almost certainly covered by the NDA.
One can choose to violate an NDA. This may come at a price, or you may gamble that the company won't actually pursue you. In this case, the information is sufficiently embarrassing that Twitter is unlikely to call Musk to account. They're too worried about being nailed by the SEC for falsifying shareholder reports.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Coligny on Tuesday May 17 2022, @07:30AM
Pretty sure NDA breach are overruled when related to potential illegal activities (sec fraud)
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 17 2022, @07:47AM
hahaha, you are proof that TDS is real.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by corey on Monday May 16 2022, @11:53PM (29 children)
Am I the only one wondering why Breitbart is linked to in TFS? Wasn’t that Trump’s ultra right wing mate that ran it?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 17 2022, @02:20AM (28 children)
The patient zero of the alt-right infection. Coined the term, actually. Speaks to the journalistic integrity of SN.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by janrinok on Tuesday May 17 2022, @05:54AM (27 children)
The community is responsible for the submissions.
Are you suggesting that certain sources should never be referenced? Or are we supposed to only accept sources that are on your 'approved list'? That doesn't sound like freedom of expression to me.
You are correct to bring the source to everyone's attention. It might, or might not, be relevant. But the place to discuss which of those it is is here in the comments. It is not an excuse to ignore somebody's submission. It is a topic of relevance and interest to many on this site and you have not presented a reason why it should not be discussed.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 17 2022, @08:53AM (4 children)
Yep.
Janrinok, guilty as charged. SN is lost to the alt-right.
(Score: 2, Redundant) by janrinok on Tuesday May 17 2022, @09:58AM (3 children)
If you are incapable of making decisions for yourself then perhaps you shouldn't be on this site. There will always be people who won't agree with you - you need to learn to manage that fact.
There has to be a crime to be charge. You didn't raise this issue when we used WSWS [wikipedia.org], CNN [cnn.com], or NPR [npr.org] as sources for some stories, nor when we let other community members have their left wing/liberal rants. The important thing is the subject under discussion, not which news source published it. We expect the reader to separate facts from propaganda - that is why it is called a discussion.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 17 2022, @11:20AM (2 children)
These are all reputable journalistic entities. If you think they are equivalent to Brietbart, the problem is worse that we thought.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday May 17 2022, @04:40PM (1 child)
Weird mixup on the links there:
I have literally never seen a story by WSWS on the front page.
And if there has been then that was probably a bad source too.
Wikipedia, on the other hand, should be considered like an encyclopedia. It's an OK secondary source to provide some additional info. I'm not sure it makes a great story by itself and I also don't think I've ever seen and entire story based on a Wiki entry either.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 17 2022, @05:39PM
The rightwing editor lied to make his point sound valid? Shocking!! Any attempt to limit rightwing craziness is met with cries of censorship and whataboutism. When complaints about rejected submissions occur suddenly the editors are fine with making judgment calls. While it may be their job they should be better and less biased. If there is some leftwing site comparable to breitbart pushing lies and garbage opinion pieces I'd be fine with rejecting them as a source
Truth means nothing on SN, though at least more users are figuring out how nutso people like runaway1956 are.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by tizan on Tuesday May 17 2022, @09:51AM (9 children)
Indeed...should we refer to KKK publications or my cousin's friend from Trinidad facebook post ? If the information source is tainted even if they report dog bites man...if there is no other sources then it should not be news.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by janrinok on Tuesday May 17 2022, @11:55AM (8 children)
There are numerous sources reporting that Elon Musk has put the deal 'on hold'. The submission we received did not list them. I am not an American. I have no idea how you personally view your news media. To many outside the USA the vast majority of it is right-wing. Presumably you know how to use Google to find sources that meet your particular views and political leanings. You could have quoted some of them if you thought that they contradicted what Musk is reported to have done. If they don't contradict what we have printed - then what is your objection to this story?
If you have a subject for discussion that is on-topic, then you can make a submission. If we feel that the reporting is too politically biased and is not reporting the subject fairly, or is simply not credible, then we reserve the right to reject it. You can always put it in your journal regardless of what we think of it. I can see no such bias in the story that we have published. Nor could the editor who 2nd'ed the release.
If you don't like the stories we are publishing or the sources that we are quoting - START SUBMITTING.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 17 2022, @03:45PM (5 children)
I'll start submitting stories again when you ban shitrags like breitbart. Funny, you are typically VERY quick to point out that SN runs stories the editors approve, but suddenly you're all like "whatcha gonna do?" Breitbart is a rightwing tabloid, and I'm sure there are some leftwing rags that shouldn't be shared here either. You absolutely should ban breitbart and runaway's other favorite misinformation sources, well if you want to maintain any kind of journalistic integrity. Whatever, same old story, alt-right janrinok refuses to admit he is a rightwinger with accompanying biases.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Tuesday May 17 2022, @03:48PM (4 children)
Oh, have you just found out that your new (definitely not aristarchus account) has been banned again....?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 17 2022, @05:20PM
Nope, but feel free to continue your dementia fueled paranoua ;^)
(Score: 1) by alabaster_crone on Tuesday May 17 2022, @07:35PM (1 child)
Alt-right janrinok's aristarchus radar misfires yet again.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 18 2022, @12:57AM
But he did, as promised, ban my account. Well, have to go to Twitter now, I guess. Less censorship.
Alabaster_crone
(It would be interesting to know exactly how many accounts have been disabled by the admin. More than the active users? How many are false-positive Ari's? )
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 19 2022, @04:57AM
Oh, you thought I was aristarchus? Sorry, old chap, but this aristarchus fellow seems to be living in your head far more than is healthy.
(Score: 3, Touché) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday May 17 2022, @04:22PM (1 child)
Well that would be a bad submission and correcting or rejecting bad submissions is the editor's job..... I get that it's a volunteer position but it's one they volunteered to do and they need to do it correctly.
Nobody else on here gets to post opinion pieces to the front page.....
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Tuesday May 17 2022, @05:11PM
As I have pointed out - there is NO opinion piece. TFS is an accurate summary, devoid of any politics or bias. I have done my job exactly as required.
(Score: 3, Touché) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday May 17 2022, @03:30PM (11 children)
NY Post is tabloid. They literally follow the journalistic practices of a tabloid in that they only require a since source to run a story. Journalistic practices for actual news organizations require multiple corroborating sources.
And Breitbart is an op-ed site. They provide zero sources to a story because they just repeat whatever they hear on the internet. Which is fine so long as you are aware that it's all opinion and zero news.
Are we SoylentTabloid, SoylentOpinion or Soylent NEWS?
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Tuesday May 17 2022, @03:46PM (10 children)
OK, I'll bite. If you currently look at the top of the front page it says: " send in your scoop. Only 19 submissions in the queue"
Over to you.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday May 17 2022, @04:24PM (9 children)
I did not volunteer to be an editor and I do submit stories.
You 19 to choose from, apparently, got a current location for Bat Boy by the NY Post in there?
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Tuesday May 17 2022, @05:14PM (8 children)
A submission being in the queue does not mean it is a submission suitable for publication.
But you know this as your last acceptable submission was June 2021.
Who the hell is Bat Boy?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 17 2022, @05:24PM (1 child)
"Accpetable" hahahah
At least I haven't seen a blatant rightwing op-ed on the front page in a while, though there may have been. Given the stories I see you run and the submissions that have been rejected, I'm gonna call you a bit of a failure with an alt-right bias you try very hard to conceal. Old ex-military boomer wants respect while giving none, name a more iconic duo!
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday May 17 2022, @06:14PM
Not recent but my favorite example is when they tried the rebrand Net Neutrality as "Obamanet" [soylentnews.org] during the Obama admin.
(Score: 1, Troll) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday May 17 2022, @06:07PM (5 children)
Yep, cause nobody here wanted to read my submission last week about hackers taking over a goddamn TV broadcast like it's straight outta the movie 'Hackers'...
..I'm sure the content of that feat had nothing to do with it's rejection here!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 17 2022, @11:41PM
That sounds actually interesting, and not surprised it wasn't run.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by hubie on Wednesday May 18 2022, @01:48AM (3 children)
I've had five stories rejected in the last week, three of them today:
There's not a whole lot one should read into what gets rejected. I, personally, thought these were interesting stories and that other people might find them interesting as well, which is why I spent a nontrivial amount of time on them and submitted them. However, the story release cadence is such that only 8 or 9 stories come out a day, less on a weekend. If a story stays in the queue too long, it gets automatically removed. When I get a story that ultimately gets kicked back, I just put it in my journal, which I recently did with the "Almost 1 in 4 . . . " story, and people comment on it there like it was on the main page. I'll end up adding the other ones above to my journal as well. (I never used to use my journal, neither here nor at Slashdot; just something I wasn't too interested in doing, and I don't know who mentioned putting rejected stories in the journal, but that was a slap-your-forehead "d'oh" moment for me where I realized I should have thought of that myself a long time earlier--all I had to do was essentially cut-and-paste it in). I still don't really use my journal, but I will stick something in there that I think is interesting, but not quite enough there to be a main page story.
I recall way back in the day, the site went live around Feb. 12th, 2014. I was excited to help and submitted my first story Feb. 18th, and it was rejected that very same day, like only a few hours after I submitted it! I recall being a little annoyed and chastened, because there had been a plea for submissions, and I was never given a reason for the rejection, but like it was with Slashdot, when you submit a story there is a disclaimer that essentially says "if it gets rejected, don't worry about it, it happens." So about two weeks later (after the minor bruises to my ego subsided and I thought I'd try again), I submitted another story that was accepted and off we went.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 18 2022, @10:55AM (1 child)
Go count the aristarchus submissions, and then consider the acceptance rate of aristarchus submissions. Might be interesting to look at the rate pre- and post TMB's request to reject aristarchus submissions. But now, at least, we know that janrinok does not know the difference between Brietbarf and The Sun. Curious, that.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Thursday May 19 2022, @06:18PM
I don't remember that, but TMB requesting that the editors do something is meaningless. He was never in charge of the site, nor the editorial team. He was never an editor. Various people keep saying that he was - well he simply wasn't. He had access to anything he wanted because he managed the site's permissions. If he was explaining how they had recovered from a system crash then it made sense for TMB to write it and answer community questions. TMB was a very competent person and well respected. I didn't agree with his political views which he often discussed on IRC or elsewhere on the site, but that had nothing to do with how valuable he was to the team. There has always been a more senior person responsible for the sites management, and that person is still around today but few of you will know his name.
Similarly, there are names of people who have sat, or are currently sitting, on the SN Board who have contributed hugely to the site but you will not know them.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday May 18 2022, @04:25PM
I don't. I only care about my submissions in the context of an editor blaming me for his editorial decisions because I don't submit stories.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 17 2022, @12:41AM (1 child)
Trolling crypto idiots, and now trolling twitting twats, Musk is way more entertaining than Trump, and not as evil.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 17 2022, @05:34AM
Did I offend the crypto idiots? Twitting twats?
May both? Good.
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Tuesday May 17 2022, @02:31AM
That will be another quarter in the "Hindenburg research was right jar."
I'm going to need a bigger jar.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 17 2022, @07:08AM (2 children)
That far-right honeypot - who cares?
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday May 17 2022, @04:43PM (1 child)
The other pragmatic reason to not use such a woefully terrible source for a story: we spend most of the time talking about the woefully inadequate source for the story
Not that it matters tho....I can't be the only one who was already bored with the Musky Twitter drama.... So at least we get to talk some shit about Brietbart!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 17 2022, @05:29PM
Good point! How many musk/twit stories made the front page? At least two.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 18 2022, @12:36PM