Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
The value of X (formerly Twitter) continues to circle the toilet at an impressive rate.
The social media platform is now worth 79 percent less than what it was worth when Elon Musk purchased it, according to analysis by investor Fidelity.
The financial platform should know what it's talking about, too, because it helped Musk acquire X back in 2022 and owns a stake in the company. Fidelity's initial investment, per TechCrunch, was $19.66 million. Fidelity's latest financial report, meanwhile, lists the value of its X stake as $4,185,614.
That's a yikes-inducing decrease of around 79 percent.
In fairness, the writing has been on the wall for a while. In January 2024 Fidelity already valued its stake in X at 71.5 percent less, and recent documents made it clear just how much X's revenue has plummeted. Meanwhile, a new report has suggested that advertisers — who were already fleeing Musk's platform en masse — are planning to spend even less on X in 2025.
Elsewhere Brazil is battling the platform, and the number of X users in the U.S. and the UK is decreasing.
Not looking great, is it?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by turgid on Tuesday October 01, @12:49PM (32 children)
It seems that Alt-Wrong Stupid Signalling is not without a cost after all. Oh dear.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 4, Touché) by Gaaark on Tuesday October 01, @01:01PM (8 children)
Yep! Just came to say:
Nope... looking fabulous, darling! ;)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2, Troll) by drussell on Tuesday October 01, @03:39PM (7 children)
I'm actually surprised it is somehow wobbling along as well as it is...
The sooner it dies in a horrible, flaming death spiral, the better!!
Nothing of value will have been lost.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday October 01, @04:54PM (5 children)
There are many kinds of value.
When you have more money than you need, sometimes you spend some of it on things you want, rather than always investing it in things that will increase in value.
When you seek to exploit a social media platform, turn it from its current content profile to a new one, any reasonable person should expect that platform to lose users - lose value. How much is that worth to you in dollars? Well, I've got more dollars here than I'll ever possibly spend in a lifetime in this pile, then I've got 269 more piles just like it over there... I really really wanna do this thing, so let's just spend 44 piles on it, eh? And as long as I'm a celebrity rich person, people are falling all over themselves to "get in" on anything I do, so why not let them put in as much of their money as they are willing to while I still get to do this thing?
What did 44 piles buy Elon? Certainly more than 15 minutes of fame.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 01, @05:14PM
Hey, his 15 minutes are over already. Have to call the show host.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 01, @06:25PM
Exactly. This is spending. Spending on propaganda. A giant ad buy financed by authoritarians and dictators to spout nonsense and turn the collective discourse (*spit*) into a steaming pile of poo. It's quite expensive, as you can imagine.
(Score: 5, Informative) by turgid on Tuesday October 01, @06:46PM (2 children)
GBNews is a loss-making TV channel run as an investment to spread right wing propaganda in the UK. They're at it everywhere. If they keep drip feeding us their nonsense they know that some people will eventually believe it. Then they will have more votes come the elections.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 01, @07:42PM (1 child)
You ever wonder why we talk about eating pets, trickle-down theory, 911, JFK, UFOs instead of, y'know, ANYTHING that actually matters? Oh look - a squirrel in a Kardashian outfit!! BRB.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday October 01, @07:56PM
Much easier to be outraged about "those people" who we don't like in the first place doing something like eating pet cats, rather than think about glide bombs and drone attacks and 98% of a power infrastructure being destroyed heading into winter.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Informative) by ikanreed on Tuesday October 01, @05:01PM
Websites are stupid-cheap to maintain, even relatively big ones. Gaining or even keeping users is another matter, but site itself will not go away.
The only institutional thing that will do in Twitter is the huge amounts of debt Elon took on to buy it. The nature of the debt means that Elon won't be able to just discharge it through bankruptcy, and he will be forced to part ways with some of his wealth invested in other ventures, probably Tesla. Chopping Twitter up and selling it for parts to regain par value doesn't really work because tech valuations are all ghosts and hype, and no actual capital. So, the website will probably continue existing no matter what happens.
The thing you're hoping for is when you don't have to pay attention to it anymore, and that's today. You can drop a hosts entry for x.com, and ignore it starting right now.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by mcgrew on Tuesday October 01, @03:19PM (21 children)
Oh, my, it appears that a Nazi has mod points. Fascism is indeed WRONG. Dead wrong. My uncles fought a world war against people like Musk and the morons who post on his nasty site. "Alt right" is fascism, and is indeed wrong.
I gave you an "insightful" to counteract the Nazi's downmod.
Poe's Law [nooze.org] has nothing to do with Edgar Allen Poetry
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Deep Blue on Tuesday October 01, @05:03PM (20 children)
And i say pretty much any extreme direction is wrong in 99.9999% of subjects.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Gaaark on Tuesday October 01, @06:10PM (18 children)
Yes. Extreme left is just as bad as Extreme right... except, Extreme right seems to mean violence against the left and everyone not extreme right.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 1, Troll) by DadaDoofy on Tuesday October 01, @09:44PM (16 children)
"Extreme right seems to mean violence against the left and everyone not extreme right."
I can only imagine that you are not from the US. Here in the US, there have already been two assassination attempts on the right-wing candidate for president, and credible reports up to five more teams of assassins actively trying to assassinate the him, while there have been zero reports of assassins targeting the left-wing presidential candidate.
(Score: 4, Touché) by Gaaark on Tuesday October 01, @10:10PM (11 children)
He's far-right (telling the cops they should spend one hour teaching shoplifters an extreme lesson, etc etc) and people want to take him out like they wanted to take out Hitler.
She's left of centre and not a complete nut.
Loads of Presidents and candidates have not been shot at.
But hey, look at it like this: far-right nuts who love guns should not be talking about how nuts who gain access to guns will try to kill far-right nutsy people. You should be praising them for practicing their, what, 4th amendment rights? 2nd? Whatever.
From their cold, dead Presidential candidates ear.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 5, Informative) by janrinok on Wednesday October 02, @02:48AM (1 child)
Only in America. For the rest of the world she is still right of centre. I agree with the general thrust of your comment though.
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday October 02, @11:24AM
In other words, Western Europe. /sarc
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday October 02, @12:29PM (8 children)
Far right != Hitler. And as a sitting Vice President, Harris's security would be better.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Wednesday October 02, @09:27PM (7 children)
My comment was that he is acting LIKE Hitler: Hitler didn't say "Kill the Jews". He said "We need to find a final solution to the Jewish problem" and then let his underlings do what they did, which they did to curry his favour.
Trump is basically trying to tell his supporters to act like Brown Shirts. Let violence solve the problem.
No: far right does not always equal 'Hitler'. But Trump wants to be a dictator. Instead, he's just a dick.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday October 02, @10:27PM (6 children)
What politician doesn't act like Hitler then? And keep in mind that Hitler did more than let his underlings use their creativity, he helped kill 11 million people through a system of organized slavery and murder. Where's the analogous crime associated with Trump?
(Score: 3, Touché) by Gaaark on Thursday October 03, @11:58AM (5 children)
These killings all started with a comment like:
"We need to find a final solution to the Jewish problem".
Compare the 'innocence' of that statement with this:
“One rough hour — and I mean real rough — the word will get out and it will end immediately, you know? It will end immediately,” Trump said Sunday in Erie, Pennsylvania.
One statement, 11 million people dead.
You're comparing Trump to Harris? Trump to Carter? Trump to who? Which other politician acts like a dictator wannabe?
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Thursday October 03, @12:52PM (4 children)
Again, you have one person who delegated the killing of 11 million people versus one person who is trash talking. Trump didn't kill 11 million people the last time he was in office.
That's two right there: Harris and Carter. You're pretty good at this.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday October 03, @03:33PM (3 children)
And you're pretty bad at this: in what way 'Harris and Carter'? In what way are they anything like Adolf Hitler?
Only because Trump only had 4 years.
Hindenburg appointed Hitler as Chancellor of Germany in January 1933, and upon Hindenburgs death in 1934, Hitler gave himself all the power he needed to be a dictator.
Because he had a dictatorship, he was able to begin the persecution of the Jews.
Trump tried for a dictatorship on January 6, 2021 but failed because good men did something and thus triumphed against evil; unlike in Germany where a person like Pence bowed down to Hitler's wants. Where a person like Vance swallowed their mores and became lackeys under Hitler. Vance, who thought Trump was scum and who took it up the ass to become Trump's right hand man.
You should read 'The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich' by William L. Shirer: it shows you exactly how Hitler and Trump are the same in mind-set and how Trump is using the same techniques and underlings (like Vance) to get a dictatorship.
Nobody thought Hitler was anything but a Bohemian Colonel before his rise. They thought he was just 'trash talking'. Until they found out he wasn't; that he was very, very serious.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday October 03, @05:27PM (2 children)
They both had followers who would carry out implied orders. Remember what I quoted at the time? "Hitler didn't say..." Carter and Harris didn't say a bunch of stuff too.
Look at what you wrote above. Trump had four years and didn't Nazi. Hitler had one and did. The Nazi party was also responsible for an attempted coup (of the real sort) and a huge bunch of other crimes going back more than a decade, including some murders (one of the bigger contributors to the Feme murders [wikipedia.org], for example). Trump supporters haven't done much of anything since the January 6 protest. When you don't pay attention to the differences, then everyone looks like a nazi.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday October 03, @05:41PM (1 child)
See? It's clear you haven't really studied Hitler. Hitler didn't 'go Nazi' in one year. He gained dictator powers in that one year. It's like if Trump became President and then a year later, someone died and Trump was able to give himself the dictatorship. Luckily, that couldn't happen.
Have you read The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich? Have you read how Hitler worked and thought? Have you read of the burning of the Reichstag which allowed him to take full power? Have you read of the Brown shirts (and the parallel with the Proud Boys, et al)?
The similarities are so many.
But hey; i guess if Trump is able to get elected and destroy the Constitution of the U.S, we'll see.
Let's hope that doesn't happen.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday October 04, @12:12AM
I strongly disagree. Hitler couldn't have gained dictator powers faster than that. That was his first opportunity. He really did go nazi in one year as claimed.
Yes. And have you learned how many people died at the hands of the Nazis before Hitler became chancellor? For example, in the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch (a Nazi attempt to overthrow the Bavarian state government) resulted in 20 deaths. 99 deaths occurred in clashes between the Nazis and Communists in mid 1932 before Reichstag elections, culminating in a riot where police killed another 18 people (during a counterprotest to a Nazi recruiting parade). All we have in your accusation is that you choose to call Proud Boys "Brown shirts" with no understanding of how violent and criminally active the Brown Shirts actually were.
(Score: 3, Touché) by sjames on Wednesday October 02, @02:36AM
The first shooter seemed to vacillate between left and right. I'd say he was more cuckoo than left or right.
Not sure about the second one.
Hard to say when even prominent Republicans are endorsing Harris over Trump.
(Score: 3, Informative) by day of the dalek on Friday October 04, @12:21AM (2 children)
Your comment is a blatant display of intellectual dishonesty. Let's review some of the other things that have happened here in the US...
1) A right-wing conspiracy theory claimed that a cabal of satanic pedophiles in the Democratic Party was abusing children and harvesting adrenochrome from them. There was a name for this conspiracy theory: QAnon. Because of this disinformation, a shooter attacked a pizzeria in Washington [nytimes.com], falsely believing that children were being abused in the basement.
2) Between November 3, 2020 and January 6, 2021, Donald Trump posted 1,527 tweets [thetrumparchive.com], many of angrily claimed that the presidential election was being stolen from him. These claims were absolutely false, but they led a large group of protesters to arrive in Washington on January 6, 2021, ultimately leading to the insurrection at the Capitol while the electoral votes were being counted.
3) Ahead of the January 6 insurrection, a right-wing anti-government militia group known as the Oath Keepers assembled a massive cache of weapons in a hotel in Virginia [politico.com], just outside Washington. Although there are conflicting reports of why this weapons cache was amassed, at least some members of the Oath Keepers advocated for violence to prevent the transfer of power from Donald Trump to Joe Biden.
4) Vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance amplified disinformation that falsely claimed Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio were stealing people's pets and geese from parks, and were eating them. Zero actual evidence has been provided to substantiate these allegations. Mayors in the region, many of whom are Republicans, and Ohio Governor Mike Dewine, also a Republican, have denounced these allegations as absolutely false. Despite the lack of any evidence, there have been bomb threats in Springfield, some of which specifically targeted Haitians [nytimes.com], and at least one local businessman has been labeled a traitor and received death threats [salon.com] for defending employees of his who are Haitian immigrants.
5) Many teachers have received violent threats from right-wing extremists in recent years because of COVID-19 safety protocols, allegations that critical race theory is being taught in schools [nea.org], allegations of child grooming [reuters.com]. The allegations about critical race theory and child grooming are false but has still led to right-wing calls for the execution of teachers [vice.com]. Here's a quote from one such threat: "I am going to kill you and shoot up your next school-board meeting for promoting the horrific, radical transgender agenda. It’s now time to declare war on you pedos. I am going to kill you and your entire family."
In fact, a recent study found that one in four Republicans supports violence if they believe this year's election is "compromised" [usatoday.com], and that Republicans are much more likely to support political violence than Democrats and independents.
I cannot help but notice that you also have a history of comments that appear to promote blatantly false theories, including one comment theorizing that immigrants are responsible for high crime rates in California [soylentnews.org] despite the fact that immigrants actually commit crimes at a lower rate [northwestern.edu]. That is exactly the type of insinuation that has incited violence against immigrants, not unlike the threats being directed at Haitian immigrants in Ohio. Although your comment here does not explicitly state as much, it implies that in fact left-wing extremists are responsible for most political violence. In fact, there are a very large number of examples of right-wing political violence, and evidence the right is much more likely to accept political violence than the left.
Moreover, much of this political violence is being fueled by disinformation on social media, and Elon Musk has used X and his account specifically to amplify such disinformation [apnews.com]. Not only has changes to content moderation on X amplified disinformation in the US, but it has also been linked to political violence in the UK [washingtonpost.com].
As for your specific comments about Kamala Harris, at least one person has been charged for threatening to kill her [nbcnews.com]. The Libertarian Party of New Hampshire went further, posting this on X: "Anyone who murders Kamala Harris would be an American hero." [time.com], also adding, "The point of the second amendment is to shoot and kill tyrannous politicians."
I'll repeat what I said at the beginning of my comment: your comment is a blatant display of intellectual dishonesty.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by DadaDoofy on Friday October 04, @11:52AM (1 child)
Hmmmm, I must have struck a nerve. Sorry, citing nothing but far-left sources spewing their typical disinformation doesn't prove a thing. If I actually gave shit what you think, I could provide right-wing sources that refute each and every one of your statements, but I don't and I won't.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 04, @03:57PM
you can't and you can't.
right now the gop is saying things like "trust us", "you weren't supposed to fact check us", and "we don't want to talk about the past", all meaning "we have nothing to kick your ass with on the debate floor".
if they don't have refutations, you don't have refutations.
(Score: 3, Informative) by HiThere on Tuesday October 01, @11:18PM
To be fair, extreme left means the same thing. Consider Pot Pol or various others. (One might quibble about whether they should be considered "left" at all, of course, but that's how they painted themselves while acquiring power.)
OTOH, the US has never experienced "extreme left". And even our "extreme right" is less extreme than many places.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 01, @06:28PM
It's that last 0.0001% which every evangelical Christian seems to think they're part of that are the problem...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Wednesday October 02, @02:44PM
Just to annoy a certain billionaire, when you mention X (formerly known as Twitter) you should always be refer to it as: X (formerly known as Twitter).
Do not use the double-struck X. Not accidentfully. Do it on porpoise.
Don't put a mindless tool of corporations in the white house; vote ChatGPT for 2024!
(Score: 0, Troll) by HeadlineEditor on Tuesday October 01, @01:03PM (23 children)
The greatest value of Musk's purchase of Twitter is that the platform was exposed as a left-wing shill machine, in which right-wing voices were shadowbanned and censored outright. Usership naturally plummeted when the left had to deal with actual opposition; progressive ideas cannot exist without censorship.
I think it's worth the price he paid. I bet he does, too.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by ikanreed on Tuesday October 01, @01:12PM (14 children)
In no way shape or form did it "expose" that.
All the right wing babies complaining about being "shadow banned" went right the fuck back to complaining about it within months of Musk taking over, because the short term algorithmic boost of paying money for "twitter blue" doesn't address the underlying problem that no one actually wanted to hear what they had to say.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by looorg on Tuesday October 01, @01:44PM (8 children)
I am not certain anyone wanted to hear what they leftists or progressives had to say either. Considering that this purchase or acquisition of Twitter exposed it for what it was -- a place for bots and "influencers" shilling and retweeting crap. It was a dead soapbox. Nobody wanted or needed.
In some regard I'm glad Musk bought it just so it can now go down in flames and die in a corner of the internet best forgotten. There have as far as I can tell not so far emerged a proper replacement. If "Twitter" as a concept was a viable thing something would have replaced it by now if what Musk have done was so bad. Some users fled to some other little echo-chamber. But beyond that I don't think we have seen any replacements.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Gaaark on Tuesday October 01, @01:51PM (2 children)
And yet, do we need a replacement?
I registered on Twitter a long time ago, but have never really made use of it. To me, its just so much garbage that is on the internet.
Does ANYONE really NEED twitter? We did without it for generations and does ANYONE really see it contributing majorly to society?
I don't use twitter or tiktok or friendface. And my life has not imploded.
How many people "can't do without" these and can't sleep or have anxiety attacks or.....
Let. Them. All. Die.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 01, @06:30PM (1 child)
It's not for you. It used to be a place where authors, scientists, politicans even, would occasionally enter into discussion with random people. Now... nope. It's all commercialized hate and propaganda.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 02, @05:35PM
What did you expect? That is where the profits are. This is the natural evolution of all mass media, since the invention of the written word
(Score: 4, Insightful) by choose another one on Tuesday October 01, @02:51PM (1 child)
> this purchase or acquisition of Twitter exposed it for what it was -- a place for bots and "influencers" shilling and retweeting crap
Unfortunately for Musk (possibly due to his own stupidity on this) this was only exposed _after_ he'd already committed to purchase. The exposure of how few twitter users were "real" would have massively reduced it's value anyway, before anything Musk did, but by the time it was exposed he had already agreed the price and was committed to buy (tried to pull out but was sued and seemingly advised he would lose). Most would get the due diligence done before signing off on the price, but some, notably HP and Musk, don't seem to do it that way round.
(Score: 3, Touché) by ikanreed on Tuesday October 01, @02:56PM
No, I think it's fair to say it was pretty obvious that twitter was a bot infested hellscape. Still is, but it was too.
(Score: 4, Touché) by mcgrew on Tuesday October 01, @03:28PM (1 child)
It was a dead soapbox. Nobody wanted or needed.
I see where the "alt" in "alt right" comes from, short for "alternate reality". You speak as if Musk bought a doomed platform that was shedding users right and left, when the reality was that it was valuable until Musk enshittified it with his neo-Nazi views and are NOW abandoning it like rats from a sinking ship (that said, I was never on Twatter).
You can get elected with lies, but lies can never lead. You fascists would call Eisenhower a communist!
Poe's Law [nooze.org] has nothing to do with Edgar Allen Poetry
(Score: 2) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Thursday October 03, @04:37PM
Not "would", "did". The John Birch Society called Eisenhower a conscious agent of the international Communist conspiracy.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday October 01, @05:01PM
>a place for bots and "influencers" shilling and retweeting crap. It was a dead soapbox.
Hey, careful there... Twitter bots still have plenty of utility as a soapbox fill status monitor, coffee pot monitor, basement sump pump monitor... there's a lot of utility left in Twitter: https://www.instructables.com/Tweet-a-Pot-Twitter-Enabled-Coffee-Pot/ [instructables.com]
People who subscribe to hear what their fave celebs tweet the moment they tweet it? That was net-negative value from the start, spiraling down quickly as the celebs' PR departments took over and started courting their fans for maximal adulation and retention. Participants on all sides of that might as well go back to reading E!Weekly.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2, Offtopic) by khallow on Tuesday October 01, @05:48PM (4 children)
Looks like someone disagrees [threadreaderapp.com] with that assertion.
There is this quote [fec.gov] from Yoel Roth under oath:
The block was lifted in a few days.
Another example of shadow banning is what happened to Judith Curry [judithcurry.com].
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday October 02, @01:23PM (3 children)
Well, I for one am convinced it would be a bad idea to vote for Hunter Biden then.
But more to the point: Nothing of what you described is in any way illegal. The FBI can tell anybody pretty much whatever they want to. Twitter as a privately owned business can decide what to do with that information. Twitter as a privately owned business can choose to censor anybody they want on their platform for any reason they want.
For a similar example involving different entities: The New York Times caught a story in 2004 that described in detail how the NSA was wiretapping pretty much all Americans without a warrant, allegedly to fight terrorism. They delayed publishing that story for a full year, just because the Bush administration asked them to, conveniently allowing Bush to get re-elected without the public knowing about the story.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday October 02, @10:23PM (2 children)
First, consider the obvious here. It's not the FBI's job to recommend speech suppression. They're here merely to fight interstate (and to a certain extent international) crime. Policing legal speech isn't their job. Why the disinterest in misuse of FBI resources?
But then we get to the problem that this is unconstitutional as well. What is unconstitutional for a government actor to do, doesn't become constitutional when the government actor gets a private actor to do it instead. The most common examples of this are searches and gathering of evidence. If a police officer uses your roommate/friend/relative to search your residence without your permission or a warrant, that is still unconstitutional. It doesn't become legal because they aren't doing it directly.
It depends on the asking. There are legitimate reasons, such as delaying a story that would reveal national security secrets or details of an ongoing investigation. There are illegal reasons such as threatening to shutdown the media source with government power. You haven't given details on the alleged "ask" so we don't know whether that was legal or not.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday October 03, @12:03AM (1 child)
One of the FBI's mandates has always been counter-intelligence, i.e. monitoring the activities of foreign spies operating within the United States. Which is exactly what they were doing in this case. So: If the FBI has evidence a spying operation is taking place, and could prevent that spying operation from happening by asking a willing person or private company to do something, are you saying they should not have that power? We're not talking about any threats against Twitter, we're talking about telling them what's going on and asking them to voluntarily quietly kill the story. The kind of thing they'd done many times before.
Regarding the NYTimes story I mentioned: The official reasons were basically unstated national security concerns, and the NYTimes willingly complied with the request without any coercion involved.
Asking a person or business to do something willingly is and has always been the least coercive power the government has.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday October 03, @12:24AM
Which didn't apply here. They were suppressing legal speech in the guise of counterintelligence. And foreign spies have rights too. They legally can do quite a bit in the US.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by VLM on Tuesday October 01, @05:05PM (4 children)
Dying organizations always move leftwards. So there's a chicken and the egg thing where is it dying because its full of leftists or is it full of leftists because its dying? Or it could be a rotational cycle of course.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 01, @06:33PM
Dipshits always write pseudo intellectual bullshit based on an N of zero. Oh, there goes one now!
(Score: 5, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 01, @07:27PM
it was right-wing chatter that made the advertisers scatter.
(Score: 2) by weirsbaski on Thursday October 03, @01:33AM (1 child)
You posted that in a thread about a social media platform that's crashing after its hard-right owner pushed the platform to a rightward turn. It's like "1984 doublespeak" out here...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday October 04, @12:35AM
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Gaaark on Tuesday October 01, @06:12PM (2 children)
Now, the left-wing voices are shadow-banned and censored outright. MUCH better. *eyeroll*
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 01, @06:35PM
At least it's in line with traditional corporate media now. Can't have any dissent out there, tsk tsk tsk.
(Score: 2) by DadaDoofy on Tuesday October 01, @10:02PM
Citation?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by number6x on Tuesday October 01, @02:30PM (34 children)
Elon never understood the value of the original blue verification check mark and how it added value to Twitter.
He, like many users. naively thought it was some kind of status symbol, and not exactly what it was called, a verification. As a verification, other users could be reasonably sure that a blue check mark meant you were seeing a post from whomever the user claimed to be. No more, no less. It didn't infer any higher status or importance, it was just saying that Twitter believes the user to be who the user claims to be.
If you saw a tweet from Bubba and Wayne's Sewer Service [bubbaandwaynesewer.com] about cleaning and maintaining backed up pipes, and Bubba had a blue check mark, you know that they went through the process of certifying that they really were who they said they were.
This made Twitter more valuable to users.By making the platform more valuable, more users would casually use it and that meant more interactions. A bigger chance to get more ads before more eyeballs.
That is the Holy Grail of free to user web applications. More eyeballs.
Instead, Elon thought it would be better to turn the blue check mark into something you could buy. I believe he thought there was some kind of 'status' inferred by getting a verification mark, and that he could make money by selling them to people who wanted one. This eliminated the true value of the check mark, and much of the value of the platform by removing the idea of verification. Now, anyone could pay for a blue check mark, making them almost worthless.
This had the effect of making Twitter worth less to users, not worthless, but worth less. Diminished, reduced in its value to the users. That subtle surety of verification was eliminated.
In a shortsighted bid to make money through transactions, real value was destroyed. It might be part of Elon's being somewhere on the spectrum, the way autistic people tend to miss more subtle human interactions, but are super-tuned into the environment around them and need to quiet it down. The value represented by the original check mark wasn't an obvious transactional value, it was a subtle effect on the psychology of users increasing their overall trust of the platform as a whole.
Or I am probably completely wrong and he could have known what he was doing all along, and his purpose in buying twitter was always to make the platform less trustworthy and destroying its use during events like teh Arab Spring and other movements.
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Tuesday October 01, @03:43PM (1 child)
That's very far from how the blue checks actually worked.
In practice they were an endorsement. On the left or the right or in the middle if you went through the process and the Twitter operators liked your stance on key topics, then you got a blue check. However, on the left or the right or in the middle if you went through the process and the Twitter operators did not like your stance, then you were denied the blue check and often shadowbanned periodically to boot. That's on the left, right, and center.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 3, Informative) by daver!west!fmc on Tuesday October 01, @04:31PM
In practice the blue checks really were an endorsement, in that if the blue check issuer at Twitter didn't think you were famous or notorious or important enough to maybe get one, you didn't even get to go through the process.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by mcgrew on Tuesday October 01, @03:45PM (29 children)
NOBODY born into great wealth like Musk or Trump could possibly have the tiniest clue of the value of anything. Theirs is not a normal existence. They have never had to worry about losing a job, they have never had to hunt for a job. They have never been an assistant (which is why Trump can't understand why Harris didn't fix things in the last three years). They have never had to take orders from anyone, although a judge has the power, as Trump discovered.
These are people who have never had to take "no" for an answer. These are people who have always had everything they ever wanted. These are people who can't possibly know the value of ANYTHING.
They have absolutely no knowledge of what it means to be normal.
Poe's Law [nooze.org] has nothing to do with Edgar Allen Poetry
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by khallow on Tuesday October 01, @05:51PM (28 children)
Normal is a microbe - that makes up most of the biomass of Earth (ignoring the non-living part which is even more normal). You are abnormal from birth. And no, I don't think you have a rational concept of value because you went into that diatribe above.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Wednesday October 02, @04:00PM (27 children)
Apparently khallow doesn't know what normal means, either. 🤡
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday October 03, @12:19AM (26 children)
There's another huge flaw with "normal". If you're trying to learn something about modern cosmology, would you rather listen to the normal viewpoints which happen to be from people who don't have a clue, or to astrophysicists who by definition have very abnormal viewpoints, but the best knowledge out there? Normal doesn't mean more informed and is way overrated.
So how about instead of hearing arguments about normal people who don't have a fucking clue about value either, how about let's argue rationally here. Consider, for example, something that mcgrew wrote:
Is there supposed to be value to taking "no" for an answer? Especially when you don't have to? Let's keep in mind a key oversight here. Elon Musk wasn't born with a $200 billion silver spoon in his mouth. While his upbringing may have been more privileged than mcgrew's, he still had to deal with the usual hardships and losses too. Not taking "no" for an answer may be a big part of the reason he moved up.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Tork on Thursday October 03, @01:03AM (25 children)
Yes. This isn't something that most "normal" people need explained to them.
Elon told advertisers to "fuck off" and now we're reading about Xitter's shrinkage as a result of his "leadership". 🙄
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday October 03, @01:17AM (24 children)
It's a bit flag, eh? Rather he is both. Humans are in touch with stuff they experience often enough or understand well enough, and out of touch with everything else. No exceptions.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Thursday October 03, @02:31AM (23 children)
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday October 03, @05:39AM (22 children)
Given that unicellular life is normal and well, you're not, I'm not seeing the point of the complaint.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Thursday October 03, @02:01PM (21 children)
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday October 03, @05:35PM (20 children)
You have. I refuse to take blame for that. Remember the reason "normal" was supposed to be relevant because there was some people who allegedly shared mcgrew's life experiences - of which Musk was alleged not a member. But what makes that group's life experiences normal? Nothing. I pointed out a vast group of organisms with very different life experiences to which mcgrew is very abnormal. Nothing you've written changes that. Normal is subjective. And what is normal to mcgrew is different than what is normal to anyone else.
The irrational Musk hate of course. Nobody in this thread has given reason one why we should care what the life experiences are of a person "born into great wealth" especially when that's not actually true (as in Musk's case). But it's supposed to be a reason why Musk doesn't "understand" the original blue verification check mark and the imaginary "value" it's supposed to have added to Twitter. This is just noise.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Thursday October 03, @05:55PM (19 children)
Nope.
Even if that were true, so what? Is it your mission to run up your own hysteria apologizing for the guy? Your life's gonna be miserable defending a dude who routinely talks his way into trouble.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday October 04, @12:37AM (18 children)
The unexamined life is not worth living.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Friday October 04, @01:06AM (17 children)
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday October 04, @01:21AM (16 children)
Shovel that somewhere else. The "bit" of criticism includes stuff like:
These accusations are ridiculous and show that a lot of people just aren't thinking.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Friday October 04, @03:02AM (15 children)
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday October 04, @03:32AM (14 children)
No, I merely pointed out the idiocy of making a claim based on your subjective idea of "normal".
(Score: 2) by Tork on Friday October 04, @03:47AM (13 children)
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday October 04, @03:50AM (12 children)
And if that were relevant to my argument, you would have a point. But it's not. Rationality doesn't depend on consensus for correctness.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Friday October 04, @04:02AM (11 children)
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday October 04, @04:34AM (10 children)
Apparently, including yourself! So do you have a real argument somewhere. or are you going to loop again?
(Score: 2) by Tork on Friday October 04, @05:05AM (9 children)
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday October 04, @11:57AM (8 children)
(Score: 2) by Tork on Friday October 04, @01:12PM (7 children)
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday October 04, @05:48PM (6 children)
(Score: 2) by Tork on Friday October 04, @06:04PM (5 children)
This isn't productive and I don't know what to say to unjam the discussion, so I am walking away. Have a nice day.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday October 04, @06:24PM (4 children)
You subsequent posts demonstrate otherwise.
"Privileged upbringing"? I like how you perform the hat trick of false certainty combined with the argument from ignorance fallacy. You don't have a clue about Musk's upbringing. OTOH, I'm quite confident that no matter the alleged "privilege", he didn't have the massive wealth that is the basis of mcgrew's fallacy.
As to consequences? Like multi-billion dollar companies? I'm curious where I made these alleged claims of lack of understanding concerning that. You have a link?
(Score: 2) by Tork on Friday October 04, @08:18PM (3 children)
False.
Feelz are not facts. I'm confident he had useful advantages due to his family's wealth regardless of whether or not he lived in a Scrooge McDuck mansion or went to the Richton School for Gifted Bank Accounts. You won't accept my point because I never had eyeballs inside his house and I won't accept yours because it isn't actually possible for you to prove he is as disconnected as you're trying to puff up. (That's why I really do want to bail on this pointlessly-tedious debate.) Inheritance, as in $$$, is not the only type of wealth. Just being able to pick up a phone and calling certain people is a huge fucking advantage in the right context. Heck, you'll make different choices just knowing you can fuck around a lot and won't lose the roof over your head.
I can speak to this, in a much smaller scale anyway. I have a poor side on my family, that's where I came from, and there's a rich side. I grew up getting clothes at garage sales but I also got my first 'real' job before I had started college because upper-class buddy-network. I don't want to go into a lot of detail here but I think that got me where I wanted to be about 5 years sooner than I would have managed otherwise. This is in part because ultimately that in gave me what I needed to skip college. I did finally break free into the direction I wanted to go, in fact I was able to go where I wanted instead of going where I needed to like many others would have been forced to.
Having said all that, even if you 100% accept what I'm saying as possible or even probable, it's still not substantiative. Or to put it another way I didn't give you a rebuttal I told you my counter-feelz. Again, I wanted to walk away from this debate. There's a lot of tedium over us writing competing fanfics of Elon's life.
It's in your 'second reply' link. "Is there supposed to be value to taking "no" for an answer?" Unless your name is Data I really don't feel up to explaining to you "normal" human behaviour. His questionable decisions as CEO have made news a zillion times and we're debating this under an article that states that Twitter's value dropped 70-ish percent under his watch. If "multi-billion dollar companies" is the metric then losing billions is a metric, too.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday October 04, @10:27PM (1 child)
Keep in mind that a key premise of this whole thread is that if you don't experience it yourself, then you don't know. Musk can't understand "normal" things due to that allegedly privileged upbringing that keeps him from experiencing "normal" things. Well, that applies to you too. Sauce for the gander.
If we look at actual evidence - namely, Musk's extremely copious Twitter/X output, we see plenty of real world evidence of extreme cluelessness, such as when he got in a public argument with a veteran caver named Vern Unsworth (including using the classy insult of "pedo guy") while the latter was helping Thai rescuers save a group of boys trapped in a flooded cave. One doesn't need to resort to hypothetical class theory or imaginary upbringings.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Saturday October 05, @12:18AM
Kay. I don't really understand what you're trying to accomplish with this paragraph, of course the story I told you about myself applies to me. Did I unwittingly express an opinion on the capital gains tax or something?
The same argument applies to your rebuttal and subsequent clarifications.
You're so hung up on nitpicking the details of what Musk's favorite color is that you missed what McGrew's criticism was about- The reason Elon has misstepped so badly is because he keeps misjudging how the world around him works. McGrew was generalizing about why that is and it wasn't just about Elon, it was actually about ultra-rich people with Musk and Trump being the two leading (and topical) examples. I'd wager McGrew's bit about never having to worry about losing a job or hunting for a new one was a direct reference to the mass-firings Elon did along with demands that only those wiling to be exploited would be considered 'cool enough' to stick around. But maybe I'm wrong, McGrew could have been thinking about Trump's recent remarks on union busting while the other corner of his mouth tried to earn votes from the working class. Either way "Nuh uh, Musk didn't live in luxury!" isn't a rebuttal to McGrew's point, it's a nitpick about one portion of it that, at best, might scratch the paint a little. Um... heh.. but you did not achieve 'at best', you tried to reaaaaally stretch the definition of normal.
I don't even mind that so much, except you like to engage in the behaviour that you're finger wagging McGrew about, too. You love telling me what other groups of people think, especially on climate topics. I'm not pulling tit-for-tat, here, I'm pointing out that you should understand where he's coming from a lot better than you're showing me, here. I generalize, too. My posts would be unnecessarily longer if I didn't, my apologies to the rest of the biomass on the planet. Anyway this is why your motivation is suspect. I get why someone else here called you a fanboy.
I told you I'm not going into this with you. Besides it not actually needing an explanation because you're an adult living in the real world, your own example with the cave guy already sank that boat. I don't need to pour more water on it.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday October 04, @10:34PM
You beg the question. Musk takes risks and routinely those risks don't work out. When they do work out, we get things like those huge companies I keep mentioning. So we have yet to hear why there is supposed to be value to taking "no" for an answer. My take is that the value just isn't there in the first place. Refusing to accept a "no" at face value (and finding a way to make that work) is an important skill that Musk has mastered. Perhaps you should learn it too instead of assuming that alleged "normal human behavior" is somehow a better approach.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday October 01, @05:03PM (1 child)
True value is in the eye of the beholder.
When the platform owner has different values than the user base, there will be blood - or at least red ink on the quarterly reports.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 01, @06:38PM
That's where the Saudi investment comes in handy. Full steam(ing pile) ahead.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Freeman on Tuesday October 01, @02:52PM (18 children)
"Elon Musk's X Plummets In Value" is this anything actually new?
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, Interesting) by Nuke on Tuesday October 01, @03:44PM (17 children)
Yes, because a finanacial entity in a position to know has put an up-to-date figure to it on it.
That is very valuable, and as it happens I am just writing a letter to a court which has been asked to approve the purchase by Barclays Bank of a small financial company I use. I am objecting on the grounds of Barclays incompetence, because Barclays was one of the banks which lent money to Musk for the purchase - thought to be around $3 billion. Now I can quote this figure in my letter and say that Barclays must have lost over $2 billion in this Musk-led shit show. I guess some Barclays senior staff had wanted to be invited to one of Musk's love-ins for sychophants, but some of them are now being sacked, I heard.
Because X/Twitter is owned by Musk personally, and is not publically traded, its current value is not otherwise available.
Not that my letter will make much difference, but things like this do collectively go towards dispelling the fantasy that Musk is some kind of genius who can do no wrong. He will crash and burn one day. I also have history with Barclays, so that is good too.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday October 01, @05:10PM (13 children)
> Musk is some kind of genius who can do no wrong
Anyone who expects the nouveau-ultra-wealthy to do anything remotely resembling preserving and growing their wealth is delusional in the extreme.
Someone like Warren Buffet who built a lifelong career on winning the investment game is VERY different from a "boy genius" who got lucky at the roulette table one day, even when the "boy genius" has double Buffet's net worth, he's at least twice as likely to go blow his money on whims as he is to actually make consistently low risk, high return moves better than the market average return.
How many people hit their next 100:1 long shot? 1/100 : past performance is not indicative of future results.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Tuesday October 01, @09:26PM (12 children)
A "boy genius" who got more than lucky a lot more than once? And keep in mind that you can make consistently low risk, high return moves by index fund. Warren Buffet's record is unusually good, perhaps too unusually good, but Musk has also beat market performance too with the usual drama I would expect from a higher risk approach.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday October 01, @10:13PM (11 children)
Modded Troll because Fanboi isn't a choice.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by khallow on Wednesday October 02, @03:39AM (10 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 02, @04:57AM (4 children)
Ivanka Trump was a clothes desinger, author, investor and Senior Advisor to the President.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday October 02, @12:25PM (3 children)
(Score: 3, Informative) by Thexalon on Wednesday October 02, @01:34PM (2 children)
PayPal, Tesla, and SpaceX were all started by other people who came up with all the key tech before Musk got hold of them.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday October 02, @09:58PM
SpaceX definitely was started by Musk directly. As to the other two, sorry, I don't buy that those companies would have gone anywhere without Musk.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday October 02, @11:23PM
Let's look at each of these in turn:
Zip2: Musk was a cofounder of Zip2 in 1995 which was later sold to Compaq in 2000 (before it merged with HP). Compaq paid $300 million for it.
X.com/PayPal: Musk cofounded an online bank called X.com in early 1999. A year later that bank merged with PayPal. By 2002, PayPal had IPOed and was purchased by eBay. At this point, Musk was a billionaire.
Tesla: Tesla was founded in mid-2003. Eight months later, Elon Musk provided capital for it to grow. In 2008, Musk became the CEO and has remained so since. Presently, the company has over 3% [statista.com] of the automotive market share in the US. The valuation of this company is what presently makes Musk the richest person (at least for non-state actors) in the world.
SpaceX: Musk was the sole founder of SpaceX in 2002. According to myth, he hired the first employees and overall interviewed the first 3000 employees of the company. As of present [wikipedia.org], Falcon 9 family rockets have launched 389 times with 386 "full mission successes" (presumably that payload was successfully deployed in a close enough trajectory for normal functioning). To give an idea of the scale, the Falcon family has about a fifth of the launches of the R-7/Soyuz family of rockets which has launched ever since the 1950s and has been for most of that time the most frequent rocket launched in a given year.
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Wednesday October 02, @09:11AM (2 children)
With the amount of money Musk has, there is no limit to the number of "successful" companies he can buy or start up. His real lucky break in the money big-time was not the emerald mine that people keep mentioning, but when HP bought a tin-pot company for stupid money during the dot-com boom, and Musk had been a minority shareholder. He used that money to buy his way into Tesla; that didn't take genius because at the time everyone knew the public wanted an EV that didn't look like a student project. Nevertheless some people thought that made him a genius and have been throwing money at him ever since.
Also part of the "genius" is the myth that he founded PayPal (which he does nothing to discourage) when in fact it was started by Peter Thiel (another ar$ehole) and others. Again Musk bought his way into it but was later sacked in that case.
Musk is actually a financier, and to give him credit, a good salesman. His grasp of technology though is only that of an amateur with some above-average intelligence - no-one you couldn't hear in a bar putting the world to rights.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday October 02, @11:55AM
Also, I would rate his most important "genius" level skill to be: delegation. Staying the hell out of the way and letting others make successful decisions for him while taking the credit. Counter examples where he has demonstrated strong input to bad effect abound, CyberTruck is top of my list.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday October 02, @11:56AM
Cool story, bro. But no, I don't buy it in the least. He has two very successful companies in industries that are notorious for shutting out newcomers. For SpaceX, before their Falcon 9, the last successful new entry into commercial orbital launch was Orbital Sciences with their Pegasus rocket. Everyone else in the field had been kicking around since the 1960s and most of those were nation-state actors.
While there have been a fair number of car companies created over the decades, the last large US automaker startup was Kaiser Motors in 1948.
In other words, Musk got "lucky" in two fields where no new startup has ever succeeded for 40 years or more.
(Score: 2) by epitaxial on Thursday October 03, @12:42AM (1 child)
Musk was lucky and in the right place at the right time. His family was wealthy and he got caught up in the .com boom. When Paypal (which he didn't start) sold he received $400 million in cash. Once you have a lot of money it's easy to make more. He didn't start Tesla either, he bought out the initial two founders.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday October 03, @12:54AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 01, @05:26PM (1 child)
I guess the bank issued a loan. Unless Musk goes bankrupt they didn't lose anything.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Nuke on Tuesday October 01, @06:24PM
That is not the view of most investors. Twitter/X finances will have been ringfenced in some way such that Musk's other wealth cannot be called upon. It only needs X itself to go bankrupt, and it is heading that way with its due interest payments significantly exceeding its income. It is known that the banks are having meetings with X over this problem, so the banks are certainly not sitting back in a belief that they won't lose anything.
Generally, the lending banks will have planned to sell the loans to other, smaller, investors (pension funds etc), but it seems there are not many willing to take it on, so the banks are left with billion dollar holes in their finances at present with nothing on the horizon to fill them back in. In financial terminology, the loans are "hung" and these are some of the largest hung loans ever.
Here is a quote from an X investor, seen in The New Republic [newrepublic.com] and there are many similar. The same article estimates the loss in value of Twitter/X to be 90% :
(Score: 2) by aafcac on Tuesday October 01, @09:29PM
The real news is that it's only this bad. He massively over paid and then tried to get out of it.