November 11, 2022

At least he corrected it, but the egregious mistake shows how slapdash and sloppy this takeover is. (Remember "free speech"?)

85 comments:

Achilles said...

This is one of his best jokes yet.

He even got Ann with it.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Who's saying this is sloppy? Is this quote attributed? I see him being extremely accommodating to users who are systematically purposely violating TOS. Perhaps they wanted to provoke mass banning, IDK. What explains the hyper focus on Democrat targets in media? Is this "hate musk day" to follow on two days of blaming Trump for losses the GOPe engineered and allowed?

I'm not seeing the usual language and propaganda hook in these posts.

Ann Althouse said...

How was it a joke?

He used a word wrong, created alarm about how far-reaching the censorship would be, and corrected it 5 minutes later.

Even if you could convince me that it was a joke — and I urge you to try — he is in a position of power and toying with our freedom of expression. It's villainous to deploy humor like that.

So prove that it was humor and proceed to prove that it isn't sadistic, asshole humor.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

I'll take slapdash over - Twitter's previous government coerced censorship.

pacwest said...

He had to know he would be starting from scratch going in. The end product rarely resembles the starting point. Wishing him the best of luck sorting out the mess.

pacwest said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Quayle said...

Who is the determiner of chaos? What is the non-chaos baseline against which it is judged? Usual post large lay-off state of affairs? Or just some subjective conclusion from someone that has no experience in layoffs or is just winging it.

This reeks of more hit job journalism. Somebody said something and we’ll just keep pounding the theme, even if it is not a rational reasonable take. The software isn’t in chaos. The software is still running the same way the software was running before Elon bought it.

Shouting Thomas said...

My theory of why Musk hurried the takeover is to prevent the destruction of records by Twitter employees.

He seems to have succeeded at that.

Yancey Ward said...

He is not being clear, I suspect- The Babylon Bee or Titania McGrath , for example, is not what Musk seems to be describing here, but accounts that use the names and profiles of real people and organizations to parody these same people, or to give the impression that these real people and organizations are the ones speechifying. In those cases, parody runs up against actual defamation and libel.

If I am wrong, the Musk is definitely doing it wrong given the statements he has made in the past.

Yancey Ward said...

And, Achilles has a good point- this could well be Musk making a pretty deep and elegant joke, but one that most people aren't going to grok. Musk is clever enough to be able to do this.

alanc709 said...

Musk is flirting with our freedom of expression? Now tell us what you think of the ongoing federal efforts to control speech through coordination with Facebook, Instagram, etc.

Howard said...

When people like Achilles worship men as their G_d and savior, everything their phantom Deity says or does is pure perfection. To believe otherwise for those under the confidence spell is to admit ones insanity, gullibility, stupidity, insecurity, etc. Like Drago yesterday claiming Trump threatening Kompromat on Rhonda Santas actually helps him because it diffuses the problem before the Democrats can schmear the Fla Gov. It's that dodecahedron chess their G_ds are always playing.

Yancey Ward said...

Ok, I missed the clarification he offerred- no, it wasn't a joke, he was just ambiguous with the first tweet and clarified it. He is correct in the second one, and I agree with the intent- that isn't censorship, in my opinion- you don't have a right to impersonate someone online, under that person's real identity, in order to defame them.

Achilles said...

Ann Althouse said...

So prove that it was humor and proceed to prove that it isn't sadistic, asshole humor.

What's wrong with sadistic asshole humor?

The best jokes are impossible to prove. It would be harder than proving a negative.

Encouraging ambiguous interpretation and sparking emotional reactions that force people to reassess their unconscious reactions is an even higher form of humor than Puns in my opinion.

Based on my past interpretations of the humor style employed by Musk I would tend to believe he knew something of the reaction his first tweet would provoke and knew that clarification of the official policy would take more than one sentence. He probably even screened the reaction for feedback.

Gusty Winds said...

"Egregious" "Slapdash" "Sloppy"

Musk is cleaning up the egregious, slapdash, sloppy, censoring, left-wing totalitarian mess left to him after the purchase. And it's actually going quite well.

Facebook / META is laying off 11,000 people? Anybody care? Or is it ok because Zuckerbucks are loved by the left?

As far a "parody" accounts go, Kathy Griffin and Valarie Bertanelli violated a long standing twitter rule regarding false imitation. It was the ENTIRE point of the old blue check mark system. Remember. Rules don't apply to liberals.

I shouldn't be able to change my twitter name and profile pic to Ann Althouse, and then start posting about how I am now 100% pro-life, a die-hard Trump supporter, and I just bought a gas guzzling Hummer. I wouldn't do that in the first place...nor would I do it with a parody account.

This is a reasonable rule. Big deal? It still allows for parody and imitation. It just has to be identified.

Twitter will grow, and become profitable. It will remain the political "townhall".

Earnest Prole said...

the egregious mistake shows how slapdash and sloppy this takeover is

It's difficult to communicate to someone with a background in law and academia how principles like fast failure and move fast and break things work in the world of science and engineering.

Perhaps the best analogy for you would be the Socratic Method on steroids: People (and companies) learn things really quick, and the lessons really stick, if they are willing and unafraid to be wrong for the purpose of getting it right.

If you're curious, google around some using those terms.

n.n said...

Alphabet umbrella corporation et al identify postings with the label "spam" etc. WaPo et al report news with the label "Pinocchio" etc. NAACP et al allege diversity in back... black holes... whores etc. Scientists, activists, lawyers, and industry are known to bray handmade tales, parody through projection, etc. in order to censor competing interests, promote their product, or extract a profit. The government conducts Whitmer events, sells therapeutics by mandate, masks dissenters, detains deplorables, kicks unarmed women until their dying breath, etc. when politically congruent. Transgender conversion therapy. "Burdens" of evidence sequestered in darkness. Semantic games. Modified history. Empathetic appeals. Censorship is a viable and progressive enterprise with liberal leanings.

Gusty Winds said...

Reader context added to Musk's tweet, which Musk seems ok with. He also claims Twitter hit its all-time high active users yesterday. He's failing?

"To avoid confusing others about an account’s affiliation, parody, commentary, and fan accounts must distinguish themselves in BOTH their account name and bio. The account name should clearly indicate that the account is not affiliated with the subject portrayed in the profile."

What's the big deal? I missed the original typo or whatever, but why is this "villainous" and "sadistic"?

Althouse said..."He's toying with our freedom of expression". If Musk has created a concern among liberals regarding everyone's freedom of expression he is REALLY succeeding. They didn't care before when twitter was weaponized against conservatives.

Drago said...

@elonmusk
Going forward, accounts engaged in parody must include “parody” in their name, not just in bio
Elon Musk

@elonmusk
To be more precise, accounts doing parody impersonations. Basically, tricking people is not ok.

That tweet combo generated this response: "So prove that it was humor and proceed to prove that it isn't sadistic, asshole humor."?

Okay.

Godot said...

Blogger Ann Althouse said...

--He used a word wrong
--corrected it 5 minutes later
--villainous to deploy humor like that
--sadistic, asshole humor

I'm not sure this Althouse post isn't a parody account.

mccullough said...

Correcting it in 5 minutes is quick.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Free speech is sloppy.

Joe Smith said...

Musk making changes on the fly (while running 2 other huge companies) will work out better than what Twitter did (not growing at all) since their IPO...

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Now go over to RedState and read Brandon Morse’s quite different take on Twitter.

Spiros said...

What if he sells his company to Tik Tok?

Narr said...

This stuff really makes me glad that my acquaintance with Twitter and the Twitterverse is almost nil.

Almost as nil as my understanding of billionaire-level finance and tech in general.

As for Musk's comment I don't see the joke or the sadism . . . but see above.

Leland said...

I don't think what Kathy Griffin did was parody. It was more like identity theft or fraud. She copied Musk's brand and then posted comments under it. The brand is registered or trademarked, which is why I say Griffin's action were more like identity theft or fraud. It was certainly Musk's name and likeness. If someone in Hollywood used Griffin's name and likeness associated with messages she didn't agree; she'd likely sue.

What's emanating from your penumbra said...

Is there a rule for labeling blog posts that are "egregious" trolls?

Lyle Sanford, RMT said...

To my eye he just left a word out - didn't misuse one. His interviews fascinate me as he tries to use words to explain what's going on in his seemingly mostly non-verbal mind. Time will tell if "slapdash and sloppy" is an accurate characterization. I can see exactly why you're saying that, but given his history, I cut him way more slack than anyone else. I'm also biased as there's hope he could create a single news source with both sides in context, and it's the news bubbles that seem most responsible for the cult like politics we've got now.

Static Ping said...

Having been part of acquisitions before, "sloppy" is basically the best-case scenario.

Drago said...

Earnest Prole at 9:44AM is exactly correct.

A perfect example if you want a sort of apples to apples comparison which illustrates this principle is a comparison of the early days vision and strategy setting between Spacex and Blue Origin (Bezos).

Basically, Bezos starts his space company and hires all the oldies from the glory days and those cats set about recreating the Apollo program.

Google the report from that early lunch between Musk and Bezos where Bezos shares his entire thought process for how Blue Origin will develop engines. After Bezos finished, Musk informs him it will never work as his team has already thoroughly analyzed that strategy and found it to be a failure.

Note: United Launch Alliance cut the contract with Bezos in 2014 for a handful of BE-4 engines which were to be delivered in 2017. ULA didn't get the first one until 2021.

Meanwhile, Spacex has built hundreds of Merlin and Raptor engines which utilize novel designs which aid in production and outperform the Blue Origin engines. And Spacex production rate on Raptor engines alone is now about 30 per month and on its way to double that in probably 12 months.

Drago said...

Spiros: "What if he sells his company to Tik Tok?"

Then all will be well as the ChiComs own Tik Tok, Washington DC. and the Bidens.

Rollo said...

Prop comedian Gallagher has died.

Police are reportedly on the lookout for a watermelon carrying a sledge hammer.

Christopher B said...

This goes with what I was saying in an early thread about blue ticks. Identity verification is orthogonal to preventing impersonation. If you want to be anonymous and tweet as a nobody, go for it. If you want to tweet under your real identity there should be a process to support that *without regard to your status or popularity* and it should make you retain that identity without change until the account is deleted. By the same token, if a famous person wishes to decline to participate in Twitter then the company should be honest enough to not allow someone else to assume that identity for any reason. The previous policy of only giving blue ticks to 'notable people' who requested them seems to have been designed, or at least recognized after the fact, as creating a situation where famous people were almost blackmailed into joining Twitter to avoid the creation of imposter or parody accounts.

n.n said...

.com .org .sex

Kosher... halal... vegan.

Toxic... in labs... in the wild?

White. Black. Colored.

Baby on board... fetus in the clinic.

We live in a censorious... semiserious world.

Google... Alexa.... Siri... Biden... stop spying on me. Do not sell my information.

RMc said...

I'm not sure this Althouse post isn't a parody account.

Naah, it's just Althouse trolling her readership again. Ain't nothing new.

RMc said...

I'm not sure this Althouse post isn't a parody account.

Naah, it's just Althouse trolling her readership again. Ain't nothing new.

RMc said...

I'm not sure this Althouse post isn't a parody account.

Naah, it's just Althouse trolling her readership again. Ain't nothing new.

Craig Howard said...

It never would have occurred to me that Musk was joking. The Griffin affair was at the top of his mind and he used “parody” too broadly. He corrected it.

I can’t get over the controversy surrounding his takeover of Twitter. You would think he was trashing the Constitution instead of trying to redesign a poorly-functioning social media website.

Jason said...

Not seeing the "free speech" problem here.

Everybody who isn't a fucking idiot or professional libtard liar knew exactly what he was talking about.

And you can still accept viewpoint neutral/content neutral restrictions on time, place, and manner without being anti-"free speech."

Leland said...

"No more drilling"
"Shutdown all coal plants"
"US Troops will defend Taiwan"

At least these comments were corrected, but the egregious mistake shows how slapdash and sloppy this takeover is.

Correction to 10:17; "The brand is NOT registered..."

CJinPA said...

Never liked his snarky tweeting during this process. Quietly achieving something would be great. Same with Trump, but Trump couldn't do it. Remains to be seen if Musk will with Twitter, but I've withheld optimism from the start. Taking on the Progressive Machine has never succeeded in my lifetime.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

The joke is that progressives said Musk would let fraud and disinformation and hate speech flourish and then they set out to prove the first two by doing it en masse. How long before they fling hate daring Musk to suspend them?

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

RMc: refresh instead of reposting

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Leland said, "I don't think what Kathy Griffin did was parody. It was more like identity theft or fraud."

Yep!

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Some of us never had "free expression" on Twitter due to the very people he jettisoned over the last two weeks. People I follow had their accounts suppressed and prog propaganda was elevated and "trended" and after about the first 24 months it was live the "suggest you follow" notices were almost always lefty jerk / journalists or celebrities.

Michael K said...

RMc take your seizure meds ! Quickly.

Yancey Ward said...

On the "Whoops" error. Most of the time the comment got through, but we no longer have the immediate feedback to know this. One thing you might do is that, rather than going back to repost, you just go back to the page you wrote the comment, and refresh first- if the comment got through, you won't be alerted to the fact that you lose the text in the box, if the comment didn't get through, you will get alert that you will the text in the box.

Leland said...

RMc: refresh instead of reposting

Yes, just hit refresh regardless of message until you return to the comment section. After that, have faith the message is in moderation. Debating the host is one thing, but she really does a good job allowing comments to get posted, and I don't know how much of the issue is the software, but it is obviously a problem.

Fred Drinkwater said...

Static Ping, Too right, sloppy. I've been through (at least) three layoffs and five merger/acquisition in my career. Including a case where my company A was bought by B, then a few years later I started working at a third company C, which was just then completing buying B. The A/B purchase was accompanied by a massive immediate layoff, followed a week later by B attempting to rehire about a third of the layoff victims.

I know a 30 year M&A specialist, who says that more than two thirds of mergers fail due to bad planning and culture clashes.

Musk in particular, like Jobs, Ellison, Sanders, etc., is well known to be difficult to work for. There are many startups in the Valley started by ex-Musk staff. Just like those others. Hell, Xerox PARC was often described as "not a company, but a conspiracy to form other companies".
So none of the tantrums and BS surrounding Twitter & Musk surprises me. There's just a lot more of it being blasted publically, purely because of politics. Compare reporting on Meta, for the obvious example.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

The Musk takeover of Twitter is resembling a play where some doctor comes along and contradicts Fauci in the middle of the pandemic. Battlegrounds are drawn and there’s no room for “cruel neutrality”. Your either blue team or red team.

There’s a good chance that everything will be like that, it’s how the next generation is picking it up.

Lyle Smith said...

Twitter is just a great big bulletin board. Of course it's going to be sloppy.

Leland said...

I saw that Rollo. Sad news about Gallagher. Those watermelons aren't going to smash themselves.

Drago said...

Fred Drinkwater: "I know a 30 year M&A specialist, who says that more than two thirds of mergers fail due to bad planning and culture clashes."

More like 75%. That's because in the early stages its all accountants and spreadsheets and very few decent operational and (as you mentioned) cultural assessments.

I can't complain because a chunk of my business has been going in as the 2nd or 3rd wave (I'm very reasonably priced) after failed mergers and previous teams did not deliver the value the organization promised to leadership/shareholders. The other plus for a guy like me in that situation is usually after quite a bit of failure its easier to under-promise and over-deliver.

Ann Althouse said...

RMc

Delete your multiple posts

You did this yesterday and I took the time to fix it for you. Doing it again is not acceptable

Earnest Prole said...

more than two thirds of mergers fail due to bad planning and culture clashes

This. Over the years I consulted for a number of famous, well-respected (even legendary) American corporations that spent huge sums on acquisitions with no plan whatsoever for next steps. Really smart people often do really dumb things (like, say, borrowing many billions against your own over-leveraged stock to purchase a crappy, toxic electronic bulletin board for four times its actual value on the verge of a recession), but what gives Musk a fighting chance of success is that he's moving with a true sense of urgency.

Saint Croix said...

RMc

Delete your multiple posts

You did this yesterday and I took the time to fix it for you. Doing it again is not acceptable


I suggested the other day that Musk might have adopted something similar to the "Althouse rule" about free speech.

Roughly speaking, you can say anything you want as long as it's in good faith. But if you're trying to destroy the platform (i.e. Althouse's blog), then your posts might be removed.

Maybe Musk is attempting the same thing? Not removing tweets to protect the republic (that would be asinine, and hostile to our republic). He's talking about removing tweets to protect the platform. (Robots who are tweeting, fake accounts, etc).

Gusty Winds said...

Today Musk is tweeting that he is openly trying to promote citizen journalists.

My question is, why does Althouse, an obviously successful citizen journalist (especially during the Act 10 protests) despise Elon Musk so much?

Musk: "As Twitter pursues the goal of elevating citizen journalism, media elite will try everything to stop that from happening"

Musk: "Mainstream media will still thrive, but increased competition from citizens will cause them to be more accurate, as their oligopoly on information is disrupted"

Isn't he trying to promote independent informational entities like the Althouse Blog?

Kay said...

A lot of the people he is trying to censor have been very funny.

Jamie said...

My theory of why Musk hurried the takeover is to prevent the destruction of records by Twitter employees.

This is what I figured too. It was after all a hostile takeover, and the employees believed after all that they had some right to their work product that they didn't have.

rhhardin said...

He didn't say accounts not doing parody are restricted from using parody in their name. So basically you can't count on a parody label. It might be a site not doing parody.

Saint Croix said...

Free tip for hillbillies.

There's a tiny 3D manufacturing company that Elon Musk wanted to buy. I started buying its stock at $1. It's up 19% today to $3.

It's Velo3D (VLD).

Don't invest the farm, you don't need to. It's practically a micro-cap. And they may run out of money and go belly up.

I make my money investing in high risk situations like this. I'm right about 60% of the time. (Which means I'm wrong about 40% of the time).

My family owns 1,900 shares. We started buying at $1 and continued buying at $3 and change. If you have no confidence at all, I would still suggest buying 100 shares, which would run you $300. That's because the risk/reward is so amazing.

I'm in the top 2% of investors at the Motley Fool and top 1% of financial bloggers at TipRanks.

I currently write for Seeking Alpha.

mikee said...

Free insulin, war crime charges from Lockheed, Hillary confessing all and seeking sanctuary in a nunnery. What's not to like?

Iman said...

To Howard teh Onanist I say, “To each his own”!

What's emanating from your penumbra said...

RMc

Delete your multiple posts

You did this yesterday and I took the time to fix it for you. Doing it again is not acceptable


Yesterday's event was much better, because the post started off with something like "I've said it before and I'll say it again." Rinse, repeat.

Today's was a much more egregious mistake that shows how slapdash and sloppy we commenters sometimes can be.

Iman said...

“Free speech is sloppy.”

Freer speech is sloppy seconds.

Iman said...

“Prop comedian Gallagher has died.”

76 years old. We saw guitarist Jeff Beck last night, the guy absolutely tore it up at the age of 78. Incredible show!

Sean said...

The sloppiness is a Musk trademark.

For example his "funding secured" tweet that killed the Tesla shorts.

Not to mention the pedo comment on the diver in Thailand.

He kinda has a Trump vibe to his communications but as a business leader his imprecise language causes a lot more problems.

I think Elon should not be allowed to run a public company. I guess Twitter is now private so it may not matter. The SEC has given him a pass anyway.

Carol said...

All hell's broken loose there now...

BUMBLE BEE said...

We Don't Need Another Hero.

Michael K said...

I think Elon should not be allowed to run a public company. I guess Twitter is now private so it may not matter. The SEC has given him a pass anyway.

Yeah, who needs another billionaire who actually makes things, unlike Bezos and the hedge fund liberals.

FullMoon said...

RMc

Delete your multiple posts

You did this yesterday and I took the time to fix it for you. Doing it again is not acceptable


Suppose what happens is blogger doesn't post on first try, so commenters keep hitting the refresh button, inadvertently repeating.
Delay in posting comments, and commenter is elsewhere and unaware of crime.

Saint Croix said...

I think Elon should not be allowed to run a public company.

wow

just wow

he started the company

and you want to steal it?

why?

And how?

Are you ordering God to put a stop to it?

That's what the world needs, more upper class management from people who create nothing.

go arrest him and seize the factory!

Mr. Commie

Now I have the urge to seize your typewriter until you think better. Any problem with that? "Loose lips lose typewriters."

exhelodrvr1 said...

Why the glee over Musk having problems when he tries to address what is a huge problem in our nation?

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Cruel neutrality is a parody hashtag.

Marcus Bressler said...

Either a troll post by the Hostess or she's having a major over-reaction.
Note to Ann: You are not the boss of Musk or Twitter. We respect that you are the boss here. Let it go. Take a deep breath. Let go of the pearls.

Marcus B. THEOLDMAN

Saint Croix said...

"Loose lips lose typewriters."

Technically you are probably on a computer, not a typewriter.

Loose lips lose keyboards!

n.n said...

I think Elon should not be allowed to run a public company

Diversity? It's because he's African-American, People of Color, White, in a "business run by men", right?

n.n said...

Cruel neutrality is a parody hashtag.

Congruent... Equal to civility bullshit. Caveat emptor.

Sean said...

As far as I understand if you are an officer of a public company there are rules in place in how you release information about company performance. This is to protect your shareholders and investors from information impacting the share price. Elon Musk has broken those rules by making false statements about Tesla as the company's CEO and Chairman, in an egregious way. The SEC let him off, so I guess it doesn't matter.

I think Twitter will be better with him at the helm. They were obviously bloated from a staff size level and could use some housecleaning. But I expect anyone who read a book by Jack Welch might be able to do the same. I don't use the service but I guess some people like it. I expect with the changes he is making more voices will be heard.

Narayanan said...

Blogger Yancey Ward said...
... you don't have a right to impersonate someone online, under that person's real identity, in order to defame them.
========
how is this different from 'cyber-squat'? which is legal?

stlcdr said...

He underestimated the nastiness of the left.

Jason said...

I think a lot of the recent problems at Twitter can be explained by the fact that Musk is not accustomed to having middle mangers be as stupid, petty, incompetent and entitled as the ones promoted during the old Twitter regime whom he inherited.

Drago said...

stlcdr: "He underestimated the nastiness of the left."

Indeed.

However, in the words of Inspector Clouseau: "Not Anymore"

Drago said...

Jason: "I think a lot of the recent problems at Twitter can be explained by the fact that Musk is not accustomed to having middle mangers be as stupid, petty, incompetent and entitled as the ones promoted during the old Twitter regime whom he inherited."

Indeed, the changes Elon is driving at Twitter strikes me as similar to the culture change required to go from a soft peacetime military to a wartime fighting military.