Althouse: "You are dead to me. Please get off Twitter and just stay on Substack."

February 16, 2024

"You are dead to me. Please get off Twitter and just stay on Substack."

Tweeted Elon Musk at Matt Taibbi, reported at Mediaite.

39 comments:

MartyH said...: We’ll see how much of a commitment Musk really has to free speech. Matt recently tweeted that he’s already being deamplified.; 2/16/24, 7:32 AM
Kate said...: 1) Even Musk calls it Twitter. Just change the name back.

2) Substack made a business decision to piggyback off of Twitter and Musk reacted with his own business decision to throttle them. Taibbi, for all his journalism chops, is being obtuse.; 2/16/24, 7:40 AM
rehajm said...: I don’t have a horse face in this race (heh) and people will focus on the cat fight but fair to point out they work in a competitive market where you’re a monopoly one minute and (amazingly for a monopoly) the next minute you are a ZuneWindowsMySpace…; 2/16/24, 7:42 AM
Christopher B said...: Function and scope creep has been the death of many products and projects.; 2/16/24, 7:54 AM
Drago said...: Kate: "1) Even Musk calls it Twitter. Just change the name back.

2) Substack made a business decision to piggyback off of Twitter and Musk reacted with his own business decision to throttle them. Taibbi, for all his journalism chops, is being obtuse."

1) That was 2023. X is moving into paypal-like operations, online betting, telephony, etc as it moves closer to the Everything App. X is never going back to "twitter", though conversational habits take longer to change.

2) Precisely. The data scraping/AI war is at the heart of so much of X's, xAI and Tesla's (FSD and Tesla bots) futures that any threat from any quarter against Musk company IP will be dealt with ruthlessly...as every shareholder/owner of those companies expects and demands.; 2/16/24, 8:05 AM
Howard said...: Ozempic having side effects.; 2/16/24, 8:11 AM
Mike (MJB Wolf) said...: Did Musk expect long-form written journalism to take place on Twitter? Strange.

The long-running symbiotic relationship between Twitter and journalism (even Journ-0-listism before those guys left in a snit) has been to publish wherever and promote with headline + snippet on Twitter; and the posting of longer videos on whatever Web site with a shorter promo video on Twitter. It was a classic win-win that I am surprised to see Musk blow off. Gotta be more to that backstory than I'm aware of.; 2/16/24, 8:27 AM
Rusty said...: Wow! This is really important!
Don't you just hate family squabbles?; 2/16/24, 8:34 AM
Ralph L said...: Speaking of dead, is anyone else unable to access comments at Instapundit? I don't often go there, but in the last few weeks, it's impossible.; 2/16/24, 8:36 AM
tommyesq said...: From the Mediaite article:

"Their relationship deteriorated just weeks later after Substack, a website Taibbi writes for, announced the launch of a Twitter rival. Musk retaliated by blocking all links to Substack, which prompted Taibbi to announce his departure from Musk’s platform."

Of course, if you actually read the X-exchange (X-change?), you will find that Musk did not block links to Substack just because they announced the launch of the Twitter-rival, but because he believed that Substack had stolen massive amounts of data from Twitter to do so. Lie by omission in Mediaite's report.; 2/16/24, 8:42 AM
n.n said...: Musk is African-American, a person of color (i.e. not albino). Critical Diversity Theory (CDT) directs us to believe that the conflict is motivated by Taibbi's diversitism, peach privilege.; 2/16/24, 9:05 AM
rhhardin said...: Must ks less of a self-righteous twit than Taibbi, so I'd go with Musk.; 2/16/24, 9:10 AM
rhhardin said...: "Speaking of dead, is anyone else unable to access comments at Instapundit?"

It stopped working on modern Firefox but works on the last version of Firefox for Windows XP, which is still my main machine. Apparently it's now incompatible with this or that browser.; 2/16/24, 9:20 AM
Aggie said...: I guess when you're the world's richest man, you get a little paranoid after a while under a deluge of rent-seekers, scammers, and opportunists. I think Elon makes a good effort to be unaffected by this form of human pollution, but wealth attracts it, and nobody's perfect. It would probably make me paranoid, too.

I think Taibbi has tried to be even-handed with their falling out. I haven't seen one word against Musk in his articles, and I'm a subscriber who reads everything Taibbi writes and listens to the weekly podcast with Kirn. And frankly, articles like this one smell like someone else trying to stir the pot.

Musk made his money in the online programming world, and he knows how cutthroat it is. I think this shapes his behavior. Certainly raiding another program to scrape its data so that you can use it to promote your own new, directly-competing product, is not the kind of behavior that wins Nobel prizes. I think Musk's responses to the Substack drama is proportional. I think if there's any antipathy toward Taibbi, who has been brave in his own right, striking out to create his own brand on Substack, then it's unfortunate and ought to be resolved instead of inflamed. Their interests are more aligned then not, and they could amplify each other's message.; 2/16/24, 9:21 AM
RigelDog said...: This is very bad news.; 2/16/24, 9:27 AM
Mark said...: Meet the new (Twitter) boss
Same as the old boss

The Who once again prescient; 2/16/24, 9:40 AM
hombre said...: It's tough for apostates from the left like Taibbi to operate with no template to follow. Spats occur in addition to the barrage of hatred from the leftists. Jon Stewart pay attention.; 2/16/24, 9:42 AM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Would Musk refer to his platform as "twitter"?

There is also an allegation from Bret Weinstein that Musk blocked him.

I thought they in the same team.

Then again, it could be the people who could do these kinds of things, trying it out.; 2/16/24, 10:13 AM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Would Musk refer to his platform as "twitter"?

There is also an allegation from Bret Weinstein that Musk blocked him.

I thought they in the same team.

Then again, it could be the people who could do these kinds of things, trying it out.; 2/16/24, 10:13 AM
Earnest Prole said...: Meet the new (Twitter) boss
Same as the old boss

The Who once again prescient

The parting on the left
Is now parting on the right; 2/16/24, 10:22 AM
NKP said...: What Ralph said...; 2/16/24, 10:33 AM
Lyle said...: No wonder I don't see Taibbi's tweets anymore.; 2/16/24, 10:38 AM
Joe Smith said...: It seems that Substack is viewed as a competitor by Musk.

He will allow links if they are paid like other advertisers.

His company, his rules.; 2/16/24, 10:42 AM
Leland said...: If I understand the facts; Musk runs a media platform that allows for long form discussions (after all, it just showed a 2-hr interview of some repute). Taibbi decided to use another media platform to post his discussions but also wants to advertise his stuff on the competing platform via Musk's platform while not paying advertisement rates. Musk said in essence, "nope, you left". Somehow this is big news?

In other news, Instapundit comments work just fine.; 2/16/24, 11:06 AM
Rabel said...: Is this apparent broken deal a part of the problem along with the Substack competition/theft of data issues:

"One of the conditions of being given access to Twitter Files materials was that the reporters involved would have to create Twitter threads in order to release the information. But Taibbi and fellow independent journalist Bari Weiss both also put the revelations in lengthy posts on the Substack app, which allows writers to create online content that goes out as a newsletter."

That's also from the totally unreliable Mediaite.; 2/16/24, 11:38 AM
Drago said...: Leland: "If I understand the facts; Musk runs a media platform that allows for long form discussions (after all, it just showed a 2-hr interview of some repute). Taibbi decided to use another media platform to post his discussions but also wants to advertise his stuff on the competing platform via Musk's platform while not paying advertisement rates. Musk said in essence, "nope, you left". Somehow this is big news?"

Thats about it, but Dumb Lefty Mark and Prole needed something to cry about.; 2/16/24, 12:53 PM
Kakistocracy said...: This is hilarious. Musk has been stewing over this for nearly a year. His subscriber growth has flatlined and he’s making pleas on YouTube talking about how censored he is.; 2/16/24, 1:06 PM
Kakistocracy said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 2/16/24, 1:06 PM
Tina Trent said...: So this is about substack stealing technology from X? I'm really confused. Taibbi sounds confused. Maybe Musk needs to stop chugging supplements.; 2/16/24, 1:34 PM
Jim at said...: Meet the new (Twitter) boss
Same as the old boss

The Who once again prescient

Yep. Because this is exactly the same thing as what was going on before.

Damn, you're dumb.; 2/16/24, 5:16 PM
boatbuilder said...: Too bad. I would like them to be on the same page.

But this is not a content or a freedom issue--it's business, as far as I can tell.; 2/16/24, 6:24 PM
Bunkypotatohead said...: "In the messages, dated April 2023..."

I don't think it was called X back then.; 2/16/24, 8:13 PM
Bunkypotatohead said...: "In the messages, dated April 2023..."

I don't think it was called X back then.; 2/16/24, 8:14 PM
Kakistocracy said...: Just think about how lost to normality Matt Taibbi is to think posting this stuff makes him look sympathetic

Twitter Files’ Matt Taibbi Says Elon Musk Sent Him Unhinged Messages
https://newrepublic.com/post/179067/twitter-files-matt-taibbi-messages-elon-musk; 2/16/24, 8:31 PM
Mark said...: "Yep. Because this is exactly the same thing as what was going on before."

Yeah, your self-proclaimed free speech advocate deplatforming people he disagree or competes with is so different than when Jack did the same thing for the same reasons.

Keep sucking Elon's dick.; 2/16/24, 9:50 PM
Drago said...: Poor Dumb Lefty Mark and LLR-democratical Rich continue their ignorance-driven spittle-flecked little brain attacks on things they cant begin to comprehend.

Its a combination of hilarious and pathetic that makes gadfly look like Aquinas.

Remember, according to these buffoons, X was supposed to be long dead by now, SpaceX was a huge failure and Tesla was collapsing!

LOL; 2/17/24, 10:13 AM
Drago said...: Dumb Lefty Mark remains very, very angry Musk and team took the necessary steps to protect their intellectual property advantage for future development and market advantage.

They are almost as upset at that as they are about Musk and team at SpaceX knocking the russkis completely out of the commercial rocket launch business!

And they are almost as upset at that as they are about Musk and team at Tesla destroying the democratical-controlled union auto companies electric vehicle program!

Anyone else seeing a pattern here?

Weep more Dumb Lefty Mark. Weep

And to think these Dumb Lefty Mark and LLR-democratical Rich idiotic comments comes on the very heels of Meta letting the cat out of the bag on how many resources and how much money is being spent by the New Soviet Democraticals on censorship:

"JUST NOW: CNBC caught on Hot Mic while interviewing META’s President of Global Affairs after he spouts off some wild numbers on META’s trust & safety team & their budget to essentially censor people.

After CNBC appears to advocate for the Government to help censor Election Misinformation on social media, she then asks…

CNBC: How many people do you have working on [election misinformation]?

META: We have around 40,000 people working on integrity and safety..

[CNBC HOT MIC]: 40,000?? But they only have 67,000 employees…

META (still going): We spend around $20 BILLION on this issue… we spent $5B last year ALONE on “Election Integrity”

https://twitter.com/TexasLindsay_/status/1758535021260943459?t=dEoOCJNARHaP_yiICHHfrg&s=19

40,000 censors, 2/3 of their employees, and $5 Billion/year to censor Republicans. Then they brought in an AI to reduce "hate speech" from 0.02% to 0.01%?

And prior to Musk buying Twitter, Jack had the same thing happening there and being run by the New Soviet Democratical/Deep State/Academic consortium of censors.

Yeah, gee Dumb Lefty Mark, that sounds exactly like Musk operations at X now.; 2/17/24, 10:29 AM
Drago said...: "In the messages, dated April 2023..."

Bunkypotatohead: "I don't think it was called X back then."

You should never expect the Dumb Lefties, like Mark, to be able to keep up with what's happening or when or logical progression whereas your basic lying lefties, like Rich, will simply use whatever is at hand to advance the latest hoaxes/disinformation.; 2/17/24, 10:33 AM
Mark said...: Twitter recently shown to have a bigger bot problem than ever, with much ad traffic over the Super Bowl weekend shown to be not actual people.

Wasn't Elon's initial task he was going to handle at Twitter was the bot issue?

No wonder advertising is, once again, about half of what it was a year ago and way below Jack's last year.; 2/18/24, 8:08 PM