I've been more relaxed than most people about Elon Musk's changes to Twitter, but even I admit that today's news is pretty ominous. Apparently Musk has inserted a 5-second delay when you click on links to sites that he dislikes for one reason or another:
The delayed websites included X’s online rivals Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky and Substack, as well as the Reuters wire service and the Times. All of them have previously been singled out by Musk for ridicule or attack.
....Reuters and the Times previously have been attacked by Musk for reporting on his businesses. Reuters recently published an investigation that found that another Musk company, Tesla, had “suppressed” drivers’ complaints about overly optimistic range predictions for the company’s electric cars.
Musk has berated the Times as “propaganda” and the “Twitter equivalent of diarrhea.” In April, he removed the “verified” badge from the news outlet’s now 55-million-follower account, making it harder for viewers to distinguish it from fake accounts. He also criticized the paper this month related to its coverage of South African politics.
The delay itself is bad enough, but the bigger issue is obviously the fact that Musk routinely retaliates against anyone who annoys him—even if it degrades his own website. It's hard to say which is worse about this: The increasing public childishness of Musk's behavior itself or the fact that his childishness is ruining a once-great resource.
When are people going to start boycotting Twitter? How hard can it be to create an application that does what Twitter does?
Indeed, there are already lots of them out there. Musk has given them all a boost.
I have my first check for $13,000. I have a lot of energy so I always have something first. i8 Now I’m going to work a lot harder and barely finish next week’s episode. q I strongly encourage everyone to sign up. .
periods,……………………. http://bizpay68.blogspot.com
Why any legitimate news org is still on that platform after the NPR stunt is beyond me.
People waiting for Musk to get bored and sell it are probably in for a long wait.
A psychotic egomaniac with that big a grandstand just will not give it up unless he's actually going broke.
Real free speech warrior that Elon.
Let it burn
Like a smarter version of TFG, Elon goes off the handle on anyone who crosses him, be it a NYT automotive reporter who had the nerve to run out of battery on an early Tesla road test, or an expert cave rescue diver who had the nerve to tell him his underwater rescue pod was stupid and unworkable in a cave environment, or the people who had the nerve to found Tesla and start developing an electric car before he showed up. Not the sort of guy you want in charge of his own social web site let alone a world wide communication system. One wonders how the story will end, given that such personality defects often grow worse with age and business success.
I still read Balloon Juice's Ukraine summaries, which are Xitter-heavy. But that's mostly the only way I end up looking at Musk's blog. My professional community migrated to Mastadon, as did a lot of personal friends, and other things went elsewhere.
From my perspective, Xitter is basically irrelevant now.
I like the "Xitter" term.
Pronounced like the Chinese X.
Thanks! You beat me to it.
😄😄😄😄😄
eXcretions are the new Tweets.
Sounds like a t-Rump wannabe.
The site is in a death spiral and it's just a matter of time until it becomes terminal the way it happened eventually to Friendster and Myspace.
i think it's incumbent upon anyone who considers themselves a liberal, anti-authoritarian, or even anti-asshole to just quit twitter at this point.
To those interested in understanding Musk a bit, not that any takes on him are wrong by the way, one feature of his personality is he does not understand what I would call "corporate speech" for the CEO of a publicly traded company.
Specifically, Tesla has long been under constant attack by short sellers, and short sellers can say anything they want, basically, and leak anything they want to the automotive press which depends upon advertising which Telsa does not do.
And as the CEO of a publicly traded company, Musk cannot say "whatever he wants." The list of issues where this is driving him nuts is at this point endless.
The latest thing being this ridiculous "suit" about Tesla's range, when anyone who either has owned a couple of EV's or does any research at all would know that Teslas have by far the best actual range, plus the best on-board computation of on the go range of any EV, by a large margin.
Nevertheless, like the guy who has a competing self driving company who purports to do "tests" where Teslas supposedly run over things, this will turn out to be another short seller plant.
Anyway, it goes a long way to understanding his bizarre personality. He thinks the world should be like wild Twitter, a shit show of trolling, and he has never understood the benefit of keeping his mouth shut and his fingers off his phone.
It is Musk's prerogative to play favoritism with any company he wants to, for any reason other than what's not allowed by federal law.
That Musk has long claimed he wanted (the company formerly known as Twitter but often referred to as Birdsite, in lieu of) X to be neutral is just proof that he's a lying liar of the highest order of hypocrisy.
I've been more relaxed than most people about Elon Musk's changes to Twitter...
The guy who's reinstated closed accounts for white supremacists? Who tried to get Trump to start posting there again? The guy suing the Center for Countering Digital Hate? The guy who's posted the usual antisemetic BS about "Soros"?
You were more relaxed on that guy???
He's a Delayed Speech Absolutist!
I think the bigger question is why the f*** would we ever allow this clown anywhere near our space program?
When he said "free speech absolutist" you thought he meant for you?