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New Twitter

Good thing?
[ 1 ] (20%)
Encouraging?
[ 1 ] (20%)
Disheartening?
[ 0 ] (0%)
A sign of the Apocalypse?
[ 0 ] (0%)
(Other) :troll:
[ 0 ] (0%)
Beer! :beer:
[ 3 ] (60%)

Total Members Voted: 3

Topic: The twits on Twitter (Read 14290 times)

Re: The twits on Twitter

Reply #25
I fault the judicial system here. The law you cited, Trump should easily fall under it for his stealing of confidential documents and for famously tweeting info from his secret intelligence briefing. Trump has not been locked up for this dangerous breach of law - should be, but hasn't. A systemic problem with the judicial system.
Your understanding of presidential powers in the U.S. regarding classification of documents is deficient; hence your mistaken belief that Trump breached that law...
But you often confuse your  understanding (biases and all...) with reality. :)

(But -on your reading, Obama would be liable, too! What a can of worms...)


You did not see the insurrection unfolding in front of you
I did see a riot of sorts; although nothing like the Antifa/BLM riots throughout the previous year! Your use of the term "insurrection" indicates -to me- either  an uncritical reliance on propaganda from the MSM or a Woke  vocabulary perverting your common sense...
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"Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility." - James Thurber
"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts!" - Richard Feynman
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Re: The twits on Twitter

Reply #27
(But -on your reading, Obama would be liable, too! What a can of worms...)
You're like an incurable drunkard, imagining that everybody else must be drunkard too but hiding it. I mean, being hyperpartisan you think everybody else must be hyperpartisan too but hiding it.

I'm not hiding it. I am not partisan at all. I do not care what happens to Obama. Or Clinton. Or Biden. I do not care what happens to the entire USA tomorrow. I do not care what happens to Trump either. It's just worrisome that you type obviously false stuff about your own country when it's very easy to know better half a globe away.

I did see a riot of sorts; although nothing like the Antifa/BLM riots throughout the previous year!
Well, let's assume Antifa/BLM did evil stuff. Therefore the same evil stuff when done by your side automagically turns into virtue? Like, seriously?

Your use of the term "insurrection" indicates -to me- either  an uncritical reliance on propaganda from the MSM or a Woke  vocabulary perverting your common sense...
Insurrection is when you see the government — or a branch of it — being overrun. Note that Antifa/BLM did not overrun government or court buildings. Jan 6 rioters did — on the sign given by their President. That's a coup attempt and insurrection. There's been a steady stream of convictions to this effect for two years now.

Meh, remain blind as you wish.


Re: The twits on Twitter

Reply #29
As we should know, entropy happens. Twitter was on a downward trajectory before the takeover. While some may be able to change the course of a failing endeavour, others (like Musk and X) hasten it.

Forums and social media do not have long life expectancy. Usenet had a useful life span of about 20 years, before it was all Viagra spam and nazi propaganda. Even Facebook, the most extreme example of the network effect ever, has aged rapidly. 15 years ago it was all students, now it is all retirees.

Forums and social media are like ponds. Not only do they need to be replenished with new water to make up for water loss, they need the right amount of circulation not to go stagnant. The browser did that for the Opera forums, and news did that for midlife Twitter. You came to learn what was going on, stayed for the subcultures.

Now Twitter is on a death spiral. Will the same happen to Facebook? Quite possibly, but Meta still has the money to buy the Next Big Thing, as they did in the previous decade, such as Instagram and WhatsApp.


Re: The twits on Twitter

Reply #31
X sees largest user exodus since Musk takeover

Emigration of both users and advertisers from Twitter (less known as X) is accelerating. Some say Bluesky has become a viable alternative now. For now, Bluesky is said to have no ads. All you see on Bluesky is posts of your follow list, the way Twitter used to be originally.

Musk's X has become a right-wing version of Twitter, where the algorithm pushes MAGA content on you and weird random things keep happening to the content you follow.[1]

Algorithms tend to do weird things like that. Often when I watch a normal news clip on YT (not some leftist commentator, but regular news), YT thinks I must watch a Russian-funded alt-rightist or Q conspiracist next for balance.

Twitter's demise is very unfortunate. It was a very useful tool for journalists, from what I have heard. Journalists were on there and could "leak" their soon-to-be-publish stories and pre-announce events they were about to cover, so everybody could see from Twitter timestamps who broke what. This has been impossible on X for a while now due to all the noise of post-truth alt-facts.

Twitter seems to be the first thing that did not spawn a "pure" conservative Christian nationalist second-amendment wacko version of itself as another project, the way Wikipedia spawned Conservapedia and YT spawned Rumble. Instead, Twitter transformed into an extreme-rightist looney version of itself.
I see, so it's similar to Facebook. Well, I don't need another Facebook. By the way, I'm writing this post as a never-user of Twitter, X, and Bluesky.

Re: The twits on Twitter

Reply #32
Bluesky may have its rise and fall, but yes it is becoming a Twitter 2.0, in many ways better than Twitter ever was.

Meta, not X, is the big gorilla. Youtube algorithm is optimised for profit, but as a user pretty weird. They have cut down search functionality so it is harder to find educational content, while the recommendations take you along a garden path. Slightly better than a few years ago, when with a blank profile it could take you from some wholesome video via five-six click-click-click would end up with bona fide Nazi content.  Less outright Nazi now that I can see, but you are likely to end up with something extreme or conspiratorial on a pretty short path.

Anyway, X is turning out pretty unusable, so I too have jumped over to Bluesky. Twitter was kind of ridiculous, but had two major selling points, data and news. News are not really there (yet), but there is a growing group of data producers interacting.

Early Twitter was very open with its APIs. Bluesky is different, but is open in other and useful ways. And there is some interaction with Mastodon and other ActivityPub platforms, even though Bluesky doesn't (and won't) support ActivityPub.

Re: The twits on Twitter

Reply #33
Anyway, X is turning out pretty unusable, so I too have jumped over to Bluesky. Twitter was kind of ridiculous, but had two major selling points, data and news. News are not really there (yet), but there is a growing group of data producers interacting.
I suppose I'll have to follow eventually. Unfortunately someone already snatched my preferred username, and to my annoyance the website enforces Javascript.

Re: The twits on Twitter

Reply #34
I didn't notice. However, they also didn't do the original Twitter, at least it doesn't seem that way, where anyone can make their own (presumably Javascript-free) client. Guess we'll know when somebody tries.

In any case there are bridges, but they are fairly makeshift at this point. Mastodon and Threads now both use ActivityPub, with Bluesky using ATproto, and this brid.gy thing sometimes works. Not with X though, it's hunkering down more than ever.

Beginning to be tools to extract own tweets to republish (after downloading them from X/Meta) somewhere else, but of course you lose the interaction even if you want to republish all.



One advantage though with Bluesky over X is that it is federated. So you could have your username on some other domain than bsky.social, dndsanctuary.eu perhaps? There are rumours though that this is something Bluesky might want to monetise in time.

Assuming the above bridges start to work as intended, maybe it might be a future for this forum?

Re: The twits on Twitter

Reply #35
Elon Musk underpaid Twitter acquisition by $150M by not disclosing stake, SEC alleges
The SEC alleged that Musk violated federal securities laws when he amassed more than $500 million in shares of Twitter -- later renamed X -- without properly disclosing his stake in the company, allowing him to purchase the social media company at "artificially low prices," the lawsuit stated.

Musk underpaid by more than $150 million by failing to disclose his stake in Twitter, the SEC alleged.
The above would be before Musk acquired Twitter in October 2022 for ~$44 billions.

In response to a post on X regarding the SEC's lawsuit, Musk called the agency a "totally broken organization."

"They spend their time on s--- like this when there are so many actual crimes that go unpunished," he said.
For Musk's information, the purpose of SEC is to pursue financial crimes specifically, not whatever Musk means by "actual crimes".

Ten years ago, the success rate of SEC trials in federal courts stood at 69%.

Re: The twits on Twitter

Reply #36
Elon Musk underpaid Twitter acquisition by $150M by not disclosing stake, SEC alleges

And yet the sellers sold! Why? Is "Seller's Remorse" a thing? :) Who here sold Microsoft when it was classified as a Penny Stock? And can you sue? :)
进行 ...
"Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility." - James Thurber
"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts!" - Richard Feynman
 (iBook G4 - Panther | Mac mini i5 - El Capitan)

Re: The twits on Twitter

Reply #37
"Yet they purchased" or "yet they sold" holds no bearing on whether something is fraud.

Re: The twits on Twitter

Reply #38
"Yet they purchased" or "yet they sold" holds no bearing on whether something is fraud.
We dim Europeans don't know the famous American legal principle that when you fall for it then it's not fraud.

Re: The twits on Twitter

Reply #39
Ah, yes: ersi the linguist meets ersi the legal scholar! :) And unearths the "famous American legal principle" caveat emptor... Good job, dufus! :)
进行 ...
"Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility." - James Thurber
"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts!" - Richard Feynman
 (iBook G4 - Panther | Mac mini i5 - El Capitan)

Re: The twits on Twitter

Reply #40
Oh yes, caveat emptor: When a high-up Republican did it, then it was a great success and in no way could it possibly be a fraud!

Re: The twits on Twitter

Reply #41
I haven't looked at the SEC filing, and I doubt I'd understand it anyway. But -as with Chevron Deference- things could change. Did it not strike you as odd that the word "fraud" was used, and a fine of a mere $22M on a $44B deal was assigned?[1]
Of course not: Musk is Trump-adjacent — so he must be guilty! Or, at least, punished...
进行 ...
"Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility." - James Thurber
"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts!" - Richard Feynman
 (iBook G4 - Panther | Mac mini i5 - El Capitan)

Re: The twits on Twitter

Reply #42
Whether the contents of a law strike us as peculiar also doesn't affect what the law is.
the gross amount of pecuniary gain to such defendant as a result of the
violation, if the violation described in subparagraph (A) involved fraud, deceit,
manipulation, or deliberate or reckless disregard of a regulatory requirement.

Re: The twits on Twitter

Reply #43
I haven't looked at the SEC filing, and I doubt I'd understand it anyway.
Correct! :up:

But -as with Chevron Deference- things could change.
False! Different from you, I know what financial crimes are and exactly why they are crimes, i.e. why they are necessarily illegal and cannot ever be legal.

Did it not strike you as odd that the word "fraud" was used, and a fine of a mere $22M on a $44B deal was assigned?
Confidently relying on your complete ignorance, you blunder in a very Trump-like manner. Of course you will call it hyperbole or some other word you do not understand and you will think you very gracefully recovered, again just like Trump :)

For your benefit, I actually quoted AND EXPLAINED the relevant part of the article in my original post, so that you would not have to start conjuring up impossible universes where Musk is God and Trump is his Prophet (or whichever way you have it), but you absolutely insist on your deluded partisan moronic brainwash.

Here's the relevant explanation again: The above would be before Musk acquired Twitter in October 2022 for ~$44 billions.

That is, the crime that SEC is addressing was not about the ~$44 billion deal. The crime occurred before the ~$44 billion deal. This is why you are the only one whom it strikes as odd that a fine of a mere $22M on a $44B deal was assigned — because in fact this fine was not assigned on the $44B deal!!!

Clearly this is hopelessly over your head, so I'm not going to explain any further.

Re: The twits on Twitter

Reply #44
CNN is catching up with their listening of Joe Rogan.

Elon Musk wants to save Western civilization from empathy

While Musk said he believes in empathy and that “you should care about other people,” he also thinks it’s destroying society.

“The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy, the empathy exploit,” Musk said. “There it’s they’re exploiting a bug in Western civilization, which is the empathy response.”

Empathy, he said, has been “weaponized.”

It’s an important thing to remember as Musk turns his crusade toward the US government. While President Donald Trump has said cuts will not touch safety net programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, except to root out fraud, Musk made clear during the interview that he believes that the concept of Social Security is a “Ponzi scheme.”

Re: The twits on Twitter

Reply #45
Lithuania’s Žemaitaitis faces probe after being tricked into fake meeting with Musk

Lithuanian MP Remigijus Žemaitaitis is facing a parliamentary probe after being tricked into believing he was invited to meet Elon Musk in the United States. The parliament’s ethics watchdogs are asked to review the incident.

Critics claim Žemaitaitis may have broken procedural rules by not disclosing the nature of his planned trip and failing to declare first-class plane tickets as a high-value gift. Parliament members are required to inform the Lithuanian parliament, Seimas, about foreign trips.
Not just Musk or fake Musk, but any semblance of Musk is a threat to national security.

In other media, a three-part series of articles (and a three-episode podcast) from The Telegraph (not to be confused with Telegram) about Jan Marsalek of Wirecard, who turned out to be a spy for Russia, still active https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/03/07/marsalek-russian-spymaster-wirecard/

Re: The twits on Twitter

Reply #46
Quote
"500M Europeans Are Begging 300M Americans for Protection from 140M Russians Who Have Been Unable to Overcome 50M Ukrainians for Three Years"
A nice line from Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk (Politico.Eu). I have no well-informed view on the proper role of… The post "500M Europeans Are Begging 300M Americans for Protection from 140M Russians Who Have Been Unable to Overcome 50M Ukrainians for Three Years" appeared first on Reason.com.

By Eugene Volokh

A nice line from Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk (Politico.Eu). I have no well-informed view on the proper role of the U.S. in the defense of Europe (though my intuitions are in favor of strong U.S. support for NATO, I can't speak with confidence about the subject). But I thought this was a well-put call for action, from a country that is estimated to have spent 4.12% of its GDP on defense in 2024, compared to a 2.02% average for European NATO members and Canada, and 3.38% for the U.S. "The Polish military is now about 200,000, which makes it the third-largest in NATO after the U.S. and Turkey and the largest among the alliance's EU members."

Tusk added,

By the end of the year, we want to have a model ready so that every adult male in Poland is trained for war, and so that this reserve is adequate for possible threats…. Every healthy man should want to train to be able to defend the homeland in case of need. We will prepare it in such a way that it will not be a burden on people.

By the way, the only other NATO member that spent a higher fraction of its GDP than the U.S. is Estonia, at 3.43%. Latvia and Lithuania are also high, at 3.15% and 2.85%, well above everyone else except Greece at 3.08%. The one behind Lithuania (though closer to the middle of the pack) is Finland, at 2.41%. See a pattern?

The post "500M Europeans Are Begging 300M Americans for Protection from 140M Russians Who Have Been Unable to Overcome 50M Ukrainians for Three Years" appeared first on Reason.com.
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"Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility." - James Thurber
"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts!" - Richard Feynman
 (iBook G4 - Panther | Mac mini i5 - El Capitan)

Re: The twits on Twitter

Reply #47
"500M Europeans Are Begging 300M Americans for Protection from 140M Russians Who Have Been Unable to Overcome 50M Ukrainians for Three Years" <-- When you start with an obvious lie, then do you really have anything to say? Let's get some facts straight.

First, Europe is not a uniform entity. In Ukraine war, Western Europe was originally on Putin's side! They did not beg for any protection against Russia. In contrast, Eastern Europe (primarily Baltic countries and Poland) cried out that the Ukraine war was clearly a test case for Nato, and started supporting Ukraine instantly.

USA under Biden went to support Ukraine, as was geopolitically reasonable on behalf of Europe, and eventually got Western Europe around to support the cause as well. Biden brought Nato together and got everybody to commit to at least the minimum.

USA under Trump has switched sides for Putin and this has erased the memory of MAGAminions. MAGAminions think "500M Europeans Are Begging 300M Americans for Protection from 140M Russians Who Have Been Unable to Overcome 50M Ukrainians for Three Years" and therefore it makes perfect sense to take the side of 140M Russians and flush the relations with 500M Europeans down the drain.

Now this is logic of the winners! There's no logic really. It is flat Führerprinzip with no reasoning to it. And it is impossible to reason somebody out of something that they have not been reasoned into in the first place.

Re: The twits on Twitter

Reply #48
When you start with an obvious lie, then do you really have anything to say? Let's get some facts straight.
A nice line from Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk (Politico.Eu) Son't tell me! Tell Tusk... :)

And explain to me how the Prime Minister of Poland became your target...?
——————————————————————————————
Quote
Kyiv has agreed to enter into a 30-day cease-fire with Moscow as a means of kickstarting further talks to end the ongoing Russia–Ukraine war.

Delegations from Washington and Kyiv shared a joint statement on March 11 announcing the proposed 30-day pause in the fighting, after concluding a lengthy round of discussions in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
(source)

The ball's in Russia's court...
进行 ...
"Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility." - James Thurber
"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts!" - Richard Feynman
 (iBook G4 - Panther | Mac mini i5 - El Capitan)

Re: The twits on Twitter

Reply #49
The only thing we ever begged (read: lobbied) for was to please let us help Ukraine more. It took a very long time to get America to allow us to do so. All of those F16 fighter jets could have been there a lot earlier.