Elon Musk: Always A Douche

[Eddie Teach]

To me the most important political dividing line today, just like in the 20th century, is not between right and left, but between those who are pro-democracy and pro-freedom of speech and those who are anti-democracy and anti-freedom of speech.

What happens when a majority wishes to curtail speech?

[The Brain]

To me the most important political dividing line today, just like in the 20th century, is not between right and left, but between those who are pro-democracy and pro-freedom of speech and those who are anti-democracy and anti-freedom of speech.

What happens when a majority wishes to curtail speech?

If it's a democracy then typically speech gets curtailed.

[Eddie Teach]

But do the pros abide by the decision? Do the antis suddenly favor democracy? (Yeah, this is where the Palpatine gif fits). Point is, those two issues don't flow together neatly and instead of two sides you have four.

[Admiral Yi]

I think it's probably helpful in queer diaspora communities in the Anglo world and in academic research on that.

Outside of that I'd go for Latine if you're looking for gender neutral or queering because it's from within the language.

Thinking about this a little, it seems the only time you should use it is when referring to a person who identifies as non binary.

[The Brain]

But do the pros abide by the decision? Do the antis suddenly favor democracy? (Yeah, this is where the Palpatine gif fits). Point is, those two issues don't flow together neatly and instead of two sides you have four.

Depends on which one they think is the most important.

My impression is that people who are pro one but anti the other are a fairly small minority without any major impact.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I think it's probably helpful in queer diaspora communities in the Anglo world and in academic research on that.

Outside of that I'd go for Latine if you're looking for gender neutral or queering because it's from within the language.

Thinking about this a little, it seems the only time you should use it is when referring to a person who identifies as non binary.

My understanding (and I'm 20 years removed from my pathetic attempts at learning Spanish), it could be used anytime you just wanted to be gender neutral when referring to all Latinos, which because Spanish (like many European languages) has "genders" for their nouns and lots of broadly used terms that encompass men and women default to male gendered forms in Spanish.

It's sort of like in English we used to have the convention of saying things like "men" to sometimes expansively refer to all of humanity, including women, then it shifted to trying to actively use conventions like "he or she", which was always cumbersome but seemed to be the norm in "formal" academic writing and etc for many decades, now it is shifted to trying to just use non-gendered words like "they" more.

FWIW there are plenty of Spanish speaking lefty types who have embraced Latinx, so it isn't entirely the case of educated ivory tower whites trying to push it on an unwitting minority population; but it definitely is not widely used at all in the American Spanish speaking community, I think I've seen estimates that less than 2% of American Spanish language speakers use the term. As Sheilbh mentioned 'Latine' serves the same purpose, and I think has a little more cultural acceptance (its use is still minimal.) There is a linguistic argument against using Latinx at all because pronunciation-wise it is a very unnatural sounding word to a Spanish speaker and just not a sound they use in their language, while Latine is more natural.

[celedhring]

Yeah, -e is the form pushed over here as neutral gender decension. It's not official though, the Spanish language academy (never the most progressive institution) still backs the "grammatical gender doesn't imply actual gender" stance and thus refuses to adopt a neutral gender. They kinda have a point, though, in that you need the usage to gain significant traction before really considering making it part of the grammar, languages are not top-down. So far, -e (or -x or any other alternative) still has very little traction outside of very limited use cases. That may change, like languages always do over time.

In Catalan we have a fight between proponents of -e and proponents of -i. That one makes me chuckle.

[HVC]

Elmo keeps haphazardly firing the wrong employees.

Happening so often Twitter HR had to create a new "accidental termination " category.

[OttoVonBismarck]

So the Musk / Apple feud is pretty hilarious, Apple was apparently Twitter's single largest advertiser in part because Apple had made a strategic decision many years ago to not advertise on Facebook at all, so they actually put a lot of their digital ad budget into Twitter.

Musk appears to be rallying the typical right wing trolls (including Senator Hawley and Governor DeSantis) threatening to "go after" Apple if Apple kicks Twitter off the app store. Note that in my research I have not found any proof whatsoever that anyone from Apple is saying they plan to remove Twitter from the App Store. It appears the entire rumor starts and ends with Musk and people repeating what Musk says. While not an app store expert, in previous app removals I've never seen Apple "threaten" to remove it first, they usually seem to review an app every time a new version is pushed, and when they decide an app has violated its TOS they will often suspend it without any warning. I think their typical first step is to just block the offending update, it is relatively rare that they take action against an already deployed version of an app.

Looking on the app store right now, the Twitter app is still there and listed as an "Editor's Choice", with a last published date of 1 week ago, so it seems like they have been accepting Twitter app updates as normal.

It also just seems relatively unlikely to me they would take action against Twitter--it is a popular app, and they already have both Parler and Truth Social on there. Parler was engaged in some pretty egregious stuff when it was initially blocked from the app store--including not even doing due diligence on serious stuff like removing child porn from the platform, once Parler started doing some bare minimum stuff it was allowed on.

From a business perspective it seems really smart for Musk, who is angry that his largest customer suspended their relationship, to respond by waging a PR campaign against that company's CEO. Like in what world does berating your customer get them to come back to you?

To me it shows Musk just has no sense of how a business like this works and the sort of relationship management intrinsic to an ad-supported product.

[garbon]

So the Musk / Apple feud is pretty hilarious, Apple was apparently Twitter's single largest advertiser in part because Apple had made a strategic decision many years ago to not advertise on Facebook at all, so they actually put a lot of their digital ad budget into Twitter.

Musk appears to be rallying the typical right wing trolls (including Senator Hawley and Governor DeSantis) threatening to "go after" Apple if Apple kicks Twitter off the app store. Note that in my research I have not found any proof whatsoever that anyone from Apple is saying they plan to remove Twitter from the App Store. It appears the entire rumor starts and ends with Musk and people repeating what Musk says. While not an app store expert, in previous app removals I've never seen Apple "threaten" to remove it first, they usually seem to review an app every time a new version is pushed, and when they decide an app has violated its TOS they will often suspend it without any warning. I think their typical first step is to just block the offending update, it is relatively rare that they take action against an already deployed version of an app.

Looking on the app store right now, the Twitter app is still there and listed as an "Editor's Choice", with a last published date of 1 week ago, so it seems like they have been accepting Twitter app updates as normal.

It also just seems relatively unlikely to me they would take action against Twitter--it is a popular app, and they already have both Parler and Truth Social on there. Parler was engaged in some pretty egregious stuff when it was initially blocked from the app store--including not even doing due diligence on serious stuff like removing child porn from the platform, once Parler started doing some bare minimum stuff it was allowed on.

From a business perspective it seems really smart for Musk, who is angry that his largest customer suspended their relationship, to respond by waging a PR campaign against that company's CEO. Like in what world does berating your customer get them to come back to you?

To me it shows Musk just has no sense of how a business like this works and the sort of relationship management intrinsic to an ad-supported product.

I'm not sure why he constantly wants to be the story.

[HVC]

I'm not sure why he constantly wants to be the story.

Daddy didn't give affection, no
And the boy was something that mommy wouldn't wear?

[Darth Wagtaros]

He's cool now. 

[Sheilbh]

First review of Australia's news code (which forces Facebook and Google to pay publishers) and it's been a success. Regulator is recommending adding other tech companies, such as Twitter.

A large number of Australian publishers are getting payments from one or both:


I mentioned this before because my view is that a lot of issues we have with social media are about supply - I think especially with local media. So great to see that ABC have outlined what they've used the Google/Facebook money for in the first year. They've appointed 57 regional positions "including reporters in 19 locations, 10 of which did not previously have them".

I know Google and Meta are expecting everyone in the world to follow this policy eventually and I really hope the ROTW is studying this. Especially because I think basically taxing social media to pay publishers who can then invest in journalism will do an infinite amount more to combat disinformation/misinformation than Google or Meta's various plans around moderation, or, in my opinion, any platform-led approach.

[Admiral Yi]

Especially because I think basically taxing social media to pay publishers who can then invest in journalism will do an infinite amount more to combat disinformation/misinformation than Google or Meta's various plans around moderation, or, in my opinion, any platform-led approach.

Surely that depends on how much of the media is alt right.

[Josquius]

Doesn't this run the risk of entrenching established big money media outlets?

Fake news is a issue but legit grassroots journalism also exists.