Memelords and bad photoshops.


Elon banned the kid who wrote a bot to track his G6. He gave us fair warning though, having previously claimed that not blocking @elonjet demonstrated his personal commitment to free speech.

People don't know how to dialogue

Source.

I guess Elon popped in to a live chat about it. It went like this:

Partcipant: Elon I have to ask, why would you ban journalists?
Elon: On Twitter we treat everyone as equals.
Participant: Okay but they were just linking ElonJet in the course of reporting on the news.
Elon: Posting links to doxing will be considered doxing.
Participant: Okay but they were journalists, why would you ban journalists?
Elon: *click*

The anti-Elon crowd celebrated this, claiming that Elon ragequit when he was confronted with hard questions. But whoever the interviewer was really did just loop back to indignation that journalists were being banned for referencing the now-illicit content. Not only did it re-ask a question that had been answered, but it came across as entitled.

The discussion didn't give Musk the opportunity to explain (or fail to explain) some things.

1. Twitter is a doxing platform

This one is simple, Twitter is a realtime social media platform. If Elon defines doxing as posting realtime location data (presumably without consent), then me tweeting a selfie with him at the Fremont Tesla factory is doxing. Anyone retweeting "hey look how cool and down-to-earth Elon is, taking selfies with people" is doxing.

That's a large chunk of Twitter content, from influencer nonsense to videos from Iranian protests.

There's clearly a free speech/safety tradeoff to be found somewhere, it's just surprising that Twitter has moved away from free speech along this axis.

2. Citation needed

Elon claims that he wants to treat journalists and regular users as equals. That's a reasonably 'old internet' and 'citizen journalist' mentality, although he probably doesn't believe in either of those things.

Despite (or because of) his alt-rightish snark about (airquotes) journalism, even Elon should acknowledge that journalists have to reference source material in some way. On one hand, I don't need the NYT to post stills from a beheading video in order to prove that it happened. On the other hand, if they tell me "we're at war with Eastasia" I can't just believe them on reputation. Maybe Elon believes this, maybe he shares the Trump mindset that the media is just a propaganda outlet working either for or against him. If it's the latter, there isn't a discussion to be had.

In either case, journalists have an obligation that appears to be in conflict with Twitter's new ToS. They either need to expunge references to identities and sources of realtime location data from their work or they need to leave the platform. It'd be interesting to know which of these comply: @ElonJet (no), ElonJet (?), https://mastodon.social/@elonjet (?), faa.gov (?), N628TS (?), https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/n628ts (?).

Trying to be unsympathetic

If the LA incident is exactly how Elon alleges, that's pretty scary. Most anyone in his place would consider banning any source of geolocation information.

But then he posts the dude's plates and calls on Twitter to take action.

Distraction

His alt-right engagement has caused this photo to trend, so, hmmm... turning to page two of the Elon Musk playbook... it says "create a distraction".

TWTR

That got dark. In upbeat news, Twitter is auctioning a bunch of office equipment. Is he rightsizing the SF offices or are Twitter's remaining staff going to have to buy ten gallon hats?

/u/Shuizid did a pretty good job of describing my feelings on why Twitter has a ton of market share and momentum:

/u/Blod_Cass_Dalcassian I can't get my head around why anyone uses twitter anyway, let alone play this game with him. Stop using it and get on with your lives.

/u/Shuizid Twitter is one central platform to get up-to-date information in almost real time. And it's a platform where millions of users could interact almost instantly with little regulations - making it the place where "metoo" and movements for freedom started. It's a place where people could easily connect, where artists and other creators would be able to show off their work to a wide audience and get hired for it. It's a place where people could post short updates to their fans about things happening.

TSLA

Some combination of fundamentals, the market downturn, and Elon's antics have impacted Tesla's share price. The Twitter thing started around September/October.

/u/just2commenthere Didn't he promise fairly recently that he was done selling Tesla shares? Link.

/u/likwitsnake He's sold twice since then

/u/theredmage333 He's also promised not to ban the Jet tracker account and yet he did anyway

Of course, the April 28 tweet reads, "No further TSLA sales planned after today". That's the easiest possible phrasing to back away from.

Source.

America needs a hero and I heard Henry Cavill is looking for work. Or we could bring back NFTs. Rembember NFTs? They're like baseball cards but hopefully better!

Me
		I did not see that coming.		Zac
		They are a hundred bucks each!?!
	$99
		Solid investment.
		I'll sell you a screenshot for $29.99.		Dan
		That is awesome.		Kevin
	Any good replies Kev? [Ed: he got a TRUTH account early]
		I've bought five.
		Comments in Truth are nothing but bots. You have to scroll though so many duplicate "Trump is a god" memes before getting to anyone resembling a human. And even then I am not sure.
		There is not a single comment about the cards, but there are tons about how stupid the vaccines are.
		These are so good:		Zac
		Also, they refer to him so much as "45". If he wins again will he be called "45&47"?
		I'd just call him Adams for short. #historybomb		Kevin
		Dang it not Adams. Cleveland. #historyfail

Production quality

Mighty_Zote

Look on the artist insta. He is the mastermind behind sich 90's trapper keeper classics like "snowboarding parrot" and "two polar bears swimming through a ring of bubbles shaped like a heart"

Indeed, even bored apes look good compared to these. Some combination of stock photography, AI redraw, and photoshop seem to have gone into the process. Gizmodo tracked down some of the source material.

But I guess they sold all 45,000 of them. So $4.5M with 10% of resales for a pittance in expenses. But $4.5M isn't worth what it once was.

Source. CPI numbers

/u/enc-nyc Fu##er. Closed my calls today at -93%. Never trading TSLA again.

/u/Living_Warthog5049 Damn dude... Most responsible traders set a stop limit at like 10-25%

/u/RelativeEchidna4547 r/lostredditors

/u/username3 Hey Google define responsibile

/u/GMOrgasm defining "responsible" re-spon-si-ble verb to sponsible again

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