X Kicked Off 2024 by Screwing Up During Japan's Earthquake Emergency
X Kicked Off 2024 by Screwing Up During Japan's Earthquake Emergency
As misinformation proliferated on X thanks to verified users, a massive account sharing accurate information hit its Musk-imposed posting limit.
As misinformation proliferated on X thanks to verified users, a massive account sharing accurate information hit its Musk-imposed posting limit.
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Twitter did eventually get its shit together and lift the API limits on NERV’s accounts, but people on JP Twitter were furious, and “Elon” in Japanese (イーロン) was trending, with people basically cussing him out for effing up Twitter by limiting NERV and getting rid of the chronological timeline. Folks were also upset at all the “reply zombies” (blue check bot accounts) commenting complete garbage like “nice” and “happy new year” in posts about the earthquake.
As for misinformation, the evening of the quake “人工地震” (manmade earthquake) was trending on Twitter, and NHK news yesterday actually had a segment on last night explaining that no, the quake was not manmade, and that misinformation was being spread on Twitter.
Where there Angels emerging from the epicenter of the earthquakes?
So how have Twitter fucked up here then? NERV isn't a government body, it isn't an official public safety channel, it's a private not for profit organisation. The official government ones already have no limits, it's just everyone in Japan uses NERV because they're so damned good.
Now, I don't agree with API charges (much like data charges for internet, they aren't proportionate to cost) but setting that aside, NERV didn't automatically deserve the exemption and never even tried to get it.
Musk has still made a shit system, but it's not shit because of this event.
Lol how do you figure my comment is defending Musk against criticism? I literally said his version of the website is shit.
The point I'm making is that the criticism isn't really valid here. NERV are not an official public safety channel.
People are making out like it's the same as Verizon and the California firefighters when dealing with wildfires, but the difference is that firefighters are an official body.
Musk is shit, charging for API is shitty in general, but you can't claim "they're inhibiting public safety information!" when strictly speaking NERV is more like an overgrown Facebook group (although, that cannot diminish how awesome they are).
charging for API is shitty in general
Kid named Steve Huffman
Aka Musk fanboi
Steve Huffman did it first
Did he? I thought Twitter started API charges first.
This article says Musk announced it in February last year: https://www.wired.com/story/twitter-data-api-prices-out-nearly-everyone/
imaybewrong.png
when strictly speaking NERV is more like an overgrown Facebook group
And THAT’S why Twitter finally gave them a “Public Utility App” status and lifted their API limits after people started kicking up a fuss. 🙄
No, they did it because:
[being an overgrown social group] cannot diminish how awesome they are.
Also the public backlash, like you said.
You're talking to a brick wall.
Elon bad, Twitter bad. Any comment that doesn't clearly say this and still mentions the human/service is instantly downvoted without another thought.
I know lol but I like to say my piece, if only because saying it helps form the ideas more fully.
I do the same, not like the downvotes mean anything to me.
Looking at how many there are with 0 replies though, I'd happily bet at least a couple are bots.
I hope I'm wrong though.
Nah I think they're people, it's people who like to jump on downvote trains. Most people just lurk and move on though.
But yeah, lemmy votes are pretty meaningless in the long run - and that's a good thing. All the things reddit did with votes (hiding comments, rate limiting) were some of the first steps that made the site shit. Also, if lemmy votes were meaningful, they'd have a far bigger problem with vote manipulation across multiple instances.
Yeah, not a lot of mental flexibility here. They're probably the same people who thought musk was going to save the world a few years ago and now feel angry and betrayed that he turned out to be just another greedy dumb shit.
Lmfao no I've always been calling out Musk's bullshit. I call out bullshit wherever I see it, which is why I'm replying to you right now.
Maybe if he hadn't fired 85% of his employees, there might have been someone who checked alerting accountsand made sure no api limits applied, but nope. Dude fired so many people the simple, basic shit isn't getting done.
Nah, I don't think there's a sure fire way you could ensure that everyone that should get a free pass gets one. The effort they made to give free passes to government public safety bodies and the like was reasonable.
What isn't reasonable is having API charges to begin with. Musk didn't drop the ball here with Japan, he dropped it ages ago.
API charges are not flawed because they're inhibiting public safety channels, they're flawed because they inhibit regular people from making genuinely amazing positive contributions. That could be NERV, or it could be a lone reporter in a war zone, or just a person in their bedroom updating everyone on the crazy shit happening right outside. That narrative doesn't really garner as much sympathy, but it's far more honest.
Super frustrating to see a platform that was doing just fine (it wasstill Twitter, so I mean relatively) get flown directly into the ground so hard. Like, has he actually done anything whatsoever that has made it better? Twitter was technically profitable was was aiming to be actually profitable and now it's just a dumpster fire of money
Absolutely. But no, I don't think he's made it better in any way - and that wasn't the point. Ever since he was locked into the purchase the plan seems to have changed into running it into the ground.
There's no way they can maintain the $13bn debt he saddled it with, most of what he's been doing is something of a farce to cover up that as the reason for the business closing - eg "those advertisers leaving are going to kill the business!" That, and any of the dodgy shit they get away with (like API charges) becomes the norm for any future social media platforms.
It clearly wasent reasonable, as it missed the actual main alerting account for a nation of hundreds of millions. Basic data analysis should have caught that a non goverment body was important enough to exempt, but they just didn't do it. The exceptions they did do were clearly to basic or lazy.
Yes, applying API limits is deeply flawed and stupid, but if youre going to do it, you have to do a good job, or people who relied on your service may literally die.
Its clear Musk gives no shits about the larger responsibility that taking over a social network with hundreds of millions of users brings.
Basic data analysis should have caught that a non goverment body was important enough to exempt, but they just didn’t do it.
What kind of "basic data analysis" are you referring to? I mean, it would be nice if that was a practical idea, to assess nearly every Twitter account and determine if it should have an exemption, but I don't see that it is. You either have an insanely labour-intensive process, or you have an imperfect automated process. Or, you just draw a line in the sand, as they did.
I don't think you can claim that Twitter has a "responsibility" in any meaningful sense, either. It's a private website, they get to set the rules and change them as they see fit. That's how it's always been. The responsibility lies with the organisations tasked with distributing the information (which also doesn't include NERV, they do it voluntarily).
I don't even think Musk made this change to try and make money - in my opinion, ever since he was locked into the purchase the plan changed to running it into the ground. On the way down, Musk can experiment with all sorts of horrible things - such as API charges - and while they won't get away with everything, the things they do get away with will set the standard for any social media platforms that come after the business ceases operations (primarily due to the debt accrued in the leveraged buyout Musk performed).
So yeah, Musk doesn't give any shits, the whole operation is intentionally destructive. But like I say, he didn't drop the ball here with Japan, he did it ages ago.
Are you trying to say that Twitter doesn't have data engineers capable of parsing tweets by "geography+ follower count + $disasterKeywords?"
If Twitter doesnt have the capability to do the equivalent of basic sql agaisnt its dataset, I dont even understand what the remaining 15% of people are doing there.
I think the counter to everything you said is that all the pressure and anger on Twitter over Nerv getting API limited got them registered as a Public Utilities App so they could tweet automatically. They’d been trying to get registered as such for a while but Twitter doing do it until AFTER an emergency and “イーロン” (“Elon”) was trending on Jp Twitter because people were so angry.
This is an issue that never should have arisen.
Had they been trying to for a while?
X fucked up by imposing the limit in the first place.
Exactly. The whole thing is scummy, not because of this specific incident but by its very nature.