Elon's Folly

Fuck you rocket Kiko hahah
- I'm so down to calling him Kiko from here on out.
  
  Thanks to Brazil for making this possible!
  
  It's in my head, it's done.
- Holy shit, he actually does look like Villagran lmao
  
  Indeed lol
- Reply to his every tweet with that.
- Just you wait til Rocket Kiko knows about that and tells everything to his mom! As soon as he's done crying on the corner...
  
  Hahahah I visualized that

Brazil asked Elon to ban 7 fascist accounts spreading disinformation
Elon refused pretending it was a free speech issue even though he complied multiple times with similar requests from right wing govts
Gotta say, this is new information to me. I’ve briefly looked at the stories and the banning of twitter, but I never realized this was entirely because Elon wouldn’t ban accounts as he does for right wing government.
Elon seems like a kinda shitty guy.
- Elon seems like a kinda shitty guy
  Hot take!
  
  I mean it genuinely is because of the "kinda" and "seems"
  "Elon is a shitty guy" is one of the coldest takes out there at this point
- He censors way more than old twitter, and is way less transparent about it.
  Old twitter complied with 51% of legal requests, Elon's twitter is at 71%. Old twitter complied with 53% of government take down requests, Elon's is at 76%.
  Old twitter also used to post a high detailed transparency report every 6 months. This one from Elon's twitter is light on detail, and the first in 2+ years.
  So he's a lying liar and even his own data proves it.

But remember kids, he's some sort of business and tech genius!
- The real life inspiration for super genius Cave Johnson from Portal.
  
  Yeah, but Cave Johnson was a compelling and interesting individual.
- Definitely has managed to invest in some incredibly profitable stuff but he also says and does the absolutely stupidest shit imaginable. It's astounding
  
  Happy cake day
  
  a lot of that profit is derived from a set of rug pulls that only work because he had the money of the victims to keep pushing his image in the media

He wants Twix to be Truth Social, but also profitable, and doesn't understand why he can't have it both ways.
- Back in late 2022 I was in an argument with my (adult) nephew about how the government isn't limiting free speech on Twitter. I was explaining how "the free market" is deciding whether Elon will sink or swim. He just could not understand how the government -wasn't- responsible.
  ....idfk
  (Yes, there were some Governmental take down requests, but none of them seemed very sus to me)
  
  I had a similar discussion with some people at a barber shop back when Pre-Elon Twitter banned Trump. They were complaining about free speech and I asked if they knew what it actually meant (in the US). When I explained that we are ONLY guaranteed free speech from the gov't, and that Twitter was a private business and could ban whoever they want, the same way this barber shop could tell someone not to ever come back everyone got real quiet like "oh shit I have to rethink my whole world view". I actually got thanked at another time by one employee for telling them how it actually works.
- Right Twix.
- What's this got to do with Twix? I love a good Twix...
  Fuck me, now I gotta go buy a Twix. And a Lion, do they still make those? God they were the best.
  
  Raider is now Twix
  Twitter is now X
  Twitter X
  Twix
  Same same

He acts literally like a fucking toddler.
Perhaps even a toddler in a tantrum.
- Now that's just kind of rude toward toddlers. He acts like what he is... a Ketamine addled, narcissistic billionaire, who got lucky in life and thinks he crafted his own destiny all by his own hands.
  
  Fair enough, fair enough. Toddlers are way more pleasant than him, even when they've shat their pants. I apologise to all toddlers.
  
  Ketamine is a dissociative which strips away what you know about things, sort of like how a child doesnt know things. So in a way, he's actually a toddler.

Sounds like another Dan of The Art of the Deal
- Sounds like another fucking narcissist.
  
  That's what they said :P
- Fart of the Deal

Twitter is now removing the block function next. It ought to bleed users like crazy.
- Wait, what?
  
  X/Twitter will soon be making more changes to the block button, with CEO Elon Musk confirming that all public posts will be viewable going forward, even to those who have been blocked
- No they aren't. They are changing how it works, in a way that is mostly immaterial to the user. That is not even close to completely removing.
  
  Yep.
  From the sounds of it:
  Before: if you block somebody, they cannot see your stuff.
  After: if you block somebody, they can still visit your profile.
  Usually, when you block someone, they can no longer see your feed; instead, it's replaced with a message stating that they're blocked. Now, they can freely browse your feed; they're just not allowed to interact or comment on your posts.
  https://www.makeuseof.com/x-block-feature-poor-job-blocking-people/
  NGL Elon's excitement sounds like he was blocked by a lot of people and Daddy Musk will not have closed doors in this household! 😮‍💨
  
  No longer being able to hide your public posts from specific users seems hardly immaterial to me.

Why, oh, why, Bluesky and not Mastodon
- Mastodon has more users than Bluesky. (I fear it won't stay like that for a long time anymore though as Bluesky has a bigger growth rate.)
- Because Mastodon needs a reliable instance with a catchy domain name. Maybe even the slightest bit of advertising.
  Someone reputable could make a real Twitter competitor for about $2m a year these days.
  I'd say Mozilla, but they just took all their social media funding away and threw it at AI. Genius.
  
  Would you worry Google would have too much influence?
  
  mastodon.world? mastodon.social?
  
  I'd say Mozilla, but they just took all their social media funding away and threw it at AI.
  Nobody was using their instance from what I heard. So a bit of a wasted effort.
  What sort of money are they throwing at AI? I only know about the sidebar and that's basically just a tab to a website of your choosing. Couldn't have been expensive.
  
  Mozilla is all in on ads actually
- Mastodon has serious UX problems that even other federated networks don't have. I'm pretty well tech literate and love Lemmy, for instance, but I just couldn't ever get Mastodon to stick for me, like it just didn't have the right feel and wasn't fun to use. And if it's not working for me then it's never going to take off with a more general audience.
  Bluesky is a lot better. It still has some issues that I feel keep it from fully replacing Twitter, especially Twitter before Elon screwed it up. But it does manage to keep me checking it, even though it's probably only once or twice a week max.
- Cause all the Linux people, FOSS people, and communists are already here.
- I think one of the biggest reasons is that the Fediverse is often a pain to get into and sometimes a pain to use.
  Bluesky and Threads "just work."
  Some people say it's marketing and in Threads' case I can believe it, but I haven't seen any example of large marketing campaign by Bluesky.
  
  How is Bluesky easier to use when it's literally also federated? And you can just create an account on any Mastodon instance like mastodon.world or mastodon.social and start using it.
  
  I wonder whether it was the right decision to not federate with Threads.
  On the one hand, yes, they would have caused a lot of problematic content, but on the other hand, it would have meant a lot of new users, and that would have livened up the place a bit. I guess.
  Maybe we could do a switch in the user profile for Lemmy where it says "show Thread posts in All posts". Or something.
- Sadly, Mastodon had its shot during the pandemic and blew it. The non-tech savvy didn't understand how federation worked and they marketed themselves very poorly.
  
  I agree, but there was also the problem of Mastodon has no marketing budget. Before Musk closed the sale on Twitter, they had 2 full time employees, IIRC.
  
  But Bluesky is federated as well; why isn't that a problem for Bluesky either.
- The budget for Mastodon gGmbH is measured in the hundreds of thousands of dollars and Bluesky's is much more than that.
  
  Yet, Bluesky didn't even support video posts until two weeks ago. Many other highly requested features are still missing. To what extent does the success of each platform come down to money? What did Bluesky do with a larger budget to get an edge?
- Because people, even leftists, want the bad company to be replaced by a good company.
  
  Why replace horrible company with bad company run by literally THE guy that let the prior company become horrible instead of replacing it with good non-profit network?

uuh, new users for the fediverse. looking forward to y'all ;-)

I still prefer to refer to him as “Leon.”
- In South Africa, we call him Melon Husk.
- "Elmo" is better if you ask me. They're both annoying children that need to shut the fuck up and go away.
  
  Elmo is beloved and doesn't hurt anyone. Put some respect on his name.
- that makes him sound more normal
- Nah, Leon is a decent name, also that protagonist from some Resident Evil games
- Leon Dusk.
- Elephant musth

- Perhaps Elon ran his mouth, was forced to buy Twitter because signed papers and MBS saw an oppertunity to remove Twitter from the scene?
- Guy made a couple of lucky investments and convinced himself he's a superior being.
- Why would MBS be cool with giving Elon $22 BILLION for his fuckup?
  Same reason idiots kept throwing money at trump back when his resume was just a list of bankrupcies (several hotels, an airline and a casino), moneyed people are way stupider than we think.

Because he is a bitch.

This is a hint at why he wanted involvement in PayPal and wants X to be a financial service. You can't take away money from a system he controls.
- The government can absolutely take away money he controls.

Stay on blue sky guys.
- And keep leaving Twitter!
  
  There's no way I'm leaving Twitter... because I never joined.

Elon hasn't said a word, but we will.
Fucking emerald spoon clown.
- That is the most accurate description for him. Zero notes, pitch perfect.

Elon should have received additional fines for his taunts and threats, honestly.

Having an account on X supports this shit whether you like it or not it.

Why BlueSky or even Threads tho?
- I dunno, I follow some political, rap, and basketball YouTubers and they all use Twitter. I'd much rather them use Bluesky or Threads. I think Mastodon would probably be best but so far, anything's better than Twitter.
- Because "it's where people are going" - plus those two are already well known among normies, unlike mastodon/misskey/fediverse. They want a centralized thing.
  Funnily enough, during this brazilian exodus, my sister complained that Threads was too "clean", while bluesky had all the "people with questionable mental stability" and was thus more interesting.

As long as the general public only hears the first half of the story, it's good marketing
- We're part of the general public, and we've heard both halves.
  
  Especially since the second half already contains the consequences of bad marketing.

Brazil didn't shut down "X". They did it themselves so X wouldn't have a Brazilian entity subject to Brazilian court orders. That is why Starlink got caught in the mess.

Local press and lots of people in Brazil criticize judges because, due to flaws on local laws and 80's redemocratization efforts, they have some perks, privileges and exceptional powers no democratic country would give to them. There are cases ranging from content showing them traveling overseas being not visible on local internet and TV people being given cease-and-desist orders for disagreeing with some judge decision, to people being detained by Federal Police agents for criticizing justice system inside a plane that happens to have a judge among the passengers - not to mention those FBI agents detained at Rio de Janeiro airport for containing a judge's wife who got unruly in a plane for drinking too much during the fly.
This time however he asked for it, and our justice system toke the right decisions. Elon Musk should know how ridiculously overpowered our judges are before acting like that.
- they have some perks, privileges and exceptional powers no democratic country would give to them
  wait until you learn about the supreme court in the USA

Master gambit, Sir.

I wish I had his problems.

How's this a meme?
- Your face is a meme.
  Seriously, screenshat your face. Call it a meme. If others adopt it, it's a meme.
  ^{Not legal advice}
- Don't make me tap the sign with the description of meme from The Selfish Gene.
- meme /mēm/ noun
  A unit of cultural information, such as a cultural practice or idea, that is transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another.
  This is a meme
  
  That's the definition of cultural, not internet meme, which is a much more broader definition. Internet memes are generally supposed to be amusing, ironic or relatable.
- It's not, it's a twittex screen cap.

First of all, Elon is probably just trying to do some marketing bullshit But Brazilian STF is full of crap also, Alexandre de Moraes is Just censoring people without any judgment or justification, he tried to prohibit the use of vpn and created a "fake news" committee where he get to say what is real or not
- I tried searching for sources that back up the claim that the judge created a fake news committee under his control and couldn't find anything.
  Not saying it's false, but do you have a source for that?
  
  You know they dont
  
  Sorry, I think I translated poorly by "fake news committee" i was referring to the "inquérito das fake news".
  This was very controversial even when was born, so you probably will find a lot in Brazilian fonts.
  https://www.cnnbrasil.com.br/politica/entenda-as-controversias-do-inquerito-das-fake-news-relatado-por-moraes-ha-mais-de-5-anos/
- He tried, he can try whatever he wants, it's not him who decide

- Some may have only caught the story insofar as "Twatter refuses to pay fine, is banned in Brazil" is concerned, with the other details left unfilled. The short summary here emphasizes just how much of an unforced error this all was.
  
  You could have included that they're using Cloudflare now to work around the ban.
- You're asking if there are others on Lemmy without your perception and understanding of the world?
  I think this might be a "sit down" talk...
- I picked up about 20% of it because I don't give a shit about Twitter
  
  Or Elon…
- I actually appreciated the summary! I only heard the broad strokes about Brazil banning Xitter.
- I did not know anything about this. The only social media I use is Lemmy (and Facebook Messenger reluctantly) and I avoid the news. I also filter out the word Musk cause I don't give a crap about that piss baby. But this ELI5 was great, always nice to see rich fucks get fucked.
- First time I've heard about any of this.
- What an asinine and worthless comment.
- What kind of question is that? What kind of answer do you want?