Current Affairs Elon Musk
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TechScape: Elon Musk’s poll own goal proves he can’t get out of his own way
In this week’s newsletter: Musk has a talent for trying to wiggle out of trouble on Twitter, only to land deeper in it – this time by asking users if he should quit as chief executive
On Thursday, Musk banned the @ElonJet account, claiming to be spooked by a (now reportedly unrelated) altercation with a man who was stalking his ex-wife. Shortly after the account was blocked, a new set of rules were imposed banning the sharing of “real-time location” of individuals. On the face of it, the rule would block people livetweeting football matches or pop concerts, but don’t think about it too much: the rule was imposed to ban the account, not the other way round.
On Friday, Musk suspended the accounts of a number of journalists who had reported on his move. Defending his decision as enforcing a policy against those who shared “assassination coordinates”, he tried to turn a fight over free speech into a fight over whether or not “real-time doxxing” was allowed on the site. The journalists had not engaged in real-time doxxing, with most doing nothing more than linking to other versions of the ElonJet account, which now has mirrors on Instagram and Mastodon, but again: don’t worry too much. It is not a coincidence that the bans hit journalists who were critical of Musk.
On Saturday, Musk suspended the account of Taylor Lorenz, a reporter at the Washington Post who had sent him a request for comment on the site. At the time she was suspended, she had three tweets live on her profile: the request for comment, and a pair linking out to her accounts on other sites. According to Musk, the suspension was for “prior doxxing action”: breaking a rule that hadn’t existed when she broke it, with tweets that were no longer live on the site. Mornington Crescent! (For American readers, the preceding pop cultural reference can be replaced with “Calvinball” to aid transatlantic comprehension.)
On Sunday, Musk reinstated her account, before immediately banning her permanently, for breaking another newly created rule: a ban on any promotion of accounts on other social networks, a policy apparently instated in a hurry over the weekend in an attempt to stem the flow of users leaving the social network for sites not run at the whim of a vengeful billionaire.
And then on Monday, that rule was reversed again. Lorenz’s “permanent” ban was undone, the account promotion rule was stripped back, and the tweets announcing it, from Twitter’s official safety account, were deleted it. But even if the ban is overturned, a site-wide block on linking to Mastodon remains. There’s no longer any obvious rule that those links break, and other links, to social networks including Instagram and Facebook, work just fine. But, and you will forgive me if the refrain is getting old, the rules don’t matter: Twitter is the Elon Musk site now.
Tesla investors getting really sick of his excuses
I know im very small minded, but ive noticed a change in myself, I used to see Teslas and think "Nice car", now I see them and think "The person driving is a bellend".
As I say, im very petty.
As I say, im very petty.
Saw someone refer to it as “MAGA hat in car form”.
Utterly bizarre business decision to make your product toxic to your primary customers.
Incredible implosion. Really enjoying it.
EFCthechosenone
Player Valuation: £500k
Am sure this is going to reassure the Tesla investors that he is laser focused on stopping the stock nosedive!
Lobster Johnson
Player Valuation: £35m
I'm, like, 5 years ahead of you.
One would think this South African-born Canadian-American would support this initiative as Canadians are routinely upset about "americans = USA citizens" as a stand-in for "North America." But he's an absolute dumbass attention-seeker who prioritizes answering "Mad Libs 434" on twitter versus caring about his Tesla stock. I hope he continues this twitter nonsense for a long while.
The end is nigh....sigh.
"I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job! After that, I will just run the software & servers teams"
It's been wonderful entertainment the past month or two. Unless you were sacked or or banned from the site, like.
"I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job! After that, I will just run the software & servers teams"
It's been wonderful entertainment the past month or two. Unless you were sacked or or banned from the site, like.
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