Elon Musk said Saturday "sad truth is that there are no great 'social networks' right now."
  • Engywuck@lemm.ee
    136·
    1 year ago

    Hopefully… So we won’t have this guy mentioned 10 times per day everywhere.

    • Micromot@lemmycook.de
      57·
      1 year ago

      There is a Browser extension called: “Block The Rich”, which blurs every headline and image about a major billionaire so you can avoid them.

      • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
        36·
        1 year ago

        I feel like Musk is >3/4 of all annoying billionaire stuff at this point. When was the last time you even heard a quote from Bernard Arnault?

      • Engywuck@lemm.ee
        10·
        1 year ago

        Well it’s not because of his wealth, is more because Twitter/X news have become really boring.

  • mayooooo@beehaw.org
    128·
    1 year ago

    it’s probably not the best place to say this, but it’s a shame. Twitter had real use and this bastard used his reverse midas touch on it to the detriment of all of us who aren’t nazis. Well I hope his sheik boss lets him suck him off now as a reward

    • Jomn@jlai.lu
      109·
      1 year ago

      Well, my main issue with Twitter is that it is used for official communications, and sometimes is the only medium that is used. To me, official communications should go through platforms that aren’t owned by a private company. This is where Mastodon/Firefish would be great alternatives, since governments or institutions could set up their own servers, while still being part of a wider network.

      • Jimbo@yiffit.net
        23·
        1 year ago

        Yeah, I found it crazy that Twitter was used for official communications (especially from governments) when it started, and still find it crazy now

        • snowbell@beehaw.org
          8·
          1 year ago

          Especially since compared to the total population hardly anyone even uses Twitter. But pretty much everyone has access to a web browser.

        • The dogspaw @midwest.socialEnglish
          4·
          1 year ago

          It was incredibly stupid to use Twitter like that considering your just given a 3rd party sensitive information and they have no incentive to keep that information secret

      • mayooooo@beehaw.org
        17·
        1 year ago

        Hey absolutely, it’s insane having oligarchs control our infrastructure. But even nationalisation is a better option than having these morons.

      • uberrice@feddit.de
        5·
        1 year ago

        See Heise for example, they have their own instance for their news posts. It’s great.

    • fades@beehaw.org
      7·
      1 year ago

      Twitter did have real use and now it doesn’t. Who FUCKING cares???

      What does X do that mastodon doesn’t? There is much mastodon can do that x can’t. Where is the problem, outside of having to use a different url than x.com? People are resilient as are their resistance movements.

      They can survive a platform shift, there is no loss here.

      • X-Insights@mastodon.scot
        6·
        1 year ago

        @fades @MayonnaiseArch I do think that Mastodon is GREAT :D but there’s no harm in wanting multiple platforms for the range of people that there are. Competition drives inovation, and Mastodon has a few things it lacks that others already offer. Not saying everything needs adapted, I like what’s on offer, but there will always be room for growth, and competing and sharing in other platforms growth could be beneficial. Twitter used to do great, and still could but as of now isn’t.

        • Communist@beehaw.org
          8·
          1 year ago

          Competition often does not drive innovation in the software world, quite the opposite, free open source software allows collaboration between many people to better innovate than competition ever could, especially in this particular space.

          • X-Insights@mastodon.scot
            1·
            1 year ago

            @communist yeah open source brings people together to make it better. But better than what? Than the competitions! People would be happy with version 0.5 or something, but constant new technology changes in the industry push to make new and better tools for the open source world no??

            • Communist@beehaw.orgEnglish
              2·
              1 year ago

              No… it can just be better, it doesn’t have to be better than the competition, this is a bizarre assumption you’re making here. We’re talking about a website where you post small snippets of text, there isn’t really much innovation to be done here, and even if there were, open standards that people co-operate on will see faster progress than a bunch of people trying to make the exact same thing separately.

              You seem to believe that it’s impossible to just improve and innovate without competition, but that’s simply not the case.

              • X-Insights@mastodon.scot
                1·
                1 year ago

                @communist I believe it’s possible. But not here yet. And the fact that you aren’t even open to see that there will be a need for improvement over time. And I see a lot more people vocally defending it to the end without seeing any of the arguments - and especially from a code base perspective trust me there’s things that will get left behind until it’s too late unless there are others pushing boundaries

                • Communist@beehaw.orgEnglish
                  1·
                  1 year ago

                  There may be a need for improvement overtime… but that has nothing to do with if competition is helpful.

                  This is free open source software, it’s better to have many people working together on one project than a bunch of projects being worked on separately, for reasons I think are obvious.

                  There isn’t a race to be the king of the fediverse, competition does nothing but make people work separately on something that should be worked on cooperatively, it accomplishes nothing but slowing down development. If we used competition, when a new feature was implemented, now instead of it being implemented for everyone, it’ll be implemented in one particular codebase, and if other people want to implement it, there will be a massive duplication of effort.

                  What does competition in this space actually do for the community? As far as I see it, absolutely nothing at all, except duplicating effort.

              • X-Insights@mastodon.scot
                1·
                1 year ago

                @communist I don’t think it’s impossible, and I personally strive with the software I create to do exactly that and to join open source communities. Just what you are saying is only true if it genuinely was better. And it isn’t, it is great at something things and shit at others. And although it’s still improving it is behind others with many aspects that are getting talked about on the open forums and in the developer networks simply because of a little something called competition.

  • coyotino [he/him]@beehaw.org
    90·
    1 year ago

    “The sad truth is that there are no great ‘social networks’ right now,” he said on X.

    None that he owns, at least…

  • Asor@beehaw.org
    69·
    1 year ago

    And this guy still has millions of fans, as if he was the god of technology. I can’t understand some people.

      • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
        11·
        1 year ago

        We do do it a lot. I’m not sure why, hornyness and tribalism are our other invariants, and those don’t enter into it directly.

    • ConsciousCode@beehaw.org
      10·
      1 year ago

      Cults of personality tie your identity to the target, such that at some point they could literally shoot someone in the streets and it’ll still be excused. To do otherwise would break your ego which most people aren’t willing or prepared to do.

  • Adora 🏳️‍⚧️@beehaw.org
    56·
    1 year ago

    I feel like normally I would share y’all’s view on this and be like “good” but now I can’t help think about how Twitter was a critical space for organizing a lot of resistance movements. Really starting to believe those pieces that were like “Musk bought Twitter to bury it”

    We were all like “he’s not that smart” at the first few articles, but now I’m like, this dude has poisoned the well so utterly - and now he’s getting rid of blocking, apparently? - like, fuck. (And yes organizing on a corpo platform was never going to be truly reliable/safe, but still, esp for folks just getting exposed to activism, this “on ramp” space going to shit really sucks.)

    I know we’ll always find/create new spaces for ourselves, but this is a blow to a lot of networks.

    • fades@beehaw.org
      24·
      1 year ago

      Anything Twitter can do so can mastodon. Resistance movements can move forward without x with little issue. Twitter isn’t and never was special it was simply there at the right time. It’s not anymore and that’s okay because we are not helpless without some shit social media site.

      Power to the people not corps.

    • Krackalot@discuss.tchncs.de
      24·
      1 year ago

      I absolutely believe he intentionally tanked it. Getting funded by the Saudis, though, means that he doesn’t have to be smart to do it. He’s just a puppet. Easy to manipulate, because though he doesn’t need money, he does need attention. Perhaps the easiest kind of manipulation.

      • lazyraccoon@lemmy.ml
        3·
        1 year ago

        I also believed he did it out of personal motivation, but what’s this about Saudis and being a puppet?

          • JDPoZ@beehaw.orgEnglish
            2·
            1 year ago

            There’s less direct things that you could point to as well. Things like “conversations” Musk has admitted to having with Putin.

            Authoritarian country’s leaders can’t do anything directly to Twitter, so why not just finance its downfall indirectly by giving Elon’s other numerous multi-billion-dollar companies favorable contracts or even just easier access to their corrupt economies. Then those leaders can just ask Elon to tank the single largest platform used to whistleblow, organize, and resist said authoritarian leaders?

            Any time critics claim a conspiracy, there’s plenty to just point to of Elon doing stupid shit. There’s no way you can easily point out the difference between stupidity and malice, and most will assume stupidity… so why not take advantage?

            Tinfoil hat for sure, but not completely absurd, right?

    • MiddledAgedGuy@beehaw.org
      1·
      1 year ago

      I think this is a valuable point.

      I saw the headline and thought “and nothing of value was lost”. But reading this was a privilege check. I’ve never needed Twitter or anything else to help resist because my way of life isn’t really being challenged.

      I think it’s a lesson as you point out. Don’t trust corporations. And I would add don’t trust centralized platforms either. But decentralization is a two edged sword. You’re protected from a single entity’s agenda, but the dispersed nature of a decentralized platform will make it more difficult to come together for a cause.

      Edit: spelling

  • Moonrise2473@feddit.it
    20·
    1 year ago

    He ordered some h1-b slave to turn off the server with the database of all the url shortened until 2014. How much money this move can save? $500 per year? How many gigabytes a database with all the URLs shared in 3 years can be?

  • ulkesh@beehaw.org
    13·
    1 year ago

    I sure hope it fails. I hope he becomes poor and destitute. I hope his sycophants wake up from their self-delusion about him and he is effectively lost to time. He is a useless, waste of existence.

  • Pixel@lemmy.sdf.org
    9·
    1 year ago

    I think rebranding Twitter as x was pretty stupid. I wouldn’t have minded it if x was like a parent app and it was “Twitter by X” or something. But now they’re just alienating their users.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldBEnglish
    7·
    1 year ago

    🤖 I’m a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles:

    Click here to see the summary

    Meta launched its X rival called Threads on July 5 and quickly amassed more than 100 million signups, Time magazine reported, citing data from Sensor Tower.

    Musk’s efforts to purge the platform of bots and turn it into a “super-app” don’t yet appear to be working.

    Activist Monica Lewinsky urged him and CEO Linda Yaccarino to “rethink” the move.

    as an anti-bullying activist (and target of harassment) i can assure you it’s a critical tool to keep people safe online.- that woman

    as an anti-bullying activist (and target of harassment) i can assure you it’s a critical tool to keep people safe online.

    In May Fidelity wrote down the value of its stake in the company then still known as Twitter, giving it a value of about $15 billion – or just a third of what Musk paid, The Wall Street Journal Reported.X didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider, made outside normal working hours.

    Saved 52% of original text.