As misinformation proliferated on X thanks to verified users, a massive account sharing accurate information hit its Musk-imposed posting limit.

  • TWeaK
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    -2211 months ago

    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.

    • @[email protected]
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      2411 months ago

      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

      • TWeaK
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        -1011 months ago

        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.

    • @[email protected]
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      11 months ago

      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.

      • TWeaK
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        -1111 months ago

        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.

        • @[email protected]
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          11 months 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.