Were it not for Twitter blocking Substack links I likely never would have heard of Notes[1], and I'm even someone that knows about/likes Substack. This feels like another weird own goal by Elon/Twitter that's giving quite a bit more amplification to a competitive product than if they'd done nothing[2].
Oh my god, anyone encountering this thread, for the sake of your mental health do not open that link and scroll the replies.
I got immediate flashbacks to 00s youtube comments and closed the tab, I feel like it's not enough, like I should shut down my computer and spend three days hiking the mountains to detox from that.
No clue if that's the norm across twitter these days but oh golly.
You'll find subsections of anything on any platform. This is a famous controversial person writing about a controversial topic. It will bring the worst of the worst. Even this site goes crazy whenever there's a thread on Twitter or Musk. Although more tame since here's an actual mod.
As I stated, you'll still find low quality content and comments on HN with name calling and terrible takes when a thread is slightly political. It's not a platform issue. It's a popularity and subject issue.
Allow 10 friends to talk about flowers and it will go great. Invite 1 million strangers to talk about politics and it will degrade within minutes. The issue there isn't solved through subjective moderation.
- Other than people laughing at Matt for being a bootlicker (Elon provided sources, nothing more or less)?
- Other than people missing the point in comical fashion (haha you got punished for being loyal, which are two independent things)?
- Other than general toxicity?
Yeah, it's completely normal for Twitter in same way high energy radiation is completely normal in Sun's corona. This sort of talk between people is however extremely abnormal and I doubt would happen that much in actual life.
But isn’t that a problem as old as at least internet? Some people tend to project their biases, insecurities and vitriol only as far as they won’t get hit in a face by a brick. What I find weird (and I agree with you) is that some people feel the urge or even need to do that in the first place. I mean, why would you hate somebody on internet if you could go for a walk or drink good wine with friends? That’s a whole another question though...
There are people paying bounties to farms to harass journalists and outspoken private citizens on twitter. They get paid if they can get the target to reply or block.
Additionally, David Brock moved from creating the vast right-wing conspiracies against the Clintons in the 90s to managing a huge budget for managing an organization of online trolls from 2016, to becoming an established part of the Democratic Party contractor pool also being used by the Biden admin. This involves a lot of fake accounts; most are silent retweeting accounts that exist to upvote any belligerent harassment of official enemies, usually slyly amplifying real accounts instead of leading from the front.
Lastly, intelligence agencies have invested billions and created entire new departments in order to monitor and manipulate social media by any means necessary. They have direct lines to all major social media companies, with the apparent current exception of twitter.
Introduced into the middle of all of this are LLMs, which are starting to make it very easy to fake accounts that reply in a vaguely relevant way (although they answer like LLMs, failing if the tweets they're replying to are too oblique and require context that everybody knows.) Still dominant are the endless fake replies from fake accounts that don't reference the tweets they're replying to at all, but just repeat from a list of four or five insults for years on end.
00s youtube comments were 1000x better. This is the actual rise of the Dead Internet.
This seems like the last straw for Taibbi. Musk hasn't had an effect on the harassment problem (and doesn't seem to have a plan) and now is making it harder for him to promote his own outlet. He doesn't need Twitter for visibility. I find it nuts that Musk didn't try to clear this decision with the journalists that he's been publicly associated with through the Twitter Files. Them turning on him would have an outsized effect on Musk's situation and none of them have any particular loyalty to him; they're not on his payroll.
edit: all that being said, I could see the Substack contingent turning on Musk, then him immediately announcing that he's hired a new twitter CEO, and eventually an announcement about one of Musk's business having very good luck with a regulation, a decision on the violation a regulation, and/or a new government contract/partnership.
So petty and counterproductive. I would have missed the whole Substack Notes announcement if it wasn't for Matt Taibbi (and for Twitter hostile approach).
Matt did a great job with the Twitter files, he has integrity and he's "incorruptible" whereas Elon is a petty tyrant who goes nuclear for the slightest disagreements, so I honestly wouldn't be surprised if this will end up with Matt's account removed.
He really doesn't. He's been a hack the entire time. I hated his writing when he was a liberal darling as well; he whips up readers emotions with sensation but holds back contextual information that would allow them to easily get up to speed on the issue in question. It's a commercially popular form of journalism, but not a good one.
As of today (or yesterday?) if a tweet includes a link to a substack.com URL the tweet cannot be liked, retweeted or replied to. Likes will appear to work and then disappear. They can still be "quote tweeted".
It's pretty funny because the individuals that Musk hand picked to give the "Twitter files" to all use Substack. They all embarrassed themselves by stretching what was mostly nothing into a huge story seemingly on his behalf before he turned his back on them.
What’s wrong with the Russian government having a voice? They represent millions of people. The ease with which our media just duped our whole country into hating Russia and supporting this war is very scary.
Just off the top of my head: Russia invaded a country in 2008. Then in 2014. They have poisoned multiple people in England over the same time frame. Then, of course, a big invasion last year.
Is it being "duped" to not like that pattern?
[Someone will likely say "the US has invaded countries too" and... yes... would you say someone in those parts of the world who doesn't like the US was just duped by their media?]
> [Someone will likely say "the US has invaded countries too" and... yes... would you say someone in those parts of the world who doesn't like the US was just duped by their media?]
No, I would ask why you don't think it's important to censor US content from world media as a response to the huge number of US invasions, or in response to the fact that we're occupying Syria right now.
Nah, it's that I don't think it's important to censor US content from US media. I think assuming Twitter is "world media" - or that there's such a thing at all - is naive. Even if Twitter wants to be "world media" instead of "US media" they wouldn't win that battle if push came to shove; and someone not in the US should probably be well aware of both the number of people with US interests making decisions at Twitter and whatever local additional restrictions are in place.
US content is already censored from a lot of other country media, which I think is understandable.
Personalizing Russia into a single Dr. Evil figure when that figure has overwhelming popular support in Russia is a propaganda tactic, not something that reasonable people should fall for.
In recent years, political scientists have been starting to talk about "electoral authoritarian regimes" — how dictators make use of some amount of popular support, media, and other tools to stay in power.
I'm no expert, but I find this an interesting line of thought. It feels like a way to more fully understand the specific dynamics of how someone like Putin stays in power in Russia — rather than just calling Putin a dictator.
(Don't get me wrong. I believe in the values of the modern "free world" order that is led by the US, even if it's imperfect. Just want to also better understand how the opponents also think and operate.)
Did you sleep through the Cold War? Haven’t these guys been the enemy since shortly after World War Two? Where did you get the idea that being opposed to Russia happened recently?
The real question is how the insurrectionists think that this line of logic isn’t ridiculous.
> Something about smirking Ronnie helping Yeltsin transition to “democracy”
Reagan’s term didn’t overlap with Yeltsin’s term at the helm of either the Russian Federation or the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic, so I think your memory is confused.
It's like what they did to Robespierre, Danton, et al. in the French Revolution.
It is too bad that they brought back the tweety bird because I was about to make a sticker using the Doge and other symbolism intended to trigger the opsonization of macroscopic objects.
Just like the AI is not your friend, neither is Musk. Look how he did a reversal on Bitcoin, Doge. People who bought Doge coin a few days ago are down 13%. He pumped BTC in 2021 and Tesla dumped its position in 2022 at a small loss, but BTC investors who heeded Tesla were at one point down over 50%. You cannot trust that these people are looking out for your interests. It's all business in the end. You have to assume that these people are only looking after themselves, in the end.
… or a whole bunch of very surprised fascists in the Nazi “Night of the Long Knives.”
… or almost everyone in Pol Pot’s Cambodia.
Yes, the leopards will eat your face too. The loyalty in totalitarian societies only goes up the chain of command. Everyone down the chain is expendable.
The leopards are going to eat Elon’s face in the end. Just wait. Someone should tell him his new friends hate EVs and renewable energy and don’t give a damn about space.
Same for Peter Thiel. He’s gay, which means they think he’s a degenerate subhuman. They’re happy to take his money but if they gain power he’s gonna be cat food.
> He’s gay, which means they think he’s a degenerate subhuman.
In a thread about Taibbi and Musk, you're the one associating gay people that you disapprove of with the phrase "degenerate subhuman." I'm quoting you, and you're not quoting anyone.
Uhh no that’s not what I said. I’m pointing out the obvious, that a lot of the people Thiel funds would look down on him for being gay if he wasn’t paying them.
It’s really stupidly obvious. They go hard anti-gay as soon as they are talking to their base.
I have a new hobby - when I spot a reasoning error, I feed the relevant part of a discussion to GPT-4 to see if it is able to detect that error.
Here is what GPT-4 says about this thread: Person 2 seems to have misunderstood Person 1's statement. Person 1 was suggesting that those who support Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, specifically the people who have totalitarian tendencies, would consider Peter Thiel as a "degenerate subhuman" due to his sexual orientation. Person 1 was not expressing their own opinion about gay people...
Interesting, right? One of my dreams is that I will soon have an AI detector for flawed reasoning (of others as well as my own).
Yeah, but that makes massive sense with Robespierre. He was paranoid and bloodthirsty, if I was there and in any way opponent, I would want him dead before he kills me.
It seems that most of MSM accepted Iraq WMD story as true based on CIA/MI5/TLA "proof" (a glass canister in a string of pearl configuration holding the deadly gas, which seems to be an informant ripping off Michael Bay's The Rock). And rather than accepting an L and correcting it, they doubled down on TLA sources. Now, you have former intelligence members serving as sources, journalists, anchors, etc. I'm sure that they will be skeptical of their previous work, right? Right?!
I don't see how Substack notes replaces the Twitter need, isn't the idea that you post on Twitter to drive traffic to your Substack? It seems like you already have to be subscribed to see someone's notes feed?
Unblocking Trump/Shitty-right-winger-apps - Bad Elon!
Exposing covert US Government manipulation of public Discourse - Bad Elon!
Allowing Taliban/Aytollahs on twitter pre-Elon - ?
Are we pro blocking things or against guys? What should the criteria be? Personally, I am chaotic neutral. Don't know the answer.
I've always made the point when the canceling and blocking craze started that eventually the shoe will be on the other foot and history strongly suggests that regardless of your politics and end goals you will inevitably regret setting such precedents. If blocking Substack is bad it must mean blocking anything is bad regardless if it is left/right. Please convince me otherwise without resorting to kindergarten insults and shade throwing.
[1] https://on.substack.com/p/introducing-notes
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect