Elon Musk buys and ruins Twitter

[grunge]

This isn't because of standards at all. This is outright criminal behaviour. There is no standard which allows you to commit libel or hack sombody's phone.

They did these things because that's what the media does because the media is driven by profit. The media does not exist to report fact-checked news according to some standard or regulatory code, it's utter nonsense. How much bollocks have they spouted and written about city over the years?

If we're worried about criminal behaviour on X then how come hundreds of people were put in prison recently for saying bad things on X and rioting as a result of it? What are we seriously worried about other than a rise of politics that we dislike on a platform that is run by a guy that we dislike?

Criminal behaviour can be actioned if it’s posted in the country that takes the action. Twitter can be full of the same comments from elsewhere and nothing can be done.

I know a 14 year old who killed herself due to online abuse and the police couldn’t do anything as the offending account wasn’t in the Uk.

So it can be full of illegal content and nothing can be done bar blocking the whole thing.

 

[meltonblue]

Seeing Musk increasingly commenting on British politics and the accounts he’s promoting in doing so is enough for me. Shame, used to like Twitter over any other platform.

 

[FogBlueInSanFran]

So what you're saying is that the real problem of this new media is the lack of control? Hmm. Does that not worry you because who should be in control of the opinion of a population? If I decide to say something on X then are you saying that I should be fact-checked? Why isn't this forum held to the same standards because isn't it the same thing?

These level of standards actually don't apply to the media either and you're wrong on that. You mention fact-checking, quality and tone but the media has never operated on that basis. For a start there have been hundreds of successful criminal prosecutions against the media in the UK to tackle illegal phone hacking, lies, libels, deceptions and press intrusions..... You name it, they've done it.

The closest thing we have to a fact-checked neutral outlet in the UK is the BBC but barely anybody digests their news from the BBC alone. They don't do that because the BBC is neutral and people do not want neutrality which is why both the left and right hate the BBC. The BBC however isn't immune either and is itself littered with controversy and horrific criminal legacies such as with Jimmy Savile.

X however resolves all of this because at the end of the day those standards don't need to apply because they don't matter because you're talking to a person. As in real life you have a choice to ignore that person, call them batshit crazy, or whatever you want. It's absolutely no different to this forum except the audience is on a very different scale and that's probably the real problem.

There is a difference between a news story and an editorial. And then what news stories and editorials are included in a collection. There is also a knowledge and contact base and capital required to pursue truth, along with time. That’s why old school media outlets are inherently more trustworthy. That’s said — new media also brings immediacy, so being informed of an event is far easier via new media. But the explanation as to cause and effect of said event are better left to old media; I.e. experts trained in the field; I.e. reporters and editors.

It doesn’t mean old media can’t make mistakes and be biased. But like so much of the world today, one mistake is cause for “can’t trust it” because one mistake can spread so rapidly. As my old man said “Todays news story is tomorrow’s bird cage liner” — he meant it as a “be a goldfish” lesson but in practical terms it means reputations live on and conclusions are reached more quickly today than in the past — in part because we are inundated with so much more information we have to reach faster conclusions to consume it.

As I have said in threads like this countless times previously, I recogniz(s)e I come at this question as a Yank where our core “average” news set was for a long time probably higher quality than the average Brit set (though I am not wed to this view), and where the best Brit media outshines the best Yank media, and as a former member of the media and as a person who speaks with the media on a weekly basis in my job. So I am biased for sure.

For me Twitter/X will never replace the Economist. And in fact as of last week, it won’t even supplement it — X is gone from my life for good. And while I miss some things, I have found life surprisingly easy to live without it.

 

[Postman Pep]

Super hi IQ people who are willing to work 80 hours a week and pay for Twitter. I suppose if you are a committed "small government revolutionary" it's a calling ...

 

[BlueHammer85]

 

[inbetween]

At what point do you draw the line? Moderation isn’t just fact checking.

Online bullying? Openly Racist posts not getting deleted? Someone calling someone a pedo and not getting moderated even when proof is supplied ( happened to Richard Coles ), sexual abuse videos not getting removed when reported? Snuff videos? Torture videos? Without moderation of these things Twitter is a cesspool, it’s like 90’s 4chan on steroids.

But again those things aren't exactly open to moderation because they're criminal issues and they should be dealt with criminally. We've seen that happen over the last few months where many people have gone to prison for the things they have said. So actually there is regulation and there are standards because people can be held responsible for what they post.

Some of the things you mention really are a criticism of social media generally where a greater conversation is needed but nobody wanted those conversations about Twitter 2 years ago so why now? The other social media companies aren't innocent and should surely face the same scrutiny too?

Facebook literally sold your data without your knowledge to political entities so that they could target you at elections. Social media famously contributed massively to major political events such as Brexit and Trump, X didn't even exist for those two.

The only thing that troubles me about X is not the content because I can ignore that. What I worry about with X is that it's not run for the typical reasons. Musk is the richest man in the world several times over so clearly X is something else to him except money. I think he literally wants to replace all media in favour of the chaos of popular opinion and commentary. The biggest threat to that idea and therefore the entire idea of X is of course regulation.