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Category: Social media

Elon Musk, no longer Twitter’s largest shareholder, demonstrates how little he gets about content moderation

Elon Musk, no longer Twitter’s largest shareholder, demonstrates how little he gets about content moderation

The Wall Street Journal reports: While Elon Musk is trying to buy Twitter Inc., he’s no longer the company’s largest shareholder. Funds held by Vanguard Group recently upped their stake in the social-media platform, making the asset manager Twitter’s largest shareholder and bumping Mr. Musk out of the top spot. Vanguard disclosed on April 8 that it now owns 82.4 million shares of Twitter, or 10.3% of the company, according to the most recent publicly available filings with the U.S….

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Can Elon Musk actually buy Twitter?

Can Elon Musk actually buy Twitter?

The Wall Street Journal reports: The richest man in the world should be able to buy anything he wants. But Elon Musk’s $43 billion bid for Twitter Inc. looks like a long shot. Shareholders aren’t rallying behind him. The board is preparing to throw up roadblocks. And it isn’t clear that Mr. Musk, despite his vast fortune, can come up with the money. Like everything with the Tesla chief executive, crypto enthusiast and Twitter troll, Mr. Musk’s $54.20-a-share offer flouts…

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How social media undermines democracy by promoting dishonesty and mob dynamics

How social media undermines democracy by promoting dishonesty and mob dynamics

Jonathan Haidt writes: Social media has given voice to some people who had little previously, and it has made it easier to hold powerful people accountable for their misdeeds, not just in politics but in business, the arts, academia, and elsewhere. Sexual harassers could have been called out in anonymous blog posts before Twitter, but it’s hard to imagine that the #MeToo movement would have been nearly so successful without the viral enhancement that the major platforms offered. However, the…

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Elon Musk’s vision for the internet is dangerous nonsense

Elon Musk’s vision for the internet is dangerous nonsense

Robert Reich writes: The Russian people know little about Putin’s war on Ukraine because Putin has blocked their access to the truth, substituting propaganda and lies. Years ago, pundits assumed the internet would open a new era of democracy, giving everyone access to the truth. But dictators like Putin and demagogues like Trump have demonstrated how naive that assumption was. At least the US responded to Trump’s lies. Trump had 88 million Twitter followers before Twitter took him off its…

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Journalism’s Twitter problem is the journalists

Journalism’s Twitter problem is the journalists

Choire Sicha writes: Today, New York Times honcho Dean Baquet ordered a company-wide “reset” in how his staff should think about Twitter. Mostly, he’d like them to never look at it again. You can see why. Most of the people who work for him are very bad at being on Twitter, and their tweets truly are just not good. And then their bosses are so obsessed with Twitter too, and on edge about it. A cycle of humiliation ensues. They…

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Elon Musk’s arrival stirs fears among some Twitter employees

Elon Musk’s arrival stirs fears among some Twitter employees

Reuters reports: News of Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk taking a board seat at Twitter has some Twitter employees panicking over the future of the social media firm’s ability to moderate content, company insiders told Reuters. Within hours of the surprise disclosure this week that Musk, a self-described “free speech absolutist,” acquired enough shares to become the top Twitter shareholder, political conservatives began flooding social media with calls for the return of Donald Trump. The former U.S. president was banned…

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The viral ‘Ukrainian biolab’ conspiracy theory hatched in rural Virginia

The viral ‘Ukrainian biolab’ conspiracy theory hatched in rural Virginia

Update: On Tuesday, April 5, 2022, Creech appeared on the Alex Jones Show, where he confirmed his identity — and his role in perpetrating the biolab conspiracy theory. The ADL Center on Extremism has, with a high degree of confidence, identified “Clandestine,” the man behind the viral biolab conspiracy theory, as Jacob Creech, a self-described former restaurant manager and Army National Guard veteran living in rural Virginia. The discovery highlights how a fringe QAnon figure, harnessing the power of social…

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Elon Musk’s Twitter investment might be bad news for free speech

Elon Musk’s Twitter investment might be bad news for free speech

Timothy L. O’Brien writes: Elon Musk just bought a $3 billion stake in Twitter Inc., because when you’re the world’s richest human you can toss billions around like poker chips. This may be just another piece of performance art from Musk, who has alternately endorsed and pooh-poohed Bitcoin to great effect. He’s also taken to Twitter to hype altcoins such as Dogecoin and Shiba Inu, while simultaneously warning followers: “Don’t bet the farm on crypto!” “True value is building products…

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Truth Social loses it ‘brains’ and Trump loses interest

Truth Social loses it ‘brains’ and Trump loses interest

Reuters reports: The two Southern tech entrepreneurs had the two qualities that Donald Trump’s Truth Social startup needed: tech-industry expertise and a politically conservative worldview aligned with the former president, a rare combination in the liberal-leaning industry centered in San Francisco. Josh Adams and Billy Boozer – the company’s chiefs of technology and product development – joined the venture last year and quickly became central players in its bid to build a social-media empire, backed by Trump’s powerful brand, to…

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Trump’s Truth Social app plummets in traffic, sees 93% drop in signups since launch week

Trump’s Truth Social app plummets in traffic, sees 93% drop in signups since launch week

Yahoo reports: Former president Donald Trump’s Truth Social app is seeing a 93% drop in signups and similarly steep decline in traffic after a rocky rollout last month fraught with technical issues and an extensive waiting list for new signups to actually use the service. After going live on President’s Day, the Twitter-lookalike app saw installs decline by more than 800,000 since its launch week, according to Sensor Tower. Installs on the Apple app store this month have fallen to…

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How Russia’s disinformation apparatus ran aground in Ukraine

How Russia’s disinformation apparatus ran aground in Ukraine

Muhammad Idrees Ahmad writes: Unlike in Syria, Russian disinformation in Ukraine has so far failed to gain traction. Some of the reasons are specific to Ukraine: Russia’s aggression is too blatant to be covered up by propaganda; Ukraine’s long exposure to Russian disinformation has left it in a heightened state of preparedness; and, most significantly, the effectiveness of Ukrainian messaging and the character of the messenger. Volodymyr Zelenskyy earned extraordinary legitimacy in Ukraine and around the world by standing his…

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Contrarians aren’t critical thinkers

Contrarians aren’t critical thinkers

David French writes: I want to share with you two remarkably similar numbers. At first glance, they should have nothing to do with each other. On closer examination, they’re inextricably linked. The first number is 57. That’s the percentage of Republicans who told Yahoo News/YouGov pollsters that the United States should take Ukraine’s side as it defends itself against Russian invasion (28 percent said the U.S. should back neither, and 5 percent said we should back Russia). By contrast, 76…

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Russia and QAnon have the same false conspiracy theory about Ukraine

Russia and QAnon have the same false conspiracy theory about Ukraine

Donie O’Sullivan writes: A new conspiracy theory has become popular among some of the online communities that formed around QAnon — one simultaneously being promoted by the Kremlin as a justification for its invasion of Ukraine. The false claim: the United States is developing bioweapons in Ukraine and Vladimir Putin has stepped in to save the day and destroy the weapons. QAnon’s core prophecy has always been that there is a “plan” and that former President Donald Trump will rid…

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Why Zelenskyy’s ‘selfie videos’ are helping Ukraine win the PR war against Russia

Why Zelenskyy’s ‘selfie videos’ are helping Ukraine win the PR war against Russia

Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s iPhone selfies quickly went viral. Still of YouTube video By Anjana Susarla, Michigan State University It seems straight out of an action movie: As the capital city becomes a war zone, the defiant president looks into the camera and delivers a clear and compelling message: “I am here. We will not lay down any weapons.” That’s exactly what Ukrainian President and onetime actor Volodymyr Zelenskyy did on Feb. 25, 2022, in a selfie-style video viewed 3 million times…

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A letter to the Western Left from Kyiv

A letter to the Western Left from Kyiv

Taras Bilous writes: I am writing these lines in Kyiv while it is under artillery attack. Until the last minute, I had hoped that Russian troops wouldn’t launch a full-scale invasion. Now, I can only thank those who leaked the information to the US intelligence services. Yesterday, I spent half the day considering whether I ought to join a territorial defence unit. During the night that followed, the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyi signed a full mobilisation order and Russian troops…

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How an obscure far-right website with three employees dominates Facebook in 2022

How an obscure far-right website with three employees dominates Facebook in 2022

Judd Legum reports: Most people have probably never heard of the website Conservative Brief. It employs just three writers and it does not produce any original reporting. Nearly all of its articles are aggregations of Tweets, YouTube videos, or other media websites, presented with a far-right spin. Recent headlines include “More Damning Evidence Surfaces Against Hillary Clinton in Durham Probe,” and “Trump Gives Love To Mike Lindell, Showers Him With Praise For The Good He Has Done.” Conservative Brief has…

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