Elon Musk modified the timeline to ensure his tweets came up first. Musk Response. UPDATE with Data to prove it.

[StDragon]

Many of you don't realize this, but Elon is living in your head rent free. Just don't use the platform . He's a troll king, and Twitter is his kingdom.

Maybe if Twitter was actually profitable, they wouldn't have sold in the first place. Just a thought.

[Uttamattamakin]

2 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Your conclusion and the articles conclusion is that he's doing it essentially because he's just petty, when there is actual evidence showing that they were working on engagements prior to the so call "incident" that lead to the recent change.

They have insider sources that say so and they trust them and are credible.  Insiders in companies like this tend to get media contacts.  Either they contact the media or the media works the beat, talks to people related to a situation etc.  I've done it on various science related issues in my life as a science news blogger.  This is how all news you read gets done.  IF new information arises that contradicts this or Twitter comments I will update this thread.  That's all that one can ask for.  

My god do you question all the news written here or just when I do it? 

 

[Uttamattamakin]

40 minutes ago, StDragon said:

Many of you don't realize this, but Elon is living in your head rent free. Just don't use the platform . He's a troll king, and Twitter is his kingdom.

Maybe if Twitter was actually profitable, they wouldn't have sold in the first place. Just a thought.

I use it mostly in my non LTT life it's a way to get information on my POV of things out there. This is also an interesting story about a rich baby. 

[Kisai]

12 hours ago, 05032-Mendicant-Bias said:

Well, our society allows people like Rupert Murdoch to own a sizable percentage of the news industry.

And Musk did have to clear regulatory hurdles before Twitter's acquisition.
The due process was followed.
 

We can debate if ownership of media outlets should be allowed to be this concentrated in the hands of billionares, if Mr Musk should receive scrutiny for mischaracterizing his purchase and mission to such an extent, or if social media are too important not to become public services.

 

Social media should be treated as micro-journalism and held to the same standard as journalists, albeit given a wider berth to correct and retract statements. And it has to be said that "Fox News" is not a news channel. It's classifies itself as entertainment (nearly everything aired on Fox news is opinion. Right or Wrong. And that is repeated by a documentary on Rupert Murdoch, that Fox News was designed around op-ed because that was cheap.) That's the effectively the same as Twitter. There might be 2% of posts actually reflect news, and everything else is opinion or fluff.

 

Media consolidation of entertainment is considered different from consolidation of other news outlets. So some rich idiot owning entertainment is seen as "meh", while a different rich idiot owning all the influential newspapers (which is the case in both the US and Canada) is a cause for alarm, but nothing is done about it. There is something clearly, politically, wrong when a foreign billionaire owns your news.

 

You might say Musk owning Twitter is the same a Murdoch owning Fox News, or Bezos owning Washington Post, or Bloomberg owning Bloomberg.  Or any other billionaire owning a news channel or cable network https://www.forbes.com/sites/katevinton/2016/06/01/these-15-billionaires-own-americas-news-media-companies , owning a sports team is out, owning a news channel is in. If you're rich, you gotta own one.

 

Now here's where I think twitter might be in for a reckoning. Because Twitter also is a news publisher (eg news sites post TO twitter themselves) if Musk is making his tweets appear above real journalists to serve his ego, then it devalues the website greatly. Already removing the chronological feed destroyed any ability to follow news as it happens, and making the default "For you", that nobody asked for just to make his tweets more visible... like pretty much everyone on the twitter I see is either blocking Musk, and/or every ad Musk appears in. He's sorely underestimated who his fans are.

 

 

[Uttamattamakin]

Just now, Kisai said:

Now here's where I think twitter might be in for a reckoning. Because Twitter also is a news publisher (eg news sites post TO twitter themselves) if Musk is making his tweets appear above real journalists to serve his ego, then it devalues the website greatly. Already removing the chronological feed destroyed any ability to follow news as it happens, and making the default "For you", that nobody asked for just to make his tweets more visible... like pretty much everyone on the twitter I see is either blocking Musk, and/or every ad Musk appears in. He's sorely underestimated who his fans are.

This I agree with.  In fact I hate this about most social medias.  Even if  it is just personal friends on Facebook.  I hate it when I'll see a big update two days later for the first time or see nothing from them for a while unless I go look.  All because an algorithm decided I don't really want to hear from them.  

As for Twitter itself being treated like journalism of a sort.  I'd say yes.  Quite a few news reporters will live tweet an event then write a story about it, or Tweet out about any breaking news items that they come across.  At the same time people just have to understand that tweets, live tweets are not editorially vetted at all and that it is a place for evolving news and casually kicking around ideas mostly for funsies.   You know don't take it tooooo seriously. 

[wanderingfool2]

6 hours ago, Uttamattamakin said:

They have insider sources that say so and they trust them and are credible.  Insiders in companies like this tend to get media contacts.  Either they contact the media or the media works the beat, talks to people related to a situation etc.  I've done it on various science related issues in my life as a science news blogger.  This is how all news you read gets done.  IF new information arises that contradicts this or Twitter comments I will update this thread.  That's all that one can ask for.  

My god do you question all the news written here or just when I do it? 

 

News isn't meant to be read and treated as though what they are saying is fact.  A lot of "news" is simply created where "facts" are omitted or presented in deceiving ways.  The other times you posted and I responded to is exactly like that (presenting facts that don't tell the whole story).

 

Again, I posted 4 articles that all spat out the same thing (and never bothered to update their article when it was clear that lies were told).

 

The simple fact is that there was a problem with engagements, which again was clear from the Feb 1 stuff.  It's an ASSUMPTION, not a fact that the recent spike was caused because of the superbowl tweet and an ASSUMPTION that it's an ego thing...instead of actual concern that the engagement is broken.

 

If I follow someone I want to see what they are tweeting, not what the algorithm decides which posts I want to see...if someone tweets out something and only a small fraction sees the tweets it's a problem.  That's the whole reason the Feb 1 thing got started, and likely has lead to the experimentation.  If an account with 6x the amount of followers gets less impressions on a tweet when tweeting about the same thing then yes, that does show that there is a big issue with how the engagement is being done; and does warrant a look into.

 

Again, it's making an ASSUPTION, while ignoring everything that seem to counter it.  So let's point out again things that counter it

1) KNOWN FACT: Privating your account increased impressions (Feb 1) [in some cases 5x] and notifications to followers started working.  With Musk privating his account for a day to verify the results.  This alone really shows that they were looking into it before

2) MUSK TWEET: Feb 11 (so prior to the SuperBowl), statement that the fanout service was bogged down when Musk tweeted resulting in 90% of tweets not even being displayed (so likely issue with scale).  Talks about how block count (blocking accounts) are used when determining recommended instead of block %

3) MUSK TWEET: Feb 12 PRE SuperBowl...talked about tracking "dropped tweets" (so likely something from fanout service again)

4) Based on Musk's tweets, he deleted his entire blocked list (The tweet came from Feb 13)...see point 2

 

So yea, all the SuperBowl thing likely did was show that there was still a problem.

 

  

14 hours ago, Sauron said:

Then why isn't Biden blowing up people's timelines in the same way?

See point 2 and point 4.  A tweet about block count being used (instead of block % based on followers), and then sometimes recently him deleting his entire block list.  The likely hood is that he is testing on his account (and maybe the block-list count was used in more than a few places)

[Sauron]

14 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Ignore the last bit why don't you, regarding that it could be changes to see what it should look like.

That's nonsensical, if you test a huge visibility boost on a single account then you can't see what would actually happen with all accounts having that boost... how are you going to gauge whether the engagement is better if only one person's tweets are being broadcast to everyone? And you're saying this in contrast to ostensibly researched journalism with insider sources while you're running on pure guesswork and wishful thinking.

11 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

If you want a perfect example, look at the following stories from an April 17 crash (which NHTSA confirmed autopilot was NOT active, and after the accident Tesla stated it wasn't active...yet "anonymous sources", eye witness accounts confirmed it was active)

I can't believe you're comparing random bystander accounts to the testimony of a twitter insider.

[Arika]

i see the "their platform their rules" argument only comes with a "but..." when it's being applied to someone people don't like.

 

i don't see how this is any different than the 5 billion other promoted tweets i've seen in the past.

[Sauron]

Just now, Arika S said:

i see the "their platform their rules" argument only comes with a "but..." when it's being applied to someone people don't like.

I don't think anyone is arguing this is illegal or that Musk can't do this...? It's just stupid, petty and a display of incompetence.

[Arika]

1 minute ago, Sauron said:

I don't think anyone is arguing this is illegal or that Musk can't do this...?

 

except that argument very rarely comes up just because something is illegal. but OP is also claiming that it could be anti-trust..so....at least they are.

 

Also the twitter timeline has always been shit, i see so many tweets from people i don't follow.

[Sauron]

Just now, Arika S said:

except that argument very rarely comes up just because something is illegal. but OP is also claiming that it could be anti-trust..so....at least they are.

Haven't seen that, fair enough, I don't think it's a case of trust. As for why this "comes up"... it's usually people screeching about free speech because they couldn't post racial slurs. And to the extent where we're not talking about law, yes, I do believe that good platform rules are good and bad rules are bad

[LobbyZ]

I've always believed that Twitter is a private company, it has first amendment rights and the owner(s) can do whatever they want with it.

 

Like when Twitter pre-elon banned people on right/left side (mostly on the left side) and Twitter under Elon now promoting right-wing and more distasteful content.

 

That's all fine. It's not fine when the owner actively lies and causes harm to people. It's not fine when the owner talks to people who wants POC/LGBT dead and exterminated. 

 

That's the clear difference here.

[Arika]

2 minutes ago, Sauron said:

As for why this "comes up"... it's usually people screeching about free speech because they couldn't post racial slurs

except it comes up a LOT on this forum, especially in the news section. you primarily see it regarding Apple and their stranglehold over everything iOS and any slight opinion of wanting it to be more open and giving options to the user is slapped down with "THEIR PLATFORM THEIR RULES", except unironically.

But that's for another topic, don't wish to derail this one.

[Sauron]

1 minute ago, Arika S said:

except it comes up a LOT on this forum, especially in the news section. you primarily see it regarding Apple and their stranglehold over everything iOS and any slight opinion of wanting it to be more open and giving options to the user is slapped down with "THEIR PLATFORM THEIR RULES", except unironically.

Oh I see, well in that case it IS a textbook antitrust violation so it's not even true.

[TetraSky]

That explains why I always see his tweets whenever I visit twitter to see if there's anything new. I don't even follow the guy and never interacted with his garbage.

Spoiler

 

[Doobeedoo]

Such a waste of money..

[wanderingfool2]

5 hours ago, Sauron said:

I can't believe you're comparing random bystander accounts to the testimony of a twitter insider.

The first line of the first article I wrote literally stated it was Tesla's statement (Tesla made no such statement). 

 

So YES I am comparing it because the articles were attributing statements not from random bystanders, but attributed towards Tesla.  Even the police went as far to make a statement that they thought no one was driving.  While I can't find them now (there are many that were updated later), but some of them also quoted "Tesla Insiders" as confirming it was on during the crash.

 

5 hours ago, Sauron said:

That's nonsensical, if you test a huge visibility boost on a single account then you can't see what would actually happen with all accounts having that boost... how are you going to gauge whether the engagement is better if only one person's tweets are being broadcast to everyone? And you're saying this in contrast to ostensibly researched journalism with insider sources while you're running on pure guesswork and wishful thinking.

You are assuming it's broadcast to everyone, and assuming it's a visibility boost; vs making a single change to an account and seeing the effects (like lets say removing his list of blocked users)

 

"Researched journalism", where they offer no proof except that it's "inside sources" and offer a slack message that does nothing to prove they are boosting visibility.  If they have inside sources that know what happened, where are the slack messages that show it, where is the proof that visibility is boosted (because if it's boosted then someone should be able to have a screenshot or something)

 

The articles I posted earlier show more than clearly that click-bait and fearmongering work better than actually well researched journalism.

 

It's also not pure guesswork, it's an educated guess based on what was happening to the lead-up.  Like I said in my later post, we know they were looking into (Feb 1 was the first test of privating account), then Feb 11 talked about block list count instead of block list % was used to determine essentially the penalty for visibility, and sometime between Feb 12 - Feb 13 (when all this occurred) we know Musk said he deleted all his block list.

 

So yes, testing things involving visibility on a single large account is sensical in the sense that you can test certain scenarios...such as if they did push it to everyone, it could be to try stress-testing the fanout service which apparently had issues in the past (btw, notice how the article buried the fact they were talking about followers receiving his tweets).

[Sauron]

11 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

So YES I am comparing it because the articles were attributing statements not from random bystanders, but attributed towards Tesla.  Even the police went as far to make a statement that they thought no one was driving.  While I can't find them now (there are many that were updated later), but some of them also quoted "Tesla Insiders" as confirming it was on during the crash.

Come back with this when you have credible evidence this was made up... by this logic we should just never believe an article on anything.

12 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

You are assuming it's broadcast to everyone, and assuming it's a visibility boost; vs making a single change to an account and seeing the effects (like lets say removing his list of blocked users)

Again this makes no sense and it's not how changes to massive systems should be tested.

13 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

"Researched journalism", where they offer no proof except that it's "inside sources" and offer a slack message that does nothing to prove they are boosting visibility.  If they have inside sources that know what happened, where are the slack messages that show it, where is the proof that visibility is boosted (because if it's boosted then someone should be able to have a screenshot or something)

What? Do you expect there to be some "BOOSTED!!!" power-up being displayed in the backend consoles? That's not how any of this works... and if they had screenshots you'd just say they could be doctored. There is no proof that would be sufficient here to completely remove the possibility that they're just making this up.

15 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

It's also not pure guesswork, it's an educated guess based on what was happening to the lead-up.  Like I said in my later post, we know they were looking into (Feb 1 was the first test of privating account), then Feb 11 talked about block list count instead of block list % was used to determine essentially the penalty for visibility, and sometime between Feb 12 - Feb 13 (when all this occurred) we know Musk said he deleted all his block list.

This is not at all mutually exclusive with Musk throwing a fit and having engineers boost his account. You're just making up a different explanation with no evidence.

19 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

So yes, testing things involving visibility on a single large account is sensical in the sense that you can test certain scenarios...such as if they did push it to everyone, it could be to try stress-testing the fanout service which apparently had issues in the past (btw, notice how the article buried the fact they were talking about followers receiving his tweets).

If that's the case they could just disclose that's what they were doing. Musk has been tweeting throughout, how hard would it have been to just say this if it were true? And again no useful information can be gained by doing this with a single account since it will just hog the timeline compared to "normal" accounts that don't have this boost.

[StDragon]

38 minutes ago, Doobeedoo said:

Such a waste of money..

It really is! I agree with that assessment 100%

Elon's attempt at turning a cesspit into a cistern was laughable at best. I think most would agree that Elon's purchase of Twitter was just an expensive play-thing. The equivalent of a "cyber-yacht", extravagant.

[Brooksie359]

On 2/15/2023 at 8:39 AM, 05032-Mendicant-Bias said:

Well, Mr Musk paid 44 billion dollars for his own personal Musk centric media platform. I see no problems with him making sure every users of his own platform sees his own toilette thought.

 

Personally I think that's basically a fairly expensive megaphone, but Mr Musk has more money than anyone could use in countless lifetimes, so why not building his hobby media megaphone boost platform?

It's his private thing. He can do with it as he pleases.

Yeah I didn't see anyone complaining that everyone was automatically a friend of the creator of MySpace once you made one. Seems suspicious that everyone would be outraged now. Honestly though I don't look at my feed at all as I mostly stay away from twitter as much as possible and when I do look it's usually for notifications that people are posting on twitter. 

[mr moose]

On 2/16/2023 at 6:54 AM, Uttamattamakin said:

reliable media sources

No such thing

On 2/16/2023 at 6:54 AM, Uttamattamakin said:

and they confirm the observable effect that has been had on Twitter. 

 

Which doesn't change that the claimed motivation is speculation, no one is disputing it happened, what they are saying is there is no evidence beyond a random anonymous person that the motivation was specific.

[Kamina]

He bought Twitter just so he could hear himself talk.

[oali24]

6 hours ago, mr moose said:

No such thing

Do you think all the media is bad, do you seriously think they have no standards and just publish whatever people say? What would prove it to you that it happened?

[Uttamattamakin]

https://twitter.com/CaseyNewton/status/1626616839160889345?s=20

 

Musk responded the reporters stand by their reporting. Note Musk thinks that he knows who it was and is not denying it was said.  Given the observable effect on the feeds of all Twitter users ... like seeing his tweet with a Shiba Inu I am personally inclinded to believe the report.  This report confirms the observed reality on the ground.  

Say for example the quake in Turkey happened but official government sources denied there was a quake.  That would not negate the observed facts on the ground.  Journalism is publishing information that the powerful do not want published.  Anything else is PR.  I stand by the journalist who stand by their report.  Readers are free to not believe it. 

[Bitter]

Everyday he comes closer to being a real life Bond villain, but with stuff like this I feel like he's setting up to square off against Austin Powers.