Mark SumnerTwitter’s "legacy blue checks" were a system put in place to improve the quality of information for the benefit of the community and the long term value of Twitter. "Twitter Blue" elevates disinformation in a short term cash grab. And honestly, that’s the most generous way to view it. …
Here's a quick example of how Elon's actions doom Twitter as an information source. And how the steps he's announced for April make things infinitely worse.
@carlottagall is NYT Sr. Correspondent Carlotta Gall, reporting from Ukraine.
@bungdan is long time war reporter Dan Murphy.
@GeromanAT is a Russian propagandist who promotes Wagner group, spreads LGBTQ hate, and promotes conspiracy theories.
After April 15, only one of these will appear in the default Twitter feed. Guess which one. ……
Musk is pushing the idea that paid Twitter Blue is the only way to defeat bot accounts. Which is bullshit for multiple reasons. First, there are no safeguards in place to prevent anyone from buying the right to spread disinformation. This has been clearly demonstrated again and again.
He’s not just signing these accounts up. He’s actively supporting these accounts. …
Second, there is an obvious way to prevent bots and disinformation: a dedicated community moderation team. But Musk not only fired that team, he's thrown them completely under the bus and is now pushing the idea that their attempts to maintain information quality were a crime. …
It would be nice to think that all of this originates from a fundamental misunderstanding of what he purchased. Which wasn't a software platform. And wasn't advertising accounts. It was a community and relationships built up over 16 years. That community and relationships are the ONLY thing at Twitter with real value. The previous system of verifications provided a service to that community, helping them to avoid fake accounts and propagandists. By doing so, it added value to Twitter. …
Musk is selling off that asset. Cheap. Surely he understands that.
If you moderate like 8Chan, get an audience the size and composition of 8Chan. That’s where Twitter is going as Musk burns his only real asset. The Twitter Blue revenue is a drop in the bucket compared to what he’s losing.
But it will take a while for Twitter to die. In the meantime, he gets to run a lot of disinformation past a lot of eyeballs.
Dannyboyguyman@Devilstower I have proposed that the destruction of this community and function was deemed to be worth $44B to Elon and more importantly to his plutocrat, authoritarian, autocratic, and oligarchy business partners
flounder_ma@Devilstower this is such a smart take. That social credibility that had been woven into Twitter had a certain monetary value worth billions and that's gone for a system that will generate tens of millions of dollars a month.
Joe ❌👑@Devilstower And yet, it seems DailyKos front-pagers are just as Twitter-oriented as ever. I'd expect more effort to transition away from it by now. Yes, some info isn't available anywhere else, but often links to Twitter that, in turn, link somewhere else are often shared. Might want to stop propping up Musk's site.
@not2b the issue is sources. In my case, it’s on-the-ground sources providing images and videos from Ukraine. I can embed those sources from Twitter, but many are not available on other sites. Or are only on sites such as Telegram that are even more problematic. I can link and report text, but I can’t take their images or video unless I embed them. I don’t have the right.
@Devilstower I agree that for Ukraine there is no good alternative (which is kind of alarming should the chief twit decide he wants to shut that down), but there's a lot of use of it that seems a lot less necessary.