July 24, 2023, at the X HQ in SF, a giant pink hashtag with a bird on it, was moved out.
The end of the birds.
Removing the birds, and changing the signage is less important than the incredible changes that Elon Musk brought.
They say sunlight is the best disinfectant. Elon brought that sunlight. The Twitter Files are a gift to humanity. All are worth reading, absorbing, and learning from.
Elon found a way to take control of a large & financially failing company — and save it. I am impressed with the strategic moves he made to transform X into a startup.
Finding the best engineers for the job at X is critical. If you look at Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink the Boring company, you might think that was thoroughly enough for one man to achieve in his lifetime.
This is why Twitter could not be something Elon “bought” but rather “X” be something that he started. From that stemmed what may be one of the most important companies of our time: xAI.
I asked one of my sons what he would want to talk about with Elon if he could meet him. “Time management. How does he manage his time? How does he achieve doing so much? I would like to know his methods.”
Once in a rare while, a very rare while, humanity throughout history is given a gift. Elon Musk is one of those gifts.
If you enjoyed this article, follow and subscribe to Gail Alfar on X at @gailalfaratx
Welcome back for this week’s Twitter roundup. Here’s the main highlights of the past week!
MONETIZATION BY CONTENT CREATORS IS A MAJOR PRIORITY
Elon Musk cares about content creators on Twitter and has now shared that a major priority is to allow content creators to monetize their work on Twitter in order to make a living and prosper. On March 6 he tweeted,
“It is a major priority to enable monetization by content creators! People need to make a living and prosper from their work. We need to make it possible to upload the content in the first place. That’s getting there.” Elon Musk
COMMUNITY NOTES. CONTEXT ON TWEETS, BY THE PEOPLE, FOR THE PEOPLE
When a journalist acknowledged that his tweet was dishonest but refused to fix it, Community Notes did it for him. To understand the Community Note concept, Twitter released a video on March 9 explaining it and several days later invited people to sign up to join.
Here’s a breakdown of the video explaining Community Notes, Context on Tweets, by the people, for the people:
“How does Community Notes avoid one-sided bias? Pile-ins? Brigading? Manipulation? abuse? Community Notes are rated by contributors of multiple perspectives, and only notes that are widely found helpful are shown on Tweets. So one group alone can’t determine what notes get shown. And pile-ons aren’t effective. This helps ensure that notes are effective to a wide range of people. To make it clear how all of this works, Community Notes’ algorithm is open-source and all data is public.”
Twitter warmly invited everyone to sign up to become a Community Notes contributor
Community Notes can serve to add context to advertising, even increasing financial literacy, as in this note for an ad by QuickenCompare.
When the ad stated “Don’t borrow from the bank. Borrow from yourself,” Community Notes stepped in to add context, “Home Equity Lines of Credit do not allow someone to borrow from ‘themselves’ rather than a bank. The money is loaned from a bank, with home equity as collateral for a loan.”
TWITTER BLUE GOING GLOBAL
Twitter Blue is now available in at least 50 countries, making people happy in the United States, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Brazil, Indonesia, India, Saudi Arabia, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Netherlands, Poland, Ireland, Belgium, Sweden, Romania, Czech Republic, Finland, Denmark, Greece, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Slovakia, Latvia, Slovenia, Estonia, Croatia, Luxembourg, Malta, Cyprus, Turkey, Pakistan, Mexico, Thailand, Philippines, South Africa, Argentina, South Korea, Egypt, Nigeria and Malaysia.
TWITTER FILES EXPOSED THE CENSORSHIP INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX
One Twitter user, Jim Hall, commented on the Twitter files when Matt Taibbi or Michael Shellenberger (who helped release the files) appeared before congress, saying “I don’t know about you all but I’m glad Matthew Taibbi and Elon Musk took up the challenge of sharing this data. Those who stick their heads in the ground and say the Twitter Files are a nothing burger are oblivious and seem to wish to stay that way. The New York Times has not written one word about the Matt Taibbi or Michael Shellenberger hearing at which Democrat members of congress impugned their integrity and tried to intimidate Taibbi into revealing his sources.”
Matthew Taibbi made an opening statement on the Twitter Files to members of congress about the censorship industrial complex: “Twitter, Facebook, Google, and other companies developed a formal system for taking in moderation requests from every corner of government, from the FBI, DHS, HHS, DOD, the Global Engagement Center at State, even the CIA. For every government agency scanning Twitter, there were perhaps twenty quasi-private entities doing the same thing.”
COST TO ACCESS TWITTER’S API
On March 10, Twitter’s Developer Platform began to offer Enterprise Packages in small, medium and large. Shown is the benefits of a small package, costing only $42,000 a month. For the other packages, click here.
Image courtesy Twitter, Inc. RealTime PowerTrack API Small Package Twitter
TWITTER MAY BECOME THE BIGGEST FINANCIAL INSTITUTION IN THE WORLD
Elon Musk also spoke at the Morgan Stanley TMT 2023 conference in San Francisco on March 7, about Twitter becoming a financial institution, and one day it could be a viable alternative to banks, Venmo, Paypal, etc. You may read the entire talk here, “Elon Musk’s Talk at Morgan Stanley TMT 2023 on Twitter, X.com, Tesla and Starship.”
“You want to be able to send money easily on Twitter to another account with one click, & also earn interest on the money. I think it’s possible for Twitter to become the biggest financial institution in the world” Elon Musk
CONCLUSION
Twitter and its initiatives are truly inspiring. With Community Notes, we are given the opportunity to add context and shift the course of discussion or contribute to tweets in a way that is thoughtful and respectful. It’s great that Twitter Blue is extending its reach internationally making it available in 50 countries and soon plans to promote monetization for content creators. At the end of the day it’s our responsibility to help ensure safe and civil participation regardless if it’s on or offline. Let’s do this by being informed users of this platform and making sure we create an inclusive space that encourages honest contribution without fear of personal attack or manipulation. Use Twitter more often. Use Community Notes. Work collectively so we can all benefit from it!
Do you love reading about the history of Twitter? See more here…
Gail Alfar, author. Exclusive to What’s Up Twitter – March 14, 2023. All Rights Reserved. My goal as an author is to support Twitter 2.0 and Elon Musk in both making lives better on earth for humans and becoming a space-fairing civilization.
Twitter is improving fast under the direction of Elon Musk. In this article, I’ll highlight this week’s updates and give you a heads-up on what’s to come!
THE WEEK’S TWITTER UPDATES
Elon Musk emphasizes free speech
Elon Musk shared a meme depicting a medieval man warning “Martin” not to post his note in the public square because “You know that it’s just going to be taken down and you’ll be blocked from posting for the next 30 days.”
“All things in moderation, especially content moderation” Elon Musk
Two-Factor Authentification Update
Twitter sent out messages to all users that non-Blue subscribers would be transitioning to app-based 2FA authentication. This is a small change and users are being conveniently notified directly in the app. Twitter’s official message: “Effective March 20, 2023, only Twitter Blue subscribers will be able to use text messages as their two-factor authentication method. Other accounts can use an authentication app or security key for 2FA.” Elon Musk added, “Use of free authentication apps for 2FA will remain free and are much more secure than SMS.”
Twitter Blue
Twitter improved readability on long tweets for Twitter Blue subscribers with smaller font/better spacing. I created my first longform tweet, and it came out nicely!
Community Notes helps people gain better context
Elon Musk’s message about Community Notes may inspire more people to sign up to use it. Elon tweeted, “Community Notes is a game changer for combating wrong information.”
Beginning February 21, Twitter users started getting a heads-up if a Community Note starts showing on a Tweet they replied to, liked or retweeted. This feature helps give people extra context that they might otherwise miss. For more details see here.
Elon Musk explains Community Notes,
“I think there’s something that we’re putting a lot of effort into called Community Notes. It’s currently just in English, but we will be expanding it to all languages. That is I think quite a good way to assess the truth of things where it’s the community itself, basically, the people of Earth who are basically, not exactly voting but competing to provide the most accurate information. So it’s sort of a competition for truth. I think it’s a compelling concept to have a competition for truth, because you also said, like what is truth, it’s because what may be true to self, may not be viewed as true to others, but you want to have the closest approximation of that so I think the Community Notes thing is very powerful.” – Elon Musk at WGS Feb 15, 2023
Twitter Files #16
Twitter Files #16 was released on February 18 by Matt Taibbi. Comic Interlude: A Media Experiment highlights how mainstream media was silent on what the Twitter files published because it does not fit their narrative. You can read how elected officials (both democrat and republican) demanded censorship from Twitter. Many examples are cited.
Matt Taibbi says, “The real story emerging in the #TwitterFiles is about a ballooning federal censorship bureaucracy that’s not aimed at either the left or the right per se, but at the whole population of outsiders, who are being systematically defined as threats.”
“Beginning in March, we’ll start using the Twitter Files to tell this larger story about how Americans turned their counterterrorism machinery against themselves, to disastrous effect, through little-known federal agencies like the Global Engagement Center (GEC).”
WHAT’S TO COME
Advertisements for products you may really want
Twitter advertisements were the topic of a thread on February 17 between former ads lead at Twitter and Sirine (a friend of mine from Twitter).
Elon starts with an optimistic tweet, “Sorry for showing you so many irrelevant & annoying ads on Twitter! We’re taking the (obvious) corrective action of tying ads to keywords & topics in tweets, like Google does with search. This will improve contextual relevance dramatically.” The former Twitter employee quips back in a rude tone, “As the former lead for Ads at Twitter, I can confidently say this man has no idea wtf he’s talking about.” Not missing a beat, Elon replies with, “My apologies, you must be a genius, which is why Twitter has the worst ad relevance on Earth. Almost nobody buys anything on Twitter, but almost everyone on Instagram does. That is being fixed.” Next Sirine comments, “Speaking of personal experience, I’ve never seen *Any* relevant ad on Twitter since I made my account!” Elon replies to Sirine “You are not alone. When I ask people if they use Twitter, almost all have for many years. When I ask if they’ve ever bought something from an ad after using the site for a decade, the answer is almost always no. That’s insane! The biggest problem is that Twitter optimized for impressions over clicks, with the perverse result that it *maximized* ad irrelevance, because clicking on an ad takes you away from Twitter, thus reducing impressions generated per user-minute. The sheer madness of this takes a moment to appreciate.”
In summary, contextual relevance is needed for Twitter ads just as they are for ads on Instagram or TikToc. If you have never made a purchase based on a Twitter ad, you are the majority. It is possible that will change in the future.
Better ease of use to help communicate on Twitter
Elon Musk looks for ways to improve Twitter directly from people who use Twitter. A feature similar to what you can do in a smartphone direct message will come to Twitter. Soon you’ll `have the ability to hold down and reply to a specific message in a group chat. Also, you may be able to @ mention someone in groups. This idea came from a survey run by Prof. TroonyToons and the vote in favor of these changes won at 83.9% FOR the features. Elon Musk often replies to Twitter accounts both large and small, unverified and verified. Prof. TroonyToons ran a great and useful survey.
Twitter algorithm to be open source soon
Elon Musk plans for Twitter to open source their algorithm next week. On Feb 21 he tweeted, “Prepare to be disappointed at first when our algorithm is made open source next week, but it will improve rapidly!”
Elon Musk explained how Twitter’s For You tab works, “Note: if many people who you follow or like also follow me, it is highly probable that the algorithm will recommend my tweets. It’s not super sophisticated. In coming months, we will offer the ability to adjust the algorithm to closer match what is most compelling to you.”
This is great news, as it gives Twitter users the option (if they want it) to have more control over what they do or don’t see.
Twitter to be a place for all people
Elon Musk elaborated on Feb 7 that, “Going forward, Twitter will be broadly accepting of different values, rather than trying to impose its own specific values on the world.”
This was shared at the WGS 2023 as well with these words,
“I mean, I was a little worried about the direction that, and the effect of social media on the world and especially Twitter. I thought it was very important for there to be a maximally trusted sort of Digital Public Square where people within countries and internationally can communicate with the least amount of censorship allowed by law, and obviously that varies a lot by jurisdiction.
I think in general, social media companies should adhere to the laws of countries and not try to put a *thumb on the scale beyond the laws of the countries. I think this is something that is probably agreeable to the legislators and to the people of most countries.
So that’s the general idea, it’s just to reflect the values of the people as opposed to imposing the values of essentially San Francisco and Berkeley, which are somewhat of a niche ideology, as compared to the rest of the world.
I think Twitter was doing a little too much to impose a niche 'San Francisco-Berkeley' ideology on the world. You know, I thought it was important for the future of civilization to try to correct that *thumb on the scale if you will and just have Twitter more accurately reflect like I said, the values of the people of Earth. That's the intention and hopefully, we succeed in doing that.”
Elon Musk at WGS 2023
Elon Musk’s talk at the World Government Summit 2023 (Dubai) was on February 15 about his vision for Twitter and X.com. The full text of his talk about Twitter is here,
There are rumors floating around (on Twitter) that soon various fonts will be available for Twitter users. Another rumor is that Twitter may begin testing its own “coin.”
CONCLUSION
Here’s my quick summary from this week,
Content on Twitter will reflect a multitude of outlooks and not be excessively moderated
Users who opt for secure 2FA with Twitter will need to use free authentication apps. Exception: Blue subscribers
Longform tweets (Blue feature) will have smaller font/better spacing
Community Notes will notify you if a tweet you interacted with has a public note appear, providing you added context
Community Notes is expanding to other countries/languages
Twitter Files #16 gave examples that should have been covered by journalists but never were. Global Engagement Center (GEC) is one obscure federal agency that we will learn more about in upcoming files
No one wants useless ads and Elon Musk’s Twitter ads will soon have contextual relevance
Twitter DMs will rival Smartphone DMs in reply capabilities, allowing you to hold-reply to messages
Twitter algorithm will be open-sourced soon, expect it to improve over time
“Twitter will be broadly accepting of different values” – Elon Musk
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Twitter HQ unknown photographer circa 2013
Gail Alfar, author. Exclusive to What’s Up Twitter – February 23, 2023. All Rights Reserved. My goal as an author is to support Twitter 2.0 and Elon Musk in both making lives better on earth for humans and becoming a space-fairing civilization.
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My writing about Twitter strives to be accurate & leave you feeling optimistic and excited about the future. I hope you”ll consider a donation to support!
My writing about Twitter strives to be accurate & leave you feeling optimistic and excited about the future. I hope you”ll consider small monthly donation to support!
My writing about Twitter strives to be accurate & leave you feeling optimistic and excited about the future. If you’re able, consider an annual donation to support!
Welcome back to What’s Up Twitter. There are cool developments coming down the pipeline for you as a Twitter user.
Also, do you think Twitter will accept Dogecoin? Share your ideas.
San Francisco, home of Twitter HQ is a gem at sunset. Used with permission from Romain Briaux from Unplash.
Twitter to open Beta version soon to reward creators!
Hundreds of talented citizen writers will soon have a chance to be financially compensated for their work. Elon Musk announced that co-tweets have ended to make way for a feature that will encourage citizen journalism.
Writers with subscriptions activated will be able to publish directly on Twitter and get paid for it by adding essays as attachments to tweets.
Elon Musk announces new features for Twitter.
“You’re welcome. Axed them yesterday to focus on enabling writers to add essays as attachments to tweets. Combined with improvements to creator subscriptions (fka superfollow), you will be able to publish directly on Twitter & get paid for it. Beta version launching next week. We’re also reviewing ad rev share for ads in a creator’s tweet replies – create an interesting thread and get paid for it!” Elon Musk
Are you familiar with Tweet threads? Many writers like Marc Andreessen and Trung Phan are known for their interesting threads. These and others may soon be able to get paid for their threads by sharing ad revenue with Twitter.
I think this is a great idea! Did you know many writers are paid less than $20 per article to write what they are TOLD to write by editors? They need income so they acquiesce and then they are targeted for doing a job to earn a living wage. Imagine if these talented people could write freely and not have to support an agenda they disagree with. I am excited to follow this development on Twitter. This may be part of why Elon Musk purchased Twitter.
Issues with Twitter visibility
Late Tuesday evening on January 31, Elon Musk made his account private. This was to gauge tweet interaction invisibility, which was reported by many users as being limited when accounts were not made private. In one example by Ian Cheong, he had more engagement and visibility when his account was private than when it was public. I will update this article as this situation develops.
Ian Cheong was one of the first to discover visibility issues on Twitter.
The Twitter Files have been ignored by the mainstream media
This was expected and explained well by David Sacks,
“When Elon Musk made necessary business changes at Twitter, the media reacted with hysterical melodrama: he was “starving” employees; the site was facing “imminent collapse.” But when Twitter Files exposed state censorship and Hamilton68 fraud, they react with defeaning silence.”
What are some ideas on Twitter accepting dogecoin?
There is no indication that Twitter has immediate plans to accept Dogecoin and there are clues that Twitter is developing a payment system based on fiat money. The biggest indicator of this is that Elon Musk shared on Twitter on January 31 that creators would soon receive revenue for their content. People already pay money to creators through monthly subscriptions but that money must go through Stripe.
Stripe says, “Millions of companies of all sizes—from startups to Fortune 500s—use Stripe’s software and APIs to accept payments, send payouts, and manage their businesses online.”
Elon Musk loves vertically integrating his products on many levels at SpaceX and Tesla. Will he reduce costs by vertically integrating an in-house payment system instead of paying to utilize Stripe’s software?
There has been speculation from the dogecoin community in comments on Reddit about Twitter, Bitcoin and Elon Musk. It is significant that SpaceX, Tesla as well as the Boring Co. have accepted payments in Dogecoin. People bought Boring Co. Burnt Hair fragrance with Dogecoin in October 2022 and rides in the Boring Company Tunnels in Las Vegas appear to be available in Dogecoin by scanning a QR code to buy tickets.
Many people speculate that Twitter will do the same. In comments on Reddit, people know that Dogecoin has benefited from Elon Musk‘s interest. However, Elon Musk is not part of the Dogecoin Foundation and merely supports the coin because it is fun and has memes and makes more financial sense than other coins.
I recently searched for current merch to buy with Dogecoin from Tesla and SpaceX and found none as of February 1, 2023. The Tesla Cyberwhistle costs 1000 Dogecoin and it is out of stock. My take is that Twitter will solidify a financial network in the USA first with traditional fiat money and next year may introduce digital currency in Doge or Bitcoin or both.
The Tesla Cyberwhistle is 1000 DOGE and is OUT OF STOCK
CONCLUSION
The biggest news this week is the prospect of Elon Musk utilizing Twitter to encourage citizen journalism. This takes incentives (money) so writers can earn their own way instead of answering to mainstream media outlets that dictate how they write or edit their work to promote an agenda.
There are technical issues this week with Twitter and decreased tweet visibility. Elon Musk is aware and his team will likely make fixing it a priority.
Mainstream media continues to ignore and even ridicule the seriousness of the Twitter Files. If you would like to research the files, check out www.twitterfiles.co
Rumors are circulating about Twitter payment systems and nothing is verified but we do know that Twitter pays some content creators through Stripe. We shall watch if Stripe continues to be Twitter’s choice as it is not a vertically integrated aspect of Twitter.
What we do know is that all of Elon Musk’s companies (with the exception of Neuralink) have accepted Dogecoin thus far. Many on Twitter would warmly welcome Dogecoin as a payment or integrated tip system on Twitter.
There is more happening at Twitter
In my article “Twitter Just Gets Better with Elon Musk at the Helm,” read about how Twitter is on the path to becoming a one-stop shop for people to keep folders with categorized information, a place to come for news, and a place for content creators to earn an income for their efforts. There are little tweaks and improvements being made almost daily to Twitter’s features. From improving bookmarks to pinned lists, Elon Musk is making sure most people know what Twitter has to offer. He’s even going to make sure cool tweets in other languages (like Japanese) are translated and recommended to people around the globe.
Gail Alfar, author. Exclusive to What’s Up Twitter – February 1, 2023. All Rights Reserved. My goal as an author is to support Twitter 2.0 and Elon Musk in both making lives better on earth for humans and becoming a space-fairing civilization.
One-Time
Monthly
Yearly
My writing about Twitter strives to be accurate & leave you feeling optimistic and excited about the future. If you’re able, consider a donation to support!
My writing about Twitter strives to be accurate & leave you feeling optimistic and excited about the future. If you’re able, consider a donation to support!
My writing about Twitter strives to be accurate & leave you feeling optimistic and excited about the future. If you’re able, consider an annual donation to support!
Elon Musk shared an image on Twitter showing the titles of 3 books and the words, “YOU ARE HERE” in the middle. Let’s take a look at these 3 books and discuss how the Twitter files relate.
We’ll also look at Elon’s Twitter poll asking “Elon Musk should” a. Stay out of politics or b. Keep shooting his feet. 57.2% were in favor of “Keep shooting his feet.”
Most people approve of Elon Musk staying political on Twitter.
1. Brave New World, 1932
In a society where the “World Controllers” mastered genetic science to “perfect” the human race, humans are nothing more than ‘Alpha-plus mandarins and epsilon-minus semi-morons’ designed to perform menial tasks and educated to be blissfully content with pre-destined roles. Intellectual curiosity, a sense of history and scientific innovation are frowned upon because they threaten the ruling class’s power over the masses.
The purpose of all these distractions is to keep people contented so they don’t question the world around them. Society is designed to reject the consumption of old things—like Shakespeare, which is banned. This is another way to promote continuous consumption, because if people value old, outdated things (like old books and higher-quality, longer-lasting items) they won’t have any reason to buy new things.
Things from past eras when society functioned differently often contain deeper meaning and would inspire people to think critically, whereas new forms of entertainment encourage people to focus on the present only. Huxley himself gave advice for resisting this brave new world,
“Perhaps the forces that now menace freedom are too strong to be resisted for very long. It is still our duty to do whatever we can to resist them.”
The Twitter Files are Elon Musk’s way of clearing the decks. Elon explained it this way,
“I think it’s important to, like if you know if we’re going to be trusted in the future to kind of clear the decks for stuff that’s happened in the past so to be totally frank, almost every conspiracy theory that people had about Twitter turned out to be true.(laughter from all) Haha, so … is there a conspiracy theory about Twitter that didn’t turn out to be true? So far, they all turned out to be true. And if not more true than people thought.” –Elon Musk, All-In Podcast
Matt Taibbi wrote “Twitter Files: Why Twitter Let the Intelligence Community In” about how once Twitter began rolling over for Congress in 2017, the ending was inevitable: formal surrender to the intelligence community on content moderation. Matt Taibbi shared,
1.THREAD: The Twitter Files How Twitter Let the Intelligence Community In
When George Orwell published this book in 1949 it was around the same time as Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated, House Un-American Activities Committee accused Alger Hiss of spying for the Soviet Union and the Soviet Union sealed off land routes to Berlin. 1984 immerses the reader in a world where a totalitarian government monitors people even in their private lives. Writing is illegal but main character Winston Smith keeps a diary and desires to beat the system. Everything about Winston’s life is miserable and that includes his job, the food he eats, and the dreary London cityscape he lives in. In his and all people’s daily lives there are hidden cameras and microphones everywhere, even at home TV screens spewing propaganda must never be turned off.
The signs “Big Brother is watching you” in the book have become synonymous in our culture for the dangers of a government that works to police our thoughts.
The Twitter Files show just how far our own United States government organizations were willing to go to control the public narrative on elections in the USA and SARS-CoV-2. Three examples are,
By censoring info that was true but inconvenient to U.S. govt. policy
By discrediting doctors and other experts who disagreed
By suppressing ordinary users, including some sharing the CDC’s *own data*
You can read about these in this thread shared by David Zweig, author of Invisibles.
1. THREAD:
THE TWITTER FILES: HOW TWITTER RIGGED THE COVID DEBATE
– By censoring info that was true but inconvenient to U.S. govt. policy – By discrediting doctors and other experts who disagreed – By suppressing ordinary users, including some sharing the CDC’s *own data*
Stanford’s Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, an M.D., an economist, and a professor of health policy at Stanford warned about the dangerous impact of lockdowns, especially on children, the working class, and the poor.
In 2020, he and Dr. Martin Kulldorff, then a professor of medicine at Harvard, and Dr. Sunetra Gupta, a professor of epidemiology at Oxford wrote an open letter arguing for “focused protection” for the most medically vulnerable and a return to normal life for the rest of society. Twitter put Bhattacharya’s account on the Trends Blacklist, which meant that no matter how many likes or views one of his tweets racked up, it could never “trend”; its visibility to users on the platform would be sharply curtailed. You can read more about that in the article, “Twitter’s Secret Blacklists.”
3. Fahrenheit 451
The sci-fi novel Fahrenheit 451’s title refers to the temperature at which paper burns. The book explores the dangers of a government that tries to control its people through censorship. Reading is illegal and books are burned any time they are discovered.
The main character, Ray, collects books but is betrayed by his own wife. Written in 1953 when people were just starting to buy cathode-ray TV sets. The book features Ray’s wife Mildred, who watches TV on three screens the size of an entire wall. The programs displayed on the walls are shallow, absurd and pointless. Mildred refers to the characters in her favorite program as her “family” and the actors talk over each other the entire time. Eventually Mildred gets tired of Ray and turns him in to the authorities and he is forced to burn his books and his house. 451 ends on a hopeful note when Ray escapes the city before a nuclear war begins and joins a group of intellectuals and academics who live in secrecy and memorize books to preserve them.
Lee Fang released Twitter Files Part 8 and wrote about how Twitter Aided the Pentagon in Its Covert Online Propaganda Campaign in an article in the Intercept. Disturbing revelations are surfacing, as Fang wrote, “This appears to align with a major report published in August by online security researchers affiliated with the Stanford Internet Observatory, which reported on thousands of accounts that they suspected to be part of a state-backed information operation, many of which used photorealistic human faces generated by artificial intelligence, a practice also known as “deep fakes.”
Twitter quietly partnered with the U.S. intelligence community, allowing the IC to select which state-sponsored accounts/advertsting to take down/ban. Incredible screenshot below showing Twitter had a secret policy handing power to FBI/CIA etc. over content decisions. https://t.co/6aXJ5KqLIt
The Twitter Files reveal how the government paid millions of dollars to censor information from the public. Michael Shellenberger shares, “As of 2020, there were so many former FBI employees — “Bu alumni” — working at Twitter that they had created their own private Slack channel and a crib sheet to onboard new FBI arrivals.” and adds a screenshot of an email.
Michael Shellenberger, Twitter Files
29. As of 2020, there were so many former FBI employees — "Bu alumni" — working at Twitter that they had created their own private Slack channel and a crib sheet to onboard new FBI arrivals. pic.twitter.com/prVhPGohOC
Brave New World, 1984 and Fahrenheit 451 are all science fiction novels that serve to warn people of what can happen if we give up our freedoms and allow others to control what we read or see. Our perception of reality will be skewed and humanity as a whole will be at risk.
For this reason, even if Elon Musk has to “shoot himself in the feet,” it is good that he will keep releasing Twitter Files. The Twitter files are very political because they are important in exposing what the government has been doing behind the scenes at Twitter for years.
Read the Twitter Files (free) on the Twitter Files Archive by Johnna Crider here.
Photo of Austin Texas by Spencer Davis on Unsplash
Gail Alfar, author. Exclusive to What’s Up Twitter – January 5 2022. All Rights Reserved. My goal as an author is to support Twitter 2.0 and Elon Musk in both making lives better on earth for humans and becoming a space-fairing civilization.
One-Time
Monthly
Yearly
My writing about Twitter strives to be accurate & leave you feeling optimistic and excited about the future. If you’re able, consider a donation to support!
My writing about Twitter strives to be accurate & leave you feeling optimistic and excited about the future. If you’re able, consider a donation to support!
My writing about Twitter strives to be accurate & leave you feeling optimistic and excited about the future. If you’re able, consider a donation to support!
Elon Musk (wearing a Dogecoin t-shirt) talks on Dec 26 episode of All-In Podcast. Image courtesy All-In Podcast.
Changes in Twitter are happening fast and it’s hard to keep track of them. That’s why I’m writing this blog, it is to try to capture the historical significance of Musk‘s purchase of Twitter. I may not go into every single little detail change and I certainly will not write about the daily drama. You already know about The Twitter Files and are most likely very happy they exist. I think Elon‘s recent talk on the all-in podcast had some important information (Davis Sacks, Jason Calacanis, Chamath Palihapitiya and David A. Friedberg all asked Elon Musk questions). I’m going to share 12 main points with you in this article.
tweets show view counts
Twitter’s paid verified blue check
Twitter for businesses/organizations
Twitter ‘batting average’
why and how Twitter workforce was reduced
less hate speech, bots and trolls, a new incentive structure emerges
Elon’s business model inspires other tech firms
Twitter will not monetize hate speech: bots versus trolls
Elon Musk personally called Paul Graham to apologize for Twitter suspension
Twitter to unveil new features in January
Chamath asks Elon Musk to share his views on a 2023 recession
Elon Musk’s reason for the Twitter files
TWEETS SHOW VIEW COUNTS
Views are more important than likes for most people. This has been the case on Youtube for years. Now you will see view counts on your tweets. Though a tweet may get 20 “likes,” it could have thousands of views. Elon explains,
Elon: The view thing is huge, that’s why I pushed the views. Actually, it’s a lot harder than you think because of the sheer number of transactions per second. I think it sort of requires systemwide on the order of 3 million transactions a second to actually calculate the view. You know, calculate and display the view count FYI for Twitter global, so it’s like 3 million per second. It’s a lot.
Elon went on to describe what it was like to own Twitter for the first six weeks.
Elon: “Well, it’s been quite a roller coaster which, obviously you’ve witnessed and been on the roller coaster as well (speaking to Jason).
I mean, it’s exciting, but I think it sort of has its highs and lows to say the least but overall, it seems to be going in a good direction and we’ve got the expenses reasonably under control so it’s not like in the fast lane of bankruptcy anymore.
And we’re releasing features faster than Twitter‘s history at the same time as containing the costs and reducing the cost structure by a factor of three maybe four.
Elon: The verified, that’s huge! It’s a revenue stream as well as a means of identifying or like knowing that it’s a real person and not a bot or a troll situation.
TWITTER FOR BUSINESS / ORGANIZATIONS
Elon: “Having the organizational affiliation was an idea of David’s (Sacks).
That was great to have organizational affiliation so that you can know that somebody is an actual professor at Stanford or that this particular handle is actually Disney not someone simply putting “I work at Disney” in their bio.
So I think that’s going to be really helpful, it’s really just having detailed and nuanced verification so of all the things that you say you are, are these things validated by other people and organizations?”
I wrote about Twitter’s organizational verification of Twitter Blue for Business here.
TWITTER BATTING AVERAGE
Elon: I am a big believer in like you want to look at the net output. So it’s sort of like you know “what’s the batting average?” It’s like baseball.
The point is not that you hit the ball, but it’s like how many home runs you get and like what’s your actual slugging percentage? Its like you’ve got to swing for the fences you’re going to strike out a bit more but we’re going to swing for the fences here at Twitter.
And we’re going to do it quickly, so I think generally like my error rate, and sort of being the chief twit will be less over time but you know in the beginning, we’ll make obviously sort of a lot more mistakes because I’m new to the… like, ‘Hey I just got here man!’
So I mean if you look at the actual amount of improvement that’s happened at Twitter in terms of having costs that are not insane and actually shipping product that on balance is good I think that’s great. Like I think we’re actually executing well and getting things done. I think we’ll have fewer pure gaffes in the future.
WHY AND HOW TWITTER WORKFORCE WAS REDUCED
Chamath: How did you get to your intuition on what the efficient frontier of employees needed to be to make the product better?
Elon: Well…
David Sacks: I observed part of this, where you basically ask the question, “who here is critical, and who here is exceptional?”
Elon: Yes, really what the criteria are trying to apply and obviously you’re not gonna be perfect if you’re moving fast and there’s a lot of people you’re talking about here, is anyone who is exceptional with what they do where the role is critical and they have a positive effect on others and they are trusted meaning they put the company’s interests before their own, should stay. And you know also who is up for working hard. That was not Twitter’s prior culture.
Chamath: Were you surprised that the intersection of that circle and the people that left was basically 25%? Were you surprised it was that deep or did you think your intuition was like, ‘It’s probably somewhere in here?’
Elon: Well I think you could just stand back and say, without knowing how many employees Twitter has at all and say ‘how many people are really needed to run Twitter?’
Like let’s say you don’t know what the employee count number is at all. How many people are needed to keep the site operational? Like let’s say if -excluding product evolution- You basically have to keep the servers going and you have to have a customer support function to take down material that is in violation of the law. what’s the minimum number of people? It’s not like a giant number.
David Sacks: Twitter still has like 2000 people right?
Elon: Yeah we still have 2000 people it’s not that nothing and there’s actually on the order of almost 5000 contractors. Almost all the what’s called ‘trust and safety work,’ which is like the support functions for the site are done by contractors.
Elon Musk wearing a Dogecoin Cowboy t-shirt at Twitter HQ with David Sacks. Image courtesy All-In-Podcast.
LESS HATE SPEECH, BOTS AND TROLLS, A NEW INCENTIVE STRUCTURE EMERGES
David Sacks: You’re doing a lot more to take down hate speech than the company previously was doing.
Elon: Yeah, absolutely, hate speech Impressions are down by a third and will get even lower.
David Friedberg: Maybe you could speak a little bit to what we discovered in those early weeks, which was the incentive. Previously it was to create as many accounts as possible and there were a lot of quick fixes to lowering all these, you know, what people might call ‘bot accounts.” In some cases it was people opening many millions of accounts, but we discovered this very early how easy it was for the tech team to lower the bot count and all the fake accounts.
Elon: Well, we still have a fair number of bots in the system. The incentive structure, the way Twitter was set up previously was this relentless focus on what they call mDau which is monetizable daily active users, although I would say the monetizable part is dubious.
But at least the things that appeared to be monetized or could be passed off as monetizable daily active users. So this created an incentive to turn a blind eye to fake accounts.
So if the incentive structure is like ‘Maximize the appearance of monetizable daily active users,’ then it’s a strong incentive to pretend that a bot is real, and that’s what happened.
So we’re taking a lot of steps to reduce the bots and troll situation, so many! And I think you’re seeing that in the usage. It’s now relatively rare to have your replies filled with crypto scams.
David Friedberg explained that there are many companies in Silicon Valley that want to copy Elon Musk’s method of fast iteration. David said he talks to a lot of tech companies who have CEOs and investors and boards, and they’re starting to say ‘Look at what Elon did at Twitter, how can we do something as aggressive as swift as deep?’ David asked Elon if he thinks much about his business model.
Elon: I mean, to be frank, I’m not thinking about it that much, I’m just thinking about like how do we get Twitter to be in a financially healthy place and fix the engine of engineering so we can have a rapid evolution of new products. and so I guess I’m in some ways in sort of a fortunate position where I don’t have to answer, because it’s not public, and we don’t have a board really.
So I can take actions that are drastic and obviously if I make a bunch of mistakes then Twitter won’t succeed and that will be pretty embarrassing and sad.
But as long as the batting average is good, and the wins significantly outweigh the mistakes, then it will be a great future and I think I’m very optimistic about where things are headed.
TWITTER WILL NOT MONETIZE HATE SPEECH AND BOTS VS. TROLLS
Jason Calacanis asked Elon about freedom of speech and how he feels about it post Twitter acquisition.
Elon: Well, the general principle is that we should hew close to the law in any given country, so the laws vary quite a lot by country and so I think we should be doing free-speech that’s close to the law and that’s the general principle.
I think there are other things where it’s like for example, if you’re an advertiser you don’t want your Ad -like let’s say- it’s a Family Movie next to some NSFW content, even if that continent is text. There’s more of an allowance for what somebody might call hate speech on the system, but it’s not going to be promoted. Like, we’re not going to be recommending hate speech, haha, just at the risk of stating the obvious. (pause)
And we are not going to monetize hate speech or negative speech. Nor would advertisers want us to. I think it’s going to be a rare product that wants to be near seriously negative stuff.
Elon explains the difference between bots and trolls in relation to Jason’s question about freedom of speech versus freedom of reach.
Jason: I was going to say you referred to it as freedom of speech, but not reach because this is a very nuanced discussion. Should this stuff be able to hit the trends?
Elon: It’s certainly possible that some things that will be regarded as hate speech will hit trends, but I think it’s going to be relatively unusual especially as we are doing a better job of controlling the bots and trolls situation. and I do want to emphasize there’s a difference between the bots and the trolls.
Bots are like fully automated accounts, but a troll farm would be where like you’ve got like 100 people in a warehouse somewhere, each with 100 phones so they’re actually humans and they’re going to pass a capture test and they can reply because actually they’re humans. But it’s 10,000 accounts that are obviously not operating as real people.
So, stuff like that can cause things to trend negatively. That’s why I’m a big proponent of having a low-cost verification capability.
Elon continued, explaining how he applied his way of thinking to Twitter. You might know this famous quote:
“Failure is an option here. If things are not failing you are not innovating.” -Elon Musk
Elon: This is definitely a work in progress. One of the first things I said, after the acquisition closed was, we’re going to make a bunch of mistakes but then will try to recover from them quickly. And that’s what we’ve done. I think we’ve generally succeeded in recovering from them quickly and it’s been going pretty well.
ELON MUSK PERSONALLY CALLED PAUL GRAHAM TO APOLOGIZE FOR TWITTER SUSPENSION
David Friedberg asked if the Paul Graham and journalist suspensions were mistakes. “Have you talked publicly about how that all got resolved at the end?”
Elon: Yes, the Paul Graham suspension was definitely a mistake. I actually called Paul Graham to apologize personally for that one.
On the journalist front, I think the journalist suspensions were not a mistake. For some reason, a bunch of journalists thought they were better than everyone else and that if they engaged in doxxing and breaking the rules in various ways that they’re not subject to suspension even though your average citizen is. I think that’s just messed up.
The same rules should apply to people that call themselves journalists as to anyone else on the system. They shouldn’t be sort of, above the rules. for some reason they thought they should be. so that doesn’t make sense, I don’t think that’s right.
David Friedberg also asked Elon to elaborate on shadow banning and transparency. Jason explained that if there’s going to be a system of shadow banning that the rules should be clear to everybody.
Elon: Yeah, absolutely, so that’s something I’m committed to and we will probably be able to roll that out in January.
By the way, we are not going to be rolling out a ton of new features over Christmas and New Year’s and stuff so…. the next sort of feature set will probably roll out mid to late January.
And hopefully, in that we can include information about why an account gets suspended or what is called in Twitter visibility filtering ha ha a.k.a. shadow banning. There’s a lot of things that just happen accidentally. What are the rules in the system that are meant to detect that someone is a bot or a troll and then an account is sort of innocently caught up in that.
So ha ha there’s some accounts that were just suspended yesterday because — temporary suspended, they got like 12 hours suspensions because — someone in trust and safety thought they had posted a nude photo of Hunter Biden or something but they haven’t actually done that (laughter) I don’t know, it was just basically a mistake. There was some account that got a 12-hour suspension yesterday in error and they weren’t sure why it happened. It was essentially a mistake with Twitter Customer support that was corrected.
Elon Musk wearing a Dogecoin Cowboy t-shirt at Twitter HQ with David Sacks. Image courtesy All-In-Podcast.
CHAMATH ASKS ELON MUSK TO SHARE HIS VIEWS ON A 2023 RECESSION
Elon: Well I think it does seem like we’re headed into a recession here in 2023.
The magnitude of that recession is debatable, but I think it’s at least a light to moderate recession potentially on the order of 2009.
So I think it’s wise to prepare for the worst — hope for the best, prepare for the worst — don’t get too adventurous, watch out for margin debt. Like I would really advise people to not have margin debt in a volatile stock market and from a cash standpoint, keep powder dry.
You can get some pretty extreme things happening in a down market. Like Brett Johnson, who is the CFO at SpaceX, was at Broadcom in 2000 and that’s a good company making good products. And he said from peak to trough, I think in less than 12 months Broadcom went down 97%.
So like even if you had a small margin loan there you got crushed. It subsequently recovered to much higher levels but you know if there’s like mass panic in the stock market then you’ve got to be really careful about margin debt.
But this is just, as we know, the economy is cyclic and its somewhat overdue for a recession. And my best guess is that we have sort of stormy times for a year to a year and a half and then things start to … Dawn breaks roughly in Q2 2024. That’s like my best guess.
Booms don’t last forever but neither do recessions.
ELON MUSK’S REASON FOR THE TWITTER FILES
Elon: I think it’s important to, like if you know if we’re going to be trusted in the future to kind of clear the decks for stuff that’s happened in the past so to be totally frank, almost every conspiracy theory that people had about Twitter turned out to be true.(laughter from all) Haha, so … is there a conspiracy theory about Twitter that didn’t turn out to be true?
So far, they all turned out to be true. And if not more true than people thought.
Chamath asked Elon what he thought was the most shocking thing about the Twitter files so far.
Elon: The FBI stuff was pretty intense!
Elon mentioned to the group that the FBI was flagging content to take down that had nothing to do with terrorism. He said, “they literally flagged satire.”
Elon: Maybe they didn’t get the joke, I don’t know, haha!
It’s a big deal that Twitter shows view counts, this helps people to know that they are seen. It’s more significant than likes. If you pay 8/$11, you can have a verified blue check eventually. I think it’s a great idea for people who can afford it. David Sacks came up with a wonderful idea that was implemented called Twitter for Business/Organizations. It helps to validate people’s claims that they represent an organization.
As far as Twitter‘s batting average, Elon Musk explains how in baseball you look at the big picture and not the individual strikeouts, etc. Basically, Twitter has an excellent batting average.
Elon admits that mistakes are made and explains that on deciding the Twitter workforce, it’s important to look at what’s actually needed. Not ‘how many people you should eliminate.’
Twitter’s incentive structure is changing and will not be based on hate speech magnified by bots and trolls.
I was surprised to hear that other tech firms in Silicon Valley are inspired by Elon Musk’s business model of making swift and drastic changes. The fact is, he is greatly respected and admired, even though the mainstream media would have you believe otherwise.
Again, Elon emphasizes that Twitter will not monetize hate speech. When you watch the video, he has an earnest demeanor when he says this, even pausing between his words. Twitter will not monetize hate speech. This is great news.
As far as Twitter’s suspensions of journalists and of Paul Graham, the Paul Graham suspension was an accident and Elon announced that he personally called Paul to apologize. However, the journalists were not accidentally suspended because they doxxed his family’s private location. This put his family’s life at risk. This is something normal people could not do, and so journalists should be held to the same level of accountability as regular people.
Elon mentioned that new features will be unveiled in January. We’re all looking forward to that. Elon believes we are heading towards a recession and he shares his information in the podcast and you can read about that above if you’re interested. Basically, Elon reminds us that the dawn will break after the stormy times. And he thinks that time will happen roughly in Q2 2024, that’s his best guess.
Lastly, Elon chuckles over the FBI flagging parody accounts in the Twitter files. I agree it is pretty hilarious that a parody account would actually be the reason for the efforts of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The interview ended with Elon giving up his seat to Michael Schellenberger, the writer who released the Twitter files on the FBI.
Fun Sidestory: I had the opportunity to get to know some of the Dogecoin community including Gary Lachance. I met Gary in Austin and I was excited to find out there were T-shirts with the Doge drone show from Cyber Rodeo and Texas Rodeo Doge shirts. Later when I was invited to meet Elon Musk at Giga Texas, I asked Gary if he had any extra shirts. Eventually, I met a friend of Gary’s in Austin who passed me a box of shirts and a ceramic tile. Elon received the Rodeo Doge and Drone Doge t-shirts and was appreciative and grateful for them. It’s cool to see Elon wearing the Rodeo Doge t-shirt.
Gail Alfar, author. Exclusive to What’s Up Twitter – December 29, 2022. All Rights Reserved. My goal as an author is to support Twitter 2.0 and Elon Musk in both making lives better on earth for humans and becoming a space-fairing civilization.
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My writing about Twitter strives to be accurate & leave you feeling optimistic and excited about the future. If you’re able, consider a donation to support!
My writing about Twitter strives to be accurate & leave you feeling optimistic and excited about the future. If you’re able, consider a donation to support!
My writing about Twitter strives to be accurate & leave you feeling optimistic and excited about the future. If you’re able, consider a donation to support!
Free speech hangs in the balance, and Elon Musk is doing a lot to rescue it with the Twitter files release.
This is good for both the left and the right and everyone in between.
Elon Musk believes deeply in free speech, which you have to trust, not something that anybody can come right out and prove. But for those who do believe him, (and he did back up his intentions by purchasing Twitter for $44 billion), Elon Musk believes in the First Amendment. This says Congress and the federal government, and any state or local government, cannot abridge or limit free speech or the press.
Elon Musk is encouraging people to correct misinformation on Twitter, using Community Notes. He even went so far as to note that a meme (above) that he tweeted about CNN, may have communicated the wrong message, and Community Notes corrected that. Of course, most people understood that it was a joke, and Elon stated,
“If Community Notes can correct me, then obviously they can correct anyone. This is a good example. They were right to add the label.” – Elon Musk
Whether you like former President Trump or not, Elon Musk made sure his historical words would always be available to the public on Twitter. This is valuable information, coming from a former President. His tweets are now available so that many people, now and in the future, can read them. Many people are of the opinion that Elon Musk was absolutely right in inviting the former President back. Trump remains only communicating on the platform that he created in Oct 2021, called TruthSocial. (I do not use it).
Birdwatch Gets a New Life under Elon Musk
In October 2020 Twitter conceived of a program they called Birdwatch. It was supposed to be a tool to stop the rise of misinformation. In January 2021 a Birdwatch Pilot program quietly began and Few people knew it existed and it was limited on how many people could participate and write notes. When Elon Musk bought Twitter he revived this little-known tool and gave it new life under the name of Community Notes.
Twitter 2.0 Community Notes as a Tool for Free Speech
Community Notes allow people to correct information and back their claims up with documentation and proof. You can go back in time as well, for example, if you disagree with Elon Musk’s tweet from March 2020, which stated, “Maybe worth considering chloroquine for C19” with a link to a document, you can refute that, and provide evidence for your claims. Here’s a screenshot of the tweet, and access into community notes.
Twitter 2.0 Community Notes Feature.
A suggestion for mainstream media…
My take is that if mainstream media cares so much about the information on Twitter, about what they consider to be dangerous things that Elon Musk tweets, instead of jumping to their conclusions and writing false headlines just for clicks and to please their advertisers, they could literally go in and anonymously contribute to Community Notes.
Gail Alfar, author. Exclusive to What’s Up Twitter – December 7, 2022. All Rights Reserved. My goal as an author is to support the new Twitter 2.0 and Elon Musk in both making lives better on earth for humans and becoming a space-fairing civilization. Updated March 7, 2023.
One-Time
Monthly
Yearly
My writing about Twitter strives to be accurate & leave you feeling optimistic and excited about the future. If you’re able, consider a donation to support!
My writing about Twitter strives to be accurate & leave you feeling optimistic and excited about the future. If you’re able, consider a donation to support!
My writing about Twitter strives to be accurate & leave you feeling optimistic and excited about the future. If you’re able, consider a donation to support!
WHAT'S UP 𝕏 by Gail Alfar 