Random News not worthy of own thread

[chew-ie]

Thanks for all the fish @Berlin: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/ ... -in-berlin

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@clakclak

I too have dear humans here - that's part of why I'll intend to rather investing somewhere else - to provide a safe heaven if needed. A branch of my family did so in the past - leaving for Switzerland as Nazis started to take over and finally migrated to Australia before WW2 escalated.

I won't stop opposing fascists, but I stop arguing with them.

@Chips

See my answer at clakclak - and it is indeed a matter of principle. As to where to go - I'll see. If space is no option (^^) I might end wandering the planet for some time as I can work from everywhere. But with fascists becoming popular in Europe again I sure won't buy property in Germany / Europe.

[Mailo]

@clakclak

Indeed, Germany has a massive problem there. In my eyes it is beyond repair, thus I won't invest in that country anymore. All this would achieve is to help racists gain more ground.

Reading this sounds very strange to me, as you are the first person I've met with this opinion of Germany. As someone more on the left than right side of the spectrum and married to a non-native of Germany, I am moderately aware of the issues that we are fighting with. Regarding Maaßen, keep in mind he is the *former* head, and for good reason ... he was removed when his more extreme views came to light. The same also happens in other official positions, maybe not as quickly as I would like, but it is far away from being "beyond repair". I'd estimate it is in no way worse than many other countries (Switzerland and Australia definitely being included in that list), but still better than quite a number.

While I have no way of knowing how much of an impact you stopping your investment has, and have no intention of influencing your decisions, you can be assured that the facists will be very thankful to you for stopping it, as you could do nothing better to help them win. Low investment, low employment, low wages and bad education are what is needed for facism to take root.
Investing in an area does not help racists gain more ground, stopping investment does.

[clakclak]

Short update on Elon "Free Speech" Musk and his crusade the finally kill twitter. He recently suspended a bunch of journalists from twitter including journalists from the New York Times and Washington Post. The bans came after Musk claimed that by reporting on his banning of a twitter account who posted the flight data of Musk's private jet (this flight data is open to the public to begin with the only thing the account did was posting it to twitter), the journalists had released "assassination coordinates".
The bans are now concerning the United Nations. The European Union is considering sanctions.

On a sidenote: Seeing Germany's strongly worded letter posted on twitter is rather funny. For anyone curious, the text more or less says: "Freedom of the press good, banning journalists from twitter bad. We don't like."

[mr.WHO]

Isn't doxing a "hateful conduct and encouraging to violence" according to pretty much all social media standards?

What has it anything to do with Freedom of Speech or Journalism?
It's like paparazzi raiding house of celebrity - they don't uncover a great conspiracy of some evil politcian or billionare, they just maliciously doxx him in hope of some nuts lone wolf hurting him - that's very petty at best, dangerous at worst.
Especially that previous Twitter, Google and Facebook didn't had any restrains to PERMA ban people from the other side for doxing.

If anything it was still lenient 7 day ban (unless he changed it to perma ban or something)?


Either we ban everyone equally for doxing (including journos, celebs and politicians) or we ban no one.
Personally, despite being pro Free Speech, I put doxxing much closer to SWATing than to actual journalism or stating political views.

It doesn't mean Elon Twitter is good/bad for now - it will still take a few months to see how consistent his TOS rules are and how equally are they enforced.

One beef I have with Social media in general is how vague and constantly changing the TOS are (e.g. having Adpocalypse on YT every single year or constantly changing angorythms boosting/deboosting).
If Elon can brign some stability and consistency, it will be good, but as I said his ego might derail it at some point.

[clakclak]

Isn't doxing a "hateful conduct and encouraging to violence" according to pretty much all social media standards?

Yes it is. Posting flight data however is not doxing. (Civilian) Flight data is public data, avaliable to everyone and it has been available to everyone long before Musk bought twitter. You can watch all worldwide civilian flights in real time on this website: https://globe.adsbexchange.com/ The reason why it is not doxing, is because it is not Musk that is getting tracked. It is his plane, an object. Nobody can tell if he is on board or not.


BTW it is hard to keep up with this stuff, the journalist accounts have allready be reinstated, after Musk polled peopled on Twitter if they should continue to be banned and a majority of people was in favour of unbanning them.

[mr.WHO]

Yes it is. Posting flight data however is not doxing. (Civilian) Flight data is public data, avaliable to everyone and it has been available to everyone long before Musk bought twitter. You can watch all worldwide civilian flights in real time on this website: https://globe.adsbexchange.com/ The reason why it is not doxing, is because it is not Musk that is getting tracked. It is his plane, an object. Nobody can tell if he is on board or not.


BTW it is hard to keep up with this stuff, the journalist accounts have allready be reinstated, after Musk polled peopled on Twitter if they should continue to be banned and a majority of people was in favour of unbanning them.

Aren't we mixing two different cases?

The flight data drama was like 1-2 years ago and as you say, it's was not doxing.

I recall current journo ban was because actual doxing of Musk location? e.g. suppose Musk location, but in reality it was location of one of his children.
I would be really angry for something like this - this looks more like mafia "we know where your children are", than any semblance of journalism.

[clakclak]

Yes it is. Posting flight data however is not doxing. (Civilian) Flight data is public data, avaliable to everyone and it has been available to everyone long before Musk bought twitter. You can watch all worldwide civilian flights in real time on this website: https://globe.adsbexchange.com/ The reason why it is not doxing, is because it is not Musk that is getting tracked. It is his plane, an object. Nobody can tell if he is on board or not.


BTW it is hard to keep up with this stuff, the journalist accounts have allready be reinstated, after Musk polled peopled on Twitter if they should continue to be banned and a majority of people was in favour of unbanning them.

Aren't we mixing two different cases?

The flight data drama was like 1-2 years ago and as you say, it's was not doxing.

I recall current journo ban was because actual doxing of Musk location? e.g. suppose Musk location, but in reality it was location of one of his children.
I would be really angry for something like this - this looks more like mafia "we know where your children are", than any semblance of journalism.

No, I am not mixing things up.

Article from 2 days ago: Twitter Suspends Over 25 Accounts That Track Billionaires’ Private Planes

Article from yesterday: Twitter suspends accounts of several journalists who had reported on Elon Musk

Accounts of tech journalists at CNN, the Washington Post, Mashable and the New York Times were suspended in quick succession on Thursday evening. All had recently published articles about Musk’s suspension of a Twitter account that had shared publicly available data about the movements of his private jet.

Article from a few hours ago: Elon Musk reinstates Twitter accounts of suspended journalists

Musk claimed the journalists had “doxxed” him, but in fact they had recently published articles about Musk’s suspension of a Twitter account that had shared publicly available data about the movements of his private jet. The articles written by several of the reporters before their accounts were suspended did not include information about Musk’s real-time location, or the location of any of his family members.

[mr.WHO]

OK, so now in short.

Elon had a spat with one journo over potential doxing (Elon claiming it's doxing, while journo claim it was just fligth data) and then made a summary ban of 25 journalist for the flight-data.

Welp, as I said, his ego might be a problem for Twitter.
Having temper tantrum banhammer, just in opposite direction is not a solution.

At least the voting to reinstate them gone well.
There is a small light in the tunnel, that Twitter community will start to moderate itself, with Musk going away to other projects.

[Vertigo 7]

The "light in the tunnel" is that Twitter no longer has the revenue to remain viable and ends up being shuttered or sold. As ol' Elon lost his claim to being the world's richest man, solely due to his Twitter fiasco, selling would seem to be the likely scenario.

[mr.WHO]

WIth credit rates going up along with inflation, the "easy money" is rapidly drying up.
Lots of companies are slashing the marketing funds.

We'll gona see a lot of bakrupcy, sells and lay-off in 2023.
The fist batch has already started in 2022 across media, entertainment companies and even the giants like Microsoft and Amazon.
I'm starting to see more and more sites switching to paywall subscription model.

Elon couldn't pick a worse time for Twitter deal.
With or without his drama, many ad companies will use it as an excuse to withdraw funding.

Another YT adpocalypse is pretty much assured.


I guess 2023 will be a good year to finally go through rising stash of books that I wanna read

[chew-ie]

Yeah, one has to embrace the adpocalypse - as it is a long needed change

[mr.WHO]

Yeah, one has to embrace the adpocalypse - as it is a long needed change

I find it questionable what do you mean by much needed change?

People making content for bots and scripts, rather than for real people.
Having to do weird formats like TikTok style shorts.
Totall burnout, because their channel starts to shrink due to algorithmic deboosting and changes every quarter.
Falling so low to start doing sponsor content trash like Sheat, Ridge Waller or Established Titles.
All of this with Youtube failing to fix basic comment spam bots copy/paste 100 same message with hyperlink or "claim your prize on telegram".


It's only getting worse with each adpocalypse.

[chew-ie]

Yeah, one has to embrace the adpocalypse - as it is a long needed change

I find it questionable what do you mean by much needed change?

People making content for bots and scripts, rather than for real people.
Having to do weird formats like TikTok style shorts.
Totall burnout, because their channel starts to shrink due to algorithmic deboosting and changes every quarter.
Falling so low to start doing sponsor content trash like Sheat, Ridge Waller or Established Titles.
All of this with Youtube failing to fix basic comment spam bots copy/paste 100 same message with hyperlink or "claim your prize on telegram".

It's only getting worse with each adpocalypse.

Then we don't have have the adpocalypse yet. Afterwards the ad industry lies in ruins [which is the much needed change].

[felter]

Those suspended accounts just once again showed Musk hasn't got a clue, one of the things he said was:

My plane is actually not trackable without using non-public data

Which is a big lie, as every plane or even boats above a certain size are trackable, if you know their number. But it's not just that, he just made things worse for himself as most people didn't know about these reporters or what they were reporting on, but now because of his actions and him trying to cover up what they have been saying about him, he has just shone a big bright light on them putting them at the top the list of reporters to be checked out, meanwhile the reporters themselves are loving it as they are getting the attention that they haven't been getting before this.

A few other things it turns out the past week or so he sold another $3.5 billion shares in Tesla and no one knows what the money was or is being used for. Myself I suspect it's bing used to pay the Twitter bills as he hasn't been paying them, probably as Twitter is not making any money.

A funny thing is as the reporter says at the end of that interview Musk is not the right person to run Twitter and I have heard that now from a few different people. In other words, if Twitter was looking for someone to run Twitter and Musk turned up for the interview for the job, he would never get it.

[mr.WHO]

That's what make me very confused with the whole situation.

Musk had a drama with some teenager hosting his flight data like 2 years ago. He made it a big deal back then, so he should know the legalities and perception of this situation through and through.

That's why I believe it's rather unlikely he would go so over the top (like baning 24 other bystanders) for just flight data alone.
I refere to that one journo, who according to Musk revealed location of one of his children.
However, even then he should keep this between him and that one journo (including legal action if there is a ground) and leave those 24 journalist alone.


Given last 3 years, potential financial troubles out of Twitter deal, other troubles (like SpaceX and Starlink having profitability issues), we might be witnessing a crawling meltdown on Musk side.

[felter]

So much for free speech but hey you can still use the N word, threaten people lives (so long as it's not Musk's) or even spread lies and propaganda about anything else.

[mr.WHO]

So much for free speech but hey you can still use the N word, threaten people lives (so long as it's not Musk's) or even spread lies and propaganda about anything else.

I'm not sure if it's classify as Free Speech - commercial and advert activity is heavily regulated everywhere.
I don't think shopping malls allow thirdparty advertizers roaming on the premise without their consent and abiding their rules.

The only part that might be questionable and impractical is link sharing rule. There possibility that it will become too broad and eventually misfire.
E.g. banning non-commercial users simply for sharing links, that search bot will misinterpret as restricted ad link.
We seen it in the past in YT, Facebook and Twitter, so I'm quite sure it will hit Twitter 2.0 eventually as well

...on the other side, leaving backdoor for non-comercial users will make that evetually ad-bots will find the gap and start the flood (like Youtube "you won, contact me on telegram" - I wonder why Telegram is not on Twitter 2.0 blackist?).

[clakclak]

So the poll about rather Musk should step down as CEO of Twitter just concluded and maybe this will bring this very strange saga to it's final conclusion as a majority of Twitter users voted for Musk to leave. The people have spoken or something. I personally am sure Musk will continue to find ways to burn Twitter further to the ground and as someone who never used the platform I am delighted by it.

[mr.WHO]

So the poll about rather Musk should step down as CEO of Twitter just concluded and maybe this will bring this very strange saga to it's final conclusion as a majority of Twitter users voted for Musk to leave. The people have spoken or something. I personally am sure Musk will continue to find ways to burn Twitter further to the ground and as someone who never used the platform I am delighted by it.

He didn't specified the timeline of his leave, nor that he won't micromanage his sucessor behind the curtain.
The whole poll is more akin to bread & circus for his fans and anti-fans than something meaningful.

[Vertigo 7]

Nah, the post is like a 5th grader passing a note to their crush "Do you like me? Circle one. YES NO"