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non_radical_centrist  8mo ago (astralcodexten.com)   2080 thread views

Book Review: Elon Musk[Scott Alexander]

astralcodexten.com

Scott Alexander’s review of a 2015 biography of Elon Musk. Elon Musk, to me, is one of the world’s most confusing people. He’s simultaneously both one of the smartest people in the world, creating billions of dollars of value in companies like Tesla and SpaceX, and one of the dumbest, in burning billions on Twitter. Scott’s review I think is a good explanation of what’s up with Musk.

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Okay, but where are the failed attempts at boycotts quashed by Twitter?

A far more likely explanation is that for nearly a decade now, right-wingers have been continuously pushing a narrative that seeks to cast LGBT people as crazies, pedophiles, and/or some kind of evil. Part of this has very much been focusing on the T in that acronym over the others. Far easier to get boycotts going over that than gay people. I don't think the particularities of the social media platform all these people congregated on is particularly important.

The Twitter throttling that Musk has detailed since he took over was worse than most "conspiracy theories".

He had Twitter add the public view count so to provide future transparency about throttling.

You are referring to the throttling over accounts, yes? Wherein Twitter would deboost certain accounts? That's a related claim, but not what's in contention.

but where are the failed attempts at boycotts quashed by Twitter?

Uh, quashed by twitter. Failed attempts are attempts whose reach is stifled, meaning if we can easily find them then they weren't quashed.

Someone on the right is undoubtedly reporting on it. Where are the reports of the quashed boycotts?

You really think there hasn't been a single person who tried to start a boycott, but then it didn't get very far? You're really demanding evidence for this?

At the very least, you must admit the following is true:

  1. Left-leaning influencers were much more likely to get blue checks than their right-leaning counterparts

  2. They therefore had more reach than their counterparts

  3. Some right-leaning influencer with no blue check, but with more fame and status than the least famous left-leaning blue check, said something about a boycott

  4. The potential boycott never got off the ground, but would therefore have had a much greater chance if not for Twitter's political bias

No, actually, I don't know if any or all of your statements are true.

Getting the checkmark is a heavily influenced by how "notable" you are in media, along with whether there's a person with a Twitter contact working with/for you. There are people with massive YouTube followings without it and journalists who have it despite no presence to speak of. Insofar as Twitter's verified population is left-wing, it's heavily correlated with having a Twitter contact and having news articles written about you. All of this was how the pre-Musk Twitter ran.

But even if I granted all your "must admit" statements, that doesn't get you "quashed by Twitter". You need to declare that Twitter was taking political ideology into account. "Quashed by Twitter" implies active action by Twitter, and I'll even be charitable enough to say that "verified with political consideration" counts as evidence.

Propose all the mechanisms you want. They're still only theoretical until you prove them.

"Quashed by twitter" was your wording in response to someone else stating that Twitter now magnifies right-wing memes more. If "quashed" does imply active action, then that's your mistake; the point we are discussing (and the point you responded to) is whether boycotts have started working better now that Twitter is more neutral.

The discussion is how important Twitter was in suppressing right-wing boycotts. Whether you want to point to human moderation or tweaks to the algorithm, you're still talking about ascribing agency to Twitter. My point stands.

An enormous change to the algorithm was changing who gets the blue checks. The group with blue checks (and therefore much more reach) is now much more conservative than it was before. This obviously leads to many right-wing memes such as boycotts having more spread than they did before.

Assuming this is true, it still wouldn't get you to Twitter suppressing right-wing boycotts. It would get you to Twitter suppressing non-verified boycotts. Those are not the same thing and they shouldn't be treated that way for the reasons I outlined above regarding verification.

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