Archive for the ‘internet/free speech’ Category

Five #Twitterfiles thoughts Under the Fedora Paid For, Friday Dump Differences, Traffic lost to Advertisers, Now it makes sense and Consequences

Posted: December 3, 2022 by datechguy in business, election 2020, internet/free speech, News/opinion, tech, Uncategorized
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One might be amazed how many reporters on the left spent yesterday on twitter attacking Musk and Matt Taibbi for releasing these documents, at least one would if you didn’t realize that these folks paychecks depend on them objecting.

This goes to show the difference between social media and standard media. For standard media a Friday night dump would be all about burring a story. However for a story that will spread via social media a Friday night weekend dump means more regular people will be free to read and spread it around, which is the whole point.

All that Musk has done has been about raising the profile of twitter. This document dump will do the same. That’s good news for all those advertisers who didn’t heed the left’s call to leave the platform but bad news to all who played along and lost their exposure to all those eyeballs.

This combined with the under oath testimony of an FBI agent being deposed is Missouri on their attempts to use big tech to swing the last election goes a long way in explaining why they went all in on stealing that election. If they fail and Trump wins then it’s bound to have been leaked to someone in the admin which might have resulted in a special prosecutor and/or investigation that would have been damning.

It’s very much worth noting that there were Democrat members of congress worried about this but their primary worry was what it would mean to section 230 defanging the friendly tech folks elsewhere at Facebook and Google and Youtube. In other words they were worried about not the acts but the Consequences they might lead to. A real test of the new GOP congress will be how deep they investigate this. If I’m McCarthy worried about getting the speakers chair I’d put out a statement at once saying I would name a committee at once and promise to load it with fire-eaters on the right.

Then let the consequences flow.

Elon Musk and Eyes on the Prize

Posted: November 19, 2022 by datechguy in internet/free speech
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Curley: [stops Moe and Larry] Hey! What’s this stuff [Brighto] for anyway?

Larry: Why, it’s a cleaner, ya chump!

Curley: I know, it’s auto polish.

Moe: You boys really wanna know what it’s for?

Larry & Curly [In unison] Yeah!

Moe: It’s for sale, now get busy selling it.

The Three Stooges, Dizzy Doctors 1937

Watching Elon Musk over the last few days reminds me of the early days of Donald Trump’s first run for president in the sense that both of them absolutely know the media left having functioned from inside it and know how to play them like a fiddle.

Twitter as a platform to generate profit has only one commodity, eyeballs and buzz. If you are an advertiser your goal is to get your product in front of as many eyeballs as possible, if you are a person trying to create “buzz” you need to be able to establish yourself as a “credible” source.

Every step Elon Musk has made in the last month is designed to bring one or the other forward.

The pushing of the $8 blue checkmark got everyone talking about blue checkmarks and baited people, particularly people who hate him, to talk and tweet about them.

The ultimatum to the workers, in addition to the weeding out of the useless percentage of his workforce (his own “Golgafrinchan B ark“) not only got a bunch of people on Twitter talking about Twitter to wit:

But got people outside of Twitter, on TV and Radio talking about…Twitter.

And then yesterday came the restoration of three large accounts, the above quoted Babylon Bee (without deleting their Rachel Devine tweet) Gordon Peterson a terror to leftist thought and of course “D” list comedian Kathy Griffin and even while doing so he baited people again and many, including myself took the bait

But while restoring Trump is a no brainer, just doing so doesn’t create the required buzz, the conversation, the tweets and the eyeballs that he is selling so he follows this up with his Pièce de résistance the Trump Poll!

As of this writing (4:14 AM EST Saturday, yeah I woke up coughing again) Seven point nine MILLION people responded to this poll.

This doesn’t count multipliers from the untold number of people who have commented on it, retweeted it, wrote about it etc,

What does all this accomplish? It demonstrates to all the advertisers that the left is trying to pressure to run away from Twitter that Mr. Musk can literally deliver millions of eyeballs almost at will.

Now if you’re trying to repress a particular point of view that’s a bad thing, but if you’re trying to get the word out about a product like Brighto

…that’s just what the Doctor is willing to pay for.

Twitter may not be real life but it produces real eyeballs. Elon doesn’t give a damn if you like him, or hate him or think his buying Twitter is an act of war, he just wants you talking about, writing about and above all TWEETING about his product.

That’s the prize he has his eyes on, anything else is just gravy.

Update: A quick example of this, check out what the Times of India is tweeting about

There’s another million eyeballs half way around the world.

Five Assorted Thoughts: Dangerous Baseball Stats, Verlander vs Schilling, Giselle vs Brady, A Good Sign and the End of My Silent Personal #freestacy Twitter Protest

Posted: October 29, 2022 by datechguy in baseball, internet/free speech, Sports
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The St. Louis Cardinals were up 2-0 in the top of the 9th of game 1 when a graphic came up on the screen saying that the Cardinals had never lost a postseason game when up 2-0 in the ninth. The Phillies ended up scoring 6 runs winning the game and the series.

Yesterday the Astros were up 5-0 going into the 4th when on the screen came a graphic saying the Houston Astros have never lost a postseason game when up by five. The Phillies tied the game by the 5th and won in extra innings.

As Yogi Berra said, “It ain’t over till it’s over”.

As of yesterday Justin Verlander who got a no-decision in yesterday’s game is 0-7 in World Series play and holds the highest ERA of pitchers with more than 30 innings pitched in World Series history.

I find that rather incredible. Verlander is without question a first ballot hall of famer1. He led the league in Wins, ERA WHIP and hits per 9 innings last year With 244 wins he has an actual chance of getting to the 300 win mark and if you watch him pitch over the years the person who most comes to mind in terms of style is Curt Schilling. Throws strikes and strikes out a ton of guys, walks very few but on the down side gives up HR’s and doubles on occasion to guys who can make contact.

Yet Schilling is legendary in World Series 4-1 with two more rings (3) than Verlander (1).

Given the similarity of stuff, style and grit I just can’t see how Verlander and Schilling produce such different results in World Series play.

Of course if Hoston wins this series nobody will be talking about or worrying about Verlander’s series stats except Verlander.

1Subject of course to having acceptable political beliefs in the eyes of the liberal sports media

How DARE Tom Brady decide to honor his contract and all those fans who bought season tickets to watch him play this year! No wonder his wife left him!

Gisele will of course land on her feet. She’s much richer than him and will have no shortage of a choice of rich accomplished men who will want her to choose from.

That she would break up their family over a season of football when Brady had stated that he would be playing through age 45 for years and for which he had a contract to play, is to me a narcissism on a huge scale. Would it really have been that hard to wait three more months?

This goes to show that wealth and fame does not guarantee happiness.

It’s day three of the Musk Era on Twitter and if you want to see the difference in real terms here it is explained in one tweet:

I’ve never got beyond 3500+ followers myself despite questioning Trump at press conferences and long interviews with Ted Cruz and some serious coverage of presidential campaigns and given that the blog is not of the scale it once was I likely will never reach the numbers other have but I’ve always presumed that was on me.

A lot of people think the return of Donald Trump to Twitter will be the sign that the era of censorship will be done. The moment I’m waiting for is different.

I use tweetdeck and because I follow Stacy McCain so closely I kept a column of his tweets up. On the day he was suspended the error messages: User has been suspended came up.

Stacy had 80,000+ followers at the time and his blog is his primary source of income. This was a direct attack on a conservative with six children’s ability to support his family by a bunch of leftist apparatchiks out to crush dissent and was the herald of what cumulated in the banning of Trump

Rather than remove the @rsmccain column I’ve left it there all those years and every time I open tweetdeck the “User has been suspended” message has come up and it refreshes several times an hour while I’m on the page.

When that column is populated again then I’ll know that free speech has returned to twitter.

Head Exploding Time for the left In One Tweet:

Posted: October 27, 2022 by datechguy in Always look at the bright side of Trump, internet/free speech, News/opinion
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The full statement is available at Glenn’s site here.

I’m wondering if someone at Twitter in a last act of defiance will “accidently” lose all Trump’s old tweets so the account will have to start fresh. I’m sure it will be an accident.

What will be really funny will be the reactions on twitter, particularly if he’s back up before Monday.

This will be fun.

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