General Elon Musk Fukkery Thread
- Thread starter Armchair Militant
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Redwood
Superstar
Voice of Reason
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X Banned the Account of a Major Critic. Now He’s Taking It to Court
Software developer Travis Brown’s X account was banned after his research alleged far-right influencers were becoming more prominent on the platform. He’s taking X to court in a bid to reverse the decision.
MORGAN MEAKER
BUSINESS
31.10.2023 05:09 PM
X Banned the Account of a Major Critic. Now He’s Taking It to Court
Software developer Travis Brown’s X account was banned after his research alleged far-right influencers were becoming more prominent on the platform. He’s taking X to court in a bid to reverse the decision.
PHOTOGRAPH: TOOGA/GETTY IMAGES
X has banned the account of a prominent critic after he published data that he claims exposed the site’s embrace of the far-right after Elon Musk’s takeover last year.
Travis Brown, a software developer based in Berlin, alleges his account was first suspended on July 1 this year, several months after his data formed the basis of New York Times and CNN reports claiming that far-right influencers featured prominently among Twitter Blue subscribers, and how thousands of previously banned X accounts, including members of the far-right, were being reinstated on the site.
On Tuesday, Brown announced his decision to challenge his account’s suspension in court in Berlin. “This is a matter of principle,” he says. “I think it is important that platforms like Twitter are not allowed to shut down criticism arbitrarily.” X did not reply to repeated requests for comment.
X has been accused of attempting to silence its critics several times since Elon Musk acquired the platform in October 2022. In July, X sued the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) after the nonprofit published research suggesting that problematic content on the platform, such as hate and disinformation, was becoming more widespread. In December 2022, X suspended the account ElonJet, which tracked the movement of Musk’s private jet.
“Elon Musk likes to pretend he cares about free speech, but this case exposes that commitment as little more than window dressing,” claims Tiemo Wölken, a German politician who represents the Socialists and Democrats group in the European Parliament. “Someone who silences critics and researchers by kicking them off their platform isn’t a free speech advocate.”
Brown says he worked for X for one year, leaving in 2015 when his team was shut down. In 2022, he received a grant from the Open Knowledge Foundation, a nonprofit, to build software that would enable him to trace the history of accounts engaging in disinformation and hate speech. That tool, which focused on the company then known as Twitter, enabled him to identify which social media accounts posting about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had a history of posting spam. But it also meant he could identify, almost in real time, which previously banned accounts were being reinstated on X, he says.
“After Musk took over, you did see a very strong turn toward the far right, in terms of which accounts were being amplified, which accounts were building followings more quickly,” he claims.
Brown received no warning before his account was initially banned in July, the developer says. He says his account was restored in September, after a court order. But later that same month, Twitter informed Brown that his account would be banned again, with X justifying its decision to the court in a 36-page letter. X argued that Brown was using the platform’s data in a way that violated its terms of service. A similar argument was used in the case against the CCDH. X’s terms of service were updated in September 2023 to prohibit crawling or scraping in any form.
According to Brown, he has developed many small applications that draw on different data sources and are used by different researchers. But the tool he used to trace the history of X accounts relied on data from the Internet Archive, as well as data gathered from X’s API, he says, adding that this was done in a way he believed to be in compliance with the developer agreement at the time.
“What is at stake here is the freedom of researchers on social media platforms,” says Josephine Ballon, spokesperson for HateAid, a German nonprofit that campaigns against online hate speech and is helping Brown with his case. “Travis did not even publish this information on his own. He only contributed to press publications.”
The legal proceedings in Germany are ongoing. For Ballon, the best case scenario would be if the court reinstates Brown’s account again or rules the block to be unlawful. The worst outcome would be if the court declines to rule on the case because X’s European Union headquarters are based in Ireland. HateAid is asking the European Commission to intervene using the Digital Services Act, a new rulebook that went into effect in August and is designed to protect freedom of expression online.
“Even if we lose it, I think this case really shows how a huge social media company is going after a single person with really expensive lawyers and hundreds of pages of written documents,” says Ballon. “That really shows how aggressively they are behaving toward their critics.”
Redwood
Superstar
Piff Perkins
Veteran
He believes black people are inherently inferior to whites (low IQ, prone to violence). He believes Jews control the world and are trying to eliminate white people. And he believes hate speech is perfectly fine. None of this is new, he’s been on this wave for years. At some point the chickens will come home roost for him. The backlash he’s facing right now seems light compared to what it should be.
IBM pulls X ads as Elon Musk endorses white pride
/IBM froze its advertisements after a report indicated they appeared on pro-Nazi content — while Musk chats with far-right accounts about race.
By Jacob Kastrenakes, a deputy editor who oversees tech and news coverage. Since joining The Verge in 2012, he’s published 5,000+ stories and is the founding editor of the creators desk.Nov 16, 2023, 4:06 PM EST|
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Photo credit should read ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images
IBM has pulled its advertising presence from X, formerly Twitter, as Elon Musk continues to endorse far-right talking points — agreeing with posts this week that promoted antisemitism and pushed support for white pride. The nonprofit Media Matters drew attention to those statements and noted that IBM, Apple, Comcast, and other companies all had ads placed next to pro-Nazi and pro-Hitler content (not posted by Musk) on X. IBM told the Financial Times and confirmed to The Verge that “IBM has zero tolerance for hate speech and discrimination and we have immediately suspended all advertising on X while we investigate this entirely unacceptable situation.”
On the platform today, Musk called it “super messed up” that white people are not, in the words of one far-right poster’s tweet, “allowed to be proud of their race.” The white pride support came a day after Musk agreed with an antisemitic post claiming that Jewish communities have stoked “hatred against whites.” Musk told another user that “You have said the actual truth” after the person wrote that they are “deeply disinterested in giving the tiniest shyt now about western Jewish populations” facing “hordes of minorities that support flooding their country.” The Atlantic wrote that Musk’s tweets echoed the “deadliest anti-Semitic conspiracy theory in recent American history” by pushing the idea that there is a “unified Jewish agenda.”
Musk later focused in on the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a nonprofit focused on fighting antisemitism, saying that the group “unjustly attacks the majority of the West” (a category Musk left undefined) because it cannot “criticize the minority groups who are their primary threat.” Musk previously threatened to sue the ADL because of the nonprofit’s criticism of lax moderation practices on X that allowed antisemitism to spread.
He never sued, but he clearly hasn’t dropped the grudge — and if anything, he’s broadened its scope. When another X user pushed Musk to clarify that his complaint is with the ADL and not Jewish communities in general, Musk responded that it “does not extend to all Jewish communities, but it is also not just limited to ADL.” He posted that he opposed the ADL and “any other groups who push de facto anti-white racism or anti-Asian racism or racism of any kind.”
Musk has responded aggressively to criticism of his X’s handling of antisemitic content as the company’s ad business struggles. X CEO Linda Yaccarino has said that most of the platform’s biggest advertisers have returned after dropping the site due to its moderation changes, but Media Matters previously showed that they’re spending far less than they used to. Yaccarino responded later on Thursday, writing that X has been “extremely clear about our efforts to combat antisemitism and discrimination.”
Apollo Kid
Veteran
No more ads on Elon’s X, EU Commission tells staff
Ads on Musk-owned social media site risk causing ‘reputational damage’ to the EU, its executive says in internal note.
X has been under growing scrutiny in Europe as a result of the bloc’s new content moderation law | Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
BY NICHOLAS VINOCUR
NOVEMBER 17, 2023 10:47 AM CET
3 MINUTES READ
The European Commission has decided to stop advertising on social media platform X, owned by Elon Musk, over “widespread concerns relating to the spread of disinformation,” according to an internal note obtained by POLITICO's Brussels Playbook.
In a note sent to all heads of service and directors general, the Commission’s Deputy Chief Spokesperson Dana Spinant said disinformation on X, especially in relation to the Israel-Hamas war, had led the institution to “recommend to temporarily suspend advertising on this platform until further notice to avoid risks of reputational damage to the Commission.”
X has been under growing scrutiny in Europe as a result of the bloc’s new content moderation law, the Digital Services Act (DSA). The Commission, which enforces the law, in October sent a formal request for information to the company to explain how its handling of illegal content and disinformation connected to Hamas’ October 7 attack complies with the DSA.
EU services can still use X to communicate through the many profile pages run by Commission services, Spinant said. But the communications department ordered a stop to the institution's paid advertising on the platform.
Spinant said the department “will consider using alternative platforms (e.g. LinkedIn, Instagram or Facebook) or digital advertising on websites, as appropriate. We are also exploring new platforms to diversify our social media presence.”
The Commission landed in hot water recently over its use of paid targeted ads on X.
POLITICO reported this month that the institution's home affairs department had targeted ads in September at groups of X users based on their religious and political beliefs, including users categorized as “anti-Christian” or those interested in Italian leader Giorgia Meloni or Irish nationalist party Sinn Féin.
The advertising campaign aimed at propping up support for the Commission's controversial proposal for a law that could force social media and messaging platforms to scan all user content for child sexual abuse material (CSAM) — a proposal that critics say would violate privacy and would effectively break encrypted communications.
Spinant's letter warned services that buying ads which target user profiles based on sensitive personal data would be in breach of the DSA. “It is essential that our advertising respects scrupulously the spirit and the letter of the rules that we seek to enforce as regulator for very large online platforms,” the official wrote.
X did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Clothilde Goujard contributed reporting.
Elon stretched himself too thin. Tesla is the only reason why he is in that position. Most likely the valuation of the company will sink, get bought out by one of the Big 3... or just have it's tech. raided.
voltronblack
Superstar
I think that the mostly likely outcome the Tesla brand is to tie up with Elon.Voice of Reason
Veteran
Seems like we are getting closer to Elon Musk being exposed as a racist by the mainstream.
The media was turning a blind eye because his car company was making people a lot of money.
Can't continue to hide anymore.
The media was turning a blind eye because his car company was making people a lot of money.
Can't continue to hide anymore.
I think TESLA is pretty much tied up with Elon already, he is basically the god-emporer of the company. Clearly though TESLA of today in terms of reputation is less than it was pre-Pandemic.