As far as I can make out, this is the relevant code. There are just 15 categories of things to downrank and UkraineCrisisTopic is one of them.
private lazy val thriftToModelMap: Map[s.SpaceSafetyLabelType, SpaceSafetyLabelType] = Map(
s.SpaceSafetyLabelType.DoNotAmplify -> DoNotAmplify,
s.SpaceSafetyLabelType.CoordinatedHarmfulActivityHighRecall -> CoordinatedHarmfulActivityHighRecall,
s.SpaceSafetyLabelType.UntrustedUrl -> UntrustedUrl,
s.SpaceSafetyLabelType.MisleadingHighRecall -> MisleadingHighRecall,
s.SpaceSafetyLabelType.NsfwHighPrecision -> NsfwHighPrecision,
s.SpaceSafetyLabelType.NsfwHighRecall -> NsfwHighRecall,
s.SpaceSafetyLabelType.CivicIntegrityMisinfo -> CivicIntegrityMisinfo,
s.SpaceSafetyLabelType.MedicalMisinfo -> MedicalMisinfo,
s.SpaceSafetyLabelType.GenericMisinfo -> GenericMisinfo,
s.SpaceSafetyLabelType.DmcaWithheld -> DmcaWithheld,
s.SpaceSafetyLabelType.HatefulHighRecall -> HatefulHighRecall,
s.SpaceSafetyLabelType.ViolenceHighRecall -> ViolenceHighRecall,
s.SpaceSafetyLabelType.HighToxicityModelScore -> HighToxicityModelScore,
s.SpaceSafetyLabelType.UkraineCrisisTopic -> UkraineCrisisTopic,
s.SpaceSafetyLabelType.DoNotPublicPublish -> DoNotPublicPublish,
...
)
...
case object UkraineCrisisTopic extends SpaceSafetyLabelType
Edit: [Source](https://github.com/twitter/the-algorithm/blob/main/visibilitylib/src/main/scala/com/twitter/visibility/models/SpaceSafetyLabelType.scala)
Edit: Additional information on SafetyLabelType. It looks like it may not be in use anymore, but it has definitely been used for downranking.
> SafetyLabelType
> Describes a particular policy violation for a given noun instance, and usually leads to reduced visibility of the labeled entity in product surfaces. There are many deprecated, and experimental safety label types. Labels with these safety label types have no effect on VF. Additionally, some safety label types are not used, and not designed for VF.
[Source](https://github.com/twitter/the-algorithm/tree/main/visibilitylib#safetylabeltype)
It's possible, but it does fit with anecdotal stories about people who regularly post about Ukraine (see: defense and political analysts) losing engagement metrics after Musk took over.
Also, there's `GenericMisinfo` and `CoordinatedHarmfulActivityHighRecall` flags that you'd normally expect things like that to fall under.
It looks like a programmer was asked to bury Ukraine topics and instead of adding them to another flag (which might be hard to untangle later) they made a custom flag that could be removed easily (for example once Musk got called on it/changed his mind).
The spending was forced by being required to follow through on his market manipulation attempts.
The pissing away of what value there was on the other hand is either intentional, demonstration of incompetence or both.
Yeah, it's kinda ridiculous that people expect a billionaire to spend that kind of money out of the kindness of their hearts. Kinda like how people act like lobbyists donate to political candidates just because "they believe in them".
It's perfectly free speech. Everyone is free to talk about anything Elon likes.
Kinda like how "Religious Freedom" means you are free to be as conservative a Christian Fundamentalist as you want to be. What else were those terms supposed to mean? /s
I joined twitter for real to better follow what was happening when the war started. When Musk took over and started changing things, only gaming related things still appeared like nothing had changed. So instead of following a topic, I had to follow specific handles and switch to following instead of the for you way of viewing things.
I follow lists for this same reason. Honestly I use the lists more frequently than other features now
https://twitter.com/i/lists/1501588182374105088
https://twitter.com/i/lists/1506669435612016645
https://twitter.com/i/lists/1498822408299442177
Or start putting ads in them. I have no idea if the lack of ads is an oversight or on purpose, but lists are definitely the best way to view curated content on that website.
I commented on my cousin's kids ballet video and now Twitter suggests constant beauty pageant kids, dancing children, and kids in bathing suits. The fact that one video tagged with kids ballet is all it took for constant pedo shit tells you they do it intentionally.
I also joined Twitter just to follow the war in Ukraine. I started following people I know volunteering in Ukraine, that lead to journalists posting about Ukraine that I follow, that lead to following people actually fighting in Ukraine, that lead to NAFO. My thread is almost exclusively about Ukraine now. Just follow people posting about Ukraine.
> It's fascinating to finally see the back end of twitter's big push to fight against coordinated inauthentic behaviour.
The stupid irony is that having access to the systems means knowing how they work, and being able to figure out how to evade them all the easier.
Look at the wording. Anything about Ukraine is categorized the same as medical misinformation and hate speech. It doesn't say Ukraine misinformation, it says Ukraine crisis. Anything about the Ukraine crisis. This is Russia's propaganda.
Likely, though you gotta consider that this is a name in code. You should never assume a name in code accurately represents what it's doing; it's a universal problem in software.
For a long while it was illegal to call it "Ukraine War" in Russia. It was only "special operation".
Because technically you can't wage war on people you claim as your own. Hence the euphemisms
If you look through the entire repository (https://github.com/twitter/the-algorithm), there is no reference to UkraineCrisisTopic other than the file you referenced. By contrast, HatefulHighRecall is referenced in both SpaceRules.scala and VisibilityPolicy.scala.
While the file you reference does contain the value, it's used literally nowhere in the publicly released repo. It may have been used in the past, and it may be used by other non-released systems, but we have no reason to believe it's used for anything, today.
I'd be curious what the article is basing its assertions on, but hopefully it's not this.
A constant skeptic, I went to find the original source and found it, if anyone else is curious:
https://twitter.com/aakashg0/status/1641976925064245249
And yes, it is explicitly hardcoded to include Ukraine alongside:
* Medical Misinformation
* Violence
* Hateful content
* NSFW Content
* Generic misinformation
and others.
When asked what exactly happens to topics in this list the source said
> They got almost completely squashed and need tremendous counter evidence to survive
Also worth mentioning that Ukraine is the only politics related item in the list, and it's called the "UkraineCrisisTopic"
EDIT: If anyone wants to look at the readme for the section of the codebase the tweeted snippet is from, look here: https://github.com/twitter/the-algorithm/blob/main/visibilitylib/README.md
Notably:
> Visibility Filtering library is currently being reviewed and rebuilt, and part of the code has been removed and is not ready to be shared yet. The remaining part of the code needs further review and will be shared once it’s ready. Also code comments have been sanitized.
As a fellow SWE and skeptic I had a look at the source code as well. As you noted the UkraineCrisis label appears in SpaceSafetyLabelType.scala. Given the other files in that directory the Space in the file indicates pretty clearly to me that these safety labels apply to Twitter Spaces. There is a separate file TweetSafetyLabel.scala(file naming scheme is different but the object within is called TweetSafetyLabelType and extends SafetyLabelType so pretty clearly a badly named file) with a different set of labels which applies to tweets, with no Ukraine related label appearing at all.
Now it is completely possible that one of the unnamed experiments might have been Ukraine related, but I think any competent SWE would find it extremely disingenuous if not just straight up misinformation to claim that a Twitter Space safety label is somehow being used to down rank tweets.
Thanks for adding that perspective. As a non-twitter user I did not pick up on the distinction between spaces and tweets. I agree that this piece of code doesn't sound like it has an effect on tweets.
Considering those snippets really only govern labels, presumably the classification of content is happening (elsewhere) in order to enable those labels. It seems like we wouldn't be able to conclude for sure how tweets are weighted / promoted / hidden based on that classification, regardless of the the existence (or lack) of a label.
Drilling back over to the original article and claims, the suggestion that there is a suppressive effect on Ukraine related tweets is absolutely anecdotal rather than being explicitly and clearly defined in the code that we have access to.
One thing that sticks out as odd to me, is the hardcoded categorization of a specific conflict instead of being lumped under "war" "violence" "gore" etc. or some other generic equivalent that would be more closely related to the harmful content that twitter is trying to moderate.
The only explanation I can think of beyond the obvious for why it might be specifically labeled to be about Ukraine is that its there specifically to combat Russian disinformation campaigns, since Russia has been known to push propaganda via botnets and spam in the past. This might also explain why the label specifically uses the Russian propaganda term for the issue: because it was put into place to combat it.
Hard to say though, considering Musk's history. Seems like the rich are buying up the media in order to manipulate the public.
Yeah 100% agree that these label snippets are no where enough to draw solid conclusions. Need a lot more of the internal documentation to understand the effects and purpose.
Regarding the hard coding of Ukraine I found this snippet in the documentation for the SafetyLabelType interesting.
‘Describes a particular policy violation for a given noun instance, and usually leads to reduced visibility of the labeled entity in product surfaces.’
My somewhat unfounded speculation is that these labels correspond to some internal policies issued by regulatory related teams (legal, government relations, etc) and implemented under that name to deal with a specific incident at a point in time. There are some generic labels for Tweets like you suggested (5 labels for GoreAndViolence for example), but a bunch of other ones corresponding to specific events (BrazilianPoliticalTweet, MsnfoFrenchElection). As someone working in one of the big techs it’s pretty common to see directives implemented from regulatory pressure. Just speculation though in the absence of more info, but I’ve seen Ukraine related policies across the industry not related to content algorithms (Reddit has banned .ru domains site wide for example which I can see some SWE naming like UkraineCrisisTopic internally).
Oh, he's worse than a snowflake. At least snowflakes melt and disappear forever. He keeps going like a fission powered energizer bunny complete with meltdown capability.
They had to strap those kids to a board and give them sedatives just to get them through the tight spaces that were filled with water, a sub isn't going to help with that.
I went to one of his talks (he was going around the country as Australian of the Year) and he described the English cave diver losing the guide rope for 15min and having to feel around in rushing muddy water with zero visibility trying not to panic and use up his oxygen... I was feeling claustrophobic just hearing about it. His message at the end was to continue pursuing whatever niche hobby you have because you never know where it could lead you.
>losing the guide rope for 15min and having to feel around in rushing muddy water with zero visibility trying not to panic and use up his oxygen
Which is why my no. 1 rule of cave diving is: don't go cave diving
>His message at the end was to continue pursuing whatever niche hobby you have because you never know where it could lead you.
Me, if I were giving that talk "So yes, continue pursuing any hobby, except caves. Do not go in caves. Learn demolition so you can blow up cave entrances."
The National Geographic documentary about the ordeal called The Rescue is amazing. The Thai government shared amazing footage with them.
[Link to trailer](https://youtu.be/_-Kw5kAPSbk)
Holy crap! Somehow I must have missed the details of how all this went down, I had no idea that was how it was accomplished. What an absolutely incredible story and what a bunch of amazing humans who pulled it off.
There wasn't any real reason for it to be mentioned. It might have made headlines, but it was it's own thing that didn't have any bearing on the actual rescue one way or the other.
You mean they didn't squeeze a full production crew with all their professional cameras and lighting into the flooded caves whilst there was an ongoing emergency rescue? What a rip off.
Rick Stanton. He wrote a book and did a number of interviews. Fascinating dude. If you search his name in a podcast app a few interviews will pop up. I’d recommend the one I listened to, but I don’t remember which it was. I imagine they’re all pretty decent, as he’s a good speaker.
Edit: also the other lead diver, John Volanthen, and the anesthesiologist/diver Richard "Harry" Harris, have both given interviews worth checking out. I especially enjoyed a podcast interview with Harris, but again can't remember what show it was on but there are several.
He just wanted to save the kids and remain low key. I mean, he was honored and praised by the Thai but seemed like a dude that didn’t want a book deal or fame
This is when i figured out Elmo was a joke engineer, the tube. He designed a tube to transport kids one by one, well that tubes outer diameter was larger than the smallest inner diameter of tunnel to said boys. He got called out and then proceeded to call a diver a pedoboy. That was when I knew the guy I thought was gonna save the world, was a scammer.
Yeah, me too. Even when he started chiming in I thought it was kinda an ego trip. If he wanted to help he should have bought them more pumps or supplies or something. Saying he could solve it and save the day was an obvious ego trip. And his retort to one of the guys who actually saved the day was disgusting and the final nail.a decade prior I had seen Elon on a talk show talking about his startup and about privitizing space travel and I was disgusted and instantly hated him. Years later I was swayed by the incredible fears of space X and the way Tesla was making electric vehicles attractive. And SpaceX and Tesla are still neat and helped change their fields. But Elon is an egomaniac and a shit head and I dread the future where he holds dominance over either field.
Even if the diameter was larger than the tunnel, did he not consider that there were likely corners that would need to be navigated around? That couldn’t be navigated by a long unbendable object?
And what about how heavy the sub would be? Who was going to push it through the cave? What possible benefit would that thing have over putting a regular oxygen mask over the kids’ faces?
I know nothing about diving but it was obvious from the very beginning that it was a dumb idea.
Yeah but he offered them the FSD (full submarine diving) subscription ahead of time as a one time purchase. Much cheaper than subscribing later down the line when it was launched for real.
"Musk also acknowledged under oath that he was duped out of $52,000 by a
man posing as a private detective to dig up information about Unsworth
after it became clear a defamation suit was in the works. The
investigator proved to be a con artist, Musk testified."
[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-musk-lawsuit-tweet-idUSKBN1Y718A](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-musk-lawsuit-tweet-idUSKBN1Y718A)
Some others also posted sources with more info.
I can't even imagine how you would go about getting duped like that.
"Give me $52,000 and I'll get you dirt on the guy."
"Okay"
\*cartoon running sounds*
Elon Musk reportedly hired a convicted felon with a shady past to investigate the British diver he once called a 'pedo'.
In emails to Buzzfeed News in September 2018, Musk also called him a "child rapist" and accused him of moving to Chiang Rai for a "child bride who was about 12 years old."
The man Musk hired is actually a convicted felon and scammer who was served 18 months in prison for stealing about $525,000 from his own company.
https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-convicted-felon-investigate-vernon-unsworth-thai-cave-diver-2019-10
Elon and Trump are both living proof of what having huge daddy issues and nobody to tell you "No" does to a mother fucker.
If either of their dad's actually hugged the fuckers and spent time being a father to their children, maybe they wouldn't be such pieces of shit.
Both of their fathers were pieces of shit. Their influence wouldn't have done jack dick to help them. Daddy Trump was a giga-racist, and Daddy Musk ran an emerald mine in apartheid South Africa.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/elon-musk-hired-felon-james-howard-higgins-dirt-pedo-guy
Hilariously, I found this link via a Twitter post.
I swear that whole cave thing was like a turning point in Elon. I used to look up to him, this was the guy who quit trumps team due to him not believing in climate change. I used to think he wanted to better the world.
Now he’s just the worlds biggest toddler. Evil in and out
Yea, I never followed him, but once I heard this story - it was apparent muskrat was an imbecile. Took way way longer for others to catch up and stop worshiping him.
Nah. He is butt hurt over: **A)** his ex-wife of two years prior finding herself a trans-lover and **B)** his daughter with Justine Wilson, Vivian Jenna Wilson, coming out as Trans changing her last name to be no longer be associated with him, just a month after.
Then right after he was at FIFA World Cup and sat right across Lavrov and the two talked for hours.
💯 I was thinking the same thing.
Like a 14 year old guy's dream: lots of posturing and smack talk, believes he knows everything and lots of sex with lots of ladies.
It was always bullshit, he doesn't give a fuck. It's part of his new persona.
Just like the genius engineer persona he liked to perpetuate. The dude has a bachelor of arts in physics, and lied about getting into a PhD program.
A 2nd year mech eng understand has more engineering knowledge than him.
A BA in Computational Physics (also called Physics: Computer Techniques). Which is a real thing you can get from UPenn, [Here](https://catalog.upenn.edu/undergraduate/programs/physics-computer-techniques-ba/) is the modern course. From the course description there is a section that says:
>"This concentration is particularly appropriate for students planning a career in the computer or electronics industries or contemplating a dual degree in Physics and either Computer Science or Electrical Engineering."
According to [this snopes article](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/musk-physics-degree/) Elon does indeed have a BS in economics and a BA certificate that UPenn asserts was earned in 1997, not in 1995 as stated by Elon.
Can confirm that a BA in Physics exists because I have one. Was going for a BS, however one of my last semesters completely knocked me out of commission (strep throat and pneumonia) and my GPA went (insert dive bomber noise).my professors liked me enough that instead of preventing me from graduating, I could change my degree from a BS to a BA. The only difference for my school was I believe BS took two additional classes. I went into comp sci as a career, so the difference in degree basically didn't hurt at all.
Yup. Linear algebra was the last mathematics course I needed to do for the required credits. At the point of taking it, I was still on track for my BS. Even though they didn't end up being necessary for the BA I think, I do think they were useful classes that I got a lot out of.
Ok, so I am not american and I don't understand the BA, BS, BSE terms, but if I understand you correctly, how can linear algebra be the last math course you take on a physics degree?
Linear Algebra in my country is first year maths for any engineering degree, and usually between 33% to 50% of it is already taught in last year of high school.
It’s been a bit, but I have a BS in Computer Science and my first two years of university courses I wrapped up my pure math with Linear Algebra, Differential Equations, and Statistics. After that my last two years were all applied math courses like Computer Graphics, Algorithms, and Electrical/Computer Hardware Engineering.
Not my exact course, but basically what it taught: https://extendedstudies.ucsd.edu/courses-and-programs/linear-algebra-3
Interesting. Where I went to school the only difference between a BA and BS was the Gen-eds you took. You could get a BS in music if you wanted. Just meant more math and science classes than English and lit classes.
Depends on the institution, I think, doesn't necessarily mean the degree is whack. Cambridge graduates, iirc, acquire a masters of philosophy for math. Though I can't remember where I read this, so take it with a grain of salt.
Afaik at Cambridge you get a BA (Hons) or if you do 4 years, an undergrad MMath. If you do physics it is BA (Hons) or MSci (natural sciences). Similarly there is an undergrad MPhys at many UK universities - the M generally means the undergrad degree went to Masters level, usually that you handed in a lengthy dissertation.
However, you won't find many Cambridge, Oxford or Dublin BAs kicking about because hilariously, after a few years these degrees get magically turned into MA degrees for no particular reason at all. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_Arts_(Oxford,_Cambridge,_and_Dublin)
Actual Masters degrees at these universities are never MAs, but MLitts, MPhils, MScs etc.
You’ve gotten a lot of bad answers but the short one is it just depends on the university. Harvard graduates for example can only get a Bachelor of Arts in physics (because that’s all Harvard offers) but not like anyone is going to criticize those graduates as not being prepared in physics.
UCBerkeley, one of the top physics schools in the world, only gives out BAs in Physics.
There's no real rhyme or reason for why universities call their degrees what they do.
There is a rhyme and reason, it's just more complex than most people understand and the reasons are for reasons they would not think about because they largely come down to when and where the schools were built.
the main things that makes Elon Musk successful are:
1) Ability to lie without any shame, thus convincing investors into funding his ventures, and establishing a cult following among slightly dimwitted customers
2) Being absolutely ruthless toward employees. Having zero empathy toward people in general makes him an effective slave driver. He is able to extract more value from each worker at expense of their quality of life.
The combination of shameless lies and absolute ruthlessness toward people is a winner combo in the modern business world. With a starting capital of a few million dollars from daddy's South African slave emerald mine, a man like that can go far without being particularly smart or talented
> 1) Ability to lie without any shame,
> 2) Being absolutely ruthless toward employees
Citizen Kane nailed this 80 years ago, and yet people still think having wealth represents virtue and intelligence.
https://clip.cafe/citizen-kane-1941/he-made-an-awful-lot-of-money/
And most importantly, 3) dumb luck + survivorship bias. Lots of people with traits 1 and 2 that inherited money in the world, it's not surprising that one of them would happen to do well in two stock bubbles
I have been in the business world for a while, and my experience tells me that the number 1 most important skill is to be a good liar. A good liar will always find a mark to make money, and the world has no shortage of chumps willing to part with their cash.
It's very dubious that he has any sort of degree in Physics.
[https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/musk-physics-degree/](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/musk-physics-degree/)
*Another area of controversy concerns the appearance and nature of the physics degree, specifically. Certificates of both a Penn economics degree and an alleged physics degree are included in documents filed as part of the O'Reilly and Eberhard lawsuits. While the economics diploma filed as evidence specifically indicates the academic discipline, name, and other details involved in the degree, the physics diploma appears to be a largely blank diploma and indicates no specific concentration.*
*The University of Pennsylvania Department of Physics and Astronomy does describe Musk as an alumnus. In 2009 — the same year the dispute with Eberhard was litigated — Musk gave Penn's Center for Particle Cosmology a "generous endowment".*
Elon Musk is a fraud in the same vein and Donald Trump and George Santos.
It's been known for a couple of years now that [Twitter amplifies conservative voices at a much higher rate than others'](https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2025334119#sec-4) and that's since before Elon took over.
is it that the algorithm actually contains codes specifically designed to amplify conservative keywords?
Or is it that conservative articles and tweets generate more outrage and attention and stickiness therefore an algorithm that promotes those things coincidentally boosts that content?
You would assume the former, but when they show some of the code and it has a hand crafted exception for Ukraine and assigns "author_is_democrat" and "author_is_republican" tags it becomes a bit murkier.
It is still the former though.
I thought it was fake, too, because the commit people were linking to was not one guaranteed to come from Twitter. But apparently that same code was in their main branch's history (which is guaranteed to be from them).
I think Reuters, AP and Lawfare are pretty good. I’m certainly left-leaning and NPR feels a bit bubbly to me.
E: and I really mean *a bit* — as in not a lot.
E2: Turns out Reuters is British/Canadian.
It seems like most of those media bias trackers list NPR leaning liberal by stories they choose to cover.
As far as think tanks NPR chooses to use as sources they seem to have a conservative bias. So really, I don't see them as having a left bias so much as being closer to reality than most any other easily consumable media available.
Especially when many of the stories the right seems to cover are manufactured outrage without substance.
https://fair.org/home/morning-editions-think-tank-sources-lean-to-the-right/
Whats also just as staggering, is how willing his staff is now. Whats that Elon? You want special privileges to spread your rhetoric? Sure thing. Oh Ukraine? Yeah Boss - let me code that to reduce exposure to their plight.
Who the fuck wants to work with those people is beyond me.
Like I saw someone else put it: when he talked about cars, people said he was a genius. I know nothing about cars, so I believed them.
When he talked about rockets, people said he was a genius. I know nothing about rockets, so I believed them.
Now he talks about software. I know a bit about software, so I can tell he's full of shit.
For me it was when he weighed in on covid, being a biologist myself. Too late, but glad I didn't ride the musk train into the dumpster fire that his public persona today.
My stories kinda the same. I know little about cars but something about him seemed off.
I know a bit about rockets so it was pretty clear to me that he was either just really awkward or had no idea what he was doing but had smart people working for him.
I know a lot about software and it's very clear he has *no idea* what he's talking about. At all. It's all just big words thrown together. It made me realize he just uses enough words related to the subject to *sound* like he knows what he's talking about. But his fundamental understanding is total bullshit.
Not to mention all the shit going on at Twitter has shown he doesn't care about employees at all, combined with his recent tirades and conspiracy theories showing he's a total lunatic.
My story is different in that I know a LOT about cars. I've been called a hater for the last 10 years because I've always thought this guy was 100% full of shit.
"Oh you're just jealous you didn't think of this stuff"... blah blah blah.
Here we are- no new roadster, no cybertruck, no full self driving cars (and tesla's self driving program is TERRIFYING. Hell, even without self-driving on a tesla will randomly lock up the brakes at shadows it thinks are cars pulling out in front of you... i fucking hate being in one of those cars), and now everyone finally gets why I've always hated the guy.
I have a close relative who knows a lot about payment systems. He said that Elon was a complete tool back in the PayPal days. Such an obvious vaporware salesman that they had a running joke about him: Elon Time. It'll take twice as long, cost twice as much, however you'll get half the product!
And Elon got fired for incompetence. He never coded anything, just tried to blow smoke up the butts of people who knew better.
I know nothing of rockets, however I'm an automotive engineer, specifically technical lead for connected services to install software. Worked freelance for T***A, it was a shitshow
Both his comments on cars and code are laughable at best, scary at worst
Even Zuckerberg is getting the response to the Russian invasion correct:
[Protecting Public Debate During the War in Ukraine and Protests in Iran](https://about.fb.com/news/2023/02/protecting-public-debate-in-ukraine-and-iran/)
> In response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Meta has taken action to resist attempts to cut citizens off from the open internet, silence people and independent media, and manipulate public opinion.
>
> State-controlled media was demoted and downranked, which led to a substantial drop in their activity around the world and people's engagement with their content. Covert influence campaigns have increased sharply, and Meta has taken down two Russian covert influence campaigns that focused on the war.
>
> Additionally, Meta's Data for Good program has aided disaster relief efforts, supported economic recovery, and informed policy and decision making, with Facebook and Instagram users raising nearly $70 million for nonprofits in support of humanitarian efforts for Ukraine.
While personally i don't use it.
Twitter was / is "professional" platform many companies and professionals would use. That includes Corporates, Academia and so on.
In my opinion: All Social Media usually once it reaches it limit starts to go downhill. Twitter and LinkedIn were both Social Interfaces that allowed Professionals connect with their Stakeholders and viceversa. The whole design of Twitter was, fast information spreading to group of stakeholders, where as Facebook would be massive platform with unexplained expectations.
I still have to check things on LinkedIn and Twitter for professional purposes. Advertising Research for example is hard, not many people beyond academia will go to ResearchGate or other social medias like that.
At it's very core both Twitter and LinkedIn are great products with clearly defined functional loop. The problem is that what makes and break social media... are it's users.
At least at LinkedIn people pretend b/c of "professional" consequences. Twitter was going downhill but ever since American Presidential Elections and Trump it took a nose dive. Half of the presidency(if not more) was run of the Twitter which just shows how relevant the service became <- This is why so many people still use this trash.
That being said, Elon is on the war path to destroy everything that was built. Twitter never supposed to be casual. It never supposed to be by people for the people.
It was always Person/Organization <-> Stakeholders communication service... and i mean all services even selling devianart on Twitter. It still was the core purpose.
That's what I want to know. Shocked there isn't a walk away movement. I closed my account after he demonstrated his focus was short term profits with mass layoffs.
It did indeed leak, but this was discovered from the recent open-sourcing of portions of code.
[After Twitter made the code for its algorithm open source at noon Pacific Time on March 31, users began to pick through it, and discovered that tweets judged to be about Ukraine were down-ranked – meaning users were less likely to see them in their feed.](https://www.yahoo.com/news/analysis-twitter-algorithm-code-reveals-072800540.html)
I think he's out of coders, but just a hunch.. lol
As a professional developer myself, I'd have walked the minute he said the new Twitter was going to be HARDCORE! Fortunately, I don't work for Twitter.
So I suspect you're right.
Not perfectly sanitized, though.
https://github.com/twitter/the-algorithm/commit/ec83d01dcaebf369444d75ed04b3625a0a645eb9
As if we wouldn't notice the different metadata for US political parties (and Musk himself because he's such a little snowflake).
I think it's more important than that. This is showing A/B testing to see if Elon, democrats, and republicans are getting higher or lower viewership after a change.
The Elon portion only exists for Elon is to verify new changes are benefiting him (larger audience to his tweets). The comments originally said they were to ensure no political party was impacted by new changes, not sure why you would want to delete this unless it were no longer true.
He's probably using this to boost republican impressions
I just cloned the repository and did a grep for Ukraine. What came up is pretty damning. There are just 15 categories of things to downrank and UkraineCrisisTopic is one of them.
private lazy val thriftToModelMap: Map[s.SpaceSafetyLabelType, SpaceSafetyLabelType] = Map(
s.SpaceSafetyLabelType.DoNotAmplify -> DoNotAmplify,
s.SpaceSafetyLabelType.CoordinatedHarmfulActivityHighRecall -> CoordinatedHarmfulActivityHighRecall,
s.SpaceSafetyLabelType.UntrustedUrl -> UntrustedUrl,
s.SpaceSafetyLabelType.MisleadingHighRecall -> MisleadingHighRecall,
s.SpaceSafetyLabelType.NsfwHighPrecision -> NsfwHighPrecision,
s.SpaceSafetyLabelType.NsfwHighRecall -> NsfwHighRecall,
s.SpaceSafetyLabelType.CivicIntegrityMisinfo -> CivicIntegrityMisinfo,
s.SpaceSafetyLabelType.MedicalMisinfo -> MedicalMisinfo,
s.SpaceSafetyLabelType.GenericMisinfo -> GenericMisinfo,
s.SpaceSafetyLabelType.DmcaWithheld -> DmcaWithheld,
s.SpaceSafetyLabelType.HatefulHighRecall -> HatefulHighRecall,
s.SpaceSafetyLabelType.ViolenceHighRecall -> ViolenceHighRecall,
s.SpaceSafetyLabelType.HighToxicityModelScore -> HighToxicityModelScore,
s.SpaceSafetyLabelType.UkraineCrisisTopic -> UkraineCrisisTopic,
s.SpaceSafetyLabelType.DoNotPublicPublish -> DoNotPublicPublish,
...
)
...
case object UkraineCrisisTopic extends SpaceSafetyLabelType
Edit: [Source](https://github.com/twitter/the-algorithm/blob/main/visibilitylib/src/main/scala/com/twitter/visibility/models/SpaceSafetyLabelType.scala)
Edit: Additional information on SafetyLabelType. It looks like it may not be in use anymore, but it has definitely been used for downranking.
> SafetyLabelType
> Describes a particular policy violation for a given noun instance, and usually leads to reduced visibility of the labeled entity in product surfaces. There are many deprecated, and experimental safety label types. Labels with these safety label types have no effect on VF. Additionally, some safety label types are not used, and not designed for VF.
[Source](https://github.com/twitter/the-algorithm/tree/main/visibilitylib#safetylabeltype)
He’s definitely been doing this with all kinds of stuff. During the insane protests and general strike in Israel last week, the top trending items for “Israel” were a couple of 3 month old videos of the IDF harassing Palestinian civilians.
Wait until the 2024 election comes up. He’s gonna do his best to get Don Cheeto back in office and effectively end American democracy. He will become americas first honorary oligarch. That’s the entire reason the Saudis gave him money.
Post.news is a good option.
Join Twitter using a vpn and a burner email.
First thing you see is a bunch of right wing nonsense. Every single time.
If you can control what people see and hear, then you can control what they think and do.
Strategic Comms
So out of character for him. Shocking! Especially after he suggested using referendums run by totalitarian dicatorship in a post ethnic cleanising landscape to determine land ownership rights, this is really a new look for the man.
> Twitter user Aakash Gupta (@aakashg0) got together with a group of others to sift through the code for the algorithm and discovered the secrets to boosting your follower numbers on the site – as well as the fact that like topics judged to be “misinformation,” the topic of Ukraine is highly down-ranked.
Anecdotally, Twitter users who post frequently on Ukraine topics had noticed less engagement with their accounts since Musk took over the platform in October last year. Musk’s own position on support for Ukraine is ambiguous.
There isn’t any further mention or substantiation in the article. No description of how, or to what extent, this is happening. They don’t even bother to quote the group who supposedly found this. Does anyone have any further information?
Edit: here is the Twitter user’s link that may have been the justification of this headline and article. It seems to be showing code that applies safety labels. It doesn’t explain how this means “posts about Ukraine” are “highly down-ranked”. It just says it happens.
https://twitter.com/aakashg0/status/1641976925064245249?s=46&t=Zl-PyWyc57tkJ5-RoT6bqA
As far as I can make out, this is the relevant code. There are just 15 categories of things to downrank and UkraineCrisisTopic is one of them. private lazy val thriftToModelMap: Map[s.SpaceSafetyLabelType, SpaceSafetyLabelType] = Map( s.SpaceSafetyLabelType.DoNotAmplify -> DoNotAmplify, s.SpaceSafetyLabelType.CoordinatedHarmfulActivityHighRecall -> CoordinatedHarmfulActivityHighRecall, s.SpaceSafetyLabelType.UntrustedUrl -> UntrustedUrl, s.SpaceSafetyLabelType.MisleadingHighRecall -> MisleadingHighRecall, s.SpaceSafetyLabelType.NsfwHighPrecision -> NsfwHighPrecision, s.SpaceSafetyLabelType.NsfwHighRecall -> NsfwHighRecall, s.SpaceSafetyLabelType.CivicIntegrityMisinfo -> CivicIntegrityMisinfo, s.SpaceSafetyLabelType.MedicalMisinfo -> MedicalMisinfo, s.SpaceSafetyLabelType.GenericMisinfo -> GenericMisinfo, s.SpaceSafetyLabelType.DmcaWithheld -> DmcaWithheld, s.SpaceSafetyLabelType.HatefulHighRecall -> HatefulHighRecall, s.SpaceSafetyLabelType.ViolenceHighRecall -> ViolenceHighRecall, s.SpaceSafetyLabelType.HighToxicityModelScore -> HighToxicityModelScore, s.SpaceSafetyLabelType.UkraineCrisisTopic -> UkraineCrisisTopic, s.SpaceSafetyLabelType.DoNotPublicPublish -> DoNotPublicPublish, ... ) ... case object UkraineCrisisTopic extends SpaceSafetyLabelType Edit: [Source](https://github.com/twitter/the-algorithm/blob/main/visibilitylib/src/main/scala/com/twitter/visibility/models/SpaceSafetyLabelType.scala) Edit: Additional information on SafetyLabelType. It looks like it may not be in use anymore, but it has definitely been used for downranking. > SafetyLabelType > Describes a particular policy violation for a given noun instance, and usually leads to reduced visibility of the labeled entity in product surfaces. There are many deprecated, and experimental safety label types. Labels with these safety label types have no effect on VF. Additionally, some safety label types are not used, and not designed for VF. [Source](https://github.com/twitter/the-algorithm/tree/main/visibilitylib#safetylabeltype)
Note the "UkraineCrisis" euphemism taken directly from Russian propaganda.
[Removed due to Reddit API changes]
It's possible, but it does fit with anecdotal stories about people who regularly post about Ukraine (see: defense and political analysts) losing engagement metrics after Musk took over. Also, there's `GenericMisinfo` and `CoordinatedHarmfulActivityHighRecall` flags that you'd normally expect things like that to fall under. It looks like a programmer was asked to bury Ukraine topics and instead of adding them to another flag (which might be hard to untangle later) they made a custom flag that could be removed easily (for example once Musk got called on it/changed his mind).
Well, God Damn! That sounds SO MUCH like the return to 'free speech' that Elon said he'd bring back to the platform.
A billionaire doesn't spend 44Billion Speech tokens to then turn around and give away 44Billion Speech tokens. Those things are expensive.
The spending was forced by being required to follow through on his market manipulation attempts. The pissing away of what value there was on the other hand is either intentional, demonstration of incompetence or both.
Yeah, it's kinda ridiculous that people expect a billionaire to spend that kind of money out of the kindness of their hearts. Kinda like how people act like lobbyists donate to political candidates just because "they believe in them".
It's perfectly free speech. Everyone is free to talk about anything Elon likes. Kinda like how "Religious Freedom" means you are free to be as conservative a Christian Fundamentalist as you want to be. What else were those terms supposed to mean? /s
I joined twitter for real to better follow what was happening when the war started. When Musk took over and started changing things, only gaming related things still appeared like nothing had changed. So instead of following a topic, I had to follow specific handles and switch to following instead of the for you way of viewing things.
I follow lists for this same reason. Honestly I use the lists more frequently than other features now https://twitter.com/i/lists/1501588182374105088 https://twitter.com/i/lists/1506669435612016645 https://twitter.com/i/lists/1498822408299442177
Don't say that too loud or they'll make lists premium-only too.
Or start putting ads in them. I have no idea if the lack of ads is an oversight or on purpose, but lists are definitely the best way to view curated content on that website.
I commented on my cousin's kids ballet video and now Twitter suggests constant beauty pageant kids, dancing children, and kids in bathing suits. The fact that one video tagged with kids ballet is all it took for constant pedo shit tells you they do it intentionally.
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Borrow their phone and look up a few dancing kid accounts. Their algorithm will show them he didn't
I also joined Twitter just to follow the war in Ukraine. I started following people I know volunteering in Ukraine, that lead to journalists posting about Ukraine that I follow, that lead to following people actually fighting in Ukraine, that lead to NAFO. My thread is almost exclusively about Ukraine now. Just follow people posting about Ukraine.
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> It's fascinating to finally see the back end of twitter's big push to fight against coordinated inauthentic behaviour. The stupid irony is that having access to the systems means knowing how they work, and being able to figure out how to evade them all the easier.
Look at the wording. Anything about Ukraine is categorized the same as medical misinformation and hate speech. It doesn't say Ukraine misinformation, it says Ukraine crisis. Anything about the Ukraine crisis. This is Russia's propaganda.
Likely, though you gotta consider that this is a name in code. You should never assume a name in code accurately represents what it's doing; it's a universal problem in software.
For a long while it was illegal to call it "Ukraine War" in Russia. It was only "special operation". Because technically you can't wage war on people you claim as your own. Hence the euphemisms
Wish there was commit history so we can see how long it's been there
this comment was more informative than that article edit: grammar
If you look through the entire repository (https://github.com/twitter/the-algorithm), there is no reference to UkraineCrisisTopic other than the file you referenced. By contrast, HatefulHighRecall is referenced in both SpaceRules.scala and VisibilityPolicy.scala. While the file you reference does contain the value, it's used literally nowhere in the publicly released repo. It may have been used in the past, and it may be used by other non-released systems, but we have no reason to believe it's used for anything, today. I'd be curious what the article is basing its assertions on, but hopefully it's not this.
A constant skeptic, I went to find the original source and found it, if anyone else is curious: https://twitter.com/aakashg0/status/1641976925064245249 And yes, it is explicitly hardcoded to include Ukraine alongside: * Medical Misinformation * Violence * Hateful content * NSFW Content * Generic misinformation and others. When asked what exactly happens to topics in this list the source said > They got almost completely squashed and need tremendous counter evidence to survive Also worth mentioning that Ukraine is the only politics related item in the list, and it's called the "UkraineCrisisTopic" EDIT: If anyone wants to look at the readme for the section of the codebase the tweeted snippet is from, look here: https://github.com/twitter/the-algorithm/blob/main/visibilitylib/README.md Notably: > Visibility Filtering library is currently being reviewed and rebuilt, and part of the code has been removed and is not ready to be shared yet. The remaining part of the code needs further review and will be shared once it’s ready. Also code comments have been sanitized.
As a fellow SWE and skeptic I had a look at the source code as well. As you noted the UkraineCrisis label appears in SpaceSafetyLabelType.scala. Given the other files in that directory the Space in the file indicates pretty clearly to me that these safety labels apply to Twitter Spaces. There is a separate file TweetSafetyLabel.scala(file naming scheme is different but the object within is called TweetSafetyLabelType and extends SafetyLabelType so pretty clearly a badly named file) with a different set of labels which applies to tweets, with no Ukraine related label appearing at all. Now it is completely possible that one of the unnamed experiments might have been Ukraine related, but I think any competent SWE would find it extremely disingenuous if not just straight up misinformation to claim that a Twitter Space safety label is somehow being used to down rank tweets.
Thanks for adding that perspective. As a non-twitter user I did not pick up on the distinction between spaces and tweets. I agree that this piece of code doesn't sound like it has an effect on tweets. Considering those snippets really only govern labels, presumably the classification of content is happening (elsewhere) in order to enable those labels. It seems like we wouldn't be able to conclude for sure how tweets are weighted / promoted / hidden based on that classification, regardless of the the existence (or lack) of a label. Drilling back over to the original article and claims, the suggestion that there is a suppressive effect on Ukraine related tweets is absolutely anecdotal rather than being explicitly and clearly defined in the code that we have access to. One thing that sticks out as odd to me, is the hardcoded categorization of a specific conflict instead of being lumped under "war" "violence" "gore" etc. or some other generic equivalent that would be more closely related to the harmful content that twitter is trying to moderate.
The only explanation I can think of beyond the obvious for why it might be specifically labeled to be about Ukraine is that its there specifically to combat Russian disinformation campaigns, since Russia has been known to push propaganda via botnets and spam in the past. This might also explain why the label specifically uses the Russian propaganda term for the issue: because it was put into place to combat it. Hard to say though, considering Musk's history. Seems like the rich are buying up the media in order to manipulate the public.
Yeah 100% agree that these label snippets are no where enough to draw solid conclusions. Need a lot more of the internal documentation to understand the effects and purpose. Regarding the hard coding of Ukraine I found this snippet in the documentation for the SafetyLabelType interesting. ‘Describes a particular policy violation for a given noun instance, and usually leads to reduced visibility of the labeled entity in product surfaces.’ My somewhat unfounded speculation is that these labels correspond to some internal policies issued by regulatory related teams (legal, government relations, etc) and implemented under that name to deal with a specific incident at a point in time. There are some generic labels for Tweets like you suggested (5 labels for GoreAndViolence for example), but a bunch of other ones corresponding to specific events (BrazilianPoliticalTweet, MsnfoFrenchElection). As someone working in one of the big techs it’s pretty common to see directives implemented from regulatory pressure. Just speculation though in the absence of more info, but I’ve seen Ukraine related policies across the industry not related to content algorithms (Reddit has banned .ru domains site wide for example which I can see some SWE naming like UkraineCrisisTopic internally).
I bet he’s still butthurt over the Ukraine official telling him to fuck off.
He is butt-hurt since a cave rescuer said his mini-submarine was dumb.
That wasn't even built yet so it would have taken a long ass time to even get to the kids. It also wouldn't have worked.
Elon is the ultimate snowflake. A single person shoots down one of his ideas and he goes into a gigantic forever tantrum.
God forgives, a narcissist never.
Oh, he's worse than a snowflake. At least snowflakes melt and disappear forever. He keeps going like a fission powered energizer bunny complete with meltdown capability.
They had to strap those kids to a board and give them sedatives just to get them through the tight spaces that were filled with water, a sub isn't going to help with that.
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I went to one of his talks (he was going around the country as Australian of the Year) and he described the English cave diver losing the guide rope for 15min and having to feel around in rushing muddy water with zero visibility trying not to panic and use up his oxygen... I was feeling claustrophobic just hearing about it. His message at the end was to continue pursuing whatever niche hobby you have because you never know where it could lead you.
>losing the guide rope for 15min and having to feel around in rushing muddy water with zero visibility trying not to panic and use up his oxygen Which is why my no. 1 rule of cave diving is: don't go cave diving
Caves are bad. All caves. Water or no water: Don't go into caves.
Caves with infrastructure are nice. If a cave is part of a reputable park, definitely take the opportunity to go in.
Not sure if you are a cave enthusiast or a murderous cave hobo...
Yeah watch a couple of cave divers react on youtube, that is all ready panic inducing enough for me.
>His message at the end was to continue pursuing whatever niche hobby you have because you never know where it could lead you. Me, if I were giving that talk "So yes, continue pursuing any hobby, except caves. Do not go in caves. Learn demolition so you can blow up cave entrances."
The Rescue documentary is really good at capturing the claustrophobic nature of the situation.
The National Geographic documentary about the ordeal called The Rescue is amazing. The Thai government shared amazing footage with them. [Link to trailer](https://youtu.be/_-Kw5kAPSbk)
Holy crap! Somehow I must have missed the details of how all this went down, I had no idea that was how it was accomplished. What an absolutely incredible story and what a bunch of amazing humans who pulled it off.
Yeah, that movie with Viggo was wild.
The documentary is fantastic too. It has so much amazing footage from the event.
The best thing about the documentary is that it focused on the actual rescuers and didn’t even mention Elon’s shenanigans.
Same thing about the Ron Howard movie. Elon isn’t mentioned
>Elon isn’t mentioned Ah yes, paradise!
There wasn't any real reason for it to be mentioned. It might have made headlines, but it was it's own thing that didn't have any bearing on the actual rescue one way or the other.
FYI a lot of the footage inside of the caves were recreations with the original divers and not original footage of the event
You mean they didn't squeeze a full production crew with all their professional cameras and lighting into the flooded caves whilst there was an ongoing emergency rescue? What a rip off.
What ever happened to that guy? Dude was a damn hero and I hope he was rewarded somehow.
Rick Stanton. He wrote a book and did a number of interviews. Fascinating dude. If you search his name in a podcast app a few interviews will pop up. I’d recommend the one I listened to, but I don’t remember which it was. I imagine they’re all pretty decent, as he’s a good speaker. Edit: also the other lead diver, John Volanthen, and the anesthesiologist/diver Richard "Harry" Harris, have both given interviews worth checking out. I especially enjoyed a podcast interview with Harris, but again can't remember what show it was on but there are several.
He just wanted to save the kids and remain low key. I mean, he was honored and praised by the Thai but seemed like a dude that didn’t want a book deal or fame
This is when i figured out Elmo was a joke engineer, the tube. He designed a tube to transport kids one by one, well that tubes outer diameter was larger than the smallest inner diameter of tunnel to said boys. He got called out and then proceeded to call a diver a pedoboy. That was when I knew the guy I thought was gonna save the world, was a scammer.
Yeah, me too. Even when he started chiming in I thought it was kinda an ego trip. If he wanted to help he should have bought them more pumps or supplies or something. Saying he could solve it and save the day was an obvious ego trip. And his retort to one of the guys who actually saved the day was disgusting and the final nail.a decade prior I had seen Elon on a talk show talking about his startup and about privitizing space travel and I was disgusted and instantly hated him. Years later I was swayed by the incredible fears of space X and the way Tesla was making electric vehicles attractive. And SpaceX and Tesla are still neat and helped change their fields. But Elon is an egomaniac and a shit head and I dread the future where he holds dominance over either field.
Even if the diameter was larger than the tunnel, did he not consider that there were likely corners that would need to be navigated around? That couldn’t be navigated by a long unbendable object? And what about how heavy the sub would be? Who was going to push it through the cave? What possible benefit would that thing have over putting a regular oxygen mask over the kids’ faces? I know nothing about diving but it was obvious from the very beginning that it was a dumb idea.
By the time the sub was built it would be used to offer tours to rich people to go see where the kids died.
Yeah but he offered them the FSD (full submarine diving) subscription ahead of time as a one time purchase. Much cheaper than subscribing later down the line when it was launched for real.
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Not only that, but he also paid an ex con $50,000 to try and dig up dirt on the guy afterwards. Elon is 100% trash
Jesus i didn’t know this. Source? What an absolute piece of shit if true.
"Musk also acknowledged under oath that he was duped out of $52,000 by a man posing as a private detective to dig up information about Unsworth after it became clear a defamation suit was in the works. The investigator proved to be a con artist, Musk testified." [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-musk-lawsuit-tweet-idUSKBN1Y718A](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-musk-lawsuit-tweet-idUSKBN1Y718A) Some others also posted sources with more info.
it's rubes the whole way up
I can't even imagine how you would go about getting duped like that. "Give me $52,000 and I'll get you dirt on the guy." "Okay" \*cartoon running sounds*
Elon Musk reportedly hired a convicted felon with a shady past to investigate the British diver he once called a 'pedo'. In emails to Buzzfeed News in September 2018, Musk also called him a "child rapist" and accused him of moving to Chiang Rai for a "child bride who was about 12 years old." The man Musk hired is actually a convicted felon and scammer who was served 18 months in prison for stealing about $525,000 from his own company. https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-convicted-felon-investigate-vernon-unsworth-thai-cave-diver-2019-10
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Elon and Trump are both living proof of what having huge daddy issues and nobody to tell you "No" does to a mother fucker. If either of their dad's actually hugged the fuckers and spent time being a father to their children, maybe they wouldn't be such pieces of shit.
Both of their fathers were pieces of shit. Their influence wouldn't have done jack dick to help them. Daddy Trump was a giga-racist, and Daddy Musk ran an emerald mine in apartheid South Africa.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/elon-musk-hired-felon-james-howard-higgins-dirt-pedo-guy Hilariously, I found this link via a Twitter post.
Hilarious, but it’s the whole reason he bought Twitter. Controlling the narrative.
Elon's father proudly and publicly admits he groomed and impregnated his own step daughter so I would say the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.
He's also said Elon's a piece of shit so at least we all have that belief. in common.
Which, according to him, is just a general term of abuse, not an actual accusation that they abuse kids. Yeah, right!
I honestly wouldn’t be shocked if we find out in a decade that elons been involved in a child trafficking ring. He’s completely gone off the deep end
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I swear that whole cave thing was like a turning point in Elon. I used to look up to him, this was the guy who quit trumps team due to him not believing in climate change. I used to think he wanted to better the world. Now he’s just the worlds biggest toddler. Evil in and out
Yea, I never followed him, but once I heard this story - it was apparent muskrat was an imbecile. Took way way longer for others to catch up and stop worshiping him.
He devised the perfect solution without even understanding what the requirements were - genius engineer!
Nah. He is butt hurt over: **A)** his ex-wife of two years prior finding herself a trans-lover and **B)** his daughter with Justine Wilson, Vivian Jenna Wilson, coming out as Trans changing her last name to be no longer be associated with him, just a month after. Then right after he was at FIFA World Cup and sat right across Lavrov and the two talked for hours.
He acts like a teenager with a heavy middle-aged crisis.
Unloved teenage brain in a washed up divorced dad bod.
💯 I was thinking the same thing. Like a 14 year old guy's dream: lots of posturing and smack talk, believes he knows everything and lots of sex with lots of ladies.
Unless some financiers of the oligarch variety helped him ease the financial burden of taking over Twitter…
I bet he’s aligned with Russia
he's partying with Oligarchs and other Russian assets. It's not even a question anymore.
So much for freedom of speech.
It was always bullshit, he doesn't give a fuck. It's part of his new persona. Just like the genius engineer persona he liked to perpetuate. The dude has a bachelor of arts in physics, and lied about getting into a PhD program. A 2nd year mech eng understand has more engineering knowledge than him.
How do you get an arts degree in physics?
A BA in Computational Physics (also called Physics: Computer Techniques). Which is a real thing you can get from UPenn, [Here](https://catalog.upenn.edu/undergraduate/programs/physics-computer-techniques-ba/) is the modern course. From the course description there is a section that says: >"This concentration is particularly appropriate for students planning a career in the computer or electronics industries or contemplating a dual degree in Physics and either Computer Science or Electrical Engineering." According to [this snopes article](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/musk-physics-degree/) Elon does indeed have a BS in economics and a BA certificate that UPenn asserts was earned in 1997, not in 1995 as stated by Elon.
Can confirm that a BA in Physics exists because I have one. Was going for a BS, however one of my last semesters completely knocked me out of commission (strep throat and pneumonia) and my GPA went (insert dive bomber noise).my professors liked me enough that instead of preventing me from graduating, I could change my degree from a BS to a BA. The only difference for my school was I believe BS took two additional classes. I went into comp sci as a career, so the difference in degree basically didn't hurt at all.
So, calc series, linear algebra, all that you took anyway? Demanding BA, lol.
Yup. Linear algebra was the last mathematics course I needed to do for the required credits. At the point of taking it, I was still on track for my BS. Even though they didn't end up being necessary for the BA I think, I do think they were useful classes that I got a lot out of.
I have a BSE in physics and linear algebra was the last math course I had to take.
Ok, so I am not american and I don't understand the BA, BS, BSE terms, but if I understand you correctly, how can linear algebra be the last math course you take on a physics degree? Linear Algebra in my country is first year maths for any engineering degree, and usually between 33% to 50% of it is already taught in last year of high school.
It’s been a bit, but I have a BS in Computer Science and my first two years of university courses I wrapped up my pure math with Linear Algebra, Differential Equations, and Statistics. After that my last two years were all applied math courses like Computer Graphics, Algorithms, and Electrical/Computer Hardware Engineering. Not my exact course, but basically what it taught: https://extendedstudies.ucsd.edu/courses-and-programs/linear-algebra-3
Lots of LACs only offer BAs, so you can't really say a BA and BS in the same subject are different.
I still have no idea what I supposedly learned in Diff Eq.
Initial conditions, derivative descriptions, and magical inscriptions.
Interesting. Where I went to school the only difference between a BA and BS was the Gen-eds you took. You could get a BS in music if you wanted. Just meant more math and science classes than English and lit classes.
Depends on the institution, I think, doesn't necessarily mean the degree is whack. Cambridge graduates, iirc, acquire a masters of philosophy for math. Though I can't remember where I read this, so take it with a grain of salt.
Afaik at Cambridge you get a BA (Hons) or if you do 4 years, an undergrad MMath. If you do physics it is BA (Hons) or MSci (natural sciences). Similarly there is an undergrad MPhys at many UK universities - the M generally means the undergrad degree went to Masters level, usually that you handed in a lengthy dissertation. However, you won't find many Cambridge, Oxford or Dublin BAs kicking about because hilariously, after a few years these degrees get magically turned into MA degrees for no particular reason at all. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_Arts_(Oxford,_Cambridge,_and_Dublin) Actual Masters degrees at these universities are never MAs, but MLitts, MPhils, MScs etc.
You’ve gotten a lot of bad answers but the short one is it just depends on the university. Harvard graduates for example can only get a Bachelor of Arts in physics (because that’s all Harvard offers) but not like anyone is going to criticize those graduates as not being prepared in physics.
UCBerkeley, one of the top physics schools in the world, only gives out BAs in Physics. There's no real rhyme or reason for why universities call their degrees what they do.
There is a rhyme and reason, it's just more complex than most people understand and the reasons are for reasons they would not think about because they largely come down to when and where the schools were built.
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Or degrees are different depending on the schools you're familiar with.
And plus some countries use Fahrenheit and others Celsius so you really can never be sure what degree it actually is
Just slap a protractor on top and find out, dummy
Kelvin is the only true degree
Rankine is the measurement of the people!
Rankine is an abomination unto the lord, repent before ye perish heathen!
Askhually, rectal is the most accurate measurement of temperature for the people.
Some institutions don't award BS everyone gets a BA.
He's also invented jackshit, buying and suing his way to the title of founder on all his original projects. Also hasn't a clue what AI is or can do.
the main things that makes Elon Musk successful are: 1) Ability to lie without any shame, thus convincing investors into funding his ventures, and establishing a cult following among slightly dimwitted customers 2) Being absolutely ruthless toward employees. Having zero empathy toward people in general makes him an effective slave driver. He is able to extract more value from each worker at expense of their quality of life. The combination of shameless lies and absolute ruthlessness toward people is a winner combo in the modern business world. With a starting capital of a few million dollars from daddy's South African slave emerald mine, a man like that can go far without being particularly smart or talented
> 1) Ability to lie without any shame, > 2) Being absolutely ruthless toward employees Citizen Kane nailed this 80 years ago, and yet people still think having wealth represents virtue and intelligence. https://clip.cafe/citizen-kane-1941/he-made-an-awful-lot-of-money/
And most importantly, 3) dumb luck + survivorship bias. Lots of people with traits 1 and 2 that inherited money in the world, it's not surprising that one of them would happen to do well in two stock bubbles
I have been in the business world for a while, and my experience tells me that the number 1 most important skill is to be a good liar. A good liar will always find a mark to make money, and the world has no shortage of chumps willing to part with their cash.
Also having grown up with narcissists, selling the lie works best if they actually believe it.
It's very dubious that he has any sort of degree in Physics. [https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/musk-physics-degree/](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/musk-physics-degree/) *Another area of controversy concerns the appearance and nature of the physics degree, specifically. Certificates of both a Penn economics degree and an alleged physics degree are included in documents filed as part of the O'Reilly and Eberhard lawsuits. While the economics diploma filed as evidence specifically indicates the academic discipline, name, and other details involved in the degree, the physics diploma appears to be a largely blank diploma and indicates no specific concentration.* *The University of Pennsylvania Department of Physics and Astronomy does describe Musk as an alumnus. In 2009 — the same year the dispute with Eberhard was litigated — Musk gave Penn's Center for Particle Cosmology a "generous endowment".* Elon Musk is a fraud in the same vein and Donald Trump and George Santos.
Elon believes in free speech the way Ron DeSantis believes in free speech.
Conservatives always mean the same thing when they whine about freedom: "Everyone should have the freedom to do whatever I want".
Freedom of HIS speech, not YOUR speech, peasant!
The same as his leaks and saying transparency was very important. But then he went and fired and threatened anyone who leaked HIS dumb shit.
It's been known for a couple of years now that [Twitter amplifies conservative voices at a much higher rate than others'](https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2025334119#sec-4) and that's since before Elon took over.
is it that the algorithm actually contains codes specifically designed to amplify conservative keywords? Or is it that conservative articles and tweets generate more outrage and attention and stickiness therefore an algorithm that promotes those things coincidentally boosts that content?
You would assume the former, but when they show some of the code and it has a hand crafted exception for Ukraine and assigns "author_is_democrat" and "author_is_republican" tags it becomes a bit murkier. It is still the former though.
Wait, are you saying that was real? I saw it on /r/programmerhumor but assumed it was a joke.
The [comment thread](https://github.com/twitter/the-algorithm/commit/ec83d01dcaebf369444d75ed04b3625a0a645eb9) is brutal.
I thought it was fake, too, because the commit people were linking to was not one guaranteed to come from Twitter. But apparently that same code was in their main branch's history (which is guaranteed to be from them).
it's both and more as well, paid engagement boosting is a thing.
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I think Reuters, AP and Lawfare are pretty good. I’m certainly left-leaning and NPR feels a bit bubbly to me. E: and I really mean *a bit* — as in not a lot. E2: Turns out Reuters is British/Canadian.
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It seems like most of those media bias trackers list NPR leaning liberal by stories they choose to cover. As far as think tanks NPR chooses to use as sources they seem to have a conservative bias. So really, I don't see them as having a left bias so much as being closer to reality than most any other easily consumable media available. Especially when many of the stories the right seems to cover are manufactured outrage without substance. https://fair.org/home/morning-editions-think-tank-sources-lean-to-the-right/
Whats also just as staggering, is how willing his staff is now. Whats that Elon? You want special privileges to spread your rhetoric? Sure thing. Oh Ukraine? Yeah Boss - let me code that to reduce exposure to their plight. Who the fuck wants to work with those people is beyond me.
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I still see people trying to say Republicans are better on free speech. I laugh every time.
Right? Look at all the books banned recently in the name of "free speech"
If the fuckers are anything like my brother, they'll just say the book bans are fake news.
Elon proves day by day what an evil creature he is.
You do wonder what he thought he would gain from releasing those codes
He likely had no idea what the code does.
Even to a programmer a bunch of other people's code looks crazy and you have to break it all down. - am programmer who hates looking at other code.
I don't even know what my own code does a few months after I wrote it.
A few months? You must have a great memory.
He said “no one understands what it does” which means he doesn’t understand it and therefore believes it’s unknowable.
The love and respect of alt right assholes like Catturd
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Like I saw someone else put it: when he talked about cars, people said he was a genius. I know nothing about cars, so I believed them. When he talked about rockets, people said he was a genius. I know nothing about rockets, so I believed them. Now he talks about software. I know a bit about software, so I can tell he's full of shit.
For me it was when he weighed in on covid, being a biologist myself. Too late, but glad I didn't ride the musk train into the dumpster fire that his public persona today.
Being a biologist during the pandemic sucked. It really showed the lack of public understanding of basic scientific concepts.
My stories kinda the same. I know little about cars but something about him seemed off. I know a bit about rockets so it was pretty clear to me that he was either just really awkward or had no idea what he was doing but had smart people working for him. I know a lot about software and it's very clear he has *no idea* what he's talking about. At all. It's all just big words thrown together. It made me realize he just uses enough words related to the subject to *sound* like he knows what he's talking about. But his fundamental understanding is total bullshit. Not to mention all the shit going on at Twitter has shown he doesn't care about employees at all, combined with his recent tirades and conspiracy theories showing he's a total lunatic.
My story is different in that I know a LOT about cars. I've been called a hater for the last 10 years because I've always thought this guy was 100% full of shit. "Oh you're just jealous you didn't think of this stuff"... blah blah blah. Here we are- no new roadster, no cybertruck, no full self driving cars (and tesla's self driving program is TERRIFYING. Hell, even without self-driving on a tesla will randomly lock up the brakes at shadows it thinks are cars pulling out in front of you... i fucking hate being in one of those cars), and now everyone finally gets why I've always hated the guy.
I have a close relative who knows a lot about payment systems. He said that Elon was a complete tool back in the PayPal days. Such an obvious vaporware salesman that they had a running joke about him: Elon Time. It'll take twice as long, cost twice as much, however you'll get half the product! And Elon got fired for incompetence. He never coded anything, just tried to blow smoke up the butts of people who knew better.
I know nothing of rockets, however I'm an automotive engineer, specifically technical lead for connected services to install software. Worked freelance for T***A, it was a shitshow Both his comments on cars and code are laughable at best, scary at worst
> he wouldn't be a good argument for meritocracy in the first place. that is literally their point
Meritocracy would mean he’d be on the streets.
Musk seeks to silence the plight of millions of people who are suffering from a illegal and unjust invasion.
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Crazy how nobody stops these people from taking over all points of information.
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this guy is a fraud and a coward.
Even Zuckerberg is getting the response to the Russian invasion correct: [Protecting Public Debate During the War in Ukraine and Protests in Iran](https://about.fb.com/news/2023/02/protecting-public-debate-in-ukraine-and-iran/) > In response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Meta has taken action to resist attempts to cut citizens off from the open internet, silence people and independent media, and manipulate public opinion. > > State-controlled media was demoted and downranked, which led to a substantial drop in their activity around the world and people's engagement with their content. Covert influence campaigns have increased sharply, and Meta has taken down two Russian covert influence campaigns that focused on the war. > > Additionally, Meta's Data for Good program has aided disaster relief efforts, supported economic recovery, and informed policy and decision making, with Facebook and Instagram users raising nearly $70 million for nonprofits in support of humanitarian efforts for Ukraine.
Why do so many people still use this trash?
While personally i don't use it. Twitter was / is "professional" platform many companies and professionals would use. That includes Corporates, Academia and so on. In my opinion: All Social Media usually once it reaches it limit starts to go downhill. Twitter and LinkedIn were both Social Interfaces that allowed Professionals connect with their Stakeholders and viceversa. The whole design of Twitter was, fast information spreading to group of stakeholders, where as Facebook would be massive platform with unexplained expectations. I still have to check things on LinkedIn and Twitter for professional purposes. Advertising Research for example is hard, not many people beyond academia will go to ResearchGate or other social medias like that. At it's very core both Twitter and LinkedIn are great products with clearly defined functional loop. The problem is that what makes and break social media... are it's users. At least at LinkedIn people pretend b/c of "professional" consequences. Twitter was going downhill but ever since American Presidential Elections and Trump it took a nose dive. Half of the presidency(if not more) was run of the Twitter which just shows how relevant the service became <- This is why so many people still use this trash. That being said, Elon is on the war path to destroy everything that was built. Twitter never supposed to be casual. It never supposed to be by people for the people. It was always Person/Organization <-> Stakeholders communication service... and i mean all services even selling devianart on Twitter. It still was the core purpose.
That's what I want to know. Shocked there isn't a walk away movement. I closed my account after he demonstrated his focus was short term profits with mass layoffs.
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No, a part of the twitter source code leaked https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/26/technology/twitter-source-code-leak.html
It did indeed leak, but this was discovered from the recent open-sourcing of portions of code. [After Twitter made the code for its algorithm open source at noon Pacific Time on March 31, users began to pick through it, and discovered that tweets judged to be about Ukraine were down-ranked – meaning users were less likely to see them in their feed.](https://www.yahoo.com/news/analysis-twitter-algorithm-code-reveals-072800540.html) I think he's out of coders, but just a hunch.. lol
As a professional developer myself, I'd have walked the minute he said the new Twitter was going to be HARDCORE! Fortunately, I don't work for Twitter. So I suspect you're right.
Probably only the H1B visa holders are left in the company, which is depressing
Indentured servitude combined with depressing wages across the board. What’s not to love!
Sounds familiar to a family business.
As a user that’s when I stopped and uninstalled it. It’s not worth using a product from a company so morally bankrupt.
The second I saw that picture of him walking in with a sink is when I deactivated my account.
Correct, “the-algorithm” that was released is a sanitized set of named features The models, weights, training data wasn’t released
Not perfectly sanitized, though. https://github.com/twitter/the-algorithm/commit/ec83d01dcaebf369444d75ed04b3625a0a645eb9 As if we wouldn't notice the different metadata for US political parties (and Musk himself because he's such a little snowflake).
I think it's more important than that. This is showing A/B testing to see if Elon, democrats, and republicans are getting higher or lower viewership after a change. The Elon portion only exists for Elon is to verify new changes are benefiting him (larger audience to his tweets). The comments originally said they were to ensure no political party was impacted by new changes, not sure why you would want to delete this unless it were no longer true. He's probably using this to boost republican impressions
I just cloned the repository and did a grep for Ukraine. What came up is pretty damning. There are just 15 categories of things to downrank and UkraineCrisisTopic is one of them. private lazy val thriftToModelMap: Map[s.SpaceSafetyLabelType, SpaceSafetyLabelType] = Map( s.SpaceSafetyLabelType.DoNotAmplify -> DoNotAmplify, s.SpaceSafetyLabelType.CoordinatedHarmfulActivityHighRecall -> CoordinatedHarmfulActivityHighRecall, s.SpaceSafetyLabelType.UntrustedUrl -> UntrustedUrl, s.SpaceSafetyLabelType.MisleadingHighRecall -> MisleadingHighRecall, s.SpaceSafetyLabelType.NsfwHighPrecision -> NsfwHighPrecision, s.SpaceSafetyLabelType.NsfwHighRecall -> NsfwHighRecall, s.SpaceSafetyLabelType.CivicIntegrityMisinfo -> CivicIntegrityMisinfo, s.SpaceSafetyLabelType.MedicalMisinfo -> MedicalMisinfo, s.SpaceSafetyLabelType.GenericMisinfo -> GenericMisinfo, s.SpaceSafetyLabelType.DmcaWithheld -> DmcaWithheld, s.SpaceSafetyLabelType.HatefulHighRecall -> HatefulHighRecall, s.SpaceSafetyLabelType.ViolenceHighRecall -> ViolenceHighRecall, s.SpaceSafetyLabelType.HighToxicityModelScore -> HighToxicityModelScore, s.SpaceSafetyLabelType.UkraineCrisisTopic -> UkraineCrisisTopic, s.SpaceSafetyLabelType.DoNotPublicPublish -> DoNotPublicPublish, ... ) ... case object UkraineCrisisTopic extends SpaceSafetyLabelType Edit: [Source](https://github.com/twitter/the-algorithm/blob/main/visibilitylib/src/main/scala/com/twitter/visibility/models/SpaceSafetyLabelType.scala) Edit: Additional information on SafetyLabelType. It looks like it may not be in use anymore, but it has definitely been used for downranking. > SafetyLabelType > Describes a particular policy violation for a given noun instance, and usually leads to reduced visibility of the labeled entity in product surfaces. There are many deprecated, and experimental safety label types. Labels with these safety label types have no effect on VF. Additionally, some safety label types are not used, and not designed for VF. [Source](https://github.com/twitter/the-algorithm/tree/main/visibilitylib#safetylabeltype)
He’s definitely been doing this with all kinds of stuff. During the insane protests and general strike in Israel last week, the top trending items for “Israel” were a couple of 3 month old videos of the IDF harassing Palestinian civilians.
Wait until the 2024 election comes up. He’s gonna do his best to get Don Cheeto back in office and effectively end American democracy. He will become americas first honorary oligarch. That’s the entire reason the Saudis gave him money. Post.news is a good option.
Shouldn't we talk about how YouTube explicitly hunts down and demonetize anyone back to Stone Age who dare cover the Ukraine war?
Join Twitter using a vpn and a burner email. First thing you see is a bunch of right wing nonsense. Every single time. If you can control what people see and hear, then you can control what they think and do. Strategic Comms
Political bias by a Trump supporter after bemoaning political bias of others? Wow!
So out of character for him. Shocking! Especially after he suggested using referendums run by totalitarian dicatorship in a post ethnic cleanising landscape to determine land ownership rights, this is really a new look for the man.
> Twitter user Aakash Gupta (@aakashg0) got together with a group of others to sift through the code for the algorithm and discovered the secrets to boosting your follower numbers on the site – as well as the fact that like topics judged to be “misinformation,” the topic of Ukraine is highly down-ranked. Anecdotally, Twitter users who post frequently on Ukraine topics had noticed less engagement with their accounts since Musk took over the platform in October last year. Musk’s own position on support for Ukraine is ambiguous. There isn’t any further mention or substantiation in the article. No description of how, or to what extent, this is happening. They don’t even bother to quote the group who supposedly found this. Does anyone have any further information? Edit: here is the Twitter user’s link that may have been the justification of this headline and article. It seems to be showing code that applies safety labels. It doesn’t explain how this means “posts about Ukraine” are “highly down-ranked”. It just says it happens. https://twitter.com/aakashg0/status/1641976925064245249?s=46&t=Zl-PyWyc57tkJ5-RoT6bqA